Authors: Sarah McCarty
“If we can wake him up,” Luke muttered, disgust in his voice as he looked around again.
“It would be better if you didn’t.”
Ace dismounted and stood beside the boy. “Better if I didn’t have to come out here at all, but neither one of us is getting what we want in that.”
“Why did you come here?” the boy asked, resentment in his eyes.
“I lost a bet.”
Terrance blinked. “You never lose.”
“I know. It’s not an experience I’m enjoying.”
A shout came from the house. Terrance jumped and dropped the ax.
Ace put his hand on his shoulder. All he felt was bone. The potential of muscle too undernourished to grow pissed him off. Luke was right; they had only been a year or two older than this boy when they were set loose on the world, and they’d been heading for wreck and ruin until they found Tia, who’d stepped out of her own grief to put a rein on theirs. Who’d fed them and cared for them and made them slow down and learn. A widow dealing with her own loss who’d given them a home. They owed it to Tia to help Terrance.
“No matter what happens, you stay out here, you hear me? You don’t go in the house.”
“You won’t hurt my pa?”
Ace couldn’t promise him that. “I just need to talk to him.”
“About what?”
He squeezed the boy’s shoulder, gentling his grip immediately when he felt the fragility. He should be a sturdy kid at this age. He had the build of a boy who was going to be a big man, but he was far too thin.
“He’s got something I want.”
“What?”
“Just stay here and finish your chores.”
“I got to bring water to the house next.”
“Don’t.”
“But...”
Ace looked over to Luke. “Keep him here.”
“Will do.” Luke took off his coat and neatly draped it over his saddle, before smiling at Terrance. “I’ll help you with your chores while we wait.”
Ace headed for the house. From behind he heard Terrance say, “You’d better go with him,” followed by Luke’s “Why?”
“My pa can be mean.”
“Ace can be meaner,” Luke retorted.
Ace smiled and tugged his hat brim down just a bit. That was the truth. As Winter was about to find out.
The inside of the house wasn’t much better than the outside. No, it was worse—the stench of dirt and molding sod fermented with the reek of vomit, drunkenness and stale cigarette butts.
Ace stood just inside the door. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see Winter sprawled on the only bed in the room. To one side of the door was a pallet of blankets on the floor. Christ, he treated the kid like a dog.
“Where the fuck you been, Terrance?” the man called, before moaning, “Where’s my goddamn water?”
Winter fumbled blindly around the bed. Ace stepped forward and picked up the whiskey bottle Winter was searching for, and poured the contents over the man’s head.
“What the fuck!”
Winter came flying out of the bed, arms flailing, shirttails flapping, stumbling as he got to his feet, clearly still drunk.
“Who the hell are you?”
Ace grabbed the bucket from the floor, threw the last of the water in his face. “Sober up. We need to talk.”
Brian dragged his hands down his face, recognition dawning in his eyes. “I don’t have a goddamn thing to talk about with you.”
“You owe me money.”
“I’ll get it.”
Ace made a point of looking around as Winter sat back down on the bed and grabbed the dirty sheets and rubbed them across his face. It didn’t help. The two day’s growth of beard on his face caught the rough fabric leaving threads attached. Christ, he was a mess. How did the man sink this low?
“I told you I’d get you the money.”
“Uh-huh.” Ace took a seat at his table. The chair rocked under his weight. He caught himself before he could tip over.
“Leg’s loose,” Brian said.
“So I see.” He nodded at Brian. “If you don’t stop reaching under that mattress for that shotgun, I’m going to put a bullet in your shoulder.”
Brian froze, his eyes going to the gun still in Ace’s holster. “I heard you were fast.”
“And I heard you were stupid. You keep reaching for that gun and we’ll both know no one was lying.”
“You got no right to be in my home.”
“Nope. I don’t, but I’m here anyway.”
A cunning expression crossed his face. “You must want something.”
“I told you, we need to talk.”
Brian got up. The stench and sight of him made Ace’s stomach heave. Luke was right. They weren’t leaving the boy here.
Brian picked up the battered metal coffeepot by the well-tended fire. Terrance’s work, no doubt. He shook the empty pot. “Where the hell is that lazy boy with the water for my coffee? Terrance!” he hollered.
