A Child Under His Tree Read online

  “Because we’re adults,” she told Tyler. “And adult stuff isn’t always simple.” She rubbed her fingertip over his hand. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that, though, and I am sorry for that. I love you more than anything in this world. Okay?”

  He nodded. “I love you, too, Mommy.”

  One day, she knew he wouldn’t say the words so easily.

  But for now, he was still happy being her precious boy, and she was going to hold on to that with both fists.

  And what about the day when he asks about his father?

  She turned around in her seat, and deliberately ignoring the voice inside her head, put the car in gear and made her way back into the light traffic.

  The next signal light she came to was red.

  Naturally.

  Chapter Seven

  What should have taken Caleb all of thirty minutes at the hospital stretched into three hours. He’d barely finished soothing Hildy Hanson’s nervousness over her daughter’s asthma when a real emergency cropped up. He didn’t even have time to phone Kelly himself and let her know. His cousin Courtney, who was a nurse at the hospital, took care of that for him.

  It was close to ten when he finally pulled up in front of Kelly’s house and stepped onto the bare-bulb-lit porch.

  He figured it would be past Tyler’s bedtime, so he didn’t ring the doorbell in case the boy was sleeping. He knocked lightly instead. And the puppy immediately started barking like crazy.

  Caleb couldn’t imagine Tyler sleeping through that racket.

  When Kelly opened the door, it was almost an exact replay of when he’d opened the door to her earlier that day. Only this time, it was Kelly who quickly crouched down to scoop up the excited pup before she could dart outside between Caleb’s feet. Her hair was wet; she was wearing an oversize sweatshirt that reached halfway down her thighs and a pair of black leggings.

  She was covered from neck to ankle, but he still had to stop himself from imagining the shower she must have just taken.

  “Hush, puppy,” she was saying to the still-barking dog. She didn’t glance at Caleb as she turned back into the house. “If you’re coming in, close the door. It’s cold outside.”

  He’d had more enthusiastic invitations, but he stepped inside and closed the door. “Tyler asleep?”

  “So far. If I can keep the puppy from barking, hopefully he’ll stay that way.”

  The last time Caleb was there, he hadn’t made it past the porch. Now, all he could do was stare as he followed her through the entry, where the dog crate was sitting next to the coatrack, and into the living room. Everywhere he looked, there were stacks. Stacks of magazines. Stacks of clothes. Linens. Dishes.

  “I know,” she said, setting the puppy on the floor in front of the same couch he remembered from their youth. The dog immediately hopped up onto the cushions. “There’s a lot of stuff.” She pushed up the sleeves of her faded sweatshirt and glanced around. “I dragged everything in here just because I needed room to work. I’ve been trying to sort what’s salable and what’s not.” She gestured behind him. “That bigger pile there is what’s not.”

  “Your mom had a lot of stuff in her closets.”

  Her lips twisted slightly. “I haven’t even gotten to the closets yet. It’s not quite an episode out of Hoarder’s Life, but it is close.”

  “You need help with all this.”

  Her shoulders rose and fell with a huge sigh. “Tell me something I don’t know.” She sat down on the couch and finally looked at Caleb. “When Courtney called, I told her we could keep the dog overnight.”

  The puppy climbed on Kelly’s lap and cocked her head as if she knew she was the topic of conversation.

  His cousin hadn’t shared that. But to be fair, there hadn’t been time for a lot of personal chitchat between dealing with distraught family members, protective services and the innocent child at the center of it all.

  “Tonight or tomorrow, I’d still need to get her.” Kelly hadn’t invited him to sit, but it had been a long damn evening. He sat in the chair her mother had always been sitting in whenever he came by to pick up Kelly.

  He ignored the unpleasant sensation that Georgette Rasmussen was still there, glaring at him the way she’d always done, and focused instead on the clutter. “How do you plan to deal with all this stuff?”

  “One room at a time?” Her tone was vaguely flippant, and when he just looked at her, she grimaced. “One room at a time,” she repeated, but the tone was gone. She lifted her shoulder. “Same way you get through anything, right? One step, one day at a time.”

  “Looks to me like you’ve got a year’s worth of days, then.”

  Kelly let out a wry laugh. “Yeah. It’s a little overwhelming, to say the least. Particularly when I’ve only arranged to be gone from work for two weeks.”

  He couldn’t help looking around skeptically.

  “I know. I can probably arrange to stay longer, but that means Tyler’s out of school longer.”

  “It’s kindergarten.”

  “You’re a pediatrician. You ought to know just how much kindergarten counts these days. It’s not like when we were that age. The teacher sent me with an entire package of worksheets just so he wouldn’t fall behind.”

  “So put him in school here,” Caleb suggested.

  She looked alarmed at the very notion. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary.” She set the dog on the ground and rose. “Anyway, the lawyer told me about all the bills yet to be settled. The two different real estate agents I spoke with told me they can sell this place, but if I don’t want to practically give it away, improvements are going to have to be done. And it needs to be cleaned out no matter what. But the auction house says not to get rid of a thing. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure and all that. They want to send over an appraiser, but the appraiser needs to be able to see more than just clutter.” She picked up a sheet of paper from a side table. “They even gave me a list. Estate jewelry is evidently pretty big these days. When did you ever see my mother wearing jewelry? And since my mother didn’t leave a will, I can’t do anything about anything anyway until the court says I can.” She tossed down the paper and headed toward the kitchen. “I need a drink. Do you want one?”

