Riding Tall (25 page)

“And if the day-care center doesn’t work out after school,” Lorraine added, “I know people who are happy to step in so you can still do a full day’s work on the farm.” She nodded with the satisfaction of a well-intentioned busybody who’d found an outlet for her invasiveness. “I’ll need to screen them and make sure they’re dedicated to making a long-term commitment. Kami needs to get to know them, and they’ll need to get to know Kami. If the day care doesn’t think they can handle Kami on their own, maybe they’ll change their mind if I can deliver them an extra couple volunteers each day.”

“We all should have stepped in sooner,” Andy Stark said. “Jean and me especially, but the whole community. Not just you. We couldn’t have known there’d be a fire, but we knew things weren’t good in the house. Now you need to let
all
of us have a chance to make things better for the girls.”

“
All
the girls,” Clayton MacIlray said. “Lacey, if you need help, you let me know. If Savannah needs something, I want to know about it.” He looked at Joe. “We’re a community, and we look after our own. It shouldn’t be just one person taking it all on himself.”

“We can make it work,” Mackenzie said. He needed Joe to see that. If Joe could just find some hope, they could work together to figure out the details.

“It’s what’s best for Kami,” Ally said, reaching out to take her brother’s hand. “It’s great that she had one person on her side, but it’s even greater if she has more.”

Joe swallowed hard and looked at Mackenzie. “We’d have a lot of details to figure out,” he said.

Mackenzie felt the tension drain out of him, replaced with a buoyant hope. “We can do it,” he said confidently. And then, quietly, “I need you to do it.”

Joe stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly but firmly, he nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s give it a try.”

Chapter 19

“T
HERE
’
S
A
special harness,” Joe explained to Kathryn Webb. “One end on the dog, the other end on the kid. I’m not sure we’d really need it with Kami and Griffin. They’re pretty devoted to each other, so I can’t see either one wandering off. But it’d make it clear that he’s a service dog. The training place said we could get him a little… I don’t know, it’s like a little jacket. Like a cape that doesn’t flap. It goes under the harness, and there’d be words on the side explaining his job.”

“And his job would be primarily to lessen anxiety but could also involve keeping her from wandering away.” The principal sounded thoughtful.

“Yeah. I mean, it wouldn’t be, like, a job description. Not on the side of his cape. It’d just say ‘Service Dog’ or something.”

“He could be a useful tool to help her reconnect with her classmates. Everyone likes a friendly dog.”

“And he doesn’t shed. Unlikely to cause allergies. Totally housetrained, no aggression at all. He’s an excellent dog for the job.”

“Let’s give it a try,” Kathryn said. She sounded relieved that Joe had come up with a plan. For all her dedication, she’d been having a lot of trouble making the school into the safe, welcoming place she wanted it to be. Well, at least she’d been having trouble making Kami
believe
it was safe and welcoming. It had only been a week since The Intervention, as Ally had taken to calling it, so nobody was discouraged yet, but finding a solution to the school problem was important.

Especially since Kami seemed to be almost as agitated at home. They’d started letting Griffin sleep on her bed, and that had helped some, but she’d still wake them with crying a couple times a night. Joe or Lacey would stumble into her room and find her sitting in her bed with her arms wrapped around Griffin, sobbing loudly into his ruff. They’d moved Savannah in with Austin so she wouldn’t be disturbed.

That was what their lives were: constant upheavals and adjustments, never a good night’s sleep or a time when they weren’t trying to figure out a way to do one thing or another better than they’d been doing so far.

But it was okay, because it was both of them. Joe
and
Mackenzie. They still didn’t seem to have the energy for a sex life, but now it was
both
of them falling into bed exhausted. A gentle kiss, maybe a little snuggling, then blessed sleep, at least for a few hours. And when they woke, it would be
both
of them hard at work.

Joe was pretty sure Mackenzie was trying to prove something, and surely he’d ease off eventually. But since the meeting, Joe had come in from the barn every morning to find a hot breakfast waiting for him, the kids washed and dressed, Kami carried downstairs and playing happily with the toys Mackenzie had brought into one corner of the kitchen. Austin would usually be with her, and when they squabbled, Mackenzie would be the one to decide whether intervention was warranted. Joe would go back out to work and come in to clean laundry and another hot meal. It was strange to sit there with Mackenzie, no kids in the house. The few times they’d gotten closest to sex had been during their afternoon naps—never actually taking things to completion, but at least making out a little, reminding themselves that their bodies
would
still work that way if only they had the energy to commit to it.

It was the dinners where Mackenzie was outdoing himself. He seemed to have accepted that beef was cheap and easy, but he was using it the way the dieticians suggested, almost as a garnish. Beef stir-fry, beef stew full of vegetables, small, succulent steaks so flavorful they could dominate the meal without taking up that much space.

Joe had tried to make it clear that Mackenzie wasn’t expected to turn himself into a fifties housewife, and Mackenzie had just grinned and said he was having fun. He’d back off when he got tired of it, and they’d go back to throwing whatever food they could find into a pot and hoping for the best. Until that happened, though, Joe was really trying to just enjoy it all without feeling guilty about any of it.

He checked his watch. The family had decided that on Fridays the kids would come straight home, no after-school program, so they’d be arriving any minute. Mackenzie was at the church, showing it to a pair of future grooms looking for somewhere quaint and special. Joe grinned, headed for the pantry, and pulled out oatmeal and chocolate chips and the rest of the ingredients for fresh cookies. Mackenzie didn’t have a monopoly on showing affection through food.

He was sliding the first two cookie sheets into the oven when the mudroom door opened, but he didn’t see the smiling faces of children when he looked over. Instead, Nick stood there, wearing a grubby spring-weight jacket about two sizes too small for him, shaking with cold. Joe looked out to the parking area and didn’t see a car.

