A Rancher's Pride(28)

“Why didn’t you call me?” Kayla asked. “I could have helped you with the stairs.”

“Thought I could handle them myself.” She sighed heavily. “Thought wrong, I guess.”

“Becky and I just finished breakfast. Can I get you something? I’d have brought you up a tray, but Sam told me last night you didn’t want anything in your room this morning.”

“No. I’d planned to come downstairs. Just not quite this late.”

“We had pancakes, and I’ve got batter left.” She opened the refrigerator door. “It’ll just take me a minute to make some.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

Kayla got to work, heating up the skillet again, setting a place at the table and pouring a glass of orange juice. It didn’t take long at all before she had a plateful of pancakes ready.

“Hope these are the way you like them.” She smiled as she set the plate in front of Sharleen. “I’m sure it’s a little awkward having another woman cooking in your kitchen.”

“When it’s a woman who’s out to make trouble for my family, it is.” The twang had disappeared completely. Sharleen Robertson’s voice and blue eyes had turned colder than the container of orange juice Kayla had just picked up to return to the refrigerator.

She set the juice carefully on the shelf, then closed the door quietly. She turned to the table again. “I’m not here to make trouble,” she said. “Only to do what’s right for Becky.”

“Sam wants that, too, you know.”

“I don’t know that, for sure.” She swallowed hard, but curiosity won out. Against her better judgment, she blurted, “He said he didn’t even know about Becky.”

“That’s right. Neither of us did. We hadn’t heard a thing about that little girl until Ronnie brought her here and left her.”

Kayla wondered. Maybe Sharleen had known nothing, but Sam…? How could she believe him, against all Ronnie’s claims?

The sound of a dog’s bark distracted her. The noise had come from the backyard.

She moved over to the screen door and saw Becky outside with one of the ranch animals, a puppy. He looked like a Labrador-shepherd mix. His body and nose were dark, his face tan. A large dark patch of fur completely circled one eye, giving him a permanently startled expression.

Kayla smiled.

She looked over at Sharleen, who had started in on the plate of pancakes. “I’ll be right outside with Becky if you need something,” she said.

Out on the porch, she sank to the top step.

When Becky saw her, she snapped her fingers and pointed. Dog. She covered her eye with her hand. Pirate.

Kayla laughed. A good name for the little pup. And so nice for Becky to have a friend.

Keeping a watch on the clock, she let the two play together. After a while, she looked through the screen door again and found the kitchen empty. Sharleen must have made her way into the living room or up the stairs again without help.

As the morning wore on, Kayla glanced more and more often at the time. She wanted to be in town at the Double S long before Sam arrived.

It might take a while to get Becky cleaned up. She and Pirate had spent their time running back and forth across the yard and tramping around the barn.

Kayla waved Becky over to her.

The sooner they got to the café, the more opportunity she would have to talk to Dori. To find out what the woman could tell her about Sam. Because, obviously, Sharleen Robertson wouldn’t say anything but good about her son.

Much as Kayla understood that, she felt frustrated by it, too.

Somehow, she’d have to find someone who would open up to her about Sam.



AS SHE NEARED THE DOUBLE S, Kayla eased her foot off the gas pedal. Slowing to a crawl, she almost unwillingly glanced toward the front of the building at the sign Sam had made. Creative and quirky and wonderful. All things that the man himself was not.

From the backseat, Becky squealed. She had seen the café, too. In the rearview mirror, Kayla saw her tap the fingertips of her right hand against the palm of her left. Her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline.

“Cookie?” Becky asked.

And the message said, obviously, she wanted one.

“We had all those sweet pancakes at breakfast this morning,” Kayla told her, signing the sentence in the language her niece would understand.

And Becky did. Still, she ran those same fingertips she’d used to sign cookie down the length of her T-shirt. “Hungry.” And she grinned.