“You mean for twelve years y’all didn’t have sex?” Nikki gasped.
“I didn’t. I don’t know what he did when he wasn’t home, and I didn’t care.” Wilma’s cheeks went scarlet again. “I was glad when he would come to Celeste so he could help with you kids. I loved you as much as I could, but taking care of you was just too much of a burden for me. Don was five years younger than me and his health was good.”
Nikki understood more of her mother’s background right then than ever before, and she felt so sorry that Wilma had never known what a real, loving relationship should be. She wanted to hug her mother and tell her that life didn’t have to be like hers had been, but that would be going too far. The last time she’d even put her arm around her mother’s shoulders was at Quint’s funeral, and then she’d shrugged it off.
It’s not her fault. Her dad’s words came back to her mind. They’d been fishing out at Canyon Creek when she complained about her mother’s coldness. You have to understand why she is the way she is. I thought I could fix her, baby girl, but some things you just can’t fix.
There were no more questions. She could understand now why her father left and a little bit about why Wilma was the way she was. Knowing left an empty hole in her heart, and she wanted so badly to fix her mother, to help her know joy and happiness. But she knew her father had been right. Some things can’t be fixed.
Wilma glanced at the clock sitting on the end table and got that blank stare in her eyes again as she gazed over Nikki’s shoulder. “I guess Jesus is telling me to give you what’s rightfully yours. It’s in Quint’s room. I used to hide it in my bedroom, but when you left, I didn’t want to look at it.”
She hurried to her brother’s room, but it took several minutes for her to build up the courage to open the door. All of his things had been given away before his funeral because Wilma was convinced that the germs from his ailment were hiding in his toys, his pillow, even his furniture. Nikki had salvaged a teddy bear and kept it hidden in her closet until she moved out. It was part of that last load of things she had taken out of the house.
She finally eased the door open and peeked inside. The room was empty. Over there against the wall, she imagined Quint’s bed. He was curled up on it with a book in his hands. Her eyes traveled around the room to imagine his dresser with a globe on it. They’d spin it and put a finger on the places where they wanted to travel someday, and then he’d check out books at the library and study about the places.
She didn’t see anything that would be called hers in the empty room until she opened the door all the way. Just inside, so that Wilma wouldn’t have to go inside to reach it, was a box with all kinds of mail in it. She picked it up and carried it to the living room.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Stuff that’s been comin’ for you for the last fifteen years. I’d like for you to get it out of here,” she said. “And it’s almost eight o’clock. You should be going now.”
“Do you tell Mrs. Thomas to leave when she comes to visit?” Nikki asked.
“That would be rude, but I do sometimes pretend to fall asleep,” she said.
“Good night, Mama,” Nikki said.
“You stay on the porch until I get all the locks done up. I’ll flash the porch light when I’m done.” Wilma followed her across the floor.
Nikki did what she was told and then carried the box to the car. She drove home trying to figure out whether she was angry or sad for her mother, and glad that she’d broken the curse that must’ve run through the family for more than a generation.
She parked the car, picked the box up from the passenger seat, slung her purse over her shoulder, and headed for the Dumpster. A brisk wind whipped her dark hair into her face, and she set the box on the bottom step to tuck the strands behind her ears. The hot breeze had blown one of the envelopes back toward the car. She chased it down and realized that it had never been opened.
“Now that’s downright rude,” she said as she returned it to the box. About to toss it along with the others, she noticed that the handwriting wasn’t hers. A cold chill chased down her back, and she stood there in the fading sunlight and recognized her name on the card written in her father’s hand. She flipped several more pieces over and they were all the same.
She dug her phone from her purse and called her mother.
“Hello, Nikki.”
“Why didn’t you give me these when they came? Why did you hold them back from me?”
“Because your dad should have taken you with him, not left me with a teenage girl to raise. It wasn’t fair,” Wilma said. “You can do whatever you want with them. Good night, Nikki.”
The call ended. Nikki picked up the box and took it upstairs. She set the box on the bed and began to sort the envelopes by the dates they were mailed. The first one had come the week after Quint had died. It took two hours to read through more than twenty letters, fifteen birthday cards, Christmas cards that had at least a hundred dollars in each one with a note telling her to buy herself something nice, a graduation from high school card with money in it, and one for when she’d graduated from nursing school only a few months ago.
When she finished, the front of her shirt was tear stained. “Oh, Daddy,” she said as she picked up the first letter and scanned it again. He tried to explain that he couldn’t live with Wilma any longer, and he should have never married her. She’d seemed like a shy, sweet woman when he met her and fell in love with her, he said. It wasn’t until they were married that he realized what he’d gotten himself into. If she ever couldn’t stand living there, she was welcome in his new home. It was the same address that was written in the upper left hand corner of every single piece of mail.
She paced the floor from one end of her living room to the other and looked up at the clock. She couldn’t call Emily at ten o’clock at night, but Tag had said his door was open if she ever needed to talk.
She fed Goldie and walked out of the apartment.
