A Weaver Vow Read online

  “Talk to Lucy,” he suggested. He didn’t look amused. Exactly. But his tight jaw had relaxed just a little. It was still sharply angled, coming to a point with a whisper of a cleft in his chin. “She’ll vouch for me,” he added.

  “Lucy Ventura?” She folded her arms, giving him a considering look. He was tall. Taller even than Jimmy had been, and he’d been six-three. This man was also broader in the shoulders, which—along with his chin or anything else about him—wasn’t anything she ought to be noticing. Jimmy had only been gone for nine months. “You know her?”

  “You could say that. She’s my cousin.”

  “Oh.” She dropped her arms and pushed her hair away from her face. Knowing that he was related to Lucy made her feel some hope that the situation could be redeemed. Not only had she and Lucy worked together in New York, they’d also been roommates for a time.

  But that had all happened before Jimmy Bartholomew blew into Isabella’s life.

  “Here.” Erik handed her the dirt-smudged baseball. It was clearly Murphy’s. She recognized his scrawled signature on it that he’d added when Jimmy had given it to him. Pretending to be a big-league player, or just marking his own territory among his hoodlum friends. Whatever his reasons had been, there was no way Murphy could deny it was his ball.

  She took it, rubbing her thumb over the stitching. She remembered the day Jimmy had given it to Murphy as if it had been yesterday.

  Despair threatened to roll over her.

  For her, Jimmy had been a whirlwind. Sweeping her off her feet one minute with buckets of flowers and outrageous displays, and proposing the next in front of his entire firehouse. But they’d never made it to a wedding.

  It wasn’t even three months from the moment they’d met until she and Jimmy’s son were standing beside his grave.

  She looked over at Murphy. When his father died, Murphy lost everyone he had.

  Now he only had her because of the tenuous approval she’d received from a family court judge that placed him provisionally under her guardianship.

  “Thank you,” she whispered huskily. She held up the baseball between her fingers. “The ball means a lot to Murphy.”

  She could see Erik’s jaw tighten again. “Then he shouldn’t be tossing it at passing vehicles.”

  Another thing she could blame herself for. She’d been the one to send Murphy outside in the first place, thinking she could finish closing up the diner more quickly without him inside and underfoot, constantly complaining that he wanted to go home.

  She wanted to believe that Murphy hadn’t done it on purpose. But experience had taught her to be wary.

  She looked along the street. There were plenty of cars slanted into the curb up and down Main, parked in front of the various businesses there. Not a single vehicle had driven by during their argument, though.

  She’d wanted a place different than the city. She’d definitely gotten it. No Starbucks on every other corner in Weaver. No Starbucks at all, in fact. Just homey cafés like Ruby’s that served up coffee the old-fashioned way, and no other.

  She gestured toward the front door. “Do you want to go inside? We can work out the details.” She wished she could see past his sunglasses. Get a better gauge on how merciful he might be inclined to be. “The least I can do is offer you some coffee.” She managed a hopeful smile, even though all she wanted to do was put her head down on her arms and cry.

  “Throw in a piece of pie if you’ve got it,” he suggested as he headed around the truck for the driver’s side. “And we’ll talk. Meantime, I’ll get this out of the middle of the road.”

  Murphy came off the bench when the truck engine started with a low growl. “What about my bat?”

  Isabella shushed him. “Don’t worry about your bat.” She tucked the ball in her pocket and closed her hands over his thin shoulders, steering him toward the open door. “You’re lucky he’s not calling the police,” she hissed. Inside, she pointed at the corner booth where his schoolbooks were still stacked. “Go sit over there and do some homework.” His sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Rasmussen, was a big believer in homework. Murphy had hours of it every day.

  “I’m done with my homework, remember?” Murphy rolled his eyes and slunk over to the corner.

  How could she forget? It was because he’d been done with his homework that he’d wanted to go home. But she wasn’t finished at the café yet, and she couldn’t trust him to be alone yet. With no other option left for after-school care for him—she couldn’t afford it—he had to come to Ruby’s, where she could provide some supervision.

