My back shot straight and my head whipped around in his direction. “Don’t call her a hottie,” I growled.
He shrugged a gangly shoulder. “Why not? It’s the truth. That chick was smokin’ hot.”
Christ, it was too damn early for this. “Don’t call her a chick, either. It’s disrespectful.”
Toby rolled his eyes to the heavens so dramatically I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. I’d known the kid for several months now, and he never failed to crack me up. Some of the things he said made him seem so much older than his twelve years, but then he’d say something that reminded you he was still just a kid. I knew enough from having known Zach so long that being a foster kid forced you to grow up a hell of a lot faster than any child should have to, so I wanted to do everything in my power to let Toby be a typical twelve-year-old for as long as possible. It was the least the kid deserved.
After losing both his parents in a boating accident a little less than a year ago, he’d ended up at Hope House, the group home that Zach and Lennix’s parents, Rory and Cord, had established years ago. After meeting Zach and learning what he’d been through, they wanted to make sure other kids had a safe, stableplace to live that would give them all the tools they needed when it came time for them to go out into the world.
Toby had been quiet and withdrawn, refusing to come out of his shell no matter what Tessa, the director of Hope House, or the rest of the volunteers did to try and help him. When she exhausted all the usual strategies they implemented to try and help the children who had closed themselves off, she called me and asked if I’d be willing to take part in Hope House’s mentoring program to try and help Toby heal.
I thought she’d lost her mind at first, and I’d said just as much. I was a single guy with a serious aversion to commitment. What the hell did I know about helping out a hurt, scared kid?
But she saw something in me that made her believe I’d be a good fit for him. And as much as I doubted her, it turned out she was right. The first time the boy had opened up to me, I’d been stunned speechless. I had been scared to death I would do or say the wrong thing, cause more harm than good, but after a talk with Tessa, she’d guided me in the direction Toby needed me to go, and he’d been my little buddy ever since.
He laughed now. He joked and gave me shit just like I’d given my sister when I was his age. He loved helping with my job as the excursion director for Second Hope Lodge, so I made sure to bring him to the ranch with me at least once a week, usually on Saturday or Sunday. If there was one thing I knew, it was that the outdoors had a way of healing almost any wound.
When Toby needed calm and peace to shut out the rest of the world, I took him fishing. When he needed to get out of his own head, we rode horses. When he needed to talk, but also needed the freedom to come up with the words in his own time, I took him hiking. Safe Haven Ranch was the perfect place for the kid. Just as it had been for me.
I lived by the motto that there wasn’t anything a little dirt, sweat, sunshine, and nature couldn’t cure.
Toby’s brows pulled together in a confused frown. “How is calling a girl a chick disrespectful?”
“I don’t know, kid. It just is.”
He thought on that for a moment. “So if you can’t call them chicks, what do you call them?”
“You call them women. Or ladies.”
“But not babes?”
I choked on my tongue. “No, you shouldn’t call them babes either.”
“Huh.” He stared off at the horizon, the gears in his little brain working overtime as our horses continued their sedate cantor toward the barn near the lodge. “And they like that? Bein’ respectful, I mean. Like, chi—I mean,ladies. They like it when a guy’s all respectful and stuff?”
Ah hell.
Why did the collar of my shirt suddenly feel too tight? “Uh, I guess,” I answered, hoping that would be the end of it. Of course, I wasn’t that lucky.
His expression grew contemplative for a second before his brows lowered over his eyes. “Then how come you were bein’ so nasty to thatwomanearlier?”
Fuck my life.
I’d only had one cup of coffee before heading out before the sun came up to get Toby from Hope House for the day. School was on break for a week, and I thought it might be good for him to spend more time on the ranch, but I was really starting to question my sanity. I wasn’t nearly caffeinated enough for this conversation, but it was my fault for starting shit with Lennix where he could hear.
Hell, it was my fault for starting shit with her at all. But it seemed I couldn’t help but press her buttons lately. Seeing her eyes flash with fire as she gave as good as she got did something to me. Fighting with her got my blood pumping.
I didn’t want to think too hard about the fact that I got turned on when she flipped me the bird earlier. Something was seriously wrong with my head. But damn if seeing that didn’t make me hard.
“Do me a favor, kid. Don’t act like me. Be better, yeah? I behaved like a di—jerk.”
Toby nodded his head. “You should bring cupcakes when you apologize.”
I let out a choked laugh. “What?”
“It’s what my dad always did whenever he made my mom mad.” I went as still as possible in my saddle when Toby got quiet, a faraway look filling his eyes. He didn’t talk much about his parents, but when he did, the hurt at losing them was still right there at the surface. It gutted me every single time, and I would have given anything to take that pain away.
It was a cruel twist of fate, or karma being a bitch that the good ones like Toby’s parents were always the ones who were lost, while wastes of oxygen like mine got to walk the earth, free to spread their filth and misery.
