Amy Frazier - Family By The Bunch

“In fact, we are.” Neesa sighed heavily. “I need every extra minute I can squeeze out of today. Unless I come up with a sponsor—and soon—for my Kids & Animals program idea, my supervisor’s going to make me abandon it. Trouble is, I have to find the sponsor on my own time. Between regular client appointments and paperwork.”

“But that idea’s a wonderful enrichment program. So many of the kids would benefit from it.”

“How I know it. But if I can’t find a sponsor, I can’t even get a pilot program off the ground. And until I can do that, my idea remains a creative frill.”

There were far too few frills in the lives of the kids Neesa dealt with daily. She grimaced. And unfortunately, these particular children experienced far too few of life’s necessities, as well. She worked for an unusual private group that helped government agencies find homes—both permanent and temporary—for hard-to-place kids. Kids with emotional problems. Kids with physical problems. Kids who might not ever have a loving home. If she couldn’t find them homes, she tried to find support programs to help them cope with life in a state-run institution.

She’d planned her Kids & Animals idea as just such a support program. For the children consistently left behind.

“I’m amazed you haven’t already thought of this!” Claire exclaimed.

“What?”

“Our temporary neighbor. Rancher Hank Whittaker.”

“What about him?”

“Ranch. Animals. Kids.” Claire beamed. “Duh!”

“But how to approach him?” Neesa tapped one finger rhythmically on the steering wheel. “I don’t know the man. He’s not even one of our neighbors. I can’t very well walk up to him and ask him for this huge commitment before the introductions are cold.”

“Use your imagination. Isn’t that what your agency pays you for?” Claire chuckled. “For instance, the pool opens tomorrow. The Russell kids are part fish. Wear your sunblock and play your cards right, and you’ll have the weekend to meet Gary Cooper, then convince him to sponsor Kids & Animals. His ranch would be perfect.”

Oh, Neesa had already thought of that. But an uneasy feeling made her hesitate before acting upon her thoughts. Heretofore, she’d never held back from a work-related challenge. Never hesitated to approach anyone who might be of help to her kids in need. What held her back now, however, was that long soulful stare she’d received just minutes ago. Something told her that in getting involved with Hank Whittaker—even professionally—she would be getting much more than she’d bargained for.

Lordy, but the suburbs were like an alien planet to him. Even the flower-lined sidewalks, swept and edged and weeded so that they formed a pristine ribbon throughout the neighborhood, seemed too unreal to walk on.

Having extracted himself from the bevy of moms at the bus stop, Hank Whittaker strode down the middle of the street to his cousin Evan Russell’s driveway and his own pickup truck. He had a full day’s worth of work to get in at his ranch before Casey and Chris Russell got home from school.

A full day’s work, that is, if he could concentrate around the image of the beautiful, blue-eyed woman in the tiny red sports car. Sakes alive, but he’d felt drawn to her. Instantly.

Such hogwash.

The only time he’d ever heard a real, living, breathing person tell of love at first sight was when his Pa, Jeb Whittaker, told the tale of the first time he’d seen Miss Lily, newly moved to Oklahoma, with her family at a square dance. Miss Lily had been so homesick for Georgia, and Jeb had been so smitten by the lovely Southern belle, that he’d determined right then and there that he’d be the one to carry her back to the state of her birth. He’d be the one to see her then-sad eyes light up and her beautiful face blossom into a smile. A week after Jeb had met Lily, he’d asked for her hand in marriage. A month later, married, they were settled in Georgia. And until his death, not two months after hers, Jeb Whittaker loved his wife with a blazing intensity. The love at first sight never diminished one iota.

Hank shook his head as he climbed into his truck. Fairy tales.

From experience he knew that far too many relationships—including Jeb and Lily’s—ultimately ended in the pain of loss.

Grumpily, he maneuvered his way out of the subdivision. His grumpiness didn’t arise from the weekend task at hand. He loved being with the Russell kids. They were part of his extended family. And he certainly didn’t mind doing a favor for cousin Evan and his wife Cilia if it meant they could patch up their marriage. But this living in big houses on tiny lots with your neighbors knowing your every move gave him the creeps. He liked his privacy. Even his hundred-acre ranch, with subdivisions increasingly ringing its borders, seemed too small at times. Just maybe he’d be the Whittaker brother to pull up stakes and buy a truly big spread out West.

Out West. The source of all his Pa’s tales. The source of the magnificent Whittaker boys’ childhood fantasies.

Not more than ten miles down the road from the Holly Mount subdivision, Hank turned his truck onto a dirt road and under a rustic arch hung with a sign that read Whispering Pines. His ranch. His refuge from a too quickly changing world.

Breathing a hearty sigh of relief, he drove between the fenced, rolling pastures toward home. In the distance he heard the soft nicker of his horses. Percherons. Red Suffolks. Draft horses that he bred, raised and trained to be loggers. In the old tradition.

He smiled to himself. Pa had always said that cowboy was a state of mind. Hank had carried that concept one step further. It was next to impossible to recreate a Western ranch in the foothills of the Piedmont, amid the tall Georgia pines. But if you believed that ranching was a constantly evolving state of mind, anything became possible.

The sprawling ranch house, ringed with pecan trees, came into view. To the right Tucker, his apprentice, worked an enormous gray Percheron in the paddock. To the left, near the kitchen garden, Willy, his foreman, waved his hat and shouted curses as a very large pot-bellied pig, a plume of red dust in his wake, ran for high ground.

Hank was in for one of Willy’s lectures.

Pulling his pickup truck in front of the bam, he waited a minute before getting out. Composed his facial features to eliminate any sign of a grin. Willy hated it when Hank didn’t take the feud between the foreman and the pig seriously.

“What the hell you doin’ back?” Willy’s weatherbeaten, toothless face popped up at the driver’s side window.

“Heard you needed help with a pig.”

Willy squinted and examined Hank’s face, most probably looking for any hint of amusement. “One of these days I’m gonna have Reba cook me up some pork chops.”

“You won’t. Reba loves that pig, and you love Reba.” Reba was Hank’s housekeeper and Willy’s unrequited love. Winking at the old man, Hank opened the truck door, then slid out. “No pig...no Reba.”

Willy spat a string of curses under his breath.

“To answer your question,” Hank continued, unable to suppress a smile, “I came back to work the ranch until Casey and Chris get out of school.”

Willy scowled. “No need. That young whippersnapper Tucker and me, we got it under control.”

“I don’t doubt it. But I couldn’t spend one more minute than necessary in that cramped subdivision. Not with folks living right on top of me. Breathing down my neck.”

Willy looked down at his boots. Scuffed one toe in the dust. “Kinda hoped you’d meet a purty woman,” he muttered.

An image of the beautiful blonde in the sports car sprang unbidden to mind. “Now why would you want that?” Hank asked defensively.