The Chosen Child

Her hands felt like ice. “Are you moving in with Jordan?”

“No.” He shook his head. At that moment they rounded a bend in the trail, and Nikki knew exactly what he had in mind.

A three-room, white frame house stood butted up against the rock face in front of them. In days past, when their place had been a larger working ranch, it had served as a bunkhouse and later as a home for the many live-in hired hands that came and went. But over time, they had left it abandoned and empty, except for some ancient pieces of furniture and the cobwebs the spiders had taken to spinning in the undisturbed corners.

Only from the look of things, there were no longer cobwebs in the house.

The cozy building bore a new coat of paint, and the broken-down steps of the porch had been recently repaired. Two chairs sat side by side near the front door, facing the panoramic view beyond. And through the curtainless front windows, Nikki could see the inside of the little house had been cleaned and painted as well.

She sat frozen in the saddle, her hands and legs numb. Her mind raced. “What have you done?” she asked, feeling betrayed. That he would fix up the bunkhouse—and so quickly—meant only one thing. “How on earth did you manage all this…?”

“I’ve had some help,” Cody said, “which I’ll tell you about later. What do you think?”

“It looks great.” Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he had something else in mind. “Why did you do it?”

“I’m going to move in here,” he said quietly.

She sat her horse in silence, not sure what to say. A temporary stay in the bunkhouse would’ve required cleaning the place up, even repairing the broken steps. But the new paint, the yard cleared of brush and rock…it all looked too permanent. Too much as though Cody meant to stay here, on the ranch that had been in his family for three generations. But away from the home they’d known together—away from their bed—for good.

“Do you want to go inside and see it?”

Nikki blinked and tried to focus on Cody’s question. Tried not to let her emotions show. She gave a casual lift of her shoulders. “Sure.”

Telling herself to stay calm, that she could handle this, she swung down off Cheyenne’s back. The old hitching rail in front of the house had also been replaced, and she looped her reins around it before preceding Cody up the steps.

His boot heels clipped against the porch’s wooden surface as he moved past her to hold open the door. The scent of fresh paint greeted her as she stepped inside and looked around. Arms crossed, Nikki turned to face him. “It looks great. You got a lot accomplished in a short time.”

If he noticed the apprehension in her voice, he gave no indication. “Like I said, I had some help.”

“Jordan?”

“Some. But mostly I had a kid helping me. One of the boys I’m supervising during his community service.”

She raised a brow. “The judge assigned him community service on our ranch?”

“No, but his foster parents did.”

“Who is he?”

“Dustin Holbrook. He was in your class—what—five years ago?”

Her jaw dropped. “Dusty?” She remembered a bright, shy, little boy with brown eyes and chestnut hair. A boy whose mother and stepfather had gone through a divorce the year he was in her kindergarten class. She’d heard whispered rumors around the school of the parents’ alcohol and drug addiction. “My God, I haven’t seen him in ages. What did he do?”

Cody’s mouth quirked. “Painted his initials on the hood of my squad car.”

“What? I didn’t see…” She gestured over her shoulder in the direction of the house, where his squad car was parked. “How did I miss that?”

“It just came back from the body shop.”

“I can’t believe he had the nerve to do that. What on earth possessed him?”

“Gang initiation.”

“In Deer Creek?” She wasn’t naive, and their little town was by no means immune to crime, but it usually came in the form of domestic disputes…and drunk driving.

Nikki cringed inwardly and refocused on her conversation with Cody.

“Apparently Dustin and two of his pals decided to form a ‘gang.’ They thought spray-painting their initials on a cop car would be a good way to get ‘jumped in.’” He shook his head. “They have no idea what the term even means.”

Nikki shuddered, thinking of the things cops in bigger cities had to deal with. Things like kids as young as Dustin being jumped in to gangs through initiation beatings and worse.

“So, his friends painted a squad car, too?”

“Nope.” He chuckled, and the sound sent a pleasant shiver up her spine. It had been a while since she and Cody had laughed together. “The trouble Dustin got into with me and his foster parents was enough to make his pals change their minds. He cooled his heels in juvie for a couple of days, then the judge assigned him forty hours of community service. I’ve had him pulling weeds and mowing the grass around the station, the senior housing units and the park. But his foster parents—Frank and Sylvia Thompson—have been harder on him than I’ve been.

“Dustin’s been getting into quite a bit of mischief lately, though he hasn’t broken any laws, until now. Or at least, none that we know of. They’re fed up with his nonsense. Asked me to keep him busy here on the ranch, too. So I have.” He gestured at the walls around them, bringing Nikki’s focus back to the reality of her and Cody’s circumstances.

She looked through the doorway that divided the living area and kitchen from the bedroom and bath. Cody’s clothes hung from pegs on the walls, and she saw several personal belongings on top of a small chest of drawers squeezed into one corner between the window and the foot of the bed. Her throat constricted, and she fought back the hurt. “So, are you already sleeping here?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I figured I’d wait until you got back.”

Nikki plastered a humorless smile on her face and lifted her hands. “Well, I’m home. So I guess that means you’ll be sleeping here tonight.” She spun on her heel and left the room.

“Nikki.” Cody followed her, but she was already halfway across the room, halfway to her horse before he could close the door and catch up to her. She gathered Cheyenne’s reins, swung into the saddle and faced him. “What did you expect?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She tried to sit up straighter in the saddle. To cowboy up. “I guess I knew this was coming…well, not this specifically, but that you might move out.”

“I thought it would be better this way.” Cody shrugged and leaned against a newel post, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Damn but he looked tempting standing there, hip cocked, black cowboy hat shadowing his face. He looked like a man who belonged here.

Nikki felt like the outcast, a stranger. Maybe she should be the one leaving.

It was going to be a long, hard summer.

“Sure.” She gave Cody a tight smile. “It’ll be better this way.” She lifted the reins and backed Cheyenne away from the hitching post. “I’ve got to finish unpacking. I’ll see you later.”

She spun the mare around and galloped down the trail toward the barn.

CHAPTER THREE

CODY WATCHED NIKKI ride away, his heart heavy. He wanted to go after her, sit her down and make things right between them. But he didn’t exactly know how to go about doing that.

He shook off the thought. Nikki needed a little time to let it sink in. Lord knew, it hadn’t yet sunk in for him—that they would actually be living apart. Sure, he was still on the ranch, but the acreage separating him from Nikki felt like the Grand Canyon. Still, he needed to focus on work and his search for Anna’s killer.

Not expecting Nikki to be home until tomorrow, he’d made arrangements for Dustin’s foster parents to bring him to the ranch this morning. Cody had a long row of fencing that needed to be repaired and replaced, and he figured it would keep Dustin out of trouble. It was also a good way to get to know him better. The more time he’d spent around the kid, the more curious he was about Dustin Holbrook.

In spite of his penchant for mischief, the only previous trouble Sylvia could recall was Dustin’s shoplifting a candy bar when he was eight. According to her and Frank, Dustin did things to get attention, even if that attention was negative. Like joining a gang and spray-painting a squad car. But his attitude made it difficult to find him a permanent home.

Cody rode back to the barn, but not until he’d given Nikki ample time to put her mare up and return to the house. He unsaddled Raven and rubbed him down before turning the gelding back out with the other horses. Forcing himself not to so much as glance at the ranch house, Cody made his way to his pickup truck, Max at his heels, and checked to make sure he had the tools and supplies he and Dustin would need for the fence.