boy. “Did you know that?”
Zachary looked skeptical. “Trains don’t eat apples. And they don’t have manes. And horses don’t have engines.”
“I think it’s because trains took the place of horses for travel back in the days before cars and trucks and airplanes.” Stacy smiled, but Harlan saw a hint of sadness behind the smile, as if the conversation was causing her pain. “And since locomotives were made of iron, they called them iron horses.”
“Why didn’t they just call them trains?” Zachary asked.
“I’m sure they did that, too,” Harlan interjected. “It was like a nickname. You know what a nickname is, don’t you?”
“Miss Charlotte at school calls the girl who sits next to me Patricia, but we all call her Patty. She says it’s her nickname. I think Miss Charlotte should call her Patty, too, if that’s what she wants to be called. Don’t you?”
Harlan looked up at Stacy. “How old is he?”
“Five.” She gave him a look that seemed almost wary before she added, “And a half.”
“He’s very bright. You must spend a lot of time reading to him.” Harlan ventured a smile, a little taken aback at how nervous she seemed with him now. Just a few days earlier, in Austin, she’d seemed confident and strong, nothing like the woman on edge facing him now.
“I can read,” Zachary piped up. “I read the book about horses all by myself.”
Harlan looked at Stacy for confirmation. She gave a slight nod and tried a smile back at him, but it looked forced.
“How’s that hamburger, Zachary?” he asked her son, noticing that the boy had barely touched his food.
“It has mustard,” Zachary said bluntly. “I hate mustard.”
“I’m sorry-he tends to say what he thinks without worrying how it sounds.” Stacy reached across the table for the hamburger. “Zachary, you could have told me it had mustard on it. I would have scraped it off for you.”
“It gets all in the bread. It never stops tasting like mustard,” the boy said flatly. “Can I have a cookie now?”
Stacy frowned. “Let me open you some soup first. You know you have to eat dinner before you eat dessert.”
“I’m sorry,” Harlan asked, feeling like an idiot. “I should have thought to ask what he’d want on it.”
“It’s okay,” Stacy assured him quickly, digging in her cabinet for a can of soup. “If you don’t have children, you don’t know to anticipate things like that.”
“I’ll have to make a Zachary list, then.” Harlan grinned at the boy, who looked back at him with a blank-looking stare. “Likes horses, knows how to read, doesn’t like mustard.”
“I also like cookies,” Zachary added.
“Noted.”
Stacy was in the middle of heating the bowl of soup in the microwave when her cell phone rang. She looked at the display and frowned. “It’s Greg Merritt. I’ll have to get this.”
She moved into the living room, seeking privacy, but the guesthouse was too small to afford her much. From her end of the conversation, it sounded as if the governor’s campaign manager wanted an instant update on the invitation list Stacy had been working on.
The microwave oven beeped, signaling it was finished cooking Zachary’s soup. Neither Stacy nor Zachary seemed to notice.
Harlan got up and retrieved the soup from the microwave oven, snagging the spoon Stacy had left on the counter on the way back to the table. He set the soup in front of Zachary. “Mmm, chicken and noodles. I used to love that when I was a kid.”
Zachary picked up his spoon. “Why don’t you love it now?”
“Well, I suppose I’d still love it now. I just don’t eat a lot of soup anymore.”
“But if you loved it before and you love it now, why don’t you eat it anymore?” Zachary’s forehead furrowed, making him look like a confused cherub.
“I eat other things.”
“Horses eat carrots as well as apples.” Zachary turned his attention back to the toy horse. “Do you have a horse?”
“I live in a small apartment, so I can’t have a horse there. If I lived somewhere else, maybe I would.” His family had been too poor to own horses when he was a kid, but he had learned to ride thanks to a schoolmate whose family owned a stable with several Tennessee walking horses.
Across the room, Stacy’s voice rose. “Greg, I can’t get a whole new group of names added to the list before tomorrow morning. You’re just going to have to reschedule.”
“Mommy, we don’t live in a small apartment. Can we have a horse?” Zachary slipped down from his chair and crossed to Stacy, tugging at her blouse. “Mommy, we can have a horse because we don’t live in a small apartment.”
Stacy made a shushing sound, stroking her son’s head. “Yes, I know we’re under the gun-”
“Mommy, we can have a horse! Harlan said so!”
Stacy shot Harlan a questioning look.
Harlan hurried over, gently steering Zachary back to the table. “Zachary, let’s go back and eat your soup.”
“You can have it,” Zachary said dismissively, wriggling out of Harlan’s grasp and returning to his mother. “Mommy, can we go get our horse now?”
“Zachary, your mama’s on the phone. Come back and eat your soup,” Harlan said, keeping his voice as low as possible.
Zachary ignored him. “Mommy-”
Stacy put her hand over the phone receiver. “Just a second, Zachary- Yes, Greg, I’m still listening to you-”
Harlan reached down and picked Zachary up, carrying him toward the kitchen. Immediately, he realized he’d done exactly the wrong thing. Zachary started struggling as if Harlan were trying to abduct him, his hands flapping wildly and his head rolling. Stacy shot Harlan a look of sheer disbelief.
“Mommy!” Zachary wailed. He kept flapping his hands frantically.
Harlan gently caught the boy’s hands to hold them still. “I’m sorry I scared you, but you need to let your mama finish her business. Can’t you wait until she’s done?”
Zachary went silent, staring at Harlan with blue eyes full of accusation. “You touched me.”
Harlan dropped his hands away. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Mommy says I should never let someone else touch me. Only Mommy. I’m telling.”
Oh, great. Now the kid thought he was some sort of pervert. “I think your mama already knows. And I’m sorry, Zachary. Your mama’s right-you shouldn’t let anybody touch you but her without your permission. But your mama-”
“Can take care of my own son without your interference,” Stacy finished for him.
He turned his head to find her only a couple of feet away, her hands on her hips. Her dark eyes blazed at him.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just-I see a situation developing, I try to fix it. But I had no right.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“I can see it was a mistake to try to meet for dinner,” Harlan looked down at Zachary, who had apparently gotten over the trauma of being picked up and hauled to the table. He was eating his soup again, one hand closed over a toy horse, making it trot circles around his bowl.
“I think so, too.”
Her short, angry replies were beginning to bring out a little of his own ire. What crime had he committed to deserve Stacy Giordano’s cold fury? Picking up her kid? He didn’t hurt Zachary, and the kid was acting like a brat, anyway. Maybe if she spent a little more time with him…
“I’ll check in with you in the morning. We have a lot to go over,” he said brusquely, crossing to the closet where she’d hung his coat.
