A Forever Family

“You know, Doc,” she said, heading for the barn doors. “You really should reconsider and keep this place for yourself and your niece. The second you sign on that dotted line, it’s over. And that,” she speared him with a glance, “will be a flipping shame.”

Together they entered the warm, musky interior of the milking parlor.

A flipping shame? Michael thought, striding beside her. Dammit, woman, where do you come off with your assessments?

She knew nothing about the pain and fear he endured living in this place, in this community. What did she know about medical facilities short of resources, funding and expertise? What did she know about a life cut off in its prime?

“It’s like that Amy Grant song,” she continued. “‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’ This place has all the amenities you’d ever want for raising a child. Fresh air, peace, quiet. Once you sell, it’ll—”

He stopped. “Did you not understand what I said the other day? I don’t need your advice on what’s best for this place or—”

She swung around. “Or what, Doctor? You’ll fire me? We’ve been there, done it, framed the picture.” She lifted the Seahawks cap and raked back the jungle of her hair. “Look. All I’m suggesting is don’t rush into something you may regret a month from now.”

They were at the midpoint of the long corridor. Light filtered through the doors and caught in the hollows of her cheeks. If he closed his eyes, he’d recall each fine detail.

Five days ago the woman hadn’t existed. Now, she never left his mind. He didn’t want to feel anything for her. Starting with the first of those rudimentary aspects like…lust.

Not that he didn’t enjoy the body side of the lure. He did. He appreciated the sight of a pretty woman. Mostly, he praised his stoic heart, thumping behind his ribs, for its neutrality in spite of any attraction or spark.

Except, around this woman his heart did crazy, unorthodox things. He didn’t understand it. Barring her eyes, she was neither traditionally beautiful nor alluring. Her body was curveless, her short hair a persistent tangle. Never mind that she poked her slim, shapely nose in his business.

“What do you want from me?” he asked wearily.

A direct look. “Nothing. But Jenni does. Ask her.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, she’s six, not twenty-six.”

“She’s a person, Michael. She has feelings, which, at the moment, she doesn’t understand.”

Anger tight in his chest, he jammed his hands into his pockets. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Then talk about her parents. She needs to know how you feel about their loss. Most of all, that you’re not angry with her.”

“I’m not angry with her!” Damn. She’d pinned him to the wall and pared off layers he’d stapled down. He wasn’t ready to talk about Leigh. Still, fresh, the wounds tore easily.

With a heavy sigh, he massaged his nape. “Look, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time the other day and for that I’m sorry, but I am selling this farm.”

Shanna hesitated, then shrugged. “Your decision.”

“Yes,” he said, dropping his hand. “It is.”

She turned to go then stopped. “Where is Jenni, by the way?”

He refused to feel guilty. “At my grandmother’s. I’m picking her up in a few minutes.” I wanted to come home first. See you.

“Does she know you’ll be moving her to a new home?”

“Jen’s been to my town house before.”

She nodded, acquiescing.

The gesture irked him. “What I do or don’t do in respect to my niece,” he said, pushing past her and striding down the aisle, “is not your concern. Do the job you were hired for, Ms. McKay, and we’ll get along fine.”

“As in stick to the barn and cows, Doc? Know my place?”

He stopped, parked his hands at his waist, and took a deep, pacifying breath. “If that’s what it takes. Just leave my niece alone.” Leave me alone. “I don’t want you pumping her head full of idiotic ideas that’ll only confuse her.” And me.

He recognized the damage instantly. The distress he saw in her eyes two days ago in Leigh’s bedroom was there once more. “I would never do that,” she whispered.

“Dammit. You know what I’m trying to say.”

She poked out her chin. “Message received.” The hurt vanished in a wake of quiet dignity. “Excuse me, but I have cows to see, barns to roam, manure to clear.” She walked away and disappeared into another section of the building.

Michael stood in the hushed milking parlor, in the musk of animal and hay, and thought, You expect more than I can give.

