Stepping from her quad, she noticed that the blue jungle gym needed a fresh coat of paint. One of the rocking chairs on the porch had a rattan backing that should have been replaced. Only the cacti did their job without complaint. They looked hot and dry.
Like Eva felt.
She stepped into the lobby and pulled her shirt away from her body. The sweat dripping down her back instantly chilled thanks to the air conditioning. Patti turned the thermostat down to seventy-two every time she was left alone. It didn’t matter how many times Eva cautioned her about the electricity bill.
“You heard from Dad?” Eva asked, moving back behind the desk to check reservations. No change in the last thirty minutes.
“No. He’s been gone longer than I expected.” Usually Patti had a sixth sense about Eva’s father.
“What do you think?”
“I think he went into town, looking like he was on a mission, and he’ll be back soon.” Patti didn’t say anything Eva didn’t already know. The difference was, Patti wasn’t curious.
“I’m back.” Her dad’s rich baritone voice came from the doorway.
Eva looked up just as he stepped aside to let the new hire in.
“I thought we’d come here first,” Dad said. “We can show the little one the playground and game room.”
The little one had a name, and Eva knew it.
Timmy.
She didn’t know the big one’s name. She knew only that he came with more problems than their little ranch could afford.
* * *
“Don’t touch,” Jesse warned as Timmy finally showed an interest in something and headed toward a large glass pane that showcased a dirt wall. Before Jesse could stop the little boy, he’d touched the wall and then fingered a woven wall hanging.
“That’s okay,” Jacob said. “Glass cleans, and that wall hanging is so dusty, it makes me sneeze.”
Jesse didn’t miss Eva’s glare.
Jacob was oblivious. “This is my daughter Eva. She’ll get you started on the paperwork.”
“That wall hanging is more than a hundred years old,” Eva muttered.
While Jacob bent down next to Timmy and explained that the wall hanging had been handmade by his wife’s grandmother, Jesse stared at the blonde from the restaurant.
He should have seen the resemblance.
She was her father’s daughter, all right. Jacob was a good two inches over six feet; Eva was close to that, maybe just under six foot, equal in height with Jesse. Her blond hair was as full and rich as her father’s, though Jacob’s hair was light brown. And unlike Jacob, Eva had dark brown eyes. They reminded Jesse of a stone he’d kept in his pocket when he was about Timmy’s age. He couldn’t remember the name, but he’d loved it for the color and texture.
Eva looked at her father as if he’d lost his mind. Jesse half expected her to refuse to help him. Instead, she took a breath, looked to him as if she silently counted to ten, and brought out some documents. “I put this packet together last Friday. But I’ll need to add a couple more. We didn’t know you were coming with...”
“A son,” Jesse filled in for her.
She nodded. “Dad, you’re not going to put them in bunkhouse. I don’t think Mitch and the other wrangler would appreciate it.”
Jacob straightened, saying, “Do we have an empty cabin?”
“Noooo,” Eva said, aghast.
“Yes.” There was another woman in the room, one Jesse’d almost missed. She, too, was tall, but unlike the Hubrechts he’d already met, she had red hair. Right now she was giving Eva a bewildered stare. She’d been watching the exchange between the three with keen interest.
“The Baker wedding party canceled, Dad,” Eva explained.
He whistled. “That will cost us a pretty penny. What happened?”
The redhead answered, “The bride reunited with her ex-boyfriend when he came home from Afghanistan.” To Jesse, she said, “I’m Patti de la Rosa, I help run the place.”
Eva interjected, “I already put all the cabins up on the website as a special.”
“We don’t need a cabin.” Jesse just wanted out of this room and this debate so he could be alone—or at least, as alone as he could be with a five-year-old. “The bunkhouse you told me about is fine.”
Eva raised an eyebrow.
“He can use the guest apartment,” Jacob decided.
“That’s for family,” Eva said.
“The family hasn’t used it in a good long time. It’s just sitting there, wasted space.”
Eva looked aghast. “But what if Elise decides to come home and—”
“She won’t.”
Something in Jacob’s tone made Jesse believe him. Whoever Elise was.
“A single room is fine,” he insisted.
“No, Dad’s right. You’ll need a bathroom.” For all her indignation and huffiness, there was something about her expression as she looked at Timmy. Jesse saw then something he’d missed earlier when dealing with her: a hint of compassion. Not for him, but for Timmy, whose yellow T-shirt was torn and threadbare, who had stick arms poking from the sleeves, and who sported the kind of grime that came not from one afternoon spent in the dirt, but many. The kid’s ears were almost black.
The kid?
His kid.
“We’ll appreciate anything you can do for us tonight,” Jesse said.
Timmy wasn’t paying attention. It was almost as if when Eva started talking, he stopped listening.
“Come on, then,” Jacob said. “I’ll take you to the guest apartment. It’s not been cleaned or aired out in a while.”
“I know how to clean and open windows.” Jesse fell in step behind Jacob. Glancing back, he felt relieved to see Timmy coming along, too—although clearly “speed” wasn’t a word in the boy’s vocabulary.
“This is the Lost Dutchman Ranch,” Jacob said, as if Jesse didn’t know. “I purchased her more than thirty years ago. I was just off the rodeo circuit, settling down, thinking of starting a family. She started life as a one-room cabin. You saw one of the original walls in there. I left it and put it behind glass.”
If this was the desert, Jesse thought, it was the oasis of deserts. There were plenty of green plants and cacti. Every few yards, there was a swing with a canopy. An empty tennis court was to his left, and what looked like a one-room schoolhouse was to his right.
“Man I bought her from had built two more rooms, but neither was up to code.”
Jesse wasn’t sure what that meant.
“I added electricity, running water and furniture. A few years later, when my wife got pregnant with Eva, she insisted on a bigger house. I built her this when she had my third daughter, Emily.”
“Is your wife the redheaded woman back at the main house?”
“Patti?” Jacob’s laugh sounded more like a bark. “Patti de la Rosa works for me. She helps Eva run the business side of things. She’s been a blessing since my wife died. More than once her advice on how to raise my three daughters kept me from falling on my face.”
“No sons?”
“No,