Kitabı oku: «The Nanny's Texas Christmas»

Chapter One

“Not again.” Flint Rawlings frowned as he clicked up the volume on his cell phone and backed into the barn. He motioned to the three teenagers in front of him to keep working on the hay swather that lay disassembled in the dirt parking area.

“I’m terribly sorry.” Mrs. Toler, his son’s elderly nanny, sounded upset. “I’ve looked all around the cabin and yard. I suspect he’s run off with that gang of hooligans from the ranch.”

“He won’t have gotten far. I’m sure he’s up at the main house, just like last time.” At six, Logan had developed a habit of running away, but he always went to the same place. “Don’t you get yourself stressed out, Mrs. Toler. I’ll go right over there and find him.”

“All right, but, Flint...” Mrs. Toler paused, then spoke again, her voice shaky. “This just isn’t going to work.”

“What’s that?” He pinched the bridge of his nose as the rising sound of a teen argument came through the barn’s open doors.

“He’s picking up some of the same bad habits that brought those delinquent boys to the ranch. Why, you wouldn’t believe how he mouthed off when I told him he couldn’t have a second piece of cake.”

“The mouthing off will stop. I’ll talk to him.”

“Please, do. But meanwhile, I’m too old to be running all over the Triple C looking for that boy. I’m giving notice.”

Flint restrained the groan that wanted to emerge from deep in his chest. “You go home and get some rest, and we’ll talk later tonight.” More like he’d beg her to stay on. “Don’t worry about Logan. I’ll find him. I always do.”

The stack of overdue paperwork he’d hoped to tackle this afternoon seemed to glare at him, but he turned away and headed outside. The teenagers were arguing over what engine part went where. Flint put a stop to that and explained to the boys that they’d have to take up their large-equipment-repair lesson tomorrow after school.

Then he headed up to the main house double time. He’d spoken reassuringly to Mrs. Toler, but the reality was that Logan was just six. Although the two of them had moved to their little cabin on the Triple C Ranch over a month ago, Logan didn’t know the Triple C nearly as well as he’d known the Silver Star, the previous location of the Lone Star Cowboy League’s Boys Ranch.

What if Logan had gotten lost? The days were at their shortest in early December, and the weather was getting steadily cooler. Logan was notorious for forgetting to grab a jacket before running outside.

And Flint, rushed as he’d been with the move and the general craziness of a working ranch for at-risk boys, didn’t always think to remind him.

A familiar sense of inadequacy rose in him. He’d been doing his best to raise Logan alone, but he wasn’t one of those cookie-baking, playgroup-organizing kind of fathers featured in the parenting magazines he dutifully subscribed to. He was a ranch foreman, a veteran, a man’s man. Which worked great with older boys, but as the single dad of a six-year-old, he wasn’t passing muster.

Two of the teenagers he’d been working with raced ahead toward the main ranch house. Automatically he turned to see whether the third boy was coming, the one who’d looked the most disappointed when Flint had postponed the lesson. Robby Gonzalez was a new resident at the ranch, thirteen but big for his age, and he was kicking at a stone as he walked along behind.

Flint felt a twist of sympathy despite his own troubles. “C’mere, Robby.” He gestured for the boy to join him. “Need some help.”

Robby brightened and jogged to catch him. “¿Qué pasa? I mean, what’s up?”

Flint considered trying to answer the kid in Spanish and decided against it. He knew a little, like most folks in this part of Texas, but he was too worried to find the right words. “Know where the younger kids are hanging out?”

“Sí. Most of them were going to the library. They said Senorita Alvarez was doing story time.”

Miss Alvarez. Logan’s pretty teacher, who volunteered at the ranch after school. Flint’s certainty about where Logan had gone bumped up a notch, along with his discomfort.

“I saw Senorita Alvarez,” Robby continued with a sly grin. “She could read me a story anytime. Es muy atractiva!”

“Respect, Robby,” Flint said automatically. The boy was probably too young to be interested in girls his own age, or at least, too awkward to know how to interact with them. But a crush on an older teacher? Maybe. Or maybe the kid was just trying to get attention—something all the at-risk boys craved. Flint thumped Robby’s shoulder. “You did a good job helping to take apart that swather,” he told the young teenager. “Make sure you show up tomorrow, and we’ll put it back together.”

Robby beamed and turned toward the main ranch house, and Flint veered off toward the little library behind it. He wished he could put his life back together as easily as a broken piece of farm equipment.

Mrs. Toler, their third babysitter this year, had seemed like a perfect solution to Flint’s child-care problems. But Flint should have known it wouldn’t work for long. The Lord didn’t tend to look out for Flint and Logan. Never had.

