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Surprisingly, all the kids were animated today. Morgan’s antics were the cause, and that made Bret feel a little better about his insane decision to bring her. None here could claim a happy childhood, but this bunch from Dorm K, they’d had it rougher than most. Tom, seventeen, had lost his family in a freak accident. Melissa, thirteen, and LaKeisha, nine, had been abandoned by teenage mothers. Shondra, seven, had been abused from the time she was born, as had Kevin. The twins, Adam and Keith, also seven, had seen their father kill their mother, and little Henry, who’d recently turned two, had almost been a murder victim himself.
Bret constantly reminded himself not too get too attached to any of these children, but he’d fallen hard for all eight of them.
“Hey, Mr. Bret,” Melissa called out. She pointed at Morgan, hanging precariously off the saddle, even though the horse wasn’t moving. “Maybe you should tie her on. Or at least put her on old Slowpoke.”
“Or Patch,” volunteered LaKeisha, setting off a round of giggling among the other children.
Bret looked over at Patch, the Shetland pony he’d bought for the smallest children at the ranch. The tiny animal barely came to his waist. If he sat on it, he could probably touch the ground flat-footed.
“What about it, Morgan? Am I gonna have to stick you on Patch?”
“I refuse to ride anything shorter than I am,” she said, her voice indignant.
“Ride? You’re not riding. You’ve been on that horse forty-five minutes and you haven’t gone three feet without dropping the reins and grabbing the saddle horn. You have to be in control of an animal to ride.”
“If you could shorten the stirrups a bit more, I think I could do it.”
He sighed loudly and shook his head, then walked over and began shortening the stirrups for the fifth time. He helped her right herself in the saddle. “Your dang legs are too short,” he grumbled.
“They are not. I have great legs.” She stuck one out. It was bare between her white shorts and tennis shoes. Tan and sleek, it was also very nicely curved.
He looked away swiftly, unintentionally making a noise deep in his throat he prayed she couldn’t interpret. Turning his attention back to the stirrup, he took out his knife and began twisting another hole in the leather strap with the point of the blade.
“You shouldn’t have lied to me,” he muttered.
“Hayes, if you’d asked me at that moment if I knew how to wrestle an alligator, I would have said yes.”
He snorted. “Pity the poor alligator.”
She took off the cap he’d given her to keep the sun off her face and used it to slap him playfully on the head. “Be nice,” she warned, putting the cap back on, “or I might have to wrestle you.”
Bret went deathly still at the thought of that, her on top of him, pinning him to the ground, doing more than wrestling. Hell!
Shaking off the image before his body embarrassed him in front of the kids, he hurriedly completed the hole and adjusted both stirrups.
“Okay, this time if she trots and you don’t want her to, pull back on the reins—but gently. Make her obey you. And don’t yell like that again. You nearly busted my eardrum.”
The onlookers tittered.
“Sorry,” she said, exchanging a funny, Well, excuse me face with the children.
He walked out to the center of the corral. “All right, this is your last chance. Ride her this far so I’ll know you won’t kill yourself when we go out to the pasture.”
Whispering loudly, the children took bets on whether she’d make it.
“I say she drops the reins,” Tom predicted.
“Nah, she’ll fall off,” Adam said.
“Betcha she drops the reins and falls off,” Keith said.
The toddler, Henry, who thought she was purposely putting on a show, clapped his hands excitedly in anticipation of the next trick. “Faw,” he begged.
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Don’t you little maggots have homework or something?”
“It’s summer vacation,” Melissa said. “School won’t start till next week.”
“Chores?” Morgan asked.
“We did them when we got out of church,” LaKeisha told her.
“If I give you money, will you go away?”
They giggled. “No, ma’am,” answered Shondra. “We wanna stay here and watch you fall off.”
“Faw,” Henry squealed, clapping his hands more rapidly.
Bret interrupted by calling out, “Come on, Morgan, we don’t have all day to watch you make a fool of yourself.”
“Don’t rush me!”
“I should’ve known you couldn’t do it,” he said with a smirk. “You’re all bluff and no guts.”
“I might have to make you eat those words, Hayes.”
“Yeah? Well, you have to ride over here first,” he pointed out.
