Christmas at Cade Ranch Read online

  She eyed the huge number of pieces in the box. They’d take hours to organize. Days. What fun was that? Especially to a little kid? Plus, who knew if they’d even finish it before she and Javi left?

  “Can I help?” Sofia asked.

  James eyed her warily. “Sure.”

  “Thanks.” She leaned over and dumped the box’s contents onto the table.

  Javi laughed, and James’s mouth dropped open. Sofia grinned at his helpless, dumbfounded silent question. It was such a human reaction for the controlled man—the controlled man who was charming her. Plus, it didn’t hurt that the deep red of his shirt highlighted his eyes and those impossibly long lashes. “Now let’s solve this thing.”

  Before James could speak, Jewel appeared on the landing above. “Has anyone seen Ma’s medication?”

  James’s expression sharpened. “Which one?”

  “The oxycodone. She took it before dinner, but I can’t find it now.”

  “Be right up.” James cast a narrow-eyed look at Sofia, then strode away, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Is Uncle James mad?” Javi chewed on the edge of a puzzle piece. “Did I do something bad?”

  “No, honey.” It worried her to see how much James affected her son, making him worry about not measuring up. “He just wants to find those pills.”

  “Where’s he looking?”

  “Everywhere. I’m sure he’ll find them. Don’t worry.”

  “Can I go to bed?” Javi jumped to his feet.

  “Now?” She glanced at the large grandfather clock in the opposite corner. Seven forty-five. Since when had Javi ever voluntarily gone to bed before nine? James must be really upsetting him.

  Javi tugged at her hand. “Please.”

  Thirty minutes later, she eased out of their room and nearly bumped into a pacing James.

  “Is Javi asleep? I need to search your room.” The silent accusation on James’s face shot her full of shame. He suspected she’d taken the missing pills.

  But you have been fantasizing about them. Admit it.

  She muted her inner voice and stood her ground. “He’s sleeping.”

  His exhalation flared his nostrils. “Did—”

  “Doctor Fleming called in another prescription.” Jewel pocketed her phone as she emerged from Joy’s room. “I’m heading out to pick it up.” She jingled a set of keys, then tromped down the stairs.

  “Let’s talk outside. I don’t want Javi hearing us.”

  James nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “Grab your coat and meet me on the porch.”

  “Fine.” Sofia followed James, fuming. She would never—ever—steal pills.

  But you did once. More than once. You have the mug shots to prove it.

  Out on the porch, she shivered in the frigid air and zipped closed her borrowed jacket. Someone had looped lit garland around the long railing and swirled it up posts bedecked with red velvet bows. The joyful atmosphere couldn’t have contrasted more with her despair.

  “Sofia?” James asked, his voice gentler than she’d expected. “Did you take the pills?”

  “No.” Anxiety turned to an itch along Sofia’s throat. She scratched at her neck, feeling acutely vulnerable beneath his penetrating gaze. Deep down, she knew how easy it was to slide back into addiction. But now she had Javi. Wanting to stay straight for him meant she had something—someone—that she would never sacrifice for drugs. He would always keep her sober.

  She hoped. Prayed, even, if that was what the silent, one-word plea that often rose within her was...

  Please. Please. Please.

  “Why am I having a hard time believing you?”

  “Because you see what you want to see,” she said tiredly, pushing back the hair from her eyes. She realized just now that she was trembling.

  “And what’s that?”

  “An addict. A thief. Someone who’d throw everything away—my work, my pride, my self-respect—for the next fix.” To her shame, she nearly sobbed out that last word. “And that used to be true, but I’m not that person anymore, only you’ll never see it. Just like you didn’t with Jesse.”

  He stepped back, stricken. Bands of moonlight streaked through a cloud-covered onyx sky, illuminating his pinched brow, his tense mouth, leaving his nose and chin in darkness. In his eyes, she saw a despair so deep it reminded her that they were alike in a way, time not healing anything, only teaching them how to live with the pain.

  “I love—loved my brother.”

  “Loving someone and believing in them isn’t the same thing,” she said, thinking of her father.

  A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he jerked his gaze out to the mountains. His broad shoulders sloped downward.

  Regret drew her close, and she placed a hand on his tense bicep. “I know Jesse loved you, too.”

  His head snapped in her direction. “Did he tell you that?”

  “He talked about all of you. Called you the Rocky Mountain cowboys. Said you could ride right over mountaintops and high-five the sky.”

  “But I didn’t save him,” James said obliquely and the bruise in his voice made her wince. “The night he died, he called me for a ride. He’d finished his latest rehab a few days before, and Ma had been twisting herself inside out that he hadn’t come home yet. She worried he’d fallen off the wagon, and my older brother, Jack, was out looking for Jesse when he phoned.”

  “Had he relapsed?”

  Instead of answering, James gripped the railing and his knuckles were white beneath the glowing Christmas lights. A moment later he continued, “I’ll never know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It means I cared more about protecting Ma and the family than looking out for Jesse.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He bent his head and his anguished eyes rose. “I told him I wouldn’t pick him up unless he promised he’d never do drugs again.”

