Ranch At River's End. Brenda Mott

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      Eileen turned to glare at Darci. “You need to discipline that boy,” she said, her gaze raking Darci judgmentally. “From what I just heard, a trip to the woodshed might do him some good!” With that, she flounced up the steps, tugging poor Saylor along, and slammed the front door shut behind her.

      “We don’t have a woodshed!” Darci called after her, echoing her son’s sarcasm. “Argh.” She pushed one hand through her bangs, whirling to face Jordan. The look of surprise and despair in her eyes got to him. “How did she—” Darci began, then shook her head. “Never mind.” She helped him with the painting supplies as he took them from the cargo space.

      “Don’t let her get to you,” Jordan said, wondering what exactly Eileen had meant by her comment. What had Chris done that had the woman so upset? Did it have anything to do with the spray-painted graffiti? “Eileen yells at everyone’s kid. She reamed Michaela out a while back for letting our dog pee on the grass near the curb when Mac took Chewy for a walk. And yet she owns a dog big enough to poop buffalo chips.”

      “Yeah, well at least everyone in town isn’t gossiping about your daughter,” Darci said. “Sorry.” She pressed her fingers to both temples. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

      “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

      “I’ve got to go find Chris. Thank you for everything, though. I’ll get your stuff back to you later today.”

      “No problem.” He waited as she ducked inside the house to retrieve her car keys. “Call me if you need anything.”

      There he went again. But she obviously did need someone to talk to.

      Darci nodded, then drove off.

      Jordan stood for a moment in the driveway, still holding the bucket of paint. He eyed the garage door. Darci had enough on her hands, and he had a little extra time. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to paint the door.

      Opening the can of yellow, he stirred it, telling himself he wasn’t doing this because he was attracted to her. He was simply being a good neighbor. It bugged him that he found her attractive and that he’d seen something in Christopher’s expression when the boy interacted with Eileen’s dog. A change in his mannerism that gave Jordan the impression of a nice kid longing for something….

      He hadn’t been able to save Sandra from the shooter who’d taken her life. He hadn’t been able to protect his little girl from the injuries she’d sustained that cold December day nearly two years ago, or from the psychological fallout of watching her mother die.

      So why did he feel the need to reach out to Darci and Christopher?

      Using the roller, Jordan hurriedly painted the section of Darci’s garage door that had been covered by graffiti, going over it a couple of times to make sure it blended into the older paint.

      Then he poured the excess paint back into the can, sealed the lid, and left it beside the garage door in case Darci needed it later. He had no use for the yellow and had only kept it in case Mimi needed a little touch-up work.

      Folding the canvas tarp, he loaded it and the paint supplies into his vehicle and drove home.

      DARCI DIDN’T HAVE TO LOOK far to find Christopher. He was at the skate park a few blocks away, practicing tricks on the half-pipe. The park was located in an area of town that had once been farmland and open country. As more and more construction occurred, the city limits of River’s End had gradually encroached on the wilderness, eating up hillsides of sagebrush and trees, though the town still retained its rural character. It was just no longer the place Darci remembered.

      The town had grown by leaps and bounds since her last visit a few years ago. The population had been only six hundred when she was a kid. She’d loved coming here summers to visit her aunt and uncle on their ranch after her parents had moved their family to Denver when Darci was nine.

      Which reminded her—she’d invited Stella and Leon over for a barbecue this evening to celebrate the holiday weekend. She needed to get home and paint the garage door, and do some more unpacking so the house would look presentable.

      And Christopher was darned sure going to do his share of the work, including the paint touch-up.

      He glanced up as she parked at the curb, but kept right on skating on the neon-green board. Darci couldn’t help but notice three other boys about his age with skateboards, hanging around the park’s perimeter. The trio kept looking Chris’s way, as though debating whether or not to approach him.

      Darci wished he’d make some friends. If her neighbor knew about what Chris had done at his old school, had other people in town found out, too? Darci swallowed over the scratchy lump in her throat. What had the world come to, when a child could be bullied and harassed over the Internet to the point of being pushed to do something completely outside his nature? Cyberbullying was on the rise, and her son had become just another statistic.

      Unfair. Yet they had to deal with it.

      Surely Chris would make friends with someone at his new school, someone who wouldn’t prejudge him. He’d enrolled in River’s End Middle School a few days after the school year started, but that couldn’t be helped. Darci had gotten them into the rental house as quickly as possible, once it had become available. She’d also had to wait for Christopher to serve out the four-month sentence the juvenile-court judge had rendered before making big changes in their lives.

      At least Chris hadn’t missed out academically, since Darci had been homeschooling him ever since he’d been expelled from North Star Middle School in Northglenn in the middle of the school year.

      She’d thought putting him back in the public school system this year would be good for him. The family counselor they’d been seeing in Northglenn had advised it, as had Christopher’s psychologist, both of them agreeing Chris had to learn to make friends again, to fit in with society. Basically, play well with others, Darci thought as she tapped the horn, then motioned for Christopher to come to the car. He ignored her, running the skateboard up and down the cement bowls.

      Her patience frayed, Darci got out of the car.

      “Chris!” she called, walking over to stand near one of the ramps. “Let’s go. You’ve got work to do.”

      “Can’t I stay awhile longer?” Sulkily, he looked at her as he brought the board to a halt. “The garage door isn’t going anywhere.”

      “Nope. Work first, play later. Besides, I don’t want people seeing that mess, so come on.”

      Grumbling, he got into the car, and Darci did her best to ignore the sneers on the faces of the other kids. She hated having to embarrass her son, but he was the one who’d taken off without permission. Of course, at his age even walking through the mall with her could classify as embarrassing in Chris’s eyes, depending on the mood he was in. She longed for the days when he was a little boy who needed her, and the worst of her worries was making sure he didn’t wander out of sight, or decide to draw a mural on his bedroom wall with a pack of crayons.

      He still needs you.

      But what had happened to the boy who’d loved to read about Harry Potter and go hiking and horseback riding with his great aunt and uncle in the mountains, happily helping them out in the stables?

      “By the way,” СКАЧАТЬ