Everybody's Hero

“Sounds like a Hallmark TV movie, doesn’t it?” Taylor said, and Joe’s chuckle gave way to, “Just what I was thinking,” which was about the time some outlandish idea bubbled up out of his brain about how he wouldn’t mind standing here the rest of the day shooting the breeze with this woman. The bubble popped, though, as bubbles always do, and he returned his attention to filling out the card.

His mouth, however, had apparently missed the bulletin about the bubble-popping.

“I’m pretty much a city boy myself. Never spent any time to speak of in a small town.”

“Me, either, before I moved here a couple years ago.”

“Oh, yeah? Where from?”

Small talk, is all this was. Just something to fill the silence while he finished filling out this card, the kind of stuff you asked to be polite, not because you were really interested. As long as he didn’t look at her, he was safe.

“Houston,” she said, which immediately got Joe to wondering how on earth she ended up in tiny Haven, Oklahoma. Why she’d ended up here. But asking her would indicate he was really interested, which he wasn’t, so he didn’t.

Sure made him curious, though.

The card finally finished, he handed it back, running smack into the woman’s sympathetic gaze.

“And if there’s anything, um, out of the ordinary about his situation we should know about?” she said softly, and he realized he wasn’t the only curious one here. As he would be, too, in her place. Wasn’t every day a grown man came along with an eight-year-old brother in tow, he imagined. With Seth standing right beside him yesterday, Joe hadn’t felt comfortable discussing many of the particulars with the pastor’s wife. But there was nothing stopping him now.

Just as there was nothing stopping him from getting his own gaze tangled up with Taylor’s. As a rule, Joe didn’t have much use for sympathy, since sympathy had a bad habit of degenerating into pity, which he had no use for at all. But this wasn’t about Joe—it was about a little kid who right now needed all the comfort he could get. The kind of comfort Joe wasn’t sure he knew how to give.

“Seth and I didn’t even know about each other until three weeks ago,” he said quietly, seeing in her concerned expression the comfort he sought. For Seth, that is. “We met for the first time about a week after my father and Seth’s mother were killed in a car crash.”

“Ohmigod,” Taylor said on a soft exhale, her eyes darting to the men’s room door. “I figured it was something serious, but…” Her lower lip caught in her teeth; she shook her head and then looked back at Joe, her expression one big question mark.

“There was a will.” Joe’s mouth flattened. “After a fashion. For reasons known only to my father, he’d appointed me guardian in case anything happened to both him and Andrea.”

“Even though you and Seth didn’t know each other?”

Joe crossed his arms over his chest, as if that might somehow armor him against her incredulity. “Apparently, there’s nobody else,” he said, then added, “This has been real rough on the kid.”

Her steady gaze momentarily threatened the composure he’d fought like hell to hang on to from the first moment he’d laid eyes on Seth, especially when she then said, “I don’t imagine it’s been any picnic for his brother, either.”

Inside Joe’s head, a warning bell sounded. He’d never allowed sentimentality to color his feelings or decisions, and damned if he was going to start now. A humorless smile pulled at his mouth. “You play the hand that’s dealt you, you know?”

The dulled sound of a toilet flushing, followed seconds later by Seth’s reappearance, derailed whatever she’d been about to say. Even though it nearly killed him, Joe realized he had to make a clean break. Now. Before his brother’s big brown eyes sucked him back in.

Before Taylor’s soft green/gray/gold ones made him forget how crowded his life already was.

“Okay, you’re all set,” he said, cupping Seth’s head. “I’ll see you at four.”

Tears welled up again in the little boy’s eyes, but Joe ruffled the kid’s hair and strode outside, where he was free to let his emotions beat the crap out of him, even if he wasn’t exactly on a first-name basis with most of them. His gut churned as he got into his middle-aged Blazer and twisted the ignition key, that he had to go to work when he knew the kid needed him right now. But if he didn’t work, all the other people who needed Joe would be screwed.

And no way in hell was he going to let that happen.

As befitted anyone who’d lived through as many first days of school as she had, Taylor wasn’t particularly surprised that Seth’s tears dried up as soon as Joe left. That didn’t mean she was particularly relieved, however. On-the-surface acceptance was not the same as being at peace with the situation.

An observation which she imagined applied equally to the child’s big brother, she thought with a little pang of…something.