Chapter Thirteen
Tag had just left the ranch house not thirty minutes ago, so the sound of an approaching truck wouldn’t be one of the guys. Emily wouldn’t be out at that time of night unless it was an emergency, and then she’d probably call on her way. The hair on his neck prickled—his sister wouldn’t use the phone if his granny had died or if his parents or older brother was injured. She’d bring the news to him in person, but then he realized that in that case, someone would probably call him first. He’d be the one on the way to comfort her.
He stood up and focused on the noise. Two headlights shone through the darkness, but they weren’t high enough to be from a pickup or low enough to be on the front of Emily’s Mustang. When it got close enough, he recognized the little silver car as Nikki’s. Before she turned off the engine, he’d crossed the yard and opened the door for her. From the dim light in the car, he could see that she’d been crying.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You said your door was open. I need to talk.” Her words came out one at a time, as if she had trouble getting them past a lump in her throat.
He held out a hand. “Come right in. I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”
She put her hand in his. “Got anything stronger?”
“Part of a jar of apple pie moonshine and half a bottle of what’s probably stale blackberry wine that Emily left in the refrigerator.” He closed the car door and led her into the cabin with Red at his heels.
“Moonshine will be great.”
She sank onto the sofa and kicked off her flip-flops. Red hopped up beside her and laid his head in her lap. Tag went to the cabinet and took down a quart jar of apple pie moonshine and a glass. He carried it to the coffee table and set them down.
“Double shot,” she said as he twisted the cap off the jar. “No, make that a triple.”
“It’s pretty strong, Nikki. You sure?” Tag started to pour.
“Positive.” She waited until the glass he held looked like three fingers before she
reached out and picked it up. “I’ve never had this before, but it smells wonderful.”
“How well do you hold your liquor?” He was genuinely worried, a new feeling for him. Before he met Nikki, he didn’t care how much a woman drank.
“Not so well, but tonight I don’t care. I want to be numb.” She took the first sip. “Now this is some good stuff.”
He sat down on the other end of the sofa. “You said you wanted to talk?”
“No, I said I needed to talk. There’s a difference. If I was just lonely and wanted to talk, I’d call you. But I need to get a lot of crap off my mind, and to tell the truth I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Then give me a minute.” He went back to the cabinet and got down another glass. “If it’s going to be a long story, then I’ll join you in a drink. But only one for me in case I have to drive you home.”
Something about this budding friendship seemed comfortable and right. No, it was more than that. After the kisses they’d shared, it was definitely a relationship. With his past, it might be at a standstill for a very long time and then fizzle and he could accept that. He deserved it. But right now it was nice to be needed, not just wanted, in any capacity.
He sat back down and said, “Okay, shoot.”
“It all started with me thinking back over our fishing trip yesterday and how I opened up to you. Don’t know why I did that since…” She took another sip.
“I’m a damn good listener,” he said.
“Probably gets more women in your bed than all those pickup lines you’ve got up your sleeve.” She finally smiled.
“Hey, now. I’ve worked hard on those lines for a long time and sometimes they work, so don’t go knockin’ ’em,” he argued.
“But not as well as when you look deep into a woman’s soul with those sexy blue eyes and listen to what she has to say,” Nikki told him.
“What does your soul want to say to me?” Tag asked.
She set the empty glass on the table. “I’m comfortable with you, Tag. The only other person I’ve ever been able to talk to is Emily. Don’t know if I like you because you’re like a brother, but no, that can’t be it, because I wouldn’t dream of kissing my brother. Anyway, to get on with it. After we talked, I was thinking about it, and Mama’s voice got in my head…You ever have that happen to you?”
He nodded. “All the time. Most of the time it’s my granny’s voice. What did your mama say?”
“She asked me why I’d tell family secrets to a cowboy,” she answered honestly.
“Why not?” he asked.
“She thinks you are too wild for me, but I’m not listening to her, not even when she gets in my head.” She went on to tell him everything her mother had said.
Red jumped off the sofa, scooted across the floor, and stopped at the door. Tag let him outside and returned to sit close enough to Nikki to hug her. “I’m so sorry. That had to be tough, to know that you weren’t ever wanted by one parent and to have the other one desert you.”
“Oh, darlin’, the story isn’t finished yet.” Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Tag jerked a blue bandana from his hip pocket and wiped them away. “It breaks my heart to see you weep like this.”
Between sobs, she told him about the letters and cards and all the money. “He must think that I didn’t want to live with him, and I did, Tag. I would have.”
And if you had, I would have never met you, he thought.
“Where does he live?”
“Just outside Dallas in McKinney, not far from here.”
“Let’s go see him,” Tag said.
“It’s been fifteen years, more than half my life. What would I even say to him?”
“‘Hello, Daddy’ would be a good start,” Tag suggested.
“I work weekends and he works through the week.” She yawned.
Poor girl was mentally exhausted and probably just as tired physically since she’d worked a forty-eight-hour shift.
“If you really want to see him, you’ll make it happen.” Tag went to the bed and got a pillow. “You should stay here tonight. You can have the bed. I’ll take the sofa.”
