A Weaver Vow Page 7

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Around one or so. My cousin J.D. will be there and she has a couple boys Murph’s age. He’s sixth grade, right?” He barely waited for her nod. “They’d be in Rob Rasmussen’s class, too, then. Zach and Connor Forrest. He’ll have a good time. Maybe start settling in,” he coaxed.

  “You’re throwing my words back at me.”

  “Just being neighborly,” he countered. “Offering an opportunity.”

  “We’re not neighbors,” she pointed out.

  His smile just widened. “Ask Murph. See if he’s interested.” His tone was the very definition of reasonableness. The kind of tone she’d often used herself when someone was being completely unreasonable. “Just ask,” he suggested. “If he doesn’t want to go, no sweat.”

  “Fine,” she said abruptly. “I’ll ask him.” It was safe enough when she knew for a fact that if it were up to Murphy, he’d just as soon sleep away his entire Sunday as do anything else. And he certainly wouldn’t want to spend more time with the man he considered his jailer.

  Chapter Five

  “What do you mean you want to go to the Clays’ barbecue?” Isabella stared at Murphy. It was eight o’clock in the morning. On a Sunday.

  And he wasn’t still in bed.

  He was sitting at the little dining-room table, wearing his ancient airplane-print pajamas that his dad had given him long before Isabella had entered the picture. He had his math and history books open in front of him.

  Voluntarily doing homework.

  Had she dropped like Alice into some other dimension?

  She was pretty sure she wasn’t dreaming. The floor was too cold beneath her bare feet. “I mean I wanna go.” Murphy hunched his shoulders defensively and the worn pj’s stretched nearly to breaking point. “Why are you all mad and stuff?”

  She didn’t want him to be defensive. She just wanted him to be happy with this life she was trying to make for them. “I’m sorry.” She pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. “I’m not mad. I’m surprised.”

  Not to mention positively stymied. She wanted—needed—to avoid Erik Clay.

  Murphy didn’t look at her. Just stared intently at his math book. The worksheet beside the book was only partially filled in with his scrawling handwriting.

  “So? Can we go?” His lips twisted. “Or are you going to ruin that, too?”

  She swallowed the blow of that. “What else do you think I’ve ruined?”

  He slammed his book shut and shoved back from the table. “Everything!” He stormed out of the room.

  A moment later she heard the slam of his bedroom door.

  She propped her head in her hands and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. She wanted to slam doors, too.

  But she was the parent here.

  Or as close as Murphy had to one.

  She dropped her hands. Slid Murphy’s worksheet toward herself. Half the answers he’d scrawled were incorrect. She looked at the papers. He also had a history worksheet about elections and voting. Murphy had written “Who cares” in bold letters across the bottom.

  She sighed again. His teachers back in New York had suggested to Jimmy that Murphy would benefit from tutoring. But Jimmy had insisted that he could handle it. That had been his motto, pretty much. He’d handle it.

  But he hadn’t. In their brief time together, he hadn’t handled a lot of things.

  She felt disloyal even thinking it.

  She pinched her eyes until the burning subsided, then pushed away from the table. She went down the short hallway and knocked once on Murphy’s bedroom door before she opened it.

  He was lying on his bed, tossing his baseball glove in the air.

  “Murphy, everything here is new for me, too.” She picked up a discarded T-shirt from the floor and tossed it in the wicker basket that served as a hamper. “And I know it’s been hard for you. But I’m not your enemy. If you really want to go to the barbecue, then of course we’ll go.”

  His jaw canted. He gave her a suspicious look. “It’s jus’ ’cause Erik said they’d be playing a game.”

  “A baseball game?”

  He nodded.

  She let out a little breath. Of course Murphy would want to play, given an opportunity. “When did he tell you this?”

  “Yesterday. While we was checking the water tank for leaks. The cows drink a lot of water.”

  “Do they?” Her voice was faint. She didn’t know whether to be furious with Erik or grateful. She was fairly certain he wasn’t the kind of man who’d use a boy to get to a woman. But she’d have to make sure.

