“Sincere,” he muttered. “A patsy.”
But he spoke without conviction. She’d nailed his problem with Chase in one try. That Zane didn’t know how to walk the line between being a father and being a brother.
He wanted better for Chase than he’d had for himself. Wasn’t that what parents always said? Zane did want that for his brother, but he didn’t know how to make it happen. He didn’t know how to save him from regrets. Zane tried. He would have done anything to keep Chase from having the same empty feeling Zane had when he thought about his own life.
As Chase’s surrogate father, he wanted the kid to make the right choices. As Chase’s brother, he wanted him to feel that he was good enough. That he was important. That he mattered.
Zane shook his head. Had he succeeded on even one of those points? The tightness in his gut told him the answer was no.
* * *
“YOU THINK COOKIE would give me some ice to put in a bucket?” C.J. asked her husband when they’d finished rubbing down their horses. “I’d like to sit in ice water for a while.”
Thad stretched out his arm to hug her and pull her close. “If you promised to eat meat, I think Cookie would do just about anything.”
C.J. chuckled. “Andrea isn’t making friends with him, that’s for sure. While I appreciate her beliefs, shouldn’t she have made sure she could get vegetarian meals before she and Martin signed up? After all, the purpose of the vacation is to herd cattle. Doesn’t that imply beef to you?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Maybe she didn’t read the fine print. Martin seems nice enough. I saw him sneaking a strip of bacon this morning when Andrea wasn’t looking.”
“You’re kidding. Good for him.” C.J. wrinkled her nose. “Why does he let her push him around?”
“Men have always done foolish things for the women they love.”
“Oh, really? What foolish things have you done for me lately?”
He raised and lowered his eyebrows. “I’d be willing to do several tonight.”
“In a tent?” She made herself sound more shocked than she really was.
“In a tent. Out of a tent. Your call.” He leaned close and dropped his voice to a whisper. “How about if I start by massaging your aching fanny?”
“That works for me.”
They made their way into the camp. Andrea’s shrill voice cut through the quiet of the afternoon. C.J. winced.
“I wonder what she’s complaining about now. It’s not just that she’s a vegetarian, it’s that she’s so rabid about it. She told me she’d brought ‘feminine’ supplies with her so that if I got my period, I was to let her know. Apparently she has special tampons she buys that are organic or unbleached or made out of recycled paper or something.”
Thad sighed. “Poor Andrea. She must be very unhappy. She could take a lesson from Eddie and Gladys. Those are two women who know how to live.”
C.J. wasn’t thrilled about the shift in topic. While she agreed that the old ladies seemed to be extraordinarily happy, she couldn’t help thinking they had probably been blessed with trouble-free lives.
“Hey, Thad! Look what we found.”
C.J. stiffened as she heard Tommy’s voice. Lucy and her brother broke through the trees on the edge of the clearing. The boy held something in his hand as he raced toward them. Lucy was a few steps behind. C.J. opened her mouth to warn him to slow down or he would fall, then pressed her lips together. Every time she made a comment like that both children looked at her as if she were the biggest bitch on the planet. Worse, C.J. was pretty sure they were right.
A small log lay between Tommy and them. The boy jumped over it easily, then came down on both feet. But something happened because, instead of staying solidly planted, his right foot slid out from under him. He threw his arms open wide to try and find his balance. Whatever he’d been holding went flying as he tumbled to his knees and skidded on the dirt.
C.J. winced as he rolled over, and she saw the blood and dirt on his knee. She and Thad started toward him. Thad sprinted ahead and got there first. He sank next to Tommy and pulled him close.
“That had to hurt,” he said calmly. “Let’s take a look and see what you’ve done.”
Tommy winced as he thrust out his leg. C.J. crouched down and examined the ugly scrape.
“We’ll need the first-aid kit,” she said. “Cookie said he has one.”
Lucy bent over her brother’s injury. “You okay?”
He nodded, but didn’t speak. C.J. figured he was trying not to cry. She thought about telling him it was okay to cry, that no one would think less of him, but she didn’t know how to express herself without coming off as superior. Better to do something practical.
She rose and headed toward the cook fire. She found the old man pouring barbecue sauce over chicken breasts and quickly explained what had happened. Cookie dug out a large first-aid kit and handed it to her.
“Tell the kid it’s gonna be okay,” the old man said. “We’re having strawberry shortcake for dessert.”
She wasn’t sure that the promise of shortcake was enough to ease Tommy’s pain, but it was worth a try. Maybe thinking about it would distract him from the worst of it. They would have to clean the wound. Did the first-aid kit have something that wouldn’t sting? She would—
C.J. came to a sudden stop. She and Thad had left their saddlebags in a heap when they’d gone off to take care of their horses. Now Lucy was crouched in front of them. She had the flaps open and was quickly going through the contents.