Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (59 page)

Sam shook his head. "They were on the trail, but there was no reason for them to keep Becca out of the cave. This was Ricky's doing."

"Can we sit and talk?" Jayne asked. "There's a whole lot more to it."

Sam looked at her in alarm. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that Sophie and Ricky weren't just listening to voices in there."

"They're eight and nine," Sam said. "You're not trying to tell me they were..."

"No, of course not," Jayne said. "Just sit down and stay calm and I'll tell you."

Sam sat on the couch. "Okay. Lay it out for me."

After Jayne described what happened, Sam said, "You sure he didn't touch her?"

"I'm sure," Jayne replied. "Becca said they just looked at each other. This is obviously the first time it's happened, but the kids need to be more closely supervised."

"Yeah, they'll be supervised alright," Sam said. "Ricky and Sophie will carry on their friendship in the middle of the living room from now on. I'm not ready for any of this. Brad and Justine are going to flip."

"There's another problem," Jayne said. "Ricky knows I was in prison and he threatened to tell the kids at school if Becca said anything to anyone, so however you handle it with Ricky, make sure he doesn't think it came from Becca. In fact, it might be best to say nothing for now and just keep a close watch on the kids. After Sophie leaves, you can talk to Ricky about the importance of, well, keeping his pants on."

"That's kind of hard to expect him to do when his own father can't even do it," Sam said.

"You've been doing very well," Jayne replied. "It's been over a week."

"And now, the cabin is rented, and we can't go there."

"I'm sorry you're having male problems," Jayne said, "but I didn't think it was my obligation to service you regularly. I'm not your wife."

"You know that's not how it is," Sam snapped. "I got the ring because I want you for my wife. You're the one passing it back and forth."

Jayne realized Sam's terseness was because of frustration, but things were even more complicated than before. "Just to set the record straight," she said, "there's nothing I'd like more than to curl up in bed with you every night of our lives, as your wife, but there's no way we could get married right now, and I don't like sneaking around so we can do it in cabins, or tack rooms, or while standing in a cave. The time is just not right for us."

"What about later? Will the time be right then?" Sam asked.

Jayne knew this was an ultimatum. Sam needed a wife to make love to, since he wasn't a man to get it on with available women, and he had a son who needed a step-mother's guidance when his own mother failed. "If you need to know now," she said, "my answer is not to wait because it could be years, but you need to do what's right for you and Ricky."

Sam looked at her long and hard, and when she offered nothing more, he rose from the couch, and said, "I've flat run out of ideas," then turned and left the lodge.

And Jayne realized Sam was also running out of reasons to wait for her.

***

Two days after Brad, Justine and Sophie left, Becca came home from school in tears and refused to tell Jayne what was wrong, so Jayne left the ranch and got to school in time to find Becca's teacher still in the classroom. When Jayne announced who she was, the woman looked at her with a start, and said, "Becca told me something very disturbing, and I was getting ready to contact you. We have a serious problem on our hands, and it would be best if we went to the principal's office. Mr. Nelson is already aware of the problem."

Jayne's stomach twisted and her chest felt as if it were being squeezed.

In the principal's office, the teacher said to Jayne, "Becca looked very troubled and didn't go out for recess, so I asked if something was wrong, and she shook her head, but when I questioned her further, she started crying and told me some boys said her mother was a jailbird."

"It's true," Jayne said. "I was in prison for five years." She briefly explained what happened, and that she'd recently gotten Becca back, and why, and she didn't doubt that the teacher and the principal believed her.

Then teacher looked at her with concern. "Becca refused to say who the boys were or who might have started the story, but maybe you'll have an idea."

"I know who it is but I'd rather not say," Jayne replied.

"We need to find out how this started," Mr. Nelson said, "and we'd rather get it from you than by having to force Becca to tell us. I'm sure you understand our position."

Jayne looked from one sober face to the other, and said, "Ricky Hansen. He heard his mother talking to someone who'd been in prison with me. In fact, she'd been married to Ricky's uncle, and she and Ricky's mother are still close friends."

The principal looked at her in awareness, and Jayne could see that he knew exactly who she was talking about, which he confirmed, when he said, "Then she was the woman who smothered the Hansen baby a few years back. I remember it now."

Jayne nodded. "I'm guest ranch manager at the Hansen's ranch, and I'm a... umm... close friend of Ricky's father. I'll talk to him about this."

"Since it's a school issue, we need to talk to Ricky's father directly," the principal said. "This is unusual for Ricky. He's normally a good boy, but he's been hanging around with a couple of troublemakers."

Jayne convinced them to wait one day before calling Sam into the office, so she could have a chance to talk to him first, in an effort to keep things from spreading—the nip-it-in-the-bud approach—and they agreed. She hoped Sam would remain calm...

Which he didn't.

"So help me, I'll ground that kid until he's out of high school!"
Sam bellowed.