  Murphy wasn’t a tool to be used by anyone.

  But if that wasn’t Erik’s motive, why, oh why was he bending over backward to help Murphy, considering the way he and Murphy had started out?

  “There’s natural water on his land, too, but these cows are separated ’cause they’re all pregnant. And they all gotta have salt and minerals and stuff, too. Not jus’ grass.”

  She cautiously sat on the foot of the bed. “Do you think you might start to actually like going out to work on Erik’s ranch?” If he did, maybe Erik’s suggestion that she take him out there after school might have some merit. She could figure out a way to master her hormones if Murphy was going to benefit, couldn’t she?

  The boy tossed the glove. Caught the glove. Tossed it again.

  “It’s just ’cause of that stupid window,” he finally muttered. “Are we going or not?”

  “Yes. We’ll go.” She pushed off the bed, not letting herself think about how doing so might affect her. “But you have to eat breakfast and clean your room first.”

  His lip curled and he just grunted. But she fancied that she saw a glint of something that might be approaching happiness in his dark eyes.

  It was enough to make just about anything worthwhile.

  She left his room and went into her own. She quietly closed the door and called Lucy’s cell phone. But all she reached was her friend’s voice mail. Keeping her voice low so that Murphy wouldn’t overhear her through the wall, she left a message to call. She knew her voice sounded shaky. But she couldn’t help it.

  As long as Lucy was at the barbecue, everything would be fine.

  And then, because common courtesy dictated, she dialed again.

  Unlike Lucy, Erik answered on the third ring. “Isabella,” he greeted.

  She cursed caller ID. And the fact that just hearing his voice made her knees feel wobbly. “Murphy said he’d like to go to the barbecue,” she said abruptly. If he gloated, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.

  “He ought to enjoy himself. There’ll be plenty to keep him occupied. What about you? Are you coming? Or do you want me to pick up Murphy on my way through town?”

  She hesitated. “You’d do that? Take him even if I didn’t go?”

  She heard him sigh a little. “Isabella, I told you that what goes on with Murphy isn’t conditional on you. Friends or more, or nothing at all. Sooner or later you’ll understand that I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

  There was nothing but sincerity in his tone. She sank down onto the foot of the bed. “I’m sorry.” She stared across the room at a framed photo of Jimmy and Murphy sitting on her dresser. She’d taken it the day that Jimmy finally took Murphy to his first Yankees game. His first and only game. The excursion had landed Jimmy back in the hospital for the third time in as many weeks, and that time he hadn’t come out. “I’m afraid I haven’t had a lot of experience with things being unconditional.”

  “Is Lucy’s friendship conditional?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Think of me like Lucy, then.”

  A laugh escaped before she could stop it. “You’re not Lucy.”

  “Am I going to scare you off even more if I say I’m glad you noticed?”

  She couldn’t get more scared off than she already was. And that wasn’t something she had any intention of divulging. “Murphy and I will drive ourselves out to the barbecue,” she sa
id instead. “I just need the directions.”

  Standing in his bathroom cleaning up after his morning chores, Erik smiled.

  * * *

  “It’s huge,” Murphy said, staring out the car window with undisguised awe.

  “Yeah.” Isabella was staring, too.

  There was just no way to avoid it.

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon. An hour later than Erik had told her to come, but she’d been determined not to look eager. Murphy was excited enough for the both of them. But now, after following Erik’s simple directions, they were sitting in the circular driveway fronting the Double-C ranch house.

  Erik had called it “the big house.”

  And it wasn’t a misnomer.

  Made of stone and wood, it shot off in nearly every direction. A wide porch stretched the entire width of the front. Beyond the house she could see several other buildings, and unlike Erik’s place where the corrals were constructed of neat, orderly white pipe, here they were wood and seemed steeped in age and tradition.

  The butterflies in her stomach she’d been battling since she’d spoken with Erik that morning multiplied. Prolific little beasts.

  The driveway was crowded with vehicles parked every which way. She wedged her little sedan between a large SUV and a lethal-looking black sports car. The second she parked, Murphy was shoving out the door.

