Texas Trouble

“Oh, Sean, no,” she said softly.

Her son didn’t hear her. He stood on the other side of the room, rigid as a pole, his eyes sparking with fury. His face shone palely, which made his freckles stand out like copper pennies on his cheeks. His hair was mussed, his collar lifted where Madeline, the assistant music instructor, held it in her fist.

Jolie had one hand lightly but authoritatively placed on the shoulder of a second boy. Nora knew him—Tad Rutherford. He and Sean had played together since the kiddie band in nursery school. Tad was Sean’s age, but twice his size, and something of a bully. Right now, his broad face burned red, his breath coming hard and noisy.

Nora’s heart beat high in her chest. But Jolie, as always, looked completely calm, in spite of the chaos, the wild-eyed boys and the smashed guitar, which was now two splintered halves held together only by the strings.

She owned the situation. She had frozen the potential for trouble right in its tracks with just the force of her silent authority. That was her gift. It made her a wonderful teacher.

She glanced at Sean, then at Tad. “What happened here?”

“I was just kidding,” Tad said, his chest still heaving. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Didn’t mean what?”

Flushing brightly, Tad ducked his head and stared at his shoes. Whatever he’d said, he didn’t seem to have the courage to repeat it in front of the adults.

Jolie looked across the room. “Sean?”

Sean didn’t flinch away from her gaze. He met it, his jaw squared so tightly he might have been carved from marble—if it hadn’t been for his eyes, which were alive with emotion.

Jolie’s gaze shifted. “Madeline?”

The assistant shook her head. “They were playing. I didn’t hear it.”

Jolie didn’t waste time with the third degree. She obviously knew what had to be done. She walked over to Nora. Her eyes were sympathetic, but her voice was matter-of-fact.

“I’ll have to call the principal,” she said quietly, touching the phone that hung from her belt. “The rules are very clear.”

Nora understood. “Of course.”

Nodding to her assistant, a message that seemed to speak volumes, Jolie slipped back into her office to make the call. Nora moved slowly to her son’s side, sidestepping the wreckage of the guitar.

“Sean.” She knelt in front of him and took his cold, limp hand. “Honey, can you tell me? Can you tell me what happened?”

For a moment he stared at her. And then, slowly, as if his neck were a rusted joint, he shook his head.

Such an absolute silence. She looked into his eyes, where sparks of fury still flashed and simmered.

And she thought of Jolie’s comment.

Like fire, she thought with a sinking heart. Like fire behind a tightly closed door.

LOGAN’S NIGHT HAD BEEN an unexpected success. Dinner and drinks with Annie…Aden? Arden? Something like that. The office manager for one of the vets he used at Two Wings.

He’d asked her out purely because she was smoking hot, and he was bored with the book he’d been reading. But he got the bonus prize, too. She’d turned out to be witty and sensible, and extremely easy to please. She liked her steak, she liked her wine. She liked his jokes, his car, his jacket and his smile.

It was also pretty clear she liked the idea of coming home with him. It should have been a slam dunk—sex with a woman who was easy to please. And did he mention smoking hot?

But for some reason he would never understand, he ignored all the signals, kissed her politely at her door and drove back to Two Wings alone.

He didn’t try to figure himself out. He’d never been into navel-gazing self-analysis. He was tired. Her perfume turned him off. He hadn’t been in the mood for a blonde. Whatever.

What difference did it make? There was always another night. There was always another Annie.

He poured himself a glass of water and picked up the sports section, which he hadn’t had time to read that morning. He kicked off his shoes and, with a satisfied yawn, settled onto the tweedy sofa that faced the picture window. It was only eleven, but he’d been up since five, and he’d be up again at five tomorrow. He was dog tired, and he had a right to be.

When the doorbell rang two minutes later, he cursed under his breath. But he swung his legs off the sofa and tossed the newspaper onto the floor. It might be someone dropping off a bird.

When he opened the door, at first he didn’t see anyone at all. Then his gaze fell about two feet, and he discovered a kid standing there, the pale oval of his face peering out from a black hooded sweatshirt.

He wore black jeans, too, and black sneakers. He looked like a miniature cat burglar.

“Hi, Sean,” Logan said wryly. “Did we have something else you wanted to bust up?”

