Forever's Affection (Forever In Luck Series Book 3) Read online

  Except that every time his brain answered the question with one name, his heart answered with two. If he were honest, this was about the most helpless and hopeless he’d ever felt in his life, and he’d had a few struggles, what with his mom’s unexpected death and Vanessa’s betrayal. But this took the cake.

  “Son, what’s going on?”

  Hearing his dad’s voice helped ground him. “I don’t know what to say or where to begin.”

  “How about at the beginning?”

  He nodded and closed his eyes, swallowing before beginning. “Okay…okay…for starters I want to thank you for everything you’ve ever done for us, and…” He lost his momentum.

  Clearing his throat, his dad answered, “Thank you, I appreciate that. Kris, it appears something has happened. As you’ve been spending time at the ranch, I’m wondering if Dani’s alright.”

  His head fell back and his eyes landed on an old plaque that had hung on the wall his entire life. It read, God Bless This Family. Dropping his head, he stared and fiddled with a napkin he found in front of him. “I don’t know. I mean, I just left her place, she’s there and she’s alive, but she’s into something bad, and…and I think she’s being exploited. I don’t know how much of it is a willingness on her part, as opposed to out and out coercion, but…but she has a child, and something isn’t right. I’m concerned, very concerned, for the two of them, and when I tried to talk to her, she basically told me she doesn’t need my help and to leave.” Surprise, surprise, it was Nik who started in.

  “We are still talking about the nut buster of a woman who knows her way around a whip, the one that sat here eating breakfast with us, right?”

  Staring at the table, he nodded. “Yep, the very same one.”

  “How do you know she has a child?”

  He grunted and looked at all the faces around the table. “I just came from the airport where we picked her up. By all appearances, Dani wasn’t expecting her, and for reasons I can only imagine, Dani’s mom had her and stuck her on a plane all by herself and sent her here without telling Dani till the plane was practically ready to land.”

  “What? How old is she?” Linnie asked in surprise.

  “Four,” he ground out, feeling himself getting pissed all over again.

  Eyes popped open around the table, and Linnie sought verification. “Excuse me, did you say four, as in four years old…on a plane…by herself, and Dani didn’t know?”

  Leaning back, he rubbed his face, trying to rid himself of the tension that was building. “Yep, and something’s not right. She was real happy to see Dani and talked a little when we first picked her up, but then she just sat there quiet as a mouse, never uttering a peep. She clung to Dani and wouldn’t let her put her down. She asked Dani if I was a nice man and Dani said I was. Junie wanted me to hold her, clearly scared and insecure when Dani had to put her down. She clung to one of us the whole evening, and it just gets worse from there. The child’s been neglected and she has a pretty severe speech impediment.”

  “And you say you talked with Dani and she doesn’t want help?” his dad asked, looking at him directly.

  “Yep,” he said with a snap. “We got into a bit of an argument over it, actually”

  Now it was Jules’s turn. “Oh boy, what did you say?”

  “I told her she had an obligation to keep Junie safe and encouraged her to get a respectable job that did just that. But nope, she’s going back to what she knows how to do. I clearly pointed out that she could get herself killed and then asked her who’d take care of Junie then. You know what her answer was? She told me not to judge her, that she does what she has to, and that she has no choice in the matter.”

  “Kris, how into this woman are you?” Linnie asked.

  Letting out a bark of laughter, Kris sat thinking, then shook his head. “You know, this is so ironic, so incredibly, pathetically ironic. This deal with Dani should be right up my alley, but it’s not, and knowing that men will be treating her the way I’ve treated others is just, well, unbelievable. God, I feel like such an ass. After the deal with Vannie, I’ve had no desire for anything serious with a woman, none, absolutely none, until now.”

