He glared.
She glared back.
“Biscuits are done,” JJ said. “Now all we need is butter and strawberry preserves.”
Heather reached up into a cabinet and put down a Mason jar.
“Wow!” JJ said. “Homemade preserves?”
“You bet.” Heather grinned. “I make my own.”
“Can you teach me?” JJ asked.
“You bet I can.” She glared at her son. “I tried to teach him, but he upended my water bath and ran away.”
“I don’t cook. I breed cattle,” he said haughtily.
Josie was staring at him and smothering diabolical laughter. She was almost bursting with it.
“All right, you cut that out!” John snapped at her, reading the vicious meaning in her eyes.
Cole, walking in the door, stopped and glanced around. JJ was taking biscuits out of the oven. Heather was taking up bacon. John was glaring at Josie, who was laughing her head off.
Heather glanced at him. “Oh, good morning, sweetheart. Coffee’s almost ready. Sit down.”
“I feel like I should be cooking bacon or something,” Cole told them.
“We have it all under control,” Heather teased, and bent to kiss him warmly.
She checked the pot, turned it off and poured his coffee. She put it down in front of him.
“You still look lovely in the morning light,” Cole mused as Heather bent down and kissed him again.
Josie, watching them, felt a hollow place inside herself. Her parents had raised her, but her father was always absent, often away with girlfriends. Her mother took care of her and the ranch and wore herself out in the shadow of her husband’s indifference. If only she’d had parents like these, a family like this. Her eyes reflected her delight and her envy.
John noticed that stare and his silver-blue eyes narrowed. She was a conundrum. He knew she was mixed up with a bad element, but she had compassion for a child who’d lost his parent. It would have been so easy for her to just turn her back and let somebody else worry about JJ. But she hadn’t. She’d stayed right with him, and she’d been very protective.
Josie caught him at it. She stared at him and glared. But after a minute, the glare faded into fascination. He was staring back and neither of them were glaring. Josie felt her stomach turn over as she looked into those pale eyes, so piercing and straightforward. Her heart shot up like a balloon. She became flustered and dropped her fork, breaking the spell.
Now John was back to glaring, over a plate heaped with biscuits and preserves and eggs and bacon.
Josie forced her eyes back to her own plate. Around them Cole and Heather were discussing practical matters, like beginning the adoption process so that they could keep JJ. The little boy, still missing his dad, now had a future to look forward to.
“I didn’t mention the funeral,” Cole told John as he and Josie prepared to leave.
“Dad, a memorial service might be easier on the boy,” he said softly.
“That’s what your mother just suggested.” He smiled. “It’s amazing, how things happen. Heather was so depressed. She hadn’t worked for weeks, nor wanted to. And a little orphaned boy walks in the door, and suddenly she’s in her twenties again, all aglow with plans—clothes for JJ, enrolling him in school. She’s been given a new lease on life.” He cocked his head. “I never asked. How did you meet the boy?”
“I didn’t,” John said. “She—” he indicated Josie “—was talking to him in the stands when his father went down. She never left him, all the way to the hospital.”
“If I hadn’t, somebody else would have,” she said quietly.
“Maybe, but probably with less interest in his future,” Cole said. He smiled. “I’m glad you found him.”
She smiled. “So am I. He’ll have a good home here. No more worrying about having a roof over his head. Although he’ll miss his dad. It was just the two of them.”
“How did you lose your parents?” Cole asked. “If you don’t mind telling me.”
