Somebody's Hero

Ten feet out, the dogs leaped. Jayne shrieked Lucy’s name, certain the next sound she would hear was her daughter’s screams. Instead it was a sharp whistle that split the air. The dogs landed a few feet away and stood stock-still except for the excited quivering of their tails.

“Diaz, Cameron,” Lewis called, but Jayne couldn’t take her gaze from the animals to look in his direction. “Sit. Stay.”

Both animals obeyed, though the smaller didn’t actually touch the ground. It hovered there, butt a few inches above the snow, as if it might leap for Lucy’s throat any minute now, Jayne thought hysterically…or as if it knew that snow was too cold to be sitting on, common sense forced her to admit.

“Are they your dogs?” Lucy asked as Lewis approached.

“More or less.” He shifted his gaze, no friendlier than last night, to Jayne. “They’re just excited to see someone smaller than them. They won’t hurt her.”

Maybe not on purpose, Jayne thought doubtfully.

“Cameron Diaz is Princess Fiona in Shrek,” Lucy pointed out. “Are they named after her?”

Looking as if he had no clue what Shrek was, Lewis shrugged. “Maybe. I didn’t name them.”

“Are they boy dogs or girl dogs?”

“Boys.”

Lucy splayed one mittened hand on her hip. “But Cameron Diaz is a girl, or she couldn’t be Princess Fiona. You can’t name boy dogs after a girl.”

He shrugged again. “Like I said, I didn’t name them.”

“Can I pet ’em?”

“Yeah,” he replied at the same time Jayne said, “I don’t think—” She clamped her mouth shut at Lucy’s chastising look. Greg had often accused her of being overly protective, a judgment she’d had difficulty accepting from a man who was the very personification of reckless. There was nothing overprotective about not letting her delicate little girl within snapping distance of animals who could take her whole head in their mouths.

Well-behaved animals. Whose owner was standing between them. Who hadn’t yet disobeyed his command to stay despite the obvious temptation to do so.

Gritting her teeth to keep in her objections, Jayne shrugged and Lucy bounded forward. Lewis crouched, pulled off his glove and curled his fingers under. “Hold your hand like this and let them sniff you first.”

Lucy yanked off her mitten and did as he directed. Both dogs eagerly sniffed her hand from all angles, then worked their way up her arm, over her body and to her face, making her giggle. “Their noses is cold! You’re good puppies, aren’t you?”

Jayne reluctantly agreed that they did seem to be good. Despite their excitement, they both remained seated—though the smaller one did scoot forward a few inches—and they didn’t lick, show their teeth or make any threatening gestures. Though being twice Lucy’s size was threatening enough, in her opinion.

“I’m Lucy,” her daughter announced, gently scratching each animal behind its ear. “And that’s my mom. Mom, come meet Cameron and Diaz.”

“I can see them just fine from here.”

“She’s afraid of dogs,” Lucy confided in a confidential tone. “She doesn’t like pets. She didn’t even like my hamster just ’cause it got scared and bit her finger. A little blood, and she squealed.”

Jayne’s cheeks heated as Lewis looked at her. “It was more than a little blood,” she said defensively. “And I didn’t squeal. I shrieked.”

“An important distinction.” Was that sarcasm or amusement in his voice? It was hard to tell, so finely veiled was the tone, and his expression was totally blank.

After scratching both dogs for a moment, Lucy looked up at their owner. “My name’s Lucy,” she announced again. Of course, her first introduction had been made to the dogs. “I live here now. What’s yours?”

“Tyler Lewis.”

Tyler fitted him every bit as much as Lewis hadn’t, Jayne thought. A Tyler would be handsome, brooding and rugged—a loner…until he found the right woman to share his solitude. A Tyler was hero material—strong, with an equally strong code of honor. Champion of the downtrodden, protector of the weak, guardian of—

Jayne gave herself a mental shake. This wasn’t some character she was creating for her next book but a real, live individual with strengths and weaknesses, failings and flaws. Rule one—no romanticizing him. It would just lead to disappointment, and Greg had given her enough of that for a lifetime.

He eased to his feet, his six-foot-plus frame towering over Lucy. A sharp crease ran the length of his jeans legs, and his shirt, visible through the open parka, was pressed, as well. When was the last time she’d seen a man in a pair of starched, creased jeans? Probably never. Whose wife had the time to do that for him?

