Bright Eyes (3 page)

Zeke did the only thing any self-respecting cowboy could do.

He ran.

Chapter Two

W
avering between laughter and tears, Natalie watched Zeke Coulter race for home. His lean body roped with muscle from years of hard work, he carried himself with a relaxed confidence that told her the cowboy attire wasn’t only for looks. Yet with every few steps, he shot a glance over his shoulder to be sure he wasn’t in danger of being attacked from behind by the Westfield family goose.

Normally Natalie would have felt terrible about Chester pinching their neighbor, but Coulter’s uncaring attitude about an eleven-year-old boy missing summer camp went a long way toward tempering her regret. Chad had committed a grave wrong, and he deserved to suffer the consequences, but making him miss camp after he’d looked forward to it all summer seemed too severe a punishment.

When the gander finally gave up the chase and waddled back to the yard, Natalie leaned down to stroke his neck. “Good
boy,
Chester!” She knew it was an uncharitable thing to say, but she couldn’t quite help herself. Chad had taken so many hard hits over the last few months. It wasn’t fair that he should take another one. With a snicker, she added, “Just deserts. You put him on the run in short order.”

Chester quacked and nudged her hand for a treat.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know in advance that you were going to be my knight in feathered armor.”

Clearly proud of himself, Chester lifted his wings and quacked softly. Sometimes Natalie could have sworn the silly old gander could talk.

She tapped his beak with a fingernail. “Yes, you did a good job,” she agreed. “Maybe that’ll teach the big old meanie not to be so obnoxious and dictatorial the next time.”

Next time?
Natalie shuddered at the thought. If Chad stepped out of line again, Zeke Coulter might call the police.

From the corner of her eye, she saw her daughter Rosie approaching. Chester waddled away as Natalie straightened and turned toward the child.

“Hi, sweetie. How was your snooze?” It was the third time this week that Rosie had fallen asleep while watching television in the late afternoon. Normally the little girl took naps only under duress. The sudden change in her sleep patterns concerned Natalie. Was Rosie more upset by the upheaval in her life than she was letting on? “You were zonked for three whole hours.”

“I missed
Scooby-Doo,
” Rosie complained.

“Uh-oh.” Natalie crouched down to look her daughter in the eye. “Maybe it’ll come on again later and Gramps will let you watch it.”

“Maybe.” Rosie rubbed her brown eyes and then squinted to see across the field. “Who’s that man, Mommy?”

Natalie glanced over her shoulder. Pop’s new neighbor was now only a denim-blue blotch in the distance. “That’s Mr. Coulter. He moved in next door.”

“Did he come to look at our yard-sale stuff?”

Natalie chose to ignore the question. The less Rosie knew about her brother’s shenanigans the better. “Where are your shoes, sweetie? If you walk barefoot on the grass, you’re liable to get stung by a bee.”

“I forgot them in the house.” Rosie wiggled her bare toes and then lifted her arms. “I need a hug before you go to work.”

Natalie drew her daughter close. “A big hug or a little one?”

“Gigantic.”

Natalie pretended to squeeze as hard as she could, which made Rosie giggle. “Miss me while I’m gone?”

“Yes. I don’t like it when you leave.”

Natalie wished she didn’t have to go. Before the divorce, her mom had stayed with the kids at night, but that was no longer possible now that the marital residence had sold and Natalie lived with her dad. Naomi Westfield refused to be in the same house with her ex-husband, Pete, on a regular basis.

Right after the house sold, Natalie had dropped the children off at her mother’s on the way to work and picked them up when her shift ended, but that hadn’t lasted long. Naomi’s rented condo was in an all-adult community, and after only a week, the neighbors had started to complain about the kids being there so much.

“I have to go to work, sweetie. We can’t buy your Barbie a dune buggy without money, and I can’t make money unless I work. Bummer, huh?”

Rosie nodded.

Natalie sat back on her heels to smooth her daughter’s sleep-tousled curls. Rosie was so darling, a dark-haired, sloe-eyed little angel. Whenever Natalie started thinking of her marriage as a horrible mistake, she had only to look at her kids to know that all the heartbreak and disillusionment had been worth it. “You have fun at night with Aunt Valerie, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh. I just miss you and Grammy.”