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? He could not give Jenni what she needed any more than he could grant life to Leigh. Would he ever master this feeling of helplessness? This terror of knowing how inadequate he was?

Ah, Leigh. You knew, didn’t you?

Just as he’d known, the minute they’d unloaded her off the ambulance, that she was critical. He’d known with one glance she wouldn’t make it, known as he’d jogged beside the trauma bed speeding through the electronic doors of the limited twenty-bed hospital. Her raspy voice still tore at him….

“Michael…promise me.”

“Shh. Don’t talk, sis. I’m here.”

“Promise.” She touched weak fingers to his wrist. Internal damage, he knew, drained strength.

Tears stung his eyes. “Sis, you’re okay. Hear me?” Even to his own ears the statement rang false. Another night and he wouldn’t have been the doctor on call. Another night and it would have been his associate’s turn.

Rushing down the tiled corridor, the paramedic at the helm of the long board said, “She was a passenger in an MVA, Doc.”

“Air bag?”

“No. A ’91 pickup, horse trailer in tow.”

Michael knew the vehicle. Old and banged up from too many haulings. Why hadn’t they taken the Ford F350 to that auction?

“Get me two large bore IVs,” he barked as they spun into emergency and a nurse dashed off. “Vitals?”

“Pulse rate 140—”

“BP’s eighty over fifty—dropping!”

The IVs were suddenly in his hands. “Run warm ringer’s lactate wide open, both IVs!” The nurse on his left disappeared. “And get X ray and lab down here! I want a C.B.C., lytes, B.U.N., creatinine, glucose, type and cross-match six units—now!”

In the end none of it, not one thing he’d given her, had helped. He looked around the cement and tiled alleyway of the barn where he still stood. Turning, he strode out into the heavy evening air. Damn memories.

“So, you’re the one.” A scratchy female voice spoke through the open doorway.

Shanna looked up from the last of the canned goods she was storing in the pantry. After milking, she’d run into Blue Springs for groceries. Now, a tiny, white-haired woman in tan cowboy boots, jeans and a poet’s blouse stood leaning on a cane on the threshold of the door Shanna had propped wide for a breeze of cool evening air.

Michael Rowan’s grandmother.

Same high-boned cheeks, resolute jaw and hawk nose.

Beside her on the stoop, Jenni, dressed in a pink jumpsuit, clutched Octavia and a miniature red-and-blue knapsack.

The matriarch stepped inside. Behind brown-rimmed glasses, she judged the room from corner to ceiling to floor.

“Well,” the old lady said, her eyes as intense as her grandson’s. “You’ve certainly made a mark.”

You haven’t seen nothing yet. “Why don’t you come in, ma’am. Hey, Jenni. Want a cookie?”

The little girl nodded with a shy smile.

The old lady spied the coffeemaker. “That brew fresh?”

“As tomorrow’s dawn.” Shanna took out two mugs and filled them.

“You’re quick. Got a wit, too. Well-shaped legs. Good qualities. Skirt’s a mite short, but then this isn’t my era.”

Shanna choked back a laugh. Granny or not, she was like an auctioneer citing the record of an animal in the ring.

“I’m Katherine Rowan, by the way. Michael’s grandmother.” She didn’t offer a hand. “Friends call me Kate.”

“Shanna McKay. Cream, sugar?”

“Black.”

Kate settled at the kitchen table with her cane across her knees. Jenni sat on the couch with Octavia and began plucking the little tea set Shanna had seen in the main house from the knapsack.

Kate pursed her lips. Her gray eyes pinned Shanna. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“Of what?”

“Me.”

Shanna set two mugs on the table and gave the child a large chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk. She stroked Jenni’s hair, then slipped into a chair. “Should I be afraid of you?”

“I’ve put the run on a few hired hands in my day.”

“Maybe you had grounds to do so. But, if I leave it won’t be because I’ve sloughed up on the job.”

“I like you, Shanna McKay. I believe you and I will get along very well.”

“I agree.”

They grinned at each other.

