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Cal Nichols tore the top off a new pouch of sunflower seeds. There wasn’t much these days that would get him hankering for a smoke, but an hour spent trying to teach an entitled city kid the first thing about horseback riding was one of those things that could just about do it.
Ordinarily, Cal was happy to give lessons to the local kids of Aspen Ridge. Most of them came pre-loaded with a decent dose of horse sense, and they took to the skill with ease. Today’s lesson, however, had been a favor to the sheriff, who was friends with the kid’s parents—and this kid had about as much horse sense as Cal’s cousin Hank had charm with the ladies.
Which was to say he had none at all.
The kid had been skittish and jumpy around the animal, digging in his heels to get her to move, and then crying out when she lurched forward. Sadie was as patient a mare as the ranch boasted, and even she was getting agitated by the end of the hour.
After all their mutual struggle, Cal didn’t know how much knowledge the kid was actually going to retain, but he figured it was good for any boy to get his ass off the couch, even if just for an hour, and onto something alive. Maybe that was why he’d agreed to give the lesson in the first place.
When the kid had finally gone, Cal took in a lungful of crisp autumn air, popped a handful of sunflower pips into his mouth, and left the round pen to head for the back pasture.
A stretch of fence there had been leaning for weeks. Earlier that day, Cal had set his two oldest boys the task of getting the fence reset, and he wanted to see how they were getting along.
It was a chore Lee had done plenty of times before. Cal figured it was a good opportunity for Jesse, who was new to the ranch, to learn a useful skill. Working together, it might take them a couple of hours. They should be close to done by now.
Cal found Lee at the fence, wheelbarrow of gravel beside him, pounding a post into position.
Jesse, however, was nowhere in sight.
As Cal approached, Lee glanced up to acknowledge him, then turned back to his work with a grim expression.
Cal leaned on a fence post, chewing his sunflower seeds, and watched Lee for a moment before he asked, “Where’s your brother?”
Lee glared at the post in front of him. “Dunno,” he muttered, and he gave the post another whack with his mallet.
Cal surveyed the half-finished fence. Lee was a hard worker, but even he would have made quicker work of the chore with a partner.
“Thought I told him to help you with this,” said Cal.
“Yep,” said Lee.
“So where is he?”
Lee made a low noise. “Am I my foster-brother’s keeper?”
Cal spat the shell of a seed into the dirt. “I need to tune that attitude for you, boy?”
Lee flinched, and his back went straight. He finally turned around and faced his father. “Sorry,” he said, appropriately sheepish. “Look, he said he was going into town. Pretty much the second you left. I ain’t seen him since.”
“You didn’t stop him?”
“I tried,” said Lee. “I told him to stay. He don’t listen to me.”
Cal spat out the rest of the shells. He ground them into the dirt with the heel of his boot. “I told you I wanted that fence done by suppertime. Guess you better get a move on.”
Lee looked pained. “I tried to stop him, Pa! I didn’t think he’d be gone all damn afternoon!”
“Next time, maybe you’ll try harder.”
Lee pursed his lips, but he didn’t protest. He only heaved a sigh and returned to the fence.
Cal left him grumbling over the chore. Cal didn’t mind grumbling. His boys could grumble all they liked, so long as the work got done.
Besides, Lee had a right to be frustrated. Jesse tended to bring that out in people, Cal had noticed.
Lee would work his ass off to get the work done as promised. If he was still at it by supper, Cal would call him in. He wasn’t out to torture the boy.
Cal headed for the stables. He pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, ruminating over his latest problem.
Jesse.
Jesse was sixteen. Second oldest, after Lee, and already the biggest handful out of all the boys on the ranch. In the short time since his arrival, Jesse had made it clear to Cal and everyone that where he went and what he did was to be influenced by nobody but himself alone. He’d half-assed his way through his chores, when he did them, clearly preferring the ones that kept him farthest from Cal’s eye.
None of the boys had a particularly happy story, and Jesse was no different. His father had been Doug O’Connor, a household name in town, and a permanent fixture at the saloon.
His mother, Molly, had stuck it out with Doug for the first six or seven years of Jesse’s life. Then, one morning, she was up and gone, no word to anyone in town, never to be heard from again.
Cal had never been the wife of an alcoholic. He supposed she knew best what she needed in her life. But he couldn’t help but wonder at any parent—at any adult, for that matter—who could run off on their own and leave a child behind.
As far as Cal was aware, Doug had tried to be a loving father to Jesse. He might even have succeeded, on occasion, when he was lucid enough. Those times had been vanishingly infrequent, especially in the years following Molly’s departure. He hadn’t been cruel to the boy. He just hadn’t been around. But for a budding teenager, Cal figured, that was more or less the same thing.
After Doug’s death, and with Molly unreachable, Jesse had been whisked off to the city and put up with a foster family. He’d bounced between a few of them, as Cal understood it. Apparently, the boy was a trial.
