Chance McCall (2 page)

“Dammit!” he muttered. He flexed his arm again and looked down in disgust at the reason for his confinement. His left hand was in a cast halfway up his arm, thanks to a cranky horse and a mutinous steer. Only his fingers had escaped the doctor’s plaster. He wiggled them in frustrated boredom.

If it weren’t for the weather and his injury, he’d have been riding fence or working on the constantly faltering innards of some truck or tractor. But the persistent rain had ended that escape. The doctor had been adamant about keeping the cast dry and Chance damn sure didn’t intend to go through having his wrist set again.

Juana Suarez walked through the open door of the library. Marcus looked up, frowning at the interruption.

“What?” he asked sharply.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Marcus,” she said, “but it’s raining very hard…and Jenny will be getting off the bus anytime now. Don’t you think you should go pick her up?”

Marcus sighed at the intense worry evident in the housekeeper’s soft brown eyes. She was right, but he was waiting for an important phone call. If he left, sure as the world he’d miss it.

“Can’t you go?” he asked. “I’m waiting for a call.”

“No, it is not possible,” she said. “The ranch wagon
esta’ mal…muy mal
. It does not work at all. And with Chance’s injury…it will be a while before he can fix it.”

Marcus grinned at his housekeeper’s lapse into Spanish. It always happened when she was upset or nervous. When he glanced out the window he saw the wisdom of her concern. The rain continued to pour.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. She started to leave when he called out, “Juana?”

“Yes?” she answered.

“Thanks for reminding me,” he said.

She smiled and walked away.

Juana had come to work for Marcus Tyler when Jenny was six months old. She’d been widowed fairly young and had no children of her own. Juana had been the fourth in a long line of nannies that Marcus had hired, but she’d been the keeper. She’d taken one look at the tiny, dark-haired baby and fallen in love. She moved in that same day and never regretted it.

Marcus glanced at the clock, trying to figure a way out of his dilemma when something Juana had said registered. Chance! Because of his recent injury, he was probably still in the bunkhouse. He grabbed the intercom phone that connected all of the ranch outbuildings to the main house.

Chance jumped and turned away from the window as the phone rang loudly into the silence, startling him into hurrying to answer its summons.

“Hello,” he answered.

“Good,” Marcus said, “you’re still there. I need a favor.”

“Sure.” Anything would beat this enforced inactivity.

“I’m waiting for a phone call. Go pick Jenny up at the school bus stop. I don’t want her to walk home in this rain. Okay?”

“Okay boss, my pleasure.”

He liked the feisty little girl and it was fortunate that he did, because whenever he was around the ranch house, Jenny Tyler walked in his shadow from dawn to dusk. She always had more questions than he could answer, and offered more advice than he needed, but he dealt with her patiently. He sensed her need for companionship as much as he craved her company.

He stepped onto the porch and then shivered. It was chilly, a result of the early spring rains. He ducked back inside, grabbed his heavy sheepskin coat and shrugged into it. He lifted a sweat-stained Stetson from a hook by the door, and jammed it on his head as he hurried outside into the downpour.

The rain showed no sign of abating as Chance pulled out of the driveway and onto the blacktop road that was a quarter of a mile from the bus stop. He shivered and turned on the heater, warming the pickup truck’s interior against the chill Jenny would be feeling.

The worn windshield wipers scraped frantically at the downpour, staying about two swipes slow of a clear view of the road, but Chance was so glad to be out of the bunkhouse he didn’t much care that they needed replacing.

His relief at being released from the bunkhouse quickly turned to concern as he neared his destination. What he saw made him brake to a sliding halt in the water running across the roadway.

“What in hell…?”

Two figures were barely visible through the sheet of water pouring off the truck roof and across his windshield. They were rolling around in the ditch, kicking up mud and sending grass and water flying about in wild abandon.

Chance hit the ground at a run and jumped into the ditch. Ignoring his cast and the loss of his hat, he grabbed at a flying arm then cursed as it slipped out of his grasp. Dodging a kicking boot, he braced himself astride the muddy pair and tried to pull them apart with his uninjured hand.

“Dammit to hell, Jenny. Stop it!” he yelled. It was futile. The little tornado on top was bent on destruction.