  “Why now, what’s so different about this one?” Nate asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. When I look at her, I see this intelligent, talented woman who shares many of the same interests as me. Once we get past all the scrappy insecurity, we have so much to do and talk about. She loves to hunt, and fish, and she works with animals, she doesn’t complain, she works hard, and she enjoys simple easy things. She’s not the typical girly, girl, thank God, and I found this all out before I saw what she actually looks like.”

  “Did you sleep with her?” Jake asked, straight up.

  “No! Not even close.”

  Jake didn’t appear convinced. “Then what do you mean, what does she actually look like?”

  “You saw her, she dresses like a man. Couple that with her tough girl talk, and it’s like she wants to be unattractive.” He started laughing. “I went over there unannounced, brought her dinner, and she came to the door wearing hip-waders.”

  There were chuckles all around.

  “By the time I set the food on the counter and found her in the next room, she was standing there in a tank top and shorts looking over fishing lures.”

  More chuckling and snickering.

  He continued, “We all know she’s tall, which is a bonus with a capital B for me, but she’s thin for her size and you wouldn’t know it for the clothes she wears. And get this, her hair, its naturally curly. She has long, wavy, loose curls everywhere. There’s absolutely no doubt she’s a woman, and she’s damn attractive.”

  “So you’re serious about this one, is that what you’re saying?” Nate said, summing it up more than truly asking the question.

  Taking a deep breath, he nodded his head. “Yep, pretty much. She is, by far, the most interesting person I’ve ever met in my life, and come four o’clock this afternoon, I’d pretty much decided I’d found the one person in the world who could get me to change my mind on the future. Then the phone rang and everything started unraveling at the seams.”

  Sitting back in her chair, Linnie asked the billion dollar question. “So what do you want to do now?”

  Frustration flared to life in him. “I don’t know what to do? All I could think about while all this was going on, was getting home and talking with all of you. I remember thinking about you being a nurse, and what we’ve learned from Nate in dealing with PTSD, and Jules being alone and having had to navigate the court system, and…and…I just don’t know what to do. She won’t accept my help, that’s for damn sure, but I wonder if she’d accept it from you and Jules.”

  Linnie and Jules stared at one another for a bit, then Linnie took a deep breath and turned back to him. “We’ll try, we will, but you need to know it can be really hard to get a woman out of situations like this, because the reality is most of them have very little to work with in a way to help themselves. So, all I can say is, we’ll try.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Dani was in the pasture brushing down the Friesian while Junie played in the shade with her toy horses. It’d been all her mother had sent, some stupid toy horses in a nasty, dirty backpack. She really hated that woman, and damned if she didn’t struggle with the guilt of it. Regular, normal people do not go around hating their mothers, she thought, but then they hadn’t had Tippy Reed for a mother either.

  Dani couldn’t do anything but shake her head, she was so disgusted, and she felt a growl bubble up inside her. Oh, did she loathe that woman. She honestly didn’t know of any other mother who cared less for her children than hers did. It was unfathomable to her, why just looking at Junie filled her heart with so much love it was breathtaking.

  Licorice nickered and took a couple steps back.

  “Sorry boy,” Dani said, patting and soothing the horse, “didn’t realize I was getting a little rough.”

  Hearing
a car approaching, Dani turned to see Linnie’s car coming down the driveway. Great, either here to sprinkle cheer and wisdom on the stupid who should know better, or here to spy and take stock for a report to the county. Lot of good that would do, other than make their lives more difficult than they already were. She gave it a week till children’s protective services showed up. So much for starting over, new place, same old stuff.

  “Hey, Dani,” Linnie yelled and waved, as she got out of the car. “Jules and I saw you in the pasture on our way to Café Wren to get coffee. We brought you back some. Black as pitch and thick as tar was what we ordered. How you doing?”

  May as well get this over with, she headed their way. “I’ll say thanks, but you shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry but I’m not feeling up to company.” Well there, rather straight forward and to the point.

  Linnie and Jules looked at each other uneasily, then turned back to Dani.