Consciously relaxing his fists, Flint strode toward the library. Once inside the doorway, he stopped dead.

Amid a small group of the ranch’s youngest residents, Logan was cuddled up on a low couch right beside his slender, long-legged teacher. His towhead shone bright against her dark, wavy hair.

The sight hurt. It was what he’d imagined he’d see with Logan’s mother, until Stacie had decided she was too young to be tied down and dumped them both. As he’d scrambled to learn to care for his baby son alone, he’d vowed he wouldn’t let a woman get close again, lest she break Logan’s heart.

Never mind his own heart. After six years, it had pretty much frozen over.

Which didn’t explain why he felt compelled to stand, watching, just one more minute. Watching his son laugh and cuddle in a carefree way, looking happier than he had in weeks. Just one more minute before he went and tore Logan away from the things he wanted most in the whole world: a big family of boys, and a whole lot of warm mothering.

Flint forced down his emotions. Logan wasn’t one of the ranch’s troubled residents. Whatever Flint’s failings as a father, he’d provided his son with a safe home and good discipline. Flint didn’t mind Logan’s befriending the residents—after all, they all rode the same bus to the local public school and played together on the playground—but from what Mrs. Toler had said, Logan was picking up some bad habits. And while Flint didn’t consider the young residents hooligans and delinquents, as Mrs. Toler did, he had to acknowledge that Logan might have learned some inappropriate language and attitudes.

Which had to stop.

Not only that, but Logan was distracting Lana Alvarez from the boys clustered around her feet, the ones she’d come to work with. He was taking attention from kids who truly needed her help.

And in the process, Logan was getting way too attached to his teacher. No more. Flint needed to get his son out of there.

He’d just take one more minute to watch Logan looking so happy.

* * *

Lana Alvarez’s heart went out to the little boy who kept pressing closer and closer to her side. Funny, Logan Rawlings wasn’t one of the at-risk residents, but he seemed just as needy as they were. She wondered if his single dad even knew where he was.

“Scoot in closer,” she said to the five other first-and second-grade boys clustered around her, patting the couch on her other side to encourage shy little Timmy Landon to sit there. He slid in, hesitantly, and Lana smiled at him.

No question, she adored kids. All of them. And even though she probably wouldn’t have any of her own—not now, not after her single humiliating attempt at a normal relationship—she was blessed to be able to love so many kids through her day job as a teacher and through her volunteer work.

She turned the page of the illustrated book they were reading together and held it so all the boys could see the picture. “What do you think’s going to happen next?”

“I know!”

“Me, me!”

“Uh-oh.” Beside her, Logan tensed, looking toward the door.

Through which a very big, very handsome, very displeased-looking cowboy was coming their way.

Flint Rawlings. That curious flush she felt every time she saw him came on strong. It was probably annoyance, because he had to be the most aloof, inattentive father on the planet.

At least from what she’d seen. She knew she shouldn’t judge, but when a child’s best interests were at stake, it was hard for her to help it.

She put a protective arm around Logan, who’d pressed even closer as his father reached their little group.

“My son’s not supposed to be here.” His voice sounded accusatory, and she felt Logan cringe.

Men. If it weren’t for that fact that she needed to model politeness to these young boys, she’d chew out the cowboy for his sharp tone and the way he was speaking to her instead of his son.

“Nice to see you.” She allowed the slightest hint of censure to show in her voice as she extended her hand.

His face reddened. He reached out and wrapped his hand around hers. “Likewise.”

The gravelly voice and the feel of his work-hardened hand raised her heart rate, and she pulled away, feeling suddenly flustered. What was that all about?

“Come on, Logan,” Flint said, squatting down. “You’ve worried Mrs. Toler so much that she had to go home. You’ll have to come back to work with me.”

Logan drew closer to Lana, his lower lip thrusting out. “I want to hear the rest of the story.”

“Logan.” The word was stern, sharp.

Too stern and sharp for a little boy, in Lana’s opinion. But, she reminded herself, everyone had a different style of parenting.

On the other hand, this was working into a family fight that the rest of the boys didn’t need to see. “He’s welcome to stay with me,” she offered. “I’m here until five. I’ll be tutoring some of the kids after story time, and I’m sure Logan would be no trouble.”

“Please, Daddy?”

Flint’s eyes narrowed, and a shadow crossed his face. “No. I want him to come with me.” He reached down, effortlessly picked Logan up, and set him on his feet outside the group.

