Unexpected Mommy

A terrible racking cough seized his father just then as if to give lie to Chance’s prediction. When it was over, his father’s brow glistened with sweat. His color was ashen.

“Listen to me,” he said, his voice raspy. “You go to Texas. You have as much right to White Pines as anyone who’s left there. Maybe Harlan’s still alive, maybe he’s not, but that house, that land, was my heritage as much as his. He stole it from me. Take it back, Chance. Take it back for me. It’s the only way I’ll ever rest in peace, knowing that you and Petey have what’s due you.” His eyes glittered feverishly. “Promise me, son. Promise me.”

Chance feared the cost of an argument would be too great. “I promise you, Daddy. Petey and I will go to Los Piños,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he ever intended to follow through. He wasn’t certain he had the strength left to carry on an old family feud.

His father’s grip tightened. “Don’t say that just to pacify me, son. A promise made on a man’s deathbed has to be kept. It’s the next thing to making a promise to God. You understand that, don’t you?”

Hank had been well into his forties when his only son was born. He’d already been set in his no-account ways. Over the years Chance had fought with his father as often as he’d agreed with him. Their rows had been loud and legendary in these parts, but he loved the old coot.

“I understand,” he said softly, reaching for a damp cool cloth to wipe his father’s brow.

“Petey?” the old man whispered.

Petey crept closer. “I’m here, Granddaddy.”

“You’re a good boy, Petey. Wild and spirited, just the way I was, but you have a good heart, same as me. Don’t let anybody ever tell you otherwise.”

Chance put a hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed. Tears were spilling down Petey’s cheeks. It was clear he sensed the end was near.

“Granddaddy, don’t die,” he pleaded. “Please don’t die like Mama did.”

Hank Adams gave Chance’s hand one last squeeze, then reached out his arms for his grandson. Petey climbed onto the bed and hugged him back fiercely, refusing to let go.

“Shh, boy. Don’t cry for me. You have to be brave for your daddy. Make sure he takes you to Texas, okay? I won’t be here to see that he does, so you’ll have to do it for me.”

“Daddy!” Chance warned.

His father shot him a final stubborn look. “Just making sure you keep your promise, son. Now you won’t be able to look Petey in the eye if you don’t.”

Stunned and infuriated by such a sneaky tactic, Chance glared at him. “You’re a manipulative old son of a gun. You know that, don’t you?”

His father cackled. “Hell, boy, I’m an Adams. That’s our heritage as much as White Pines and cattle.”

He sighed then and closed his eyes. Chance had to coax a tearful Petey away from the bed.

It was a few more hours before Hank Adams died, but those were his last words, and they echoed in Chance’s head in the days to come.

By the time school was out for the year, he’d made up his mind. He put both houses—his and his daddy’s—on the market, packed up his and Petey’s belongings in the back of his pickup, paid one last visit to the cemetery where Mary and his mother and father had been laid to rest, said goodbye to neighbors he’d known all his life and headed south.

“It’s going to be just like it was for my great-great-granddaddy,” Petey said, bouncing in his seat with excitement. “We’re having a real adventure.”

“Yes,” Chance agreed with one last look at his past in the rearview mirror. Either they were going to have an incredible adventure, or they were heading straight for disaster. He wasn’t quite prepared to lay odds on which was the more likely.

Chapter One (#ulink_baf27af2-20ce-5170-a011-56d9aba9f543)

Sweet heaven, it was true. Jenny Runningbear Adams stood just inside the doorway to her fourth-grade classroom and tried very hard not to panic. All around her chaos reigned, which just proved there was always a payback for the sins of the past. Years of childhood misdeeds were returning to haunt her.

If her stepfather could see this, he’d laugh till his sides split. Harlan Adams just loved irony. He’d always told her that one day she’d run across a child as impossible as she had been. Apparently this school year she was about to be confronted by a whole classroom of them.

She stared around her in horror and wondered what had possessed her to shift from teaching history and current events to eighth graders. She’d had some idealistic notion that elementary-school students would be more receptive, easier to mold. Obviously she’d lost her mind. The evidence of that was right in front of her.

