More Than Neighbors

Goodwater had a dusty charm and an old-fashioned Main Street with the type of independent businesses that had vanished from larger towns, including hardware, appliance and clothing stores, a pharmacy, a sporting-goods store with a large banner in the window promising Uniforms for All Local Teams and a special on soccer shoes. Ciara stole a look at Mark, who was gazing with interest at the sidewalks, stores and cafés. Would he like to play soccer? She couldn’t imagine. His feet had grown even faster than the rest of him. He literally tripped over them. Maybe something this fall...

The grocery store turned out to be adequate. More expensive than Ciara was used to, but that wasn’t unexpected. It might be smart to plan a trip every few weeks to stock up at a Costco or Sam’s Club or suchlike in Spokane. She could make an outing of it for both of them.

In the frozen-food aisle, a plump woman about Ciara’s age stopped her cart to smile at them. “You must be visitors. We don’t get many strangers here.”

“I just bought a house. I’m Ciara Malloy, and this is my son, Mark.”

“Hello, do you have a horse?” Mark asked.

The woman laughed. “No, but half the people hereabouts do. I’m Audrey Stevens. I live right in town. My husband is an attorney, if you come to need one.”

Ciara smiled. “Not yet, fortunately.”

“Do you have a dog?” Mark asked.

“Yes, a small one. Since our yard isn’t very big,” she explained, probably in response to his expression. Mark thought dogs ought to be large. He couldn’t understand why anyone had bred a perfectly good animal to be purse-size.

Since he tended to be literal, Ciara was pleasantly surprised that he’d held off reminding her that she’d promised they would get a dog as soon as they moved. After all, in his mind, the move had probably been complete the minute they drove up to the house last night.

“Which house did you buy?” the friendly woman asked, reclaiming her attention.

“It’s on acreage. We dealt with the former owner’s son. Um...something Walker. I think the owner was Ephraim Walker. The name stuck in my head.”

“So would Ephraim, if you’d known him. He was the original cranky old man. One of my husband’s best clients. Ephraim liked to sue people.”

Ciara chuckled at that, trying to imagine excuses to file a lawsuit. “He must have been popular.”

“Oh, he wasn’t so bad when he was younger,” Audrey said tolerantly. “Who wouldn’t get cranky if they lived into their nineties? I’ll bet the place needs work.”

“Yes. Can you recommend any local contractors?”

Audrey could. Seeing Mark’s restlessness, Ciara accepted Audrey’s phone number so that she could call later, when she had paper and a pen in hand. Maybe she could find someone to mow the pastures a couple of times a year, too. Or would anyone be interested in renting the pasture? Of course, it would be hard to keep Mark away from any four-footed creature who lived on their own property.

Pleased by the idea of making a friend, Ciara moved on, buying generously. As skinny as he was, her son had an enormous appetite.

They were no sooner in the car than Mark reminded her that they had to stop at the neighbor’s again. Wonderful.

They pulled into the black-topped driveway to find a pickup truck and horse trailer parked in front of the second barn.

Mark leaned forward. “Mom, look! There’s another horse!”

Ciara couldn’t have missed the fact that a man was backing a horse down the ramp. The one in the pasture was just plain brown; this one was a bright shade that was almost copper, with a lighter-colored mane and tail, two white ankles and, she saw as she got out, a white star on its nose.

“A chestnut,” Mark declared, having leaped out of the car faster than she could move. “And I’ll bet it’s a quarter horse. The other one is.”

Trust Mark to know the subtle difference between breeds, even though he’d probably never seen a quarter horse in real life.

“Mark,” she said sharply. “Wait.”

The horse’s hooves clomped on the pavement when he reached it. He shook his head, sending his mane flying, danced in place and trumpeted out a cry that made Ciara jump and brought an answering call from the pasture.

“Mo-om!” her son begged, all but dancing in place himself.

The man holding the rope barely glanced at them before turning his back and leading the horse around the side of the barn.

“Really friendly,” she mumbled.

“What?” Mark said.

“Nothing.”

“Can we go watch him turn his horse out to pasture?”

“No, we’ll wait here like the polite people we are.”

“But Mom—” he begged, expression anguished.

“No.”