“Come on, Miss Kate,” Shondra yelled. “You can do it.” She started clapping and chanting, “Go…go…go…” The others quickly joined in.
She touched her heels to the horse’s sides and loosened the tension on the reins. The horse began to move. When it tried to break into a trot, she pulled back gently and it slowed to a walk. When she reached Bret, still mounted and still holding the reins, the children whooped their delight. Even those who’d bet against her clapped.
“Well, it’s about time,” he said. “At least you didn’t fall on your—” he remembered the kids were listening “—backside.”
“Gee, Hayes, watch out. All that lavish praise might go to my head.”
“You did okay.”
“Okay? Is that the best compliment you can come up with?” She looked to the children for help. “Was it just okay?” she asked them.
“You were super-endous,” one child yelled.
“Outta sight,” said another.
“See,” Morgan told him smugly. “I was superendous.”
Bret smiled. He couldn’t help himself. She was so damn outrageous at times.
She gasped. “Well, I’ll be… You actually have teeth!”
His brow wrinkled in confusion. “Wh-what?”
“You hardly ever smile. You always look like you’ve gotten a whiff of something foul. I was beginning to think your teeth were bad, or maybe you’d irritated the wrong person and he—or she—knocked them out.”
“I’ve occasionally had people threaten to knock them out, but I assure you they’re intact.” He gave her his best fake smile.
“Oh, very nice. Perfect, as a matter of fact.”
“Thanks. My stepfather would be overjoyed to hear you say that, considering how much work he did on them.”
“Oh, that’s right, he’s a dentist, isn’t he?”
“Uh, yeah. Retired now.” He cleared his throat with nervousness. That was a stupid mistake. “You have a nice smile, too.”
She cocked her head and grinned. “Why, thank you.”
The children giggled and made smooching sounds.
“All right, cut it out,” he warned them good-naturedly. He steered the conversation toward a more comfortable topic, patting the horse and telling Kate they’d ride out so he could show her the rest of the ranch.
“Am I ready for that?” she asked.
“Yeah, but listen to what I tell you and do exactly as I say. Exactly. No goofing off for the kids.”
“Okay. You’re the boss.”
He lifted a dark eyebrow at the comment.
“A mere slip of the tongue,” she said quickly.
TOM OPENED the gate and the “wagon train,” as one of the kids called it, began its journey. Hayes went out first, with Henry sitting on the horse in front of him. Kate moved to his left side, wanting him close in case her horse decided to act up.
“Don’t go too fast,” he warned as the other children passed them and took off at breakneck speed.
The road wound through pastures where round bales of freshly cut hay dotted the ground, and more hay, waiting to be cut, rippled in the wind. Henry, Kate quickly discovered, could be counted on to fill the brief moments of silence. His fascination with the scenery exceeded his vocabulary. He entertained them by periodically calling out the names of things he saw.
“Burrrd,” he said when a colorful bird flew past and landed on the barbed-wire fence.
“Eastern bluebird,” Hayes said. “And what sound does a bird make?”
“Tweee,” Henry answered.
Farther down the road Hayes motioned to the right. “We lease the hay fields to a cattle farm nearby, and, over that rise, is a pecan orchard that produces a good crop and income for the ranch each year.”
“I’m impressed,” she told him, a major understatement. From everything she’d seen, the ranch ran efficiently and utilized its natural resources. The administrator, Jane Logan, had given Kate a tour, and she appeared competent and genuinely enthusiastic about her job. The children seemed well cared for. “Do you spend much time out here? The children all seem to know you.”
“I’m out a couple of times a week, sometimes more.”
“Why kids?”
“Why kids what?”
“Why did you choose to support a charity for kids? A guy like you. Seems out of character.”
“Maybe you don’t know my character as well as you think.”
“I admit I find it hard to believe that you’re the same surly guy who yelled at me last night.”
“I apologize for that. I was out of line for losing my temper.”
“And I apologize for following you. I was wrong to take it to such lengths. Do you think we might call a truce? I really don’t want to fight with you, and despite the crack I made about your character, you don’t seem like a bad guy.”
“If we call a truce, does that mean you’ll leave me alone?”
