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She was a damsel in distress, yet he couldn’t be her hero. He’d never get close to a wild card like Sofia. So why was he attracted to a woman he couldn’t trust? One with a child who might—or might not—be his nephew? Clearly, Jesse had cared about the child enough to sing him lullabies. That fact, however, didn’t make Javi his son.
Or a Cade.
To believe in Sofia, James needed solid proof. Without it, he’d put his mother at risk. His thoughts returned to Sofia and how she’d charmed him earlier.
Was his mother’s heart all he needed to worry about?
CHAPTER FIVE (#uf5b4362c-ec62-533f-b5d9-4cbadaa1af01)
“DOGGONE IT!”
At a clattering bang, Sofia stopped tossing a salad and whirled from her place at the ranch’s granite kitchen island. Javi peered up from a coloring book spread across an oval table before a bay window. Over his shoulder loomed Mount Sopris. The setting sun gilded its jagged, snow-covered peak gold.
Joy gaped at an upended kettle and cradled her Ace-wrapped wrist. Steaming brown stew spilled onto the red Native American–style rug covering the pine floor. The mouthwatering smell of bay leaves, cooked carrots and braised beef, already filling the vaulted kitchen, intensified.
“Let me help.” Sofia grabbed the pot and dropped it into one of the countertops’ built-in stainless-steel sinks. She flipped on the garbage disposal and dumped the ruined dinner down the grinding mechanism. James had mentioned looking forward to beef stew on the drive home earlier. Would he be disappointed? And why did she care?!
Clearly, he was suspicious of her. After she’d refused to visit the police, a trip that would have triggered bad memories and risked revealing her old felony, he’d barely spoken to her.
“I want to help!” Javi scampered over, his face glowing, his compact body practically vibrating with excitement.
Resistance was futile. The kid lived to help.
She ruffled his hair and handed him a couple of paper towels. “Get down with your bad self.”
“I’m using my superpowers.” Javi sank to the floor, the tip of his pink tongue clamped between his teeth as he concentrated. His long sweeps smeared the stew farther into the small spaces between the wood planks.
“Supper’s ruined.” Joy sighed when she returned from the laundry room, where she’d dropped off the rug. “I wanted to make tonight special for you.” She leaned against one of the natural wood cabinets that matched the floor and the exposed-beam, slanted ceiling. Her apron tie knot unraveled in her hands.
Javi sat back on his heels and waved a dripping towel. “I don’t like beef stew anyway. Celery is bleh.”
“Hush,” Sofia hissed, mortified. They were guests here, at least for one more night, while she figured out her options.
Her wallet couldn’t have just disappeared. Someone had to have it. Worse, Javi and Joy seemed to be joined at the hip already, spending every minute forming a bond that was becoming harder and harder to imagine severing when they left.
Was a lasting relationship with the Cades possible? At least from a distance? Joy seemed to be comforted by Javi, and Javi bloomed under his grandmother’s doting.
Or would staying in touch keep her chained to her past?
“It is kind of bleh,” Joy said, her tone conspiratorial. A sparkle brightened her eyes. “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”
Javi moved close and dropped his voice. “It’s our secret?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t like secrets.”
Sofia cringed inside.
Please, oh, please, don’t ever learn about mine.
“Honesty’s a good policy to have, young man. And you can put those paper towels outside in the trash.”
“What else can I throw out?” Javi picked up a chipped ceramic saltshaker. “This is old.”
“It is. It came all the way from Chicago when your great-great-great-great-grandfather ordered it from the Sears and Roebuck catalog over a hundred years ago.”
“What’s a catalog?”
“A book with pictures of different things you can buy.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Oh, anything back then. You name it. Rifles, chickens, fur coats, even a house. There’s one in town I can show you someday if you’re still here. They decorate it like it’s a Las Vegas casino. Blinking lights everywhere, a singing snowman and Santa on the roof.”
When her hopeful eyes met Sofia’s, Sofia hurried to the broom closet. She had plenty of reasons to stick around, the most disturbing of which was her sudden interest in James Cade. When he’d smiled at her bungled lyrics, her breath had caught for a second, long enough for interest in the man to take hold.
“Santa doesn’t like me.” Javi raced out the back door. A thunderclap of joyous howls rose from the Border collies.
“He thinks Santa doesn’t like him?”
“I’ve tried telling him that Santa loves all kids the same, even if they don’t get a visit, but...” Her words stumbled to a halt. It pained her to think of all the holidays they’d had to do without, the times she’d had to explain to Javi why Santa hadn’t come that year. Or the next.
“Well, now. That’s a sad enough thing.”
“We have each other. Plus, Javi’s never known anything different.”
“Christmas used to be Jesse’s favorite holiday.”
They smiled faintly at each other. “I remember.”
“Guess we haven’t done much celebrating here, either, not since...” Sadness weighed down Joy’s friendly face, making her seem older and less present somehow. It was like looking at a hologram. Sofia’s heart went out to her.
“Anyway,” Joy said, straightening, brisk. “Here I am thinking of myself, when you’ve only just learned about Jesse. I wish you hadn’t had to find out this way.”
“Yes.”
“Where did you and Jesse meet?”
Sofia glanced at the shut door and lowered her voice. Her heart pounded. How she hated dredging up this old stuff, but she couldn’t deny another mother details about her son. “At the Alano House.”
“Six years ago.”
“Yes.”
Joy’s chest rose and fell with the force of her sigh. “Jesse couldn’t stay sober. And Lord, but I couldn’t help him, either. He lived to assist others but couldn’t take care of himself.”
“He was good with Javi.”
Joy’s face brightened. “He always loved kids. We used to joke that moms had to watch out, or Jesse would steal their children. He’d carry off any old baby he could get his hands on without even checking if it was okay with the parent, when he was sober, of course. When he wasn’t...”
