“Yeah?”
“I was going to say that I don’t plan on accosting any unwilling groomsmen at tonight’s rehearsal dinner, so you should be safe.” She blushed. “But I can’t say that with a straight face now.”
“Kate—”
She shook her head. “I really gotta go.”
And then she was gone before he could tell her that he wouldn’t mind being accosted.
God, he was so screwed up.
Instead of heading straight back to the house, he entered the barn, lured by the long-forgotten scent of hay and horses and leather—distinctly Sunshine smells. They had the years melting away, taking him back to a time when everything he’d done had been trouble or driven by trouble or in the search of trouble, and he’d most definitely found it.
Often.
He’d been a wild teenage boy, unhappy to the marrow, stuck out in the middle of nowhere. He’d consistently dreamed of bigger and better things. More than anything he’d wanted off this ranch and out of Sunshine, and he’d been willing to do whatever it took in order to make that happen. When his mom had separated from his father and gone to New York, she’d left Grif here, telling him that he belonged in Sunshine with his father.
She’d been wrong.
The minute he’d turned eighteen he’d enlisted and gone off to get what he’d been dreaming of. Freedom.
Instead, he’d ended up fighting for it.
The barn door opened behind him, and his father strode in. To his credit, his steps didn’t falter when he caught sight of Grif, though they stood there staring at each other in awkward silence.
They didn’t look much alike, father and son, though their attitudes matched up like apple and tree. Or so Grif’s mom had always said.
“Bored already?” Donald finally asked. “I’m short several hands today if that’s the case.”
“Sure,” Grif said. What the hell. “I’ll help.”
Donald’s brows went up. Clearly he hadn’t expected Grif to agree so readily. “There was a time that helping out on this ranch felt like torture to you.”
Grif bit back a sigh. “Are we going to bicker like little girls or work?”
“Depends.” Donald gestured to Grif’s head. “How bad is it?”
Grif rubbed the scar that hadn’t yet started to ache today. “I’m fine.”
“No doubt in thanks to how thick your skull is.” Donald jabbed a hand in the direction of the five horses in their stalls, all watching the exchange between the two men with varying degrees of interest. “I suppose riding is out?”
Two months ago everything had been out: food, exercise, sex . . . everything and anything that had given him that freedom he’d always craved. But he’d recently been cleared for everything—except, of course, his job. Detecting, locating, and defusing anything that might go boom was out entirely. He could do whatever else he damn well wanted, though the thought of riding made his head hurt just thinking about it. “Nothing’s out.”
Donald just looked at him.
Grif looked right back. Goddammit he didn’t want to do this circle and dance. He wanted . . . Well, hell. He didn’t actually know.
“How long are you here?” Donald asked.
“As long as I want.” He waited for his dad to say he hoped that was for a damn long time, but Donald said nothing.
Instead he pointed to the horses. “Stalls need to be cleaned out.”
Grif looked at him. “You want me to shovel shit.”
Donald shrugged. “You still think you’re too good for shoveling shit? Then don’t help.”
And then he walked out.
Grif let out a breath. Had he really thought he could make peace here, with him? Because it was looking like he’d have to settle for a truce. So in the name of that truce, he picked up a damn pitchfork. He was still at it an hour later when Kate showed back up at the ranch with twenty second graders.
The mayhem was instant, but it was a controlled mayhem he realized, watching from the barn as Kate handled her class with an ease he couldn’t have managed. She answered each of the million questions that came her way with no sign of fatigue or lag in patience, even though a girl named Nina constantly raised her hand to tell on someone. Kate broke up a couple of almost fights, all started by one punk of a kid—Dustin—who was just big enough to make Grif think he’d probably been held back a year.
Kate took the time to love up on Thing One and Thing Two when they bounded over to her, even though Thing Two jumped up and left questionable stains on her clothes. She acted like she’d been given a diamond when some kid named Tucker brought her a shiny rock, even though two others—Mikey and Jase—had just done the same thing. She accepted the gift of a bug when yet another kid brought her one to prove how brave he was.
The fact was, she had a ready laugh and smile for all of them. Any of them. She saw the best in each kid, and she got it. Hell, she saw the best in everyone; he knew that. How or why, he had no idea. Nor did he know how he’d ever been able to resist her.
Six
As she had every few minutes, Kate counted heads to make sure she still had twenty students. Elbows deep in mud, she had them all planting seedlings and recording their efforts.
Well, all of them except one. Tommy had planted his seedlings already and was sitting on a rock, watching the sky for extraterrestrials.