“You ain’t kidding,” Cal muttered, tossing a saddle over Sadie’s back. He put a foot in the stirrup, hoisted himself up, and was just riding out to look for his wayward boy when he heard the sound of car tires coming up the dirt road.
Even from a distance, Cal recognized the telltale blue and white of the sheriff’s car. It pulled up and came to a stop under the sign for the Five Cent Ranch.
Sheriff Wayne Morris got out of the car. He was a stocky man with thinning dark hair (which he kept hidden under a ten-gallon hat) and a bristly mustache.
The moment the car pulled up, Cal knew. He knew it before the sheriff walked around to open the back door. Knew well before the tuft of curly auburn hair popped up, attached to a lanky, freckled teenage body.
Cal pulled Sadie up beside them.
Jesse’s hands were behind his back—cuffed, Cal realized. The boy wore a dark expression, which he pointed squarely at the ground before him.
“Afternoon, Cal,” said the sheriff as Cal dismounted.
“Wayne.”
The sheriff took Jesse by the sleeve of his jean jacket and tugged him forward. Jesse moved with stumbling steps, gaze not lifting from the ground.
“I believe this belongs to you,” said the sheriff.
Cal looked over the boy. He was mottled with dust from head to toe, and streaks of deep red marred his face. Cal’s brow furrowed.
“What happened?”
He directed it at Jesse, but Morris was the one who answered.
“Found him tussling in the street with Davey Cooper,” said the sheriff. “Outside the saloon. Guess they’d got into it inside. Bud kicks them out, and they keep going at it, right there in the street. Causing all sort of a ruckus.”
The mention of the saloon raised the hairs on Cal’s neck.
He studied Jesse’s face. “That true, Jess?”
Jesse only shrugged.
Cal rubbed his forehead. “You know how I feel about fist fights.”
It wasn’t a question. Cal had told him plainly enough, not three days ago, after the boy had apparently gotten sick of Lee bossing him around and had taken a swing at him.
Cal had read him the riot act, but he hadn’t whipped him. Maybe he should have.
“You hurt?” he asked.
“Naw.”
Cal felt the kid’s sass like tinfoil in his teeth. “Boy,” he said, his voice hardening. “You just rolled up here in the good sheriff’s car, locked in cuffs, face busted to hell. You got an ounce of wisdom rolling around in that head of yours, you might start answering me with sir.”
A long, heavy pause followed.
Eventually, in a low voice, Jesse said, “No, sir. Ain’t hurt.”
“What were you doing at the saloon?”
Jesse’s lip curled. He gave Cal a sardonic little sneer. “Tussling with Davey Cooper.”
Cal didn’t respond. He only peered at the boy until the sneer retreated and Jesse lowered his gaze to the ground.
Sheriff Morris fished a little key ring out of his pocket. With an air of wariness that Cal didn’t miss, he unlocked Jesse’s handcuffs. The boy tugged his freed hands forward and rubbed his wrists in what seemed to Cal a somewhat exaggerated manner.
Cal nodded at the house. “Get inside and wash up,” he said. “Go on.”
Jesse set his jaw, and for a moment, Cal thought he was going to bolt. The boy must have realized he was outnumbered, though, because he only gave a dramatic huff, turned, and stalked off toward the house.
Cal watched him go. He heaved a sigh.
“Were the handcuffs really necessary?” he asked Morris.
The sheriff shrugged. “I pulled him off the Cooper boy, still swinging and flailing and cussing up a storm. I told him to simmer down, he didn’t want to simmer down.”
“Was he drinking?”
“Dunno. Smelled like it.” The sheriff pulled a tin of chewing tobacco out of his pocket. He offered it to Cal, who waved it away.
“Cal,” said the sheriff. He took up a pinch of the leaves and tucked them into his cheek. “You do a good thing here. What you do for these boys. We all see it. Respect you for it.” He canted his head toward the house, where the screen door was just swinging shut behind Jesse. “That one’s trouble. That’s no judgment on him—what can you expect, father the way he was, God rest him… and his mother taking off like she did? But I’m saying, Cal… everyone knows you do your best for these boys, and everyone knows that kid’s a spitfire. No one would bat an eye if, you know, if you decided it was too much—”
“Avery!” Cal barked suddenly, his attention on the gaggle of boys slowly gathering at the fence. They jumped when he addressed them, and Avery, twelve, earnest, and now looking slightly worried, stepped hesitantly forward.
Cal handed over Sadie’s reins. “Take Sadie back up the stables. Won’t be riding out, after all.”
“Yessir,” Avery chirped, relieved. He clicked his tongue to Sadie and led her away.
“The rest of y’all have work you oughta be doing?” said Cal.
That was enough to scatter them. They could gossip, if they liked—and no doubt they would, sheriff turning up on the property like this to deposit their newest brother. But Cal didn’t need them overhearing this particular exchange.
