Riding Tall (14 page)

Joe stared out the window at the darkness for too long, then turned and walked to the fridge. He pulled out three beers, then pulled out a fourth and looked at Mackenzie questioningly. He wasn’t asking for Mackenzie’s opinion about the wisdom of giving alcohol to two underage girls, one of whom had recently displayed behavior that suggested a problem with the substance; he was just checking whether Mackenzie wanted a drink. So Mackenzie sighed and nodded. He wanted something a lot stronger than a beer, but he’d take what he could get.

Joe twisted the caps off for all of them, distributed the bottles, and sat down at the table. He took a long pull before he said, “It’s not the same, Lacey. Not even close.” He held up his hands to silence her when she started to protest. “It’s not. I was older than you are. I was done with any school I ever had any plans of doing. I had Will to help me out, and the kids we were looking after were older. None of them had special needs. And I didn’t have to find a job
or
a place to live. We even had insurance money to help us with expenses. That’s a lot of stuff that made things way easier for me and Will. And, Lacey….” He leaned forward and waited until she met his eyes. “It was still really, really hard. Two of us, done with school, taking on older kids, no special needs, and enough money to be safe, and I wasn’t always sure we were going to make it. You’ve got one person, younger siblings, one with special needs, and no money whatsoever.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I understand the instinct. I mean,
obviously
I understand, right? But it’s not the same situation. Not at all.”

“It’s my call,” Lacey said stubbornly.

“Probably not,” Joe replied. “You’d have to get approval from the government, and I doubt they’d give it to you. But even if they did, this isn’t about you. It’s about Kami. What’s best for her? Growing up in total poverty, with a sister who’s working too hard and is too stressed to give her any attention? ’Cause assuming you get a job, it’s going to be minimum wage. Maybe you’d get some money for fostering her, but maybe not because you’re related. And even if you do get it, it’s not a lot. You’ve seen the bank accounts I set up for you and Savannah, where I put all the foster-care money. Maybe it looks like a lot when it’s just sitting there, but you take rent for a two-bedroom apartment out of it and you’re done. Food, transportation, clothes… there goes your paycheck. Maybe you can use the school as a day care, at least ten months a year, but where does Kami go over summer vacation? What about March break and Christmas, or if your work hours aren’t exactly the same as her school hours? What if she gets sick and can’t go to school? You take enough time off work to take care of her and you’re going to get fired. And sure, there’s day programs where Kami could get some more rehab, but how does she get to them? You take more time off work and drive her there in a car you don’t own, with gas you can’t pay for.”

“So what would you do?” Lacey asked quietly. “If you were me. What would you do?” There was an intensity to the question that suggested it wasn’t rhetorical. Lacey really wanted to follow Joe’s example.

But he just snorted. “Not a good standard, Lacey.” He held up his wrist and displayed the cast. “I’d probably do something stupid, ’cause that’s what I do. I’d probably get stubborn and refuse to take anybody’s help or advice, ’cause that’s another thing I do.” He smiled gently. “I’m asking you to do something
better
than what I’d do. Just because I don’t use my head doesn’t mean you can’t use yours.”

“She’s my
sister
,” Lacey said. She wasn’t crying, but somehow that made her heartbreak even more poignant. “I should have gotten her the hell out of that house before the fire. The social workers kept asking if things were okay, and I kept lying and saying they were.” Her brow was furrowed as if she couldn’t understand her own decisions. “Kami shouldn’t have had to live like that for as long as she did. None of us should have, but now things are better for Savannah and me, but not for Kami.” She looked pleadingly at Joe. “Does that seem fair? Is it right? She lives the first eleven years of her life in a house like that, and then she’s going to live the rest of it in an institution, somewhere that people want to strap her down when she gets upset about her sisters leaving her?” Her voice was shaking as she whispered, “It’s not right. It’s not fair.”

Mackenzie’s beer bottle trembled as he raised it to his lips, and he wished again that it was something strong. These little girls were being asked to bear things most adults wouldn’t be able to stand.