“I hitched,” Nick said through chattering teeth.

“Get that jacket off and sit by the fire,” Joe said, flipping the switch on the electric kettle. He had no idea what was going on, but he firmly believed in the utility of boiling water when in doubt. “What happened to your car?”

“They took it,” Nick said. There was something in his face, a desperation that made Joe think the kid was being honest. “They took everything. My clothes, even. They just showed up at my apartment and made me sign over the car, and they loaded all my stuff into it and took off.”

“They?” Joe said, trying to sound calm. He pulled down a mug and a tea bag, then got impatient with Nick’s slow progress and strode over to unzip the jacket himself.

“I found that on the subway,” Nick muttered.

Joe dropped it with distaste and bent down to pull off Nick’s wet shoes. “Okay, go sit.” He gently pushed his brother in the right direction. “I’ll bring you tea, and you’ll tell me who
they
are and why the hell they took your stuff and you didn’t call the cops.”

“You know who they are, Joe,” Nick said. He was shuffling toward the fireplace, at least.

Joe sighed. Yeah, he supposed he did. Not the specifics, but the general idea. “You borrowed money from them?”

Nick nodded. “Nobody else would give me any.”

“Nobody else would give you any because we didn’t think you’d be able to pay it back. And if these guys came for you, that means you
weren’t
able to pay it back.” Joe tried to bite back the lecture he wanted to give. “Is the bar still running?”

Nick shook his head. “They closed it down, took all our equipment to pay the debts.”

“And the guys you borrowed from… they’re good now? Or are they going to come after you for more?” Joe poured the hot water into the mug and added a squirt of honey. He didn’t want to think about his baby brother getting into this kind of trouble, but he needed to know whether it was likely to spread to the rest of the family.

“I think they’re good. They know I’m done, and the car is probably enough to pay off the capital, at least. I guess my stuff goes to pay for the interest.”

Joe handed the mug to his brother, who wrapped his fingers around it like it was made of gold.

“Okay. So you’re safe. That’s good.” They sat quietly for a while.

“It’s weird that I came
here
, isn’t it?” Nick sipped his tea, winced as it burned his lips, then looked innocently at his brother. “I mean, I’m not exactly welcome here. And there’s no room for me. But still, I didn’t go to Will or Sarah’s. I came here.”

“This is your home, Nick.” But Joe should be honest. “Although there
isn’t
actually a bed for you, unless you want to share a room with a girl who gets the night sobs. We moved Savannah into the spare bed in Austin’s room.”

“I’ve slept on this couch before,” Nick said. Apparently failure, terror, and cold made him much easier to get along with. Joe would have to remember that for future occasions.

“Mack’s going through some sort of gourmet-chef phase, so the eats will be good.”

“Nice. If I’m full enough, I can pass out anywhere.”

Then the door banged open again, and this time it
was
the kids. They dropped their school stuff and trooped inside, and Joe fed them warm cookies with cold glasses of milk. It was too precious for words, really, but nobody complained.

Mackenzie came home with fish from the market, and Joe forced himself not to make a face. Maybe they’d take the kids ice fishing over the weekend, and Mackenzie could learn it wasn’t necessary to spend money on things the farm could provide. Or maybe Mackenzie was just following Joe’s aborted plan to simplify their lives and buying some stuff instead of having to produce it all at home.

“I’
M
JUST
glad he came home,” Joe said softly to Mackenzie as they lay in bed that night. “If he hadn’t thought he could come here….”

“He knew he could.” Mackenzie ran a comforting hand over Joe’s back. “And he’s being an angel, so far. Is that likely to last?”

“Of course not. And even now, I wouldn’t leave anything valuable lying around where he can see it.”

“He wouldn’t steal from you,” Mackenzie objected. “He really loves you. He looks up to you. Wants to be like you. That’s a lot of pressure, you know. On him. You’re a lot to live up to, Joe Sutton.”

Joe propped himself up on his elbow. “Where are you getting all that from? Are you just making it up?”

“Well, he never said it outright, maybe. But I’m pretty sure it’s true.”

“Is that how it was with you? Did you want to be like your dad, or your brother?”

“Me?” Mackenzie’s laugh was incredulous. “Hell, no. I was
never
going to be like them.”

“If you’d gotten in trouble when you were Nick’s age, would you have gone to your parents?”

Mackenzie didn’t answer right away, but finally Joe saw him nodding in the dim light. “Yeah, I guess so. I wouldn’t have wanted to, but I would have.”

“That counts for something, right? I mean, whatever it is between you all, you would have gone to them if you’d needed to. And they would have tried to help you.”

“They would have lectured me until my ears bled.”

“That’s probably what Nick thinks I’m going to do.” Joe wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but he decided to push a little further. “They love you. They miss you. I’m not saying you should start going over for Sunday dinner every week, but in the interest of our partnership and our sincere commitment to discussing each other’s decisions, I think you should think about spending a bit more time with them. Invite them up to see the church. Something.”

“I thought we were talking about
your
messed-up family,” Mackenzie protested.

“We shifted topics,” Joe said easily. “That’s part of the new world order. We change topics pretty frequently. Get used to it.”

“Can we change back? Can we talk about what your baby brother is going to be doing with his time? And are we
sure
things in the city are wrapped up tidily?”

“Maybe you could call your friend and find out,” Joe suggested. After all, it had been Mackenzie who’d gotten Nick involved in the bar business in the first place. Of course, Joe had agreed to the whole plan and had been totally aware of the risks, so it wasn’t like Mackenzie had anything to feel guilty for, but in terms of follow-up, he was in a good position to find things out.