Sheriff Morris took advantage of the lull in conversation to spit a stream of brown juice into the grass.
Cal turned back to him. “Wayne, I known you for a long time, so I can ask you this as a friend,” he said. “Don’t say shit like that in front of my boys.”
Wayne put up his hands. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Cal. I only meant—”
“You ever seen me turn a boy away from this ranch?”
“Cal, I’m only saying—”
“Have you?”
The sheriff sighed. “No, Cal, I never have.”
“Damn right.” Cal fished a fingerful of sunflower seeds out of the bag in his pocket. “And while we’re at it,” he added, popping the seeds into his mouth and speaking around them, “if you can’t manage a sixteen-year-old child without throwing him in cuffs, I wonder if that ain’t just a little bit on you.”
The sheriff shook his head. “All right, Cal, all right.”
Cal chewed on his seeds. “I’m sorry for the trouble he caused you,” he said. “I’ll see to him.”
“I know you will,” said the sheriff. He passed his gaze over the ranch, as if its very existence were a testament to Cal’s child-rearing prowess. “You do a good thing here,” he said again. “I won’t try to tell you what to do.”
“That’s all I ask.”
The sheriff didn’t look entirely convinced, but he said no more on the subject. After the requisite pleasantries had been exchanged regarding his wife’s health (just fine) and the status of Cal’s new foal (bandy-legged and already tottering after its mother), Sheriff Morris got back in his car, and away he went.
That left Cal with the rather unpleasant business of following through on his word. After a quick scan to make sure the younger boys were, in fact, returning to their chores, Cal spat out his seeds and strode up the little hill to the big ranch house.
Jesse was at the kitchen sink, splashing water up into his hair. He’d shed his jacket and had on a faded green henley, jeans a size too big for him, and one of Cal’s old belts cinched as tight as it would go around his narrow hips.
At the sound of the door, Jesse’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t stop what he was doing, and Cal waited for him to finish.
The boy took his time. It might have been an act of obstinacy, even churlishness, but Cal didn’t mind. If Jesse was dragging his feet, it meant he had some idea of what was in store for him, and that, at least, was better than nothing.
Cal fetched a towel out of the bathroom. He passed it to Jesse, suggesting the boy leave some water for the fishes.
Finally, Jesse shut off the tap. He ran the towel over his head, still radiating surliness.
“Sit down,” said Cal. “Let’s get a look at you.”
Jesse dropped into a seat at the table. Cal got the first-aid kit out of its cabinet, then pulled over a chair to sit beside the boy.
He rummaged through the kit and came up with a pack of q-tips. “So,” he said levelly. “What did you have to drink?”
Jesse scowled at the surface of the table.
Cal took Jesse’s chin between his fingers and began to swab some Neosporin over the split lip. “I asked you a question, boy.”
Instead of answering, Jesse said, “You let Lee drink.”
Cal rolled his eyes. “Sometimes,” he said. “With me. If I thought Lee was shooting whiskey in the saloon when he shoulda been fixing a fence, you better believe I’d have some words for him.”
Jesse flushed. “Who says I was shooting whiskey?”
“Sheriff could smell it on you.”
At that, Jesse snorted. “I just bet he could,” he said darkly. “Runs in my fucking veins, don’t it?”
Cal summoned his self-restraint. “So you weren’t drinking?”
Jesse pursed his lips.
“Jesse,” said Cal. “I can call up Bud right now and ask him what happened. By Monday, I reckon I’ll be able to ask anyone in town.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Cause I wanna hear it from you.”
“I took a shot,” said Jesse. “Just one stupid shot, okay?”
“Whiskey?”
“Yes.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Was at the bar, weren’t I?”
“I know Bud Sanders didn’t pour it for you.”
Jesse licked his lips. His gaze drifted to his jean jacket draped over the back of a chair, then darted back again. “Found it,” he said.
Cal set down the cotton swab. He leaned back to snatch up the jacket and began feeling at the pockets.
“You gonna go through my shit now, too?” Jesse grumbled.
By way of response, Cal held up the little flask he’d found hidden in the lining. “Now, see, this is a problem,” he said.
“You are such a—”
“Finish that sentence,” Cal cut in sharply. “See what it gets you.”
In an uncharacteristic show of wisdom, Jesse closed his mouth.
“There is a difference,” said Cal, his voice rumbling low, “between an occasional beer with your pa after a long day’s work, and a flask of liquor you’re sneaking around while you pick fights with townies. I ain’t gonna ask where you got this,” he added, jiggling the flask so the liquor swished inside. “Don’t think I really wanna know. But it’s mine, now. And let me tell you something, Jesse, because I’m not an unreasonable fella, and I like to hear a boy’s side of a story before I go laying into him—but I catch you with something like this again, it’ll be the whuppin of your life and no questions asked. Do you hear me?”
