“Why?”
She sighed as if it were only yesterday that she was a five-year-old again with a great responsibility. “I wanted to give him a name like Volcano, but he was not the mighty steed I imagined.”
“What was he?”
“He was tan, so I named him Butterscotch.”
Tatum smacked his hand on his knee. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.” Her eyes were all big again. “My older brother teased me for ages.”
Tatum pulled out his phone and found the picture of his twelve-year-old niece and her new barrel racing horse. It was a beautiful palomino with a dark nose and ears. “This is Emily and Butterscotch.”
Neese snatched the phone and held it close as she examined the image. “She’s beautiful.”
“She’s fast too. Emily should go all the way to high school nationals on that horse.”
Neese lifted her face. “I meant Emily. You both have blue eyes.”
Tatum blinked. That tender place in his heart where he locked up all those proud uncle emotions threatened to burst wide open. “She was two days old when I first held her, and now look—she’s so pretty I’m going to have to build a fence to keep the boys away.”
Neese grinned. “My dad said the same thing.” She tilted her head. “Actually, he wanted a moat.” She laughed. “Why do men want to keep us from growing up? Yet they do not care if their boys grow like trees.”
Tatum took her hand, tracing his thumb across her knuckles and then back again. He liked that she said “grow like trees.” His mother used to say he grew like a weed. He smiled. “We fall hard for our girls. They are soft and therefore soften us.”Like you soften me.
Man! He sounded like such a pansy, but for some reason, he didn’t care.
Okay, maybe he cared a little. He was not this guy. The guy who shared pictures of his niece and wanted to hold a woman’s hand for the sheer pleasure of touching her.
Maybe this was some weird form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder manifesting itself. He and Nelson underwent evaluations with a psychiatrist after every mission—their whole crew did. It was standard procedure. Most of the time, the guys checked out. Every once in a while, usually when there was an injury, guys needed to work things out before coming back.
Dr. Morris had spent several days with Tatum in the hospital, even slept on a cot one night in his room. Tatum hadn’t had nightmares and he didn’t have flashbacks of being shot, though his memory of what happened was clear as a mountain spring.
However, he’d had all thesefeelingsas of late. Stuff that was hard to get a handle on. Like how much he enjoyed touching Neese’s hand and how he wanted to hold her close and fall asleep with her head on his chest.
The big guy by the door had a coughing fit. Neese whipped her head that direction. She seemed to come to herself and stared down at their hands for a moment. Her eyes narrowed. Tatum expected her to pull away. He tensed his shoulders, anticipating the rejection, but she didn’t put space between them. At least not physically. The closeness they’d shared in conversation, the easy back-and-forth, had waned.
She handed him the phone. “You are blessed.” Her words were simple and yet so profound. Hewasblessed.
“What about your family?” He tipped his water bottle her direction before taking a long swig. All the sugar they’d consumed made his mouth sticky.
“My family grows oranges. We export most of our crop.”
“I can’t picture you harvesting.”
Her hand went to her hip. “I harvest alongside my brothers, thank you.”
“You’re an only girl?”
“Yes.”
“And they make you work in the fields?”
“Do your sisters not?”
“They do and they don’t. They feed animals and such, but the men do most of the heavy lifting.”
She shook her head. “On our island, we work side to side. A man may bring in the harvest and make dinner for the family, just as a woman may tend children and slaughter a pig. We do not see men’s jobs and women’s jobs—there are only jobs to be done. In this pattern, all learn how to mend fishing nets, dive for conch … climb a coconut tree.” She tipped her head and smiled.