  “We, ahhh, kind of wondered if you’d feel that way,” Jules said, gently. “You must be tired with everything that’s happened in the last week.”

  Pure silence. Dani let that statement dangle out there. The three of them simply looking at one another and not saying anything.

  It was back to Linnie, who said softly, “Dani, can we be honest and up front with you?”

  Dani stood looking at them, thinking there was nothing these women could say or do that would make one lick of difference, she trusted no one. “Sure, why not, then you can report back that you tried,” she responded with a clip.

  More Silence.

  “Okay, yes,” Linnie said, “Kris asked us to come here, out of concern for you and Junie. He had hoped that as we are women that you might be more apt to accept our offer of assistance, as his attempt to talk with you didn’t—”

  Dani’s laugh carried the cynicism she felt inside. “Oh that’s rich! Is that what he said? That he attempted to talk with me? That’s a load of horseshit. You tell him that when people in Luck, Wisconsin talk, they can’t be heard all the way to Minneapolis. It’s a shame, you two must’ve been sleeping, it was quite the show.”

  Undeterred, Jules stepped in. “Ummm, Dani, I wonder if Kris has told you anything about us? Linnie and me, I mean.”

  Dani shrugged her shoulders, like seriously, who cared. “Ahh, not really, you’re married to his brother and were hurt real bad, and you’re his sister and your husband has PTSD. That’s about it.”

  Linnie stepped closer, and looked Dani directly in the eyes. “If at all possible, I’d like to take Kris out of this, and I want to be completely honest with you. I’m an ER trauma nurse, I work in the hospital, and Jules is a pharmacist, whose background is in research. Given our professions, we respect and value confidentiality. We come to you on the level, Dani, woman to woman, and offer our assistance to you should you want it, as we have the means and ability to do so.”

  “My dad, he has a little saying, it goes, everything happens for a reason…I can tell you this, of all the families in Wisconsin you could have met, you were brought to ours for a reason.”

  Dani didn’t spend the time thinking about it because she’d never been good with the smart stuff, instead she went with what was in her heart, love for Junie. “Yes. Yes, I need help. I need to get Junie to a doctor.”

  Linnie reached out and gave her hand a squeeze. “Alright, we can help you. How about we all go inside and talk a little. You can introduce us to Junie, and we’ll go from there. Does that sound acceptable?”

  Dani couldn’t speak, so she just nodded her head. Walking over to Junie, she took her in her arms, grabbed her backpack, and headed for the house.

  *****

  Sitting on the couch later that evening, Kris stared at the television, but couldn’t have told you what was on or what was being said. His mind was on Dani and Junie. He had worried about them all day. All day. All damn day. If you would’ve asked him, he wouldn’t have been able to explain it, because he’d never worried like this before. Not even when the crops were failing, or livestock commodities were falling, or dairy futures were going sour, and there had been plenty to worry about there.

  This was different, it was like a level of panic with an angry edge, and his extreme desire was to swoop in and take control of her situation. Except people in her situation were not looking for a hero, they were looking to be strong on their own. They needed to be in control of their own life to gain back some level of confidence and trust that had been taken from them.

  The worry was damn near killing him, and the only thing that was keeping a lid on it was his knowing that Linnie and Jules had been with her all day. Getting up, he went outside and walked along to the northeast edge of the property, to a little alcove surrounded by trees that hid the structure of his house. Stepping up the makeshift stairs, he opened the door and went inside. The sound of him walking across the barren floor echoed throughout the rooms.

  Stopping, he looked around him. He’d been working on this for darn near two years now, his dad having given him twenty acres. Farming the land during the summer, he drove bus and plowed snow in the winter, all the while paying for things as he’d gone along. With time on his hands, he’d always placed himself here, happy and alone. Except now, he didn’t want to be alone, and realized he’d simply been building a house, not a home.

