Roz Fox - A Cowboy at Heart

“Why would you go to all that trouble before you get hold of Mrs. Jacobs?”

“Who?” Linc’s ears perked up at a new name tossed in the mix.

“Our social worker. I heard you talkin’ on the phone about her.”

“Jacobs isn’t the name I was given. But I gather Mrs. Bishop is new at the agency. I have no idea when we’ll be able to connect. So while you’re in my care, I want you kids sleeping on clean sheets and mattresses.”

“Hana wets. She don’t do it on purpose. The house mom said she wasn’t washin’ sheets for no brat big ’nuff to get up and go to the outhouse. I used to have a flashlight, but it broke. Hana’s scared to walk the trail by herself. I told her to wake me up, but she says I sleep too hard.”

“You mean…this bunkhouse has no bathroom, either?”

The boy’s stringy red hair slapped his ears as he shook his head.

“Where do you kids shower? Or bathe?” Linc amended his statement when the word shower drew a blank look from the boy.

“Fridays, Lydia used to toss me and Hana in the creek with a bar of soap. Before she took over from Judy Rankin, we got to wash in a dishpan Miz Judy set on the back porch. After the Tuckers came, they only let Cassie use the pan. On account of her not being able to get in the water ’cause of her twisted hip.”

A rough expulsion of breath left Lincoln’s lungs. “The news gets worse by the second. I can’t listen to any more. Except… Wolfie, how often did Mrs. Jacobs come to inspect the place? What agency worker would approve of kids living in such squalor?”

“She ain’t never come that I know. Not since she brung me and Hana here to live. Cassie and some others were already here. One house mister griped to Oasis, and somebody came at night and took the other kids away. That was before Rob Rankin. He said Oasis put them in another group home.” Climbing to his feet, the boy hiked a thin shoulder. “They coulda kilt ’em. That’s what Hana thinks.”

“I doubt that.” Although… Linc swept the room with a scowl. “How any adult could visit this mess and close his or her eyes to conditions here is beyond me. Look, I’m sure you have few reasons to trust anyone, but I wish you’d give me a chance. At least come back to the house and let your sister see that you haven’t run off without her. She was crying her eyes out when I left to find you.”

“Hana bawls a lot, but she’s only four. Don’t hold it against her, okay?”

“No, I wouldn’t hold crying against a child. How old are you, Wolfie?”

“Ten. I had my birthday last month. Lydia Tucker said I was just lying so she’d bake a cake. She never did, so Hana and Cassie think I’m still nine.”

Linc couldn’t even bring himself to comment on the Tuckers’ callous treatment of the children they were supposed to care for. He met the guarded eyes of the shivering boy. “Will you walk with me to the house?”

“O…kay,” Wolfie agreed, a catch in his voice. “But if anybody lays a hand on me or Hana, they’ll wish they hadn’t. I have sharp teeth and I can bite hard.”

“So George Tucker told me.” Linc waited to smile until he turned his back on the ten-year-old. “Biting’s not the way men solve things, Wolfie. Not even if they’re bad things. So before you go biting any of the folks up at the house, I’d like you to promise you’ll talk to me first. Trust me to handle the problem. Will you do that?”

“I ain’t makin’ no promises till I see.”

“I guess that’s fair enough. I’ve never met the older kids. But I suspect life’s been no picnic for them, either. I’ll start by giving them my house rules.”

“Rules?”

“Dos and don’ts. They’re pretty simple.”

“Oh.” The boy tucked his chin against his thin chest and tried to match Linc’s longer stride while leaving plenty of space between them.

Entering the ranch house provided instant respite from the stinging wind. The room was well lit and warm. The little dog dashed up, barking its head off. But otherwise, if Linc expected to walk into a beehive of activity, he was doomed to disappointment. Each teen appeared to have staked out his or her wedge of real estate. The three boys sat on the floor, propped against their possessions, which included backpacks and guitar cases. Randi and the other girl sat on a raised hearth in front of an empty fireplace. Hana and Cassie did their best to melt into a dark corner as far away as possible from the teens. To the last kid, all tensed visibly when Linc walked in with Wolfie.

Linc homed in on Randi. “Was Mrs. Tucker wrong about there being meat in the freezer?”

“I, uh, we didn’t check. Eric said we shouldn’t rummage in the kitchen without you. That way you can’t claim something ought to be there that isn’t.” At Linc’s vacant expression, she added a qualifier. “You know, in case you try to tell the cops we stole from you.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Lincoln loosely bracketed his hips with his hands. He studied the room’s occupants. One older boy wore a long, ratty velvet coat over holey jeans. The baggy pants of the other two dragged on the ground. One wore leather wrist bands. All had numerous earrings in both ears, and the girl with the lighter brown hair— Jenny—had her lip, eyebrow and, Lord knew what else, pierced. Distrustful expressions, identical to Wolfie’s, were mirrored five times over.

He slowly released a pent-up breath. “It’s safe to say the ranch doesn’t meet any of our expectations. I counted on having time to spruce it up and lay in supplies. And you thought you’d walk into an operating shelter.” Linc’s gaze shifted to Wolfie, his sister, and Cassie in her pint-sized wheelchair. “On top of that, I never planned on hosting…small children. But they’re here and will be until I reach the new director of Social Services.”

“None of us formed any preconceived notions,” Miranda muttered. “Why don’t we start over? Introduce ourselves, and then food can be our next priority.”

“Right.” Linc rubbed the back of his neck, beginning to feel overwhelmed by everything facing him. It embarrassed him that the girl, Randi, was the first to voice a mature approach. He was, after all, the adult in charge. Although it struck him that, as John Montoya had said, he’d jumped into this venture without a shred of actual experience.

“I’m Lincoln Parker,” he said. “Linc, if you like. Until a few weeks ago I lived and worked in Hollywood. My aim in starting this retreat is to provide a safe, substance-free home for up to a dozen teens who’ve lived hand-to-mouth on city streets.”

“Parker?” Jenny gasped. “You’re not Felicity’s brother, are you? I mean, you couldn’t be that Lincoln Parker.” She shot Eric a funny look and they both uttered uneasy choking sounds.

“As a matter of fact, I am that Parker.” Linc’s eyes clouded. He was getting a bad feeling about these kids again. “No. It’s too unbelievable to think you’d be… Not even the cops were able to find the kids who dumped my sister at an inner-city L.A. emergency room and then ran off.”

“We didn’t dump her,” Jenny sputtered. “Two cops at the ER told us to get lost.”

Eric scrambled to his feet. “Yeah, I went back the next day and nobody would tell me a thing. We heard later she’d OD’d. Felicity was our friend, you know.”

“I spent weeks combing backstreets, asking information of anyone who might have seen where you were.”

“Gosh, didn’t Felicity ever talk about us? When you were out of town, she let us crash at your place,” Jenny said edgily, beginning to chew her nails, which was something Miranda noticed the girl did in tense situations.

“You brought drugs into my home?”

“No!” Jenny seemed horrified.