Cowboy's Caress

And if their paths might cross again anytime soon…

Carly might have slept longer if not for the quiet humming that was coming from beside her bed.

There was no real tune to it and it was terribly off-key, so she knew from the start that it wasn’t coming from the clock radio on the nightstand. And since no one had any reason to be in the cottage at all, let alone while she slept, the sound brought her abruptly awake.

Her eyes opened to the sight of the youngest of her new tenants sitting patiently on the dated, barrel-backed chair that was against the wall to the left of the bed, facing it.

Evie Lee was dressed just as she’d been when Carly had first seen her on the porch—short pink overalls and a white T-shirt dotted with rosebuds. But her wavy blond hair was matted and standing up on one side as if that were the side she’d slept on and hadn’t bothered to brush or comb since getting up.

If Carly had to bet on it, she’d wager that Evie Lee had woken up and come exploring without her father’s knowledge. He was probably still asleep. Or at least thought his daughter was.

“Hi,” the little girl said when she saw Carly’s eyes open.

“Hi.”

“I got tired of sleepin’ and I came to visit you. Is that okay?”

“You can visit me any time at all,” Carly answered.

Evie Lee glanced around. “I like this place. It’s like a big playhouse.”

That was true enough. The cottage was one large room—with the exception of a separate bathroom. Only the furniture divided the open space into sections. A double bed, the antique oak nightstand and the visitor’s chair Evie Lee was occupying made up the bedroom. A round, pedestaled café table with two cane-backed chairs and a wet bar were the dining area. A pale-blue plaid love seat, matching overstuffed chair and a television comprised the living room, although the TV was positioned so that it could be seen from anywhere in the room.

The cottage had a history as a guest house and also as a sometimes hospital room where her father had put up patients he’d wanted to keep a close eye on.

It was pleasant and airy, though, with off-white walls of painted paneling and ruffled curtains on the windows to give it a homey atmosphere.

“I don’t remember your name,” the little girl said bluntly.

“Carly.”

“Is that what I can call you, or do I have to call you Miss or something like at school?”

“You can call me Carly.”

“You can call me Evie Lee Lewis.”

“Thank you,” Carly said with a smile, sitting up in bed and bracing her back against the headboard. “Have you been to school yet?” she asked the little girl.

“I went to kindergarten before the summer and when the summer is over and it’s schooltime again I’ll be in the first grade. You go all day long in that grade. I hope I like it. I hope it’s not too much stressful. Alisha had a lot of stressfuls and then she’d go to bed and I wouldn’t want to have to go to first grade and then have to go to bed.”

“Alisha?” Carly repeated, her interest sparked at the mention of a woman’s name.

“Alisha was my sort-of mom for a while but she didn’t like me. She liked my daddy. But she didn’t like me. She said I was a bad kid and that I was a stressful and a pest and a pain-in-the—”

“Where did she go?”

“Away. My daddy sent her away because she locked me in the closet because I was naughty one day and I put on her shoes and messed up some of her lipsticks.”

The thought of putting this little girl or any other child in a closet raised Carly’s hackles. “Sounds like your daddy did the right thing by sending her away.”

“He was really mad.”

“Good for him. He should have been.”

“How did you hurt yourself?”

“I fell and sprained my ankle.”

“I got a bad scratch on my elbow. See?” Evie Lee displayed the underside of her elbow. “I got it on Mikey Stravoni’s slide and then I got a scab but I picked at it till it comed off and then it bleeded all over the place and my daddy said ‘I told you not to pick off that scab’ because he’s a doctor.”

Carly laughed at the lowered-voice imitation, enjoying the child who looked so much like her father that staring at her conjured flashes of the man himself in Carly’s mind’s eye. Flashes that left her with more eagerness to see him again than she wanted to acknowledge.

“Does your ankle hurt?” Evie Lee asked.

“A little.”

“Sometimes if you pinch yourself really hard somewhere else you’ll forget about it.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Could I play with your crutches when you don’t need ’em?”

“Sure, but they’ll be awfully big for you.”

“You have pretty eyes.”

“So do you.”

“I have pretty hair, too,” Evie Lee said matter-of-factly. “Will you show me how to put a pencil in it?”

“I will if you want me to. But we could probably put something prettier than a pencil in it.”

“Okay,” Evie Lee said with enthusiasm, her pale eyebrows taking flight with the anticipation. “My daddy is no good at hair combing. He says he could do surgery better. Do you have any l’il kids?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m not married.”

“Me, neither. My daddy isn’t neither, too. Are there any l’il kids around here to play with?”

Carly eased herself to the edge of the bed, letting both feet dangle over the side to test how her ankle felt when it wasn’t propped up. It hurt more, but it wasn’t unbearable.

“There’s a little girl up the street,” she answered.

“How old is she?”

“I think she’s six.”

“That’s good. That’s how old I am—six. I just turned it and I got Angel Barbie for my birthday because she’s the prettiest one.”