A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel)

by Marilyn Pappano

  “It’s an awful hard head.” Keegan felt a moment of shame. He’d been so stirred up about Mariah for the past twenty-four hours that he’d hardly had a thought to spare for Ford.

  “Ain’t that the truth. Now…how are you and Mariah doing?”

  He related the bathroom experience, and Ercella didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She settled for chastising him. “You’ve seen that skinny little butt of hers. You can’t just set her on a toilet and expect her to balance all on her own. Lord, Keegan, you’ve traumatized her. She’ll probably revert back to diapers and I’ll have to potty train her again when I get back.”

  “She’s been traumatized since you walked off and left us alone with each other yesterday. If it weren’t for Therese and—” Too late he broke off.

  “Who’s Therese, and what did she do?”

  He sighed. “She’s Matheson’s widow.”

  “You’re calling her by her first name now.”

  He didn’t respond to that. “When Mariah and I got back yesterday, she wouldn’t stop screaming or eat or anything. I was desperate, so I went over to Therese’s, and it turns out the kindergarten teacher is good with little kids. So is her daughter.”

  Ercella caught her breath. “Mariah met her half sister.”

  “And half brother. She really liked Abby.”

  “Do they look anything alike?”

  “I don’t know how any of them missed the resemblance.” But that was easy for him to say. He knew the one thing the family didn’t: that they were family.

  “Is she going to see them again?”

  Should he tell her they were having dinner tonight? Would she think the idea was good, bad, stupid? Would she suspect he had ulterior motives, like hoping maybe, just maybe, Mariah would wiggle her way into her stepmother’s heart and, eventually, out of his life?

  “Keegan?” Ercella’s voice raised. “Are you there?”

  “Celly?” Shucking the towels and standing naked in front of him, Mariah grabbed the phone, pressing it to her ear. “Celly, I wanna go home. Now.”

  His mother’s tone changed from matter-of-fact to a croon while she, presumably, explained yet again why she was gone and Mariah was stuck with him. Ercella could tell her a thousand times, and the kid still wouldn’t accept it. He didn’t blame her.

  After a few minutes, lip stuck out, Mariah dropped the phone, went to the couch, and grabbed the gator to tuck it beneath her chin. Fingers in her mouth again, she stared mutinously at him.

  “Poor baby,” Ercella said when Keegan got back on the phone. “She just doesn’t understand…Maybe I should have brought her with me.”

  Aw, man, his mother never second-guessed herself. Him, his brothers and sisters, the entire rest of the world, sure, but never herself. “Mom, she’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. Just concentrate on Ford, okay?”

  It took a couple minutes to convince her of his words. Finally, he used Mariah’s naked state as an excuse to go.

  Ercella’s laugh was part amused, part tearful. “I dress her, fold clothes, and cook breakfast all at the same time.”

  “You also don’t dunk her in the toilet. I need both hands and all my attention. Call me when you have news about Ford. I love you.”

  After he ended the call, he went to the dresser and opened the top drawer, pulling out the first set of clothing he came to, a blue shirt and denim shorts, plus a pair of rabbit-covered underwear. “Come on, Mariah, let’s get dressed.”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “I’m hungry.” He wanted to get dressed himself, brush his teeth, and get some breakfast. A gallon of coffee and a handful of aspirin tablets would be a good start.

  She swiped a hank of hair from her face. “Pink.”

  With a shrug, he traded the shirt for a pink one. “Okay, come on.”

  She shook her head.

  “Look, it’s pink, see?”

  She wasn’t impressed.

  Keegan bunched up the clothes in his hand and gazed at the door. Maybe he could leave her just long enough to go to QuikTrip on the corner and pick up breakfast there. He didn’t make a habit of buying hot food from convenience stores/gas stations, but judging by the wide selection, a lot of people did. How much trouble could she get into alone for five minutes? Not even Ercella required line-of-sight on her every single minute.

