Dusty shrugged. “I’ll have the same.” As the waitress hurried off with their order, he turned back to Jake and thrust one of the chilled Coronas across the table. “You’re a stubborn man, Jake O’Reilly. At least I’m buying the beer.”
“Thanks.” Jake took a swig, savoring the coldness and the taste. “What I really need is to know what your game is. I never expected to see you again, and now you show up and spend a thousand bucks bailing me out. What’s in this for you? What do you want?”
The old man’s eyes, a deep, startling shade of blue, gazed into Jake’s. “It’s simple enough. I want to take you back to Tucson and give you a job on my ranch.”
“What the hell?” Jake stared at him. “I don’t know anything about ranch work. I’ve never even been on a damned horse.”
“Maybe not. But there’s plenty you could do. I know about your engineering degree, so you should be handy with tools. And some of the kids we work with could use another man around the place.”
“The kids?”
“Teenagers with troubles—at risk, that’s what Kira calls them. She runs a horse therapy program to help them.”
Kira.
Why was this all beginning to make some kind of crazy sense?
“What about Paige?” he asked.
“Your little girl needs to see her father, Jake. She’s getting old enough to wonder why you never came back for her.”
Jake’s fingers tightened around his glass, hard enough to whiten his knuckles. “I never came back for her because I’m not fit to be a father. The nightmares in my head, the memories of what happened over there—I could scare her, even hurt her without meaning to. I shouldn’t be with kids. I shouldn’t really be with anybody.”
“So you just plan to keep running. Is that it?” The wise blue eyes seemed to skewer him to the back of the booth.
“I spent five weeks in the VA hospital before I got tired of talking to their shrinks. ‘Give it time,’ they said. ‘Maybe it’ll go away.’ That was almost two years ago. It hasn’t.”
Dusty set down his beer and leaned across the table. “Come home with me, Jake. Come and do some good where you’re needed.”
“Nobody needs me,” Jake said.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I need you because I’m getting old. Paige needs you because you’re her father. And Kira—she needs you, too.”
“Why would Kira need me?” He pictured Wendy’s cousin, so smart, so driven. How could a woman like Kira need anybody?
“Kira needs you to forgive her for what happened. Maybe if you can do that, she’ll finally be able to forgive herself.”
Jake stared down into his glass. He’d seen the police report. Kira’s Toyota Corolla, with Wendy in the passenger seat and two-year-old Paige strapped into her car seat in the back, had been hit by a drunk driver, late at night. The big SUV had T-boned the small sedan, killing Wendy outright. Kira had walked away with cuts and bruises. Paige, thank God, had been untouched.
“You know Kira didn’t cause the accident,” Dusty said.
“I know.” But if Kira hadn’t been out at that hour, on that street, with his wife and daughter in her car, Wendy—his one hope of becoming a whole man again—would still be alive.
The waitress, arriving with their meals, broke the tense silence. The burger was first-rate—as it should have been for the price. Jake could’ve wolfed his down, but he forced himself to eat slowly, matching the old man bite for bite. They were almost finished when Dusty spoke.
“Let me make you a practical offer. You owe me a thousand dollars, money you promised to pay back. I’ll hire you on as a maintenance man at twenty dollars an hour, half of that to go toward repayment, the other half to you. Once the loan’s paid, you’re off the hook. You can stay or go. I’ve got an empty guest cabin where you can live rent free, meals included. That’s the best deal you’re going to get anywhere.”
Jake scowled down at his empty plate. It was a generous offer, more than generous. And if he said no, he’d be welching on a loan he’d be hard-put to repay, sacrificing the one thing he had left—his honor.
The old man was no fool. He had sprung a clever trap, and Jake was caught in it.
“So what do you say?” Dusty asked.
Jake exhaled slowly. “I’ll need to go by my place and pick up a few things.”
“Fine. I’m pretty beat after driving up here. We can get a motel for the night, or if you’re up
to driving, I can sleep on the way home.”