Jesse Read online

  Jesse smiled. “We have horses, but our herd is made up of longhorns, beef cattle.”

  Lacy’s eyes grew wide. “Can I see ’em? Can we ride now?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “I’ve got to get on over to Dawson’s and then on to Harrison’s feed store to take care of business. From there I have to check your car and then I’ve got to get on back to the Circle G to help my brothers in the south pasture.”

  Lacy’s shoulders slumped and Danielle’s heart ached for her. This was how it had always been with Lacy’s father. She wanted to blast the man for raising her daughter’s hopes but didn’t have the chance because Lacy spoke up.

  “Maybe tomorrow?”

  He seemed to be thinking about it. “We usually finish our daytime chores around supper time. I might be able to squeeze in some time for a lesson before the evening chores.”

  “OK,” Lacy said, before asking, “all right, Mommy?”

  “We don’t have a car right now, honey. Maybe another time.”

  Jesse nodded. “Your car is probably just low on coolant, but how about if I come into town and pick you ladies up? I can give you a tour around the ranch and then show little Miss Lacy how to ride.” He tipped his hat forward and touched the brim. “If you ladies will excuse me, I’ve got to head on over to Dawson’s.”

  “Promise?” Lacy called out.

  “Yes, ma’am!” he answered before getting into the truck and driving away.

  Danielle and Lacy watched their rescuer drive away. When he was gone, Lacy patted the side of Danielle’s face to get her attention. “Mommy, is it tomorrow yet?”

  Chapter 2

  Danielle knew just how her daughter felt—as if someone had given them a shiny, red balloon and then let all of the air out of it. Sighing, she wished it was tomorrow already too, but knew that wishing and hoping didn’t always get you what you need in life. She bent down and scooped Lacy into her arms, and finally looked at the building where Jesse had dropped them off. The weathered clapboard siding needed a fresh coat of paint and had her wondering if her uncle’s business was doing well. She should have thought about that before making the long drive to Pleasure.

  A niggling worry started to unsettle her stomach. It had been a long time since she’d spent a couple of summers here, when her parents were trying to sort out their marriage. Her uncle had kept her busy and given out hugs of encouragement while he taught her how to make pie.

  Time had a way of passing by quickly. She hadn’t seen him since she’d fallen hard and fast for that sweet-talking, bull-riding cowboy. Once the doctor had placed her newborn baby in her arms, everything else ceased to exist… ceased to matter. Lacy was her world. Maybe that was one of the reasons her ex had become distant; maybe she should have paid more attention to him.

  “Mommy,” Lacy piped up. “I’m hungry.”

  Danielle buried the worries and problems she could no longer do anything about deep, and focused her attention on the light of her life. “Why don’t we go on in and say hello. I haven’t seen my uncle in a long time,” she said. “And I know he’d love to meet you.”

  “’Cause I’m ’cocious?”

  “That’s right, baby girl, you are precocious.”

  “Mommy,” Lacy said again as they paused halfway up the steps, “what’s ’cocious mean again?”

  “Too smart for your own britches but cute as a bug,” a deep voice boomed from just inside the screen door.

  Danielle smiled. “Uncle Jimmy!”

  Her uncle opened the door wide, and swept the two of them into his beefy arms, hugging them both tight, until Lacy started squirming. “You’re squishing me.”

  He eased up on his hold and chuckled. “Sorry,” he said, setting them both back on their feet, “but I’m just plum tickled that my favorite niece stopped by and brought an itty-bitty cowgirl to visit me.”

  Standing back and holding the door open wide, he ushered them inside. Danielle’s gaze swept the room. Everything looked just the same and felt like home. “So,” she said slowly, “do you have any chocolate pie?”

  Jimmy laughed and grinned down at them. “I might have baked one this morning and whipped up some cream to make it pretty… just like someone I know likes it, but I think introductions are in order first.”