  “Then redo it,” she suggested wearily. She didn’t think she’d ever been so tired in her life. “Just sit over there and be quiet while I try to get us out of this mess.”

  “I wasn’t doing nothing wrong.”

  “Really?” She gave him a look. “Like you weren’t doing anything wrong when you were caught red-handed vandalizing a brownstone in our own neighborhood?”

  He slid down into the booth, ignoring her.

  She sighed and went behind the counter to put a pot of coffee on to brew. Then she went to the refrigerator case and pulled out an apple pie. She cut off a large wedge and popped it in the microwave to warm. If she was going to try bribery with coffee and pie, she might as well go all the way.

  She was placing a large scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream on top of the pie when Erik appeared in the doorway. He was so large that he seemed to block out the afternoon sun for a moment. When he stepped inside, he pulled off his cap and rubbed his hand over his hair.

  Dark blond. Lighter than the whiskers on his angular jaw. Cut short, it was thick and full even with the dent in it from his ball cap. Her mouth felt dry and she swallowed a little, looking down at what she was doing.

  “Can I have a piece of that?” Murphy asked when she set the plate on top of the lunch counter.

  Isabella nodded and started to turn toward the refrigerator case again.

  “Please.” At Erik’s deep voice, she paused, looking back. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Murphy, over in the red vinyl corner booth. “Please,” he prompted again.

  Murphy’s lips twisted. “You’re not my dad,” he muttered, not quite low enough to go unheard.

  “Damn skippy,” Erik returned flatly. “If I were, you’d have enough manners to use please when you should, and you wouldn’t curse around a lady.”

  The two males stared each other down for a moment. Isabella, who’d given the whole please-and-thank-you-and-no-cursing speech to Murphy countless times, was ready to break in when Murphy grunted, “Please may I have a piece of pie?” His tone was sarcastic.

  Isabella quickly nudged the plate she’d already prepared closer to Erik. “Ice cream is melting.” She set up a folded paper napkin with a knife, fork and spoon next to the plate and filled a coffee mug. “Sugar or cream?”

  “No thanks.” With a last glance toward Murphy, he lifted one jean-clad leg over the padded red stool. “Looks great. Thanks.” He slid the flatware aside and shook out the napkin, tossing it over his lap.

  His ball cap was stained with God knew what; she was pretty sure it was mud caking the bottom of his jeans; his plaid short-sleeved shirt was damp with sweat and he smelled of hay. At least, she was guessing it was hay. But he used a paper napkin on his lap.

  Shaking off her strange bemusement, she cut a slice of pie for Murphy, heated it for a few seconds and added ice cream to his, as well. She didn’t even consider telling him to come get it. She wanted to keep as much distance between Murphy and Erik as possible.

  She took it with a glass of milk over to the booth and set it in front of him. “You’ll still have to eat your dinner,” she warned.

  He didn’t answer. But his gaze flicked past her, then back down to his pie. “Thanks,” he muttered a moment before he shoveled a forkful into his mouth.

  Isabella pushed her hand into the side pocket of her uniform, toying with the baseball stuffed there. The pink dress was simple
and clean, and she was perfectly happy to wear it, since it came with a paying job. Between it and the classes that Lucy had hired her to teach over at her dance studio, it would keep a roof—barely—over her and Murphy’s heads. “You’re welcome.” She headed back behind the lunch counter. Having three feet of laminate countertop between her and Erik Clay seemed like a good thing. Having her hormones climb out of Jimmy’s grave at this point was completely unacceptable.

  “Okay,” she said on a sigh. “Exactly how many hours on how many Saturdays are we talking about?” Murphy still had a few months left of school before summer vacation. And if his grades remained as poor as they were, she knew he’d be taking summer school, if it was even available. Otherwise, there’d be no choice but to add tutoring to an already thin budget. He also had to meet regularly with his therapist. It had been mandated by the court as a condition of her being allowed to bring him to Wyoming.