Two big tears rolled down Logan’s face despite his obvious attempt not to cry, and Lana’s heart broke a little. She opened her mouth to protest, but a look from Flint quelled her.

Of course, a parent had more say over a child’s life than a teacher. She had to remember she was just a teacher.

Would always be just a teacher.

“Thank you for looking out for him,” Flint said stiffly. Then he took Logan’s hand, and they walked away, the small boy straightening his back and trying to match his cowboy-booted steps to his father’s longer strides.

Lana’s throat felt tight. She beckoned for one of the boys to hand her the water bottle she always carried, took a long drink, and then forced a smile onto her face. “Okay, boys. Where were we?”

* * *

Two days later, Flint walked into the tack room to get out some saddles for the younger boys’ evening riding lesson. His two-year-old black Lab, Cowboy, trotted along beside him.

Only, the saddles weren’t there.

He looked around, wondering if one of the riding instructors had moved them, and then walked out into the main barn. Five minutes of searching didn’t turn them up.

That left one likely culprit. “Logan!”

Since Mrs. Toler had definitively quit, he’d had Logan around the barn after school, which had meant some extra trouble and mischief. But last night, Flint had called around, and the result was a friend for Logan to play with today. A friend from school, not the ranch.

Flint liked the kids here at the ranch, knew that most were decent boys who’d gotten in trouble due to home problems that weren’t their fault. But he didn’t want them to be Logan’s only friends. Martin Delgado was the son of a local doctor and, according to Logan, the smartest boy in the class.

What he should have asked Logan, Flint realized now, was how often the boy got in trouble.

Logan’s blond head peeked in the barn door and was immediately joined by a dark one. Both faces looked guilty.

Flint restrained a smile. “Did you take the saddles that were in the tack room?” They were heavy for Logan to carry alone, but with his friend’s help they could definitely be moved.

“We didn’t touch them.” Logan came farther in, relief on his face, and Martin followed.

At which point he saw why they’d been looking so guilty. Somehow they’d gotten into the paint he’d been using to touch up some fencing. They each had a white stripe down the backs of their shirts.

After he’d gotten an explanation—“we were playing skunk!”—and had taken the paint away from them, he set them to sweeping the barn floor under Cowboy’s watchful eye while he took one last look around for the saddles. He didn’t find them, and a couple of phone calls ascertained that no one else from the ranch had taken them anywhere. No adults, anyway.

Which meant this might very well be part of the recent small acts of sabotage that had been plaguing the region.

He was just punching in a text to his friend Heath Grayson, a Texas Ranger who was spending his spare time investigating the sabotage problem, when a familiar pickup approached. Heath Grayson himself got out.

“Just the man I want to see.” Flint pocketed his phone with the text message unsent.

Heath walked around the truck and toward Flint, holding up a cooler. The small bag on top of it produced a home-baked smell that made Flint’s stomach rumble. “Josie heard Mrs. Toler quit,” Heath explained, “so she sent over some of her famous mac and cheese for your dinner. Couple of giant chocolate chips cookies, too.”

At that, Logan came running out of the barn, followed by Martin. “Cookies! Can I have mine now, Dad?”

Flint thought. It was four thirty, and he had another hour or more of work to do around here before he could take Logan home and start dinner. Or rather, heat up dinner, thanks to Josie and Heath’s generosity. It was a long time for a hungry little boy to wait. “Sure. Say thank you to Mr. Grayson first.”

“Thanks!” Logan said, his eyes widening as he took the big cookie Heath held out to him.

“That’s big! Can I have some of it?” Martin asked.

“No way!” Logan turned away from the other boy.

“Logan.” Flint squatted down in front of his son, who was holding his cookie to his chest like the other boy might grab it.

Which, judging from Martin’s angry stance, might well happen.

“We share what we have,” he told Logan. “That’s what it means to be a friend.”

Logan’s expression was defiant, and worry pushed at the edges of Flint’s mind. How did you make sure a kid grew up right? He knew how to get Logan to do his chores and follow behavior rules, but what about the softer side, things like being generous and helping others?

Things that mattered most of all?

Something one of Logan’s Sunday school teachers had put into the church newsletter came to him. Values are caught, not taught.

He turned to Logan’s friend, inhaled the chocolate chip aroma regretfully, and held out the cookie bag. “Here, Martin. You can have my cookie.”

“Thanks, Mr. Rawlings!” Martin pulled the cookie out of the bag and took a big bite.

Heath was laughing. “You scored, Martin. That’s Mr. Rawlings’s favorite kind of cookie.”

Logan looked briefly ashamed, then his face lit up with a new idea. “Let’s climb up in the hayloft and eat them.”