  Danielle gave herself a mental head slap. “Sorry, it’s been a rough morning and a long trip.” Squatting down next to Lacy, she eased the hat from her little girl’s head and smoothed the hair off her face. “Jimmy Sullivan, I’d like to introduce you to my darling daughter, Lacy Brockway.” Straightening up, holding Lacy by the hand, she smiled. “And this is your Uncle Jimmy.”

  “Unca Jimmy, don’t you ’member if you baked pie?”

  “Uncle Jimmy’s just teasing because he knows how much I love his chocolate pie.”

  “My mommy bakes pies too.”

  “I taught her the secret to my famous piecrust when she was just about your size.” He led them into the kitchen, settling them at the oak pedestal table while he opened cabinets, gathering plates, cups, and utensils. “I could teach you too.”

  Lacy was watching Uncle Jimmy move around the sunny room like a baby bird, curious and hopeful that she’d be fed soon. “OK.” After a moment, her daughter couldn’t contain her excitement. “Are you gonna feed us pie? Do you gots any other flavors ’cept chocolate?”

  Jimmy looked over his shoulder at Danielle and the little girl perched on her lap and shook his head. “You sound just like your momma.” His sigh was heartfelt. “She was no bigger than a minute the first time I saw her.”

  Lacy grabbed her mother’s wrist and twisted it so she could see the watch Danielle always wore. Staring at the watch face, she wrinkled her nose and said, “Gosh, that’s little.”

  He agreed. “But pretty as a June bug.”

  Her daughter giggled and settled against her, relaxing. Danielle’s eyes filled and she had to blink the moisture away. She didn’t want her uncle to suspect that all was not right with her world.

  “I like bugs.”

  “Wouldn’t be any grandniece of mine if you didn’t,” Jimmy said, walking over to the table with a pie in each hand. “Now then, ladies,” he rumbled, “time to decide if you want chocolate or cherry.”

  Lacy looked from one dish to the other and then up at him. “Can’t I have both?”

  “A woman after my own heart,” he rumbled, setting the pies in the middle of the table. “How big a piece can you eat?”

  Danielle grinned. “She can have a sliver of each.” When her uncle started slicing into the first pie, she added, “I’d like the same too, please.”

  After he served up two plates of pie and poured out two glasses of milk, he sat down across from Danielle and crossed his arms in front of his broad chest. “I’m delighted to finally meet my grandniece, and I only have one question—what took you so long?”

  Danielle had called every couple of months and sent pictures in between those phone conversations, but it wasn’t the same as visiting. “We were just so busy.” That sounded like a lame excuse, but it was all she had to offer without telling her uncle about the whirlwind romance, the unplanned pregnancy, and the devastating divorce. Their eyes met and she realized she didn’t have to explain anything after all.

  “I knew it would take some time before you came on out for a visit. Times are lean and you were so wrapped up in being a new mother that you weren’t thinking about much else, let alone your crusty old uncle.”

  Danielle blinked back tears for the second time in the last half hour. “You are not crusty and I was so busy, I couldn’t see straight. I’m sorry.”

  He just smiled and shook his head. “New parents are supposed to be caught up with their little ones. Don’t you worry none, June bug. I figured I’d see you sooner or later, and until I did, we had our talks on the phone and I had the pictures you sent.”

  Screwing her courage up, she met her uncle’s gaze and confessed, “Buddy left us.”

  He nodded
. “Not surprising. That young man’s first love was and will always be the rodeo. She’s a tough mistress.”

  “I know.” Her ex was like a shooting star. Blazing hot and glorious while he was in her life. Now that he’d moved on, only a trace of him was left behind—their beautiful daughter. And for that she’d be forever grateful. “It’s hard.”

  While they ate, she wondered where she would go from here. What would lie ahead for her and little Lacy? She had no intention of living off of her uncle; she needed a job. Time to tell him, before he started making his own plans; her uncle had a way of taking over.

  Danielle wiped Lacy’s mouth with a paper napkin. “I’ve really missed you and your pie, Uncle Jimmy.”

  “I liked the chocolate best,” Lacy confided as she reached for her milk.

  He was smiling when he said, “Nothing I like better than feeding people who appreciate good food.”