Sofia winced, remembering a strung-out Jesse pacing her apartment, hands over his ears as Javi had screamed and shrieked. “Yes.”
“How did you two break up? It’s hard thinking Jesse left his own child and then didn’t even tell us about Javi all these years.”
Sofia struggled to keep the hurt off her face. She wouldn’t run down a son to his own mother. “I told him not to contact me unless he was sober. He was probably waiting to get clean.”
She ran a mop over the floor, careful not to dampen Joy’s rose-pink heels. Given she wore a beaded necklace in the same color, along with a headband in an identical shade, Joy had a color story going on that Sofia didn’t want to mess with. Especially now that the kind woman had lost hours’ worth of work literally down the drain.
“And it never happened...not long enough for him to be sure of his sobriety, I’m guessing.” Joy dabbed at her eyes, not placing blame as Sofia had feared, her acceptance filling Sofia with unexpected warmth.
“How’s your wrist?” she asked to break the emotionally fraught moment.
“Getting worse.” Joy’s elbows jerked as she scrubbed the pot. White, frothy water bubbled over the metal sides. Sofia stowed the mop and grabbed a dish towel, its pattern a mirror image of the rugs scattered around the room. “The steroid shots aren’t working on my rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Billings says I need to stop postponing surgery.”
Joy’s glasses slipped down her nose, and Sofia pushed them back up. They exchanged a quick smile. For a moment, Sofia imagined what it’d be like to have a mother like Joy. Or a mother at all, given hers had died in childbirth.
Her father must have blamed her for the loss, she’d often thought during those awful and numerous times when she was consumed with guilt. It explained his constant anger and dismissal. No matter what Sofia did, it was never good enough to make up for his beloved wife.
While she didn’t know what it felt like to be a loved daughter, she’d always be the best mother possible to Javi. Everything she’d missed, she gave. Tenfold.
Sofia grabbed the rinsed pot and began drying it. “What’s stopping you from getting the procedure?”
Joy shrugged. “I’d be out of commission for four to six weeks, depending on how fast I heal. Who would look after the family?”
Concern for kindhearted Joy rocketed through Sofia. “Your kids?”
“The ranch takes up all their time.”
“A relative could step in maybe?”
“My husband and I were both only children. Our parents have passed. But not to worry, dear. I’ll get by. I always have. Unless...”
“Unless...?”
“There’s any chance you might be willing to help out,” Joy said, offhandedly, though a light now filled her eyes, an undeniable wish, easy to read, that she wanted them to stay.
Sofia froze.
“If you could spare the time,” Joy babbled on in the awkward silence, her glasses slightly foggy around the edges. “I’d insist on compensating you. You could save up for Portland. Though I don’t mean to pressure.”
“Thank you, but...”
Here was Sofia’s chance to explain why she couldn’t say yes...to confess her secret fears. Yet she hesitated. She didn’t want Joy to see her as weak. A potentially bad parent.
How she wished Javi could be part of a real family for the first time in his life. And have guaranteed meals. A warm house. A bed of his own to sleep in over the holidays. Even if the Cades didn’t celebrate them any longer, it’d be a step up from anything she and Javi ever experienced.
All pros.
But the con? She’d have to live with the constant drumbeat of her past failings. Plus, what if the Portland job lead dried up? The position, a receptionist post held by a pregnant doctor’s wife, needed to be filled soon. Although they were flexible on the start date, according to Sofia’s friend Mary, and were willing to wait for Sofia, as they were happy to help a struggling single mother, she couldn’t impose on their patience forever. At the very least, she’d need to call them with an updated arrival date and hope they didn’t see her as unreliable and change their minds.
“But I don’t...”
The back door flung open and Javi skidded through it, accompanied by a frigid gust. “Guess what I found!”
“What, honey?”
“This!” Javi held up a stocking nearly as big as he was. Red glitter emblazoned the letter J across the top.
“Where did you find that?” Joy asked, her voice faint.
“It was by the trash. Can I keep it, Mama? It’s so big. Maybe Santa will see it, and he won’t forget me this year.”
“Oh. Honey.”
“Of course Santa won’t forget you.”
“He doesn’t come for kids who don’t have houses. Will we have one in Portland?”
Joy placed a hand over her heart.
Sofia thought of the struggle they’d have getting started in that new city, especially if she didn’t have their IDs or cash. Javi would go another holiday without.
She took a deep breath and turned over her options. Perhaps, in the short term, she could put aside her insecurities to help a deserving woman and give Javi a real Christmas with family.
“We can stay, but only for a month and maybe an extra week or two, at most,” she hedged, looking at Joy.
“Thank you!” She threw her arms around Sofia and tears sprang to her eyes. Javi whooped and raced around their legs.
She returned Joy’s hug, breathing in the light floral scent that rose from her neck, overwhelmed at the rush of emotion and the sense of rightness. If only this could be forever.
Shutting down her own pity party with a firm hand, she hustled to the refrigerator and evaluated possible ingredients for a replacement meal.
Tomatoes. Red onion. Cucumber...
Her time on Cade Ranch had a shelf life she needed to remember lest she grow too attached. And that included one very masculine member of the Cade clan as well, she firmly reminded herself.
Bell pepper, garlic, Worcestershire sauce...
Joy joined her at the fridge, swiping damp cheeks.
Sofia cleared her throat. “How does gazpacho sound?”
Joy cocked her head. “I’d like to try it. Not sure about James, though. He doesn’t like different.”
Of course he didn’t. “Well, he’ll learn to like it. Do you have jalapeño peppers?”
“They’re Justin’s favorite snack.”