“Cool!”

They turned, and then Logan stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Is that okay, Dad?”

“Sure, if you take it slow up the ladder.” Flint was glad to see Logan had asked permission.

“Can I go first?” Martin asked.

Logan opened his mouth, then shut it again, a struggle apparent on his face. He looked up at Flint.

Flint just waited.

“Yeah,” Logan said finally. “You can go first.”

Flint gave Logan a nod and a smile, and Logan’s face lit up again.

As the two boys ran toward the barn, Cowboy racing in circles around them, Heath chuckled. “I’m taking notes.” He’d just gotten engaged to Josie Markham, who’d been widowed right after discovering she was pregnant. Flint was pretty sure the wedding would happen sooner rather than later, because Heath wanted to help parent Josie’s baby from day one.

“Notes might help, but nothing’s going to prepare you for fatherhood. How’s Josie doing?”

“Okay, except she wants to keep working as hard as ever, and at almost seven months pregnant, she can’t do it all.”

“Thank her for me.” Flint gestured toward the cooler. “Logan’ll be glad to have something that’s not out of a box. And for that matter, so will I.”

Heath chuckled. “I’d rather have an MRE than your cooking.”

MREs. Meals Ready to Eat. The acronym, and the thought of military rations, brought back a wave of wartime memories for Flint, and a glance at Heath’s face showed the same had happened to him.

They’d been through a lot together.

The awareness was there, but neither of them wanted to bring it up. Some memories were best left sleeping. “How’s your grandpa?” Flint asked to change the subject. “Still planning a visit?”

Flint had helped track Edmund Grayson down last month. When old Cyrus Culpepper had left the Triple C to the Lone Star Cowboy League, his bequest had come with the condition that the other four original residents of the boys ranch be located and, if possible, brought to the area for the LSCL’s anniversary celebration in March. The League was hard at work to fulfill the conditions so they could keep the boys ranch going strong.

Heath’s grandfather, Edmund Grayson, was one of those original residents, and it had been Flint’s responsibility to help find him. Which he’d done, with Heath’s help.

“Coming out for Christmas, I think. And for sure to the reunion in March.” Heath leaned against the fence surrounding the horse corral. “You said you wanted to see me about something?”

Flint pushed back his hat and leaned on the fence beside his friend, looking out over the land he’d come to love, brown grass of December notwithstanding. Then he hitched a thumb toward the barn. “Missing some saddles,” he said, and told Heath what was gone and when he’d last seen them.

As Flint had expected, Heath got into analyzing the situation right away. During his enforced leave from his Texas Ranger job last month, he’d started digging into some of the recent problems in the area. Although he was back at work now, he’d continued to keep an eye on the situation. “You’ve got more valuable saddles they didn’t take, right?”

Flint nodded. “Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” He waited for Heath to home in on the ranch boys as suspects. Flint was worried about that, himself. They were the ones who had the most opportunity.

All the more reason Logan shouldn’t be over-involved with them. Flint would have to keep up the effort to recruit more varied after-school friends for Logan.

Heath was rubbing his chin, looking thoughtful. “Could be someone trying to pin a theft on the ranch boys, make ’em look bad.”

Since Heath had only recently overcome his animosity to the boys ranch, his attitude pleased Flint. “Like who?” he asked. “Phillips?” Fletcher Snowden Phillips, local lawyer and chief curmudgeon, was forever criticizing the ranch for its supposed negative impact on property values and attracting new business.

“Could be.” Heath plucked a piece of grass and chewed it, absently. “Could be Avery Culpepper, too. She’s got some pretty strong opinions about the ranch.”

Two of Flint’s least favorite people. “You’re right. Could be either one. Except I can’t figure either of them getting their hands dirty, breaking into a barn and stealing saddles.”

“Good point. Truth is, any lowlife who knows about the ranch might take kid stuff. Because they’d figure we’d blame the boys.”

“Yeah, and those saddles do have some resale value.” And Flint would have to replace them if they weren’t found quickly.

“I’ll take a look around,” Heath said.

As they walked toward the barn, Flint’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out. An unfamiliar number, but local. “I’d better take this,” he said, gesturing for Heath to go ahead into the tack room. He clicked to answer the call.

“Mr. Rawlings, this is Lana Alvarez over at the school.”

Flint stopped. Liking for her musical voice warred with a sense that, whatever Lana Alvarez had to say to him, it wasn’t going to be good. “What’s up?”

“I’m calling to request a conference. Could we set up a time for you to come in to school? I’m afraid there’s a problem with Logan.”