Unbreakable (27 page)

“Casper’s a good man,” she said, and meant it. Not very many men would take on a boy they’d only known a few weeks and whose name they couldn’t recall without prompting.

Clay dropped his last corn dog to his plate, pushing it away after only one bite. “I guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

“You did pretty good.” Better than her. She’d lost her appetite around the same time Clay told her he’d been an accident.

“We should probably go.” He scooted toward the edge of his seat. “So I can pay the lady for the book.”

And with those few words her whole world flipped. She was going to do anything she could to help Casper with this boy. “Sounds like a plan.”

“A
NY PROBLEMS SO
far having Clay around?” Casper asked, jumping onto the flatbed of the ranch pickup and opening the toolbox. He tossed out a handsaw and pair of pruners.

“Nope.” Boone took the saw, turned to look at the patch of cedar seedlings that had taken hold of a big section of pasture and had to come down. “Seems like a nice kid. Polite. Respectful. Haven’t talked to him much.”

“He’s not in the way?” Casper hopped down, stretched to grab the pruners, testing the edges of the blades with his thumb. “Doing what he’s supposed to do?”

Boone nodded, reaching for the gloves tucked into his belt. “So far. And, nope, not in the way.”

The last thing Casper wanted to do was put more of a burden on his partners. Clay was old enough to fend for himself, but he’d never ranched, didn’t know the schedule or the expectations. He
was still a bit like a kid in a candy store, room to roam, acres to explore, animals and their temperaments to learn. So far, he’d fit right in, but Casper knew teen boys. He’d keep an eye on him.

“He’s a hell of a cook. Gotta give him that,” Boone said, planting his saw beneath the lowest branches of the closest of the scraggly trees and bending back the trunk with his other hand.

“Yep, he is.” Casper pulled on his gloves to tackle a bunch of the thigh-high cedars. Damn trees dropped seeds that took root like wildfire, spreading across a pasture to choke out the grass. It was an ongoing matter of stewardship that kept the land productive for the long term.

Next go around he’d bring Clay to help, explain why the culling had to be done. Make the boy feel a part of things, give him a sense of belonging. Then pray he didn’t have it all ripped away down the road.

“He was pretty quiet this morning.”

“You think?” Casper asked, frowning as he moved down the line of young trees. He hadn’t noticed, which pretty much made him role model of the year.

Boone took a minute to finish sawing, chucking the downed tree toward the truck as he straightened. “He’s usually rambling on about something while he’s frying up eggs. Barely got a word outta him this morning.”

“I was half asleep and shoveling food in my face. I never did get supper last night.” Because he’d stayed at Summerlin’s longer than usual, making a few extra bucks that wouldn’t matter in the long run. He’d never have enough.

“Might be he’s worried how his being here’s going to play out,” Boone said, bending back the trunk of the next tree.

Hmm. What was going on that Casper had missed? Clay hadn’t given any indication of being worried about what might
happen to him. If anything, he’d seemed relieved to be settling in. Unless something had come up with Faith last night…

Goddammit. The woman had butted in where she didn’t belong. He’d bet the ranch on it. “I’m gonna lay this one at your sister’s door.”

Boone stood and turned to face Casper. The look on his face was the one he got every time Faith’s name came up in conversation. “What the hell does Faith have to do with it?”

Most likely everything. “I had to make a trip out to Summerlin’s last night. I had Faith bring Clay home and feed him.”

“And you think she said something to upset him?”

Said something. Asked something. The woman was like a burrowing chigger when she wanted answers. “I dunno. Maybe. He was fine when I left them. Makes sense it was Faith.”

Boone blew him off with a flip of the bird and got back to work. “Makes sense you’re looking to shuck the blame.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“Between here and the house, you’re working him pretty hard.” Boone’s words jerked as he sawed. “Could be he’s just tired. Or he’s getting sick.”

“You make it sound like I’m running a sweatshop.”

“You sure as hell aren’t the one doing the sweating.”

Grumbling under his breath, Casper lopped off one treetop after another until he’d cleared the small patch he’d been working. He tossed the pruners to the ground at the back of the truck, started gathering the foliage that, left to dry rot, would make great tender in the case of a lightning strike. Not that there was much else in the pasture to burn, but the preventative measure made a perfect case for being safe rather than sorry.

