Love, Like Water (5 page)

“Yeah, me too.”

Jesse came barreling into the kitchen at a dead run. “I’m late!” he yelped. His mother handed him the brown paper bag with his lunch and a burrito wrapped in a paper towel, and he fled out the door on his way to the end of the drive where the school bus would pick him up. “We’ll have to watch out for Jesse,” Tucker said.

“Joshua will not hurt Jesse,” Sarafina said firmly. “Joshua won’t hurt anyone. He needs to be protected, not suspected.”

“I hope you’re right, Sara.” Tucker drank more coffee.

Sarafina put two laden plates in front of the men, and they both wordlessly dove into the piled eggs and sausage.

Chapter 4

W
HEN
Josh woke again, the light had changed, to a deeper light that he thought might signify afternoon. He’d slept better than he had last night—he didn’t remember any dreams, and Uncle Tucker had been right; the sweats he wore as pajamas were a lot more comfortable than the jeans.

The closet doors were open and he could see that some of his clothing had been hung up there. His duffel was on the floor of the closet, and his backpack set on the desk chair in the corner. A bottle of water was on the nightstand. He shifted to his side and reached for it, cracking the seal and drinking about half of it before stopping. Despite the unfamiliarity of his surroundings—his eleven-year-old self hadn’t been one for remembering much about the inside of the house, but he thought he could probably walk through the barns blindfolded—he was starting to relax, for the first time in… years. Years, for certain. Certainly before the day in his superior’s office when he was asked to volunteer for a dangerous mission, one they wouldn’t normally give to such a green agent, but one he was so uniquely suited for—to go undercover with the gangs on the West Side of Chicago, to infiltrate the biggest gang and find evidence of their connection to the cartel that ran drugs into the city. His father had been Puerto Rican, and a long-ago member of a local gang that had been absorbed by one of the newer ones. He hadn’t married Joshua’s mother; he’d been killed in a drive-by shooting a month or two before the twins were born. But his parents had fallen in love with Joshua and Catherine, and tolerated their mother, so he’d had something resembling a family.

Hannah had finished school with their help, gotten a decent job, and moved out of the neighborhood while the twins were still little, but they’d stayed connected with their Rosales grandparents—almost better than they had with Hannah’s parents, the Chastains, who lived so far away. He spent as much time running around the streets of his grandparents’ neighborhood as he did his own; in fact, most of his childhood friends had been from his father’s old stomping grounds. But his grandparents had died when he was in high school, and Hannah hadn’t liked his being down there so much when the gangs were so prevalent. Instead, they’d moved to Cincinnati when Joshua and Cathy were fifteen.

So when the assignment came up, and the Bureau needed a young, streetwise Hispanic kid, Joshua was the natural choice. He knew the culture, he spoke the language, and he looked the part. He’d been eager to take on the assignment, and his superiors had already made note of his almost-photographic memory.

He’d been perfect.

He shoved aside the sheet he’d used for a blanket—it was warm in the room, especially in sweats—and sat up on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. He’d hated Uncle Tucker seeing the scars on his arms; it was almost as if as long as he could keep those hidden, no one would know. But that was ridiculous, of course. All anyone had to do was look at him to know he was trash. At least his hair was growing out some, and hiding the gang tattoo he had on his shaven head. He was never going to shave his head again—that tattoo at least would stay hidden forever.

His stomach growled and he blinked in surprise, then remembered that, aside from the one enchilada he’d barely choked down last evening, he hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours. His not eating was nerves, mostly—his appetite was gradually coming back, but stress had a tendency to kill it again.

Sarafina must have been a mind reader—or else the rumbling had been loud enough to hear in the kitchen—because she appeared a moment later with a tray. “Good morning, Joshua!” she sang. “I have breakfast for you!”

“Thanks,” he said, and started to get up.

“No, no. You stay put.” With one foot, she shoved the empty little desk—the kind of thing a kid might have in his room—over next to the bed and set the tray on it. “Tucker says you rest, you rest. I have eggs and toast and sausage and tea.”