Except for the occasional tremor in his lower lip, the boy was doing a bang-up imitation of a statue, standing right where Joe had left him and staring blankly at the open door. His attachment to someone he hadn’t even known a month wasn’t all that odd, considering how desperately he probably wanted something, anything—anyone—solid and real and alive to hang on to. Not that losing a parent was easy at any age, but eight was particularly difficult: old enough to fully understand the extent of the loss, but not old enough to understand, let alone believe, that things would ever feel “right” again.

“Seth?” Taylor said gently. After a long moment, the child turned, but his gaze was shuttered, provoking a twinge in the center of her chest. Although his hair was so clean it shimmered, tears had ploughed crooked tracks down dust-filmed cheeks. He looked so vulnerable and frightened Taylor briefly entertained the idea of throttling his big brother. “I know you’re probably pretty unhappy right now, but I promise I won’t say a word about how everything’s going to be fine, because you wouldn’t believe me, anyway. Would you?”

A burst of laughter from outside bounced in through the open window; Seth’s eyes veered toward the sound for an instant, then back to Taylor. Wordlessly, he shook his head.

Her heart knocked against her ribs. At times like this, all those child psychology courses seemed about as practical as mittens in July. What on earth do you say to a child whose world had just been ripped apart? God knows, nothing anyone said to her after how own father died had made a lick of sense.

“Okay, let’s try this,” she said, squatting in front of him. “We usually do all sorts of stuff—play games, arts and crafts, go for walks, swimming…” She smiled. “Do you like to swim?”

A shrug.

“How about Slip ‘N Slide?”

Another shrug.

“Well, why don’t you just hang out today and get a feel for the place? If you want to participate in anything, fine. Go ahead and jump right in. But you don’t have to do anything you don’t feel like doing. No pressure. How’s that?”

That got a little nod, but nothing else. Not even a glimmer of relief.

“Okay, then.” Taylor stood. “You’ll be with the other seven-and eight-year-olds, which means Blair’s your counselor. I’ll introduce you when she comes back in with the other kids—”

“I can’t stay with you?”

How could one little face be so sad? “Oh, sweetie…I’d love to have you with me, but I’ve got the fives and sixes.” She made a face. “You really want to be with—” she lowered her voice “—the babies?”

Taylor could see the struggle going on underneath all those curls, but eventually, he shook his head. Amazing how early the old male pride kicked in.

“I didn’t think so,” she said as the kids began trooping back inside. “Besides, Blair’s totally cool.”

She led Seth over to Blair’s group and introduced them, whispering just enough in the teenager’s ear to clue her in, even as she caught Wade Frazier’s and Noah Logan’s intrigued perusal of their new campmate. But as she returned to her own group of eager, rambunctious little ones, the conflicting feelings slamming around inside her head stunned her silly.

Not once that she could remember had she ever felt reluctant about falling in love with a child. For good or ill, that’s just what she did, who she was. And already, little Seth Salazar was worming his way into her heart, big time. The problem was, though…this kid, she didn’t want to fall in love with. Because falling in love with the kid would mean dealing with the kid’s big, handsome, hormone-agitating brother on a regular basis.

And if that didn’t have Bad Idea written all over it, she didn’t know what did.

Chapter 2

Despite his personal worries heckling Joe from the edge of his thought like those two old Muppet dudes, he could always count on the adrenaline rush from starting a new job to make him feel in control again. This one was a walk in the park in comparison with most of the projects he oversaw, but that also meant he’d only be spending the summer in this two-bit town. A fact for which he was even more grateful after his encounter with Taylor McIntyre, Joe thought grumpily as he steered down the road leading to the Double Arrow office. Not that Haven didn’t have its charms. Everyone he’d met so far certainly seemed friendly enough—although that, Joe thought with a tight grin, might have something to do with the dearth of strangers passing through—but there was that whole everybody-knowing-your business thing that rankled the living daylights out of him.

Joe never had been much on sharing his personal life with all and sundry. Not that he had anything to hide, he just didn’t think it was anybody’s business but his own, for one thing. And for another, he figured most folks only showed an interest out of politeness. Either that, or they got that oh-you-poor-thing look in their eyes that Joe detested. Especially since those eyes so often belonged to the kind of woman who was easily hurt. So the way he saw it, keeping to himself just saved everybody a lot of trouble.

And saving people trouble was what Joe did best, he mused as he pulled up alongside one of a series of dusty pickups in the small parking lot. He supposed he had a bit of a rep as somebody you could count on to follow through on his promises, which didn’t bother him one bit. Not considering how hard he’d worked to earn that rep.

His cell rang, rousing him out of his ponderings.

“Joe?” said a gruff voice. Wes Hinton, his boss. “Got a minute?”

“Sure. What’s up?”