He stuck his hat on and peered down the road as she pulled away. “Damn.” Most of the kids he went to high school with still lived in this chinwag town. By now, he should be used to gossip. Jake went back inside to dig out work clothes, but he couldn’t get Beth off his mind. He had missed an earlier good morning text from her. After getting into jeans and a long sleeve shirt, he went out to the supply barn.
He checked Wade’s office and went back through the barn, leaned against a stall door, and texted Beth: “Hey, good-looking. How’s the day going? Missed your text this morning.” Jake increased the volume, stuck the phone into his pocket, and went into the stall to start cleaning. It had been cleaned.
A quick check to his phone showed no reply to his text. Maybe Beth had to wait until lunch. It rang before he got it back into his pocket. Great, now what! “JL Ranch, Jake here,” he said to Trace’s school.
“Hello, Jake, this is Caleb Barker, Trace’s principal. I wish I could say this was a social call.”
Aw, hell! Snatching his hat off, he swatted it against the stall door.
“I got your boy in here. This time he did more than push Drake Manning down. You’ll have to come get him.”
“What did he do?” Jake sucked in a breath and groaned out in frustration.
“After he pushed him down, he punched him in the face while he was on the ground.”
“Look, I’m not condoning what he did, but do you know why? He’s been going through some bad stuff, negative shit from the same kid. Drake’s been calling his mom names, so I hope he’s getting suspended. The big mouth, hot shot kid needs an ass-whipping.”
“They’re both suspended. Can you pick him up in thirty minutes?”
“I’ll be there.” Sonofabitch. What the hell was going on? The bratty kid’s dad better not be there when he arrived. Somebody might have to hold him back.
First shoving his hair back and putting his hat on, he jogged out back to the paddock area to check on a gate that needed repair. Jake ambled back to where Wade worked in the office. “I have to take the fuck off. My kid got suspended. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” On the way out, he pivoted at the door. “Wade? This kid picking on T.J. has been calling Paige some awful names. Have you heard anything around town? This sorry ass punk didn’t learn those words on his own.”
Wade closed the laptop, leaned back in the rickety office chair, and peered up at him. “How much do you want to hear, dude?”
“All of it. This is affecting my son’s life and if people want to gossip, they can do it to my face. I know the bullshit she did behind my back, but they can leave my kid out of it.” He called in calm before he hit the road in a rage or put his fist through a stall wall.
“It’s not good, Jake, and I don’t want to be the one to tell ya. All I’ll say is I dated the receptionist at the new hotel in town. People talk.”
“Screw it. Nice of you to tell me.” Washing his hands and splashing cold water on his face in the tack room to get his brain together, he couldn’t figure out why he never heard these rumors. Stupid woman had been covert about her relationship toward him, but how’d everybody know? He checked his phone again. It was well past Beth’s lunchtime.
Wade stuck his head into the tack room. “I never heard anything until after she passed away, Jake.”
“Okay.” Jake brushed past him on his way out. He pulled up outside at the same time Drake Manning and his dad Chad were leaving the building. He seethed inside, and his hands clenched into fists, but who was the bigger man here—not Chad. On purpose, he got out and hit the pavement at the same time the other guy stepped off into the parking lot, bumping Chad’s arm as he walked past. Rotten SOB. He turned around and glared at Manning’s back, mentally daring him to turn around.
When he entered the office, Trace sat right there with his backpack on the floor beside him, glancing away the moment Jake walked into the office. He went to the desk. “I’m here to pick up Trace.”
“Sign him out please, Mr. Lawton,” the secretary politely stated.
“Yep.” He did and turned to T.J. “Come on.” Walking out ahead of him, Jake didn’t expect him to take that kind of bullshit, but he always had warned him about fighting at school. Although at the first sight of Chad Manning, he had wanted to knock his ass to the ground. At this moment he had nothing to say, so he waited quietly as T.J. got inside the truck. When Jake got in, he shrugged to loosen up. “It got pretty bad, huh?”
Trace peered at his lap and popped a rubber band around his wrist. “Are you mad at me, Dad?”