“Coffee…,” Joshua began, but she shook her head.

“Not yet. Tea. When you have eaten, then coffee. Your belly will not be ready for coffee without anything in it.” She clucked disapprovingly. “Especially not after being empty so long. We’re going to get you healthy again so you can take care of Tucker and the ranch. That’s your job. My job is to get you there.”

The smells coming from the tray were heavenly and Joshua felt hungrier than he had in months. Years.

“Then when you’re done eating, you’ll take a shower, and then sit out on the porch and get some fresh air. Tomorrow you can start working with Tucker.” She finished setting out the dishes on the desk, then tucked the tray under one arm and regarded him thoughtfully. “You need a lot of food, but not all at once, so there’s not a lot here. If you are still hungry in an hour, tell me, and I’ll fix you more. That is how it works with the horses. We feed them small amounts often or else they get the colic, and that is a sad, sad thing.”

“I promise not to get colic,” Joshua said soberly. She gave him a brilliant smile.

“Of course you won’t.” Her voice was confident. “We know how to take care of neglected animals around here.” With a wave, she left him alone to eat.

Which he did, slowly and thoughtfully, a bite here, a bite there, until the dishes were empty.

E
LI
had been riding fences most of the day, checking to make sure the stretch that bordered the abandoned Rocking J spread was in decent shape, now that there wasn’t the maintenance partnership the two ranches had always had. The fences, wire and wood, were susceptible to all kinds of weather and nature-related damage, and there’d been an unseasonal thunderstorm that had come through a day or two ago. He’d found two places where the fence posts had pulled loose, leaving the wire on the ground, and fixed them. Fortunately, the ranch hadn’t had any stock out to pasture at this end of the ranch, or there would have been lost animals and possible hoof damage from the fallen wire. The lost stock they would have retrieved sooner or later, but damage to the delicate frog of a horse’s hoof could lead to serious infections if left untended.

Fortunately, it wasn’t more than just a matter of digging a new hole for the posts and reattaching the wire, tools for which he carried with him. By the time he turned his mount back toward the ranch house, it was coming up on suppertime, but the whole length of the fence had been inspected.

The sun was starting to drop behind the mountains by then, and he and the horse cast a long gangly shadow that looked kind of like the drawings he’d seen of Don Quixote on his skinny nag. He’d always liked the story—it was sad, but it was true in a lot of ways; dreams mattered, and dreams were easily broken. He’d had dreams, once, of making a name for himself in the rodeo, of someday maybe going to college and becoming a vet, or of owning his own ranch, but those dreams broke easy, too, when his dad died. Then it was quitting school to go to work full time, to see that his ma was taken care of, and that Jake and Samantha had a chance at their own dreams. That was okay, though. Ma was happy up in Portland with her new husband (new, hell, they’d been married for ten years now), Jake was doing something in business in Cheyenne (he’d tried to explain what he did to Eli, but Eli kept falling asleep), and Samantha….

Well, he supposed Samantha was doing okay. She was doing what she loved, and hadn’t asked him for a dime since she hooked up with the rock band she played guitar with—and the band’s piano player. They didn’t make much money, but she seemed happy. So that was good.

But sometimes he missed them. Missed the cold clear air of Wyoming, and the broad grasslands, and the deep snows of winter. Missed home and hearth and the companionship of people who knew him, who loved him. And though he’d found his place here at the Triple C, sometimes he just missed the
belonging.

Not that it was all beer and skittles (whatever the hell skittles were, aside from the candy, and he was pretty sure those wouldn’t go too well with beer). His dad sometimes drank too much, and sometimes he and Ma would fight in low, quiet tones they thought the kids couldn’t hear. But everyone’s folks did that, and he didn’t know a single grownup male who didn’t drink occasionally. It didn’t mean they weren’t happy. It didn’t mean they weren’t loved. He never doubted that.