"That's not the way to handle this," Jayne said. "Ricky's probably trying to impress his friends. The principal said he's hanging around with some troublemakers." She saw the hard look on Sam's face and wondered what he had in store for Ricky.

But she also had to face Becca with the truth. She hadn't planned to tell her about her past yet, but there was no putting it off. But as soon as the school year would be out, she'd assure her that they'd be moving back to her old neighborhood, away from all the Laurens, and Susans, and Rickys, to a place where Becca had friends. But the one thing Jayne knew for sure. It was pointless to try to build a life with Sam.

CHAPTER 12

After everyone in the family, including Flo, had put in their two bits, whether Sam wanted to hear it or not, Sam came to several conclusions. Grounding Ricky would only add fuel to the fire, making him clean every stall in the
stable would get the stalls cleaned, but wouldn't make Ricky feel bad about what he'd done, and taking away his allowance would make him feel like a victim, illogical as it was. He needed to appeal to Ricky's conscience. He knew Ricky had one, although over the past couple of months he'd begun to wonder where it had gone.

Sam also knew Ricky was suspicious about what was happening, when he sat Ricky in front of the computer and Googled multiple sclerosis.

"Why are we looking this up?" Ricky asked, as Sam was scrolling through the websites while searching for one in particular.

"You want to be a doctor don't you?" Sam asked, clicking on the link he was looking for.

Ricky's foot swinging in agitation, he said, "Yeah, but what's that got to do with multiple scler... scler...?"

"Sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis. MS," Sam said. "You'll see." Sam pulled up a site that listed a barrage of symptoms, an especially good site because it had photographs. "This would be a good area of study for a doctor because there are many people with MS and there's no cure."

"How long is this gonna take?" Ricky asked, annoyed.

"Not long," Sam replied. "Okay, to give you an idea of what MS is like, we'll start reading here..." He pointed to the screen and started reading aloud to get Ricky's attention. "Individuals with multiple sclerosis often have difficulty with movement, thinking, and sensation. Early symptoms may include numbness or tingling, weakness in one or more limbs, walking and balance difficulties and visual disturbances."

Ricky listened half-heartedly, his foot continuing to swing in agitation, but when Sam scrolled down to several photographs showing people as the disease progressed, and read the captions, Ricky became a little more attentive. "What are tremors?" he asked, his eyes fixed on the image of a woman in a wheelchair.

"That's when a person starts shaking and can't stop," Sam replied. "They lose control of their muscles, like something stops the signal between their brain and the muscle and the muscle doesn't know what to do, so it shakes."

Ricky seemed to think about that for a few moments. Then he focused on another picture, and said, "What's spas... stis... spas..."

"Spasticity is when the muscles continually expand and contract, like when I keep opening and closing my hand, and the muscles get stiff and tight and that makes it hard to move or dress or walk, and eventually the person ends up in a wheelchair. Then as the disease progresses, they have trouble swallowing, because that can happen in their throat, and their speech gets so slurred you can't understand them."

After he'd given Ricky a chance to digest that, he said, "There's a little girl at your school whose mother is so disabled from MS she has to live in a special home, but before the little girl's mother went to the home, the little girl took care of her mother, fixing her breakfast before she went to school and dinner when she came home, and washing their clothes, and taking care of the house, and doing everything she could to make her mother comfortable, and this was when the little girl was even younger than you."

Ricky's foot stopped swinging and he turned to Sam, and said, "Does she see her mother?"

"Not often," Sam replied, holding Ricky's gaze, trying to read something in the expression on his face. Compassion? Empathy? He didn't see anything, except perhaps that of a kid asking a question. "The mother doesn't want her daughter to see her getting worse because it makes the little girl sad. The little girl also thinks her mother's coming home someday."

"Will she?" Ricky asked, a frown on his brow showing some concern. Or maybe just curiosity, since his foot was swinging back and forth again, though not as vigorously.

"No," Sam replied. "With MS, you just keep getting more and more disabled until one day you can't talk or eat or breathe, and you die."

The foot stopped. "You said she goes to my school. Who is she?" he asked, turning back to look at the monitor.

Sam looked askance at Ricky, and replied, "Becca."

Ricky continued to stare at the monitor, saying nothing, but his bottom lip trembled slightly, which he caught between his teeth, and he batted his eyes, which may or may not have been to stem the emergence of tears, and he said, "Can I go now?"

Sam felt like shaking the kid, he was so unfeeling, yet, he couldn't blame it on Susan. She might have been screwing another man while they were married, but she'd been a model mother when Ricky was dying and needed a transplant, and after he'd gone through chemo and gotten the cord blood transplant, Susan had been at Ricky's side almost constantly. But the person Ricky was now seemed to have no feeling for anything or anybody, except maybe Sophie. Which was self-serving because Sophie had a little hero-worshiping going with Ricky.

