“They need a place to stay.”
“And you were thinking that they could use this place,” she guessed.
He grinned sheepishly. “Well, you’re never here. Maybe Patsy could look after the animals for you at night. I’m sure your husband would appreciate having you home all night long for a change.”
“An interesting deal.” She glanced at Patsy, who was hovering in the doorway. “How do you feel about it?”
Justin waited uneasily. There was no predicting how she would react. Patsy had been surprising him from the second they’d met. So far he’d seen no evidence of uppity, high society ways, but maybe she’d draw the line at caring for a bunch of sick animals. A part of him hoped she would.
In fact, she seemed about to argue, then she glanced his way and sighed. “I’d be grateful,” she said with apparent sincerity. “And of course I’d be willing to look after the animals in return, at least until I can get a job and pay you rent.”
“No need to worry about that,” Dani replied. “We’ll try it for a few days and see how it goes.” She reached for Patsy’s hand. “Come with me. I’ll show you around.”
Justin would have followed, but Billy patted his cheek. “Want to see kitties,” he reminded Justin.
“So you shall,” he promised, pausing in the kitchen where several cats were sprawled in patches of sunlight. He hunkered down so Billy could see. The boy’s coal black eyes lit up.
“Kitties,” he whispered with obvious satisfaction. “Nice kitty?”
Justin nodded and set the boy on his feet. “You can pet them.”
Billy toddled to the closest one and bent down until he was practically nose to nose with it. “Kitty,” he pronounced, and petted it gently on the head. The cat, used to the comings and goings of Dani’s rambunctious stepsons, merely yawned widely and stretched before curling up again with its head resting on its paws.
Billy toddled on unsteady legs toward another and went through the same routine again. Not until he’d greeted every cat in the kitchen did he come back to Justin and hold out his arms to be picked up.
“Mama,” he whispered, as if he’d just noticed she was missing. Tears began to well up in his eyes.
“It’s okay, fella. Your mama’s right here. We’ll go find her, okay?”
A thumb went into his mouth and he nodded. “’Kay.”
His mother might be all bristly caution, but Billy was so thoroughly trusting it made Justin’s heart ache with unexpected longing. He’d never given much thought to marriage and kids. If he wanted to hold a baby, there were plenty to choose from in his family. If he wanted to be surrounded by laughter and love, he could invite himself to dinner at any number of homes.
There was something very different about holding a child that belonged to you, though. He’d seen it in the awed expressions of his cousins’ husbands. Something told him that it might feel a whole lot like the sensation rushing over him now.
And that, given how very little he knew about Patsy Gresham and her true circumstances, was a very dangerous reaction.
Justin saw to it that Patsy Gresham and her baby were settled at Dani’s. He made sure her car was filled with gas and parked out front. He even had the Italian restaurant down the block send over dinner.
And then he washed his hands of the entire situation. He’d done his good deed for the week. Maybe even for the whole year. He predicted if word got around that he’d not only let a shoplifter get away, but that he’d taken her under his wing, he’d never hear the end of it.
As it turned out, it didn’t take long for word to get around. He was the butt of a fair bit of good-natured teasing from his uncles and cousins at the poker game that night at White Pines. Obviously Sharon Lynn had decided to spill the beans, after all. She must not have taken his threat to have a revealing talk with her fiancé all that seriously.
“Don’t pay any attention to them, son,” Grandpa Harlan advised, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “They’ve gotten so old now, they don’t recall what it’s like to be captivated by a pretty face.”
“Except for me, of course,” Harlan Patrick said. “I’m younger than Justin.”
“And you’ve never been known to miss a pretty face,” Justin retorted. “Is there a woman in this town you haven’t chased after at one time or another?”
“Not since I met Laurie,” Harlan Patrick said piously. “She’d poke my eyes out if she caught me looking at another woman.”
“She just has you thinking she would,” Grandpa Harlan corrected. “Laurie is the sweetest little gal you’ve ever brought around. She has a mighty nice voice, too.”
“Yes, indeed,” Justin agreed. “One of these days Laurie’s going to run off to Nashville and leave Harlan Patrick pining away back here.”
His cousin scowled at him. The remark had cut a little too close to Harlan Patrick’s greatest fear and Justin knew it.
“How’d we get on my love life, anyway?” Harlan Patrick grumbled. “We were talking about you and the shoplifter.”
“Don’t call her that,” Justin said harshly.
“Why not? Isn’t that what you and Sharon Lynn caught her doing?”
“She was desperate,” he countered defensively. “Besides, unless a person’s tried and convicted, you shouldn’t go throwing names around. She could sue you for slander.”
“And probably hire my wife to do it,” Grandpa Harlan warned. “Janet would just love to get her teeth into a case like that. She hates being retired from her law practice. One of these days she’s going to stir up a mess of trouble, just so she can get herself into the thick of it.”
“From what I’ve seen over the years, Daddy, you’re all the trouble Janet can cope with,” Justin’s Uncle Cody said.
Grandpa Harlan scowled. “Watch your tongue, boy. I’m not too old to throw you out of here. Maybe “I’ll cut you out of the will while I’m at it. White Pines can skip right past you and go straight to Harlan Patrick.”
Cody took the good-humored teasing in stride. “Daddy, you’ve been threatening to take this ranch from me since I can remember. One of these days I’m going to call you on it. I’ll hire Janet to contest the will.”
“Can’t do it,” Grandpa Harlan said triumphantly. “It’d be a conflict of interest.”
“Is anybody actually going to play poker tonight?” Justin inquired with a wistful glance at the hand he was holding. “I’m feeling lucky.”
Harlan Patrick shot him a knowing look. “I’ll just bet you are.” He tossed some money into the pot. “Okay, let’s see those cards you’re so proud of.”
“Oh, shut up,” Justin muttered, and slapped three aces on the table to take the pot from his mouthy cousin.
From that moment on, he tolerated the jokes and proceeded to whip their tails. He walked away from the poker table a good deal richer than he had been when he sat down.
What troubled him, though, was the fact that his first instinct was to give some of his winnings to Patsy Gresham to make sure she got by until she could find a real job.
Obviously he was turning soft, which was why half a dozen people got tickets for minor traffic violations before he stopped for breakfast the next morning.
When he saw who was about to start serving up eggs behind the counter at Dolan’s, he wished he’d stayed on the street and