The opening-day bell had barely rung and already chairs had been upended. Papers were strewn from one end of the dingy room to the other. Graffiti had been scrawled across the blackboard in every shade of chalk. Unfortunately, not even half the words had been spelled correctly. Stacks of textbooks she had neatened herself only yesterday were tumbled in disarray. Pandemonium was in full swing.

A freckle-faced girl was huddled at her desk sobbing as she clutched one fat braid in her hand, while the other bobbed on the left side of her head where it belonged. She looked like a lopsided doll after an encounter with a four-year-old’s scissors.

A pack of boys was circling the girl’s chair, whooping as if they’d just succeeded in scalping her. It was an image that sent a particularly nasty chill through Jenny’s part-Native American blood.

She took in the entire scene, drew a calming breath and prayed for patience, fortitude and maybe just a little divine intervention. At this moment she deeply regretted ever thinking of teaching as a way of giving something back to the community and sticking a little closer to home than she’d been in recent years.

More than one person had warned her that this would not be as simple as dealing with a bunch of hardheaded, shortsighted congressmen or even the eighth graders she’d had the year before. She had scoffed at that. Lobbying on Capitol Hill had been a three-ring circus. Eighth graders had been discovering the power of hormones. Fourth graders were little kids.

Well, that particular horse was out of the barn. She was here, under contract for another school year, nine endlessly long months. The prospect of day after day of this made her shudder. The only way around it was to seize control now, right this second.

“That’s enough!” she said just loudly enough to be heard over the uproar. That particular tone, lethally calm, had quelled many a rioting group in the past, although most of them had been adults caught up in a frenzy of advocacy of some Native American cause or another. She waited with some trepidation to see if it worked with this pint-size mob.

If it didn’t, she could always inform the principal that she’d had a sudden mental breakdown and it would no longer be safe for her to be left alone with young children. Patrick Jackson disliked her so much he’d accept the explanation without batting an eye. Besides, teaching was her second career, anyway. She could always find a third. Change was good. In fact, at this precise moment, it struck her as both positive and inevitable.

As she contemplated her future with some enthusiasm, two dozen pairs of eyes turned in her direction, surveying her, sizing her up. The sobbing child with the unfortunate haircut watched her hopefully.

“Everyone find a chair, get it behind a desk and sit,” Jenny instructed. When no one moved, she added, “Now!”

Slowly but surely she detected signs of movement. First one chair was scraped into place, then another and another. She caught a couple of guilty looks being exchanged as she crossed the room toward the chubby-cheeked victim of the morning’s torment.

She hunkered down in front of her and grasped her trembling hands. “Sweetie, it’s going to be okay,” she soothed, though she was certain of no such thing.

“No, it’s not,” the girl said, her voice thick with choked-back tears. “My hair is g-g-g-gone.”

“But now you can have a whole new hairdo,” Jenny said cheerfully. She smoothed a tendril of hair away from the child’s flushed cheek. “Look at my hair. It’s short. Takes me two minutes to wash and dry it. No tangles, either. And you have a lovely face. Short hair will show off your beautiful eyes.”

The girl blinked owlishly at that. “You think so?” she asked hesitantly.

“I really think so.”

“But what is my mom going to say?” she asked miserably. “My hair’s been growing practically forever. She’ll kill me.”

“I’ll speak with your mother,” Jenny promised. “After all, this wasn’t your fault. It’s not as if you lopped off that braid yourself. What’s your name?”

“Mary,” the child said. “Mary Rose Franklin.”

“Well, Mary, why don’t we go and make a call to your mother right this minute and see what we can do about this.” She smiled at her. “Just think how envious all your friends are going to be that you got to miss the first day of school.”

Mary sniffed and managed a faltering smile of triumph for her now subdued classmates.

Jenny took the child’s hand and led her toward the door, then paused as she recognized the danger in her plan. The class was very likely to erupt into chaos again the instant her back was turned.

She turned slowly back to face the other students. She doubted she would ever learn which student was responsible for this disaster, but maybe she could transform the incident into a lesson for all of them. If she didn’t take control of these nine-year-olds today, it would be a very long year.

Or a very short one, if she followed through on seeking new employment. Any new employment Once the principal saw Mary’s new haircut, he might very well encourage Jenny’s career change. In the meantime, though, she leveled a stern look at her young charges.