worked long and hard to get this peaceful little corner of the world, and he wasn’t going to let them disrupt it. He clucked his tongue and headed Cisco toward home.
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER Sam was still sitting in the time-out chair, stealing sidelong glances at his mother and punctuating the air with aggrieved sighs. For her part, Laney had almost stopped shaking from the combination of fright for her son and anger at her neighbor.
“The man certainly has the right to his privacy,” she muttered as she trimmed shelf paper to fit a kitchen cabinet. “But does he have to be so rude?”
“Maybe he needs to sit in the naughty chair,” Sam said brightly. “I could go tell him.”
Laney pointed a purposeful finger at him. “You stay right where you are, young man. You’re not going anywhere.”
Sam frowned and settled down with another sigh. He spread his knees out to each side of the small chair seat and leaned over to look underneath it. Then he started to kick a leg with each foot, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump in rhythm.
“Wish I had somebody to play with,” he said, peeking at his mom. She didn’t respond. “I wanna play with Logan and Shane.”
“You’ll see them soon enough.”
“Does Mr. Ramson have kids?”
Laney paused and glanced at him. Sam had scooted so far forward on the chair and stuck his head so far under the stool that he was in danger of landing on his head.
“It’s Ransom,” she corrected him. “Now, Sam, sit up straight.” When he complied, she said, “And I don’t know if he has kids for you to play with.”
“He looked mean.”
Laney wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t want Sam to be afraid of their neighbor, but she didn’t want him to be a pest, either. She certainly wanted Sam to stay on their property. It was impossible to keep him safe if she didn’t know where he was. Raising a boy was a bigger challenge than she’d ever anticipated.
Sam was right. Ransom did look mean.
“What’s that guy’s problem, anyway?” Laney muttered. She finished lining the shelf, stacked the plates neatly inside and closed the door with a satisfied snap, then ran her hand over the worn surface of the birchwood.
The cabinets were probably much older than she was, no doubt original to the house, which had been built in the early 1950s by her great uncle, Calvin Reynolds, and left to her when he passed away last year. Everything about the place showed its age, but it was solidly built, the roof was only a few years old and her dad, brother and friends had gotten together and surprised her with a new paint job, inside and out. Somehow, they’d known her favorite colors and which ones to paint on the walls of which rooms. That had probably been her mom’s influence, since she and Vivian had spent hours discussing décor, design and color choices.
But best of all, the house was hers; security for Sam and for her. Now the money she’d been spending on rent for that apartment in town could go into savings and into Sam’s college fund, where most of the child support money from Sam’s father went. It was another brick in the solid foundation of protection she was building for her son.
She had a good job—two good jobs—friends and family. She had a retirement fund, life insurance and a will giving custody of Sam to her brother Ethan and his wife if anything should happen to her. Now she had a house and land. There was a good pasture she could rent out to a neighbor if she wished, with a small freshwater stream—a rarity in southern Arizona—that dried up or just trickled most of the year but ran full during the summer monsoon rains. She remembered playing in the creek as a child and hoped to give Sam that same pleasure in a few weeks—if she could keep him in one piece until then.
She was grateful for the financial security she now had and for the family members who had stood by her, helped and supported her throughout her life and throughout every stupid mistake she had made. They had showed her love and compassion every day of her life. They had also ingrained in her the belief that God had put people on earth to help each other.
She glanced up guiltily, her gaze traveling to Caleb’s pasture, which she could see from her kitchen window. Maybe she should give some consideration to showing her neighbor some compassion.
Caleb Ransom. She had barely given him a moment’s thought since she’d moved in, but now that she’d met him she couldn’t get him off her mind.
Laney tried to think back over what she had heard about him. She had been so busy with her move that she hadn’t given much thought to any of her neighbors. She already knew Chet and Karen Bartlett who lived in the first house nearest the road and had named their lane after themselves. Their son had been in her English class—she taught high school in Sweetsilver. It was a town where everyone knew everyone else, but few people knew Caleb Ransom.
Bartlett Lane dead-ended at his place. Anyone who went that far was only going to his ranch. In the few days she’d been in her house, no one had passed on their way to see Caleb. No one seemed to interact with him except maybe Don Parkey, the local vet who took care of everyone’s animals—unless Caleb doctored his own animals as she knew many ranchers did.
Either Caleb was naturally a grump or he was a deeply troubled man. And she had seen something in his eyes, a spark of...something that had both puzzled her and drawn her to him. He’d extinguished that spark with a frown, but it had only ignited her curiosity about him.
In spite of his attitude, though, he had saved Sam’s life. He didn’t want her and Sam to trespass, but she felt she owed him gratitude for saving her adventurous little boy. And then there was that insatiable curiosity of hers that she probably shouldn’t feed—but knew she would.
Laney glanced over at her son, who had now moved off the chair except for the tip of his big toe, which was still touching one of the legs. She knew she should warn Ransom that today’s visit probably wouldn’t be the last he’d receive from her son.
Sam must have felt her gaze on him because he looked up. All Laney did was point to the chair and he climbed back on with another wounded growl.
Ignoring his theatrics, she returned to the cabinet and took down a bowl. She knew how to make a terrific chocolate cake.
* * *
CALEB LOOKED INTO the pot of chili he’d been attempting to make and wondered what had gone wrong. Maybe he’d put in too much chili powder. Except that it wasn’t red like chili powder. It was dark, really dark, and resembled industrial waste. He had to eat it, though, or go into town and buy a meal, which meant being around people—something he wasn’t willing to do. Meeting his neighbor and her kid today had fulfilled his quota of socializing for the month, unless Don Parkey showed up with another half-dead horse.
Resigned, he took a bowl from the cupboard and used a coffee cup to ladle out a generous portion. He knew he couldn’t go without eating. He’d learned that in Afghanistan when he’d been on patrol for hours with no food and very little water. Light-headedness didn’t allow good decision-making. He only hoped this chili didn’t taste as bad as it looked, but he was afraid that it probably did. Grabbing a spoon from a drawer and two cold beers, because it would take more than one to choke down this stuff, he sat at the table, took a deep breath and dug in.
The