“Aliens like Idaho,” he told Kate when she walked over to him. He had his head tilted up, his eyes squinting against the sun. “Because the land is so wide open.”
“My dad says aliens don’t exist.” This from Dustin, who came up next to Kate. “My dad says people who believe in aliens are cuckoo for Coco Puffs.”
A couple of the other boys, Tucker and Mikey, snickered at that. Dustin was a year older, and therefore cooler, and also quite charming when he chose to be. The kids gravitated to him, even when he was pushing his weight around.
Except Tommy. He didn’t gravitate to anyone. “That’s a closed-minded way of thinking,” was all he said.
Kate was only ten feet away, and though she wanted to, she didn’t say anything. Tommy hated it when she interfered on his behalf, and it always made things worse anyway. This was his battle.
Dustin frowned. “You’re closed-minded.”
“Why do you always repeat everything I say?” Tommy asked. “Can’t you think of your own stuff to say?”
“I have plenty to say,” Dustin said. “I got two homers last night, best in the league so far. I’m going to be like Jeter. Do you even known who Jeter is?”
“Do you even know who Dr. Who is?” Tommy asked.
Dustin stared at him, shook his head. “You’re such a dork.”
“A dork is a whale’s penis.”
“Tommy said penis,” Nina said to Kate.
“We’re not supposed to say penis,” Mikey seconded.
“Everyone stop,” Kate said. She looked at Dustin. “That’s enough.”
Dustin gave Tommy one last look, and then he walked away with the others.
“Whale’s penis?” Kate asked Tommy when they were alone. “Really?”
“It’s not a dirty word; it’s a body part.”
Kate squatted in front of her brother and ruffled his hair. “Honey—”
He pushed her hand away. “Don’t baby me.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re giving me the sappy eyes,” Tommy said. “When you give me the sappy eyes, they treat me different.”
“Actually they treat you different because you are different.” She sighed at his stubborn expression, which she recognized—from her mirror. “You could try to fit in. You know who Jeter is.”
Tommy smiled a little. “But he most definitely doesn’t know who Dr. Who is.”
Which wasn’t her point. She knew he’d been bullied in kindergarten and first grade, before he’d admitted it. It was why he wore the costumes. He liked feeling like a superhero, impervious to weakness. It was wish fulfillment. She had a wish, too, that he could feel
safe and secure as himself. “Tommy—”
“Still giving me the sappy eyes.” Grabbing his notebook, he clutched it to his chest and moved off in the opposite direction of the others.
Kate let him go, aching for him. She did baby him. She couldn’t help it. He was too young to remember their mom, but Kate remembered everything. Belinda Evans had been a teenager when she’d had Kate, but she’d made her marriage work, and years later they’d wanted more kids. Belinda had been a great mom, and she would’ve found a way to reach Tommy. Kate knew it. She needed to make things right for him. She’d had several meetings with Ryan about whether or not she should be Tommy’s teacher this year. He had the smarts to skip a grade and go straight to third but not the social skills, and he was already small for his age.
So in the end, she’d kept him with her. But there were times, like now, when the teacher within her warred with the sister—who really wanted to beat the crap out of Dustin for giving Tommy a hard time.
She parlayed that energy into helping the kids make sure their seedlings were planted correctly. Nina and Tasha got into a little tiff about whose seedlings were cuter but other than that they had no problems, and half an hour later everyone had finished.
“Okay, gang,” Kate called out. “It’s time to head back to school for lunch.”
This was accompanied by the usual protests. Most of the kids didn’t want to go back to the classroom; they were happy right there in the dirt. There was only one kid she could think of who might want to go back, and suddenly she realized he wasn’t anywhere in sight. Straightening, she turned in a slow circle. “Tommy?”
Nothing.
“Class, has anyone seen Tommy?”
“No,” Dustin said, “but Tony Stark’s midget double is here somewhere.”
A few of the kids laughed, but Kate wasn’t amused. “Dustin, if you were missing, you’d want someone to notice.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
She looked him in the eyes. “I’d notice anyway,” she told him. She kept her cool as she walked through her small groups of two and three kids, counting heads.
Nineteen.
Tommy was gone, and he was gone all by himself.
She whipped around to face the creek. It was actually more of a mud zone at the moment and barely running. Nothing was in danger of being swept away, which didn’t help ease her sudden fear. “Tommy!”
“Maybe he was abducted by aliens,” Dustin said.