Trace’s voice held a fearful lightness, making Jake take stock of the situation, giving his heart another minute to get back into a normal beat. “I don’t know what I am at this moment, T.J. Let’s get back home and deal with it later when I’ve had time to think. I’m not mad at you, though.”
“I’m sorry, but he kept telling the other kids about my mom screwing somebody in the hotel room next to his!”
Jake did a double take toward his son, gripped the steering wheel tighter as his jaw clenched. This needed dealt with right now. He pulled off the highway and into a restaurant parking lot, remaining at the far end away from any gossipy eyes and ears.
Trace sniffled as he peered out the window. “What does that mean, Dad?”
Screwing in town! His body shook inside. “If you don’t know what it means, why did you punch him?”
“It was the way he said it, and what he did with his…” Trace gulped before continuing, and his sad eyes filled with tears as he looked at his dad. “With his hands.”
I’m pulling him out of that damn school. “The kid doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s repeating something he heard somewhere. It’s best you pay no attention to any of it from now on. You can’t keep getting suspended. He’ll eventually find someone else to bother.”
“Am I grounded?”
Jake leaned his forehead against his outstretched arm, taking a moment to collect some composure, releasing his grip on the steering wheel. It wasn’t his son he was mad at. “I don’t know, probably. How long are you suspended?”
“Three days.”
“You’re grounded for those three days, and you’ll help me work on the ranch, after your homework is done—”
“I like working on the ranch.”
Maybe this was a sign he’d stick around after graduating. If graduation day ever came. His behavior these days made it debatable. “They’ll let you make up your homework, right? You only have a couple weeks until Christmas break. Try to stay away from Drake. The brat’s not even in the same grade, so what’s so freaking hard about staying away from him?” Sweat beaded on his face. He rolled the window down to get some air before he lost it.
T.J. nodded. “He comes after me. You can get my homework.”
His blood boiled, and a vein might burst any second. “All right.”
Trace glanced out the window and sat up straighter. “There’s Beth.”
Jake studied the area where his son pointed. What the hell? Fine, just what I need. She stood close to a man, their hands clenched together between them. He blinked a couple times and shook his head. His eyesight was fine as his gaze lowered to those same clenched hands.
“Who’s she with, Dad? They’re holding hands. I didn’t know she had a boyfriend.”
“She doesn’t. That’s her ex-husband.”
T.J. jerked his head toward his dad. “Huh? She’s married to him?”
“You know, Trace, like they used to be married to each other. They’re divorced now.” He put the truck into gear and drove slowly out of the parking lot, so as not to draw attention to himself, but glanced into his rear view mirror in time to see them embrace.
“It doesn’t look like they’re divorced.” T.J. gazed out the window for as long as he could see them.
Sure doesn’t. He dropped his head back against the seat and pointed his truck home. Like he had told Paige—nothing could surprise him anymore. But that did. No wonder she had cance
lled yesterday’s ride. When they arrived at home, Jake told T.J. to go to his room to do his homework. He went into the kitchen and popped the top on a beer, took out his phone, and still didn’t find a text from her. Jake called the babysitter. “Hey, Pepper, this is Jake Lawton. Are you available to watch Trace tonight for a few hours?”
“Sure, what time do you want me over?” Pepper replied in a cheery voice.
“Six or seven. How’s that work for you?” Jake peered outside as Evan had the stallion on a lunge line, exercising him in the ring. It might be a long night, but he’d have to remember to cut it short because tomorrow he had to handle that horse. Perfect timing to work off unhealthy anger.
“I can do seven. How late will you be? You know my mom will ask.”
Jake gripped the cold bottle of brew. “Two or three hours unless that’s too late for you on a weeknight.”
“It’s okay. See you later. I’m driving now, so you don’t have to come get me.” Her bubbly voice echoed through the speaker. “C’ya!”
Jake guzzled down the beer when he hung up, and went for beer number two, but he chased it with a shot of whiskey and then another. At this point in his life, he’d had enough women twisting his heart around like a piece of red licorice. He ambled to the stairway, going halfway up. “Trace, do you need any help with your homework?”