“Terrance isn’t coming.” It felt good saying that.
Brian turned. The sweat stains on his faded red long johns stood out even in the dim light. “What the hell do you mean he’s not coming?”
“He’s helping Luke.”
“With what?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Ace shoved the adjacent chair over with his foot. It caught on the uneven floor and fell over. “Sit your ass down.”
Brian picked up the chair, still staring at the door. “I want my coffee.”
“What you want is whiskey. You’re not getting either until we’re done, so the faster you sit, the faster you can get on with your life.”
“What the hell do you want? Spit it out.”
“Terrance.”
The truth lay between them.
Without batting an eyelid, Brian asked, “For what?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“So that’s how it is.” Again that cunning expression slid over his face. “The boy will cost you.”
With a push of his foot, Ace tipped the other man’s chair over backward. When the swearing stopped he said, “You make another insinuation like that and I’ll gut you. You hear me?”
Brian got up. Ace grazed the butt of his revolver with his fingertips.
“I hear you.” Brian grunted, righting the chair. “Still going to cost you, though.”
Ace wanted to drive his crooked teeth down his throat. “I figured.”
“What’s the boy worth to you?” Winter asked as he sat down again.
Ace just wanted this over with. “I’ll cancel your gambling debt from last night.”
A shrewd look entered Brian’s eyes. “That’s not enough.”
You won’t hurt my pa?
Fuck, it never paid to be the good guy.
“What debts do you owe around town?”
Brian named a number that made Ace blink. Fortunately, most of those debts were to him or people who owed him, so it wasn’t going to take much out of pocket to even Brian’s score.
“How about I settle all your debts? Including the ones to me and in turn I take the boy?”
“All of them?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that will be a help but a man needs a stake to start over, and a man needs help to run a place like this.”
Greedy bastard. “Plus two hundred.”
Brian’s eyes widened. “You got the money?”
“You’ll get it.”
“You’re not getting the boy until I get the money.”
Oh, that wasn’t going to play. “I’m taking the boy when I leave here.”
“I’m just supposed to go on your word?”
“Either you take my word, or I take your life.”
Brian blinked. Ace waited for his booze-soaked mind to absorb that.
“Make up your mind. I don’t have much time.”
“You in a hurry for something?”
“I’m always in a hurry for something.” He just never knew what it was that he was searching for, but he always had that nagging feeling that it was coming. That something good his mom had always promised him was waiting just around the next corner, the something good that always turned into something bad. “Do we have a deal?”
He didn’t particularly care whether Brian agreed or not. When he left here Terrance was going with him, but it would be cleaner if the ties were severed.
Brian held out his hand. “It’s a deal.”
It’d be a cold day in hell before Ace shook the hand of a man who’d sell his son. Especially for the reasons Winter implied. Just thinking about how easily he’d done it pissed Ace off. Until on a “What the hell” Ace punched Winter in the face, knocking him over backward. The man went down hard. When he didn’t get up, Ace prodded his still form with his boot. He didn’t move. Winter was out cold. Leaving him lying on the floor, Ace stood and strolled out of the hovel masking his anger and disgust. Worthless bastard. Not worth one bit of the concern in Terrance’s expression.
With a slight nod of his head, he answered the question in Luke’s eyes. With Terrance he was a bit more vocal. “Your pa and I had a talk.”
Terrance nodded. His fists clenched.
“He’s not feeling good right now.”
“He isn’t?” It was a credit to the optimism children held that the boy thought his father must be sick. “He needs his water for his coffee. He doesn’t feel good until he has that.”
“I’m going to go to town and get Doc.”
“I’ll stay with him.”
Ace caught his arm. When the boy looked up, Ace bit back the harsh truth that nothing was going to help the man. He was so steeped in his greed and his booze that his morals were all off.
“You’re going to come with me.”
“Where to?”
“Miss Wayfield’s.”
“The schoolmarm?” He looked horrified.
Ace couldn’t blame him. He couldn’t think of a much worse fate for an eight-year-old boy than to be stuck with a schoolteacher. But then again, he couldn’t think of a much worse fate than for a schoolteacher to be stuck with an eight-year-old boy. He smiled to himself. “Yep, she’ll know what to do with you.”