“Cause my daddy was a drunkard.”
Cal raised his eyes to the ceiling. Lord, send patience.
“Cause you’re sixteen,” said Cal. He pocketed the flask and draped the jacket back over its chair, then took up Jesse’s face again and a new cotton swab. “I don’t let Lee shoot hard liquor. You want a beer now and again, we can talk about it. But it don’t happen without my say-so, and we ain’t negotiating.” When Jesse didn’t say anything, Cal moved on to the second infraction. “What started the fight?”
Jesse sniffed. “Blamed Davey Cooper running his blamed mouth.”
“Wouldn’t expect to see him down Bud’s saloon.”
“It was at school,” said Jesse. “Yesterday. He was running his mouth and looking for a fight, so I said I’d give him one. We was supposed to meet at noon, but I was late.”
The boy’s tone was almost accusatory. Cal rubbed his forehead with a callused hand. “Late because you had chores this morning,” he clarified. “So you stuck around the ranch just long enough for me to leave you alone with Lee, and the second I took my eye off you, you high-tailed it outta here.”
Jesse shrugged. “I guess.”
“And figured you’d give yourself a shot of liquid courage before you and Davey pummeled each other to pieces.”
Jesse wrinkled his nose. His silence was confirmation enough.
Then he surprised Cal. In a low voice, still sullen, but with a tinge of trepidation, he asked, “You gonna call Miss Mulligan?”
Miss Mulligan was Jesse’s social worker.
It had been a while since Cal had taken in a new boy. The last one before Jesse had been Avery, and that was a few years ago, already. The kid had never known his parents, and he’d been small enough to accept his new home—and his new pa—without a second thought.
Jesse was older, though, and he’d already gone through his share of families. Cal could have figured it would take him longer to think of this place as his home.
Cal shook his head. “I ain’t calling Miss Mulligan,” he said. “You and I might not know each other too well, yet, but something you should learn about me: I don’t turn out my boys, just cause things get a little rough sometimes.”
Jesse peered up at him warily. “So… you ain’t mad?”
“Ha. Didn’t say that.”
The boy’s cheeks flushed. “Fine,” he huffed. “I’m sorry I bailed on Lee. I’ll help him fix the fence.”
Cal nodded slowly. “Reckon you will. Reckon Lee’ll appreciate that. Take him all night he has to do the whole thing himself.” He fixed the boy with a look. “Resetting the fence is a chore, Jess. One you were meant to do anyway. You still got a whuppin coming.”
Jesse’s expression tightened. “No way.”
With Jesse’s chin still between his fingers, Cal steered the boy’s head to the side and began to dab at the cut on his eyebrow. “I been pretty lenient with you so far,” he said. “But you been here a couple of weeks, now, and you seen how things go. There’s a lot of work to be done on a ranch. Everyone needs to pitch in. Long as you live here, you’re part of the everyone.”
“Long as I live here,” Jesse repeated sullenly. “So if I don’t wanna pitch in, then you’ll kick me out?”
Cal jerked the chin back to center. Jesse’s eyes opened with surprise.
“I ain’t kicking you out,” said Cal. “I took in six boys before you, Jesse O’Connor, and I ain’t never turned my back on one of them. Not one, do you hear me? And I ain’t gonna start with you.”
Jesse held the stern gaze for a long moment before his eyes flicked away.
It didn’t come with argument, so Cal took it as assent. He turned Jesse’s face again and continued his ministrations.
“I ain’t letting you whup me,” Jesse murmured after a moment.
At this, Cal snorted. “Ain’t no letting about it,” he said. “We got rules here, Jess. You break them as terrifically as you did, I tan your hide for you, no two ways about it.”
Jesse stayed silent while Cal finished tending to him. Thankfully, the damage looked far worse than it really was. Some swelling near the eye, which would certainly bloom into a beaut of a shiner. The split lip and, of course, some scuffing on his knuckles. No broken bones. Minimal bleeding. Nothing that wouldn’t heal just fine on its own.
Jesse watched with wary eyes as Cal swept the used cotton swabs off the table top and snapped the lid shut on the first-aid kit.
“Cal,” the boy tried again. His voice sounded smaller than Cal had heard it yet. A layer had peeled away from the bravado the kid wore like armor, revealing a glimpse of the child inside. “Cal, I’m sorry. I don’t mind working. I’ll do my chores from now on.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“But…” Jesse huffed through his nose. “Ain’t I a little old for…?”
“For shirking your chores and brawling in the street?” Cal mused. “And then, when you’re faced with your comeuppance, throwing a tantrum over it?”
“I ain’t throwing—” Jesse began, but hearing how the first few words sounded, he shut his mouth with a snap and resorted to fuming in silence.
Cal twitched his eyebrows.
