The Pride Of Jared MacKade

“Rafe?” Her brows shot up. “Don’t tell me there are more of you.”

“Four altogether.” He tried to smother his surprise when she plucked the cigar out of his fingers and helped herself to a casual drag.

“Four MacKades,” she mused. “It’s a wonder the town survived. And none of the women managed to rope you in?”

“Rafe’s married. I was.”

“Oh.” She handed him back the cigar. “And now you’re back on the farm.”

“That right. Actually, if I hadn’t waffled, I’d be living in your cabin.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep. My place in town’s on the market and I’m looking for something around here. But you already had a contract on your place by the time I started looking.” He picked up a stick and drew in the dirt. “The farm,” he said, sketching lines. “Rafe’s. The cabin.”

Savannah pursed her lips at the triangle. “Hmm… And the MacKades would have owned a nice chunk of the mountain. You missed your shot, Lawyer MacKade.”

“So it seems, Ms. Morningstar.”

“I suppose you can call me Savannah, since we’re neighbors.” Taking the stick from him, she tapped the point of the triangle. “This place. It’s the stone house you can see on the hill from the road into town?”

“That’s right. The old Barlow place.”

“It’s haunted.”

“You’ve heard the stories?”

“No.” Interested, she looked over at him. “Are there stories?”

It only took him a moment to see she wasn’t playing games. “Why did you say it was haunted?”

“You can feel it,” she said simply. “Just like these woods. They’re restless.” When he continued to stare at her, she smiled. “Indian blood. I’m part Apache. My father liked to claim he was full-blooded, but…” She let words trail off, looked away.

“But?”

“There’s Italian, Mexican, even a little French mixed in.”

“Your mother?”

“Anglo and Mex. She was a barrel racer. Rodeo champion. She was in a car accident when I was five. I don’t remember her very clearly.”

“Both of mine are gone, too.” Companionably he offered her the cigar. “It’s tough.”

She drew in smoke. “This one shouldn’t have been, for me. I lost my father ten years ago, when he booted me out. I was sixteen, and pregnant with Bryan.”

“I’m sorry, Savannah.”

“Hey, I got by.” She passed back the cigar. She didn’t know why she’d told him, except that it was quiet here, and he listened well. “The thing is, Jared, I’ve been thinking more about my father in the last day or so than I have in years. You can’t imagine what eight thousand dollars would have meant to me ten years ago. Five.” With a shrug, she pushed back her hair. “Hell, there was a time eight dollars would have made the difference between— Well, it doesn’t matter.”

Without thinking, he laid a hand over hers. “Sure it does.”

She frowned down at their hands, then slowly, casually, slipped hers away and stood. “The thing is, I have Bryan to think of. So I’ll talk this over with him.”

“Let me state the obvious again. You’ve done a terrific job raising your son.”

She smiled. “We’ve raised each other. But thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

“Savannah.” He rose, faced her on the path. “This is a good town, mostly a kind one. No one has to be alone here unless they want to.”

“That’s something else I have to think about. I’ll see you around, Lawyer MacKade.”

Jared hadn’t been to a Little League game in years. When he pulled up at the park just outside of town and absorbed the scents and sounds, he wondered why. The single swatch of wooden stands was crowded and noisy. And kids who weren’t on the field were running and racing behind the low chain-link fence or wrestling under the shade of the stands.

The concession stand drew others, with the smell of steaming hot dogs and sloppy joes.

He pulled his car behind the long line of others along the bumpy shoulder of the narrow road and walked across the uneven grass. He had an eye peeled for Savannah, but it was little Connor Dolin who caught his gaze.

The pale-haired boy was waiting quietly in line for food, staring at his feet as a couple of burly older kids harassed him.

“Hey, it’s nerd brain Dolin. How’s your old man like his cell?”

Connor stood stoically as they bumped and shoved him. The woman ahead of him in line turned and clucked her tongue at them, which had no effect at all.

“Why don’t you bake him a cake with a file in it, butthead? Bet a wussy like you bakes a real good cake.”

“Hey, Connor.” Jared stepped up, aimed one look that had the two bullies scrambling away. “How’s it going?”

“Okay.” Humiliation had stained his cheeks, fear of abuse had dampened his palms around the money he clutched. “I’m supposed to get hot dogs and stuff.”

“Mm-hmm.” In the way of males, Jared knew better than to mention what he’d just seen. “How come you’re not playing ball?”

“I’m not any good.” It was said matter-of-factly. He was much too used to being told he wasn’t any good to question it. “But Bryan’s playing. Bryan Morningstar. He’s the best on the team.”

“Is he?” Touched by the sudden light in those shy gray eyes, Jared reached out to flip up the visor of Connor’s ball cap. The boy jerked instinctively, went still, and reminded Jared that life had not been all ball games and hot dogs for this nine-year-old. “I’m looking forward to watching him,” Jared continued, as if the moment had never happened. “What position does he play?”

Ashamed of his own cowardice, Connor studied the ground again. “Shortstop.”

“Yeah? I used to play short.”

“You did?” Astonished by the idea, Connor just stared.

“That’s right. Devin played third, and—”

“Sheriff MacKade played baseball?” Now the astonishment was mixed with a pure case of hero worship. “I bet he was real good.”

“He was okay.” It pricked the pride, just a little, to remember he’d never been able to outhit, or outfield Devin. “How many dogs you want, Connor?”

“I’ve got money. Mom gave me money. And Ms. Morningstar.” He fumbled with the bills. “I’m supposed to get one for her, too. With mustard.”

