“Sam...”
“Maybe, sorta.”
“That means no, doesn’t it?” Caleb said then jerked when another thought jolted him. “Did you come through the pasture? The same pasture where Addie and her filly are? That I told you to stay out of?”
Sam wrinkled up his nose and squinted as if he was thinking about it. “You mean where that pony is? No. I came on the road. I ’membered the way.”
Caleb threw his hands in the air. “That’s just as dangerous. What if a car had come along?”
“I woulda moved,” Sam responded as if he was talking to someone who wasn’t too bright. He went back to petting Bertie, who was eating up the attention.
Caleb stared at him. As an only child of parents who had both worked long hours, he knew what it was like to be lonely and to need distraction, but this had to stop. Why didn’t his mother keep him away? He was still trying to figure out what to say when he became aware of a vehicle on the road. A rooster tail of dust kicked up behind Laney’s fast-moving Jeep and gravel scattered as she turned into his drive. Caleb could see her sitting forward, peering anxiously over the steering wheel, and then visibly relaxing when she saw Sam standing on the front steps with Bertie and Caleb.
On the lane behind her, he saw another car slow at his gate, wait for a few seconds, then turn around and head back the way it had come. Caleb didn’t have time to ponder who that could have been because Laney was headed straight for them.
Sam turned to see his mom’s fast-approaching car. “She looks mad.”
“Ya think?” Caleb fought the urge to laugh at the crazy situation. He didn’t want them here, didn’t want to get caught up in the struggle between this lovable kid and his attractive mother. He knew the more he saw of them, the more he was going to get pulled in.
He was adamant about not getting pulled in, he reminded himself. He had everything carefully planned, exactly what his life would be like and who would be in it—or not.
Laney stopped the Jeep and jumped out. She strode over to the steps; her gaze never leaving Sam, whose face was buried in Bertie’s accommodating neck.
“Samuel John Reynolds, what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
“Visitin’ Bertie and Mr. Ramsun.”
“Ransom,” Laney and Caleb said in unison. Their gazes met and skittered away from each other.
“You weren’t invited. Go get in the car. We’ll talk about this at home when I’ve had time to calm down.”
Sam looked at her for a second. “Bertie wants me to stay.”
“I want you to go. Now move,” she said, tilting her head toward the Jeep.
That ended any argument. Sam trudged toward the car. She turned back to Caleb with a look of consternation. “I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll find some way to keep him off your property.”
Her gaze went to his leg as if she wanted to ask him how it was.
Questions, sympathy, pity were things he didn’t want. He straightened, belying his need to lean against anything for support.
He looked her straight in the eye. “Keep him off my property.”
With a nod, she went back to her Jeep and got her son and herself inside in record time. She started the vehicle, turned in a wide circle and was gone.
By his feet, Bertie whined. Caleb braced himself against the doorjamb once more and leaned to run his hand over the old dog’s head. “It’s better this way, Bert,” he said. “We don’t need them complicating our life.”
“SAM, THIS IS getting really old.” Laney picked up her son and stood him in the middle of the kitchen table so she could talk to him at eye level. As soon as they had arrived home, she had sent him to sit in the naughty chair while she picked up the items she’d left on the back patio and put them away. Then she had scrubbed the kitchen sink while she tried to think of what to tell him.
It had been physically exhausting, but emotionally easier when Sam was tiny. She had made all the decisions for the two of them. Now that Sam was getting older, Laney was constantly second-guessing herself. Two things she did know: she had to keep him safe whether he wanted that or not, and she had to keep him off Caleb Ransom’s property.
Now she was attempting to make that clear. Whenever he tried to avoid her gaze, she turned his face back to hers and placed her hands firmly on his shoulders, holding him in place. “You are not to leave this house without my permission. Do you understand that?”
He looked at her for a second and then nodded.
“You can’t go over to Mr. Ransom’s house unless I’m with you. He has...things to do and he doesn’t need you underfoot.”
“You sure?” Sam asked. “He hurt his leg so maybe he needs help with...”
“No, he doesn’t want or need us there.”
“But I like Mr. Ramsun and I love Bertie,” Sam answered in an aggrieved tone. He looked up at her, his big brown eyes swimming with tears. “He loves me, too.”
Laney dropped her head forward and closed her eyes as she took a breath. This was like trying to have a conversation with a grasshopper who kept bouncing from one place to another.
“You can’t go over there without permission. You can’t go see Bertie—”
“But—”
“You can’t or you’ll be in big trouble with me.” Her firm tone brooked no disobedience. “Sam, there are other reasons, too.”
She paused, watching emotions play across his face with heartsick dismay. She couldn’t let him spend his young years the way she had, never knowing where she would be or what would be happening that day or the next, who she would be with...
She frowned, trying to think of a way to make him understand without scaring him.
Taking a deep breath she said, “Sam, as your mother, I’m the one who is supposed to take care of you, so you have to do what I say.”
His bottom lip quivered. “But why?”
She paused, deciding he wasn’t being defiant, merely curious. “Because little boys have to have someone to take care of them, make sure they’re safe. That’s my job, so I have to know where you are all the time.”
He hung his head, his gaze on the tabletop, and she pondered whether to tell him that other people would have to take care of him if she couldn’t, but then decided against it. Her mind filled with memories of being in the backseats of strange cars, all of her worldly possessions packed into a big, black trash bag, her favorite stuffed animal clutched to her chest as she stared big-eyed at the back of the driver’s head, wondering who this person was and where she was being taken this time.
No, Laney decided. She would keep that information to herself. No point in scaring him unnecessarily.
“You have to do what I say,” she repeated. “Now it’s time for you to say, ‘Yes, Mommy.’”
“Yes, Mommy,” Sam responded, but she didn’t know if he would obey or not.
“Thank you.” She stared at him for a few seconds as she tried to decide if there was anything more she needed to say, something more convincing, compelling. Something he wouldn’t “forget.” Deciding that there probably wasn’t, she lifted him and set him on the floor. “Now, you go stay in your room until dinner is ready and you’d better be there when I call you.”
Sam shuffled off to his room. She gazed after him, hoping