“Well,” Luke said, “if you are as hungry as I am, have a steak dinner.”
Ace could practically see the saliva flooding the kid’s mouth, see the hunger in his eyes, but then Terrance shook his head, and his face took on a stubborn expression.
“I don’t have any money.”
“You don’t need any money. I lost the bet, remember?”
“What was the bet?”
“The bet doesn’t matter. What matters was the penalty.”
“And what was that?”
“Steak dinners all around,” Luke chimed in.
“For me, too?”
Especially for him but keeping the boy’s pride in mind, he nodded. “For you, too, kid.”
“And my dad said it’s all right?”
“Yup.”
“I don’t know if I should go.”
“He told me to take you.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
“And you’ll send the doctor?”
Ace heard the kid’s stomach growl. He had to admire the boy’s sense of honor. As hungry as he was and as much as he wanted that steak dinner, he wasn’t leaving until he was sure his dad was all right.
“I’ll send the doctor.” The boy seemed satisfied. “Do you have anything you need to get? Anything special you need?”
The kid licked his lips, looked at Ace then at Luke then at Ace then back at Luke again. “I do have something.”
“What?”
“It’s real special.”
Ace was out of patience. “Then fetch it.”
Luke glared at Ace. “If it’s in the house, tell me where it is and I’ll get it.”
“It isn’t in the house.”
They followed Terrance over to the corner of a fallen-down shack behind the house. The boy hesitated, looking around carefully before reaching in and pulling out a box poked through with holes. Very carefully he lifted the lid. Ace expected him to pull out marbles or pretty-colored rocks, the normal boy things. Instead, he pulled out a baby rabbit.
“This is Lancelot.”
Luke choked. “Mighty big name for such a little critter.”
Terrance nodded and stroked the rabbit, which looked completely relaxed. “It’s from one of the stories Miss Wayfield told us. He didn’t have a home.”
Tucking the bunny in his shirt, he squared off against Ace and Luke. From the expression on his face, he was ready to take them both on if they made a comment. The boy held the bunny through his shirt. “He needs me.”
Ace didn’t have anything to say to that.
“He does!”
“Well, that’s that, then.” Ace wasn’t going to fight a kid over a rabbit. “Is there anything else?”
Terrance shook his head.
“Then let’s get a move on. I’ve got a game waiting.”
They headed back to the horses. The boy didn’t look at the house again, but he tensed as they passed it as if expecting his father to come out and take away that steak dinner.
Ace put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. Terrance didn’t look up after the initial tensing, and he stayed tense under his hand. Ace didn’t know what Pet was going to do with the boy but whatever she did, it had to be better than this.
“It will be all right, son.”
Terrance looked at him, disbelief clearly in his gaze.
Ace resisted the urge to squeeze his shoulder again. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you’ll see.”
“Nothing like a steak dinner to change a man’s perspective,” Luke added.
At the thought of dinner, the boy perked right up again. Luke mounted Buddy. Ace gave Terrance a boost up behind.
“Watch that rabbit now. You don’t want to crush him.”
Terrance nodded. Good Christ. Was this what he’d come to? Babysitting a kid and a bunny? Ace shook his head and swung up on Crusher.
“Then let’s get going.”
The sooner the kid and the bunny were Pet’s problem, the happier he’d be.
“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS,” Petunia demanded of Ace as she watched Terrance through the window of the restaurant. He was sitting at a table looking like heaven had just been placed before him in the form of a huge steak. Beside him, Luisa hovered. From her frequent hand gestures, Petunia assumed she was encouraging him to eat. Luisa was the quintessential mother, though she had no children of her own. From her come-get-a-hug manner to her soft brown eyes shining from a plump face touched with wrinkles from a lifetime of smiles, she made a body feel welcome. From the relaxed set of his shoulders, Terrance was not exempt from her charm.
“You said take care of it. It’s taken care of,” Ace said with aggravating calm.
“I can’t take care of a child!”
Ace, damn him, just looked at her that way he had that made her feel transparent and vulnerable, like one too many buttons had slipped loose on her blouse.
“You take care of several all day.”
“As a means to an end! You know I’m just saving up for a ticket out of here.”
That got her a smile that made her palm itch to smack it off his face.
“It’d be a shame if everyone else knew that.”
Somewhere in their heads they had to know this, but traditional beliefs held that women loved children, and the townsfolk of Simple were assuming that Petunia had found her place here. That being the case, they seemed happy to pretend she hadn’t ever declared this job was only temporary. She curled her fingers into a fist, suppressing the impulse to smack him. “You know they’ll advertise for someone else if they know for sure I’m leaving.”
“Yes, I do.”
“They’ll fire me if they find someone.”
“Yes.”
He had her over a barrel. She needed a different approach. Playing a long shot, she met his gaze and said softly, “It would hurt me.”
Nothing in his expression changed. “What makes you think I give a shit about that?”
She didn’t, but she was gambling. The only thing she knew about gambling was if she was going to do it, she had to be all in. So she bluffed.
“Because you’re not a cruel man.”
Something flickered across his face. “You don’t know me at all.”
No, she didn’t, beyond the fact that he drove her senses crazy, and she always wanted to touch him or nibble on him or do all kinds of things she couldn’t even put a name to when she was in his company. She knew very little about him except that he had one respectable job, one unrespectable one and lived a dissolute life.
“You’re not going to say anything to them?”
“No, I’m not.”
She didn’t like the way he said that. “Because you’re a good man under all that bluster?”