screwed up his face. “Junior’s your last name?”
“No, Riddell is.” He waited a moment, waited for the significance of his last name to register. But neither boy nor woman so much as blinked.
After Hank swallowed another bite, he said, “So are you Cal or Junior?”
That boy could try the patience of a saint. “Both. I’m named after my dad, so most people just call me Junior.”
“I’m Henry, but everyone calls me Hank instead. I like Hank. I hate Henry. What do you like being called?”
Cal had never taken the time to analyze that. Actually, no one had ever given him a choice. “Cal.”
When Hank looked to be preparing to ask another twenty questions, Susan placed a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Hush, now. Mr. Riddell is leaving. He doesn’t want to talk to us.”
Perversely, now he wasn’t in such an all-fired hurry to leave.
But it was time to go. He stood up and grabbed his mug and uneaten snack. “Goodbye.”
As Hank waved a free hand, Susan replied, “Goodbye to you, too. And don’t worry—I’ll make sure I never make the mistake of sitting anywhere near you again.”
If he was in a different situation, he might have tried to smooth things over. If he was a different man, he might have apologized for his remark about her coming on to him.
If he wasn’t so worried about his father, he would have apologized for swearing in front of her, too. His mother had been a good woman, and she and that bar of Dial had taught him better than that.
But at the moment, he wasn’t anything but what he was. So, with that in mind, without another word, he turned and walked away.
And hardly thought about looking back at Susan and Hank Young at all.
SUSAN WATCH ED THE COWBOY walk off and wondered how it was possible for a man to look so good and be such a jerk, all at the same time.
“What that man needs is an attitude adjustment,” she muttered.
Hank picked up a carrot stick and bit off the top as he swiveled around to look at the cowboy’s retreating form. “He sure was grumpy.”
“You’re right about that. Oh, well. He’s not our problem. All we can do is hope his dad feels better soon.”
Something changed in her son’s expression, and Susan wished she could bite her tongue. Now that her boy was seven, he’d taken to letting her know often that he wasn’t real happy about his fatherless state.
Telling him that he didn’t need a daddy wasn’t doing much good, either.
Of course, neither would telling him the truth, that his dad was little more than a glorified sperm donor. He’d moved on to another girl before Susan had even known she was pregnant. But when she did know and told him about it, he’d simply moved farther away, most likely to another willing woman’s arms.
Boy, she’d made a big mistake with him.
Clearing her throat, she tapped the container of sugar-free pudding he’d insisted on having. “Why don’t you finish up so someone else can have our seats.”
Obediently, the boy pulled back the foil top and licked it. “I’m not all that hungry now.”
If they were home, she would have fussed. But her nerves were already frayed just by being at the hospital. And by the cantankerous conversation with Cal Riddell. “All right. So are you ready to go pick out a movie to watch this afternoon?”
Hank shrugged. “I guess. But I’m getting tired of being here. I want to go home. Remember you said you were gonna paint my new room blue?”
“I remember. I can still do it next week, you know.”
“But I don’t wanna wait until then.”
His voice had just a touch of a whine to it. Which made her think about that cowboy’s comments. And how Hank did seem to be more than a little bit mouthy. “Mind your manners, Henry.”
He sighed and pushed his food around on his plate. Then he said, “I still don’t want to wait so long. You promised we’d paint this week.”
“I don’t have time. I’m here with you and working.” And that was literally all she’d been doing. Working at the Lodge, or taking care of Hank. “Sometimes we don’t always get what we want, son.”
He rolled his eyes as he hopped off his chair and walked to throw his napkin in the trash. “I’ve heard that before.”
Holding his tray, Susan followed slowly behind. It was hard to see resignation fill his expression time and again, but no matter how hard she was trying, Susan knew she wasn’t going to make everything with him all right.
Somehow he’d still gotten diabetes.
The adjustment to Texas still wasn’t going all that well, even though she’d promised Hank that things would be better for them real soon. The hospital, while state-of-the-art, was no match to Cincinnati Children’s.
And now that she’d moved so far away from her parents and brother and sister, she had no one to help her with Hank.
After tossing the last of his lunch in the trash can, she led Hank back to his room.
“I wish we weren’t here, Mom,” he said quietly before he walked inside.
“I know.” What she didn’t dare add was that a lot of times, she wished they’d never moved to Texas, too.
Chapter Two
Two days later, Susan was back at work and was dividing her time between performance evaluations, hiring teenagers to work as servers in the dining room and listening to way too many complaints about other coworkers.
Now, with just one hour left of her day, she breathed a sigh of relief. It was time to play gin rummy with Rosa Ventura. After a brief knock at her partially open door, she peeked into her room. “Want to play cards today, Mrs. Ventura?”
The older woman, confined to a wheelchair for most of the last three years, looked up from the pile of newspapers by her side. “Who’s playing?”
“Just me.”
She looked Susan over, the way she always did, as if trying to determine if she was a worthy opponent. “All right, I guess. Care to bet?”
“Of course.” Susan shook the Mason jar of pennies she’d just fished out of her locker. “I came prepared.”
“If you can get a table away from that crazy Stan and find us two cups of coffee, I’ll meet you in the main room in five minutes.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said with a smile. She didn’t need to ask who Stan was. The man who’d lost a leg in World War II and his pleasant disposition around 1972 was Rosa’s archenemy