Natalie could understand that. Valerie loved her niece and nephew, and she was making a gallant effort to fill in for Natalie at night, but her zany personality and fun-and-games approach to babysitting were a far cry from what the kids were used to. Grammy and Mommy had rules and enforced them. Valerie felt that rules stifled a child’s personality. Instead of making Chad and Rosie eat their vegetables, she fashioned baked-potato dolls with spinach hair or created landscapes on their plates, using smashed peas for grass, broccoli spears for trees, and carrots julienne to build split-rail fencing around cauliflower sheep.

In a more perfect world, Robert would be playing a larger role in the children’s lives to make this transition easier for them. Unfortunately, he had never been very family oriented and was even less so now, far too busy cruising through town in his red Corvette with a sexy blonde tucked under one arm to spend time with his son and daughter.

“What’re you going to do with Aunt Valerie tonight?” Natalie asked.

“She’s going to paint my fingernails, and then we’re going to put on makeup and play dress up.”

“That sounds fun.”

“I just wish you could play dress up with us.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’d like nothing better.” Natalie kissed the tip of Rosie’s nose. “But mommies don’t always get their druthers. I have to earn a living.”

“I know,” Rosie said dismally. “Maybe Poppy will win the lottery tomorrow night.”

Natalie smiled in spite of herself. Without fail, her father and grandfather wagered five dollars a week at the Cedar Forks store, hoping to win the jackpot. In between losses, they spent hours discussing how they would spend their winnings when their numbers finally came up. The most popular plan, in Rosie’s estimation, was for Poppy to buy a huge ranch with enough houses on it to accommodate the entire Westfield clan.

“If Poppy won the lottery, it’d be really wonderful,” Natalie agreed.

“He and Gramps will live in one house, and we’ll live in another one.” Warming to the subject, Rosie leaned away, her eyes as bright as copper pennies. “And Aunt Valerie will live in hers, and Grammy will live in hers!” She beamed with delight. “And you won’t have to sing to people at the supper club anymore.”

Natalie tried to imagine her parents living harmoniously as close neighbors and couldn’t get the picture to gel. Since their divorce ten years ago, Pete and Naomi Westfield couldn’t even do Christmas together without scrapping about something.

“Singing at the club isn’t so bad,” Natalie said. And she meant it. She’d yearned to be a professional vocalist all her life, and performing onstage at the club was as close to that as she was ever going to get. She found the other aspects of owning a business far more taxing, especially the rapid employee turnover. In a pinch, Natalie could bus tables or fill in as a waitress, but taking over in the kitchen was beyond her. “I love to sing.”

Rosie shrugged. “If Poppy wins the lottery, I’ll let you sing to me.”

Over the top of the child’s head, Natalie glanced worriedly at her watch. It was a thirty-minute drive into town, and she had paperwork and books to do before she went onstage.

“Oh, my
goodness!
” She kissed Rosie’s chubby fingers as she pried them from her neck. “I have to get my caboose in gear, sweetness. I’m running way behind schedule.”

“Maybe Frank can just play the piano, like he did the time you caught the flu.”

The Blue Parrot was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. If Natalie failed to show, the regulars might think twice before patronizing the club again. “No, sweetie. I’m sorry. I won’t be gone all that long.”

“But I’ll be asleep when you get home!”

“I’ll sneak in and give you good-night kisses anyway.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” Natalie replied.

Zeke couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so furious. Standing in his backyard, he took inventory of the damages. His garden was destroyed, his windows were shattered, his ass stung from that damned gander, and, to add insult to injury, his beer had gotten hot from sitting in the truck.
Camp?
What was the woman thinking? Her son had a bitter lesson to learn.

Disgusted, Zeke went to the shed for some cardboard to cover the windows until he could replace the shattered glass. As he approached the broken shed door, his temper kicked up another notch. How had a half-pint kid managed to do this much damage? Zeke looked around for something that the boy might have used as a battering ram to break the one-by-four cross bucks.
Nothing
. As difficult as it was to believe, he decided that Chad must have kicked the door in.

Only rage could give a boy that kind of strength—a mindless, murderous rage. The thought was sobering, and Zeke’s anger subsided a little. Maybe, he decided, he should be more concerned about the child than he was about the damage. What drove a kid to strike out like this? Zeke had never even seen Chad until today, so revenge was ruled out. That left—what? Surely the boy hadn’t done this solely to get his father’s attention.

