Western Romance Collection: Rugged Cowboys Part 39

"Come on, girl. Get moving, why don't you."

When he grabbed her, the look that had been on her face got far-away, like she was lost in her thoughts. The minute he spoke, her face turned darker, frustrated. But she turned away.

A part of him wanted to try to get any anger smoothed over. Another, bigger part wanted to get her out of his life. The way she'd decided to follow him up spoke to an att.i.tude like she was part of his life. Like he was part of hers.

But that wasn't the case, and it shouldn't be. The way she stared at that pistol told him everything that needed to be known. She was from a world where you didn't need to carry one, probably not ever. Chris hadn't been that lucky, and they weren't going to get over that gap. It was better to scare her off now, rather than having to accept it once he'd let himself be fooled.

She wasn't at the top of the steps when he followed Marie through the door a minute later. He blinked in surprise, but stepped forward. She'd probably gone down ahead, mad at him. He didn't, though, expect to see her walking across the street, in the exact wrong direction of the schoolhouse.

He followed the line she was walking and saw where she was headed, and immediately knew why. Chris swore softly under his breath and started moving to follow her. n.o.body needed to ask why the Sheriff had a boy walking in tow.

He was nearly caught up when the schoolteacher called out.

"Jamie?"

The kid's head shot up and turned. The look in his eyes. .h.i.t Chris hard. He looked scared and confused, and without a single doubt he looked exactly the way that Chris had looked the day his own parents hadn't come home.

"Miss Bainbridge? What's goin' on?"

"Do you know where Sheriff Roberts is taking you?"

His face screwed up a little more. She was pus.h.i.+ng him toward panic. She ought to have known better, but she's trying to be gentle. It's understandable, but Chris knows from his own experience, it's not going to help one bit. He needs something to hold onto, something tough, or he's going to have a bad time.

"Mr. Roberts says somethin' happened to-"

Chris spoke up as the kid's voice broke. "You ain't gonna let a girl see you cry, are you?"

The look from Marie stung a little, but the kid's lips pressed together and he straightened himself out. Chris let a smile spread across his face.

"Good man. You go with Mr. Roberts, and Miss Bainbridge will be waiting for you right outside, a'ight?"

The kid nodded and turned. Marie kept on staring at him in a way that he had no special desire to pay attention to. This was outside his area of expertise, he knew, but it wasn't as if he was just going to watch the kid get screwed up the way he had. That was how kids got mixed up in things they had absolutely no business getting mixed up in.

When he'd finally disappeared inside the office, Marie's silence broke.

"What was that supposed to be?"

He shrugged. "I thought I ought to straighten him out."

"You couldn't have been gentler about it?"

He put his lips together and didn't open them again.

She rolled her eyes. "You men, I swear to G.o.d."

Chris smiled, and she promptly turned away in a huff.

Thirteen.

Marie Bainbridge sat and tried not to act like she was mad, which she knew wasn't working. If anything, she was making it worse, because every time she tried to play it cool, it meant that she had to think about it again.

She was dealing with these kids-with Jamie Pearson in particular-every single day. She knew how he thought, how he felt. She knew his problems. She knew where he was strong and where he needed more work.

Where did a bartender who might have spoken two words to the boy since she'd been in Applewood Junction think he had any place to override what she thought was best?

She closed her eyes. No need to get angry. No need to get angry at all. He was who he was, and she had to admit, the confident way that he'd handled a tough situation had a certain charm to it. She could almost feel the Sheriff's relief as Jamie had calmed down.

They waited together for a long time. Chris had been so ready to go work, before, yet now he seemed to be dawdling here with her, as if there was some reason he needed to stay. She couldn't figure out what it was, yet the fact that he was most certainly waiting for something was unavoidable and undeniable.

The thought, when it finally occurred to her, ripped itself right out of her mouth, in spite of not necessarily wanting to speak with him. It would serve him right if she were to remain silent. Her reflexive speaking didn't much care what would serve him right.

"What are they going to do with him?"

His silence might have implied that he wasn't listening and didn't think much of the question. The way that his face pinched, on the other hand, told a very different story.

"If you don't know, then-"

"I know exactly what they're going to do with him," Chris said finally. "It's not a topic I enjoy discussing."

"If I offended you, then-"

"No," he cuts her off shortly. "I can't just ignore it, I guess. I shouldn't ignore it."

"Ignore what?"

"If they've got family to take them in, then that's how it goes. Jamie don't."

"And if they haven't got any family?"

"Then things get p.r.i.c.kly. n.o.body'll take in some strange kid, will they? Hard enough feeding the mouths you got." Chris leans his head back. The brim of his hat touches the wall behind and lifts a little off his brow. "So they go along to an orphanage. He's an only child, yeah?"

Marie nods. Jamie had been letting on little hints, when she hadn't had him working too hard to talk much, that his mother was expecting. If she was, then when she'd-she hadn't been far enough along to show much.

"That's good, then. No siblings is the best way. You have brothers or sisters, they might keep you together-they might as well not, too."

"So these orphanages. Not the sort of place you want to be, then, from the way you make them sound."

"Then I made them sound right," he agrees. He's got his eyes closed, so whatever his feelings, or his history, Marie can only guess.

"So is there anything we can do?"