The boy took a step backward out of his reach. “Why does she have to do anything with me?”
Luke came up behind him, stopping his retreat. “Because you’re eight, because you can’t take care of yourself, but mostly because people care about you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Just saying it doesn’t make it true, son.”
“I can!”
Luke shot him a warning glance. “We know you can but remember Ace telling you he lost that bet?”
The boy nodded.
“Well, he lost it to Miss Wayfield.”
The boy blinked. “Miss Wayfield gambles?”
With every breath she takes,
Ace thought. The woman had a daring side that nobody but him seemed to see.
“She worries about you, boy. She sent me out here to check on you and your dad and she said if I found things were not looking good, that your dad needed help...”
Luke rolled his eyes at the tale. Ace glared at him over the boy’s head.
“That I was to bring you back to town.”
“What am I going to do in town?”
“Well,” Luke said, “if you are as hungry as I am, have a steak dinner.”
Ace could practically see the saliva flooding the kid’s mouth, see the hunger in his eyes, but then Terrance shook his head, and his face took on a stubborn expression.
“I don’t have any money.”
“You don’t need any money. I lost the bet, remember?”
“What was the bet?”
“The bet doesn’t matter. What matters was the penalty.”
“And what was that?”
“Steak dinners all around,” Luke chimed in.
“For me, too?”
Especially for him but keeping the boy’s pride in mind, he nodded. “For you, too, kid.”
“And my dad said it’s all right?”
“Yup.”
“I don’t know if I should go.”
“He told me to take you.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
“And you’ll send the doctor?”
Ace heard the kid’s stomach growl. He had to admire the boy’s sense of honor. As hungry as he was and as much as he wanted that steak dinner, he wasn’t leaving until he was sure his dad was all right.
“I’ll send the doctor.” The boy seemed satisfied. “Do you have anything you need to get? Anything special you need?”
The kid licked his lips, looked at Ace then at Luke then at Ace then back at Luke again. “I do have something.”
“What?”
“It’s real special.”
Ace was out of patience. “Then fetch it.”
Luke glared at Ace. “If it’s in the house, tell me where it is and I’ll get it.”
“It isn’t in the house.”
They followed Terrance over to the corner of a fallen-down shack behind the house. The boy hesitated, looking around carefully before reaching in and pulling out a box poked through with holes. Very carefully he lifted the lid. Ace expected him to pull out marbles or pretty-colored rocks, the normal boy things. Instead, he pulled out a baby rabbit.
“This is Lancelot.”
Luke choked. “Mighty big name for such a little critter.”
Terrance nodded and stroked the rabbit, which looked completely relaxed. “It’s from one of the stories Miss Wayfield told us. He didn’t have a home.”
Tucking the bunny in his shirt, he squared off against Ace and Luke. From the expression on his face, he was ready to take them both on if they made a comment. The boy held the bunny through his shirt. “He needs me.”
Ace didn’t have anything to say to that.
“He does!”
“Well, that’s that, then.” Ace wasn’t going to fight a kid over a rabbit. “Is there anything else?”
Terrance shook his head.
“Then let’s get a move on. I’ve got a game waiting.”
They headed back to the horses. The boy didn’t look at the house again, but he tensed as they passed it as if expecting his father to come out and take away that steak dinner.
Ace put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. Terrance didn’t look up after the initial tensing, and he stayed tense under his hand. Ace didn’t know what Pet was going to do with the boy but whatever she did, it had to be better than this.
“It will be all right, son.”
Terrance looked at him, disbelief clearly in his gaze.
Ace resisted the urge to squeeze his shoulder again. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you’ll see.”
“Nothing like a steak dinner to change a man’s perspective,” Luke added.
At the thought of dinner, the boy perked right up again. Luke mounted Buddy. Ace gave Terrance a boost up behind.
“Watch that rabbit now. You don’t want to crush him.”
Terrance nodded. Good Christ. Was this what he’d come to? Babysitting a kid and a bunny? Ace shook his head and swung up on Crusher.