As Zeke cut pieces of cardboard to fit his windows, he tried to imagine what it would be like to grow up without a father. It was like trying to imagine going through life without arms. His mom and dad had been wonderful parents, both of them devoted. Zeke honestly couldn’t remember a single time in his life, even as an adult, when his dad hadn’t been there for him.

Not all kids were that lucky. Sometimes, despite the efforts of both parents, a marriage just fell apart. When that happened, a whole lot more than the neighbor’s garden could be at risk, namely a young boy who wasn’t sure where his loyalties lay anymore and couldn’t understand why one of his parents no longer seemed to love him.

At precisely eight o’clock the next morning, Zeke answered the door and found a hostile kid standing on his porch. Today Chad wore an oversize Big Dog T-shirt, sloppy tan shorts that hung well below his knees, and the same dusty Nikes with the laces dangling. He looked like a hundred other boys Zeke had seen in town. All he needed was a nose ring and a tattoo to be totally in vogue.

“My mom says I have to work here to pay you back,” Chad said with a sullen glare.

Zeke nodded and pulled the door wide. “Come on in. You had breakfast?”

Chad snorted. “Like my mother doesn’t feed me?”

So much for trying to befriend the little shit. Zeke led the way to the kitchen. “I’m having eggs Benedict. If you don’t want to eat, you can sit and watch while I do.”

Chad shuffled along behind him. “Eggs what?”

“Eggs Benedict,” Zeke repeated. “Poached eggs and ham on toasted English muffins with hollandaise sauce on top.”

“You cooking it yourself?” Chad asked incredulously

“Of course.” Zeke stepped over to turn the flame back up under the eggs. “It’s the maid’s year off.”

Chad flopped onto a chair, skinny legs sprawled. “You a queer or something?”

Zeke slanted the boy a hard look. “The politically correct term for a homosexual is gay, not queer.”

“So—are you
gay,
then?” the boy asked with a sneer.

“My sexual persuasions are none of your business.”

“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re gay. That’s how come you live alone in this big house and cook fancy food.”

“Maybe I like living alone and enjoy cooking. Ever think of that?”

“Yeah, right.”

Zeke refused to let the kid get his goat. “No long hair in my toothbrush, no nylons hanging on the showerhead, no standing in line to use the john, no fighting over the remote control.” He slapped a lid on the Teflon skillet. “Sure you don’t want something to eat? It’ll be a long time before lunch.”

The kid shrugged, which Zeke took as a yes. He stuck two halves of another muffin into the toaster, grabbed more eggs from the fridge, and resumed his position at the stove. Minutes later when he handed Chad a plate, he said, “When you’re finished eating, tie your shoes. We’ll be using power tools. I don’t want you to trip and get hurt.”

“Nobody but geeks tie their shoes.”

“You’ll be a geek while you’re working for me, then.”

Chad pushed at the eggs Benedict with his fork. “These are weird.”

“Don’t eat them. All the more for me.” Zeke sat at the opposite side of the table to enjoy his breakfast. “You want some orange juice?”

Chad shrugged again, so Zeke poured him a glass. The kid guzzled the juice, then tried the food. “Yuck,” he said, but continued to eat. “We never have eggs this way.”

“What kind do you have?”

“Burned scrambled or burned fried. If my mom invites you to dinner, don’t come.”

Zeke almost grinned. Then he remembered his garden and stifled the urge. “Some people enjoy cooking; others don’t.”

“My mom enjoys it.” Half of the boy’s eggs Benedict had already disappeared. “She just sings while she cooks and forgets the food.”

Curious, Zeke arched an eyebrow. When Chad wasn’t forthcoming with more information, he couldn’t resist asking, “What’s she sing?”

“Country, mostly. She pretends the spatula or spoon is a microphone and dances around the kitchen.”

“Ah. She got a good voice?”

“Poppy says she could’ve been the next Reba.” Chad pushed at his honey-brown hair, which was sorely in need of cutting. “Then she met my dad, got pregnant with me, and had to get married. My dad didn’t like her to sing, so she stopped for a long time. Now she’s too old to make it big.”

“Too old?” Zeke guessed Natalie Patterson to be in her late twenties or early thirties. That wasn’t exactly over the hill.