Baby Be Mine

“So you live in town and just go out to your ranch to work? Is there not a house on it?”

“Sure there’s a house. I grew up in it, and my mother and brothers still live there. I just moved into town when I became Willy’s guardian—that house belonged to Billy and Kim. Now, technically, it’s Willy’s. But I thought Willy had had enough trauma, and he didn’t need to be moved out to the ranch on top of everything else.”

“It must be inconvenient for you to live in Elk Creek instead of on your land with your family, though.”

“Some, but it’s no big deal. I may consider moving back with Willy later on, renting out the house in town. The money from something like that could pay for Willy’s education when the time comes. Then, after he’s all grown-up he can take the place over. But for now this is what’s best for him.”

Clair glanced over at Willy. “So you’re already a homeowner, huh?” she joked.

Willy looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language and turned his head again.

“We’re just up the road,” Jace informed her as he turned off the main drag onto a flat dirt road that was a straight shot to a house that stood about a quarter of a mile ahead.

As they drew nearer Clair could see more details. The house was a two-story square box. A steep, black, shingled roof dropped eaves over three multipaned windows on the top level, and a matching roof shaded a wraparound porch on the lower level.

It was definitely not as fancy, as elaborate or as large as the houses they’d passed before, but it showed care in the flawless white paint and the black shutters that stood on either side of all the windows, including the two picture windows that looked out onto the porch.

There were homey, loving touches in the twin carriage lamps that adorned the shutters that bracketed the door, in the planters that hung in the center of each section of the cross-buck railing that surrounded the porch, and in the old-fashioned spindled benches and high-backed rocking chairs situated here and there.

But regardless of the care lavished on the place, it was still just an old farmhouse that couldn’t compare to those other houses they’d driven by.

“Mop?” Willy said excitedly, as Jace drove around the house to the big red barn behind it.

“She’s already gone by now, Willy. So’s everybody else.”

“Mop?” Clair repeated.

“That’s what he calls my mother. Near as we can tell he heard all of us calling her Mom, figured she wasn’t his mom, and settled for Mop.”

“Mop,” Willy said again in confirmation, as if it made perfect sense.

“We’re getting a late start today or the whole gang would be here and I’d introduce you. As it is, there’s no reason to go in when it’s the paddock fence I’m fixin’ today. But we have the run of the place if you need a bathroom or anything,” he informed her as he pulled the truck to a stop near the barn’s great door.

“I can keep Willy out of your way while you work,” Clair suggested.

“I hep you, Unca Ace,” Willy insisted, again with that two-year-old forcefulness, as if Clair were interfering.

“Uncle Ace?” she parroted, unable to suppress a laugh as she did.

“He doesn’t do too well with js,” Jace explained, giving her a sheepish grin that was so charming and endearing she didn’t have a doubt that it gave him tremendous leverage with whatever woman he used it on. Her included, although she didn’t want to admit it.

Then, to Willy, he said, “Yep, you can help me. And maybe we’ll put Clair to work, too.”

Willy scowled at her but didn’t come out with the usual no. That seemed to Clair like progress.

Jace got out of the truck, and Clair followed him, glancing around as he took Willy from the car seat.

Not that there was a lot to see—some farm equipment, a garage about the same size as the barn, with four doors and what looked to be an apartment on top. The winter’s remaining bales of hay were stacked in a lean-to. Several towering apple trees provided shade for the rear of the house and the mud porch that jutted out from it. A brick-paved patio held a picnic table, benches and stacked lawn chairs awaiting summer.

“There you go, little man,” Clair heard Jace say as he set Willy on his feet.

No sooner did he let go of the small boy than Willy took off like a shot for the barn, disappearing through the big open doors without a word to Jace.

“Where’s he going?” Clair asked.

“To say good morning to Tom. He’s our barn cat. Willy never gets near the barn without going in after him.”

“Would you mind if I went, too?”

“No, go ahead. I need to get the wood out of the truck and start work. I’ll be right over there.” He nodded toward the white rail fence that surrounded an area of dirt beside the barn. The paddock, Clair assumed, although it didn’t really matter to her what it was called.

Willy was all that was on her mind as she took off in the same direction he had, entertaining visions of the two of them bonding over the pet.

She expected to find boy and cat the moment she stepped through the barn’s main door but all she saw was a long center aisle with empty stall after empty stall lining both sides.

“Willy?” she called.

The child didn’t answer her, but from outside Jace’s booming baritone said, “He’ll be in the tack room.”

Clair wasn’t sure what a tack room was, but since there was a door at the end of the center aisle, she headed for that. Along the way she looked into each stall just in case, but to no avail. Neither Willy nor the cat were in any of them.

“Willy?” she called again tentatively as she approached the door.

She could see one end of a tall workbench. Harnesses, reins and various paraphernalia hung from hooks on the walls. But she still didn’t see her nephew or the cat.

Until she actually reached the door.

But she’d only taken two steps in the direction of the workbench when the cat let out an angry meow, and Willy wailed, “Ouch!”

Then Willy scrambled out from under the workbench and charged passed her, crying loudly, “Unca Ace! Unca Ace!”

Terrified of what might be wrong, Clair ran after him, arriving at Jace’s side just as he scooped Willy into his arms.

“What’d you do, Willy?” he asked patiently, scanning a scratch on the boy’s hand.

“I talked back of cat, cat talked back of me,” Willy lamented.

“Mmm-hmm,” Jace said as if he understood exactly what the little boy had said. “You were pulling Tom’s tail again, weren’t you? And he hissed at you, you told him to be quiet, and went right on pulling it until he scratched you. Right?”

“Yep,” Willy said pitifully.

“You can’t be mean to Tom. What did I tell you about that?”

“He’s mean on me.”

“He’s only mean to you when you’re mean to him first. You can’t pull his tail.”

“I wanna.”