“Is there a Mrs. Lewis?” she asked without thinking.

His dark eyes turned a shade darker. “No.”

She waited for more—I’ve never married or There used to be—but that was all. No with a scowl. “Any kids?”

“God, no.” That was said with another scowl that made her want to draw Lucy safely behind her, out of his sight. A neighbor who didn’t like kids—wonderful.

“Can me and the puppies play?” Lucy asked.

Jayne was about to answer when she realized that the question was directed to Tyler instead. He might not like kids, but Lucy hadn’t noticed yet.

He touched the bigger of the dogs and said, “Go on.” Both animals immediately sprang to their feet, and they ran after Lucy, leaving Jayne alone with Tyler.

Unable to think of a thing to say, she turned for her first good look at the house. The snow did much to soften its dilapidated facade, even lending it an air of old-fashioned charm, but that wouldn’t last long. Already she could see the drips of melt coming off the eaves. By the next day the snow would be gone, and so would the charm, but the dilapidation would remain.

“A great old house,” she murmured disgustedly, still able to see the pleasure of fond memories in Greg’s face as he’d talked about his grandmother’s home. Great old lies was more like it.

“Not quite what you were expecting?”

She glanced hastily at Tyler. She hadn’t meant for him to hear the words, hadn’t even really meant to say them out loud. She shrugged. “Not quite. Was there ever an orchard around here?”

He gestured across the road, to the neat rows of trees on the far side of his fence. “Apple trees. Edna used to own the whole mountaintop. I bought everything except the house and the acre it sits on.”

Score one for Greg. And the house did have hardwood floors—scarred, neglected, in dire need of refinishing, but wood all the same. Presumably there had been a garden twenty-five years ago, as well. So he hadn’t made it all up.

Tyler shifted uncomfortably, packing down the snow under size-twelve boots. “I made an offer on the rest of it before she died, but she turned me down. She wanted some part of the family land to leave to the family.” His features quirked into a grimace that made clear what he thought of such sentimental nonsense. “I’ll make you the same offer.”

Jayne looked back at the house. It was old, plain and needed money and a large dose of sweat equity. It made their house back in Chicago look luxurious in comparison. It was too cramped even for just the two of them, with no room for her office. Whatever money he offered could be a down payment on a more suitable place.

Unfortunately for Tyler—and maybe for herself—she was a sucker for sentimental nonsense and she liked a challenge. Why else would she have stayed married to Greg for so long? Why else would she be trying to support herself and Lucy on a solidly midlist author’s income? She wasn’t a Miller by blood, but Lucy was, and if her great-grandmother had wanted the house to pass to someone in the family, it should. God knew, Greg hadn’t given her anything else…besides those big brown eyes, that charming smile and that fearless approach to life.

But, sentimentality aside, Jayne was also practical. It was one of the things Greg had liked the least about her. “Right now I have no plans to sell the place, but if I change my mind—” she looked again at the dangling shutters, the crooked porch, the paint flakes barely clinging to the wood “—you’ll be the first to know.”

Her answer seemed to satisfy him, judging from the silent nod he gave. He probably thought she was naive and inexperienced—a city girl who didn’t know what she’d gotten herself into, who wouldn’t last into summer and most certainly not through winter. And he might be right. She had been naive. Even knowing Greg’s penchant for exaggeration, she’d believed everything he’d told her about the house. But the place had potential, and she was a big believer in potential.

“Well…” She stamped her feet to get her blood circulating. “I’m freezing here and I need to see about breakfast. Lucy, let’s go in and warm up.”

“Aw, Mom—” Lucy broke off when her stomach gave a growl that would have done either of the dogs proud, then grinned. “Wanna have breakfast with us, Tyler?”

Say no, say no, say no, Jayne silently chanted, and she swallowed a sigh of relief when he did.

“No, thanks. I’ve got things to do.”

Lucy grinned again. “Can Cameron Diaz have breakfast with us?”

“They’ve already eaten.”

“Yeah, but they look like they could eat again.”