  Sighing heavily, he went to the couch, lifted her onto the cushions, then reached for one leg to slide into the underwear. She pulled and twisted, but he succeeded with that foot, reached for the other, and she slid the first one out again. “Come on, Mariah,” he cajoled. “You can’t run around naked all day, and I know you’ve got to be hungry. Maybe after breakfast, we can find a park to play.”

  “No, no, no, no!” She jerked free, scrambled to the other end of the couch, then jumped off and headed for the bed.

  His patience evaporated. “Mariah!”

  She froze, her back to him. Any minute now, she was going to let out a shriek that would do both her and Abby proud. He steeled himself, waiting for the assault on his ears and his headache, but it didn’t come. Slowly she turned, came back, pulled the panties from his hand and primly said, “I do it my own self.”

  It took her a while, though nowhere near as long as it had taken him, and she was actually wearing the underwear when she was done. A smile split her face at the accomplishment, then disappeared the minute she saw him watching. Next she grabbed the shirt, put it on backward, pulled her arms loose, twisted it so the picture of the princess was on the front, then spent another few minutes getting the shorts on, all but baring her teeth when he tried to help.

  Relieved at the progress, Keegan got clean clothes for himself, pushed the bathroom door almost closed, then changed in record time. When he went in, Mariah was considering the long row of shoes he’d lined up beside the dresser. When he came out, dressed and having brushed his teeth, she was still crouched in front of them. With a dismissive look for him, she finally picked a pair of flip-flops with an elastic band around the heel, put them on the wrong feet, then trotted to the door.

  “I want pancakes. Hurry, let’s go.”

  “You’ve got your shoes on the wrong—” Aw, hell. Considering how long it had taken them to get to this point, if she didn’t mind, why should he?

  * * *

  For the second time in two weeks—and only the second time in four years—Dalton knocked off work early. There was more he could do. With horses and cattle and buildings to maintain, there was always more, but the necessary jobs were done, the stock taken care of. The world wasn’t going to end if he didn’t check off a few more entries on his never-ending to-do list.

  After a shower and a change of clothes, he drove into town, a stack of bill payments to mail and the grocery list tossed in the passenger seat. Like the chores, both of those could wait until tomorrow, too. There was just something about him this evening that couldn’t wait. He needed to go somewhere. Do something. See someone. Anyone.

  He thought on the way in about calling Noah and asking if they could meet for dinner. Stillwater wasn’t much of a drive, and he hadn’t been there in years. But his brother would be home in another twenty-four hours, and frankly, he wasn’t the company Dalton was looking for.

  He considered calling Dane Clark. Dane was about the closest thing he had to a friend around Tallgrass—four years of ignoring people was hard on a friendship—but he probably already had plans with his fiancée. If he didn’t, he’d be wishing he did.

  From the day he’d met Sandra, Dalton had wished. For years, he’d had everything he could have wanted…other than knowing whether Dillon was dead or alive, and he’d lived with that question for so long it had become nothing more than an occasional thought.

  But Sandra…he’d wanted to spend every minute with her from the day they’d met in the feed store. She’d been looking for a trellis and tape to support the lone tomato plant on the balcony outside her apartment. She ha
d asked questions about the feed and medications he was buying, confessed to loving horses more than anything in the world, and wrangled an invitation to see his.

  Ten days later they’d flown to Las Vegas and gotten married. Their mothers had cried, both because they were happy for them and because there hadn’t been a wedding. His folks had been surprised. Dillon was the impulsive twin, the one who acted first and thought later, while Dalton had always been responsible.

  But he’d never regretted it.

  Until he’d found out the truth about Sandra’s death.

  When he passed the flower shop just inside the city limits, he focused on where to go. Almost all of his rare meals out were at Serena’s, but he wasn’t hungry for home cooking. What he really wanted was a fat, greasy burger with onions and jalapeños cooked right into the patty and fries so crispy they were almost charred. While there were several places that could supply the burger, only one had the fries.

