“I apologize for Zachary’s behavior,” Mari said to Sara and the others at the table. “He’s never like this. Honestly.” She exhaled, resting one hand on her hip. “At least not often. Excuse me.” She turned to follow him.
“Grab a coat on your way, Mari,” Sara ordered. “Plenty in the laundry room. If he’s going to catch his death, there’s no need for you to, as well.”
A minute later Mari opened the back door and was hit with a blast of cold air. This might not be Wisconsin, but it was still January and bitter. She was glad she’d taken Sara’s advice and taken a barn coat from the assorted outer garments hanging on the wall. She’d also gotten one for Zachary; it would be big on him, but at least it would be warm. There was no way she was going to let him outside in just jeans and a flannel shirt.
Mari crossed the porch and then went down the steps to the sidewalk that ran around the house. She followed it to the new construction, a two-story addition, and caught sight of her son at once. He was standing near a pile of new lumber watching as two men eased a new window into place on the ground floor. “Zachary!” she called.
He turned and hurried across the barnyard. Either he hadn’t heard her in the wind or he was pretending he hadn’t heard her. She exhaled, debating whether or not to go after him. She didn’t have time for this this morning. How was it that children picked the worst times to misbehave?
She was still debating when James came walking toward her.
Suddenly she felt flustered, standing there in the yard with a boy’s coat in her hand. “My son...” She lifted the coat and then lowered it. “He’s staying here today while I work. Sara’s going to keep an eye on him. She said it was okay if he came outside to see what your crew was doing.”
“But he forgot his coat.” James’s kind eyes were now twinkling, as if he and Mari were sharing some sort of private joke between them.
She felt herself relax a little. “Actually, his coat is in Wisconsin.” She exhaled. “Long story.”
James glanced in the direction Zachary had just gone. “What’s his name?” He slipped a hammer back into his leather tool belt and smiled at her reassuringly.
She hugged the barn coat against her chest. “Zachary.”
James nodded. “Eight or nine?”
“Nine.”
“Hard age. Changes are tough for boys. But he’ll be fine. He just needs time and patience to adjust.”
James’s accurate perception of the situation surprised her. “He’s a good kid, really,” she said. “It’s just...a lot for him. For both of us,” she amended. “Moving and all.”
“And you need him to show more maturity than he’s doing right now.”
“You must be a father.” She looked at him and smiled, then felt awkward. James had no beard. If he had no beard, he was unmarried. If he didn’t have a wife, he shouldn’t have a child, and she’d just inferred that—
“Nephews,” he explained, smoothly ignoring her mistake. “Four of them.”
“Nephews,” she echoed. “Then you know how boys can be.”
He rested a broad hand on his tool belt. “Sometimes boys can try a mother.” James stood there for a minute, then said, “Would it be okay if I talked to him? I could take the coat to him. He’s got to be freezing.” He held out his hand.
“I don’t know. It’s nice of you to offer, but—” She stopped and started again. “It’s just that he doesn’t know you.”
“But I’m a man.” He took the coat from her. “It may be he just needs to talk, one man to another.”
The van driver would be here any minute to pick her up for work. She needed to run inside, brush her teeth and grab her lunch box. But she didn’t know if she felt right, just leaving Zachary with this man she didn’t know very well. Of course she wasn’t really leaving him with James. Sara was there and it had been Sara’s suggestion that Zachary hang out with the workmen; it had to be safe.
“He’ll be fine,” James said gently, seeming to know exactly what she was thinking. “Go to work and Zachary will be here waiting for you when you get home with a smile on his face. You’ll see.”
She met James’s gaze, and the strangest thing happened. She believed him.
* * *
James watched Mari hurry off into the house before turning back to study the six-over-six wooden-framed window Titus and Menno had just set in place. It looked straight to his eye, but he’d been accused more than once of being a perfectionist. “Best be sure before you nail it in place,” he said, picking up a level and tossing it to Menno. “You know Sara. She’d have us take it out again and reset it if it’s a sixteenth of an inch off.”
Menno grinned. “And she’ll be out here with her own level as soon as we leave.”
James chuckled and glanced in the direction of the barn where Mari’s boy had gone. “Get the next window in once you’re finished. I’ll be a few minutes. I might have found a young man to sweep wood shavings and the like.”
Leaving the men to continue their work, James crossed the yard to the barn and stepped inside. Out of the wind, with the heat of the animals to warm the space, it was almost comfortable. Light filtered in through a high window, but the stalls remained in shadow. At one end, a wooden partition divided the stalls from the hay and feed storage. His horse, Jericho, stood, ears erect and twitching, watching something of interest near the grain barrel.
James suspected that Zachary was hiding there, but he didn’t let on. Instead, he tossed the barn coat Mari had given him on a hay bale and approached the horse. Jericho nuzzled him with his nose, rubbing against James’s hand affectionately. “Good boy,” he murmured as he stroked the animal’s head. How a man could become attached to a motor vehicle, James couldn’t imagine. No pickup ever nickered a greeting in the early dawn or ran to its owner looking for a treat.
Jericho nudged him, and James dug into his pocket and came up with a piece of raw carrot. Holding his hand flat, he watched as the gelding daintily nibbled it.
“I didn’t know horses liked carrots,” Zachary said from the shadows.
“Apples, carrots, even turnips. But Jericho likes sugar cubes most of all.” James didn’t look in the boy’s direction.
Zachary climbed up the half wall of the stall and peered at the bay gelding. He was a little small for his age: brown hair, blue eyes. A nice-looking boy. But he didn’t look like Mari, and James couldn’t help wondering about his father.
“He’s pretty big,” Zachary said.
“Just under sixteen hands. He’s a Thoroughbred, foaled for racing. But he wasn’t fast enough, so he ended up at auction. That’s where I bought him.”
“They auction off horses?” Zachary stared at the horse.
“They do.” James glanced at the boy. He seemed wary, prepared to run if Jericho made any sudden moves. “Have you been around a lot of horses?”
“Not a lot of horses in a trailer park.”
“Probably best. Not a lot of pasture in a trailer park.” He looked past Zachary to where bales of sweet timothy hay were stacked. “Toss Jericho a section of that hay, will you?”
Zachary didn’t move from the stall’s half wall. “That his name?”
“It is.”
“Horses on TV have better names.”
James leaned on the gate.