“Nope. I’m hungry.”
“Come on down.” He went to the kitchen to turn on the oven and Trace sat at the counter with a math book. “I didn’t have time to plan anything tonight, so how’s frozen pizza sound? And you’re eating salad with it. At least something nutritious.”
“Okay. Take the pans out of the oven! You never have time to plan for dinner.”
“Good one. Maybe that’s because I work too hard around here.” Thanks.
“I still love you, Daddy. I’ll help you.”
“That’ll get a day knocked off from you being grounded.” Jake stumbled over the chair leg then laughed. “That’ll teach Drake, huh? Maybe he has to help his dad with horse manure in the field where he works. Maybe he’ll fall in it.”
Trace folded his arm on the table and rested his chin on his forearm. “Eww, yuck.”
“Yuck is right while we’re getting ready to eat, huh? There goes another day off your suspension because your dad’s an idiot.” A jerk-ass idiot.
“No you’re not. You smell like beer.”
“Yeah.” Wait? What the hell had he done? On the way to the freezer, his son’s words about smelling like beer echoed through his brain like a reminder slapping him in the face. “I’m going out tonight for a little while. Pepper will be over to watch you.” He held his palm up. “I’ll be all right, T.J., and I won’t be long.” A text came in from Beth. Instead of reading it, he tossed his phone to the counter.
“I don’t like math.” Trace leaned his cheek on his arm and tapped a pencil against his book. “Are you going out with Beth?”
“Nope. I’m going out with myself. Do you want some help with math?” Beth had been a whiz at math, too. Another thing they’d had in common.
“I’m done.”
He tore the wrapping off the pizza, dropped the cellophane on the floor, and then kicked it to the wastebasket before picking it up to throw away. “Do some more schoolwork to make up for when you’ll be gone. Maybe you’ll get extra credit.”
“I can’t—”
“Don’t say you can’t. You’re capable of doing more than you think you can. Everybody is, but they don’t know it sometimes.”
Trace knocked his book and paper to the floor with a swipe of his hand. “The teacher uses the overhead for instruction, so I’ll miss all that. It’s Drake’s fault!”
“Stop right there. It’s his fault for saying what he says, but who hit him?” He let his words sit. After sticking the pizza into the preheated oven, he crouched at Trace’s side. “I’ll help you with what you get behind in, but I get what you’re saying. We’ll check your teacher’s website for work assignments.” He put his hand on Trace’s shoulder, giving a squeeze. “Pick up your book and notebook, please. And feed Kasha. Run around with her later, too.”
Bending to pick up his book, he snarled, “I love my dog. I’ll take good care of her.”
Chapter 8
Jake pulled up at the bar in town but sat there a minute, debating on reading the text. It had taken her long enough to reply to his, and now he knew why. Why was her ex in town? Had he come to win her back? He got out of the truck and slipped the phone into his pocket. Once inside, he sat at the bar and turned toward the band. Their country rock style sounded pretty good.
“Brandy,” he said to Rob Adams. “Double.”
“How ya doing tonight, Jake?” Rob asked.
“Ask me after a couple doubles.” He tossed some bills on the bar. “Keep them coming.”
“Whoa, dude. That’ll buy a lot of drinks. You expecting someone?”
“Hell no. Why, do you think I need somebody?” Jake Lawton knows how to be alone.
Rob tossed a towel over his shoulder and sat a drink down in front of him. “Making conversation.”
Jake stared at Rob’s back as he walked away. The smell of alcohol in the glass drew it to his lips. He swallowed a big drink. It burned all the way down, then he tapped his glass on the bar for another one. Rob had done a good job with this place since he took it over. He modernized it with track lighting, polished wood surrounding the mirror, and new tables and chairs, plus some bar stools. Rob made it better than the others in town, but Canyon Junction needed another bar with five TVs like they needed potholes. Jake laughed to himself. Not one television was turned on.
Rob came back with a bottle of brandy.
“Give me a beer, my usual.”