The boy flushed, but he covered it well with a deep scowl. “My mom says she’s going to pay you for it. She’s making me work it off. I’m going to have to pull weeds about ten hours a day for a month.”

“Good.” Logan kept his hand on the doorknob, but he scanned the driveway for a car. “Is your mom with you now?”

“No. I came alone. On my bike.”

Oh, great. The moron had ridden a mile and a half in the pitch dark. All in black. Probably didn’t even have a light on his bike.

He needed a good shaking. Didn’t he have the slightest idea what it would do to his mother if anything bad happened to him?

“Does she know you’re here?”

“No. She’s out with my Aunt Evelyn. I didn’t climb out my window this time. I went straight out the front door. Milly’s supposed to be looking after me, but she always falls asleep. She’s got blood sugar.”

“Really.” Logan fought the urge to smile. “Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you back, then. If Milly wakes up and finds you gone, she’ll have a heart attack to go with her blood sugar.”

“No. It’s okay. She never wakes up. I’m not going back yet.”

Logan looked at the boy, who clearly had amazing persistence and dogged determination in that stubborn jaw.

He did some quick thinking. He didn’t want to spook the kid. If Sean decided to dart off into the night, in that outfit, Logan would have hell’s own time trying to catch him. He was tired, and barefoot, and about twenty years older than Sean. He didn’t like his chances.

“Okay.” He held open the door. “Want to come in, then?”

Sean hesitated, still frowning. He glanced into the lighted great room, as if he were checking for trap doors and cages.

“Hey, suit yourself,” Logan said, chuckling. Kids were so dumb. Sean had snuck out in the middle of the night, wandered the darkness alone, knocked on a stranger’s door, then suddenly started remembering what Mom said about safety first.

He shrugged. “I have all the snotty kid prisoners I need at the moment, anyhow.”

Sean laughed. It was an awkward, sputtering noise, as if he hadn’t expected to, and hadn’t wanted to. He caught himself and cut it off, but it had undoubtedly been a laugh.

Encouraged, Logan opened the door wider, and ambled casually toward the kitchen. “Want some water? Must have been a dusty ride. Did you come the back way, by the creek?”

Behind him, he heard the door shut softly. Then he heard it open again, and once more click shut. Too funny…the kid must have been testing to make sure it didn’t auto-lock.

The soft slap of sneakers followed him to the kitchen. Then Sean spoke, with the belligerence dialed back a notch. “Water would be very nice. Yeah, I came by the creek. It’s nice in the moonlight.”

Logan slid a filled glass across the countertop. “But it’s a long way. And I’m guessing that if you get caught you’re in a boatload of trouble. What do you want so bad you’re willing to come all this way to get it?”

Sean picked up the water and swallowed about half of it before he answered. “I want the bird,” he said. “I was going to go to the center and poke around till I found it, but that seemed babyish.”

He lifted his small, pale chin. The hood dropped off when he did so, exposing his curly red hair, still sweaty from the ride over. “And I’m not a baby. So I decided I’d come ask you for it. You can’t want it. It’s not worth anything.”

In spite of the absurdity of the situation, Logan felt a stirring of respect. The boy’s behavior didn’t make any sense, and he could definitely use an attitude adjustment.

But that didn’t make it any less brave.

“I’m not sure I understand. What bird?”

“The one I brought over here yesterday.”

“The dead one?”

The scowl appeared again. “It wasn’t dead when I left my house. It flew right into my window, and then it couldn’t fly anymore. I thought maybe you could fix it. But I guess I took too long. When I got here, it was already dead.” His fingertips were white where they gripped the glass. “I…I couldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t breathing.”

Logan watched the boy carefully, recognizing that helpless anger, that bewildered impotence in the face of the implacability of mortality. If he’d had any doubts before about Sean’s culpability in the death of the bird, they vanished now.

“I guess that was a pretty bad moment. When you saw that it was too late.”

“Yeah.” Sean had to take a deep breath to stop his voice from quavering. “Yeah, it was. I wanted to save it. Maybe it was even my fault. Maybe if I’d asked my mom to drive me over—”

“No.” Logan couldn’t allow that thought to exist for a single second. “No. If it flew into your window, it probably broke its neck. No matter how fast you got it here, I couldn’t have saved it, either.”