“Grammy?” Jenni came to stand by the woman’s knee.

“What, child? Bored already?”

“No, but can I play on the step? I want to see the chick’bees again.”

“Chick-a-dees. All right. But don’t wander off.”

Several treks later, the child had transported doll, milk, tea set and cookie outside. Within moments, she was humming and explaining to Tavia about black-hatted birdies.

Shanna watched the child play in freckled sunshine. Nine years and still mending. I’ll never forget you, Timmy.

Kate said, “My great-granddaughter is very taken with you.”

“She’s a sweet child.”

The old woman sipped noisily at her coffee. “Her mother, my granddaughter—God rest her soul—didn’t know the first thing about raising kids. She wasn’t the maternal kind.” Another slurpy sip. “Bob did most of the mothering.”

“Mrs. Rowan—”

“But you know about mothering, don’t you?”

“I don’t think—”

“I can see it in your face when you look at that child.” The old lady sized up the open doorway where Jenni hummed tunelessly. “She’s told me a few things about your first meeting.”

“I hardly know the girl.”

“Yes, you do. You knew exactly what she needed from the minute you told her about those birds out there.”

Shanna looked down at her coffee. “Mrs. Rowan, I don’t think we should discuss Jenni or how her mother treated her. I’m…I’m only an employee and in a few weeks I’ll be gone.”

Kate shot her a look. “Did you know she’s barely spoken more than a handful of sentences since her parents died?”

“Michael—Doctor Rowan mentioned it the other day.” When he was giving me hot looks and touching my earrings.

“Did he also mention she has nightmares?”

“No.”

“She wakes up and thinks she sees Leigh in the doorway.”

Shanna’s eyes sought out the tiny form sitting twenty feet away, chatting to Octavia.

“He doesn’t know how to deal with it,” Kate went on. “He’s had a lot of…trouble getting over—” her lips tightened “—Leigh’s death. They were attached at the hip. Jen is the spitting image of Leigh as a child, you know. Though, God forgive me for saying it, she doesn’t have Leigh’s personality. My granddaughter was excessively driven and obsessed with the land. Anything else was a side note. Including her daughter. Shocked us all when she got pregnant. She wasn’t prone to wanting children. Bob was, though. So they had Jenni. To soften the marriage, I suspect.” She blew a gusty breath. “It worked.”

“Mrs. Rowan…”

“Kate.”

“Kate. Why are you telling me this? You don’t even know who I am.”

The elder woman harumphed. “For some reason unbeknownst to any of us, you’ve become the light at the end of a very dark tunnel for my great-granddaughter. Since she met you, your name comes into every second sentence she speaks.” Again, Kate looked toward Jenni. “She’s been a quiet child all her life. When her parents died…well.” She looked at Shanna. “Jen’s never taken to anyone so, not even me.”

“I—”

“Oh, don’t fuss. That wasn’t meant to be nasty. I’ve got more than enough of Leigh in me not to be jealous. Though, in my old age I’ve realized something she hadn’t yet learned.” She stirred a spoon in her unadorned coffee and gave Shanna a stern look. “Happiness counts above all else.”

Shanna remained silent. Jenni sang in the sunshine. How could you not have been happy with your baby, Leigh?

Kate lifted her mug to her lips and rested the rim there, her wintry eyes direct. “You’d be a fine match for my grandson. Oh, now, don’t worry,” she said when Shanna almost choked on her coffee. “It’s just an observation.”

Shanna dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Is this what you meant by putting the run on your employees?”

Kate threw back her head and laughed. “Honey, you are definitely a delight. No, all my other employees were men and as far as I know not one was prone to wearing a skirt.”

“Well, that’s a relief to hear.”

Kate sobered. “I never say anything I don’t mean. And, I’ve never told another soul what I’m about to tell you. The women my grandson dates are as deep as a bale of hay.”

I don’t want to know this. Really, I do not.

“All right,” Kate said, acknowledging Shanna’s discomfort. “Forget Michael. By the way, you make a decent cup of coffee.” She slanted a look over her shoulder. “And keep a clean house.”