“Yes, if I can solicit two promises from you.”
“Which are?”
“First, that you’ll reconsider my request for help with my book.”
“Don’t—”
“Wait a minute, now. Let me finish. If you’ll seriously think about my request for…oh…three days, I’ll stay at the motel and won’t bother you. But you have to put aside your dislike for me and not make a decision based on that.”
“And if I still say no at the end of three days?”
“I’ll go away.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
He thought about it for all of two seconds. “That’s too good to pass up. What’s the second promise?”
“That sometime today you give me ten minutes to at least try to convince you to cooperate on the book, without your getting all surly and wanting to strangle me.”
He flashed a quick grin, gone as quickly as it came. “How did you know I wanted to strangle you?”
“Believe me, I’ve seen that look before on the faces of at least a hundred different men, my father and brothers included.”
“Morgan, sometimes you’re too much.” This time he didn’t bother to hide his smile. “Okay, you’ve got a deal. Ten minutes, and I’ll try my best to stay calm.”
“How about now?”
“Not while we’re with the kids.”
“Okay, I can wait. Where are we headed, by the way?”
“The pond first and then the orchard. I want to show you the different ways we’re making money and moving toward being self-sufficient. We keep bees and sell the honey. We grow muscadines and scuppernongs and we sell them to a small outfit locally that makes jelly. The pond is stocked with catfish and we open it for public fishing every Saturday during the warm months.”
“For a fee?”
“No, not for fishing, but we charge per pound for the fish caught.”
“Pish,” Henry said.
“Catfish,” Hayes corrected. “And what sound does a catfish make?”
“Gur-ak,” Henry said proudly.
Kate decided, after hearing Henry imitate various animals at Hayes’s prompting, that this had to be a game they’d played many times before.
As they continued to the pond, the child ran through the rest of his imitations—sheep, cows, horses, bees and something called a ruby-throated brew guzzler that Hayes swore was a real bird native to the South, but whose call sounded suspiciously like a belch to Kate.
“Oh, let me guess,” she said, laughing despite her efforts not to. “It guzzles beer and is identified by its red neck.”
Hayes grinned impishly.
She groaned. “You should be ashamed of yourself for trying to corrupt this child.”
“Wasn’t me,” he said innocently.
“I believe that about as much as I believe…ruby-throated brew guzzlers really fly.”
He had anticipated her answer. With a mischievous gleam in his eye he bent his head and said, “Henry, let a brew guzzler fly.”
Henry swallowed air. “Bu-rp,” he said, belching loudly.
BRET LIKED her laugh. He found it soothing. He knew in the last several years he hadn’t been the kind of man who inspired women to laughter. He was too somber. Depressing, was the word one woman had used. But today he seemed to amuse this woman a great deal, even when he wasn’t trying.
She laughed often. Loudly. Wonderfully. She made him laugh, something he hadn’t felt like doing in a long time.
He was having trouble remembering she was the enemy. And even more disturbing, he was having no trouble remembering she was a woman.
They sat on the pond’s wooden pier, Bret with his back against a piling, Morgan uncomfortably close, so close he could smell the light flowery fragrance that seemed to be a natural part of her. Unable to resist the lure of the water, she had slipped off her shoes and now dangled her feet in it.
It was one of the few times they’d been alone that afternoon. The children had reached the pond ahead of them and were busy skipping rocks at the far end. Tom had sensed the adults’ need for privacy and had assumed supervision of little Henry.
Bret looked not at the woman, but out over the glassy sun-lit surface of the pond, trying to keep from being distracted by that stretchy red top she had on and the way it showed off her curves.
Funny. Smart. Interesting. Attractive. And the kids had taken to her immediately. If she were anyone but Kathryn Morgan…
“So,” he said casually, “you mentioned last night that you knew my brother. How well?”
“Not well. I spent a few hours with him one weekend at Columbia in 1987.”
“Were you lovers?”
Her eyes narrowed. She hadn’t liked the question. “No, we weren’t lovers. What made you think we had a sexual relationship?”
“Because that was the only kind of relationship James had with women.”
“Well, he didn’t with me. Besides, I wasn’t a woman. I was a kid, a teenager with zero experience.”