  He had on his Yankees cap, and his baseball glove was tucked under his arm.

  Afraid he might just well burst through the door without even knocking, she ignored her butterflies and hastily caught up with him. She closed her hand over his shoulder, slowing him down a pace before he could bolt up the shallow steps leading to the massive front door. The afternoon air was redolent with the aroma of grilling meat. It would have smelled mouthwatering on any day that her stomach wasn’t clenched into knots. “Manners, okay?”

  Except for rolling his eyes, he didn’t deign to answer.

  She let go of his shoulder and reached for the sturdy iron knocker on the door.

  Isabella could have collapsed with relief when Lucy opened the door and greeted them.

  “Didn’t you get the message I left you this morning?”

  Lucy shook her head. “Sorry. Sunny grabbed my cell phone from me last night after her bath and dropped it in the toilet. Hey there, Murphy. Looks like you’re here for that baseball game Erik’s been talking people into.” She pointed behind her. “Everyone’s in the family room,” she told him. “Go on in and make yourself at home.”

  Isabella could see his sudden hesitation. He even started to look up at her, but he caught himself. Instead, he tilted his head cockily and strode in the direction that Lucy had indicated.

  As soon as he started off, Lucy grabbed Isabella’s arm and dragged her inside. “I was wondering if you were going to show,” she whispered. “Erik’s been pacing around like a madman.”

  Isabella’s stomach lurched. “He said around one,” she defended.

  “I know.” Lucy patted her arm and grinned. “I told him a woman always likes to be fashionably late.”

  “I’m not here because of Erik,” she muttered. “It’s just that Murphy wanted to come.”

  Lucy’s grin didn’t dim. She shut the door and pulled Isabella along the scarred wood-planked floor. “Uh-huh. What was your message about, anyway?”

  “I just wanted to know if you’d be here.” They stood in the doorway of a wide family room furnished with an eclectic collection of couches and chairs that seemed to be occupied by people of every age. She didn’t see Erik, though standing next to an enormous stone fireplace big enough to walk inside was a man who looked enough like him to be his twin, except for darker hair and a slightly thinner stature.

  Nor did Isabella spot Murphy. If he was already getting into mischief, she vowed to hustle him right back home again. She dragged her feet as Lucy tried to pull her forward into the room. “I was worried I wouldn’t have someone to talk to. You know?”

  Letting go of her arm, Lucy snorted softly. “Look at this crowd. You think there’s a shortage of people to converse with? Besides, you know some of them already from your yoga classes.”

  Teaching yoga was one thing. Sharing the afternoon with her students at what was obviously a family affair was something else. The only family she’d ever felt comfortable around had been Jimmy and Murphy.

  “Where’d Murphy go?”

  Hope, Erik’s mother, had come up from behind them. “Erik took him downstairs where the rest of the kids are.” She gave Isabella a delighted smile. “We’re all so pleased that you’re joining us.” She slipped her arm through Isabella’s and drew her through the wide doorway. “Come along and meet everyone.”

  Hoping her panic was not showing, Isabella gave Lucy a look. Her so-called best friend just grinned knowingly.

  “Everyone, this is Erik’s young friend Isabella Lockhart,” Hope introduced. She didn’t have to raise her voice since to a one, everyone had stopped talking the second they’d entered the room.

  “My friend first,” Lucy chimed in, her voice full of laughter. She stepped around Isabella and Hope and crossed to the overstuffed leather chair where her husband, Beck, was holding Sunny. She sat on the arm of his chair, looking as if she were anticipating the opening of a brand-new ballet.

  “You already know most of my sisters-in-law from yoga,” Hope began. “Everyone’s here except for Rebecca. She’s on duty at the hospital. And Jaimie’s outside with Matthew guarding the grill.”