  While he and Lacy chatted, she wracked her brain but couldn’t think of a way to casually ask about finding work. Better just to ask and get right to the heart of the matter. “So, I understand there’s a lot of work in town if you’re a rancher.”

  Jimmy nodded. “We have a number of ranches on the outskirts of town. Beef cattle mostly, but some raise horses too.”

  “But what about other jobs?”

  Looking from Danielle to her daughter, her uncle sighed. “You just arrived.” He frowned at her. “Are you going to be difficult?” She shrugged and he sighed loudly. “Times are a bit lean right now, but I could ask around, introduce you to folks you haven’t seen in a decade.”

  Danielle smiled. “Thanks, Uncle Jimmy.”

  He pushed his chair back to stand. “No arguments now, but you and little June bug are staying with me.”

  “Just until we get on our feet.” Danielle hugged her baby girl to her heart.

  “We’ll see,” was her uncle’s cryptic reply. “Come on, ladies, I’ll give you the grand tour of Sullivan’s.”

  While Uncle Jimmy led them through the kitchen to the front of his diner, Danielle wondered if he’d heard the scuttlebutt about her ex and how well he’d been doing since their divorce. With her mind on other things, she didn’t hear Lacy talking until her daughter tugged on her hand.

  “Mommy!”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie, I was letting my mind wander.”

  “You two ladies must be tired. I can show you around later.”

  “No, it’s fine, Uncle Jimmy.” Danielle reached for Lacy’s hand. “We’d love to see the rest of the diner.”

  He stared at her, and for a moment, she thought he’d argue, but something in her gaze must have convinced him she was on the level with him. “Follow me.”

  They walked through the swinging doors to the main dining room, and there it was, just as she remembered—the etching on the plate glass window facing the street. “I know you told me the last time I spent the summer with you, but how old is that window?”

  Jimmy smiled. “’Bout seventy or eighty years old. That’s the first thing I saw when I pulled up out front—the etched glass. Had to have the place; didn’t know what I’d turn it into, but I had a couple of ideas.”

  Lacy looked from her mother to Uncle Jimmy and scrunched her nose. “That’s really old!”

  They both laughed at the innocence of youth. “Yes, it is, little lady.”

  Letting her glance sweep the room, Danielle noticed the oak tables, set in various groupings of two, four, and six. Right in the middle of every table was a glass bottle filled with colorful flowers. “I love the wildflowers in the mismatched jars.”

  “Hobby of mine, collecting old condiment jars. Some are clear, brown, blue, or green. I like ’em all.” He shook his head. “It’s a lot of work, though, cutting all those damned flowers and changing them in and out of those jars every couple of days.”

  Lacy tugged on her mother’s hand until Danielle bent down. She cupped her hands around her mother’s ear and whispered, “Unca Jimmy just said a bad word.”

  Danielle smiled and said, “Yes, he did, sweetie.”

  “Sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m not used to little ones. I’ll have to pay better attention.”

  “S’OK, but you’d better ’member. Mommy’s strict about bad words.”

  Her uncle didn’t laugh at her daughter, and she remembered that he had never laughed at her—he’d laughed with her plenty of times, but never at her. Just one item on the long list of reasons she loved her uncle and had always felt welcome here.

  “Can I see upstairs?”

  Her uncle hesitated. “It’s mighty hot up there today, maybe we can come back later tonight when the sun’s gone down for the night or first thing tomorrow.”

  Lacy followed behind her mother like a little puppy, stopping where she stopped, touching what Danielle touched. She was proud that her little one mimicked the way she did things, knowing that she was setting an example that Lacy should and would follow.

  “We’re not sleeping here?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Not in the diner. I’ve got a house just outside of town, on a nice quiet dead-end street. No streetlights, so you can see every single star that’ll be shining high in the Texas sky come evening time.”

  Lacy hung on every word and Danielle’s heart filled with admiration for her uncle. He always knew just what to say and how to say it so people—the tall and the small—relaxed in his company. It was his gift.

