* * *
“IT’S ALL OURS,” Steven told Matt, as they made the turn off the road and onto their dirt driveway. “Downed fences, rusty nails, weeds and all.”
Matt, firmly fastened into his safety seat, looked over at him and grinned. “Can we go to the shelter and get a dog now?” he asked.
Steven laughed and downshifted. The tires of the old truck thumped across the cattle guard. Now to buy cattle, he thought, trying to remember when he’d last felt so hopeful about the future. Since Zack and Jillie’s death—hell, long before that, if he was honest with him-self—he’d concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Doing the next logical thing, large or small.
What was different about today?
It wasn’t just the ranch; he could admit that in the privacy of his own mind, if not out loud. Today, he’d met Melissa O’Ballivan. And he knew that making her acquaintance would turn out to be either one of the best—or one of the worst—things that had ever happened to him. Thanks to Cindy, he figured, the odds favored the latter.
“I liked her a lot,” Matt said, as they jostled up the driveway, flinging out a cloud of red Arizona dust behind them.
“Who?” Steven asked, though he knew.
“The parade lady,” Matt told him, using a tone of exaggerated forbearance. “Miss O—Miss O—”
“O’Ballivan,” Steven said. It wasn’t that she was anything special to him, or anything like that. He’d always had a knack for remembering names, that was all.
“Is she anybody’s mommy?” Matt wanted to know.
Steven swallowed. Just when he thought he had a handle on the single-dad thing, the kid would throw him a curve. “I don’t know, Tex,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”
“I like her,” Matt said. Simple as that. I like her. “I like the way she smiles, and the way she smells.”
Me, too, Steven thought. “She seems nice enough.”
But, then, so had his live-in girlfriend/fiancée. With the face and body of an angel, Cindy had been sweetness itself—until Zack died and Steven told her that Matt would be moving in for good so he thought they ought to go ahead and get married. They’d planned to anyhow—someday.
He’d never forgotten the scornful look she’d given him, or the way her lip had curled, let alone what she’d actually said.
“The kid is a deal breaker,” she’d told Steven coolly. “It’s him or me.”
Stunned—it wasn’t as if they’d never talked about the provision in his best friends’ wills, after all—and coldly furious, Steven had made his choice without hesitation.
“Then I guess it has to be Matt,” he’d replied.
Cindy had left right away, storming out of the condo, slamming the door behind her, the tires of her expensive car laying rubber as she screeched out of the driveway. She’d removed her stuff in stages, however, and even said she’d thought things over and she regretted flying off the handle the way she had. Was there a chance they could try again?
Steven wished there had been, but it was too late. Some kind of line had been crossed, and it wasn’t that he wouldn’t go back. It was that he couldn’t.
“So if she’s not already somebody’s mommy, she might want to be mine,” Matt speculated.
Steven’s eyes burned. How was he supposed to answer that one?
“And she’s going to make a parade,” Matt enthused.
As they reached the ruin of a barn, Steven put the truck in park and shut off the motor. Off to the left, the house loomed like a benevolent ghost hoping for simple grace.
They had camping gear, and the electricity had been turned on. The plumber Steven had sent ahead said the well pump was working fine, and there was water. Cold water, but, hey, the stuff was wet. They could drink it. Steven could make coffee. And if the stove worked, they could take baths the old-fashioned way, in a metal wash-tub in the kitchen, using water heated in big kettles.
Shades of the old days.
“Yeah,” Steven said in belated answer, getting out and rounding the truck to open the door and help Matt out of his safety gear. The pickup was too old to have a backseat, but Steven had a new rig on order, one with an extended cab and all the extras. “Ms. O’Ballivan is going to make a parade.”
“And you offered to help her,” Matt said. That kind of confidence was hard to shoot down. In fact, it was impossible.
The reminder made Steven sigh. “Right,” he said. Then he lifted Matt down out of the truck, and they started for the house.
“This place is awesome,” Matt exclaimed, taking in the sagging screened porch, the peeling paint, the falling gutter spouts and the loose shingles sliding off the edges of the roof. “Maybe it’s even haunted!”
Steven laughed and put out a hand, gratified when Matt took it. “Maybe,” he said. The boy would be too big for hand-holding pretty soon. “But I doubt it.”
“Ghosts like old houses,” Matt said, as they mounted the back steps. Steven had paused to test them with his own weight before he allowed the child to follow. “Especially when there’s renovation going on. That stirs them up.”
“Have you been watching those spooky reality shows on TV again?” Steven asked, pushing open the back door. There was no need for a key; the lock had rusted away years ago.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Matt said sweetly. “It’s against the rules and everything.”
Steven chuckled. “Far be it from you to break any rules,” he said, remembering Zack. Matt’s father had lived to break rules. In the end, it seemed to have been that trait that got him killed.
The kitchen was worse than Steven remembered. Cupboards sagged. The linoleum was scuffed in the best places, where it wasn’t peeling to the layer of black sub-flooring underneath. The faucets and spigot in the sink were bent. The refrigerator door was not only dented but peeling at the corners, and the handle dangled by a single loose screw.
“Are we going to live here?” Matt asked, sounding a little worried now. So much for his interest in ghost hunting.
“Not right away,” Steven said, suppressing a sigh. This place wasn’t even fit to camp in, let alone call home. The thought of returning to the Happy Wanderer Motel depressed him thoroughly, but there weren’t a lot of choices in Stone Creek, and the next town, Indian Rock, where there was a fairly good hotel, was forty miles away.
“Good,” Matt said, sounding—and looking—relieved. “The people at the shelter probably wouldn’t let us adopt a dog if they knew we were going to bring it here to live.”
Steven laughed. It seemed better than crying. He crouched, so he could look straight into Matt’s face, and took him gently by the shoulders. “We’ll make this work,” he said. “I promise.”
“I believe you,” Matt said, breaking Steven’s heart, as he often did with a few trusting words. “Can we look at my room before we go back to town?”
“Sure,” Steven said, standing up straight.
Matt, always resilient, was already having second thoughts about leaving. “Maybe we ought to stay here,” he said. “It’s better than the motel.”
Steven grinned. “I won’t argue with you on that one,” he said, “but the Happy Wanderer has hot water, which is a plus.”
“We could skip taking showers for a couple of days,” Matt suggested. Unless he was going swimming, the kid hated to get wet. “Where’s my room?”
Steven led the way through the dining room.