It had to be five minutes before the man reappeared. He hadn’t bothered hurrying, that was for sure. He’d probably hoped they would go away if he took his time.

She felt a stir of something uncomfortable at the sight of him walking toward them, although she wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t incredibly handsome or anything like that. Nobody would look at him twice if he was standing next to her ex-husband, Ciara started to think. But as this man came closer, she changed her mind. If nothing else, he was...imposing.

Like the already-pastured horse, his hair was brown. Not sun-streaked, not dark, just brown. So was the close-cropped beard that made his face even more expressionless than it already was.

He was large, likely six foot two or even taller, and solidly built. Either he spent a lot of time in a gym, or he did something physical for a living. His stride was long and yet somehow collected, as if he controlled his every movement in a way most people couldn’t.

He was only a few feet away when he said, “May I help you?” in a deep, quiet voice that was civil while also sounding remote.

“That was a quarter horse, right?” Mark said eagerly. “I’ve read all about them in books. Why do you have quarter horses when you don’t have a ranch? They’re best for herding cattle, you know.”

To his credit, the man barely blinked. “I do know. In fact, both mine are trained for cutting.”

“Is that what you were doing today? Why don’t you keep some cows here to practice on?”

Was that a smile glinting in eyes that Ciara decided were gray? “The next-door neighbor—” he nodded to the north “—runs a herd and lets me, er, practice on his.” He held up a hand to stop her son’s next barrage of questions. “And today I went on a trail ride.”

“Oh. What I wanted to know is—”

Ciara cut him off. “That’s enough, Mark.” She met the neighbor’s eyes. “We stopped by to introduce ourselves. We bought the place next door.”

“I saw lights last night.” He didn’t sound thrilled.

“We arrived late yesterday. The moving truck came and went this morning.”

“I see.”

“My name is Ciara Malloy, and this is my son, Mark. He really likes horses and is hoping you won’t mind if he pets yours if and when they come to our fence line.”

She sensed more than heard a sigh. “That’s fine.”

“Do they bite?” she had to ask.

“Only if they think your fingers are carrots.”

Mark lit up. “Do they like carrots? I wanted Mom to buy sugar cubes ’cuz horses like them, but she didn’t. Maybe they’ll come to the fence if I give them something to eat.”

“An occasional treat is fine,” the man said. “And I do mean occasional. Sugar isn’t healthy in large quantities for horses. A carrot or two a day won’t hurt anything.”

“Cool!” Mark exclaimed.

“Do you know how to give a horse a treat so he doesn’t mistake your fingers for food?”

“I can just hold it out like that, can’t I?” Mark demonstrated.

Another near-soundless sigh. “No, you have to remember that horses can’t see your hand when you hold something out. If you have a minute—” he glanced at Ciara with his eyebrows raised “—I’ll give you a demonstration.”

“You mean I can pet them now?” Mark bounced like an excited puppy. “Mom, did you hear?”

“I heard. Yes, that’s fine.”

“Give me a minute.” The man disappeared into the barn briefly, reappearing with a fistful of carrots. Maybe he was nicer than he appeared; he’d obviously guessed that feeding one measly carrot wasn’t going to cut it for her son.

She trailed man and boy around the corner of the barn, seeing the fence ahead and a kind of lean-to with a big enameled bathtub filled with water and a wooden manger beside it. The horses currently stood side by side, both grinding hay in their mouths.

Mark raced forward. One of the horses swung away in apparent alarm, and the other threw up his head.

“Gently,” the neighbor said. “You have to be quiet and calm or you’ll scare them. Keep your voice down. Make your movements slow.”

“Oh. I can do that.” Mark tripped, fell forward and had to grab the fence to keep from going down. Both horses shied and ended up twenty feet away.

Their owner cast a look at Ciara in which she read understandable desperation. If he wasn’t used to kids—

“Gently,” he repeated.

“I’m sorry.” Mark quivered with passionate intensity. “They’ll still come to me, won’t they? So I can feed them?”

“Greed will overcome them,” the man said drily. He whistled and held up the carrots. As speedily as they’d departed, the horses returned.