“They look like they could eat you.” Jayne swung her up into her arms, then brushed away some of the snow that covered her from hood to boots. In unison with her daughter she said, “Oh, Mom…” As Lucy rolled her eyes, Jayne took a few backward steps toward the house. “Thanks again for the firewood. We really appreciated it.”

As he’d done the night before, he simply nodded, then walked away. She watched him for a moment before turning and trudging toward the house.

Her house. Her daughter’s ancestral home.

Their future.

Chapter 2

By noon the snow was dripping so heavily that at times it sounded like rain, plopping off the roof and puddling on the ground underneath. Tyler stood at the front window, eating lunch—a sandwich in one hand, a Coke in the other—and gazing across the yard. Supposedly he was watching the dogs run. Instead, he was seeing another snowy scene, this one a hundred and fifty miles and eighteen years away.

An unexpected snowstorm had crippled Nashville, blanketing everything in white and closing the schools early. The buses had been waiting at lunchtime, and the kids who walked to school had been lined up at the office to call for rides. Since they’d had neither a home phone nor a car for Carrie to come and get him, Tyler had hidden in the boys’ room and waited until the school was quiet—the buses gone, the luckier kids picked up by a parent. Then he’d sneaked out of the building and had run all the way home, his jacket too thin and his shoes too worn to provide any protection from the snow.

Despite the frigid temperatures, he’d removed his shoes and socks outside—Del didn’t like the kids tracking in dirt or snow—then let himself into the house. His first clue that something was wrong was his mother. She’d sat at the kitchen table, Aaron in her lap and Rebecca clinging to her side. Carrie hadn’t laughed at his hair, frozen in spikes, or offered him a towel or fussed over him at all. She hadn’t done anything but give him a sorrowful look.

Then Del had walked into the room.

“Stupid little bastard, sneaking off from school,” he’d muttered as he’d advanced. “You think they don’t keep track of kids down at that school? You think they don’t notice when some whiny-ass little bastard sneaks out like a damn thief? You’re gonna be sorry, boy, damn sor—”

Pain in Tyler’s hand jerked his attention back to the present. He stared blankly at the pop can he held, crumpled almost flat, and the blood welling where a sharp corner had pierced his palm. Coke dripped from his fingers and puddled on the floor, each plop a reminder of the punishment such a spill had always brought.

An instant of panic spurted through him—Got to get a rag, got to clean it and dry it so no one will notice. He pushed it back with a deep breath and forced his fingers to relax around the battered aluminum. He’d taken only a few steps from the window when the doorbell echoed through the house, accompanied by Diaz’s excited barks and Cameron’s howl from the porch.

He would like to think the dogs were smart enough to ring the bell themselves, but a soft little-girl giggle told him he couldn’t be so lucky. Grimly setting his jaw, he opened the door. The dogs shot in around him, racing through the living room and circling the kitchen island before leaping onto the couch and battling for space. Lucy would have followed them if her mother hadn’t grabbed the hood to rein her in.

Her cheeks pink, Jayne smiled uncertainly. “Hi. I’m sorry to bother you, but I saw your electricity was on, and it reminded me to call and see about getting mine turned on, too.” She gestured toward the porch light that he always left on when he knew he would be home after dark. With no power, he’d forgotten to turn it off this morning, and now it glowed dimly in the bright day.

More than anything he wanted to send her away. He didn’t need her in his house, looking at his things, disturbing his day. But instead he flipped the switch to off, then stepped back to allow her entrance. “The phone’s on the desk,” he said gruffly. “The book’s under it.”

Still holding on to Lucy’s hood, Jayne came inside, steering her daughter toward the desk against one living room wall. She gave the wrestling dogs a wary look, and he spoke sharply. “Diaz. Cameron. Stop.”

Immediately the dogs separated, each taking one end of the couch and watching the three humans curiously.

“Could you teach me how to do that with Lucy?” Jayne asked, wearing that uneasy smile again.

Lucy seemed well enough behaved to him. Though her expression said she was itching to go exploring, she didn’t try to slip out of her mother’s hold. Instead she was satisfied to look at everything, her brown eyes wide with curiosity. When she looked at him, a broad grin spread across her face and she raised one hand and wiggled her index finger in greeting.