  “And did he?”

  “He said he’d try, but that...that wasn’t good enough for me.” He spit the last word as though it disgusted him. As though he made himself sick.

  “Oh, James. I’m so sorry!”

  His long eyelashes blinked fast as he fought the emotion straining his face. “Don’t be sorry for me. Don’t ever be sorry for me.”

  There it was again. The self-loathing she recognized too well. The ferocity of his tone was the sound of a wounded animal who wanted to die alone, in peace. On his terms.

  “I never told anyone that before.” He let out a shaky breath and the admission touched her. Deeply. James wasn’t alone when it came to feeling guilty over Jesse’s fate.

  “I didn’t save Jesse, either.”

  He peered at her gravely and silence expanded between them, filled with their fears and misgivings.

  “I kicked Jesse out on Javi’s first birthday.” She shivered at a cold breeze stirring the nearby spruce. The wind chimes on the corner of the porch tinkled.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know if you want to hear this.”

  “I do.” Near the railing, their hands touched, the barest brushing of skin on skin. “Trust me,” he said in a way that made her skin prickle and breathing difficult. He’d opened up to her and taken a chance. She could do the same.

  “Okay.” She inhaled a large gulp of air, exhaled, then began. “Javi was a colicky baby. He cried nonstop. I don’t think I slept more than a couple of hours a night that first year. It’s probably why I have insomnia now.”

  That and your addiction nightmares...

  She pushed aside the thought and continued, “It was tough on Jesse.”

  The tender look in James’s eyes, all the more disarming for its rare appearance in such a strict man, encouraged her to keep going. She didn’t want to hurt
him, but he needed to know.

  “I made him take turns with Javi, even when I saw it was getting to him.”

  “And it wasn’t wearing on you?”

  “I’m Javi’s mom.”

  “And Jesse was his dad,” he said, tone firm. The assertion caught her off guard. That was true, but to hear it from another, to have someone say, “You know, you got dealt a tough hand,” it meant something. Like James, she didn’t want anyone’s pity. Never had. But she did crave understanding and James was giving her that. Big-time.

  “True. But he struggled with it. I should have seen it, but I was so focused on Javi that I didn’t notice the warning signs until it was too late.”

  “What happened?”

  “We didn’t have much. Jesse got occasional construction work. I had a part-time job in a convenience store. Sometimes we cut it so close we had to decide between food or diapers. But I kept squirreling some away because I really wanted to buy Javi a present for his first birthday.”

  “What was it?”

  “He was really interested in that cartoon train. Thomas the Tank Engine. A lady in my building, she had a whole set of them that she was willing to sell. A couple of days before Javi’s birthday, when I finally had enough, I went to get the money and it was gone.”

  “Jesse.”

  “I didn’t think so at first. But then he didn’t come home that night. Or the next. Not until Javi’s birthday, when I found him passed out on the stoop.”

  James stared up at the sky. “Poor Javi.” Then, beneath his breath, she thought she heard him say, “Poor Jesse.”

  “He was supposed to buy the cake and some groceries. But since we didn’t have any food, we went to the soup kitchen and celebrated there. They put a candle in some applesauce for Javi.”

  He touched her hair, let a few strands coil around his finger. “I’m sorry. You deserved better. You and Javi. I would never have walked away.”

  She breathed that in for a moment. Let it dissolve in her bloodstream. Did she deserve better? After all the bad she’d done in life, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Don’t apologize. It wasn’t your fault. It’s just...I wanted you to know that I didn’t give Jesse another chance, either. Even when he begged me. I’ve never told anyone else that, either.”

  For a moment, their breaths synchronized, white puffs of air mingling between them.

  “Did he want to get sober?”

  “He said it was a mistake, that he wouldn’t relapse again, but I refused to listen. Bottom line, I didn’t want drugs around my baby.”

  James nodded. “You were right to protect Javi.”

  His support bolstered her, encouraging her to open up more. “Javi’s the reason I’m sober. I gave up everything for drugs, but I’d never sacrifice him.”

  “You didn’t get sober for yourself?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you didn’t have Javi, would you still be an addict?”

  The question hung there between them and a chill, arctic air rose along her spine. She’d never considered that before, but hearing it out loud, it sounded like a real possibility.

  “I didn’t take Joy’s pills.”

  “I hope not.”

  Just like that, the intimacy of their shared connection faded. How close she’d come to completely lowering her guard with James. He’d almost made her believe she was someone better than she’d been, that she could be more, even here on Cade Ranch. It was an absurd, immature reaction, overblown given her reality, but still it hit her hard, wounded deep. “You don’t believe me?”

  “I want to, but I’m as protective of my loved ones as you are.”

  “We’ll be gone in a few weeks. No harm will come to your family.”

  “Javi is my family.”

  She gasped. “You think I’m a threat to Javi?”

  His silence said it all.