Ciara stayed a few feet back, watching as Mark learned how to hold out a treat on the palm of his hand, where horses liked to be stroked and how and what they didn’t like. He laughed when their soft lips tickled his hand as they whisked pieces of carrot off it, and laughed again when one blew out a breath with slimy orange bits of carrot that got on his face. He asked what their names were and nodded solemnly at the answer: Hoodoo and Aurora. Both apparently had long, unintelligible names under which they were registered with the Quarter Horse Association, but they didn’t know them. The man had come up with Hoodoo; Aurora was used to that name when he’d bought her. He corrected Mark when he described Hoodoo as a chestnut; for some reason, that coloration was called sorrel when it came to quarter horses.

“Hoodoo is prettier than Aurora.” After a sidelong glance, Mark placed one foot on the bottom rail and his elbows on the top rail in exact imitation of the neighbor. “Do you think she minds?”

“I doubt horses think in terms of pretty. And Hoodoo is actually her son. I did have her bred the once.”

“Will you again? That would be amazing.” Her son swiveled enough to look over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t it be amazing, Mom?”

“I’m sure it would. Now, say thank you, Mark. We need to get those groceries home.”

“Do we have to?” His shoulders slumped when he saw her face. “Okay. Now they know me, I’ll bet they’ll come when they see me with a carrot.”

She mouthed the words “thank you” at Mark.

“Thank you, mister,” he said obediently. “You didn’t tell us what your name is, did you?”

“Didn’t I? That was rude. I’m Gabe Tennert.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Ciara said, holding out a hand.

He looked at it for longer than was polite before gently engulfing it in his much larger hand. The rough texture of his calluses sent a tingle through her and, she suspected, warmed her cheeks.

“Thank you for stopping by,” he said, leaving her in no doubt whatsoever that he wasn’t at all glad for their visit.

“We’re going to get a dog,” Mark told him as they walked back to the van. “Mom said we could as soon as we moved.”

“If you do, please make sure it’s one that won’t chase horses or cattle.” There was no flexibility whatsoever in that deep voice now.

That was reasonable, Ciara supposed.

Mark got in, and she circled to her side.

“Do you have other children?” Gabe Tennert asked.

She paused. Somehow, she didn’t think he was hoping she’d say yes. “No, only Mark.”

He nodded brusquely. “Good day.”

Before she had so much as gotten the key in the ignition, he had hopped into his pickup truck and began maneuvering to back the trailer into an empty slot inside one of the barns. He didn’t even glance their way as she turned in a circle and started down the driveway.

Ciara surprised herself by wondering whether he had a wife.

CHAPTER TWO

ALWAYS AN EARLY RISER, Gabe was outside forking hay into the manger when the school bus passed the next morning. Without thinking about it, he’d known it was coming; the brakes squealed at every stop, and the Ohlers a couple of properties past the old Walker place had two kids that rode the bus.

Now he turned, thoughtful, when the bus lumbered on past without stopping next door. Would have made sense, when Ms. Malloy and her boy were in town yesterday, for her to have registered him for school, wouldn’t it? Today was Wednesday, though; maybe she meant to give him the rest of the week to settle in before he started.

April was a funny time of year to move, when it meant pulling a kid out of school and him having to start in a new one at the tail end of the year, Gabe reflected. Usually people with kids tried to move during the summer. Maybe this was following a divorce?

He shook his head as he unlocked the big double doors and let himself into his workshop. Why was he bothering to wonder about the new neighbors? All he cared was that they stayed on their side of the property line.

He always had several projects going at various stages. Today he settled down immediately to measure and mark what would be the pins and tails of dovetail joints, these particular panels to be sides and backs of drawers. He almost never used any other kind of joint but dovetail for drawers, liking the solidity and elegant appearance. Although they could be cut with router and jig, he preferred to use traditional hand tools.

Securing a solid board of alder with a vise, he reached for a dovetail square and pencil. Despite the care required, long practice meant he was able to let his mind wander as he worked to mark where cuts would be made.

