more of this place,” Del said with a wounded expression. “I don’t like it.”
Grady turned and gave him a mild look over his shoulder. “You don’t? I did when I was a kid. I used to love this place.”
“I want to go back to California.” Del strained harder against Tara’s hold. “Texas is no good for nothing.” His heels were dug into the tarp as firmly as if he had spurs.
Tara gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to yank the boy away as if she were a tyrant. But neither did she want him rebelling against her.
Grady, drat him, came to her rescue. “California’s fine. So’s Texas. Now, why don’t you mind your mother? A walk sounds good. There’s lots of stuff to see around here.”
“Like what?” Del demanded.
“Like you can go to the creek.” Grady had stripped off his chambray work shirt and his muscles rippled under his white T-shirt. “You can see animal tracks. Coyotes. Mountain goats. Wild pigs. I used to find arrowheads in that creek. Once I found a dinosaur tooth there.”
“A dinosaur tooth?” Del’s eyes widened in fascination.
“Only once.” Grady dipped the roller in the paint. His tanned biceps flexed and his chiseled wrist moved expertly. “Still, you never know what you might find around here. Nope, you never know.”
“How big a dinosaur tooth?”
Grady paused and held out his thumb and forefinger three inches apart. “About yay big. Now. Mind your mom. Go see what you can see. Or I don’t ask the cookie lady for any more cookies.”
Del’s decision was quick. “Come on, Mom. Let’s look for dinosaur teeth.” He practically dragged her from the room.
“You probably won’t find one the first time,” Grady called after them genially. “You have to go back and look again and again.”
Tara threw him a parting look, trying to say thanks.
Grady’s dark eyes met hers. He smiled as if to say, happy hunting. I meant it. You never know what you might find around here.
ALL DINOSAUR TEETH STAYED HIDDEN. But Del did find a broken deer antler, a perfect squirrel skull, a wishbone, a small blue feather, an enormous black feather, approximately seventeen pebbles that looked as if they might be diamonds, a dead fish and a live toad.
He wanted to take everything back to show Grady. Tara said he could take all except the fish and the toad. She used the time-honored excuse that if they carried off the toad, it would miss its mother.
Lono, whose greatest passion was rodents, chased a ground squirrel, a rabbit and some sort of bounding rat. He tried to dig up a mole, barked at a garter snake and studiously avoided confronting a lone Canada goose that patrolled a section of the creek, looking possessive and militant.
All in all it was a successful walk, although Tara ended up carrying all the rocks, tied up in the scarf she’d worn. For the last hundred yards she also had to carry Del, who’d worn himself out.
Grady must have seen them from the bedroom window, for he came out to meet her. A chill haunted the air, but he’d put nothing on over the T-shirt. It was flecked with blue paint. “Hi,” was all he said to her, then took Del from her arms. Grateful, her arms aching, she let him.
He turned all his attention to Del. “What’d you find, champ?”
Del was blinking sleepily, but he tried to tell Grady of his treasures. He proudly showed the broken antler.
“Wow,” Grady breathed. “That’s a fine one. You’ll want to save that.”
Del fumbled in the pocket of his denim jacket and produced the skull. “And this. My mom says it’s a squirrel.”
“Then it must be.” Grady nodded with conviction.
“This blue feather—”
“Ah. An indigo bunting.”
“And this e-nor-mous black one—”
“Vulture. Outstanding.”
“No,” Del insisted, fighting a yawn. “It’s a eagle feather.”
“You could be right.” Grady wiped a smudge from the boy’s chin with his thumb. “Could be. Eagle.”
Del lost his fight and yawned. “And all these rocks that might have diamonds in them—”
“I used to bring those home myself. Mighty sparkly.”
“Mom says they’re not diamonds.” Del sighed. “They’re quart crystals.”
“Quartz,” Grady told him. “That’s right. That’s why they call it Crystal Creek.”
“Not diamonds?” Del sounded disappointed.
“Quartz is good, too,” Grady reassured him.
Del sighed more deeply in resignation. Then to Tara’s surprise he laid his head on Grady’s shoulder. The gesture touched her, yet it also sent a ripple of wariness through her. Del seldom trusted people this fast, and she wasn’t sure why he’d taken to this man so quickly.
But she said nothing. She shifted the scarf filled with pebbles to her other hand. The wind had loosened her hair, and she felt it blowing, untamed, around her face. Her cheeks tingled from the cool, fresh air.
Del’s eyes fluttered shut, and he fell silent, breathing deeply. She said nothing for fear of rousing him. Grady, his hair ruffled by the breeze, also stayed silent. He walked beside her as if she wasn’t there, keeping his eyes on the house.
He held Del as if he had often carried a sleeping child. They mounted the steps and she held the door open for him.
They communicated by glances, not words. She darted a look toward the hall. He nodded. She led him to her room and again met his eyes. She looked at her empty bed. So did he, and then at her again.
Too conscious that they were together in her bedroom, she nipped at her lower lip and shook her head yes. He lowered the boy to the faded bedspread. Del sighed, stirred, then sprawled, limp with sleep. His grasp on the antler weakened. It fell silently to rest beside him on the mattress. So did the two feathers, the blue and the black.
Tara picked them all up and set them on her dresser with the wrapped pebbles. She did not want to look at Grady again. She stepped out into the hall, and he followed wordlessly. She could feel him watching her.
She didn’t let herself meet his gaze. “Thanks. He was getting heavy.”
“I could tell.” His voice was low.
“I should get back to work.” She’d tried to sound brisk. Instead she sounded breathless.
“You don’t want to take off his jacket or shoes?”
“I’ll wait till he’s sound asleep.”
His