  God, what had happened? It was like he’d had a lobotomy. Six days ago, he’d been a content bachelor sneaking off to some woman’s bed without a thought or care to his motivation, but now…not so much so. It was a decent house, and he remembered telling the builder he wanted high ceilings and doorways to accommodate for his stocking-footed six-five height, throw on some boots and his head was grazing the average doorway. The builder had had a simple solution, get rid of as much ceiling and doorway as possible. He went with it, and now had a nice little modified A-frame, with a loft and open floor plan below.

  It intrigued him that he could look in any direction of this place and envision Dani and Junie there. He could see it, clear as can be, and he wanted it to be so. Junie…his little koala bear. That’s what his mind saw when he thought of her, those little arms of hers holding on tight, her head resting on his shoulder. Then the two little pigtails… Oh man, it had been one day, one stinking day since she’d captured his heart, and he cared deeply for that little peanut. All he could think was that he had to of lost his mind.

  Glancing over to the dining area, he could see the three of them sitting at their imaginary table eating, and then cuddled up on their imaginary couch talking in front of the fireplace that went to the peaked ceiling above. It felt serene, and it felt right. Looking to the kitchen, he saw Junie standing on a chair playing with soapy bubbles in the sink, and then at the counter making cookies with Dani. He smiled. He wanted it, all of it, and he wanted it bad.

  Going down the hall, Kris peeked into the two bedrooms the builder insisted be included in the design and decided which one he’d want to be Junie’s if it was ever to be. He needed to send the builder a thank you for not listening to him when he said he wouldn’t be needing these rooms. Now, he was damn grateful, and his mind could imagine kid stuff everywhere.

  Walking to the other room he stared inside, then looked to the ceiling above, imaging him and Dani in the loft working on filling this room. This was crazy. This was absolutely crazy, he thought, and it was way, way, way too premature to be thinking like this. He didn’t even know if she wanted more children. There was so much that had to be figured out and dealt with, that this future as he imagined it, was really nothing more than a pipe dream.

  The tapers and mudders would be done in a couple days, then time for painting, cabinets, and flooring. Going to the door, he stopped and looked back through the dimming light, and figured that if all he’d imagined was nothing more than a dream, it was nice while it lasted. Turning, he headed out the door.

  *****

  A few days after their argument, Dani came home to a yard full of neatly trimmed trees. Getting out of her truck, she looke
d around, pleased with what she saw. She’d been gone all day, and Kris had obviously been here working for most of it. She could see the tire tracks of a large truck throughout the yard. He’s a good man, he meant well, and he was only looking out for you and Junie, she heard her heart say, but still, she was mad. Well, kind of.

  She should probably pay him and call it done, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it quite yet. After all, he was the one who had yelled at her. Ah hell, who was she trying to kid, she was a glutton for punishment, it was her life’s purpose so it would seem. Hearing her counselor’s words, she thought of things they had talked about.

  She should not let Kris get away with yelling at her, and she was right to not let him get away with cutting her off when she tried to explain things. She should have used their code word though. Was she trying to rationalize and excuse his actions? Where was the line between poor behavior and verbal and emotional abuse. Was his behavior, albeit poor, still normal? Is the how, what, and why of what happened, the way normal functioning people argued?

  She didn’t know, but what she did know was that although he’d yelled at her and cut her off, it was the most normal argument she’d ever had with a man, or woman for that matter. There was no name calling, nothing was thrown, there was no hitting or swearing, no one was physically maimed, or forced into something they didn’t want, there were no guns, or knives, and they both walked away when needed without incident. Now that was saying something, she thought. Given her book of life, this was pivotal.

  She needed to be honest. She didn’t want to give that up. Seriously, this was progress for her. He’s a good man, whose heart is in the right place, she heard herself saying again. He’s just missing a ton of details and once he has the full story, he’ll understand you did everything you could. She needed him to be at the rodeo Friday night, and she needed to look her best. No more hiding away. She’d moved here to reclaim her life and she needed to do just that, here and now.