  Feeling as self-conscious as she always had when she was entering yet another foster family, Isabella nodded at the women. She knew from the chatter of the women from her yoga class that Rebecca was the chief of staff at the Weaver hospital. And Jaimie, who was also in the class, lived right here on the Double-C with her husband, Matthew, and his father and stepmother, Squire and Gloria. The other women, Emily and Maggie, were smiling at her with the usual friendliness they displayed in class.

  She managed to smile back, even though she’d rather have childishly hidden behind Hope’s back. “It’s good to see you again. Thank you for having us.”

  Hope squeezed her arm and gestured with her other hand toward the eldest couple in the room. “Erik’s grandparents. Squire and Gloria Clay.” She pointed her finger at the man with an iron-gray head of hair. “Now, you behave yourself, Squire,” she warned.

  The man was holding a rustic-looking walking stick between his legs and he thumped the end on the floor. “When do I not behave myself?” His voice was pure cantankerousness, but there was a crafty twinkle in his unearthly pale blue eyes.

  “All the time,” the woman sitting beside him said drily. She had thick, silvering auburn hair that was pulled up in a clip. She smiled calmly at Isabella. “He’s particularly incorrigible with lovely young women.”

  Isabella’s cheeks warmed. But Hope was already moving on with the introductions, ticking off a litany of names that would take Isabella forever to keep straight. “I have no idea where Erik’s dad has gotten himself off to,” Hope concluded.

  “He’s out back talking all hush-hush with Axel,” Squire harrumphed. “But now that Erik’s girl is here, can we get on with the grub?”

  “I’m not Erik’s girl,” Isabella corrected quickly. But no one gave her any mind. They were too busy jumping to their feet and shuffling her along in their wake as they headed through the house. They passed through a large kitchen dominated by a huge oak table that was covered with plastic-wrapped desserts, then through the adjoining laundry room and through the back door.

  Out on the deep green grass, long picnic tables had been set with red-and-white-checked cloths. She could see smoke curling out from beneath a big, covered grill.

  Jaimie was standing beside it, trying to snatch away the long-handled tongs that a man—obviously her husband, Matthew—was holding above her head. “You’re going to burn those ribs,” she was warning. But she was laughing as she said it, and so was Matthew.

  Everyone seemed to l
augh a lot in the Clay family.

  And if they weren’t laughing, they were smiling.

  Even though Isabella had long ago accepted the reality of growing up with no family of her own, everything inside her seemed to ache a little.

  Then Lucy was shoving a red plastic cup into her hand and gesturing at the big metal barrel full of ice, which contained a beer keg. Next to it sat an identical barrel of ice, filled with bottles of soda, juices and covered pitchers of what turned out to be fresh lemonade when she poured some into her cup. She added a few chunks of ice and followed Lucy over to one of the tables. Baskets full of rolls and fat bowls of salads sitting in nests of ice were spread across the length of the table along with enormous platters that were waiting to be filled with whatever was sizzling on the grill.

  “There’s enough to feed an army here,” Isabella observed. The food on the table alone would easily consume her entire grocery budget for a month.

  “That’s a fair description,” a deep voice said, and she whirled, nearly spilling lemonade down the front of the pink sundress that she’d made the year before.

  “Erik.” Her voice sounded breathless and she wanted to crawl under the food table. He was holding a blue-eyed toddler with a shock of blue-black hair on his hip, and it was much easier to focus on the child than the man. “Who’s this?”

  “This little wild woman is Katie. She’s Leandra’s.” He gestured toward a slender blonde standing nearby. “Have you been introduced to everyone?”

  She nodded. “Leandra’s in yoga.” She looked around at the people who were milling about the picnic tables, choosing seats. A process that seemed to involve quite a lot of jockeying, if the decibel of voices was any indication. “So are Courtney, Sarah and Tara.”

  “Is that a fact?” He didn’t sound the least bit surprised, though, and his violet eyes were smiling. “You look real pretty today, Isabella.”

  “Thank you.” Her throat felt strangely tight and she looked away. “I’ve never seen a spread quite like this. It’s pretty impressive.”

  “Wait until you taste the ribs,” Jaimie said, brushing past her to retrieve one of the platters. “I make the best there are.”