“I’m having my brother paint the walls.”

The old woman examined the kitchen and muttered, “Leigh could’ve taken a lesson from you. If it wasn’t for Bob, they would’ve lived like pigs in mud.”

Pigs in mud? “Kate—”

But Michael’s grandmother went on, as if she sat in the room alone. “He was always finding dust bunnies under the furniture. It’s a wonder little Jenni made it through the crawling stage without gagging on one.”

Shanna’s jaw dropped. Michael’s sister had raised her baby in filth? “But the house is impeccable, the barn spotless.”

An impatient wave. “Michael. After Leigh died he spent every spare hour scrubbing, polishing, waxing. He couldn’t handle Jenni living in that kind of dirt any more. As for the barn—that was Leigh’s love. The outdoors, the animals, the farm. Down there everything was in its place.”

Had Leigh loved her daughter at all? Been concerned about whether or not the child felt safe, warm, cared for?

Kate said, “Don’t get me wrong. She loved Jenni. She just wasn’t domestically inclined or the mothering type. Bob did most of the parenting. He was crazy about the child.”

Shanna mulled over the information. When she met Jenni, the child had been…

Clean? Michael’s doing.

Afraid of affection? Shanna’s gratitude kiss proved that.

Bob had loved his daughter. Hugs and kisses came from the man in Jenni’s life. No wonder the poor elf was lost.

“You see where I’m coming from now?” the old lady asked.

Yes, she did. “It’s hard not to love her,” Shanna murmured.

Restless, she rose and refilled their mugs. Jenni, Jason and herself, a trio with mothers who would have benefitted from Love-Your-Children 101. And your childhood, Michael?

“Were they close, Doctor Rowan and his sister?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Kate grunted. “They were twins.” As if that explained it all. “For the most part they were inseparable, as twins are wont to be, but especially so when Davey, my son, and his wife went on their…adventures. The kids would sleep in the same room the nights their parents weren’t here. Leigh was scared of the dark.”

“Adventures?”

The old woman batted the air. “Another story.” She picked up her coffee, blew on it then drank.

Shanna’s turned cold.

The sweet sound of Jenni’s singing warmed the room.

Kate pushed her mug aside. “About a year after Davey and his wife died, the twins took to different interests. Leigh got caught up in the farm and the animals and Michael…” She patted the cane in her lap. “We really didn’t know what was on his mind. It wasn’t until he went to college that we found out he wanted to go into medicine. He…he was the first in our family to get a degree, you know.”

“Kate, I think—”

“Think I’m a gossip, don’t you, girl?” Behind lenses, her eyes—Michael’s eyes—were magnified.

“Not at all.” I think you’re lonely for your children.

Kate stared out the window at the serene pastures and the majesty of Mount Baker. “I’m telling you so you’ll understand him better. He’s a good man.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Just has trouble connecting with family folk. Leigh went off on a tangent with this place. I think it scared Michael, the way she loved it. Worsened when she got pregnant. Truth be known, he didn’t think much of her mothering skills. ’Course he’s not much better. He’s had a dickens of a time connecting with Jenni.” She brightened. “But he’s a wonderful doctor.”

Jenni’s voice tinkled from somewhere beyond the stoop, coaxing Silly to lie in Tavia’s lap.

Kate looked at Shanna. “I’m glad you’re the one who gave my great-grandchild back her smile. And,” she went on, “as ornery and irascible as he can be, I suspect you’ve sparked a smile from my grandson. Both have been a long time coming.”

Near the cool shadowed doorway, a bee droned before it decided to forego curiosity for the hive and flitted away. Losing herself in beauty and peace, Shanna murmured, “He doesn’t realize how much this place can heal him. Too bad it’s up for sale.”

For a long moment all was still. Kate set her palms flat on the table and rose. Avid eyes bore into Shanna. “What do you mean Rowan Dairy is up for sale?”

Shanna frowned. “You didn’t know?”

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