Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Ichabod figured he was going to lose his ever-loving mind.
It had been snowing for three days; his children had been out of school for two.
Ellis was up to his eyeballs in feeding cattle and horses and trying to keep the water tanks and troughs from icing up, and the kids were full of piss and vinegar.
“Dad! I’m bored,” Michael would cry while he was playing his video games.
It wasn’t so much that he was bored as it was that he was mad at Ellis for not letting him go out and help with the horses.
But the snow was up to Michael’s waist in most places, so it stood to reason that Ellis was afraid he’d get lost or hurt or worse.
“Dad, everyone else is in town! Why do we have to be out here in the middle of freaking nowhere?” Zane had reverted to a pouty teenager because he’d been cut off from his friends, although they were talking online.
Ichabod was glad Zane wasn’t driving solo yet because he was worried his son would do something totally stupid and try to drive into town, even though the roads were horrific.
“Because this is where your grandfather left us?” He tried find a grin. “I’m sorry, man, this is a freak friggin’ storm, you know that.”
It wasn’t even Halloween for Christ’s sake. This was wild.
“You know not everybody’s in town.”
“Don’t use logic. It’s condescending. You know everybody else is out there having fun, going to the coffee shop, and not being in school. I’m stuck here.” At least that was less growly, he guessed.
“Okay, but at least you’re not in school, right?” He winked, and Zane rolled his eyes.
“Can we at make fancy hot chocolate to make up for it?”
The other kids’ eyes lit up. “Ooh, fancy hot chocolate!”
“All right, sure, fancy hot chocolate it is. Let me grab the cocoa. Zane, get the sugar?” Thank goodness they’d bought three gallons of milk.
He heard the stomp of boots on the back porch, which meant Ellis was done with his latest check of the animals. The power had gone out at the bunkhouse, so Ellis was staying with them. He padded in a few minutes later in his socks, looking mostly frozen.
“Whew, it is raw out there.”
“Is it getting any better?”
Ellis brushed some snow from that red-flecked golden-brown hair. “Nope. I figure we’re socked in.”
“This is strange for this early, but we have plenty of supplies, plenty of wood, plenty of board games and books. It’s gonna be fine.”
Allie climbed up on a stool at the bar in the kitchen. “I think it’s exciting. It’s like we can have a big slumber party and play all day.”
Michael shrugged, coming to sit next to her with his elbow on the bar. “At least we have internet still,” he said. “That’s good. Mavis is in here, and nobody has to work except for Ellis.”
And he had a bit of guilt about that. But really, he was working in here trying to keep these hooligans from killing each other and keep water pipes from freezing and everybody fed.
Zane shrugged, even though it was a touch dramatic. “At least I’m not getting any pop quizzes. This school, they like their pop quizzes.”
Ichabod rolled his eyes. “Oh my God, I used to hate those.”
“You weren’t like the world’s best school guy?” Ellis asked.
Ichabod went to pour him a fresh cup of coffee to warm him until the cocoa was done.
“Look, I made it into college because I had an art scholarship. I was very into my art. Very, very.” He’d hated math, which was weird because he used it now in his work a lot, but algebra had confused the hell out of him, and he hadn’t liked dissecting frogs.
He’d wanted to draw and create things. He hadn’t wanted to have to be practical.
“I waded through school because I had to.” Ellis took off his big jacket to hang it out in the mudroom, then came to stand by the stove. His poor hands were red and chapped with the cold. “But it was important to my momma.”
“Does she live around here? I mean, I’m assuming you’re local, given that you were Chris’s stepbrother’s half-brother.” He winked.
Zane’s head tilted. “Wait, what?”
Ichabod tried to figure out when Zane would have met Rick. “Do you remember when you were five, and you got your bike? We came here for Christmas?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Okay, so do you remember that there was a guy here with bright blue hair; he was going to college, and he gave you one of his hoodies? It was like way too big on you, but you loved it?”
“Yeah.” Zane nodded, then turned to look at Ellis. “That’s your brother?”
“Half-brother, yeah.”
“Huh, weird. Cool though. I have half-sisters. It’s cool. They’re just like sisters.”
“You’re totally closer with your sisters than I am to Rick.” He grinned at Zane. “We talk on the phone, but that’s about it.”
Ichabod thought he heard the unspoken, “When Rick wants something.”
“But Momma lives over in Trinidad now.”
“Oh nice! I’ve had to drive through there a number of times when we were heading down to Santa Fe.
” He and Chris had loved to go to Santa Fe to visit, take long walks, see the art, and sell some pottery.
What he did wasn’t the same kind of thing as some of the Pueblos produced down there, but there was still a market for his stuff.
He stirred the cocoa, being careful not to let it boil.
Once that was all made and done, he would put it in the crock pot and let it live in there for the day to stay warm, and the kids could dip it out at will.
One day of cocoa and sugar wouldn’t kill them, and if they got too rambunctious, he’d throw them outside and have them shovel.
Ellis leaned on the counter next to him, cup of coffee in hand. “It’s decent, for sure. They got a nice spread there, and the Tequilas has good Mexican.”
From the living room, I heard little Chrissy cheer, “Yay, Mexican!”
“You’re raising that little girl right,” Ellis told him. “Tacos are proof that there is a God and He loves us.”
“Or She does.” Zane said, face serious as a heart attack.
Ellis nodded with a single dip of his chin. “We all gotta find our way, man. We all gotta find our way.”
Ichabod focused on stirring the cocoa. His kids had been raised to believe that they all had a path, and they could all find it on their own. Sometimes that could make problems, but Zane was not one to step away from those problems.
Zane nodded to Ellis. “We do. My dad, he was a Unitarian Universalist, and that’s how I was raised. That everyone has a path and that it’s valid.”
“I have no beef with that. As far as I’m concerned, as long as what you do doesn’t affect what I do or interfere with what I believe, then you’ve got the right to do it.
You want to believe in whatever, then that’s between you and whatever you believe in.
As long as you don’t tell me what I have to believe, I won’t tell you. ”
Michael was watching them as if he was watching a tennis match, eyebrows drawn together, a frown on his lips, but to Zane’s credit, he just nodded.
“That’s fair. I can totally accept that as an answer.”
“Cool beans.” Ellis winked at him, sharing a little private moment over that win, and he felt his cheeks flush.
“Do you get along with your mom and dad?” Michael asked.
Looked like today was grill Ellis day.
“Yeah. Mom and I don’t talk as much. Dad and I talk on the phone a lot. They both went to spouse number three or four. So by the time they did that, I was kind of removed from the situation.”
“Wow. That’s a mind—”
He glared at Zane.
“Fart.”
Ellis hooted. “It is. So what are we going to have with the hot chocolate?”
“Cookies?” Allie asked.
“Cake!” That was Chrissy.
“How about we have some lunch first?” A sugar rush was one thing, but sweets all day would see the three youngest winding up with tummy aches and more.
“Lunch.” Allie sounded utterly disgusted.
“Grilled cheese?”
She perked up. “I like those.”
“I know! Am I the best dad or what?” It was his turn to wink at Ellis.
“How about grilled cheese and tomato soup?” Ellis asked. “I can do that while your dad makes that hot choccie.”
“Hot choccie!” Chrissy threw her arms up in the air and started dancing. Soon enough, even Zane and Michael were in on it, and a conga line circled the kitchen island.
He glanced at Ellis, ready to roll his eyes, but then the man joined the line, chugging along behind Zane, shaking his ass.
Oh, God. If he’d only been in deep like tinged with heavy lust before now, he had a feeling he’d just fallen in love.
He was in so much trouble, and it had nothing to do with the kids and the sugar rush.