The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 (10 page)

Though vexed about the expense of hiring help, tomorrow she would call her aunt and her cousin and put out the word she needed a part-time hand. She would ask Nan to help write an ad to put in Callister's newspaper, which was published on Tuesdays and Fridays.

She might even ask Nan to help write a letter to Billy. In the long run, a letter to her ex-partner might be more effective than a phone call.

* * *

"Here's a part-time job for you, John T."

Dana leaned against John's office doorjamb reading the local newspaper. It was no secret that John's child support payments kept him strapped. Callister County sheriff's pay wasn't an executive salary. He frequently joked he needed a second job so he could afford to be sheriff.

He peered at her through half-closed eyelids, didn't move his feet off his desktop. "Doing what? Sweeping floors at the Rusty Spur?" He covered his fact with his hat and closed his eyes.

"Izzy Rondeau's advertising for help with her horses."

"The hell." John lifted his hat off his face. His boot heels hit the floor. He sat up and leaned forward. "Lemme see."

Dana passed him the newspaper. He read the ad, then handed the paper back and resumed his relaxed position. "Doesn't say what she's paying. Has to be minimum wage. She probably wants a grunt."

For the rest of the day he thought about the ad and how long it had been since he had ridden a horse. At four p.m., he turned the office over to Rooster and Dana and headed out to Izzy's house.

When he knocked at the front door, her little girl's face popped up behind the glass pane in the upper half of the door. She opened up, the puppies barking and bouncing around her. "Where's your mom?" he asked her.

She held the door wide. "You have to come in. I can't hold the door open 'cause Mama doesn't want bugs to get in the house."

"Oh, okay." John stepped into the living room and felt and heard the creak of the wood floor. He looked around. The room, with its aged pine paneling, looked old but cozy. The furniture looked fairly new—a long leather sofa, a cowhide chair. A huge, draping fern filled one corner and houseplants sat on the windowsills. All of it was spotlessly clean and welcoming.

Ava looked up at him with huge coffee-colored eyes. Plastic clips that looked like little blue bows showed on either side of a part in her red hair. "Can you fix our fire? I know how, but I'm not allowed to if Mama isn't in the house."

John turned his attention to a dying fire flickering in a brick-front fireplace. "Sure." He walked to the fireplace, stepping on layers of cowhides and Navajo rugs covering the floor between the hearth and the sofa. On the thick oak mantel he saw photographs of horses and trophies of various sizes and configurations.

"Those are Mama's prizes," Ava said. "She's won a lot."

"She sure has," John said, impressed. He returned his attention to the fire, found pine rounds in a bin beside the fireplace, then squatted and placed them on the grate.

Ava spoke behind him. "Did you come to check on Harry and Gwendolyn?"

He glanced at her over his shoulder. "Gwendolyn?"

The kid pushed her glasses higher up her nose with the tips of her fingers and gave him a serious look. "I changed Jenny's name to Gwendolyn. I read this story where someone called his jackass Jenny. Gwendolyn sounds better."

As he reached for the hearth broom and swept stray ash and debris into the fireplace John wondered what book a little girl her age could be reading that had the word "jackass" in it. He stood up and wiped his hands with his handkerchief. "Right. Gwendolyn's a better name. You do a lot of reading?"

She pointed to the lower shelves of a wide bookcase that stretched from floor to ceiling on one side of the fireplace. "These are mine."

The upper shelves were filled with dozens of what John assumed were CDs until he reached for one and examined it. Audiobooks.

"Those are Mama's," the kid said. "She listens all the time. She only looks at horse stuff and vet books, but I read a lot. Sometimes I read to Mama."

"Is that right?" John pushed an audiobook on American history back into its slot.

"Some people wanted Mama to write a book because of all the stuff she knows about horses. I told her I'd help her, but she won't." The little girl sighed, the weight of the world on her narrow shoulders.

Exactly what did Izzy know that would call for writing a book? John wondered.

The kid picked up a hardback lying on the sofa. "This is
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
It's about a boy who can do magic. I've already read it once, but I'm reading it again because we haven't gone to Boise yet to buy the next book."

"I see." John took the book and fanned the pages, thinking of the struggle he and his ex-wife had trying to persuade their older son to focus on reading. "Looks like a good story."

The puppies barked and scampered around his and Ava's feet. She looked at them, then back up at him. "You don't have to worry about Harry and Gwendolyn. I'm very responsible. I sleep with them on the porch."

"You think that's a good idea? Long as they can't get outside, they should be all right out there by themselves."

"But I don't want them to get lonely. And I don't want them to get scared when the coyotes howl. Mama lets me use her big sleeping bag."

"Ah. Guess that makes a difference, huh?" He tilted his head toward the playing puppies. "You think you oughtta have them in here? I'll bet they're not housebroken yet."

The words had no sooner left his mouth than one of them squatted and tinkled at the corner of the tile hearth.

"Harry!" Ava scooped him up and shook her finger at his dark nose. "Bad dog. Now you have to stay on the porch."

"Where's your mom?" John asked again before the girl could escape to the porch with the puppies.

"Over at the big barn. She's painting."

She picked up the second pup and marched away in quick little steps. The word that came to John's mind was one he didn't usually associate with a ten-year-old kid—efficient.