Rob viewed the doorway when four patrons came inside, but he lifted a brow, eyeing Jake. “Ah, you don’t have a usual anymore. It’s been too long for me to remember what it used to be when we were drinking buddies. Care to refresh my memory? Or maybe skip the beer?”
Jake focused on his face, but it hadn’t registered right away exactly what Rob had indicated. Those gray eyes bore into him, and he didn’t like the implication once it hit him what Rob meant. He pointed to what an old guy a couple seats down had in a bottle. “That kind. Just bring it.”
Rob grabbed a bottle of beer and plopped it down in front of Jake. “Something bothering you tonight?”
“Hell no. I don’t get out enough. Since my cheating wife walked out with another man’s—”
“Hey, hold on. It isn’t polite to speak of the dead, even if it was your cheating wife who is now dead.” Rob grumbled through gritted teeth. His palms pressed against the edge of the bar. “We were all friends, so I don’t want to hear it. You want to talk about Paige, there’s a new bar down the street, or better yet, go home. I’m not condoning what she did to you, but kill the attitude while you’re here.”
Shut. Up. Jake tipped his beer bottle and guzzled a drink. “I didn’t mean it like that. Hell, yes, I did.” He took his phone out of his pocket to read the text from Beth.
“Sorry, I got your message late. I was a little tied up. I’ll explain later. Call me, honey!”
Yeah, he saw her tied up right in the arms of the jackass. Jake held it up in front of his face and stared at the text. Call you? So you can… Damn women. He finished nearly all the beer and ordered another one.
In a reflection in the mirror behind the bar, he spotted Chad Manning who had become a thorn in his side. Another draw from the bottle, and he set it down hard enough to get Rob’s attention. That’s it! Jake got up and made his way to the table where Chad sat with a few guys. He stood in front of him with his hands fisted at his sides. “You’re the sonofabitch spreading rumors about Paige Lawton. Now say it to my face, asshole. Jackass.” Jake pushed the guy’s shoulder, but he didn’t get up. “Say what you have to say instead of putting your kid up to it. It kind of makes you look like a coward. A coward.”
Chad stood immediately, so abrupt
that his chair fell over. His hands clenched into fists, as well. They faced each other nose to nose.
“Come on, Jake,” said Rob, jumping between them. He nodded to the other guy. “Sit down or get the hell out of here.” He said to the guys with him, “Take him home.”
“We’re just sittin’ here enjoying a drink. Tell him to get the hell outta here,” said the youngest of the bunch—their unofficial spokesperson.
Jake pulled out of Rob’s sissy ass clutch, whipped around, and punched Chad square in the face. Before Chad retaliated, Rob, with biceps the size of an Olympic weight lifter, stood between them again, a tight grip on Jake this time. “Read the damn signs. No fighting in here. What the hell’s the matter with you guys?”
“We can take it outside.” Jake pushed Rob out of the way, and he got decked in the jaw before he knew what the hell hit him. Dazed him a little, too.
“Come on, Chad.” His friend gripped his arm. “You’re trying to buy a house in Gilbert. Don’t get yourself in trouble and lose your job.”
The other guys with Chad hauled him out of there, but one of them yelled to Jake, “Go sleep it off.”
Rob turned Jake around, pushing him back to the bar. “You need a cup of strong mud, dude. What the hell’s the matter with you? Fighting in my bar, Jake?”
Jake eyed Rob standing there with his long hair and leather vest showing off his tattooed biceps. A guy who should’a been riding a motorcycle instead of tending bar. “You have no idea what’s been going on,” he muttered. “My kid’s suspended because of what his kid’s been saying.” He raised his voice. “Where the hell do you think he got it from? Give me another beer. Why don’t you go tell him to shut up for talking about Paige?”
“How about you finish the beer you have before we worry about the next one?” Rob glared at Jake a moment or two before heading to the end of the bar to take another order.
Jake rubbed his jaw. A good hook for an asshole. He faced the band when they played a song that didn’t sit well with him. “Sing something else, you guys! Rob, another beer.” He picked up his phone to read the text again.
Whispers of Forever: Mending Christmas (Canyon Junction: Hearts In Love #1) Page 11