Alex’s lips tightened. “I’ll be fine as I am.”
****
The one thing Alex hated most was having his scars exposed. On the few occasions when he’d been coaxed into taking off his long sleeved shirt, he’d regretted it. Strangers looked at him with disgust or fear, but what hurt more were the people closest to him. Friends and family members’ eyes would fill with pity. They’d quickly look away and grope for a safe subject to discuss rather than deal with his deformity. Women he’d been interested in would find an excuse to distance themselves from him, as though the scars were contagious. He hadn’t had a real relationship since the accident. Since Lacey.
He was a healthy, heterosexual male and sometimes the urge would have to be satiated by someone besides himself. He’d tried prostitutes a few times, but the experience was impersonal and degrading.
Now, he occasionally visited out of town bars late in the evening. He wouldn’t approach an inebriated woman—that was against his morals—but he wouldn’t turn down what was offered. They’d have rushed interludes in bathroom stalls, storage rooms or the back seat of a car. Anywhere as long as it was dark and total nudity wasn’t required. On his way home, he’d toss their phone numbers out his car window along with his dignity.
He hadn’t held a woman skin-to-skin since his last time with Lacey. Maybe that was the reason for his obsession. He still craved that time in the afterglow when two lovers connected mind, body and soul, the way it had been with her.
The smell of horse manure, leather, and straw pulled his mind back to the present.
Both children were silently working at their separate tasks. Jenna moved the horses, one at a time, into the corral while Jerrod stacked six-foot planks of wood across a wheelbarrow. They hadn’t been told specifically what to do, they just knew what had to be done. They were hard workers. If he were their father he’d be proud. Too many kids never got off the sofa these days or put down their game station controllers and cell phones.
Watching them, it suddenly occurred to Alex that if Jenna were older, she could have been his. She would have been his excuse to stay. His life wouldn’t have gone to shit.
No, that wasn’t true. Lacey had been the best thing that had ever happened to him and he’d still left. With a kid on the way, he would have been more determined to try to find his fortune.
“You may want to get a pair of work gloves from the tack room,” Jerrod sneered. “I imagine your hands are pretty tender.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Alex started raking through the first stall with a pitchfork. He wished the boy would get over his surliness. It had gone from annoying to irritating. “What are you going to do with all that wood?”
“We fixed a hole in the porch roof last week. The hole had caused the floor to rot out at one end.” Jerrod pushed the full wheelbarrow toward the door. Before leaving, he added, “You might have noticed when you came in, if you hadn’t been assaulting my mother.”
Alex watched him walk away and thanked all that was holy he hadn’t been asked to help the sour little shit. What had put such a big chip on his shoulder?
He went back to work steadily cleaning out each stall. He’d show that kid he wasn’t a greenhorn. He’d been raised here in Indian Lakes too. He knew his way around a barn.
Jenna’s voice surprised him a few minutes later. “Have you known my mom long, Mr. Benson?” He hadn’t heard her return because of the sawing and hammering noises coming from the house.
“I’ve known her for as long as I can remember,” Alex said. “I grew up here in Indian Lakes. Your mom was a year behind me in school. Our parents played cards every Wednesday night.”
Jenna used a rake to spread the hay on the floor of the stall he’d just finished. “I wish I’d known my grandparents. Mom talks about them all the time. She really misses them. Granddad is such a grumpy old grouch, but don’t tell Mom I said so.”
Alex remembered well.
“She needs friends her own age that she can talk to, you know?” Jenna continued. “She’s lonely a lot of the time. Jerrod and I are always here for her, but sometimes there are things she can’t talk to us about.”
Alex sensed that Jenna was trying to get somewhere with her line of conversation. “What kinds of things?”
“I don’t know…maybe she’d like to talk about my dad. Did you know him?”
Alex stopped to look at Jenna, but she kept right on working, not making eye contact. “Honey, I don’t know who your dad is.”
“That makes two of us.” Jenna sighed deeply. “Mom says she’s not ready to open that can of worms yet. She says that if he knew about us he’d love us, but I find that hard to believe. If he didn’t love Mom enough to stay with her, he can’t be a very nice man.”
Alex moved on to the next stall. “Jenna, I don’t mean to make a bad situation worse, but you’re a big girl, so I have to ask. How can a man not know he has two children? One maybe, but not two.”