He replaced the first-aid kit in its cabinet, put his hands on his hips and stretched his back, and then nodded at the teenager, who by this point was slouched so far down in his chair only the red of his hair was still visible above the table.
“All right, boy,” said Cal. “Up in your room. Let’s go.”
Jesse’s nostrils flared. His jaw worked. Cal could see the wheels in his head spinning as he tried to find a way out of his predicament.
“I said I ain’t gonna let you,” Jesse said finally.
“And I said I don’t give my Aunt Tilly’s blind left eye what you think you’re gonna let me do,” said Cal. “Listen, Jesse, you got two choices to make, and I suggest you think hard about your answers. First choice is if you want to stay on this ranch. Ain’t nothing you can do gonna make me kick you out, and I was starting to get the impression you kinda liked it here. You’re a good kid, when you wanna be, and smart as a whip. Reckon you’ll be running circles around the rest of us before long.
“But if you’d rather call up that nice Miss Mulligan and have her place you in a different home, tell her this one’s not working out, I’m sure she’d be happy to do so, and no bad blood between us. You always got that choice. I ain’t gonna make you leave, but if you want out, I ain’t gonna make you stay, neither, and I ain’t gonna hold it against you, whatever you choose.”
Jesse was silent. Listening. Good.
“Now, assuming you wanna stay,” said Cal, “you earned yourself a licking today, and so you got a second choice.” He held up two fingers. “That choice is whether you’re gonna quit your bellyaching, go up to your room, and take your licking like a man… or if you’re gonna dig in your heels, in which case I will take you upstairs, and you can take your licking any which way you like. I been doing this for a long time, boy, and I can tell you, things are gonna go a whole lot smoother if you take option one.”
Cal put his hands on his hips.
“So,” he said. “What’s it gonna be?”
Jesse glared at the edge of the table. He held his hands together in his lap, kneading them back and forth.
In one sudden motion, he bolted to his feet and, without a word or even a glance at Cal, swept himself through the kitchen and out into the hall.
Cal heard him thudding up the stairs, half-running. He wondered if the kid wasn’t trying to outrun his own brain, racing up to his room before he could change his mind.
He wouldn’t make him wait any longer than necessary.
As Call passed the hall closet, he reached in and pulled out the clothes brush. It was a long, narrow tool with a wooden handle and stiff black bristles. Cal shook out the bristles and polished the flat back on the sleeve of his flannel as he followed his boy upstairs with slow, heavy footfalls of his own.
He found Jesse in the room he shared with the older boys. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, still folding his fingers in and out, staring at the floor. He glanced up when Cal came in, and his eyes locked on the brush. He swallowed.
“Thought you’d use your belt,” Jesse intoned, a defiant glint in his eye.
Cal shut the door behind him. He hefted the brush in his hand and looked it over, as if with a critical eye. “Think this’ll do for now,” he said. “You can be glad of that. Long as we don’t have no more fuss.”
Jesse bristled, and Cal readied himself for still more resistance. But then Jesse looked back at the floorboards.
“No,” he murmured. “No more fuss.”
“Atta boy.”
Cal waved Jesse off the bed and sat down, himself.
He looked up at the boy, who despite his newfound teenage height was standing slouched and slight before him.
Cal gave him a reassuring little smile. “I ain’t gonna kill you,” he said. “I’m just gonna give you a little something to remember next time you’re thinking about breaking the rules.”
Jesse said nothing.
“You understand why we’re here, Jesse?”
The boy shrugged.
“Jesse,” said Cal. “The sooner we start, the sooner it’s over with. And we ain’t getting started until you tell me why we’re here.”
“We’re here because… you’re gonna whup me,” said Jesse, a sarcastic edge to his tone.
Cal didn’t bite. He only nodded. “And why am I gonna whup you?”
“Disturbing the peace.”
“That’s why Sheriff Morris picked your sorry ass up,” said Cal. “Why are you here?” He tapped the brush against his knee.
Jesse chewed his lip. At length, he sighed. “Cause I left Lee,” he said. “Skipped out on my chores.”
“And?”
Jesse’s clear brown eyes peered out from under pale lashes. “And for disturbing the peace.”
Cal couldn’t resist a chuckle. “I can’t say I care one way or the other about anyone’s peace,” he said. He made his voice stern. “I don’t like fist fights. Ain’t no way to settle an argument. You’re sixteen. You can use your words. And I really, really don’t like you drinking.”
At that, Jesse’s eyes flashed. “It’s not like I was getting drunk.”
“Fine,” said Cal. “I don’t like you ordering drinks, sneaking drinks, thinking about drinks, or saying things like, Boy howdy, I sure could use a drink. Point of fact, I don’t think there’s any reason for you to be hanging around a saloon at all, and there really ain’t no reason for you to be carrying whiskey in a flask. Clear enough for you?”
