turned.
It was too soon. She’d just seen her former husband last night when he’d come to get Mark for the weekend. He’d been civil enough, but that didn’t make it any easier for her to be around him. Round two was bound to be uncivil. Either he’d invented some new bone of contention or devised another way to throw her off balance.
Or maybe something had come up and he was about to forego the rest of his time with Mark. No problem. No need to explain. Just give my son back to me and say no more.
Oh, if he would only say no more.
She finished dumping the contents of the wheelbarrow onto the manure pile, grabbed the handles and pointed the front wheel toward the barn. She didn’t want to deal with Greg out in the open. Whenever there was a chance of an audience, he was on. His normal tone of voice was several notches higher than anyone else in the scene. And Greg loved a scene.
She wished she had time for a shower. Sure it was silly, but scent confidence always felt like a huge advantage. Stinker that he was, Greg rarely got his hands dirty.
Mark ran to his mother the moment he entered the barn. Celia got the message from his quick, strong hug—I’d rather be with you—and then he bolted for the cats’ nest.
“We’re on our way to Reptile Gardens,” Greg announced. “We figured you’d be here, so we thought we’d stop in.”
“This stop isn’t on the way to Reptile Gardens.” She pulled her rawhide work gloves off as she watched Mark claim a gray tiger in each hand and tuck them against his neck. She wanted to thank the mewling kittens and their patient mama for the bright laughter in her boy’s eyes. “But Mark obviously needed to check on the kittens.”
“The bakery changed my route. I’ve got the Jack and Jill in Sinte now, and I made a special delivery there this morning. Ran into your new friend.” Greg greeted her glance with a cold smile. “Calls himself Cougar?”
Celia tucked her work gloves into the back pockets of her jeans. She’d learned to ignore the inevitable preamble and go on about her business until Greg got to his point. He took fewer time-consuming detours that way.
“He said he almost ran into Mark yesterday. Could have killed him.”
Not a direct quote, Celia decided. She hardly knew Cougar, but she was pretty sure he hadn’t said that. Greg was baiting her. If she kept her mouth firmly closed, he would eventually go away. Maybe even without Mark if he could come up a glitch in his plan. News that the rattlesnakes had escaped from Reptile Gardens, maybe, or a tortoise quarantine.
“Why weren’t you watching him?”
She hadn’t braced herself for that one. It was a fair question, and it had been haunting her since the incident happened. Sarcasm evaporated. Who was she to criticize—even silently—when she’d failed so miserably?
“We were doing chores,” she said quietly. “I thought he was—”
“You thought. See, that’s your problem, Cecilia. You’re always thinking. Meanwhile, he’s on the move, many steps ahead of you. And who the hell knows what he’s thinking?”
“He was playing with the cats.”
“And what were you playing with? Huh? What were you playing with, Cecilia?” He grabbed her shoulder. “Or should I ask, who?”
Celia jerked away, but she took only one step back, fighting him off with a defiant stare. “You can ask about Mark. Obviously I wasn’t playing with Mark. I was busy doing chores, and, yes, that’s my—”
“It’s not your job. Your job is that boy right—”
“Hey, Mark.” Cougar strolled into the barn, flashing Celia a reassuring glance on his way to the cat’s nursery. He squatted, touched Mark’s shoulder and then a couple of kittens. “Are they all there? Did you take a head count?”
Mark pressed a kitten under Cougar’s chin.
“Have you figured out how many boys and how many girls? I think the calico’s a girl.” He stood easily, confident in the silence his appearance had created. Without moving from the position he’d taken, he looked directly at Celia and offered a soft, intimate, “Hi.”
“Hello.” Silken calm slid over her. “I understand you two have met.”
“Yeah, Mark introduced us.” Cougar reached down to ruffle Mark’s hair. The boy looked up and smiled. “I’m glad you’re here. You can help me pick out a horse.”
“My son and I have plans,” Greg said. “I just stopped in to see what she had to say about what happened yesterday. So far—”
“I came over with Logan,” Cougar told Celia. “Called first this time.”
“That must be why the boys brought some of the horses in,” she said.
He glanced at Greg as though he were an image on a TV show that nobody was watching. “Mark and I can go take a look if you two need to talk.”
“Mark’s with me.” Greg moved to block Celia’s view of everyone but him. “It’s my weekend. Long as you’re both here, maybe you can explain exactly how my son came to be out in the road and why nobody saw him until he was nose to nose with—”
“Because he’s quick, and he’s small,” Cougar said. “Fate cut us a break. Be grateful.”
“Don’t tell me to be grateful.” Greg pivoted and postured, hands on hips. “You don’t know what we’re dealing with here. But you will if I see any more evidence of emotional or psychological trauma.”
Cougar chuckled. “You wanna sue me for something that didn’t happen? What are you, a lawyer?”
“No, but I have one.”
“Have at it, then. If I harmed this kid, I’ll make sure—”
“He wasn’t hurt,” Celia insisted quietly. “He’s fine, and he doesn’t need to hear this.”
“He can’t hear, remember?” Greg’s challenge swung from Celia to Cougar. “Doctors don’t know why, but I do. It’s because his mother left him to—”
“Greg, please. Let’s not do this now. You know what’s going to happen.” She continued to speak in hushed tones while Mark went right on attending to the kittens. He was protecting himself in ways that she could not, but still she would do what she could. Maybe he didn’t hear, but she believed he could, and when he was ready, he would. Meanwhile, he had keen senses, and she would not have him treated otherwise.
She moved past Greg and caught Mark’s attention. “Let’s go have a look at the mustangs.”
“Hell with the mustangs,” Greg bellowed. “Next thing I know, you’ll have him wandering into the path of a pack of wild horses.”
“They run in herds,” Cougar said.
“Put the cats down, Mark.” Greg grabbed Mark by the elbow and urged him to his feet. “We’re
