hunched forward and thumped his boots down onto the wooden porch. Isabella would have to drive the kid out to his place. It wasn’t as if Weaver had any sort of bus service. He’d given her directions to the ranch that day at Ruby’s. Warned her that the road had a few rough patches along the way.
Personally, he liked the rough patches. They kept the occasional salesperson who thought they might head out his way from getting too enthusiastic about the trip. If someone drove out to the Rocking-C, it meant he really wanted to get there.
Isabella Lockhart, he knew, was from New York City. She hadn’t been a dancer—Lucy had told him that—but she’d been in charge of costumes, or some such, at the dance company where Lucy had been the star dancer. When he’d been over at Lucy and Beck’s place for supper a few weeks earlier, Lucy had been all excited about her friend moving to Weaver. Erik hadn’t given her chatter much mind, mostly because he’d been more interested in the blueprints that Beck had drawn up for him for the great room Erik was adding to his ranch house. Now that he’d encountered the newcomer, he wished he’d paid his cousin more attention.
Calling her about it wasn’t gonna happen, though. She might consider his curiosity more personal in nature than he intended. And after the mess with Jessica, he didn’t need anyone making more of a man’s simple curiosity than there was.
If Isabella really wanted to make things right, as she’d said, she’d have to make the trip, rough road or not.
He couldn’t help wondering if she’d have the fortitude to stick it out long enough to save her boy’s hide, or if she’d decide along the way that life back in New York was more preferable and hightail it right back out of town. She wouldn’t be the first person who did. Just because he’d never wanted anything else didn’t mean he failed to understand that life in Weaver wasn’t everyone’s cup of joe.
Still, aside from the boy, the next several months were looking a tad more interesting than they might otherwise have been.
If she stuck it out.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Murphy muttered, peering through the dusty windshield at the two-story house that finally appeared as they reached the top of a rise in the road.
Road was a generous term, considering it wasn’t much more than two tracks in the dirt with a shorn strip of wild grass growing down the middle.
Her would-be stepson continued complaining. “This is crazy out here, Iz. Like The Hills Have Eyes or something.”
“You’re too young for R-rated movies. Especially horror stories like that one.”
Murphy sat back in his seat and gave her a superior look. “I watched ’em all the time when Dad took me to the firehouse.”
And had nightmares because of it, she thought but kept it to herself. “You heard Lucy as well as I did when we saw her yesterday. Mr. Clay’s place is a working cattle ranch. You’ll be outside, in the fresh air, exactly where you like to be.”
“Yeah. Hanging with my friends, not with Bessie the cow.” He made a face. “I hate it here.”
“And I hated seeing you sitting in that jail cell after you broke half the third-floor windows of Mr. Goldstein’s brownstone back home.” She shot him a look, only to quickly turn her attention back out the windshield when the steering wheel nearly jerked out of her hands. “We’re here only as long as the court allows it, Murph. Don’t forget that.”
“What’s the difference between one foster home and another?” His shrug was uncaring, but Isabella heard the pain beneath his bravado.
At least, she hoped she heard it. It was the only way she could look past her own sorrow, knowing he didn’t care that he was with her or not.
In the eight months since he’d been provisionally placed under her guardianship, she still wasn’t entirely certain what was going on inside his head. While his father had been alive, Murphy had at least tolerated her. Since then, he seemed to enjoy taking every opportunity to prove otherwise.
“There’s a lot of difference,” she said now, deciding not to get into the distinction between being his guardian and being a foster parent. “Believe me. I know from personal experience what it feels like not having a place to belong. I saw the size of that stained-glass window, Murph. You’re lucky he’s giving you a chance to work it off.” She had done some research online at the library and had a hefty suspicion that they were getting off incredibly lightly.
Evidently losing interest, Murphy looked out the passengerside window and remained silent.
The entire car shuddered as she continued coaxing it along the ridiculous excuse for a road. Neither she nor Jimmy had owned vehicles in the city. She’d bought the four-door sedan from a dealer down in Cheyenne when they’d arrived in Wyoming.
Isabella had been thankful that the car had been a thousand dollars less than she’d budgeted. Which meant she’d been able to apply that toward the restitution the court had ordered for the vandalized brownstone. She’d still be making payments for some time, but it had felt good to send off that chunk.
With no small amount of relief, she felt the road beneath the tires smooth out as they drew closer to the house. It was white clapboard with dark green shutters at the windows and had a wide covered deck sticking out on one side. Not overly large, but with the ridiculously blue sky behind it, peppered with fat white clouds, it looked perfectly charming.
Somehow, it seemed to suit a man who’d cover his filthy jeans with a paper napkin while he ate pie in a café.
She followed the gravel-covered road around the side of the house. There was no obvious place to park, so she just stopped near the house. She turned off the car but left the keys hanging in the ignition. There wasn’t any danger of being jacked out here in this place. “Come on,” she prompted Murphy as she got out.
He swore under his breath, but shoved open the door and climbed out, too.
She looked at him over the roof of the car. “Remember what we talked about?”
He made a face. “Be polite. Follow instructions. Don’t cause trouble.”
She’d also told him not to curse. But she wasn’t going to nitpick. “Right.” She closed her door, and the sound seemed to get swallowed up in the quiet, open countryside.
“So where is he?” Murphy asked. Their shoes crunched on the gravel as they walked toward the house.
“Here.” As if by magic, Erik Clay appeared. He was wearing a white T-shirt that seemed stretched to its limits over his broad shoulders and another pair of jeans that were just as mud-caked at the bottoms as the ones he’d been wearing the week before. He was also wearing a cowboy hat and leather gloves that only made the tanned wrists above them look even more masculine. “Wondered if you were gonna make it or not.”
She didn’t want him blaming Murphy for their lateness. “My fault. I didn’t think it would take me quite this long to drive out here.” She tried to aim her eyes somewhere other than at that impressive chest, but looking at his face was no less disturbing. And for some reason, those wrists above his gloves were…erotic. She finally settled for looking back the way she’d come. “When you said the road was a little rough, I had no idea.” She turned toward him. “Next time I’ll plan better.”
His teeth