  Bubba’s had started life during the log-cabin craze back in the early eighties, both home and showroom for a contracting company. The location might have been okay for living, but it was bad for a business, and with log cabins not being a novelty in Oklahoma the way they were elsewhere, it hadn’t taken long for the contractor to close up shop and move out of the area. Bubba Watson, on the outs with Buddy, his brother and partner in a bar downtown, had bought the place and turned it into what Dalton’s father called a good old-fashioned honky-tonk.

  Every guy Dalton knew back in school had had his first bar fight at Bubba’s and gotten his first drunk on there three years before they were of legal age. Dalton and Dillon had been thrown out too often to count, and after a go-round with Bubba’s younger sister at the newly built motel across the parking lot, Dillon had been banned from the place for life. No one knew if Bubba would have held his ground, since Dillon had left town soon after.

  Stubbornly ignoring memories of the last time he had come to the bar—resulting in his only time at the motel—Dalton parked at the end of a long line of pickup trucks on the east side. The music was loud, even through the thick log walls, and the aroma of fried onions and beef drifted on the air. With the customers primarily working cowboys or oil-field hands, odds were he’d find an old friend inside. If not, well, he wasn’t a stranger to eating or drinking alone.

  But damned if the first familiar face he saw wasn’t exactly the one he’d rather never see again.

  Jessy Lawrence sat on a stool at the end of the bar, wearing a dress and high skinny heels that couldn’t disguise the fact she was maybe three inches over five feet. A bag big enough to double as an overnighter sat on the empty stool beside her. Saving it for a friend or using it to keep guys away?

  She’d told him that day at the cemetery that Bubba’s had been her husband’s favorite bar, and it had been her suggestion they come here together. Tonight she didn’t look particularly happy to be here. A drink sat untouched in front of her, her arms rested on the polished wood, and she stared at the thick beams behind the bar as if they were the most fascinating thing she’d seen all day.

  He was trying to cut wide around her on his way to a booth in a dimly lit corner when a waitress dodging a grabby customer lost her grip on the tray she carried and a dozen empty bottles crashed to the floor. Three of them spun to a stop right between Dalton’s boots. Everyone in the place turned to look, with a couple of cheers for the spill, more for the punch the waitress landed on the offending cowboy’s shoulder, and Dalton found his gaze locked with Jessy’s.

  This was the point where he should say what the hell, turn around, and walk out. God couldn’t possibly mean for him to run into her twice in four days. It was a sign that he was better off at home and working, that maybe he wasn’t ready for anything else yet.

  But he didn’t say what the hell. Didn’t turn around or walk out. For a long time he didn’t do anything but stare at Jessy, and she stared back. He didn’t break contact with her until the flushed waitress retrieved the bottles at his feet, then flashed him a smile. “If you know what you want, honey, I’ll get it to you soon as I can.”

  “Burger, fries, Bud.” He stepped back to let her pass, took one more look at Jessy, then continued to the table farthest from where she sat.

  Why was he surprised? He knew she liked this place. He’d known, whether he acknowledged it, that there was a chance of seeing her here. Hell, subconsciously, had that been why he’d come? Because he wanted more than what he had? Because she did like this place? Because she was the first woman he’d looked twice at since Sandra?

  Because he’d done more than look twice at Jessy?

  Nah. Seeing her again was just bad luck. Coincidence. Tallgrass wasn’t so large that a man could avoid a woman forever.

  He sat down, his back to the bar, and cracked open a peanut from the pail in the center of the table. Though discarded shells littered the floor, he left his in a neat pile out of habit. After eating a dozen, he was thinking a swallow of ice-cold beer would be good to wash away the salt when Jessy walked up to his table.

  “I come bearing gifts.”

  He looked at her, raising his brow, and she smiled uneasily, stepping forward to set his beer on the table, stepping back in the same smooth movement.

  “Lora’s got her hands full with the boys, so I offered to deliver it.” Another flash of uncomfortable smile. “Can you tell I used to be a waitress?”

  He picked up the beer, took a drink, and set it down without looking away. Her dress was not too tight, not too short, not revealing at all, but she still managed to look more dressed up than any other woman in the place. The electric blue somehow made her eyes even greener and looked just right with her fiery hair.