Joe was staring at the wood of the kitchen table as if it had the secrets of the universe written on it, but when he raised his eyes, it was clear he hadn’t been able to read any of the answers. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I hear you. I understand. It wasn’t your fault, though. Not at all. You’re….” He grinned, but it faded quickly. “I know you feel like an adult, but you’re still a kid. Any decisions you made? You made them as a kid. The whole point of being a kid is that you don’t have good judgment yet. That’s why adults are supposed to look after kids. Not just your parents, but the social workers, the cops… your neighbors.
We’re
the ones who fucked up, not you. And you paid for it, and Kami paid more.”

Joe leaned back from the table and looked over at Mackenzie. Again it was clear that he wasn’t looking for advice or consultation. Instead, his expression was apologetic. Mackenzie tried to send a reassuring message back, but he wasn’t sure it was received. Instead, Joe turned back to Lacey and said, “I’ll figure something out.
We
will. You and me. You can’t get your own place. You have to see that won’t work. But we’ll find other options. Okay?”

“Like what?” she asked, and now that Joe was letting her be a kid again, the tears were coming.

“I don’t know,” he said flatly. Then he smiled. “But we’ll figure it out. Okay?”

Lacey gave him a long, searching look before she nodded. Another disciple for the cult of Saint Joe, Mackenzie thought wryly.

“Go to bed, for now,” Joe said. “We’ll sort it out tomorrow.”

Ally squinted at him and asked, “What about that stuff you were asking about? Her meds, and if she wanders outside? All that?”

“I’m going to make some calls about the meds, see what I can find out at this time of night.” He looked at Lacey and asked, “I don’t suppose you know what she was taking? I might be able to Google for some info, at least.”

But Lacey shook her head apologetically. “There were pills. But I don’t know what they were.”

Joe didn’t seem surprised. “Okay. Go to sleep.”

Ally looked like she was thinking about arguing a little more, but Joe pointed his chin in Lacey’s direction and the instruction was clear:
take care of your friend
. Ally did as she was told, guiding Lacey out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.

Joe stood up and found another beer in the fridge, then finally looked in Mackenzie’s direction. His expression was still apologetic, and he stood there like a little kid waiting for a scolding he knew was well deserved.

“You’re going to take her in, aren’t you?” Mackenzie asked quietly.

Joe refused to meet his gaze. “I hope not. Maybe there’s another facility somewhere, or maybe there was just a big misunderstanding at this one and really Kami’s happy there and Lacey’s just overreacting. Maybe.”

“But if it comes down to it.” Mackenzie wasn’t sure why he was pushing this, but he felt like he needed to hear the words. “Running a ranch and raising a five-year-old, that’s not quite enough for you. So you added an extra teenager to the mix. Can I remind you that you still haven’t talked to Lacey about being drunk at school? You still don’t know what the hell the school is planning to do about that or about the vandalism stuff. Add in a nine-year-old who’s pretty much destined to have some behavior issues of her own, considering her background. But that’s not enough.” Mackenzie could hear his voice getting louder, but he didn’t think he was going to try to control it. It made sense to keep the kids from hearing them having sex, but damn it, maybe the kids needed to know about it when they had fights. “Now you’re going to take on an eleven-year-old with brain damage. And don’t say Lacey’s going to take care of her, because I’m not sure Lacey can even take care of herself. You’re going to end up looking after the little girl. That’s what’s happening here.” He set his beer bottle down on the counter. “How much time and energy is left, Joe? Is there
any
left for you and me?”

Mackenzie turned abruptly and stared out the window. “I hate it that I have to ask that. I feel like a shallow, selfish asshole, just because I want to have a life, want to spend some time with the man I love. And then I get mad at you because you’re the one who’s
making
me feel selfish. I mean, it’s not unreasonable, is it?” Mackenzie turned back and stared at Joe. “For me to want to have a life
with
you? ’Cause if I don’t have any of your time, what the hell am I doing up here? I have friends in the city, a life I left behind.”

