style="font-size:15px;"> It was too late; the child was already running toward him, confident, happy, the nightmares behind her for the moment. His first thought was what a good job Jolie had done with her daughter. His second was utter panic.
“See?” Emma plopped her slightly crooked drawing down on his desk. He saw the bits of red, black and green on her hands, which he guessed corresponded to a couple of smudged spots he noticed on the drawing.
“I...yes.”
“He’s eating grass. ’Cuz that’s what horses do.”
“Yes, they do,” he said, wondering if he sounded as awkward as he felt. The girl was busy explaining all the features of her drawing, and he caught himself just watching her rather than the paper she was pointing to. He could see traces of the baby he’d known, in the round cheeks, the sunny blond hair, the gray eyes. Her mother’s eyes...
“And he’s got big spots.”
T.C. focused suddenly on the drawing. His first thought was that it wasn’t actually too bad, even if it consisted mostly of squares and circles cobbled together over four stick legs, the animal was recognizable as a horse, although crooked and out of proportion. But she’d caught details that surprised him, like the slope of the pasterns and the presence of hooves. Wasn’t that a bit advanced for a kid not yet five years old? Maybe Hannah had helped her a bit, he thought. She’d been quite the horsewoman in her day, and still rode regularly.
He looked back at Emma. The child’s brow was furrowed in concentration. “I saw a horse like that.”
He smiled despite himself, and looked back at the drawing. And belatedly it hit him.
Flash.
He stared. Coincidence, surely? The green highlighter grass and the lopsided red pen square he guessed was a barn, that could have come from anywhere, but a piebald paint horse? She’d only had markers to use, so a black-and-white horse wasn’t unexpected, was it? He doubted Hannah’s collection ran to shades of brown.
But that didn’t change the fact that his own personal mount, the horse he rode most often at the ranch—and had ridden when Jolie and Emma had lived there—was a black-and-white pinto.
“It does look like Flash, doesn’t it?” He hadn’t even realized Jolie had returned until she spoke, from barely two feet away. “I don’t think she could really remember, she was so young, but who knows? She’s a very bright girl.”
Could she really still read him so easily? With an effort he managed to say evenly, “And not a half-bad artist. I was expecting stick figures.”
“The lady helped a little,” Emma said honestly. “How their feet go.”
Oddly T.C. felt relieved at this confirmation of his guess. “Not quite a child prodigy, then.”
“Thank goodness,” Jolie said, echoing his relief, rattling him yet again. “Bright I can handle. Genius would be something else altogether.”
“She’s...” He didn’t know what to say. Polite? Charming? Enchanting?
“Yes,” Jolie said, proudly. “She is.”
Emma picked up her drawing and looked at it with childlike satisfaction. “I was gonna draw the mean lady. Like the policeman wanted. But I don’t want to.”
And just like that the elephant in the room trumpeted, and T.C.’s stomach knotted at the thought of this child in danger. He’d been able to dodge this when the child wasn’t right here in front of him, had been able to focus instead on her mother, and how much pain she’d caused. But now, with that sweet, innocent face right here, with those wide eyes, still trusting despite what had happened, the thought of something happening to her was more than he could take. Helplessness was not a feeling he was used to or tolerated well, and he’d had more than enough of it in the last few months.
He might have lost his father and been unable to do anything about it, but he could do something about this.
Telling himself he simply couldn’t leave a child—any child—in danger when he could help, he made a rare, snap decision.
He stood up. “Come with me.”
Jolie blinked, probably at the edge in his voice. “What?”
“You asked for help.”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t quibble now.”
“Mommy?” Emma asked, very clearly uncertain.
T.C. moderated his tone as he looked down at the girl, who was clutching the drawing in one hand, the other firmly in her mother’s grasp.
“It’s all right, Emma,” he said gently; whatever his feelings about her mother were, no reason to frighten the child any more than she already was. “Would you like to see a real horse that looks like that?”
He heard Jolie’s quick intake of breath but kept his eyes on the little girl, who suddenly smiled at him, a wide, dimpled smile that made him a different kind of helpless. And there she was for an instant, that tiny being who had once giggled at him with delight, filling him with emotions he hadn’t even had names for. The memories, the hopes, the plans for a future that included this child flooded his brain, and even the pain and anger of Jolie’s desertion couldn’t overwhelm it.
Emma nodded enthusiastically, then looked at her mother. “Can we, Mommy? Please?”
He lifted his gaze to Jolie. Found her staring at him.
“It’s what you came for, isn’t it?” he asked.
Slowly she nodded. “But I thought you...”
Her voice trailed away, but not before he heard the doubt, and an echo of the fear he’d heard before. She’d known that five minutes ago his answer was no, that he would have let her go without a second thought, after what she’d done.
All that had changed the moment a sunny, innocent little girl had plopped a childish drawing on the desk where he did work that helped shape this city.
And he gave Jolie the one answer that trumped all the others.
“For her,” he said softly.
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