  As much as it thrilled her to hear Javi claimed as a relative, to know he belonged to an honest, respectable family like the Cades, James’s wariness crushed her flat. Another judgmental outsider looking in. Same as always.

  If Javi stayed with her, he’d never have a good family like the Cades. Would he be better off if she left him here and traveled alone to Portland? She slammed the door on the emerging answer. No. She would never leave her child.

  “You’re going to a distant city without support.” James rubbed his hands together and blew on them. “You won’t have anyone to check on you and your sobriety.”

  “I don’t need anyone, and I don’t want reminders of that time in my life.”

  “And I won’t chance another relapsing addict breaking my mother’s heart. Until we find those pills, I’d like you to attend NA meetings as a precaution. Show me your sobriety matters to you and you’re taking it seriously.”

  “Here?” Her heart began to pound. She’d be expected to talk about herself at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. If she did that, she’d be haunted by the ghost of her Christmases past everywhere she turned.

  “We have a meeting each week in Carbondale. Jesse attended a few. I’ll find out when it happens and take you to it.”

  “No way.” He didn’t believe or trust her, so why would she think he wanted to help her?

  Because James takes care of everyone, a voice whispered, just like Javi... Maybe even you, too.

  “This isn’t negotiable.”

  “That ‘when you’re under my roof’ thing again? You know, you can’t have it both ways, sensitive one minute, heavy-handed the next. Your contradictions make my head spin.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then said, “My grandmother called me an acquired taste, and that was the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my personality. Ask Jewel. She swears my name is beside the definition for bossy in the dictionary.”

  Despite everything, she chuckled. At least he was honest about it. Maybe she should be, too. “Controlling men, like my father, are triggers for my addiction,” she confessed.

  When he opened his eyes, they appeared unguarded, open, raw and luminous. “I’m sorry, Sofia. It’s a part of me I—I need to work on. But this isn’t about me. Or you. It’s about Javi.”

  She turned slightly and peered up at him. His proximity unnerved her; looking directly into his eyes made her feel vulnerable. Her breathing was a flutter in her chest.

  “I need to know you’re going to be all right before you leave,” he continued in his deep voice. “I hope you’d want that, too, if not for your own sake, then your son’s.”

  He tromped down the steps and into the night, leaving her to stare after him in wonder.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “SOFIA, IS IT?”

  Sofia nodded and seated herself in the chair the attorney indicated a few days later. He was a portly, fastidious man with a luxuriant head of silver hair and a perfect set of teeth revealed in an officious smile. All around her, book-lined shelves rose from the floor to the ceiling. So many stories... She marveled. What number of them could she read if she tried?

  Not a lot, she bet. Not all the way through. Not every long word crammed so tightly into pages that her head would swim and her eyes cross. Reading had always made Sofia restless. Her legs would start to twitch impatiently after the first page, one of the many reasons, along with her dismal attendance record and her arrest, that she hadn’t finished high school.

  She lifted her chin and did her best not to look intimidated. It was important to seem like she belonged in a smart, educated place like this. It practically reeked of expensive leather, imported wood and privilege, the kind of environment she imagined she would work in when she finally took the receptionist position awaiting her in Portland.

  This wasn’t a place for people who’d messed up.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw J
ames’s fingers flex on his thighs, one of them jiggling up and down. To her right, Joy perched on the edge of her seat, her bandaged wrist tucked inside a navy sling that exactly matched the formal suit she’d donned for no particular reason that Sofia could determine.

  In fact, Joy had been mysterious about her reasons for insisting that Sofia and James accompany her to the Cade family attorney’s office today when she’d spoken to them about it over breakfast. While attending a meeting without knowing its purpose worried Sofia, she couldn’t refuse, considering Joy’s kindness and generosity with Javi.

  “Can I have my secretary get anyone coffee?”

  “None for me,” James refused, an edge to his voice. Sofia slid him a sidelong glance. With his hat off, his rugged profile contrasted with the wood paneling beyond it. Tan and firm, he was sternly handsome with that chin jut that always seemed to creep right under her skin before he even opened his mouth.

  Which he hadn’t done much of lately, she reflected, since their tense exchange the other night. Mostly, he’d been keeping to himself and spent his free time working with Javi on the puzzle. To her surprise, Javi had woken early the next morning and restored the piles she’d destroyed.

  Unwilling to argue, she’d let it go. Seeing Javi focus on a long-term project like she’d never been able to do soothed her. It lowered her trepidation about James’s controlling ways. Strangely, Javi responded well to James’s boundaries and restrictions, maybe even thrived a bit.

  Was James a better influence on her son than she was?

  And was there a chance this impromptu meeting had to do with the missing oxycodone? James had suggested she was a threat to Javi. What if Joy thought so, too? Could this have something to do with guardianship?

  Her stomach muscles tensed.

  No. She was just letting her insecurities get the better of her. Not to mention the stress of attending an NA meeting later tonight.

  “If Pete wouldn’t mind, I’d like tea.” Joy’s features softened when her eyes settled on Sofia. “Would you like some, dear?”