Karen Templeton - Staking His Claim

“Giving you a hug, that’s what,” Dawn said with a laugh as she clambered out of the booth and did just that.

After they’d hugged themselves out and Dawn was settled back in the booth, Ruby asked, “You order the rib sandwich, baby?”

“Like I was gonna pass up Jordy’s ribs,” she said with a grin. “Or the fries or the slaw or the soup.”

Ruby mm-mm-mm’d and said, “Why is it the skinny one’s’re always the ones who can pack it away? Me, all I have to do is look at one of Jordy’s ribs and my butt starts expandin’. Oh, and Maddie brought over a peach cobbler this morning that’s so pretty it’ll make you cry. You want me to save you some?”

“Whoa, whoa—” Cal raised his hand. “I don’t hear you offering to save me any!”

“That’s because, Mr. Me-Too,” Ruby said, “being’s Maddie’s your sister-in-law, I suppose you can taste her cobbler anytime you like—”

“Hey!” Charmaine yelled over by the display of gum and candy bars and stuff underneath the cash register. “You have to pay for that—come back here!” Cal looked over just in time to see a blond kid just this side of puberty tear out the door, nearly knocking over Homer Ferguson in the process.

Seconds later Cal was hot on the kid’s tail, his much longer legs catching up to the boy before he’d even reached the Hair We Are two doors down. He grabbed the skinny thing around the waist and plucked him right up off the ground, getting a barrage of elbows and fists and rubber-soled feet for his efforts.

“Lemme go! I didn’t do nuthin’!”

“You gonna run?” Cal said softly in the kid’s ear.

“What do you think?”

Cal let go, but not before getting a good handful of too-big T-shirt just in case the boy had any ideas about booking it. The kid took a swing at him, but he didn’t really put his heart in it. Besides, Cal ducked.

“I said, let me go!”

Still hanging on with one hand, Cal held out the other one, palm up. “Give me what you took.”

“I didn’t—”

“Now.”

The boy glared at him for several seconds, his breath coming in sharp bursts. He didn’t exactly look like he’d had a bath any too recently, but then, how many boys his age did? Finally the boy rammed his hand into his pocket and yanked out a slightly smashed candy bar.

“That it?” Cal asked.

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“You don’t believe me, you can look for yourself.”

“Okay, you can ditch the attitude. Unless you like lookin’ ugly.” When the kid only scowled harder, it suddenly struck Cal where he knew him from. “You’re Jacob Burke’s boy, aren’t you?”

“I don’t have to tell you nothin’.”

Cal was sorely tempted to cuff the kid upside the head. Or feed him, one. “What’s your name?” he said gently.

More scowling.

“You can tell me now, or I can call your daddy—”

“Elijah.”

“That what they call you, or you got a nickname?” At the shake of the shaggy head, Cal grimaced at the Three Musketeers in his hand. “You mean to tell me you caused all this ruckus for one lousy candy bar? How dumb is that?”

“Yeah, well, it’s none of your business, is it?”

“You stole something from a friend of mine. That makes it my business—”

“Is he okay?”

Cal turned at the sound of Dawn’s voice, noticing a small crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings. For Haven, this qualified as excitement.

“Yeah, he’s fine.” He handed her the flattened candy bar.

“This, however, isn’t. Come on,” he said, tugging the boy in the direction of the diner.

“I ain’t goin’ back there.”

“Yes, you are. And when we get there, the first thing you’re gonna do is apologize for your momentary lapse of good sense. Then we’re gonna see what you can do for Ruby to make up for it.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of job, I’m thinking.”

“A job? No way! For one candy bar?”

“I’m a firm believer in nipping things in the bud, bud.” The small crowd dispersed when Cal dragged Elijah through the door, Dawn on their heels. “We’re back, Ruby,” he hollered from the doorway. “Where you want him?”

“Kitchen’s good,” she called from the back of the diner.

They all trooped back into Ruby’s gleaming kitchen, Elijah a trifle more subdued than he had been five minutes before. Especially when he caught sight of Jordy, Ruby’s bald, bad, six-foot-three, 280-pound husband. After a brief discussion, it was decided Elijah could mop the floor after the lunch rush.

“I don’t know how.”

“Well, I suppose you can learn, can’t you?” Ruby said, after which four people chorused, “You hungry?”

After Dawn and Elijah had packed enough away between them for a church potluck, Cal and Dawn took the boy and his bicycle, which he’d left in front of the hardware store, back out to the small farm he lived on with his widowed father. Who, as best they could figure out from Elijah’s grudging explanation, had been on disability for some time. He also told them he was home schooled, since his father needed him around to “help.” Help with what, was the question, since neither the small, drab house with its peeling paint and missing shutters, nor the bare dirt yard littered with junk and a couple of old pickups, indicated that any attention had been given to either for a very long time. Granted, Cal had seen worse, but the bleakness of the place turned his stomach. No kid should ever have to live like this.

“Mind if we come in for a minute?” Dawn asked, but the kid said no before the words were all the way out of her mouth.

“We won’t say anything about the candy bar,” Cal added.

“It ain’t that,” Elijah said, pushing open the back door of Cal’s extended cab truck. “It’s just…uh, Daddy’s usually asleep this time of day. An’ he don’t like bein’ disturbed.”

With that, he bolted out of the truck and across the yard, stopping for a second to pet a large mongrel dog tied up to the lone tree in front of the house before bounding onto the porch and on through the screen door.

Dawn kept her eyes on the house as they drove back down the dirt road leading to the highway. “I hate seeing kids left to their own devices like that.”

“Oh, I imagine he’s all right,” Cal said, briefly meeting her gaze when she finally brought it around. She blew out a sigh, then faced front, her brow knit, as the truck meandered over the gently rolling, lush green hills that Cal couldn’t imagine giving up for skyscrapers and concrete and rush hour traffic.

“Still,” she said, holding her hair with one hand so it wouldn’t blow to kingdom come. “Somebody should check up on him. From the county, I mean.”

“There’s no real cause, far as I can tell. I didn’t get the feeling he’d been abused. And he has to take tests or something if he’s being home schooled. If he doesn’t pass, they’d catch it.”

“But he’s so thin! A stiff breeze would blow the poor kid away!”

A smile inched across Cal’s face. “You’re obviously forgettin’ how skinny I was as a kid then. Just because he’s all bones doesn’t mean he’s not eating.”

“He stole, Cal.”

“A candy bar. Because he’s twelve and it was there and he saw what looked like a golden opportunity.” He glanced over.

“Didn’t you ever take something just to see if you could?”

“No! Never!”

“You were never even tempted?”

“Well…maybe. But I didn’t act on it.” She sucked in a breath. “Did you?”

“Yeah, once.”

“Oh, God.”

“Oh, unknot your panties. I was nine, for cryin’ out loud. It was maybe a few months after my mother died. I snitched a pack of gum from the supermarket checkout, pretty much like what Elijah did.”