“Okay.” Sean nodded, staring down at his water. “But your manager took it away from me. I don’t want him just thrown in the trash, you know? I want to bury him. But I don’t want to steal him. I shouldn’t have to. He’s mine.”

He lifted his head and stood ramrod straight. All the regal Archer entitlement was in that bearing, but so was the little boy’s fear and confusion. Those angry eyes were shining with unshed tears. The effect was incongruous, and oddly touching.

“So I thought I’d come over here and ask you straight. Will you let me have his body?”

Goddamn it. For a minute Logan felt his own eyes stinging. Damn it. He was not going to actually go soft over this kid and one silly bird. Birds died on him all the time in the sanctuary. No one wept over it, not even the most naive teenage volunteers.

“I can’t,” he said firmly. Facts were facts. “I’m sorry, but at least I can promise you it wasn’t thrown in the trash. We’ve already incinerated the body. We have to do that to all the birds we lose here at Two Wings. It’s the law.”

“Oh.” Sean bit his lips together, dealing with the disappointment. His throat worked a few seconds as he fought for control. “Why?”

He really seemed to want to know. Logan debated with himself for a second—would it be better to gloss over it, or offer up details as a distraction?

He decided on distraction. He simplified, but he laid out the basic setup, the federal laws that governed rehabbers and sanctuaries like Two Wings. Encouraged by Sean’s absorbed attention, he even included some interesting trivia about how hunters used to kill birds by the thousands because women wanted to wear their elegant nesting plumage in their ridiculous hats.

“There was a period, maybe a hundred years ago, when an ounce of ostrich feathers was worth more than an ounce of gold,” he finished up. “So the government passed laws to protect the birds. We aren’t allowed to keep so much as a single feather.”

The stories, and the time it took to tell them, did the trick. By the time Logan was finished, Sean’s eyes were brighter. The lightening of his fog of unhappiness was palpable. He probably didn’t fully understand most of it, but he was clearly fascinated by the brief glimpse of the rich history of bird lore.

Logan looked him over, above the rim of his own water glass. When Sean stopped all that glowering, he was a fairly nice-looking kid.

“Anyhow, I really should get you home now,” Logan said casually, hoping he wouldn’t rekindle the fire. “Think we can get your bike in the back of my truck?”

Sean nodded reluctantly. Whatever adrenaline had pushed him here was fading now that his anger and tension were gone. He was starting to look like a normal, sleepy little boy.

“Thanks,” Sean said. “Thanks for being so nice to me.”

And then, to Logan’s surprise, Sean suddenly thrust out his hand. Logan took it, feeling the fragile bones in the skinny fingers, and the calluses on his fingertips. The hand felt ridiculously small to be offering such a man’s gesture.

“You’re welcome,” Logan said, but he had to clear his throat to get the words out.

“I won’t bother you any more, Mr. Cathcart.” The boy looked him straight in the eye. “I’m sorry I lost my temper yesterday and messed up your cages. I wish I could do something to take it back.”

Logan felt himself being drawn into those hazel eyes, so round and so much like his mother’s. He was no psychiatrist, but his instincts told him this kid wasn’t crazy, or mean, or bad. He was just hurting like hell.

Oh, man. Logan felt himself about to say something he’d probably regret. Pull back, Cathcart. Think it through.

Remember the attitude. The flash of temper. The tragedy, hanging like a black wing over everything the boy did. Remember that half his DNA was from his dad, who had always been a jerk, and had ended up a head case.

Everything he’d told himself yesterday was still true. He still had too much to do. He still knew Nora’s sex appeal would be a distraction, an itch he could never scratch.

And he damn sure still didn’t want to jump on the Archer family trouble train.

Besides, would working at the sanctuary really be helpful for Sean? True, Logan honored hard, outdoor, sweaty work, and he believed in the therapeutic value of getting in touch with, and resigning yourself to, the rhythms of nature.

But this was a kid with death issues. A kid who would try to save his dad all over again every time he tried to save a bird. And lose his dad all over again every time he failed.

Logan wasn’t up to dealing with that. Just because, for a minute here, Sean reminded him of Nora, of the forest-colored sadness in her eyes…

That was no reason to—

He tried to apply the brakes, but nothing seemed to have the power to stop the skid.

