Big Sky River. Linda Miller Lael

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      CHAPTER THREE

      BOTH THE BOYS were sound asleep in their safety seats when Boone finally pulled up in his own rutted driveway around eight that night, shut off the truck engine and gazed bleakly into his immediate future. A concrete plan for the long term would have been good, a to-do list of specific actions guaranteed to carry Griffin and Fletcher from where they were right now—confused and scared—right on through to healthy, productive manhood.

      Boone sighed. One step at a time, he reminded himself silently. Just put one foot in front of the other and keep on keeping on. For now, he only had to think about getting his sons inside and bedded down for the night. After that, he’d take a quick shower and call to let Molly know that he and the kids had arrived home safely. Then, if it wasn’t too late, he’d give Hutch a ring, too, and tell him his truck was still in one piece, offer to drop it off at Whisper Creek before he went on to work in the morning.

      Work. Inconvenient as it was, Boone was still sheriff, with a whole county full of good people depending on him, and a few bad apples to keep an eye on, too, and that meant he’d be in his office first thing tomorrow, with his boys tagging along, since he had yet to make any kind of child-care arrangements.

      Just then, things seemed patently overwhelming. One step, he reiterated to himself, and then another.

      Glad to be out of a moving vehicle and standing on his own two feet, Boone opened one of the rear doors and woke Griffin first with a gentle prod to the shoulder. The boy yawned and blinked his eyes and then grinned at Boone in the dim glow of the interior lights. “Are we there?” the kid asked, sounding hopeful.

      Boone’s heart caught. “We’re there,” he confirmed with a nod, then unfastened Fletcher from the safety seat. Griffin scrambled out of the truck on his own, but the little guy didn’t even wake up. He just stirred slightly, his arms loose around Boone’s neck, his head resting on his shoulder.

      For all Boone’s trepidation about getting the dad thing right, it felt good to be holding that boy. Real good.

      They started toward the double-wide, slogging through tall grass. The trailer was pretty sorry-looking in broad daylight, and darkness made it look even worse, like a gloomy hulk, lurking and waiting to pounce. Why hadn’t he thought to leave a light burning before he took off for Missoula in such an all-fired hurry?

      “I bet Fletch peed his pants,” Griffin said sagely, trekking along beside Boone with his small suitcase in one hand. “He stinks.”

      Sure enough, the seat of Fletcher’s impossibly small Wranglers felt soggy against Boone’s forearm, and there was a smell, but it wasn’t a big deal to a man who’d spent whole nights guarding some drunken miscreant at the county jail.

      Boone spoke quietly to Griffin, man-to-man. “Let’s not rag on him about that, okay? He’s still pretty little, and there’s a lot to get used to—for both of you.”

      Griffin nodded. “Okay,” he agreed solemnly.

      They climbed the steps to the rickety porch, Boone going first, and once he’d gotten the door open and stepped inside, he flipped the light switch.

      They were in the kitchen, but in that first moment Boone almost didn’t recognize the room. The dishes he’d left piled in the sink had been done up and put away. The linoleum floor didn’t exactly shine, being so worn, with the tar showing through in some places, but it glowed a little, just the same.

      The effect was almost homey.

      “Do we sleep where we did when we visited before?” Griffin asked. He sounded like a very small man, visiting a foreign country and eager to fit into the culture without breaking any taboos.

      Still carrying Fletcher, who was beginning to wriggle around a bit now, Boone nodded a distracted yes and, having spotted the note propped between the sugar shaker and the jar of powdered coffee creamer in the middle of the table, zeroed in on it.

      Griffin marched off to inspect the cubbyhole he and Fletcher would be staying in while Boone picked up the note. It was written in Opal Dennison’s distinctive, loopy handwriting, and he smiled as he read it. Although she kept house for Slade and Joslyn Barlow, Opal was definitely a free agent, working where she wanted to work, when she wanted to work.

       Hutch called and said your boys were coming home for a spell, and you’d all probably get in tonight, so I let myself in and spruced the place up a mite. There’s food in the refrigerator and I put clean sheets on the beds and some fresh towels in the bathroom. I’ll be over first thing tomorrow morning to look after those kids while you’re working, and don’t even think about telling me you can manage on your own, Boone Taylor, because I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.

      She’d signed the message with a large O.

      Boone set the slip of paper back on the table and carried a now-wakeful Fletch into the one and only bathroom. He set the boy on the lid of the toilet seat and started water running into the tub, which, thanks to Opal, was well scrubbed. Boone always showered, and that seemed like a self-cleaning type of operation, so he rarely bothered with the tub.

      Fletch, realizing where he was, and with whom, rubbed both eyes with small grubby fists and immediately started to cry again.

      “Hey,” Boone said quietly, turning to crouch in front of him the way he’d done earlier, in Molly’s kitchen. “Everything’s going to be all right, Fletcher. After a bath and a good night’s sleep, you’ll feel a whole lot better about stuff, I promise.”

      He’d told the boys, during the first part of the drive back from Missoula, that their uncle Bob, hurt the way he was, would need lots of care from their aunt Molly and the cousins, so that was why they were going back to Parable to bunk in with him for a while. It was the best way they could help, he’d explained.

      Griff hadn’t said anything at all in response to his father’s short and halting discourse. He’d just looked out the window and kept his thoughts to himself, which, in some ways, concerned Boone more than Fletcher’s intermittent outbursts. The littlest boy had exclaimed fiercely that he wanted to go back and help take care of Uncle Bob for real, and would Boone just turn around the truck right now, because Missoula was home, not Parable. When Boone had replied that he couldn’t do that, Fletch had cried as if his heart had been broken—and maybe it had.

      After quite a while, during which Boone felt three kinds of useless and just kept driving because he knew the СКАЧАТЬ