“That he was real proud of her. He never looked at me the way he looked at that show of hers.” Her lower lip trembled. “I don’t think he gave a damn about me at all.”
Ignoring the substance of the remark for the moment, he chided, “You know, kiddo, you really do need to clean up your language. Ladies don’t swear half as much as you do.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be no lady.”
Jake grinned at the defiance. “What do you want to be?”
Her expression brightened. “A rancher, just like Tex,” she said decisively. “Then I could boss people around and make lots of money and ride horses.” She met Jake’s gaze. “He was teaching me to ride. Did you know that? That’s when it happened. He fell right down on the ground. I screamed and screamed for somebody to come, but it took forever. I didn’t know what to do. I’ve seen that CPR stuff on TV, but I didn’t know how to do it. Not the right way, anyway. I tried and tried, but nothing helped.”
Sobs shook her shoulders. “I didn’t mean for him to die,” she whispered brokenly, launching herself at Jake. Her skinny little arms wound so tightly around his neck that he could scarcely breathe. “Sometimes I said I hated him and sometimes I said I wished he were dead, but I never meant it. Never.”
“Oh, baby, I know that,” Jake soothed, feeling totally out of his depth. “Tex was sick. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But if I hadn’t come, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten sick.”
“No. That’s not the way it works. He’d been sick for a while. He told me that himself. His heart just gave up. It could have happened anytime. I promise you, you had nothing to do with it.”
Slowly Tess’s sobs subsided. She sniffed, accepted Jake’s handkerchief and blew her nose. She blinked away the last of the tears and regarded him evenly. “I got an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m thinking I should come and live with you.”
Jake realized he had walked right smack into that one. He’d made it a point to spend time with Tess the past couple of weeks, anticipating what might happen, knowing the kid would need a friend until she adjusted to all the upheaval.
Not that seeing Tess had been any sacrifice. She was bright and funny, and she did have a mouth on her. She didn’t like him, didn’t trust him and had no qualms about telling him just that. Jake had overlooked it all and stayed the course. The fact that she was willing to turn to him now proved he’d done the right thing. With persistence, he’d slipped past her defenses. It was critical to tred carefully.
He took her hands in his and kept his gaze on her face. “Honey, you know that’s not possible. I explained it to you before. Tex named Megan your legal guardian in case anything happened to him.”
“But she doesn’t want me,” Tess said, wrenching herself free. Hands on hips, she faced him. “You know she doesn’t. I’ll mess up her life.”
“It’s going to take a little time for her to get used to the idea, just the way it took time for you to get used to being here with Tex. Everybody’s real upset about Tex right now. I told you before, I’ll be around. You can come to me with any problem, but you can’t live with me.”
“Then I’ll go find my mom.”
Jake had anticipated that sooner or later that thought would occur to her. Rather than squashing the notion outright, he asked quietly, “Any idea where she is?”
“No, but I can find her. I’ll just ask a lot of questions till somebody tells me. She’s probably back in Laramie. That’s where we lived before she brought me here.”
Jake knew better. He’d searched Laramie for some trace of Tess’s mother himself. “Honey, she’s probably moved on.”
“I can find her. I know it.”
“Tell me something,” Jake said. “Do you study geography in school?”
“Sure.”
“Then you know it’s a big country. Your mom could be anywhere.”
She stared at him, then. A look of utter defeat crossed her face. “It could take forever, then, couldn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“It’s not fair,” she whispered. “Nothing’s fair.”
“No,” he said gently. “There’s nothing fair about losing your dad almost before you really got a chance to know him. There’s nothing fair about your mama running out on you. But it is going to work out, Tess. I swear to you. Megan’s got a good heart. You’ll get along well enough.”
“You can’t make her care about me,” she said, with the weary resignation of someone who’d learned too early that love was never a guarantee, not even from a parent.
“I can’t make her, no, but she will, honey. I know she will.” If he had to hog-tie her and explain a few facts of life, Megan O’Rourke would do right by this child. Just as Tex had predicted, Jake would enjoy every single minute of seeing to it.
If it had been up to Megan, Tex’s funeral would have been private. It was Jake who handed her a letter with Tex’s wishes spelled out. He wanted something lavish, even though he hadn’t set foot inside of a church in years.
“The service isn’t for me. I’ll already be wherever I’m heading,” he’d written. “It’s for you, Megan. I want you to be surrounded by the steady, solid folks around here. Maybe it’ll help you to remember what it’s like to have friends who can share your grief, who’ll be there for you and expect nothing in return. Seems to me like you’ve accumulated enough of the other kind in New York.”
She sighed at his words. Leave it to Tex to take a dig at her life-style while laying out his own funeral arrangements. She forced herself to read on.
“After all the hoopla’s over, bury me quietly on that rise overlooking the creek,” he’d instructed. “I’ve already made arrangements for my tombstone. It’s nothing fancy, so don’t you go adding any flowery sentiments to it. Plain and simple will do me just fine.”
When she’d finished reading, she folded the letter precisely and tucked it back into the plain white envelope with her name scrawled across the front in Tex’s careless script.
“I suppose you know what it says,” she said to Jake, irritated that he’d been taken into her grandfather’s confidence when she had not.
“The gist of it,” he agreed. “Obviously, the details are up to you, but he made his feelings known.”
“And, of course, I’ll do as he asked,” she said wearily.
Jake studied her intently. “About everything?”
“You’re talking about Tess, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Jake, I can’t think about that now. I really can’t. I’m feeling…” Her voice trailed off and she held up her hands in a rare gesture of helplessness.
“Lost? Overwhelmed? Angry?” he supplied.
She caught herself wanting to smile at the litany, which was eerily accurate, reminiscent of a time when Jake had read her mind with ease. “Pretty much,” she admitted.
“Some of this you’ll have to handle yourself, but in terms of the funeral, if you’re agreeable to what Tex wanted, you can sit back and leave the rest to me,” Jake offered. “I’ll make the arrangements for the service and the burial.”
She balked at letting him take on that task. Duty came to mind again. “It’s my responsibility.”
He shook his head and grinned.