Ruth Herne - Healing the Lawman's Heart

Meet in the middle?

Did Vic expect her to drive halfway to Ithaca and hand Martin and Connor over to him after he’d spent the past two years ignoring them?

Not gonna happen.

Ice pulsed through her veins as she smacked down the phone. The sound of his voice was antagonistic, and condescending, as if distancing herself from his affairs was an over-reaction on her part.

She paced the long living room, examining her options.

Vic had visitation rights, but he’d never bothered to use them. He’d shrugged off her moving to Kirkwood Lake two years ago, and other than the infrequent child support checks, he’d stayed out of their lives.

Until now.

Why now?

She didn’t have a clue. Her head hurt but she wasn’t about to take one of those pain pills and cloud her thinking.

The phone rang.

She jumped, stared at the caller ID and heaved a sigh of relief when her father’s number flashed. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hey yourself. You okay? I thought you just had to grab a few things. Need me to come around that way?”

“No, but thanks. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine, Jules.” Her father wasn’t the kind of guy anyone fooled for long. “You sound like you’re ready to pop someone in the jaw.”

Her father knew her well.

“Is your head hurting? Do you need me to drive you back here?”

“No, nothing like that.” She paused, then blew out a breath. “Vic called.”

Marty Harrison growled. “He hasn’t contacted you in over a year.”

“Almost eighteen months, and that was to explain why he couldn’t take the boys for their two-week summer visit because he was too busy finishing up his course work to become a school administrator.”

“I remember. What does he want?”

“He wants the boys over spring break. And he says he wants his one weekend a month like the court promised.”

“Now? After all this time? Why?”

Julia had no answers. Only more questions. “I don’t know.”

Her father breathed deeply, then offered typical Marty Harrison wisdom. “Well, we know he wants something. Vic is nothing if not predictable, but there’s no sense worrying about it tonight. You need to sleep and we’ll tackle this tomorrow. Let him stew on it overnight, Jules.”

“Which means we both stew on it.”

“Trials of parenthood, honey. No one said it would be easy.”

True, but then no one warned her that her good-looking, high school teacher husband would stray outside their marriage. Call her naive, but being raised in the Harrison house, good men didn’t do things like that. Which meant she’d either placed her trust foolishly...

Put a check in the yes column on that one!

Or she wasn’t as slim or attractive as she’d been when they dated nine years before.

Another check in the yes column, with a helping of self-recrimination poured on top, like chocolate glaze on a doughnut.

“And stop beating yourself up, Julia. That’s not how I raised you.”

“My spunk’s on low tonight, Dad. It’s been a rough forty-eight hours.”

“You escaped two car wrecks and a falling tree with nothing more than a couple of cuts, bruises and bangs. Pretty positive result in my book, kid.”

She laughed because he was absolutely right. “Two of which were not my fault, of course.”

“And neither was the broken marriage,” Marty told her bluntly. “We’ll figure this out in the morning. I love you, honey.”

“Love you back. I’ll be at your place in a few minutes.”

She hung up and stared at boarded up wall in front of her.

Broken and battered. Her heart had felt like that wall when she’d realized Vic had cheated for the second time.

Was she unlovable? Not pretty enough? Not thin enough? Gone too much? What did these other women have that she didn’t?

Why does it have to be about you? Why can’t it be about him? Maybe some guys are just jerks?

Rational argument said Vic Gentry was a two-timing jerk. But in the cold light of day, her heart knew what her head denied: he hadn’t just turned to others.

He’d turned away from her. And she wasn’t at all sure she wasn’t somewhat to blame for that.

* * *

“Oh. ’Scuse me!”

A miniature version of Julia’s blue eyes under a mop of blond curls met Tanner’s eyes as they collided at Zach’s side door the next afternoon. “Whoa. I gotcha, bud.”

“Connor? Are you okay?” Julia’s voice called from somewhere inside Zach’s house.

The little boy rolled his eyes. “I’m fine! I’m going to see if Beansy’s friend had her babies yet.”

“Go across lots, not around the road.”

“Mom, I know all this stuff. I’m five! I’m not a baby.”

“Didn’t say you were, and—” Julia stopped as she got to the side door, looking surprised to see him. “Tanner. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here.”

“Julia.” He nodded toward the kid. “Yours?”

“On good days.” She grinned at the boy and laid her hand on top of his head. “Be good for Grandpa, okay?”

“Grandpa and me work together on weekends.” He pulled a knit hat down on his head and stood as tall and straight as a kid could while he addressed Tanner. “He’s teaching me everything about farming.”

“I expect he’s mighty pleased to have a helper like you around,” Tanner said.

“Two helpers.” Connor shoved his feet into old-fashioned rubber farm boots. “Martin’s already over there, checking on the mommy goat, but I had to practice my reading words. Which was kinda dumb because I knew them all already.” He darted a dark glance at his mother, a look she ignored completely. He raced out the door, then stopped and stuck out a little hand in Tanner’s direction.

“I’m Connor.”

“My name’s Tanner. Nice to meet you.”

“Do you like goats?”

“More than life itself,” Tanner replied with a quick side smile toward Julia.

Connor leaned in as if sharing a very big secret. “We’re going to have baby goats soon. And baby goats are called kids just like kids are called kids.”

Tanner offered the boy an exaggerated look of surprise, as if Connor’s revelation was truly amazing.

“And they’re going to get born, like, any day now. Maybe even today.” He gave Julia a miffed look. “My mom delivers babies but she says Daisy is better having her babies on her own because goats know how to do those kind of things. Do you think they do?”

He shrugged. “It makes sense, I guess.”

“Well, I hope so because I’ve been waiting for these babies a very long time.” Connor’s serious expression mirrored his words. “Every day I pray and pray for these babies, and she hasn’t had them yet.”

“Animals have been giving birth forever.” Julia’s calm tone said nature would prevail. “I expect Miss Daisy will be fine, Connor. And if there’s an emergency, I can be on call, okay?”

“Except she’s all alone at night,” the boy muttered as he pushed out the door. “So I don’t know who’s going to take care of her then and I know Grandpa’d let us bring her in the basement. Just until.”

“God will take care of her,” Julia suggested as if God could be counted on for everything.

Tanner knew better.

The boy’s scowl said he sided with Tanner. The door banged shut behind him as Julia stepped aside. “The patient awaits. Zach was excited that you were coming over.”

“You’re on nursing duty today?”

“Well, he’s out of my area of expertise, but I figured whining’s whining and he’s not all that different than the five-year-old that just scolded me on his way out the door.”

“I’m not whining.” Zach made a face as they walked into the living room. “I’m too drugged up to whine properly. Give it a week.”