With her arms hugging Joey close, she backed away from the truck and hurried into the store, whispering words of assurance as she went.
Mac took a deep, steadying breath and ran a hand through his hair, then followed Eve. At the rear counter, he found Joey surrounded by the two women as if they shielded him from further attack.
Although Joey had stopped screaming, his eyes were red and puffy, and his body shook with silent hiccups and an occasional sob.
With a compelling need to make things right again, Mac removed his hat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Eve looked over the top of Joey’s head and smiled bleakly. “It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done. He’d have seen a dog sooner or later. I had hoped it would be after we settled in.”
“I’ll keep Molly away from Joey in the future,” he said.
“No, don’t do that,” Eve said. With her hand rubbing in steady strokes down her son’s back, she stared into Mac’s eyes. “He needs to get used to dogs. He can’t avoid them forever.” She rested her cheek against Joey’s hair, a tear easing out of the corner of her eye.
The single tear slipping down to Eve’s chin caused a meltdown in Mac’s insides. For so long, he’d been plagued by self-recriminations, regret and sorrow.
Enough.
He straightened his shoulders, nodded and turned to leave. Maybe he could help Joey. And perhaps by helping the boy overcome his demons, Mac could shake a few of his own.
THE HOUSE WAS LARGE, the lighting dim, and it needed a heck of a lot of work, but it was hers. Eve pulled the sheet up to Joey’s chin in the queen-size bed she’d share with him until his room was painted and ready. The air conditioner was on the fritz, and the night temperature was only a few degrees lower than the sweltering heat of the daytime.
Eve slid the window a little higher hoping to catch the breeze she’d enjoyed earlier that day. But the overcast night air was still in the Texas hill country, shrouding the terrain in deep shadows. Shadows that could hide a coyote bent on preying on small animals.
Eve stared out the window. Her room faced out onto open scrubland and a nearby ridge, but the darkness was so dense, she couldn’t make out anything past the light cast by the lamp in her bedroom.
When she pushed aside the sheet to lie down next to Joey, an eerie cry drifted in through the open window. Was it a coyote, a wolf or just a lonely dog?
Thank God, Joey didn’t wake from his sleep. Even a dog’s bark sent him into hysterics. Eve could imagine his reaction to howling in the night.
Inside her house, tucked safely behind sturdy walls, Eve couldn’t stop the tremor that ran from the base of her skull down the length of her spine. The conversation she’d overheard between Addie and Mac McGuire about the missing animals resurfaced, settling like a knot in her belly. With a full day of work ahead, she lay still, willing her eyes to close and dreamless sleep to come.
Chapter Two
The rumble of an engine and the crunching sound of tires on gravel sent Eve to the front door. She shielded her eyes against the morning sun, staring up the driveway at the approaching charcoal gray pickup truck. Her heart sped up when she recognized it as the one Mac had driven the day before.
She touched her fingers to her hair then brushed away imaginary flecks of dust from her faded jeans and baggy T-shirt. Why was she getting all fidgety over the men scheduled to work on her house? Yet she couldn’t stop the errant flutter of her heart as she stepped through the doorway to stand on the front porch.
Joey remained behind the screen door, peering out from the safety of the house.
“Aren’t you coming out?” she asked. “It’s Mac. The man from the store yesterday.”
He shook his head, a frown denting his brow.
Eve sighed, but she didn’t push him. The doctors had told her he’d come out of that shell on his own, given time and patience.
The truck stopped in front of the house, and Mac and another man climbed down. The two men were as different as storm clouds and sunshine—one dark and brooding, the other quite a few years older, but sunny and grinning.
With a deep, calming breath, Eve stepped from the porch and approached the men.
“Ms. Baxter…my foreman Daniel Goodman.” Mac’s voice contained as little expression as his unreadable face. “Daniel, Eve Baxter.”
Eve held out her hand to the older man. With a leather tool belt draped around his hips, complete with tape measure, hammer and other tools hanging from loops, he looked the part of the capable handyman. His features were sun-dried, weathered lines boring into the corners of his eyes from squinting in the sun.
Daniel’s hair had been dark perhaps in his youth, but now was heavily salted with gray, growing longish around his ears, as if he’d forgotten to get it cut. He smiled at her as he gripped her hand and pumped it. “Nice to meet you, Eve,” he said. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to get my hands on this house. Old lady Felton never wanted to change a thing.”
“It looks like it.” Eve laughed at Daniel’s exuberance, caught up in his excitement. “I think the kitchen predates World War Two.”
“I’m sure it does.” Daniel glanced behind Eve. “And who do we have here?”
Eve turned and almost stepped on Joey. “Hi, sweetie,” she said. “Come meet Daniel.” She nudged him forward.
Daniel knelt to eye-level with Joey and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, little buddy.”
Joey stared from Daniel’s hand to his face and back.
Eve held her breath, hoping he’d take the hand.
Her son had other plans. Joey turned to Mac, lifted both arms and stood on tiptoe.
Without missing a beat, Mac swung the child up in one arm. “Hey, big guy, what do you say you and I check out the yard while your mom and Daniel talk about the house?”
Joey nodded and hooked his arm around Mac’s neck.
As Mac strode toward the gnarled live oak in the middle of the yard, Eve marveled at the contrast between Mac and Joey—one small and fragile, the other larger than life and powerful. For a child still displaying residual signs of the trauma he’d suffered, Joey had taken to Mac like a long lost friend. Eve wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, Joey’s alliance with Mac could help bring him out of his long silence. On the other hand, Eve didn’t want Mac hanging around.
He disturbed her.
“I see I have some work to do with Joey,” Daniel said. “Mac sure has him won over, though. But that’s Mac for you. He doesn’t even try, and people are ready to lay down their lives for him.”
“I’m amazed it’s happened so fast.” Despite her reservations, she knew a friendship with Mac could only be good for her son. “Joey could use a friend right now, and those two clicked from the start.”
“Actually,