  He figured she probably needed a hug more than a drink. But a hug from him wasn’t likely to be welcome.

  “Sure.” He followed her into the kitchen. “Is that Tyler’s infamous banister?” He gestured at the stairs.

  “Yep.” She plucked two clear glasses from a dish drainer and set them on the counter. Then she opened a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. She uncapped it and sniffed it with a grimace. “Have no idea how long this has been in here,” she warned as she poured some into the glasses. “Ice?”

  “Please.”

  She recapped the bottle and opened the freezer, pulling out an old-fashioned metal ice cube tray that she banged once on the counter before yanking back the handle and freeing several cubes that she dropped into the glasses.

  “Haven’t seen one of those things in a while.” His freezer had an automatic ice maker.

  “Then maybe it’ll go for more than ten cents when I am finally allowed to sell it.” Kelly left it on the counter and handed him one of the glasses, lifting her own in an unsmiling toast. “Cheers.” She took a drink and hissed. “Whoa, that burns.”

  “You have to sip whiskey,” he advised, taking his more slowly. It wasn’t the best whiskey on the planet, but it wasn’t rotgut, either. By the time he’d broken up with her because of Melissa, he and Kelly hadn’t even been of legal drinking age. The most they’d shared was a few bottles of beer sneaked from his folks’ refrigerator and drunk down while they’d sprawled together on straw inside the old Perry barn.

  The puppy had followed them into the kitchen and was sniffi
ng around the bases of the table legs. “When’s the last time she was out?”

  “Probably too long ago.” She opened the kitchen door. “Come on, puppy.”

  The dog didn’t seem interested, so Caleb picked her up, carried her outside and set her down on the dry grass. “Tyler come up with any more names?”

  “He’s working on a list. So far, he’s got Spot on it. You might do well to choose a name yourself.” Behind him, Kelly turned on the porch light and stepped outside also. “Don’t let her go too far out or we’ll never find her in the dark.”

  That was true enough. Clouds had rolled in, obscuring the moon. Beyond the porch light, it was pitch-black. “Heard it might snow next week.”

  “I’d rather have snow than rain. But only if it sticks. I’d just as soon not have to deal with this place turning into a mud bog on top of everything else.”

  He followed the dog as she trotted around in circles. “Your mom never told you she was having trouble keeping the place going?”

  “I hadn’t talked to her in six years. Hadn’t talked to anyone in Weaver in six years. So, no.”

  He stopped and looked at Kelly. She was leaning against the open door. With the oversize sweatshirt dwarfing her, she looked more petite than ever and hardly a day older than when they had been teenagers and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. “You and your mother didn’t talk even once?”

  “No.” She sipped her whiskey and gave another little hiss, though it wasn’t quite as loud this time. “So, we can blame me for the state of affairs here.”

  “I wasn’t.” Finally, the dog found a worthy patch and squatted just long enough to leave a little dribble. “Are you blaming yourself?”

  She lifted her shoulder, watching the puppy hop up the porch steps and trot back inside. “Who else is there to blame?”

  “It was pretty obvious to me at the time that your mom was angry with you about leaving Weaver, but holding on to it for six years?” Even knowing the woman, it still boggled the mind. His mother wouldn’t last six days, much less six years, if there were a grandchild in the picture. “You shouldn’t blame yourself. This farm was her life, not yours.”

  “Spoken like the guy who strings fence for his dad when he needs to.” She was still looking out the open door. Cold air was filling the kitchen.

  “That’s different.”

  “Why?” She sipped her drink again. This time without the hiss. “A parent is a parent.”

  “A parent is someone that produces a child. Good parenting goes way the hell beyond that.” He nudged her away from the door and closed it. “A good parent—whether by blood or not—is someone who loves and nurtures their child. I’m not saying your mom didn’t love you, but—”

  “Why not?” Kelly sipped her drink. “It was true. My mother did not love me. She was evidently so ashamed of me being a single mother that she made up a husband. And well before that, she blamed me for ruining her life. You know I’m not exaggerating. You heard her say it, too.”

  If it were anyone else, he would have given the “I’m sure she didn’t mean it” spiel. But he had heard Georgette spew the bull Kelly was describing. More than once.

  She’d meant it.

  And not for the first time, he wondered what sort of welcome Georgette Rasmussen had received at the pearly gates.

  “Ultimately, adults are responsible for their own lives,” he said calmly. “The choices your mother made in her life were her choices. Same as the choices you’re making are yours.”

  Kelly didn’t put up any resistance when he pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and pushed her down onto it. Then he plucked the glass out of her hand.

  “Hey!”

  He dumped the liquor down the sink, rinsed the glass and filled it with water instead. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself, and whiskey isn’t helping. You’re not your mother. You don’t have to deal with all of this—” he made a sweeping gesture with his arm “—by yourself unless you want to. There are plenty of people around this town to help you. All you have to do is ask.” Though she had an annoyed expression on her face, he bent over and kissed the top of her head anyway.