He moved to the next bunch of trees, mulling over what Boone had said. He wasn’t dumping too much on Clay. Hell, at
fourteen, he and his boys had been putting in fourteen-hour Saturdays on this very ranch, and that on top of school and football and hours of homework and practice each week. Running a vacuum and doing the dishes and keeping up with the laundry didn’t compare.

The cooking was Clay’s idea, and after just a couple of weeks Casper and Boone were placing orders, seeing what the boy could produce, challenging his skills. Clay had come through every time, and seemed to get a kick out of surprising them. Sure as hell beat a regular diet of Boone’s hamburger steaks, and his own weak attempts at hash.

That was one big difference between him and Clay. He’d never had the initiative to make the best out of his situation. All he’d wanted to do was escape it, going back to the house on Mulberry Street only when he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Dax’s house hadn’t been on the rotation, but the two of them had spent plenty of nights at Boone’s, gobbling down Mrs. Mitchell’s pot roast and gravy and the always warm from the oven chocolate chip cookies and apple pie.

Hell, some nights after football practice, he had come out here, checked in with Tess and Dave to see what might need doing. Tess would feed him fried Spam and potatoes with milk, and Dave would walk with him out to the barn, finding something to keep him busy so he didn’t have to go home. The Daltons, like the Mitchells, knew the truth of his life in Crow Hill.

And as much as the assignment to help them out had been handed down from Boone’s parents to their son, Casper suspected now the Mitchells had been just as intent on giving him a taste of structure, responsibility, normalcy—all the things they provided their children, and Suzanne wouldn’t have known had they jumped up and bit her bony whore’s ass.

He hefted the pruners toward the next cluster of seedlings. It hit the ground and raised a cloudburst of seedpods and dirt. Behind him, Boone’s saw rasped steadily. The sweet pitchy scene of cedar tickled Casper’s nose. He scrunched up his face, sneezed, sneezed again. If Clay was feeling bad, it could be allergies, cedar, or other pollen blowing in.

Guess he was going to have to make a plan for doctor bills and meds, though he was getting ahead of himself on that. Still, if he was going to take on this boy, doing it right wasn’t going to be cheap. And, he mused, sneezing again, he couldn’t do it any other way.

“You gonna stand there all day spewing germs?”

“I was just wondering if some of this might be why Clay’s feeling bad,” he said, then added before he thought better of it, “and why Faith has money you don’t.” He glanced toward Boone just in time to duck the saw flying at his head. “Jesus Christ, Boone.”

“What’re you talking about?” the other man demanded, advancing. He snagged his saw from the ground before Casper thought to grab it, brandishing it as he said, “Faith has a good-paying job. I have you for a partner. Seems pretty obvious to me.”

“Not that money.” Casper crossed to pick up his pruners. “The other money. The big money.”

Boone tugged down his hat until his eyes were slits of big bad brother lost in the shadow of the brim. “You know about her money?”

“I know she has it. I want to know where she got it.”

“How do you know she has it?” Boone asked a long moment later, his voice low and measured.

Casper thought fast. “Something she said one day. At the bank, I guess. When I wanted cash to put into the house.”

“Bullshit. Faith doesn’t talk about her money,” Boone said, raising his fist and aiming the sharp teeth of the saw at Casper. “And you don’t be talking about it either. Not to anyone. Including Dax.”

Fucking hell. What had Faith gotten herself into? “Do you see Dax? I’m just talking to you.”

“Well, don’t. It’s Faith’s deal. If she mentioned it,” Boone said, taking hold of another tree and bending it to his will, “and I’m more inclined to believe you happened to be in her office and eavesdropped, then ask her. Just don’t expect an answer.”

Like sister, like brother on that score. “You have a falling out with a favorite uncle or something? He cut you out of the will?”

Up came the saw again. “What the fuck did I just say to you? I’m not telling you anything about the money. It’s none of my business. And it’s sure as hell none of yours.”

“Fine. Jesus.” Casper took an exaggerated step in retreat, earning a roll of Boone’s eyes as he got back to the tiny cedars.

