LITMIR.BIZ

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Hamm was the prison minister. Yes, this was an example of her father not being able to say no to another hard-luck case.

      And deep down, she knew he was thinking, “I have three beautiful daughters, but I needed to have me a boy.”

      Well, Eva could shoot as well as any boy. Her younger sister Elise could ride like a boy. And the baby of the family, Emily, was a master with a hammer and nails. Half the fences on the ranch were still standing because of Emily. As a matter of fact, Emily had helped Dad draw the plans for most of the Lost Dutchman’s lodgings.

      Eva shifted nervously on her feet, all too aware of the two ailing horses in the barn who restlessly watched her. One had stepped on a muck rake and suffered a gash near her eye. Dad was keeping her under observation for a day or two. The other had a dislocated ankle. His future looked grim.

      Eva was no help at all. The sight of blood made her woozy, and the thought of trying to help hold a horse while a vet or some of the hands examined it made her...yup, just as woozy.

      She’d owned fifty plastic horses as a preteen. She’d had posters of horses on her wall. She’d read Black Beauty and all the Walter Farley books twenty times. Yet the real McCoy, an actual horse, scared her to death.

      Daisy, the horse with the gash, snorted again.

      Her dad continued. “I know he needs a job. I know he moved a lot and was in foster care. He needs a place to set down roots. Mike says he worked at horse camps during a few summers and remembers the time as the best in his life.”

      Great, she was being replaced by a city slicker who only had to muck stalls for two and a half months a few summers.

      “I don’t like this change—” Eva had more to say, but Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson’s “Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” started playing. Her father pulled his cell from his back pocket and answered, “Hubrecht.”

      As she walked away, she could hear him saying, “Yeah, I’ve been expecting your call.”

      And wasn’t that typical. With a stranger, some shiftless criminal he’d never even met, her father was all expectation. But he had no expectations for her.

      Just disappointment.

      * * *

      Jesse gathered up every crumb left over from lunch and loaded the food into a doggy bag. The monotonous task gave him time to think about what on earth he was going to do now that he had his son in his care.

      He’d spent about twenty minutes on the waitress’s cell phone, calling his parole officer and Mike Hamm to update them on his situation. The parole officer gave him an emergency appointment for tomorrow. Mike Hamm’s voice mail promised only that Mike considered the call important and would return it as soon as possible.

      Jesse knew no other people’s phone numbers, except for the man offering him a job. Taking the keys from the table, Jesse paid the check—twenty dollars gone. Then he tried to get Timmy out from under the table for the second time.

      Timmy was happy under the table.

      It took another thirty minutes and a dish of ice cream, but finally he hustled Timmy out the door and toward the old Chevy. At least his mother, or really Matilda, had left something substantial behind. Maybe he could sell it.

      Good thing his mother hadn’t thought of that.

      A quick search through the backseat showed that the suitcases and dirty laundry were all Timmy’s. The half-full boxes contained old games and toys. Not one item in the car belonged to Susan.

      Timothy Leroy Scott’s birth certificate was in an envelope in the glove box. Matilda’s name was in the box labeled Mother, but no name was listed for Father. Jesse did the math. Timmy would be five and yes, he’d been with Matilda during the time she’d conceived Timmy.

      He reminded himself to be glad his mother had gotten more organized. When she’d dumped Jesse with relatives, sometimes school wasn’t an option because he never arrived with a birth certificate.

      Maybe that’s why he’d never finished high school—too far behind and too busy trying to survive.

      “This car belong to your mother?” Jesse asked.

      Timmy stared at the ground.

      “What am I going to do with you?” Jesse asked.

      Timmy didn’t move, not an inch.

      “Has Matilda—has your mother—left you before?”

      Finally a vague response, a slight shake of the head. At least, Jesse thought it was a shake. It could have been the kid simply needed to get his hair out of his eyes.

      “Well, get in.”

      Timmy started to climb in back, but Jesse said, “No, the front’s okay.”

      The Chevy started on the third try. The radio refused to turn on. Come to find out, the air conditioner didn’t work. Jesse had no sooner pulled onto the street than the rearview mirror fell off.

      “Great,” Jesse said, tossing it in the backseat with the rest of the junk.

      The prison minister would be proud. Since leaving jail this morning, Jesse’d been maneuvering around unexpected roadblocks one right after another, and there’d been not a curse word uttered. His tongue was bleeding a little from where he’d bitten it too hard, but still...progress.

      Timmy didn’t say anything, just looked from the space where the rearview mirror should have been to Jesse as if expecting to get blamed.

      “It will be all right,” Jesse assured the boy. “My mother did the same thing to me many times, and believe me, many a day I felt as conflicted as you probably do right now.”

      Timmy gave the barest of shrugs and concentrated on whatever he could see from the window. There wasn’t much. Apache Creek was one long street of businesses, most looking fairly deserted. There were homes to the north and the freeway and hotels to the south. East and west were desert and a smattering of homes.

      The main color was brown.

      Checking his watch, Jesse groaned. It was now almost two. He needed to call the man offering him a job.

      A job.

      Right. Could be that opportunity was a thing of the past, given his new circumstances. Jesse was supposed to be a single man intent on getting his life back together. Instead—for the next few days, anyway—he’d be a man who had no clue what to do, especially not with a kid.

      And no money.

      Maybe he could get on the internet and find some of those long-lost relatives who’d taken him in when Susan disappeared on some misguided quest for happiness.

      No, the best had merely tolerated him.

      The worst had...

      No way could Jesse turn over to them a five-year-old who flinched after spilling a glass of water and who hid under tables.

      He had to get this job.

      The first convenience store didn’t have a pay phone. The second one didn’t either, but the girl behind the counter handed over her cell and said, “Go ahead, man. Just don’t leave the store.”

      Jesse motioned Timmy toward the candy aisle. Good, something sparked the kid’s interest. Then, Jesse pulled out the folded, wrinkled paper from his back pocket. For the past week, he’d stared at the name penciled on the paper every day, thinking about opportunities and fresh starts.

      And freedom.

      He punched in the number and after just one ring heard, “Hubrecht.”

      “Yes, hello, sir...” Jesse cleared his throat and started again because gravelly wasn’t the tone he was going for. “Yes, hello, my name is Jesse Campbell and—”

      “Yeah, I’ve been expecting your call. Where are

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