“Make her quit, mister. Make her quit,” a boy begged from the bottom of the ditch.

Jenny’s fury was obvious as she pummeled the face and body of her victim.

“Jenny! I said, stop it,” he repeated loudly, and grabbed at her coat sleeve. His hand came away with nothing but mud and grass for his effort.

Jenny was too lost in anger to listen to Chance’s demands. She swung her fist and landed another blow. This time it connected with the already bloody nose of the boy beneath her.

“Yeowch!” he yelled, and covered his face with his arms. “Jenny, I’m sorry. I already said so. Please! Don’t hit me no more.”

She ignored his plea.

Chance braced himself in the mud, swiped his coat sleeve across his face to clear his vision and reached for a firmer grip on Jenny’s flailing arms. He connected and pulled. She flew backward, landed on her rear end in the water running down the ditch, and then gasped in angry shock at the interruption.

The sorry-looking trio silently faced each other, oblivious to the thundershower that continued to pour down upon them. Chance’s chest was heaving, his mouth firm with concern and determination as he looked at Jenny’s face. She was furious.

The boy was another matter. He looked like a whipped pup. Rain diluted the blood that was seeping from his cut lip and bloody nose. It ran in pink rivulets down the front of his coat and shirt.

“Get in the truck, both of you!” Chance ordered, as he began dragging them from the ditch. He met with mutiny.

“I’m not riding beside him,” Jenny spat as she climbed into the back of the pickup truck. Ignoring Chance’s outstretched hand, she sat mutely in the continuing downpour.

Chance swiped at his face in frustration. He’d lost his hat, his cast was getting wetter by the minute, and the little beggar wouldn’t get out of the rain.

“I’ll walk, mister,” the boy mumbled, and started across the road toward a house that was barely visible through the downpour.

Chance grabbed at the collar of his coat. “You’re not going anywhere until I find out what’s going on.” He flinched as thunder rolled above them, and knew that they were all in danger from the intermittent lightning that flashed sharply across the sky. “What in hell was going on here, boy? And what’s your name?”

He glanced back at Jenny who quickly looked away. Embarrassed by his concern, she hunched her shoulders against the rain pelting her head and back and sniffled loudly. Chance swallowed a curse.

“Melvin Howard,” the boy mumbled, in answer to Chance’s question. He pointed. “I live just over there a piece.”

“Well now, Melvin,” Chance drawled, pulling the boy closer, unwilling to relinquish his hold on the only voluble witness, “we’re all gonna be a hell of a lot wetter unless one of you starts talking. I know Jenny. And she doesn’t start a fight for no reason.” He fixed Melvin’s drooping figure with a hard stare that demanded an answer.

“I didn’t hurt her none,” Melvin said defiantly, now that he was safely out of Jenny’s reach. He leaned forward and whispered in Chance’s face, trying to manage a man-to-man demeanor. When he tried to grin the cut on his lip pulled. He settled for a shrug. “I just made a little ole pass at her. You know…”

“You did what?” Chance asked. But before the boy could answer, Chance had him pinned between the bed of the pickup truck and his hard, unyielding chest. “How old are you anyway?”

“Nearly fifteen,” he said, hitching his soggy jeans before they slipped down around his ankles.

“Listen, you little worm, if you ever so much as lay another finger on Jenny, I’ll put both of your arms and legs in one of these,” he threatened, shoving his cast roughly under Melvin’s nose. “Do you understand?”

“Yes…yes sir!”

“Now, Melvin,” Chance said softly, “you apologize to Jenny. And when you get home you’d better tell your parents what you did, because I can promise you that Jenny’s father will be calling.”

Melvin gulped. “I’m sorry, Jenny,” he mumbled. He snuck a quick look at her defiant face, saw no mercy for him this day, and dashed across the road toward home as if the devil…and Jenny…were still after him.

Chance turned to Jenny. The expression on her face twisted a tiny pain in his chest. She looked as if the world had just caved in around her. He held out his hand, trying to coax her from her seat in the rain.

“Come here, Jennifer Ann,” he said softly.

She ignored his outstretched hand, climbed out of the back of the truck and crawled into the cab, sitting as far away from Chance as she could.