“No!” she protested. “That moonshine is hitting me hard. I’ll just stretch out here until it all metabolizes.” She took the pillow from him and laid her head on it and was asleep in seconds.
He covered her with the quilt that was draped over the back of the sofa and pulled the rocking chair up close to the coffee table so he could stare as long as he wanted. She looked lighter now that she’d shed that burden she brought with her that evening. And what a load it was. His heart went out to her, and he was amazed at how strong she was, given everything she’d had to deal with in her family.
Dark lashes rested on her cheeks. Equally dark hair fell over one side of her face. One hand rested under the pillow. The other was tucked under the quilt. She looked so damned vulnerable that he wanted to wake her with a kiss and carry her to his bed. Not to have sex but to simply hold her and melt away all that pain.
And that isn’t a bit like you, Taggart Baker, his grandmother said.
He nodded in agreement.
Nikki woke with a start the next morning and saw a note lying next to the jar of moonshine. She reached for it and read: There’s milk in the fridge and cereal in the cabinet. Coffee is already made. It was simply signed with a T.
She sat up and stretched, then padded across the floor in her bare feet to the cabinets. After she’d poured a bowl of Cheerios and added milk, she sat down at the table to eat. She’d just finished when someone knocked on the door. Figuring it was Tag since she hadn’t heard a vehicle approaching, she hurried across the floor and swung the door open.
Cold fear ran through her veins when she looked up into Billy Tom’s menacing eyes. “What are you doing here? Where’s your motorcycle?” She hoped she sounded a lot meaner than she felt.
“Where’s Tag?”
“He’s taking a shower,” she lied. “How did you find this place?”
“I talked to a guy in town, asked where Tag and Hud Baker’s ranch was, and he gave me the directions, then told me that Tag was staying in this place.” He pushed his way into the house, scanned the whole cabin with one look, and then pushed open the bathroom door. His eyes drew down until his dark brows were one solid line, and then he jerked a pistol from his belt and leered at her. “I hate liars. Can’t trust ’em.”
She glared at him, determined not to show fear.
“Not so mouthy now that I’m the one with the gun, are you? Since Tag ain’t here to do what I tell him, I’ll just take his woman. Is that your car out there?”
“No, it’s my mama’s,” she said.
“Well, it’ll do anyway. You’ve got the keys, don’t you?”
She shook her head and he pressed the end of the gun to her temple. “Remember I hate liars.”
“The keys are in the car. Take it.” She stared him right in the eyes without blinking.
“Oh, no, darlin’, me and you, we’re going for a little ride in your mama’s car. If you make a sound or try to warn someone, you are dead. Understand?”
She nodded. Her purse and her pistol were in the passenger seat. If she could get to it, she’d show the big overgrown smartass just how mouthy she could get.
His left hand shot out and he grabbed her arm so tight that it hurt. “A hostage will come in real handy. Besides, it’s been a while since I had a woman to keep my bed warm at night.” He pulled her out the door, leaving it wide open.
“Can’t I at least get my shoes?” she asked. “If I get caught driving barefoot, the police will ask questions.”
“Get them,” Billy Tom said through gritted teeth. “You can get behind that wheel and drive us out of here. And, darlin’, I’ll be right behind you. I can’t miss your heart if I shoot through the backseat.”
“Where are we going?” Nikki reached for her purse the second she was in the car, but Billy Tom grabbed it from her and flung it out the window. “
No driver’s license. You’re askin’ for trouble.”
“Don’t get stopped. Not one mile above or below the speed limit. Drive north to Nocona and catch Highway 82 going west,” he said. “We’ll have us a nice little road trip. Maybe if you do what I say, I’ll even tell you stories about Tag and the good old days.”
There was a very good possibility that she’d never see her father if she didn’t do what he said. Life wasn’t fair. She should at least get a chance to explain what had happened to his mail. She started the engine, turned the car around, and then braked. “The gas tank is nearly empty. If you don’t let me get my debit card from my purse, we won’t be going very far. I’ve got less than a quarter tank of gas.”
“Get out and get it.” He stepped out of the car and pointed the gun at her. “If you run, I’ll put a bullet in your back. I can always drive myself if I have to.”
She slowly walked back to where her purse was located, picked it up, and started to unzip the end pocket that held her pistol, but he grabbed it from her. “I’m not stupid, woman. I remember that you keep a gun in your purse.”
He fumbled inside with one hand, brought out her wallet, and then threw the purse on the ground. “Now go back to the car.”
“Can I take my phone?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Can I move my purse so I don’t run over it when we drive off?”
“I’m watching you,” he said.
She picked it up by the strap and carried it off to the side, where she deliberately pretended to stumble and fall over a rock. While she was setting her purse out of the way, she reached inside, grabbed her phone, and since Tag was the last person she’d called, she hit redial. Then she stood up and marched back to the car, yelling the whole way. “Thanks so much for being a jackass, Billy Tom. Where are we going?”
Cowboy Rebel--Includes a bonus short story Page 12