“It was so kind of you and Cole to take in JJ,” Josie said softly. “He’s a really great kid. Such a shame about his father,” sheadded, grimacing. “He was doing the best he could to support them, but you could tell it was an uphill struggle all the way.”
“How did you meet him?” she asked.
Josie smiled. “We were both in the stands, watching the rodeo, and we just started talking. Most kids his age are shy and hard to talk to, but there was just a connection there from the start. It broke my heart to watch him when his father collapsed. If John hadn’t been there, I don’t know what I’d have done. My... colleague had gone to a meeting, and I had no way to get to the hospital with JJ.”
Heather pursed her lips. “You have a great deal of compassion for somebody who’s at odds with the law.”
Josie’s heart jumped. “Oh, well, not all the time,” she began, cornered.
The timer for the bread went off and saved her. She laughed as she got up to watch the way Heather made the risen bread dough into loaves.
She and JJ went riding down the wooded trail around the ranch on some of Cole’s saddle horses.
“You’re pretty good at this,” Josie remarked.
He grinned at her. “I love horses. On ranches where Dad worked, there were always kids who would let me go riding with them. But that was before we had to move.” He grimaced. “Dad did his best for us,” he added quickly.
“I’m sure that he did,” she replied.
“It’s just, there wasn’t much money, and Dad wasn’t in good health. We moved a lot because the rent kept going up. Rodeo can keep you going, but only if you win top prizes. Dad said he wasn’t good enough for that. And he was sick a lot. When he lost the last ranch job, and there wasn’t another one he could get, everything just seemed to fall apart.” He looked away. “I miss Dad a lot.”
“I know you do. Life is hard without parents.”
“Don’t you have parents, Josie?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I lost my mom to cancer. My dad only calls when he needs something. We’re not close.”
“That’s sad.”
“I guess it is.” She smiled. “It’s really nice, the way your new family gets along.”
“They’re terrific,” he said. “I felt at home the first time I saw them. And John specially. He’s always around.”
“I guess he’s not so bad,” she muttered.
“We play video games together,” he told her. “He’s pretty good!”
She laughed. “I’ll bet you are, too.”
“Well, not as good as John. But I’m learning.”
They rounded a curve, and she recognized the area they entered. It was where that lot of calves Raines had dropped her off to scout out were located. They were still there. A little bigger than they had been.
“Aren’t they pretty?” JJ asked as they stopped the horses beside the fenced pasture. “John says they’ll go up for our private auction in December.”
She frowned. They were purebred, not neutered. What sort of interest did Raines and his boss have in calves? She knew Velasquez had a huge property in Mexico, down near Cancun, and another in northern Sonora. But from what she’d been able to find out, his interest was in horses, not cattle. What was he going to do with purebred calves?
As she looked at the calves, she recalled that these looked very much like the ones she’d been looking at the first time she saw John. Why did Raines have such interest in this particular group of calves?
“Josie, I said are you going to stay with me while the family goes to New York to watch Odalie’s audition at the Metropolitan Opera?”
“If I’m still here, I sure will,” she promised.
“You can’t go yet,” he said, concerned. “We have to get a Christmas tree and put it up, and then Cole says we’re going shopping in Dallas to buy lots of presents to go under it! But that will be when they get back from New York.”
“It’s going to be a busy month,” she remarked absently.
“I love Christmas.” They started riding again. The wind was getting up, and it was a cold wind. “I wonder if we’ll get snow?” he added.