Jesse sucked in a sharp breath. “Why do you care?” he blurted out. “Why do you care so much what I do? So what if I got in a fight? What if I was drinking? What’s any of that got to do with you?”
No matter how many times Cal went through this, with no matter how many different kids, it always seemed to come back to the same question. Why did he care?
So Cal told Jesse the same thing he’d told each of his boys, in some fashion, at one point or another.
“Cause I’m in charge of you,” he said. “And I take pride in my work. I know you’re a kind person. Thoughtful. A hard worker. And I don’t wanna see you throw your life away, just cause nobody ever took you to task for acting like a damn fool. It’s my job to raise you, and I intend to do just that, as best as I know how.”
Jesse’s lip twitched.
“Anything else you got to say to me?”
Mutely, the boy shook his head.
“Let’s not drag it out, then,” said Cal. “Jeans down, and lean over right here.” He patted his knee.
Slowly, Jesse undid his belt and his fly. Then he hesitated, cheeks coloring.
“Ain’t nobody in the house,” said Cal. “It’s just you and me. This is more privacy than a body usually gets around here.”
Jesse nodded. He drew in a slow breath.
In a quick motion, Jesse twitched his fingers at his jeans, lowering them ever so slightly. Then he all but threw himself across Cal’s lap.
Cal helped him adjust so his torso lay on the mattress. He took hold of the boy’s jeans—which hadn’t even cleared his backside—and tugged them down to his knees.
Jesse’s body tensed, but he didn’t object.
Cal picked up the brush. He touched the head of it to Jesse’s boxer briefs. The boy might have sprouted four inches since he’d last lived in Aspen Ridge, but he still had filling out to do, and his ass was as skinny as the rest of him. The long head of the brush spanned almost the entire width.
With a practiced arm, Cal raised the brush and brought it down with a swift thwap on the boy’s left cheek.
Jesse gave a little yelp, muffled by the blanket.
Cal whacked the other cheek. He moved quickly, snapping the brush off the boy’s briefs, alternating sides.
The effect was immediate. Jesse was already squirming. After a few solid licks, he lifted his head to cry, “Ow! Jesus, Cal, that hurts!”
“Uh-huh,” said Cal, without slowing. “Gonna hurt a lot more by the time we’re through.”
Jesse didn’t seem to find this comforting. He bucked and jerked so that Cal had to wrap his free arm around the boy’s torso to hold him in place, and every snap of the brush was accompanied by an “Ow!” or an “Aw, hell!”
“You make this much noise when Davey Cooper was whaling on your face?” Cal murmured.
“Ow!” was Jesse’s response—and then, louder, “Fuck!”
That made Cal pause. He pulled back the brush and brought it down with a sound crack.
Jesse howled into the blanket.
“I don’t mind you hollering,” said Cal, resting the brush against Jesse’s bottom while the boy seethed and clenched his fists, “but you can keep a civil tongue in your head while you do it, or you will meet my belt today. You hear me?”
“It hurts!”
“I’m well aware of that.” He gave the boy a few gentle pats, which made him squirm in distress. “Why are we here, again? We here because I felt like beating up on you?”
Jesse grunted.
“Reckon you brought this on yourself?”
“I guess.”
Another swift crack, and Jesse’s voice hiked up in pitch. “Yessir, I did! I brought it on myself! Oh, fff… heck.”
“You just grab up that blanket and hold on,” said Cal. “And try to keep from wriggling yourself off my lap, or we’ll be here all night.”
Jesse moaned, but he obeyed, gathering up an armful of the blanket and pressing his face into it.
Cal lifted the brush. “You gonna watch your mouth?”
“Yessir.”
“Good.”
And he started in again, smacking the brush down at a steady, determined pace.
Jesse continued to twitch and gasp at every blow, but he’d quit the dramatics and was at least trying to keep it together.
He was a tough kid, Cal mused. He doubted the boy had really been spanked before. Swatted now and then, maybe, by his mother, back when she’d still had either interest or patience enough to teach her child some boundaries. But Doug would never have laid a finger on his precious boy. When he was drunk, he was too uncoordinated—and say what you would about Doug O’Connor, but he’d never been an angry drunk. A sleepy, weepy, stumbling drunk. Silly, slap-happy, and embarrassing. But not angry.
In the rare moments Doug wasn’t steeped in liquor, the glimmer of self awareness made him ashamed of himself. He could never have brought himself to scold Jesse for a thing, let alone deal him proper discipline.
When Cal had gone over Jesse’s entire bottom with the brush—then gone over it again, and once or twice more—he paused and set the brush aside.
“Catch your breath,” he told Jesse, who was drawing in slow, shaky lungfuls of air.
“Jesus,” Jesse breathed. “That really hurt.”
“Means I’m doing it right,” said Cal. “Don’t get too comfy. You got more to come.”
Jesse made a low keening noise. “Come on, Cal! I’m sorry already!”