Kate yanked off her sunglasses and wool cap, as if that would help her see better. She scoured the clearing and went still at the sound of an engine revving.
A motorcycle came around the bend in the creek, a big dirt bike weaving in and around boulders and stumps and other various forest debris with obvious skill. With the sun behind it, all she could see was that the rider was a man hunched protectively over . . .
“Tommy,” she breathed, relieved and then shocked because the driver was . . . Griffin.
Tommy was wearing a helmet, which he tugged off with a huge grin as Griffin pulled the motorcycle to a stop at the edge of the clearing. Tommy hopped off. The face shield slipped down over his eyes, and with a giggle he shoved it back up, having to tilt his head sideways to see Griffin. “That was awesome!”
Griffin held up a fist, and Tommy bumped it with his own, and then they went through some complicated handshake that was entirely new to Kate. “Stay right where you are,” she told the kids in her most serious teacher voice before walking over to Tommy and Griffin. “What happened?” she demanded. “Are you okay?”
“Did you see?” Tommy asked. “Did you see me on the bike?”
“Where were you?”
Some of her concern and temper must have been on her face because Tommy’s smile faded. “I followed a bird along the creek bed. It was little, Kate. And hurt.”
And he’d gotten worried, like he worried about every living thing. There was no use getting mad at him for that; it was who he was to the very marrow. A superhero from the inside out. “Where did it go?”
Tommy looked sheepish at that. “It flew away when I got close.”
“The kid was only about twenty-five yards around the bend,” Griffin told Kate quietly. “He was within hearing distance of you.”
Kate looked at Tommy. “I yelled for you.”
Tommy appealed his case. “I had to help the bird, Kate. A thousand birds die every year from smashing into windows.”
Kate felt her heart melt. She also felt the weight of Griffin’s amused stare at the realization that spouting science facts when frazzled was an Evans hereditary trait.
The other kids had hit their max on behaving and had moved in close, lured by the excitement of the motorcycle and Griffin. Dustin was the leader, of course. “There’s no windows out here, super genius,” he said to Tommy.
“Dustin,” Kate said. “What happens when we insult someone?”
Dustin kicked the ground but stalked off to a rock about ten feet away for his time-out.
Griffin ruffled Tommy’s already wildly tousled hair. “Remember what I said about walking off on your own.”
“Always have a partner,” Tommy said.
Grif nodded once. “And?”
“And no man left behind. Ever.”
The other kids were staring in open admiration at the motorcycle and at Tommy, too, awed by his adventure. Kate was busy staring at Griffin. He was still in his well-worn jeans, boots, and a graphic T-shirt that advertised some dive shop in the Caicos Islands. While she appreciated the way the wind plastered the shirt to his broad shoulders and chest, she wondered why he wasn’t wearing more layers.
Then she realized Tommy was wearing a large flannel shirt, open and hanging past his knees as he handed the helmet over to Griffin.
“Keep the shirt for now,” Griffin told him. “It’s cold out here.”
“My dad says it’s cold enough to freeze the nuts off a brass monkey,” Mikey said.
The kids giggled.
“Mikey said nuts,” Nina said.
Kate held up a hand, the sign for silence. “The saying comes from the Civil War days, when the cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid formation called a brass monkey. When it got extremely cold outside they’d crack and break off. Breaking the nuts off the brass monkey. Get it?”
Tommy grinned. “History’s funny.”
Dustin snorted derisively from his rock. “Or stupid,” he muttered.
Tommy hugged Griffin’s shirt to himself. “How will I get this back to you?” he asked Griffin.
Griffin’s gaze slid to Kate’s. “I’ll get it.”
“Come to school later,” Tommy said. “We’re going to have brownies cuz we met our reading goal ahead of schedule.” He leaned in and whispered, “It’s because of me. I read a book every night.”
Someone snickered rudely.
Griffin lifted his head and leveled Dustin with a look that had Dustin zipping his mouth.
“I’ll share my brownie with you,” Tommy told Griffin. “They’re Kate’s. She makes the best brownies on the whole planet.”
Griffin met Kate’s gaze. “Is that right?”
“Yes, and anyway, no man left behind, right?” Tommy asked with an endearing smile, the master of charming any adult in his radius. “Ever. So, you have to come and share my brownie.”
Griffin’s mouth curved slightly. “Yeah. Sure.” Again he looked at the other kids. “And that no-man-left-behind thing applies to all of you. You’re a unit. You take care of each other.”
The kids took this in with awe, and when Griffin continued to just stare at them, they all nodded like bobbleheads.