That boy—Mark—was an odd duck. The mother hadn’t said how old he was, but he had to be almost a teenager. Middle school, at a guess. What had he been? Five foot nine or ten, Gabe thought. Clumsy, but a lot of boys were at that age. Gabe’s mouth twitched. God knew he’d been a walking disaster for several years in there, when he was outgrowing pants and shirts so fast, his mother despaired. Sometimes he’d felt as if those gigantic feet had been transplanted onto his legs during the night. He had to stare at his feet when he was walking to make sure he was setting them down where they belonged. Unfortunately, that didn’t work when he wanted to run or climb a ladder or even race up the bleachers in the gymnasium.

It wasn’t the clumsiness that suggested the boy was a little off. And maybe Gabe was wrong—but he didn’t think so. Mark’s excitement was more like a younger kid’s than a near-teenager’s. The way his mother seemed to be coaching him, too, as if he were a kindergartener who hadn’t yet learned to say please or thank you.

Grudgingly, Gabe conceded the kid had been nice enough, though. And he had known a surprising amount about horses and the breed of quarter horse in particular for someone who obviously had done his learning from books or on the computer rather than real-life exposure. Was the mother thinking of buying a horse for her son? Gabe hoped she wouldn’t rush to do so without seeing that he get some lessons first. And making sure the enthusiasm wouldn’t wear out three months down the line.

He continued to work methodically, out of habit marking the “waste” sections—the parts he’d be cutting out and discarding—with Xs, then, finally, reached for a dovetail saw as his thoughts reverted to yesterday’s two visitors.

The mom had an unusual name. Ciara. Irish? Probably. She was exceptionally pretty, he had to admit. Eyes so blue, a man more susceptible than he might liken them to the sky just before twilight or the vivid gleam of sapphire. Hair darker and not quite as bright as Hoodoo’s sleek sorrel coat. Envisioning it, he thought, bubinga. Bubinga was an exotic hardwood he liked and used on occasion. Harvested in West Africa, it was a reddish-brown with fine, dark lines that created interesting patterns, as if the coloration was made up of distinct strands. Yeah, that was it, he thought, pleased with the comparison.

She had the complexion of a redhead even if her hair wasn’t quite the classic red or auburn. Creamy pale, with a scattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks. A pretty mouth—not too thin, not too plump. She was a couple inches shorter than her son, five foot six or so, at a guess, and willowy. Long legs and long fingers, too. Gabe wasn’t sure why he’d noticed that, but he had, when she laid her hand briefly on her son’s shoulder in a sort of gentle caution. Seeing her do that had sent an odd little shiver through him, as though—

He frowned, discovering that his own hands had gone still, and he was staring into space, his attention no longer split. Ciara Malloy had filled his head, and he didn’t like it.

—as though she’d been touching him. The sensation had been eerily real. Her hand could have been resting on him. He’d liked her touch.

Too long without a woman, he thought irritably, while knowing he wasn’t going to do anything about it. He missed sex—damn, but he missed it. The idea of bar pickups and one-night stands held no appeal, though, and his couple attempts since Ginny’s death at having an ongoing lover hadn’t ended so well. Maybe in the big city there were women who only wanted a casual lover, but here in Goodwater, anyone he hooked up with started envisioning diamond rings and moving in. Since he couldn’t imagine wanting that again, well, he’d decided he could survive living celibate, as long as he avoided temptation.

Which meant it would be safest all around if he had as little to do with these new neighbors as possible.

Comfortable with his conclusion, Gabe reached for the saw. No reason the pretty mom and boy would be interested in him. They’d make friends soon enough, and he’d be nothing but the reclusive man next door, whose horses they happened to see out their kitchen window.

There might be a whisper of sadness when he thought of himself that way, knowing he’d end up like Ephraim Walker, a man who, toward the end, had had to depend on the distant kindness of people who didn’t even much like him. And Ephraim, at least he’d had a son.

But Gabe knew himself well enough to be sure he didn’t want to risk again the kind of devastation he’d barely survived once. He let the brief sadness go and concentrated on something that did give him pleasure—the texture and smell of fine woods, the miracles his hard work and skill wrought from plain-looking beginnings.

He was like the most ordinary of boards, he decided, solid, reliable, but nothing astonishing likely to spring out at the touch of stain or linseed oil, and that was fine by him.

* * *

CIARA REACHED THE end of a seam and grabbed her small scissors to snip the threads. Without the whir of the machine going, the silence of the house struck her.