Jenna’s smile was so much like Lacey’s, full and bright. “Jerrod and I are twins, silly. Mom says Jerrod is still small because he hasn’t hit puberty yet. He really hates it when she says things like that.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a loud crack followed by a shrill, painful scream. His only thought was of the old shotgun he’d seen that morning. He threw his pitchfork to the ground and raced out of the barn.
Chapter Six
Alex followed the sound of Lacey’s screams. His heart pounded like a jackhammer. The physical exertion wasn’t a problem. He usually ran three miles in the morning before work. But this quick jaunt across the lawn seemed like running the Boston marathon.
“Everything’s okay, Lacey, it’s going to be all right,” he shouted.
How the hell did he know? He didn’t even know what was happening. He said it because he needed to take control. He needed to alleviate her fear. He was the man, dammit.
He found Lacey kneeling behind Jerrod at the end of the porch. She had her hands under the boy’s arms as he sat on the floor. She was tugging on him with all her might. Jerrod wasn’t budging. Alex was confused by Jerrod’s stubbornness, until he realized that one of his legs had gone hip-deep into the floor. He pushed Lacey away from her son to assess the problem.
Two rotted boards had been pulled up and thrown aside. They’d been replaced by the fresh wood Jerrod had brought from the barn. The hammer and an overturned box of three-inch nails indicated the job was still in progress. Jerrod’s leg had broken through one of the remaining old boards.
“I can’t get him out.” Lacey’s eyes were filled with panic. “He’s too heavy for me and his leg is really stuck. How am I going to get him out of there?”
Alex knelt beside Jerrod and looked closer at the area his leg had gone through. It was a good thing Lacey hadn’t succeeded in pulling the boy out. The jagged edge of the board was embedded in the back of his thigh.
“Flex your ankle and tell me if you think your leg is broken,” he instructed Jerrod.
Jerrod grimaced. A tear sprang from each eye and cut through the dust and sweat on his cheeks. He didn’t make a sound, but he shook his head, teeth clamped tightly.
Jenna stood nearby. Her hands shook and her face was deathly white. She looked as though she might get sick, or worse, go into shock.
“You see, Jenna,” Alex said gently. “Everything is going to be fine. It would really help a lot if you would get a wash cloth, towel, soap, and some warm water to take to Jerrod’s room. Can you do that, honey?”
Jenna nodded her head jerkily and rushed inside.
“What can I do to help?” Lacey asked.
“Cover his bed with a clean sheet or blanket.” Alex looked around, his mind forming a plan. “We’ll need topical ointment, bandages, and probably tweezers. I’ll get him loose and take him upstairs.”
Lacey didn’t question him, she just ran inside the house to gather the items.
Alex spotted a saw on the planks of wood still on the wheelbarrow. He decided it would be a slow and painful process to use it. No matter what he did it was going to hurt like hell. It would be better to get it done quickly.
As soon as Lacey and Jenna were out of sight, Alex stripped off his shirt and stuffed it around Jerrod’s trapped leg. With four swift blows of the hammer the rotten board that held the boy captive was in chunks.
When he looked up to see how Jerrod had faired, he found the boy staring at his scarred arm with an intense expression. “Geez! That had to hurt.”
Jerrod seemed to find the damage interesting rather than repulsive. Alex had never gotten that reaction before. “Yeah, it sure did.” He chuckled in response. He stood and gripped Jerrod’s hand to pull him to his feet. When he bent forward to take Jerrod over his shoulder, the boy balked.
“You’re not going to carry me,” he declared.
“You won’t make it up those stairs fast enough to keep from bleeding all over the place.” Alex didn’t feel like wrestling the boy, and Jerrod looked ready to fight. “I’ll give you a choice. You can go over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry or I’ll cradle you in my arms like a baby. One way or the other, I’m taking you upstairs. What’s it going to be?”
Jerrod agreed to lean over Alex’s shoulder. Alex bounded up the stairs as quickly as he could. Jerrod grunted with every bounce, but it couldn’t be helped.
After laying Jerrod face down on his bed, Alex looked around at the NASCAR posters on the walls. He’d never taken the time from his busy schedule to watch a NASCAR race. He didn’t know anything about the drivers. Maybe if he’d had a son, he would have made the time.