  Thinking of his way with people, she looked down at her watch and wondered where all of his customers were. “How come there are no customers?”

  He shrugged. “Afternoons are real slow in town, but things pick up later in the week. I’m mostly busy with the breakfast crowd these days, so I close up right around three o’clock every day.”

  “So you’re OK then? The diner’s doing well?”

  He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and pressed his lips to her forehead, then did the same with Lacy. “I’m fine and the diner’s doing better than good. You can stop worrying about your old uncle now.”

  Relief filled her, tangling with the raw feelings roiling inside of her for having to leave the town she’d spent the whole of her married life in. She needed to recharge, but now wasn’t the time. She had her daughter to think of first. At least Lacy had one parent who cared.

  Setting those dangerous thoughts aside, she smiled up at Uncle Jimmy. “I’m glad; it’s a full-time job just worrying about Lacy, let alone my favorite uncle.”

  “I’m just about finished up here. I need to straighten out the kitchen and make sure I have everything I need for the breakfast crowd.”

  “Can I help?” Danielle asked.

  He nodded. “Of course, just like always.”

  She smiled when Lacy cried, “Me too!”

  Uncle Jimmy’s booming laughter filled a part of the void inside of her. It is going to be all right. She let Lacy pull her toward the kitchen.

  Chapter 3

  Jesse grinned as he opened the door to Dawson’s. Some things never changed and it lightened his heart. Life seemed to be passing him by out at the ranch, with his brothers settling in with the women they’d chosen to spend the rest of their lives with. It was good for them, but not for him.

  A creature of habit, it was a little unnerving to have female voices added to the mix in the mornings. He missed the days when he and his brothers would wake up and either say good morning or punch one another on their way to the coffeepot. Not that they’d fight that early in the day every day, but at some point in every day, the Garahan brothers had been known to blow off a little steam. A nice fistfight usually did the trick.

  But now his brothers were different. If he had to put his finger on it, he’d say they were content, happy—and smiling all the damn time! It set his teeth on edge each and every morning when his brothers came downstairs with shit-eating grins on their faces. He knew they’d both had themselves a time the night before—hell, he had ears… and their women had lungs.

  Disgu
sted with the train of his thoughts, he focused on his surroundings and the fact that the entrance to the hardware side of Dawson’s. Barrels lined up lying on their sides, each one filled with nails, screws, nuts, bolts, or washers. He breathed in and the air smelled the same. He couldn’t put his finger on it, so he closed his eyes, took another sniff, and grinned. “Fresh-cut pine, kerosene, and oil, same as always.”

  “Well which one do you want?” A familiar voice interrupted his trip down memory lane.

  His eyes shot open and he grinned. “Actually, I’m here to pay down our bill, Miss Pam.”

  The older woman waved her hand in his general direction. “I know you’re good for it. You can always count on a Garahan.”

  His throat tightened as gratitude swamped him. He nodded until the emotion eased up and he could speak. “You know it, but it’s been too high and we’ve been working hard to bring it back down to a controllable level.”

  “Times are tough all over, Jesse. That’s why us town folk have to stick together to help out our neighbors—the ranchers.”

  As if she could sense that her words affected him, she reached out and patted him on the arm. “Well, come on back to my office and we’ll settle up what you’ve got with you today and see where the Circle G Ranch is on my books.”

  He touched the brim of his hat. “Much obliged, Miss Pam.”

  They made their way past the strategically stacked displays of varnish and paint, Jesse making a mental note to pick some up in a couple of weeks—that is, if Dylan’s current side job paid him on time. His brother still took on a job or two as a carpenter for hire in the evenings. He grinned; that was how Ronnie had met his older brother, when he’d agreed to do the repairs to her shop after some local teenagers had destroyed the place.

  When Jesse and Miss Dawson reached the back of the store and her little hole-in-the-wall office, he started to sweat. He hated owing people but knew they’d never keep the ranch going without Miss Dawson extending them credit. Shoving those thoughts aside, he said, “It’s not a lot—”