Joe’s smile was quick and sharp. “Yeah. The city.” He made a face as if trying to frighten his anger out of his body, and when he spoke again he was calmer. “Today was about you. Going to see your family. Christmas was good. You said you liked being around the kids. The rest of it?” He raised his eyes in supplication, looking as if he hoped Mackenzie might have all the answers for the questions he was asking himself. “I don’t know. What else can I do?”

And that was the question. What else
could
he do? One of the reasons Mackenzie loved Joe was because of his caring, his responsibility. For Joe to walk away from someone in need? It would mean Joe wasn’t Joe anymore. But what about Mackenzie being who
he
was? The dream he’d had about them going to the city and seeing plays and finding friends to have dinner and drink scotch with? That dream didn’t fit with someone trying to run a ranch and raise three little kids. Sure, it had just been a fleeting thought, not something Mackenzie had been working toward his entire life, but he knew he wanted
something
like that. Social interaction, with adults, surely wasn’t too much for a person to want. Joe seemed willing to spend his life exclusively with animals and children.

Ally was some help, but she would be leaving soon, and it felt like Joe was barely keeping it together even
with
her help and even
without
Kami living with them. This wasn’t a temporary problem, not by a long shot. “I don’t know what to do,” Mackenzie whispered. “I wish I did.”

Joe nodded slowly, as if Mackenzie had given him the only answer that made sense. “Maybe it’ll work out,” he said, but he didn’t sound like he believed it any more than Mackenzie did.

“I’m going to bed,” Mackenzie replied. “You’re not coming, right? You have to make phone calls.”

“Bad things can happen if you stop taking some medications,” Joe said. “I mean, worse than if you’d never started taking them at all. And I need to check in with the cops and with Jean. Even if I just leave messages, at least I can show that we weren’t trying to kidnap her or something.”

Mackenzie nodded. Joe was taking care of things. That was what he did. “Okay,” he said tiredly. It wasn’t like he could argue with any of it. He headed for the stairs and only then realized that Griffin hadn’t greeted them at the door. When he got to the upstairs hall he found the dog curled up in the hallway, wagging his tail with a gentle thud against the floor when he saw his owner.

“You abandoning me, Griffin?”

The dog stood to greet him, but didn’t follow him to the bedroom, lying back down in the hallway instead. It was one rejection too many. “
Griffin, here
!” Mackenzie hissed, and the dog stood reluctantly and came to the foot of the bed. Mackenzie peeled off most of his clothes and climbed into bed, then patted the comforter. “Here, Griffin,” he said, and the dog obediently hopped up beside him. “Good dog.” It was good to have a warm body next to him, and Mackenzie let himself relax. He was tired. It would all seem better in the morning.

He almost believed it, but then he felt the mattress shift and heard a soft thud followed by the click of claws on hardwood. Griffin was leaving. Mackenzie wasn’t even the number-one priority of his own dog. He closed his eyes tighter and willed himself to sleep. He didn’t want to be awake anymore, not until his life got a lot easier to handle.

Chapter 11

J
OE
SPENT
the night on the living-room sofa so he could monitor traffic on the stairs. As long as Kami stayed upstairs, she should be okay, but if she wandered down, there was the danger of the kitchen, the even greater danger of the outdoors. Far too many places where a little girl could get hurt, and Joe wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she suffered
again
on his watch.

And it wasn’t like he’d been going to get much sleep, no matter where he lay down. He’d gotten hold of a night nurse at the residence who’d refused to give out any information on Kami’s medications, so then he’d had to call Jean, but she wasn’t answering her phone, which made sense, since it was two in the morning on the day after Christmas. He’d left a message and sent her a text and e-mail, but she still hadn’t responded. He’d called Andy Stark, who was an OPP officer but also a family friend, and left a message on his machine as well. Joe knew he needed to do something more, but he wasn’t sure what. So he’d lain down with the house phone and his cell beside him and tried to get at least a little sleep.