If Mark had finished the reading she’d assigned him, he was capable of concentrating by the hour on drawing or looking up something that interested him on the internet. Still...it was awfully quiet.

“Mark?”

No answer, which meant he wasn’t in his room. She left the pillow cover she was working on sitting in a small heap on her worktable and went to check Mark’s bedroom anyway. Empty. So neat, it belonged in a model home, but that was just Mark. One argument she’d never have to have with him was over cleaning his room.

She headed downstairs, calling his name but receiving no response. The social-studies book lay closed on the kitchen table, neatly aligned with the square corners of the table. The worksheet beside it appeared to be filled out. She flipped it over to be sure he really had finished. Yep. Ciara felt a twinge of worry that it had been way too easy for him. And boring. If she found some reading on local Indian tribes, or early white settlement in Eastern Washington, maybe that would be more gripping than standard stuff about the executive branch of the federal government. But he did have to learn the basic stuff, she reminded herself, and she had to be sure he’d pass end-of-the-grade-level tests, which meant sticking to the standard curriculum, didn’t it?

A worry for later. All she had to do right now was get him through the last couple months of the year. Then she could plan better for eighth grade.

There was no reason to be concerned because he’d gone outside. It was a nice day, and he was mostly sensible. She could guess just fine where he was. Those damn horses fascinated him, despite the fact that they were refusing to come to the fence no matter how he waved carrots at them or tried to whistle like their owner did.

But when she stepped out onto the porch, she saw them peacefully grazing down the slope toward their own barn, and no sign whatsoever of her son.

“Mark?” she called again.

She gave brief thought to returning to work. What kind of trouble could he get in? Even if he’d wandered as far as the road—and why would he?—no more than a vehicle or two an hour went by. More likely he’d wanted to explore the back section of their land, including the creek, which should be safe enough. Yesterday she’d looked up the distribution of rattlesnakes in Eastern Washington and been relieved to find they were rare to nonexistent in this upper corner of the state.

Ciara went back into the kitchen, grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and popped it open. Maybe she’d walk toward the creek herself, just to be sure. She’d feel better to definitely know that he hadn’t left their property.

* * *

“HI. ARE YOU BUSY?”

Gabe straightened from the bin of boards he’d been sorting through and saw Mark Malloy standing at the entrance to his timber store. This corner of the barn, walled off from the rest but for a wide doorway, held his supply of solid boards, veneers and smaller pieces of exotic woods. This space had a ceiling, unlike the rest of the barn with its high rafters and loft that hung over what had been stalls. A dehumidifier protected his stock of wood.

“This barn is my workshop,” he said. “Yes, I’m working.”

“You don’t look like you’re working.”

“I’m choosing some pieces of maple for a particular job.” He didn’t know why he was explaining, but did.

“Oh.” The boy came to his side and gazed into the bin. Right away, he asked why Gabe didn’t just grab a bunch of boards.

Gabe found himself explaining his criteria for this and other jobs, again without entirely understanding himself. He didn’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings, he told himself, but wasn’t sure that was exactly it.

Mark helped him carry half a dozen boards to his Felder saw.

“Your mom know where you are?”

“She was working.”

Lucky Mom.

“But she wouldn’t mind. She said I couldn’t go into the pasture, but she didn’t say I couldn’t visit you,” Mark confided with a winning smile.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Gabe asked, leaning one hip against a workbench. Or had school already let out? It occurred to him belatedly that Ciara might have driven her son today.

“I’m homeschooling.” The kid’s tone was odd, maybe stilted. “I went to school back where we used to live—you know, near Seattle—but Mom got mad at the school so she said she could be my teacher.”

Gabe knew he shouldn’t raise questions; all that would do was encourage the boy. But he was curious enough to risk it. “What grade are you in?”

“Seventh.”

“I see.” No, he didn’t. Did the mom want to give Mark an education steeped in religion? Or did she just not think it was fair for him to have to start at a new school so late in the year? “If you’re not going to school, you’ll have to find a way to make friends around here,” he commented. “It’s probably too late to sign up for Little League.”

Mark grimaced horribly. “I’m not very good at baseball.”