He did doubt his dad would have been happy about his being gay. So that, he kept quiet. Dad probably wouldn’t have thrown him out, or beat him, or any of the horrible shit he’d heard from other gay guys, but it would have been hard for him to deal with. It didn’t matter—by the time Eli was sure he was really gay, Dad was gone. He never did tell Ma.

Eli had had a few years in the rodeo, earning a few extra bucks in prize money on occasion, but mostly just beating the shit out of his body. When he started to feel old and stiff getting up in the mornings, he quit. He’d been twenty-five.

Just about the age Tuck’s nephew had been, from what Tuck said, when he took on the assignment that had messed him up.

He rode along the main road back to the house, since he was there already, and stopped to pick up the mail Henry’d stuffed into the box. Not a lot: a few bills, some flyers, and the Miller Post-Dispatch, the town’s eight-page newspaper, which was mostly advertisements and the odd birth or death notice. To his surprise, though, the front page had a picture of the ranch and a short piece about Tucker’s nephew, “a noted FBI profiler.” He snorted. Got it wrong again. At least they didn’t have a picture of the guy—there was nothing notable about him the state he was in.

Joshua was sitting on the porch in one of the rockers when he rode up. He tipped his hat to him in a casual salute before riding into the stable where he stripped the mare down and gave her a good brushing before turning her loose in the paddock. When he came out, Tuck was sitting beside his nephew. Eli pulled off his gloves and slapped them on the side of his thigh to dislodge the dust. “Evenin’, Tuck. Josh. Glad to see you’re both looking rested.” Eli sent Tuck a mock-indignant glance. “While the rest of us were out riding fence and ya know, working.”

“Privilege of being the boss. How’s the fence?”

“Fixed. Couple places we’ll need to replace rotten posts, but they’ll hold another couple of weeks, likely. Long as we get ’em replaced before winter. ’Course, if you end up buying that parcel, we’ll just have to move it, anyway.”

“It’s likely I’ll buy at least a few hundred acres. I think I can get them down another couple thousand. I’d like to expand the training facilities, maybe add more cattle, since it’s decent grazing land with the creeks watering it. And we’ll be picking up more stock after all. A couple of the ranchers up north are getting out of the wild horse business, so there’ll be more coming our way.”

“How come?”

Tuck shrugged. “More money in cattle, and that’s their primary business. The money the government pays for the trapping isn’t great, and they’re not in the business of training, so they just have to ship the animals somewhere else anyway. So we’re working out a deal to take over some of the land they cover. They’ll lend us some men for the initial roundup and to move ’em, but we’ll take the responsibility.”

“Can we manage?”

“Well enough, especially if Joshua picks up the bookkeeping end of it and I can get back out in the field.” Tuck added, “Rodney says the bay mare’s pregnant. I’m thinking the proud papa’s that stallion that came in with the bunch we culled in June. I knew we oughta gelded him quicker.”

“Woulda had to catch him quicker. He was slicker’n snot, that boy.”

“Sad but true.”

“What happened to him?” Josh asked.

Eli was surprised; he hadn’t thought the man was paying any attention to the conversation. “Once he was gelded, he calmed down considerable. Nice horse. Barrel racer bought him last month. Gonna train him over the winter and put him on the rodeo circuit next spring. He’ll be good at that—quick as lightning and agile as a snake. Mustangs make good rodeo horses, once they’re socialized.” Eli leaned on the porch railing. “So what else did Rodney say?”

“Who’s Rodney?” Joshua frowned. “Did I meet him at lunch?”

“No, he’s the vet. Was here this morning when you were asleep.” Tuck turned back to Eli. “Clean bill of health for the stock he saw today—he’ll be back next week to look at the rest.”

“Good.” Eli nodded. “Oh, by the way, I stopped for the mail.” He pulled the wad of papers out of his back pocket. “We made the front page.”

“What?” Tuck took the mail from him and opened the newspaper. “Profiler? Heh. Joshua, you know you’re a noted FBI profiler?”