Renegade Father by RaeAnne Thayne Page B

couple of horses for us.”
    He knew that stubborn light in her green eyes only too well. “You’re not going to budge on this, are you?”
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    He sighed. “That I’d better go saddle a couple of horses.”
    His disgruntled tone finally pierced her determination. Too late, she absorbed the particulars of the room, details she’d overlooked in her worry over Dolly—the mystery novel straddling the arm of the chair, the low jazz murmuring from the stereo, the steam curling up from a mug of what looked like hot cocoa.
    And he was dressed for relaxing, in soft, faded jeans and a charcoal sweater that made the black of his hair stand out.
    How dense could she be? He’d obviously been settling in for a cozy night in front of the fire and here she was filling up what was probably his only time to unwind with more of her problems.
    When was she going to learn to take care of her troubles by herself without constantly bothering him with them?
    She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Joe. I wasn’t thinking. I should have realized I was intruding on your time off. Don’t worry about Dolly, you don’t have to help me. I’ll find her—just go back to your book.”
    He didn’t answer her, just gave her the same “don’t be stupid” look he used to aim at her when they were younger and she would try to ride home by herself from the Broken Spur in the dark.
    â€œCome on,” he finally said. “I’ll walk you to the house on the way to the horse barn.”
    Reluctantly, she followed him out the door. The snowstill drifted down slowly, big fat flakes that shimmered in the glow from the vapor light on a power pole between the foreman’s cottage and what had always been called the big house. The temperatures had dropped into the teens, she figured. He was right, she should have been more sensible and worn her heavier coat.
    He shortened his steps to compensate for her much shorter stride and they walked up the drive in silence. After that charged encounter inside his house, she was intensely aware of him, of his dark hair curling slightly over his collar and the determined set of his mouth and the way his shoulders filled the bulky material of his coat.
    They were cry-on-me shoulders, as she knew only too well. She was always entirely too quick to take him up on it, to turn to him whenever she had a crisis.
    Why was that? she wondered. What was it about Joe that compelled everyone to lean on him?
    When she was a girl she was always running to him with every little injustice in her stupid, sheltered life: a poor grade on a school assignment, another child on the playground who pulled her hair, an unkind word from her father.
    She cringed now to think of all the times she had gone whining to him. He had always been so calm, wise beyond his years, with an air of quiet, calming strength that she had shamelessly exploited.
    It should have been the other way around. He’d had far more to cry about in his life. She had known what it was like at home for him. Maybe not the full extent of it, but she could guess with pretty grim accuracy now, especially after being married to Charlie for ten years.
    Charlie had never touched the children, though; shewouldn’t have tolerated it for a second if he had. Albert Redhawk, on the other hand, had been indiscriminate with his cruelty, dispensing it freely to his first and second wives and to the son he had from each.
    Joe wouldn’t discuss his home life. At least not honestly.
    She remembered asking him once when they were riding home together on the bus why his mother never smiled or laughed. She could vividly remember wishing fiercely that she could take the question back when his mouth quivered like he was going to cry.
    But he hadn’t cried, instead he had made up some silly story about how an evil shaman put a curse on Mary. If she ever smiled again, she would have to give