“I bet you are,” said Cal. “And I reckon you’re gonna be a whole lot sorrier in a few minutes.”
“Look, you made your point,” said Jesse. “I oughtn’ta left Lee by himself. And… I won’t get in fights no more. I just had to teach that Davey a lesson, but I won’t do it again, Cal, I swear.”
Cal grimaced. “Well, Jesse, I’m mighty glad to hear that, but it ain’t a question of how sorry you are. Fact is, you disobeyed me, and that comes with consequences can’t be bargained away.”
He watched the boy’s back rise and fall as he took a deep breath.
Then, in a quieter voice, Jesse asked, “How much… more?”
Cal rubbed his temple. “Hard to say,” he answered honestly. “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen next, so it don’t shock you. These briefs come down, and we go till you’re good and sore.”
Jesse gave a little squeak.
“That could take a minute. Could take longer. Some of that’s up to you—you keep still and don’t make me chase you all over tarnation, won’t take as long. It’s not meant to be a fun time, boy,” he added as Jesse started moaning again.
The teenager heaved a sigh. “I know,” he muttered. “But… Jesus, Cal, I’m… I’m plenty sore already! Can’t we—”
“All right, all right, we ain’t negotiating, here,” Cal said brusquely. He hooked his fingers around the waistband of the black boxer briefs. In a quick motion, he pulled them down.
Jesse’s pale bottom was tinged a light pink. Barely touched, Cal observed. The boy’s reaction so far had been dramatics more than anything. Not uncommon with a first-timer.
Well, he wanted to holler, Cal could give him something to holler about.
Cal picked up the brush. “You ready?”
Jesse buried his face back in the armful of blanket. “No.”
“Well, get ready.”
And he brought it down.
The slap of the wood against bare skin was a brighter, sharper sound than the muted thwacks of the spanking over briefs. Cal didn’t believe in pulling his punches. He landed the brush as solidly as he would with any of his boys. It left a long, narrow imprint that flashed white across both cheeks before the skin faded to a rosy color.
Jesse cried out at the impact. His hips twitched, but he didn’t try to lurch out of the way.
Now, Cal had a visible measure of his progress. He aimed his strokes in a similar pattern as before, back and forth, up and down, not wholly predictable, but taking pains to cover the entire area, watching it gradually change color.
Jesse, meanwhile, was unraveling fast. He was trying, bless him, gritting his teeth and mashing his face into the blanket so it was liable to imprint a knitwork pattern of its own. His feet hitched up here and there, but he kept still—or, at least, he kept the writhing to a minimum.
Cal could tell whenever he landed a particular stinger. He could tell by the sound it made on impact: loud and solid. And he could tell by the audible not-quite swear word it elicited from the teenager’s mouth.
“Shit,” Jesse hissed at one point—then, frantically, “Sorry, sorry!”
Cal showed mercy. “Do your best,” he said, laying another long red mark on the boy’s right cheek. “I know it stings.”
“It fff—it really stings,” said Jesse.
Cal could hear the hitch in his voice that meant his composure was on its last legs. Jesse’s bottom had gone from barely pink to thoroughly rosy, and it was now making the turn into a sort of dusty crimson.
“Cal, stop,” came Jesse’s voice, feeble and muffled through the blanket. “Please. I’m sorry.”
For the first time all afternoon, he actually sounded it.
“Almost through,” said Cal.
He hiked the boy forward and dealt a few sharp swats to the lower part of his backside, just above the legs. Jesse yelled something multi-syllabic into the blanket—probably just as well Cal couldn’t make out the words. He laid on the swats until the pale skin had turned color to match the rest of the bottom, and then he returned his attention up top.
Jesse wheezed out a strangled sob. He’d given up on pleading and was now just doing what he could to endure. With how tight he was gripping the blanket, Cal could see the tendons standing out on the backs of his hands, which were almost brown with freckles.
Time to bring it home.
“When I set you a chore, you do it,” said Cal, and he brought the brush down with a hearty smack. “You do not solve problems with your fists.” Smack. “And if I hear of you touching booze without my permission, we are gonna have a very similar, but much more memorable conversation, like the one we’re having right now.” Two last good ones, right across the center, and Cal finally rested his arm.
“Are we real clear on all that, boy?”
A slow, shuddering breath that wracked Jesse’s whole body. In a soft voice, he said, “Yessir.”
“No more trips in the sheriff’s car?”
“No, sir.”
As gently as he could, Cal replaced the boxers. Jesse twitched as the fabric brushed his bottom, which was thoroughly red and radiating heat.
Then he put a broad hand on the boy’s narrow back and let Jesse catch his breath.
“You cry if you need to,” said Cal.
There was a short sniff. “I ain’t crying,” came the thick voice.
Even so, Cal let him lie there, watching his shoulders rise and fall, and listening to the occasional hitch in his breathing.
After a while, Jesse murmured, “Can I get up?”