Chapter 7

John walked toward the massive old barn. Hearing rhythmic hammering, he looked for the sound and saw someone on the steep roof nailing down shingles.

The barn's double doors stood open. Inside, he found Izzy at the top of a twelve-foot aluminum ladder leaned against the tack room wall. Wearing brown padded coveralls, she had a wide paintbrush in her hand. He glanced around. Most of the tack room exterior showed a fresh coat of white paint. But the temperature was in the low fifties, too cold for outside painting.

He thumbed back his hat and went to the foot of the ladder, braced both hands on the side rails and looked up. "You think that'll ever get dry?"

She twisted and looked down. White paint dripped off her brush to the ground, just missing him. "It's barn paint. Not much more than chalky water. What do you want?"

"I saw your ad."

She juggled the paintbrush and a gallon paint bucket into one hand and began to descend the ladder, placing both feet on each rung as she stepped down. When she finally reached the ground, she gave him a shy smile and all he could think of was how soft her full lips looked.

"I'm afraid of high places," she said. "And ladders."

"Then maybe you shouldn't be up there."

She had splotches of white everywhere, even in her hair.

"I just want everything to look better, like there's a live person here. I'll put good paint on later. You didn't really come about the job." It was a statement rather than a question.

"Why not? I figure I know as much about horses as anybody. Around here, anyway."

She gave him a narrow-lidded look. "I don't know—"

"Horses like me. You saw. The other day when you introduced me to them."

A stocky, muscular man wearing dirty clothes and a well-seasoned leather tool belt appeared in the doorway. On a second look, John recognized him as Izzy's kid brother. John hadn't seen him around town lately. Perhaps Izzy had been keeping him too busy to frequent the bars. Paul walked over and John touched his hat to him, "Paul."

"What're you doing way out here, John?" The man's tone had a wariness to it.

"Nothing official. Talking horses."

Paul grunted and declared he had finished shingling the roof. Izzy thanked him and hugged him, transferring smears of white paint from herself and her brush to him, and asked him to stay for supper.

John's mind spun back to high school, when Izzy had been her little brother's keeper. And his unfaltering defender.

"No, thanks," Paul said. "If I get hungry, I'll eat at the cafe in town."

Isabelle released him. "Thanks again for helping me. Stay out of trouble, okay?" She stepped aside and he started toward a silver dually. "I love you, Paul," she called.

He turned back, giving her a big grin. "I love you, too, sis. And don't be worrying about me. You'll get gray before your time." He lifted his hand in a wave and continued on his way.

Izzy looked after him with a worried expression. John, in his role as sheriff, had already become aware that Paul Rondeau was indeed enough to give a loving sister a gray hair or two.

After her brother drove away, Izzy turned back and walked over to a hay bale where the lid to the paint can and a mallet lay. "Paul's a great carpenter." She pushed the lid onto the can and pounded it shut with the mallet. "He's helping me out, fixing up the barn and patching the holes in the roof."

"Good for him." John looked up, estimated the barn ceiling to be at least thirty feet high. He gave her a wink. "Being afraid of high places, you'd have a heck of a time up there fixing it yourself."

She laughed and the whole world seemed brighter.

"That's true," she said and carried the brush outside.

John tagged along. The late afternoon's golden sun caught in her hair, turning it the color of fire. "If you need help with the horses, why don't you call on your brother for that, too?"

Copper-colored brows arched. "I said he's a great carpenter. He's terrible with horses."

A faucet stood outside the barn door. She bent over and worked at washing the paintbrush under a stream of water. "You're the sheriff. When would you find the time to fool with my animals?"

"Being sheriff doesn't use up every hour of my day. Lots of days I don't have that much to do."

"From what I've heard, you don't take the job seriously. If you tried, you'd probably be busy all the time."

Well, wasn't she bossy and what the hell had she heard? He shrugged. "Hard to say. What're you paying?"

She grinned. "I only need someone a couple of hours a day, maybe three days a week. Six bucks an hour. That doesn't add up to much."

Mental sigh. That amount of money wouldn't make a pimple-sized dent in his child support payments. "You're right. Six hours a week at six dollars doesn't add up to much."

"I was figuring on a schoolkid."

"You're gonna let a schoolkid loose with horses like yours?"

"Just to feed and do some grunt work. Anything else, I do myself. Unless, of course, I find one with some experience... or talent." She stood up, wiped her wet hands on her coveralls, then started back into the barn. "I appreciate your asking about it, though. So far, you're the only one who has. I imagine kids think the drive out here's too far."

John sensed an air of desperation in Izzy. He weighed the pay against the trip, arguing with himself. Though he missed riding and working with horses, and putting horses like hers through their paces would be a special treat, it made no sense to commit to a thirty-mile round trip three days a week and get paid no more than thirty-six dollars. "I know a few teenagers. I'll ask around."

The corners of her mouth tipped up into another heart-stopping smile. "That would be great."

Warmed with a smile like that, John couldn't make himself say good-bye. "So how're you getting along with the puppies?"

"They're cute."

"Still mad at me for bringing them?"

"I guess not. Ava loves them and they must have been what she needed. She still misses Jack, but—anyway, it was nice of you to think of her."