“That’s the rotten thing about mistakes,” he said, testing to see whether Sean’s belligerence had really subsided. “Once you make ’em, you own ’em. You can’t take them back, no matter how much you want to.”

Sean nodded grimly, but no resentment sparked. “Yeah.” He sighed. “It sucks.”

Logan paused one more time, giving himself another second to come to his senses.

But it didn’t happen.

“I tell you what,” he heard himself saying. “Maybe there is something you could do. Why don’t we see if your mom will let you work off your punishment here with me?”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SKY WAS ALREADY A HOT neon blue by eight o’clock when Sean reported for his first shift at the sanctuary on Saturday. More like summer than spring, really, Nora thought as she parked the car by the double row of hackberry trees, where the dappled trees would keep it cool.

She didn’t know how long she’d be staying. She’d expected to drop Sean off and return for him later, but as they neared the small wooden cabin that housed the sanctuary’s reception area, Sean’s shoulders grew rigid and his lower jaw thrust out.

Nora knew those signs. He was scared, but tightening every muscle to avoid showing it.

“You’re coming in, too, right, Mom?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” His shoulders loosened, and he gave her a shrug that said the whole thing bored him. “Mr. Cathcart’s probably forgotten I’m coming, anyhow.”

Nora bit back a frustrated response. She wished she knew how to prevent Sean from masking his fear with belligerence, but Harrison had worked hard to be sure his son and heir knew better than to show weakness. Probably the lesson of his own father, Harrison believed that anger was the manly man’s only respectable emotion.

It would take more than a few months with a child psychiatrist to make Sean disloyal to his father’s teachings now.

But the night Logan had brought Sean home, his bike in the flatbed of a Two Wings truck, had given her a glimmer of hope.

They’d rung the bell politely, and then Logan had stood with his hand on the boy’s shoulder, as if to lend moral support, while Sean had explained about sneaking out to retrieve the body of the bird.

Nora had hardly recognized her son that night. No stubborn silence, no slippery fibs, no tantrums. Just the truth, offered somberly, even apologetically, with a glimpse of the grown man he would someday be.

She’d kept her own tone equally forthright, though she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t upset, or that there wouldn’t be a punishment.

Then, together, the three of them had come up with this plan.

It called for Sean to work at Two Wings three hours every Saturday morning, and two hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until the damage was paid off.

His salary would be five dollars an hour. Logan had estimated the damage at five hundred dollars, though Nora suspected him of minimizing the mess. Still, Sean would clearly be working into the summer. That night, he’d seemed reconciled to the plan.

But as the first day grew closer, his anxiety had increased, and out came the attitude. By this morning, he’d been sullen, difficult to rouse. He “lost” the green Two Wings T-shirt Logan had provided, groused about the jeans and sneakers his volunteer training sheet called for, and presented himself at the breakfast table with a scowl and no appetite.

She had a feeling Logan was going to regret his decision to bring Sean on board.

“See?” Sean shoved his car door shut, then looked around the empty parking lot. “Told you he forgot. There’s no one here.”

“Maybe we’re early.”

But she saw his point. Two Wings seemed deserted. The only sounds were the sawing of unseen crickets, the croaking of invisible frogs and the occasional melodic whistle of birds that flitted between the trees.

The ticket window, still unmarked awaiting the formal opening of the sanctuary to the public, was firmly shut, reflecting back only the blue sky and the ancient trees.

“He’s probably in the clinic,” she said, trying to remember how to get to the main part of the sanctuary. In the eighteen months since Logan Cathcart had moved in, she’d only been here once, the day she came to apologize for Sean’s vandalism.

She knew the general layout of the land, because she used to visit often when it was owned by Logan’s great-aunt, Doreen Cathcart. Doreen had been eccentric, but a kind woman. She’d never liked Harrison, who thought her land was wasted and wanted to buy it. But she’d always welcomed Nora and the boys.

The house was over on the western edge of the property. On the other side, Doreen had built an odd little amphitheater. She’d hoped to turn the whole estate into a performance arts center, but the dream died with the amphitheater when the money ran out.