With a brusque nod, he went to the kitchen, tossed the can in the trash, then held his hand under cold water, washing away the pop and fresh blood. The puncture wasn’t deep, so instead of a bandage, he balled a napkin in his fist, then went to stare out the back windows. Immediately Diaz joined him, rubbing against his legs for attention. A moment later Lucy came over, as well. Glancing back, Tyler saw her coat hanging by its hood from her mother’s hand.

“I like your house,” she announced.

He grunted. It wasn’t fancy—maybe fourteen hundred square feet, one big living room/dining room/kitchen, two bedrooms and one and a half baths, with a wide front porch and a deck across the back. He’d built it himself, with help from his brothers and sister and his boss, and he’d done everything exactly the way he wanted it. It was his and his alone.

Lucy touched her reflection in the window, then giggled. “Look. I’m having a bad hair day. That’s ’cause I’ve been helping Mom clean. See?” Her fine hair stood on end, and what looked like the remains of a cobweb spread across the wild strands. It was a good look with the smudges of dirt that marked one cheek and her chin before spreading down the front of her shirt.

He couldn’t think of anything to say to her comment, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“You have any kids?” When he shook his head, she frowned, then wistfully asked, “Are there any kids around here?”

He knew everyone who lived along the road by sight, if not personally. He rarely had anything to do with them. He rarely had anything to do with anyone. He saw the Ryans—his boss Daniel, Sarah and their kids—every workday. He saw his own family on Sunday afternoons, and Zachary and Beth Adams and their kids maybe twice a month.

He wasn’t a real sociable person.

“The Trumbulls have some kids, but I don’t know how old they are,” he said at last. “They live about halfway back to town. And Sassie Whitlaw’s grandkids live with her part of the time. There’s a girl about your size.”

The wistfulness disappeared as she giggled again. “What kind of name is Sassie?”

Not much different from Lucy. It was an old name for a young girl.

A strand of hair fell forward to rest on her cheek, and she brushed it back with delicate fingers. “Do you have any animals besides puppies? Like maybe horses?”

“No.” There were cats in the barn, but they were no more sociable than he was. He kept their water dish full and supplemented their field-mouse diet with dry food, but that was the extent of their interaction.

“My dad said I could have a horse when we moved here. He said we’d have a barn and everything. He said we’d have trees filled with apples to give ’em for treats, and I could ride my horse to the store and to school.” Suspicion settled over her features, making her look years beyond five. “There’s no barn at our house. Daddy was little when he came here to see his grandma. I think he didn’t remember very well.”

Was there ever an orchard around here? her mother had asked that morning with the same sort of look, and just before that she’d all but snorted, A great old house. Clearly the Miller home had fallen far short of her expectations. Because her ex had a faulty memory—or a problem with the truth?

Lucy edged closer to the glass. “You have a barn,” she announced. “What’s in it?”

“The tractor. Some tools. A workshop.”

She tilted her head to look at him. “What kind of workshop?”

“You’re awfully nosy today.” Jayne came up to stand on the other side of the kid, combed the spiderwebs from her hair, then tried without success to remove them from her fingers. Her cheeks turned pink as she surreptitiously scrubbed them off on her sweatshirt.

“I’m bein’ neighborly,” Lucy disagreed. “That’s what Grandpa says people do in the country. Isn’t it, Tyler?”

Not me, he almost blurted out, but he just shrugged instead.

“They said we should have power by five,” Jayne said. With her gaze locked on something outside, it was hard to tell whether she was addressing the words to her daughter or him. “Do you think the roads are clear enough to go into town and pick up a few things?”

The snow had been melting steadily all day, leaving great patches of ground showing everywhere that wasn’t in the shade, and the temperature was warm enough for a lightweight jacket. How could the city girl not realize the roads would be clear? “Sure.”

“We’d be happy to give you a ride to your truck on the way.”

He’d be happy to say no. It wasn’t much of a walk, and he could use the exercise to clear his head. He couldn’t begin to guess at what made him say, “I’d appreciate it.” Maybe because then they would be even. She wouldn’t feel as if she was in his debt for the firewood and there wouldn’t be any reason for further contact between them.

Her smile was uneasy but relieved, too. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Tyler Lewis had less to say than any man Jayne had ever known.