He bit his lip, rescued his soggy Stetson from beneath the wheels of the pickup, trudged around to the driver’s side, and got in.

“Jenny, look at me.”

She stared out of the window, her head turned away from Chance as she ignored his request.

“You’re pretty mad, aren’t you?” he asked quietly.

She nodded.

“Did he scare you, Jenny?”

Her blue eyes pierced him with a look that caused another pang of sympathy to shoot through him.

“Are you mad at me?” Chance asked.

“No,” she finally mumbled, and swiped at a lump of mud and grass that was caught in the button of her dripping coat.

“Do I scare you, honey?” he asked.

She shook her head.

Chance was almost afraid to ask the next question. “What did he do to you, Jenny?”

The look she gave him broke his heart. He suspected that Jenny’s last hold on childhood had all but vanished today. She had faced a very grown-up problem.

“What was it, honey? You can tell me.”

Jenny took a deep, shuddering breath as the tears began to roll down her face, making little clean tracks in the streaks of mud. She moaned and flung herself into Chance’s outstretched arms as she began to sob.

“He touched me here,” she said, brushing her hands against her chest, “and he tried to kiss me.” She shuddered with revulsion as she remembered the uninvited indignity.

“Jenny…honey…it’s going to be okay,” Chance said, patting her awkwardly with his soggy cast. “Shoot, after what you did to Melvin, he’ll have nightmares for weeks about making passes at girls.”

Jenny giggled between sobs. “I did nail him good, didn’t I, Chance?” She pulled away from his arms and sniffed loudly as she looked to him for approval.

He smiled. “Here,” he said, digging a damp handkerchief from his coat pocket. “Blow!”

Jenny grinned, accepting the handkerchief as well as the command.

Chance started the truck, made a U-turn in the road, then headed back toward the Triple T. They were nearly home before either of them spoke again.

“You want me to talk to your daddy, Jenny?”

She thought for a moment. “Maybe you can come help me tell him?” she said.

He nodded.

They were about to turn into the driveway when Jenny slipped her hand on Chance’s wet jeans and patted his knee. “Chance?”

“What, honey?” he asked, as he maneuvered around a big pot hole in the washed-out road and pulled up in front of the main house.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

“You’re welcome,” he answered. “Now come on inside. Let’s go find Marcus.”

They made a dash for the house, laughing at the splash Chance made when his boot went into the deepest part of a puddle, soaking his jeans to the knees.

“
Madre de Dios
!” Juana cried, as she opened the door to meet them. “Get inside, both of you. I have some hot chocolate waiting. And Jenny! You go change your clothes. What in the world happened to you? Did you fall down?”

Jenny’s laughter suddenly disappeared. A wave of scarlet swept across her cheekbones. Chance knew she was probably embarrassed at having to admit what Melvin had tried to do. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her gently. A silent look passed between him and Juana warning her not to press for answers. Her eyebrows arched, but wisely, she refrained.

Jenny sighed, leaned against the solid comfort of Chance, using him, as always, as a buffer between herself and the world.

Juana saw the girl slide her arm around the young man. Something was going on. What had Jenny done now? She’d find out sooner or later, she always did.

“Is Marcus in his office?” Chance asked.

“Yes,” Juana answered, “but don’t you think you should change before…”

“We need to talk to him…now,” Chance said.

Jenny slipped her hand in his and led the way. Suddenly she didn’t want to face Marcus. Somehow this had become her fault, and he didn’t suffer fools gladly. She knew that from experience.

“Marcus, got a minute?”

Marcus Tyler looked up in surprise, momentarily at a loss as to why Chance was standing in his office with Jenny, and then remembered that he’d sent the young man to the bus stop.

“Oh…sure,” he said, shoving aside a stack of papers and standing to wave them toward the fire burning in the fireplace. “What’s up?” He eyed Jenny, wondering, not for the first time, why God had given him a girl baby, and at the same time taken away his wife. He had never known what to do with her.

Jenny almost stepped on Chance as she shuffled in behind him, willing him to start the conversation. Talking to Marcus had always been difficult for her. Admitting that she needed him from time to time was impossible. If she did that, then she would also have to face the fact that he didn’t need her…at least, not enough.

“It seems Jenny had a little problem at the bus stop today,” Chance said.