“He might be back where those big enclosures are,” she said, trying to orient herself now. “I went down that little boardwalk, off to the left.”

He seemed unsure whether he should admit that he knew where that was.

She waited.

“Okay, fine. It’s back here.” Sean moved to the left, where the wooden boardwalk snaked through the trees.

He obviously knew his way well, and she wondered how often he might have been here. He’d been caught twice now, but was that all?

A chill crept through her as she watched him walk confidently through the heavily wooded maze, never hesitating when the boardwalk forked off in different directions.

How many lies had he been telling her? Would she have to take all freedom away from him? Was there to be no more fun, no more riding his bike with his friend Paddy James, or helping the ranch hands with the horses? Would she have to peek into his room every few minutes when he played video games, or did his homework, or even while he slept?

Would she ever be able to trust him again?

As they walked, birdcalls grew louder, and after a couple of hundred yards, the trees thinned and the path ended in a large open area filled with huge, screened-in wood pens.

And Nora saw that Two Wings was far from empty.

It bustled with life.

The enclosures were filled with hawks and eagles and owls and vultures. That didn’t surprise her. She’d seen them last week.

But, unlike last week, the place was teeming with human life, too.

At least half a dozen people moved purposefully about, ignoring the concrete paths and taking shortcuts across the sand and grass. They lugged hoses and bags of feed, rakes and brooms and boards. One man carried a large hawklike bird on his gloved hand.

“Sean. Good. You made it.”

Logan’s voice brought Nora out of her dazed surprise. She’d completely misunderstood the scale of the place. Harrison had always been so dismissive that she’d assumed Two Wings must be some kind of dilettante’s hobby.

But this was no hobby. This was a mission.

Logan nodded at Nora. “Thanks for bringing him. See you at eleven?”

She felt Sean tense up beside her. She smiled at Logan, hoping he’d understand. “I’m sorry to be the hovering mother, but could you show me a little of what Sean will be doing while he’s here?”

Logan didn’t exactly look delighted, though he was too nice a man to refuse, no matter how busy he was.

“No problem,” he said. “But remember it’s not glamorous.” He held out his hands, which were stained and gritty. “We’ve been spreading mulch. To tell you the truth, I’m going to be darn glad to let Sean take over.”

“Mulch?” Sean scowled. “I thought I’d be working with the birds.”

“Sean,” Nora admonished. “You’ll do whatever Mr. Cathcart—”

“No,” Logan said bluntly. “You won’t be working with the birds yet. You won’t be doing anything alone. We don’t take regular volunteers under the age of eighteen, so you’re kind of a special case. Todd or Matt will work with you. They’re good. You’ll learn a lot from them.”

“I think I can clean out a bunch of cages.” Sean frowned. “I’m not an idiot.”

“No, but you’re a beginner. Beginners make mistakes, and either they get hurt, or the birds do.”

Sean’s mouth was still set hard, but after a couple of seconds of trying to stare Logan down, he blinked first. He lowered his gaze, toeing the sand with his sneaker.

“Yeah,” he said under his breath. “Fine.”

Nora’s cheeks burned, but Logan didn’t seem overly concerned about his new volunteer’s attitude. Maybe he’d expected nothing better. That was probably why he’d been so reluctant to let Sean participate. He undoubtedly knew he’d have to assign someone to follow the boy around like a nanny, to be sure he didn’t do something dumb.

Or just plain run away.

Logan might have said he didn’t want a donation from her, but she suddenly saw that it would take a mighty big check to compensate for the hassle Sean was likely going to be.

Scattered among the large bird enclosures were several small, neat, officelike buildings. Logan began leading them toward the one marked Clinic. Off to the side of that building, a couple of teenagers were scattering handfuls of dark chips that smelled like pine-bark mulch.

“Hey, Mark. Todd.” Logan waved toward the teens. “Come meet Sean—”

But at that moment a young girl’s head poked out of the clinic door. “Logan, the vet’s on the phone. He’s in a hurry, but he says Fritz is ready, and he needs to talk to you about Punk.”

Logan nodded. “Thanks, Dolly. I’ll take it.” He looked at Nora. She thought it might be time to depart. She was about to open her mouth and say so when he suddenly cocked his head. “Want to see one of our permanent residents?”