The Black Sheep's Baby. Kathleen Creighton
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as answers and ideas went, he was fresh out. And he hadn’t much hope of finding any new ones waiting for him in his mom’s old barn, either. Stupid idea.
Still…amazingly, there was something calming about working alone in the early morning quiet, cleaning out stalls by the gentle light of a hanging lamp. It had been a long time since he’d wielded a pitchfork or shoveled manure—not activities he’d ever relished in his youth—and he was mildly surprised to discover it felt good to work up a sweat. He’d actually taken off his jacket and, finally, even his shirt.
His mom and dad had been in and out, starting the morning chores. He’d stopped shoveling long enough to ask his mom who was looking after the baby. She’d given him a searching look before answering, “She’s still asleep. I asked Devon to keep an ear out for her.”
He’d had nothing to say to that, and had just nodded and gone back to shoveling, using the physical activity and his own sweat to dampen down the fiery sizzle of anger in his belly.
After that, his parents, no doubt remembering his old habits, had pretty much ignored him. Still, he’d been glad when they’d finished the chores and gone back to the house, and the quiet he remembered, if not the peace, had settled once more around him.
When he again felt a cold blast of arctic air and heard the storm’s howl rise abruptly from a muted roar to a banshee’s scream, he thought it must be his mom or dad come back, probably to tell him the little one was awake. When he saw instead the bundled shape of someone that couldn’t possibly be either of his parents, his heart gave a leap, then settled down to a quick, angry thumping.
He watched in impassive silence while the figure, clumsy in snow-dusted parka and rubber chore boots several sizes too big for her, struggled to push the door closed against the buffeting wind. She gave a wordless cry of victory when she succeeded in dropping the latch into its cradle, then whipped around and leaned against the door, breathing hard.
She looks scared to death, Eric thought, amused. As though she’d just managed to escape a pack of ravenous wolves.
Oh, he wanted to feel contempt for her, this thin-blooded California girl, threatened by a little snowstorm. He tried. But…dammit, there was something fierce, even triumphant about the way she threw back the hood of her parka and shook out that fiery hair of hers, and try as he would, he couldn’t manage to convince himself it was contempt he really felt.
She came toward him, absently brushing snow from her coat and looking around her like someone who’d been magically transported to an alien world. Rather the opposite, he thought, of Dorothy finding herself in Oz.
“What do you want?” he asked before she’d gotten far; he couldn’t explain why he didn’t want her coming close to him. “She awake?”
“What? Oh—no, Emily’s still sleeping, or was when I left. Anyway, your mom…” Apparently fascinated by the barn, she’d finally got around to looking at him, only to do a double take and interrupt herself with a blunt, “Aren’t you cold?”
Eric glanced down at his naked chest. “Only when I stand around,” he said meaningfully, and twirling the scoop, rammed it, with more energy than was necessary, under layers of dirty, wet, trampled-down straw. He heaved the shovelful toward the pile he’d been building in the center aisle without checking to see if his visitor was out of the way or not, and got an infantile satisfaction when he heard her exclamation of dismay.
Didn’t slow her down a bit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her skirt the manure pile, brushing straw off of her parka sleeve now, instead of snow, and come to lean her elbows on the gate of the stall next to the one he was working in.
He went on shoveling, thinking if he ignored her she’d take the hint and go away. No such luck. Apparently lawyers didn’t understand subtlety. Looked like, if he wanted to get rid of the woman, he was going to have to use more direct measures.
He stopped shoveling, and scoop held at the ready, said, “What do you want?” just as she opened her mouth to say something. A lifelong habit of good manners—for which he could thank his mom and dad’s stubbornness—made him halt and give her a sardonic go-ahead shrug.
“I was going to say I didn’t know you were a photographer.”
It wasn’t what he’d expected. He lowered the shovel blade to the floor and leaned on the handle. “My mom been blabbing?”
“No. I went to check on the baby and saw the photos in your room. I asked about them, and she told me they were yours. And that you’re a professional photographer.”
He gave a soft grunt and corrected it. “Photojournalist.”
She said, “Ah,” and went on looking at him in a searching, appraising kind of way he found intensely annoying.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he said after a moment, smiling without amusement. “What did you think? Yeah, I have a profession, even earn a living at it, pay taxes and everything. You just assumed I was some homeless street person?”
“Why shouldn’t I think that?” she shot back, riled and defensive. “How else would you have met my sister, much less—”
“Got her pregnant?”
Devon closed her eyes and held up a hand to stop him in case he meant to say more, which he sure as hell didn’t. As far as Eric was concerned, any conversation with this woman was a waste of time.
“Look,” she said, taking in a long draught of air through her nose—the smell of which seemed to surprise her a bit, since her eyes got watery and she blinked and gave her head a little shake to clear it before she went on. “I just thought, since we apparently got off on the wrong foot this morning—” She broke off. Eric was shaking his head.
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