  All of which, of course, could come to a screeching halt once their caseworker visited in seven weeks and made her final evaluation.

  She blocked the thought.

  Handling one worry at a time right now was about all she could manage.

  “Well, now, that’s a fair question.” Erik tapped the tines of his fork softly against the surface of the plate a few times before he set the fork down altogether. He slowly tugged off his sunglasses and dropped them on the countertop next to the coffee mug.

  Then his gaze lifted to hers, and Isabella’s heart nearly skipped a beat.

  Violet. His eyes were violet. Elizabeth Taylor violet. Surrounded by thick, spiky brown lashes that ought to have looked feminine but didn’t. Nor did she make the mistake of thinking the color was derived from contact lenses. Not with this man.

  “You bring him out next Saturday,” he said, mercifully unaware of her thoughts. “Not this week. I’m busy moving stock with my uncle. But next. For four hours. We’ll see how it goes from there. If he works hard, maybe he won’t have to bless me with his charming company all the way through spring and summer, and we’ll call it quits after a few months. If he doesn’t...” He shrugged and picked up his fork again, looking as if it made no difference to him whatsoever.

  She chewed the inside of her lip. It was late March. She was praying she still had Murphy come the end of the summer. “But if he does work steadily, you’ll consider everything squared? Maybe even by the end of the school year?”

  His gaze didn’t waver from her face. “I won’t call the sheriff, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  She didn’t care about being so transparent. When it came to Murphy, she didn’t have that luxury. “It is.” She wanted to look away from Erik’s mesmerizing eyes but couldn’t seem to.

  “Got a pen?”

  She automatically handed him the pen from her pocket. He leaned across the counter and grabbed a fresh napkin from the metal dispenser near his coffee mug, his arm brushing against hers. Without so much as a blink, he sat back on his stool and scratched out a few words on the napkin.

  There was no quelling the shudder rippling down her spine as she whirled around, busying herself with the coffeepot that needed no busying. Without looking at him, she grabbed the cleaning rag she’d abandoned when she’d heard the commotion outside and started running it over the vinyl seats of the stools lining the long counter. When she reached Erik, she stopped and looked at what he’d written.

  Four hours every Saturday through end of school year but no later than end of summer in return for destruction of stained-glass window.

  He’d signed and dated it.

  Hardly legalese, but she didn’t care. He was Lucy’s cousin and she could only hope that he was just as decent. The fact that he hadn’t immediately summoned the sheriff when he could have was already more than Murphy deserved. “Do you want me to sign it, too?”

  He shook his head. He jabbed the pen in Murphy’s direction. “He does.”

  Chapter Two

  “You let a set of pretty eyes and a smokin’ body get to you, didn’t you?” Erik’s cousin Casey gave him a knowing look before focusing on lining up his pool shot. With a smooth stroke, he broke the balls, sending them rolling across the felt, sinking two. Case straightened and walked around the table, studying his options. “Otherwise, you’d have hauled that kid straight over to Max.”

  Max was their cousin Sarah’s husband. He was also the local sheriff. “I thought about it,” Erik admitted. He picked up the chalk from the side of the table.

  It was a Friday night. He’d spent half the past week hauling Double-C cattle with his uncle Matthew. They were playing out at Erik’s place tonight because lately Case had taken some aversion to playing at their usual spot in town. Colbys offered up plenty of pool tables as well as a cold beer and a burger. But getting his cousin over there these days was like pulling teeth.

  Instead, Casey willingly drove forty minutes outta town to come to Erik’s place.

  Leaving that particular mystery alone for now, he thought about his encounter with the Lockhart woman and her kid the week before. “I didn’t even notice her eyes—” bull “—or anything else about her. It was remembering the times when I could have been hauled into the sheriff’s office for some stupid stunt.” He chalked his cue even though it didn’t look as if Case was going to stop clearing the table anytime soon. “Same as you.”

  His cousin grinned slightly. “Yeah, but that was when Sawyer was sheriff. He’d have gone easy.”