Maybe she was just accustomed to talkative sorts. Her father could chat up anyone about anything, and Greg had never let a little thing like having nothing to say stop him from saying it. Tyler, it seemed, was just the opposite. While taking care of the electric, water and gas accounts, she’d listened to his conversation with Lucy with half an ear. Surely he had more than those brief little answers to offer.

But he wasn’t offering them to her. Without a word, she and Lucy had waited while he’d locked up, then the three of them had walked back to Edna’s house, where he and Lucy, still silent, waited while she locked up—laughable when practically every stick of furniture sat on the front porch—before loading into the Tahoe. Peripherally she watched him fasten his seat belt, then rub his long fingers over the leather armrest as if testing its texture. They stilled as his attention turned to the outside mirrors, automatically adjusting and lowering when she shifted into reverse, then returning to their preset position when she shifted into drive.

His mouth quirked slightly. Remembering that she’d told him Greg had taken everything of value? This truck was worth two, maybe three times the sorry little house and its one-acre setting. Knowing divorce was on the horizon, she’d had the sense to put it in her name only when she’d bought it.

Unable to bear the silence one moment longer, she asked, “Do you work in town?”

“No.”

She’d forgotten one of the rules she’d learned early in her career—no yes or no questions when conducting an interview. “Where do you work?”

He pressed the button that turned on the heater in the seat, then turned it off again before offering a halfhearted gesture to the west. “A few miles over that way.”

“Are you a farmer? A rancher? A housekeeper? A nanny?”

His mouth quirked again. With impatience? “A carpenter.”

“Do you frame houses, make cabinets, build decks?”

Finally he glanced at her and said in the softest of voices, “I see where your daughter gets her nosiness.”

Her face warming, Jayne slowed to a stop. They were at the bottom of the first hill, where a pickup old enough that its faded color could be one of any number was parked sideways across the road.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.” He opened the door, ignored the running board and slid to the ground. Then he looked back. “Furniture. Tables, chairs, entertainment centers, desks…if it’s wood, I build it.”

Not a carpenter but a craftsman—and a modest one at that. She didn’t meet many modest people in her business. Authors had to believe their work was good or they would never open themselves up to crushing rejection by trying to sell it.

With a nod that passed for goodbye, he closed the door, crossed to his truck with long strides and climbed inside. It might be ten years older than her Tahoe, but the engine started on the first try and revved powerfully, and it had no problem with the mud as he straightened it out, then drove past.

“I like him,” Lucy remarked from the backseat. “He doesn’t treat me like a kid.”

Jayne wasn’t sure he knew how to treat kids. As far as that went, she wasn’t sure he knew how to treat adults either. But maybe it wasn’t all people he had a problem with—just those who invaded his privacy.

Lucy amused herself with a movie on her portable DVD player for the drive into town, while Jayne amused herself with comparing Greg’s stories with reality. Virtually everything about the house was a lie, and based on what she was seeing today, so was everything about the town. A quaint little town, like Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show? Ha!

Sweetwater was a few blocks of shabby little buildings surrounded by a few more blocks of old houses and, on the outskirts of town, even shabbier businesses. There was a town square, and the downtown buildings were mostly old, mostly built of stone, but that was the extent of the quaintness. The welcome-to-town sign didn’t include a population, probably because people were leaving a lot quicker than they were coming. It looked sleepy and dreary and depressing.

How had she let herself believe that, for once, Greg wasn’t exaggerating?

Because she’d needed to believe. She’d needed a change, and after he’d cleaned out their joint bank accounts, this had seemed the best choice left her.

“Mom, I’m hungry,” Lucy piped up from the back.

So was she, and it appeared they had a grand total of two places to choose from—a diner near the courthouse and a convenience store on the edge of town that sold gas, hunting licenses, hot dogs and sandwiches. She opted for the diner.

Deprived of her DVD player for the walk from their parking space to the diner, Lucy looked around wide-eyed but didn’t comment on the town. Neither did Jayne. She might find it disappointing, but she certainly didn’t want to pass that on to her daughter.

The diner was warm and filled with good smells. Jayne helped Lucy out of her jacket, then slipped off her own before sliding into a booth that fronted the plate-glass window. A twenty-something waitress brought menus and offered a cheery greeting and coffee before leaving again.