“How did you meet?”
“A reporter from The New York Post was writing an article covering one of his concerts, and apparently James’s manager convinced her to include some of the fellowship students from the university in the photographs. I was among the five or so they brought in to meet him. James and I talked, swapped family stories, and then we went our separate ways. He was extremely nice to me when he didn’t have to be, and I’ve never forgotten it. Period. End of story. No sex involved.”
“And you said this was at Columbia?”
“I was in graduate school and he was playing a concert in Manhattan that weekend.”
“Graduate school? I thought you said you were still a kid.”
“I was.”
“You must have been a really smart kid.”
She simply shrugged.
“And you never saw James again after that day?”
“Nope.” She turned to him and folded her legs underneath her. “You know, you could have asked me this last night and saved yourself the trouble of bringing me here today.”
“I didn’t bring you here to ask about that.”
“Then why? Last night you were ready to boil me in oil, and then suddenly you’re at my door asking me to go riding. What gives?”
“You tell me.”
“I’m not sure. I told you I knew about Pine Acres, and maybe you were afraid I’d show up here. Or you wanted to find out what I might write about you in the book. Is that it? Those are the only two things that make sense to me. Did you think by bringing me out here I’d present you and the ranch in a more favorable light?”
“You read people pretty well.”
She looked directly at him. “A lot of the time. But you’re harder to read than most.”
“Oh? And why’s that?”
“I haven’t quite figured that out yet. But I will. You’re a contradiction, Hayes. You send out so many conflicting signals I’m not sure what to think of you.”
“Conflicting how?”
“Well, for example, you claim not to care what people think of you, yet everywhere you’ve donated money around town, you have plaques acknowledging the contributions. I’m not criticizing your generosity, but that seems a little self-serving to me, and the plaques…well, tacky. You’ve also had your name put on the front wall of this place as the major contributor. For a man who doesn’t encourage visitors and doesn’t seem to want friends, you’re going out of your way to ensure your name will be remembered in this town. Very contradictory.”
“You really think the plaques are tacky?”
“A little.”
“I suppose they are.”
“Am I right about your reasons for asking me here today?”
He nodded. “When you mentioned Pine Acres, it made me uneasy. I decided you might be less likely to hurt my kids if you came out here and got to know them. And, too, by showing you the ranch I hoped to change your opinion of me. I was suddenly reminded of that old saying, ‘Never argue with a man who buys his ink by the barrel.”’
That made her smile. “I’d never burn you in print for being nasty to me. That’s not my style. But I am glad you invited me here. I can’t remember when I’ve had a more enjoyable afternoon. The ranch is incredible, and so are the kids. I’d like to know more about them, if you don’t mind telling me.”
“Is your interest personal or professional?”
“Both, I guess. I’m interested in the ranch because I think you used some of the money you inherited from James to build it.” She paused, apparently offering him the opportunity to deny or confirm her statement. He did neither. “If it’s true,” she continued, “that does make Pine Acres a part of my story.”
“See, that’s what I was afraid of. You’re jumping to conclusions about things you know nothing about. I don’t want you writing something that might make the ranch look bad.”
She gave him a reassuring smile. “There’s no reason to be concerned. I can’t imagine anyone finding fault with what you’ve done here, including me, and the only reason I asked about the kids is because I’m interested as a person, not as a writer. Will you tell me about them?”
He hesitated.
“I swear I’m only asking because I like them.”
“All right, but you can’t use anything I say about any individual child. I can’t stop you from mentioning the ranch in your book, but I don’t want the kids hurt by the public knowing the intimate details of their lives.”
“You have my word. I won’t include them.”
He took off his cap and played with it as he talked, telling her first about some of the children she’d met but who hadn’t come to the pond with them.
“Now tell me about Tom,” she prodded.
“Tom’s had it hard. His parents and two sisters died a few years ago from carbon-monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty heater. He was spending the night at a friend’s house and came home to find the bodies. He lived in six foster homes before he came to the ranch last spring.”
“Why has he lived in so many places? He’s so polite and sweet. I can’t understand why a family wouldn’t want him.”