  Erik snorted. Sawyer was their uncle. A Clay through and through who put family above nearly everything. Except the law. “He’d have skinned us and hung us up to dry just to teach us a lesson.”

  “Or handed us over to Squire.” Case was still grinning. “Let the old man teach us a lesson or two.”

  Squire was their grandfather. And if his sons were a hard, demanding lot, they came by it honestly enough from him.

  “Dad told me the other day he thinks Squire’s mellowing in his old age.”

  At that, his cousin finally missed a shot. “Right,” he drawled. “And you didn’t notice the Lockhart lady’s pretty eyes.”

  Erik ignored that and took over the table.

  “So she’ll be bringing the kid out here tomorrow morning?”

  “Yup.” He sank a ball and moved around to the end of the table, lining up his next shot.

  “What’re you gonna have him do?”

  “Shovel crap by hand for a few hours. Hell, I don’t know. Pick rocks outta that field I haven’t cleared yet.” He got pissed all over again just thinking about it and he blew the shot.

  Case grinned. “Just hand your money over now,” he suggested as he took over the table again.

  Erik grimaced and slapped a ten down on the side of the table. Then he returned his cue to the rack on the wall and went behind the wooden bar that Case, his father, Daniel, and Erik had built a few summers earlier. He grabbed a cold bottle from the refrigerator beneath the bar.

  His cousin had the pool table cleared in seconds. “You want one?” Erik asked.

  Case stuck the cue he’d been using in the rack. “I want a real beer. Not that prissy stuff you drink.”

  Erik pulled out a longneck and slid it across the bar. “Don’t be sneering at my root beer,” he said mildly. They both knew that if he chose to, he could drink Casey under the table. “Ordered this up special on the internet from some place in Colorado.” He held up the dark brown bottle and smiled. “Home-brewed and smooth as cream. Lady who makes it is as old as Squire, or I think I’d be in love.”

  His cousin rolled his eyes. He took the beer and they headed up the stairs, ending up in the kitchen, where Erik had a pot of chili on the stove. He wasn’t much of a cook, but a thirty-one-year-old man whose closest dining alternative was forty-minutes away tended to be able to scrounge a few things together. Between that and the frozen stuff his mother, aunts and cousins kept him supplied with, he managed well enough.

  They filled their bowls and then went onto the porch that overlooked E
rik’s land.

  “You gonna tear that old barn down anytime soon?” Case asked after he’d shoveled in most of his chili.

  They leaned back in the oversize chairs that Erik had bought from a woodcrafter in Gillette, their boot heels propped on the wood rail in front of them. “Sometime this summer, maybe.” The barn was the only structure still standing from when Erik had bought the property four years earlier.

  He could have helped Matt run the Double-C. The Clay family ranch was the largest one in the state. But Erik had wanted something to call his own. “Gotten sort of used to looking at it.” That, or he was starting to get lazy. He always had plenty of other things around the ranch to keep him busy, anyway. Chores never stopped in his business. And now his heifers were starting to calve. Another month, and there’d be more calves to deal with. Plus, he wanted to get started on the addition to his house.

  The work went on and on. But it was the life he’d chosen. And the life he loved.

  Casey yawned and slouched down in the chair another few inches. “So what’re you gonna do about the window?”

  Erik grimaced. “Haven’t decided.”

  “Jessica’d make you another one.”

  “She thought I was getting ready to propose,” Erik reminded. He still could hardly wrap his head around it. They hadn’t even been serious. At least, that was what he’d thought. “Last month, after the whole window incident, she told me to eat glass and die.” The window had been a heartfelt gift intended to pave the way for their future. She’d said a whole lot more when Erik had had to tell her how he felt—or didn’t feel—but what still made Erik feel bad were the tears in her eyes when she’d said it. He didn’t make a habit of hurting women like that, and he wished he could undo those few months of seeing her altogether. She hadn’t been a nutcase. She’d been a perfectly nice woman. But that hadn’t meant he’d been even remotely thinking marriage, now or way the hell off in the future.