  Damn, she was pretty.

  And awkward. She hadn’t been awkward at all the day they’d met.

  “Do you mind…?” She gestured toward the empty chair across from him, and he wondered what she would do if he said he did. Because his mother didn’t raise him to be any ruder than he’d already been, he shrugged.

  She slid into the chair and set her huge bag on the table with a thunk. He realized she’d left her own drink at the bar. Didn’t she know better than that? There were a lot of guys who wouldn’t hesitate to put something in it if they thought it would get them a little time in her bed.

  She picked out a fat peanut and popped it open. “Any more trouble with your brother’s account?”

  “No.” Then, because that sounded so abrupt, he added, “Not that I know of. And if there had been, I would have heard.”

  The waitress breezed over to drop off a thick stack of napkins and a bottle of ketchup, along with a bottled water. “Thanks for bringing that, Jess. Your food will be out any minute.”

  “No problem, Lora.”

  Dalton took another swig of beer as Jessy unscrewed the cap on the water. “You come here a lot.”

  Tilting her head, she studied him a moment. “Is that a question, a statement, or an accusation?”

  All of the above. His neck grew warm, and he shoved his rolled-up shirt sleeves higher on his forearms. “A question.”

  After another moment, she smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “Not a lot. Often enough. I told you, this was Aaron’s favorite place.”

  So she did remember inviting him here and what went on afterward. Why had she pretended not to recognize him the following week at Serena’s, when she’d been laying the charm thick and heavy on Noah?

  Before he could bluntly ask her, Lora set a plate of steaming food in front of him. “Can I get you anything else?”

  He shook his head, and she took off again. Waiting tables at Bubba’s wasn’t for the slow. He cut his burger in half, then squirted a big blob of ketchup into the fries. “You’re not eating?”

  Jessy’s gaze slid to the food, and her nose wrinkled delicately. “Not tonight.” She had a bit of a queasy look as she said it, but it didn’t stop her from cracking open another peanut.

  “So you’re not eating. Not drinking. Not d
ancing. Not flirting. What are you doing in a bar?”

  She sat back, folding her arms beneath her breasts, and gave him an unhappy smile. “That’s a good question, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  Therese was taking the baby back ribs from the oven when the doorbell rang. Automatically she looked at the clock. Keegan and Mariah were ten minutes early, but that was okay. The ribs had spent the day in the slow-cooker, going to the oven only for a quick blast of heat to caramelize the sauce. The baked beans were warm in the microwave, dishes of potato salad and corn salad shared island space, and a pan of brownies cooled on the stove. It was her favorite meal in the entire world, and she was looking forward to sharing it with Keegan.

  Looking forward to spending time with him.

  From down the hall she heard Abby’s voice. “Therese is in the kitchen.” Then, in a softer, sweeter voice, “I like your outfit, Mariah. Is pink your favorite color?”

  Was the child a novelty to Abby that would lose interest soon? Did she recognize a kindred drama-princess spirit? Maybe she related to Mariah deep down on the abandoned-by-her-mother level. Whatever the reason, Therese was grateful to learn her stepdaughter could show compassion and kindness. She hadn’t really been sure before last night.

  Keegan’s footsteps sounded a moment before he came into the room. “Hey.”

  He wore snug-fitting jeans and a polo shirt and looked good enough to make her smile for no reason besides the pure pleasure of seeing him. “Hi. How did it go today?”

  Instead of taking a seat at the bar, he leaned against the counter a few feet away. She smelled his cologne as she moved near to take a serving platter from a cabinet beneath the island. If she didn’t know better, she might think it was what made her mouth water and not the delicious food around them.

  “We’re both clean. We’re both fully dressed, though she’s insisted on wearing her shoes on the wrong feet all day. Don’t mention it to her, okay? It just annoys her.”

  “And you don’t like to annoy her? Or you’re afraid someone will call the cops on you?”