“It’s my treat.” Jared held up three fingers at the vendor as Bryan worried his lip and stared at his money. “This way I get to hang out with you and Ms. Morningstar.”

Jared handed the boy the first hot dog, watched him carefully, deliberately squeeze on a line of bright yellow mustard. “Are your mother and sister here?”

“No, sir. Mom’s working, and Emma’s with her down at the diner. She said it was okay for me to come down and watch, though.”

Jared added drinks to the order, and packed the whole business up in a flimsy cardboard box. “Can you handle this?”

“Yes, sir. Sure.” Pleased to have been given the job, Connor walked toward the stands, holding the box as if the hot dogs were explosives and the soft drinks a lit match. “We’re way up at the top, ’cause Ms. Morningstar says you can see everything better from up high.”

And he could see her, Jared mused, as they approached the stands. She sat with her elbows on her knees, her chin cupped in her hands. And her eyes—though he had to imagine, as they were shielded with dark glasses—focused on the field.

He was wrong about that. She was watching him, walking beside the boy, flashing that killer smile or giving a quick salute whenever someone hailed him. And noticing several women—of varying ages—who put their shoulders back or patted at their hair as he passed.

That was what a man who looked like that did to a woman, Savannah supposed. Made her instinctively aware of herself on a purely physical level. It was like pheromones, she decided. The scent of sex.

Those long legs of his carried him up the stands behind the small boy. Now and again his hand touched a shoulder or shook a hand. Savannah picked up the jacket she’d set in Connor’s place and squeezed over toward the rail.

“Nice day for a ball game,” Jared said as he sat beside her. He took the box from Connor and, to make room for the boy, shifted closer to the woman. “Crowded.”

“It is now. Thanks, Con.”

“Mr. MacKade bought them,” Connor told her, and solemnly handed her back her money.

She started to tell him to keep it, but she understood pride. “Thanks, Mr. MacKade.”

“What’s the score?”

“We’re down one, bottom of the third.” She took a healthy bite of her hot dog. “But the top of our batting order’s coming up.”

“Bryan bats third.” Connor chewed and swallowed politely before he spoke. “He has the most RBIs.”

Jared watched the first boy come out in the bright orange uniform of the team sponsored by Ed’s Café. “Have you met Edwina Crump?” Jared murmured near Savannah’s ear.

“Not yet. She owns the diner where Cassandra works, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. Be grateful your boy’s not wearing lipstick pink.”

Savannah started to comment, then let out an encouraging shout when the bat cracked. The crowd hollered with her when the batter raced to first.

“Tying run’s on, right, Con?”

“Yes’m. That’s J. D. Bristol. He’s a good runner.”

She devoured her hot dog, fueling her nerves, while the second batter struck out, swinging. Someone shouted abuse at the ump, and several hot debates erupted in the stands.

“Apparently these games are taken as seriously as ever,” Jared commented.

“Baseball’s a serious business,” Savannah muttered. Her stomach did a fast boogie as Bryan stepped toward the plate.

Now the crowd murmured.

“That’s the Morningstar kid,” someone announced. “Got a hot bat.”

“Way that pitcher’s hurling, he’s going to need a torch. Nobody’s getting a good piece of that ball today.”

Savannah lifted her chin, and bumped the man in front of her with her knee. “You just watch,” she told him when he glanced around. “He’ll get all of it.”

Jared grinned and leaned back on the iron rail. “Yeah, a serious business.”

She winced when Bryan took a hard swing and met air. “I’ve got a buck says he knocks the tying run in.”

“I don’t like to bet against your boy, or the home team,” Jared mused. “But MacKades are betting men. A buck it is.”

Savannah held her breath as Bryan went through his little batter’s routine. Out of the box, kicking at dirt with his left foot, then his right, adjusting his helmet, taking two practice swings.

“Eye on the ball, Bry,” she murmured when he stepped to the plate. “Keep your eye on the ball.”

He did—as it sailed past him and into the catcher’s mitt.

“Strike two.”

“What the hell kind of call is that?” she demanded. “That was low and outside. Anybody could see that was low and outside.”

The man in front of her turned around, nodded seriously. “It surely was. Bo Perkins’s got eyes like my grandma, and she needs glasses to see her own opinion.”

“Well, somebody ought to give Bo Perkins a kick in the…” She let the words trail off, remembering Connor who was watching her with huge eyes. “Strike zone,” she decided.

“Good save,” Jared said under his breath, and watched Bryan step to the plate again.

The pitcher wound up, delivered. And Bryan gave a mighty swing that caught the ball on the meat of the bat. It flew above the leaping gloves of the infield, and rose beautifully over the outfield grass.

“It’s gone!” Savannah shouted, leaping to her feet with the rest of the crowd. “That’s the way, Bry!” Her victory dance wiggled her hips in a way that distracted Jared from watching the running of the bases. She kept shouting, her hands cupped to carry the sound, while Bryan rounded the bases and stomped on home plate.

For the hell of it, she grabbed her new friend in front of her and kissed him full on his mouth. “He got a piece of it, didn’t he?”

The man, thirty years her senior, blushed like a schoolboy. “Yes, ma’am, he sure did.”

“Not exactly the shy, retiring type, are you?” Jared said when she dropped back onto her seat.

“Pay up.” She stuck out her hand, palm up.

Jared took out a bill, held it out. “It was worth it.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, Lawyer MacKade.”

Jared thought about the promise of those agile, curvy hips and sincerely hoped not.

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