Why was he thinking about something like that? Kids weren’t part of his plan.
Lacey and Jenna had brought the items he’d asked for, but only Lacey remained in the room. She leaned over Jerrod and began working the belt loose from his shredded jeans.
“Do you want me to handle this, Lacey?”
“No, Mom!” Jerrod cried out.
“I can handle it.” Lacey gave Alex a feeble smile. “Thanks for all your help, though. I’m usually pretty good in a crisis. I only tend to fall apart when it involves one of the kids. It’s a mom thing.”
Alex walked slowly back down the stairs. He paused by the two pictures that hung halfway down on the wall. They were old school pictures of Jenna and Jerrod. Each of them had been a lot smaller with messy hair and missing front teeth.
At the bottom of the stairs was a wicker clothesbasket. Inside were three pairs of worn sneakers, two baseball gloves, a bat, and a Frisbee with teeth marks around the edge.
Most of the living room furniture was older than he was, but it was clean and comfortable looking. This house was a home. He’d practically shoved his way into it with the express purpose of turning it upside down. He hadn’t considered what might be inside.
He couldn’t allow himself to worry about that. He’d waited thirteen years to get retribution. And besides that, his presence here wouldn’t have any impact on the children. He’d just make it a point to avoid them.
He stepped onto the front porch and suddenly Jenna was there. Her arms wrapped around him tighter than a tourniquet. “I’m so glad you’re here, Mr. Benson. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
Alex sat with her and ran his hand down her thick braid. Without the cowboy hat he saw that her hair was also auburn, a medium shade between Lacey’s bright copper and Jerrod’s dark rust. He remembered Lacey at this stage. That was about the time she’d first caught his eye in a new and mysterious way. He wondered how many boys in school were looking at Lacey’s little girl that way now.
“No worries, sweetheart.” When had he started using pet names like that? He didn’t feel much like himself today. “Your brother is tougher than buffalo hide. He’ll be running around and making trouble in no time.”
Without backing away, Jenna ran her hand down Alex’s left arm. He’d forgotten to cover it. Now, his long sleeved overshirt was a bloody mess. He realized that no one, absolutely not one single person, outside of medical professionals, had ever touched him there. What was with these kids? Alex stiffened: he couldn’t help it.
“You must be awfully tough too, Mr. Benson. Getting burned like this had to be horrible,” Jenna exclaimed. “Does it still hurt or anything?”
Alex tried to relax under Jenna’s scrutiny, but it was hard. “It’s a little sensitive sometimes, but no, it doesn’t really hurt anymore.”
****
By the time Lacey could leave Jerrod, more than an hour had passed. She felt as though she’d removed enough wood from the child’s leg to build a new barn. Actually, it wouldn’t have covered the bottom of a tea cup.
Exhaustion had finally taken him into a deep sleep. Lacey wished she could take a nap as well, but the chores were behind schedule and now she was shorthanded. When she stepped out the front door, she found Alex measuring a plank of wood to be cut. All the old boards at the damaged end of the porch had been removed. She realized they should have started the job that way. Maybe then, her son wouldn’t be upstairs with the skin scraped off the back of his leg. She was relieved not to have to see the hole he’d fallen into.
Alex sawed six-inches off one end of a board. He had a rag tied around his head to keep the sweat from dripping into his eyes. His black T-shirt was soaked and clinging to his wide chest. The muscles in his arms glistened as they flexed, even his left arm. It was hairless and marbled with burn scars, not quite as thick as the right one. Still, he was the sexiest man she’d ever seen.
Alex walked to the end of the porch and slid the freshly cut board into place.
“I’ll nail while you cut.” Lacey picked up Jerrod’s discarded hammer and a handful of nails. She’d found out that if you live in a sixty-year-old house, you’d better know your tools and be willing to use them.
“How’s the boy?” Alex shouted over the pounding.
“Tired, humiliated and hurting.” Lacey crawled closer to add a few nails further down the board. “Kids have an amazing ability of bouncing back fast, though. He’ll be as right as rain in a week.”
“You’ll have to keep that wound clean and he’ll need something for pain soon. That leg is going to be sore and stiff. Maybe he should see a doctor.”
“This job doesn’t come with benefits, Alex.” She looked up. “I’ll take him to the free clinic if infection sets in.”