"Yeah, you can go," he replied, disappointed that Ricky didn't seem more disturbed. But before Ricky left the room, Sam said, "Do you know why Jayne went to prison?"

Ricky looked at him with a start, clearly surprised that Sam knew he knew about Jayne. When Ricky didn't reply, Sam said, "Jayne drove two men to a convenience store to buy cigarettes and didn't know they planned to rob the store. After they did, they got in the car and told her to drive away, and she did because she didn't know what they'd done. The police stopped them and she was arrested with the others and sent to jail for five years."

Ricky stared at him, brows drawn, as if trying to assimilate it. Then he said, in a challenging tone, as if he wasn't sure he believed Sam, "Why did she go to jail if she didn't know and didn't do anything wrong?"

Sam hated for Ricky to learn at such an early age that sometimes the system failed, but there was no way around it. "Not everyone on the jury believed her because one of the men who robbed the store was Becca's father. Jayne didn't know he was a really bad man until that night, and then it was too late. Jayne was pregnant with Becca at the time, so Becca was born while Jayne was in prison, then Becca was taken away from Jayne even though Jayne wanted her very badly. Becca was adopted out, but then her adoptive father died, and her adoptive mother's in a nursing home now, so Becca hasn't had a very good childhood."

After a few moments, Ricky said, "Now, can I go?"

Sam was tempted to carry out all the punishments that seemed ludicrous earlier—send Ricky to muck out every damn stall on the ranch, ground him until he graduated from high school, take away his allowance indefinitely… Instead, he took an extended breath and let it out slowly, in an effort to keep from yelling at the kid, and said, "Yeah, I guess." But after Ricky left the room, Sam had an almost uncontrollable urge to punch his fist through the wall, even if it was solid log.

***

Jayne intercepted Sam as he was walking from the winery to the lodge, and said, "How did it go with Ricky?" She'd been thinking about how Sam should have approached the issue with Ricky and Sophie at the spring, but there seemed to be no right way. Confronting Ricky would make him angry and defensive. Ignoring everything wouldn't make it go away.

"I had a pretty straight talk with him about keeping it in his pants until he's married," Sam replied, "and I told him if he respected Sophie he wouldn't have asked her to do what she did, even if she was the one who started it. As for Becca... Rick and I went online and Googled MS, and I told Ricky about Becca and her mother. I hoped it would lay a guilt trip on Rick, but it fell flat, so when he gets home from school I'm going to do what I originally planned. When he's through mucking out stalls, and staring at the wall in his room when his friends are doing other things, and not having a dime to his name for the next six months, he might give some thought to what he did. He'll also tell me who the other boys were. I plan to talk to their parents."

"Don't bother," Jayne said. "His teacher said the parents are as difficult as the boys. But after school today I'm going to tell Becca why I went to jail and answer any questions she might have, including those about her father. I don't agree with what you and the others are doing, hiding the truth about the boys' conceptions from them, but it's your decision, so I'd never say anything."

"Actually, I don't agree either," Sam said, "but for now, it's easier to let things be."

"It's hard to tell kids things you know will hurt them," Jayne said. "I put off telling Becca last night by convincing myself I should see how Ricky responded after you talked to him."

Sam gave a cynical guffaw. "Which was like a kid whose been pandered to way too much. I'm pretty damn pissed with him at the moment. He's screwing up my life along with Becca's, yours and his own. One kid, giving us all hell. Maybe I should think about sending him to live with Susan. Maybe her stud would pound some sense into his head."

"You know you won't do that," Jayne said. "Besides, I doubt Susan would take him. She'd have to be a fulltime mother again."

"You're right on both counts," Sam said. "It was just a thought. But right now I'm fresh out of ideas. All I know is you're not walking out of my life. I love you, and you
will
marry me. I just haven't figured out how to make it happen."

Jayne eyed him steadily, as she said, "Would you wait for me if we raised our kids alone? I could move to the neighborhood where Becca's mother lived, maybe even into the same house if it's still available, and you and I could get together on occasion, more often when the kids are in high school and want to be with their friends, then, in seven years, after Ricky and Becca have graduated from high school, we could get married."

"Seven years is a long time," Sam said. "I don't want to wait that long."

Jayne realized Sam had just laid it all on the line. He had everything to offer a woman. A home, love, security. Being sterile didn't matter either; lots of women had no desire to have kids of their own. But before Sam could answer, Grace came rushing over to meet them, and said to Sam, in an excited voice, "The school just called and said Ricky was in a fight and is in the principal's office, and you need to pick him up."

Sam let out a string of expletives and rushed for his truck.

And Jayne headed for the lodge and her office to make up an ad to post on the internet for her position. If Sam couldn't wait seven years to marry her, then so be it. Becca would not be staying where her life would be more miserable than it had been before.