It was pretty apparent that Faith’s money was a sore spot, making it doubtful she would’ve said anything to her family about spending it on him. Hard to think Boone would be happy to learn that was the case, meaning Casper needed to be more careful about opening his big mouth.

He’d suss out the truth soon enough. He’d just have to find another way to get beyond that particular wall Faith had erected. Shouldn’t be hard. He was learning his way around her defenses. A few more nights together, he’d get there.

And it wasn’t like doing so would be a chore. In fact, he could see himself taking his time, making sure she enjoyed his run at the truth as much as he would.

By the time he’d settled all that in his mind and looked up, he was a good half-mile from the truck. Crap. He was going to have to make the same trip back, gathering up the tree trash as he
went. No way in hell was Boone in the mood to give him a hand, much less a ride.

And then he dropped the bundle he was carrying, listening as the other man gunned the engine and drove the flatbed away, leaving him with a hell of a mess to clean up on his own, and then a hell of a long walk home.

“W
HAT THE HELL
did you say to Clay?”

“When?” Faith asked in response, rather than wasting her time on any sort of cordial greeting. Manners were lost on the man.

Seeing him at her door when she’d looked through the peephole had surprised her. She’d already decided it would fall to her to break the silence between them, but she was not going to do it over the phone. And yet going to see him yesterday had only made things worse, or it had once she’d discovered his runaway was also a shoplifter, and that Casper, though not in denial over the crime, had tried to justify it as a matter of survival.

Right. A nearly ten-dollar paperback. The difference between life and death.

Yesterday was the first time in over a week they’d been face-to-face. She’d told him what she’d learned about the house coming into his father’s possession. He’d told her he knew Clay was
a thief. That was it. They hadn’t talked about what she’d found in his bedroom on Mulberry Street. They hadn’t talked about much of anything since he’d discovered her there.

Nothing about the words and the sketches and the fire he’d set to get rid of them. And now here he was, as if that afternoon had only happened in her mind. As if their relationship hadn’t screeched to a halt when he’d walked out and left her to deal with his efforts to annihilate his past.

She thought now about inviting him in, but since he couldn’t be civil, she stopped thinking about it. Let him fight the moths and mosquitoes circling her porch light. Served him right, coming to her front door and jumping down her throat.

“The other night.” He pulled off his hat, waved it into the insect cloud, smacked his hand to his neck when he was dive-bombed in retaliation. “When I had to leave to go to Summerlin’s and asked you to feed Clay and get him home.”

She hedged. “I don’t know. We talked about the menu at the Blackbird Diner.”

“Wait.” Casper shook his head as if dislodging something peskier than a bug. “You took him to the diner? In public?”

“You told me to feed him,” she said. If he’d been nicer she might’ve apologized, shared her concerns that she’d made a mistake.

“Jesus, Faith. I didn’t tell you to take him out and expose him to the Crow Hill gossip mill.”

“Sorry.” She crossed her arms, bare in her summer work wardrobe of a sleeveless white blouse. “I’m not used to subterfuge. Besides. He knew Teri. You’ve obviously taken him by there.”

“Only to pick up food. Not to put him on display.” He batted at another swarm. “Would it be too much trouble to let me in? Before I get eaten alive?”

She opened the door wider, shut it behind him, tried not to breathe deeply until he was downwind. Her body’s response to him did not belong in this conversation. “I didn’t put him on display. I fed him like you asked. And then I took him by Kendall’s to pay for the book he stole.”

“Jesus Christ.” He tossed his hat to her coffee table, collapsed onto her sofa, scrubbed his hands down his face. “Jesus H. Christ.”

His weariness got to her. He was fighting so much. The ranch and his lack of money. The house and his attached past. The boy and the approach of Clay’s legal battles. And then it hit her. Clay hadn’t told him that she’d taken him by Kendall’s bookstore.

That while he’d gone inside, she’d waited at the front window, watching him shuffle to the counter to pay, his head down. That she’d mouthed a silent thank you to her friend for letting the boy off once he’d apologized and made restitution.

She returned to the kitchen and her abandoned pizza, got both of them a beer and handed his to him without a single glance at his jeans or his thighs. “He told me you wouldn’t like it if I called the cops.”