“Because he’s a teenager. They’re more trouble, and they cost more money to care for. Some people don’t want to deal with that extra expense.”
“Are they all orphans like him?”
“No, the majority have at least one living parent, but due to neglect, abuse or some other reason, the kids have been removed from the home. Some have emotional problems brought on by what’s happened to them, and finding adoptive families is next to impossible.”
“Those scars on Shondra’s arm. How did she get them?”
“Her mother’s an addict. When she got high she used Shondra as an ashtray.”
“Dear God.”
“Keith and Adam, the twins with all the freckles, their father’s in prison.”
“What for?”
“Blowing their mother’s head off in front of them.”
He winced when he saw what his words did to her. He’d deliberately been crude to shock her and gauge her reaction. But seeing her distressed look, he felt ashamed of himself.
“Are you sure you want to hear this?” he asked quietly.
She was silent for a long time. She looked at the water, the pier, everywhere but at him. Finally she spoke. “Yes, I want to know. I want to understand how these children came to be here.”
He debated whether he should go on. He knew the horror stories, the kids used as punching bags or pawns in dirty divorces, the ones treated worse than animals or as property. But for someone who wasn’t familiar with the realities of child abuse and neglect, hearing what little value some parents place on the lives of their children could be unsettling.
“Please,” she urged.
“Melissa’s mother was only fourteen when she gave her up. LaKeisha’s mother was also a teenager. She already had two other illegitimate children by two different men, so she wasn’t able to take care of her.”
“And the shy boy with the drawings of sports heroes in his room?”
“That’s Kevin. He was abandoned in a bus station. We still don’t know the extent of the trauma he’s been through because he won’t talk about it. He was sexually abused and was probably forced by his father to act as a prostitute.”
“But he’s a baby! How could a parent do that to a child?”
“We’ve seen them as young as nine and ten selling themselves to finance their parents’ drug habits.”
“How is that possible?”
“I know it’s hard to believe. I had trouble believing it myself, but it happens, and more often than you’d imagine.”
“And Henry? What’s his story?”
He shifted on the pier, making the old boards creak. This story he wasn’t sure he could share without breaking down.
“Henry’s mother…” He stopped and swallowed as the bile rose in his throat. “Henry’s mother had a new boyfriend, and having the kids cramped her style. She was also heavily in debt. So she talked the boyfriend into helping her set fire to the house, a little two-for-one special. Her idea was to collect the insurance money and get rid of the kids at the same time. They tried to make the fire look like an accident, set by the kids playing with matches. As best we can figure, she told four-year-old Sarah that some bad men wanted to hurt them and she should take Henry and hide in the closet and not come out until she came for them. Because she trusted her mother, Sarah did it. Then they set fire to the adjoining bedroom.”
“What happened to Sarah?”
“She died a few hours after the fire of smoke inhalation and burns. Henry spent nearly two months in the hospital recovering from pneumonia and the damage the smoke did to his lungs, but thankfully, he wasn’t badly burned. Sarah had shielded him from the fire with her own body.”
“What happened to his mother and her boyfriend?”
“He made a deal with the district attorney to testify against her and got fifteen years. She pleaded not guilty, and her trial comes up in a couple of months. It’s a capital-murder case, so she’s still in jail, but that hasn’t stopped her from using Henry to get sympathy from the court. She won’t sign over custody of him because it would hurt her case, and the state won’t sever her parental rights because, until she’s convicted, she’s considered innocent.”
“So Henry’s in legal limbo because the state can’t place him until there’s a disposition of the case?”
“Yes,” Bret said, slipping his cap back on. “It stinks because her rights are being placed above Henry’s.”
“And Henry’s father? Where is he?”
“He was a one-night stand she picked up in a bar. I doubt she even knows the guy’s name.”
The laughter of the children drifted toward them on the gentle breeze. He smiled as he watched Henry toddling after the older kids in their game of tag.
“Will you adopt him when he becomes available?” she asked.
“I can’t.”
“But single men can adopt. These days it’s done all the time.”
“I know, but it’s not an option for me.” He stood abruptly, wishing he’d never allowed her to pursue this. He walked toward the tree where they’d tied the horses. She ran to catch up with him.