"Sure is," Chris says. "All that happens if n.o.body claims him."

"So... all we have to do is take him in, then."

He opens an eye. "Looks like you're catching on, then." He closes it again. "That's exactly what we're going to do."

"We?"

Chris nods softly. "I owe him a favor."

She raises an eyebrow, though as she does so she realizes he can't see it in the first place. "A favor?"

"I owe his folks a favor, but I can't pay it back, can I? So I pay them back by sparing their boy."

"That must be a story," Marie offers. How long are they going to be in there?

"Sure," he says, and then shuts his mouth.

"How do you know so much about all this stuff? I don't imagine that they teach you all about it tending bar."

"They don't," he agrees again. But again, he shuts up and doesn't expand on it.

She doesn't push him. There are some things that are private, no matter how curious she might be, and curious she certainly is.

"How much longer do you think they'll be?"

He shrugs. "It's hard to say. For the formal parts? They'd already be back. But if Sheriff Roberts decided to give the kid a talk, or they wanted to give the kid some ice cream to help him get over the shock, or he didn't handle it all that well so they let him walk away, then it could take longer."

"But they know we're out here," Marie insists. They wouldn't make a big delay, not for no reason, right?

"Then you know better'n me, I guess. Me, I'm just waiting until he comes back out. Then I'll think about what to do next, I guess."

"So you mean to say..."

"What?"

Marie's mind raced, but in the end she fell silent. He didn't press her to finish her thought.

The door opens, finally. It might have been an hour, but it felt like she'd been waiting for days. Somehow, Marie had expected Jamie to come bursting out, like he'd been waiting impatiently and finally was allowed to leave. That wasn't how it happened.

The door swung open and Jamie trudged out, like every step was one more than he thought he could take. Chris rose quickly and grabbed the door from him. The silence, though, was a surprise. She'd expected that at some point, he'd say something again. That he would try to step in and insist that the boy toughen up, like he had on the way inside.

But he didn't. He walked beside him a little ways, until finally Jamie came to the bench outside the Sheriff's station. The boy pulled himself up onto the seat and leaned back against the wall.

"Y'alright?"

Jamie blinked and looked up at Chris. "Mr. Broadmoor," he said. Almost surprised. Marie was almost surprised as well.

"Everything's going to be fine," Marie chimed in. It wasn't going to be fine, she knew. His parents were dead, and they weren't going to come back. But she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Miss Bainbridge? I don't... um..." Whatever he was going to say, his lower lip started to tremble and he tightened up his jaw, his little muscles twitching as he tried to hold himself in. If Chris weren't there, he might have been bawling already.

The bartender knelt down in front of him and laid a big hand on the boy's shoulder. "It's alright, kiddo. You got every right to be upset, and n.o.body expects anything else from you right now. You need to let it out, let it out."

Jamie leaned forward and pressed his face into the bartender's shoulder. The sound of soft crying was almost audible over the sound of the town continuing to move around them. She waited there for a long time, until finally the boy leaned himself back. Chris spoke again.

"Miss Bainbridge is going to keep watch over you for a little bit, okay? But don't worry, I'll come and check on you every day, so if you need anything, anything at all-"

Jamie looked like he was about to lose it again, but he didn't. He nodded slowly, and then when Chris turned to look at her, she knew that it was her turn. How she was going to do it, that was the real question.

Fourteen.

Chris watched from his place behind the bar closer than maybe he should have. The bar wasn't any kind of place for a kid, not even on a good night. Thankfully, tonight was a good night. Quiet, a little dead. He crossed over to the other side of the long bar and leaned over.

"Y'all doing alright?"

Jamie flinched at the sound of his voice, leaned down over a slate. The boy turned and gave a weak smile. "I'm okay," he says, like he's trying to rea.s.sure Chris rather than the other way around.

"Good," the bartender says back. There are a couple of clean plates sitting on front of both of them. There might be h.e.l.l to pay at the end of it, but he couldn't exactly ask them to pay for it, so Stan will be footing the bill.

He steps back across the bar as a young man walks up. He's not from around here, and Chris doesn't immediately recognize him. The guy speaks up, though, and something in the back of the bartender's mind catches on a memory that he can't quite place.

"I'll have a beer," is all he says.

"Sure," Chris replies. It's a routine, one that's as automatic as breathing. His hand drops to the tray of gla.s.ses and starts pouring.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?"

Chris shrugs, his eyes cast down on the gla.s.s as it fills. "Might be."

"I swear I seen your face before."

For years, Chris had worried about people seeing his face in all the wrong sort of circ.u.mstances. None of it had born fruit, though. Most of the time, these days, he didn't let it rattle his cage.

"I don't know where, I ain't been around here that long."

"I'm just pa.s.sin' through, myself," the guy says. The way he says it is familiar, too. Another vague, far-away memory that Chris can't place. He doesn't work too hard to make it happen, either. "So I doubt I'd know you from here if you had been."

"Where you from, then, originally?"

"Oh, just up a little ways. Still out of Oklahoma, but I used to tool around the panhandle, up north, you know?"

Chris did. If they knew each other, then that would be where they knew each other from. Which meant that the man in front of him would have known a very different person altogether.

"I can't say you're ringing any bells," Chris said. The beer finished pouring and he set it on the table. "You want to settle up now, or on your way out?"