“Yep.”
Cal helped ease him to his feet.
Jesse bent to retrieve his jeans, which were pooled around his ankles but hadn’t been kicked entirely free. The boy’s face was red, and his eyes damp. He buttoned his jeans and buckled his belt, then he rubbed at his eyes with his shirt sleeve and blew out a breath in a long whoosh.
“There you go,” said Cal. “You got a warm backside, and that’ll stick with you the rest of the day, I reckon. Something to reflect on while you help Lee finish the work on that fence.”
The corners of Jesse’s mouth drew down at the confirmation that he was, in fact, still expected to help fix the fence. But he only said, “Yessir.”
Cal got to his feet. He took Jesse by the shoulders. “Let me tell you something, Jess,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here. I ain’t expecting you to be perfect, but you own up to your mistakes, and you take your medicine, and you and I are gonna get along just fine.”
Jesse swallowed. He nodded.
“You take a minute,” said Cal. “I’ll tell Lee you’re on your way. Don’t keep him waiting too long.”
Jesse nodded again.
Cal gave his shoulders a little squeeze, then turned to go.
“Cal?”
He stopped in the doorway.
Jesse’s voice was low and a little hoarse from all his carrying on. He took a deep breath. “I wasn’t gonna get drunk,” he said. He was staring at the floor near Cal’s boots. “I ain’t ever getting drunk in my life. I just wanted a sip of… something. Like you said. Liquid courage. But I ain’t ever, ever getting drunk. Not ever.”
Cal nodded slowly. “No,” he agreed. “I reckon you ain’t.”
“Do you think…” Jesse stopped suddenly, drew another breath. “Do you think I’m… like him?”
Cal ran a hand through his hair. He came back into the room. “That what Davey Cooper had to say?”
Jesse shrugged. “He was just shooting his mouth,” he said. “About him, and… about my ma. Saying I wouldn’t amount to shit.” He ran his sleeve over his face again. “I know I oughtn’ta fought him. I’m just so sick and tired everyone in this town comparing me to him all the time. I just wanted to… do something about it.”
Cal sighed. He could understand where the kid was coming from. Hell, Cal himself had felt like socking one to old Wayne Morris today, and the sheriff was about as genteel as a man could get. But even a man like Morris could harbor prejudice. It wasn’t Jesse’s fault he had the parents he did. Where did the town get off punishing him for it?
“Jesse,” said Cal. “Your daddy was sick. Happens to plenty of folk. It don’t mean he was a bad person. I have it on good authority he loved you very much.” Jesse, and his father’s love for him, had been one of the red-faced man’s favorite whiskey-soaked topics. “And it don’t mean you’ll be like that, neither. But I reckon you’re smart not to test it.”
Jesse glared at the floorboards. “I just wish everyone’d shut up about it,” he said.
“Well, they might,” said Cal. “And they might not. Can’t control what people say. Just what you do about it.” He raised his eyebrows. “Davey Cooper calls you a good-for-nothing, you gonna prove him right by sneaking shots of whiskey and brawling him in the street?”
Jesse said nothing.
“Seems to me, he thinks you won’t amount to nothing, you got an obvious way to prove him wrong.”
Jesse lifted his gaze to meet Cal’s. “By… amounting to something?”
“That might just about do it,” said Cal. “Then again, it might not. Either way, I get a feeling it’ll make you feel a mite better about yourself, at least. And ain’t that really the whole point?”
“Guess so.”
“You think about that,” said Cal. With a wink, he added, “While you’re fixing that fence.”
Jesse sighed. “Yessir.”
Some time later, while Cal was at the round pen helping Avery with his hitch knots, he heard the door to the house swing open. He looked up to see Jesse jog down the back steps and set off at a brisk pace for the back pasture.
Cal had to fight back a smile. Jesse was looking purposeful and cocksure as always. If half the household hadn’t witnessed him pulling up in a cop car, not a soul would have guessed he’d just gotten his ass torn up.
Jesse glanced Cal’s way. Their eyes met briefly, and for a moment, Jesse slowed, as if thinking he should show some decorum.
Then he tossed his head and resumed his determined stride. Off to grouse and snipe his way through helping Lee fix the fence—but helping him fix it, which was the main thing, and Cal knew Lee would be gracious and accept the assistance. Even if the assistance came with a pain-in-the-ass partner.
Cal returned to Avery, who was demonstrating each of the knots Cal had shown him. Cal praised his work and sent him up to the house to do his homework, following him with an affectionate swat.
He stood and stretched, cracked his back, and gazed around the ranch. He could hear the boys shouting to one another as they finished their chores—a background hum as natural to him by now as chirping birds or yipping coyotes.
You do a good thing here, Sheriff Morris had said. Yeah, Cal thought. He reckoned he did.
He popped a few sunflower seeds in his mouth and headed inside to start supper.