  Why not? She was already peeved with him.

  He set the water on the table in front of her. “Drink that, then go to bed.”

  Before she could react, he picked up the puppy and went back through the living room to the front door, grabbing the dog carrier along the way.

  “Caleb.”

  Her voice stopped him just as he was opening the front door. He looked back. She was hovering near the couch, hugging her arms around her waist.

  “What?”

  “Do you ever think about—” She hesitated.

  “About what?” The past? Her? About that damned night when he’d been changing a flat in the snow out on the highway between Weaver and Braden and she’d pulled up in her truck behind him? He’d gotten in her truck to warm up, then out of the blue she’d suddenly kissed him—

  “A-about not becoming a surgeon?”

  It was so far off from what he’d been thinking, it took him a second to adjust. “Not really. Why do you ask?”

  She shook her head slightly. “Curious, I guess.” Her arms unwound from her waist, and she lightly slapped her hands against her sides like she was putting a period on a sentence. “Be careful driving home. The road’s worse than ever. I hit a pothole with my car and nearly bounced off the road.” She lifted her hand, palm out. “Not pitying myself,” she assured him. “Just offering a word to the wise. Don’t want you breaking an axle.”

  “I’ll be careful.” Carrying the dog under one arm and the crate in the other hand, he pulled open the door and left.

  With the dog safely crated inside the truck, he drove away from the house.

  But when he looked back, he could see Kelly standing in the front window.

  Watching him go? Or just thinking about the tasks that were piled on her plate before she could leave Weaver, and everyone in it, behind once and for all?

  * * *

  “Mommy, who’s that lady?”

  Kelly looked up from the ragged wooden boards she was stacking and saw the petite blonde climbing out of a black SUV.

  Lucy Buchanan.

  “That’s Dr. C’s sister. She used to be a ballerina.”

  “Like Gunnar’s sister?”

  Kelly chuckled. “Something like that.” Gunnar’s sister was a three-year-old who liked to wear tutus all day long. Perhaps that was the way Lucy had started out, too.

  Kelly pulled off her leather work gloves and shoved them in the pocket of the ancient jacket she was wearing. “I’m going to go see what she wants.”

  Tyler shrugged and turned his attention back to the bucket and gardening trowel she’d found for him. For the moment, he seemed happy enough to sit in the dirt and play.

  As Kelly approached, Lucy waved and reached back into her SUV for something. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at your mom’s service, but I figured you must have your hands pretty full,” she said when Kelly finally got to her. Lucy’s hands were occupied by a big cardboard box, but that didn’t stop her from quickly brushing her cheek against Kelly’s. “I brought you a meal.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.” Kelly took the box when Lucy pushed it toward her. She then pulled a second box from the SUV.

  “Is this Caleb’s doing?” Kelly asked. She was still feeling more than a little undone from the night before. She’d come so close to asking him if he ever thought about them—about what might have been—that she’d lain awake for hours after he’d left.

  Then, when she had finally fallen asleep, she’d been plagued by nightmares of him taking Tyler away from her as punishment for not telling him in the first place that he had a son.

  It had not been a restful
night.

  “Caleb can’t boil water,” Lucy was saying with a laugh. “When he’s not mooching meals off me twice a week, he’s hitting up Tabby or Mom and Dad or some other sucker.”

  “I sort of doubt anyone’s complaining too loudly,” Kelly said drily. The Buchanans, the Taggarts and the Clays were all thick as thieves. They had more family connections than Carter had pills; they did business together, ran ranches together and socialized like the best of friends.

  It was exactly the kind of family Kelly hadn’t had. But only because Georgette had never given two figs about the rest of the Rasmussens living in the area. Kelly wasn’t sure if Georgette’s attitude would have been different if the other family members had been siblings instead of distant cousins.

  And how different from your mother are you?

  She pushed away the disturbing thought.

  “This is awfully nice of you, Lucy, but you needn’t have gone to the trouble.”

  “No trouble,” Lucy assured her blithely. She turned and led the way toward the house, waving cheerfully at Tyler when she spotted him. “Shelby—she’s my stepdaughter—doesn’t get out of school for another hour, and Sunny’s home taking a nap with my husband, Beck. So I had the perfect opportunity.” She darted up the porch steps and waited for Kelly to push open the door. “Nothing too fancy, mind you. Just ribs I tossed in the slow cooker, baked mac and cheese, and a chopped veggie salad.”

  “Just?” Kelly chuckled as they went inside the house. She was glad that she’d managed to haul off a load of trash that morning, as it left the living room looking a little less insane. “It definitely beats the heck out of frozen fish sticks. Kitchen’s in the back.”

  “Always is, in these old houses.” Lucy didn’t seem particularly shocked as she picked her way through the cluttered room and into the kitchen, where she set her box on the table. “How’re you holding up?”

  Again, Kelly wondered what, if anything, Caleb had told his sister. “Fine. I’ve made more progress today than I expected. Tyler and I were just outside taking advantage of the afternoon sun.” They’d both been happy to get out of the oppressive house.