Echo Falls, Texas Boxed Set

by Patti Ann Colt

  She couldn’t do this to herself or her girls. The risks were too great. She closed the bag with a firm snap and set it by the door. As soon as it was light, she would take a quick look through the house and make sure she’d packed all their things.

  With Olivia’s help, she’d sorted the contents of all the rooms. Piles were ready for donation to churches and charity groups. Mr. Slade from the antique store was willing to come and look at the furniture and collectibles. What would be left could be dealt with in work sessions while the girls were in preschool. This would keep their lives separate, defined by the job. By Christmas, it would be finished. She wouldn’t get sucked into the fantasy, consumed by Chad only to be disappointed. She had a long track record of people who’d walked away from her. It was better to protect herself and her girls.

  Depression settled, even as her resolve hardened.

  Reality sucked, but life gave her few choices.

  When Chad rose the next morning, Robin waited for him at the table. The kitchen was dim, the day cloudy and dreary, missing the usual sun splash across the floor. Robin’s expression made his stomach twist. He’d barely slept. The sofa smelled like her, tormenting him with the taste he’d had of her. Replaying their argument had pricked his conscience. Clad only in jeans, he shivered in the morning air. Rubbing his hands through his hair, he went straight for the coffee pot. He slugged down half a cup though it burned his gut and then turned to face her.

  Her hands were clasped around her own coffee mug. A tight pair of jeans covered her long legs. A green sweatshirt proclaimed her world’s best mom, accenting her pale face and the dark circles under her eyes.

  He eyed the suitcase by the table and his heart sank. “You want to tell me about this?”

  She was quiet for a long time, then finally looked at him. “I took this job to repay you for Lindy breaking your clock and for fixing my car. Nothing has changed. My hands are better and I’m going home. I’ll still finish the job I signed on for, but that’s all.”

  The quiet conviction in her tone made Chad grind his teeth. He hadn’t had a chance to discuss with her about giving up her house and staying here. Now was probably not the best time to bring that up. But he couldn’t let her go.

  Taking a chair from the table, he swung it around and straddled it. “Robin, I understand how last night may have upset you. But if you’re waiting for me to apologize, I won’t.”

  “I don’t expect you to apologize. This won’t work.” Her gaze roamed his chest, then darted to the kitchen window.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure I can explain. Partly, it’s because you’re a successful farmer, with a wonderful family and a solid future. I don’t have that background.”

  Chad leaned forward, the intensity in his eyes unsettling. “Yes, I have a great family and a good education. Yes, I’m where I am today because of both of those and I’m sorry you didn’t have that same strong foundation. But I see a smart woman sitting here. You are a good mother, hardworking, honest and caring. You have the toughness to work hard towards what you want and I admire that.”

  “What I am is a single mom with no family. I do work hard to earn everything, but I put the girls first. No one else is there for them, sacrifices for them. I have to, want to. Regardless of your intentions, I won’t believe you’re going to swoop in and make us the focus of your life.” Robin shook her head, stopping for a moment. “I won’t take the risk. I don’t believe in happily-ever-after. Regardless how this starts, it will end.”

  He jammed his fingers through his hair. “How can you know that? I don’t. I don’t know where these feelings are going, but I know it will be the biggest mistake of my life not to find out.”

  Licking her lips, Robin felt herself wavering and then remembered her father’s years of indifference, Lloyd’s betrayal and Doc Potter’s death. And her mother, who abandoned Robin at six. Why? She’d been just a little bit older than her girls were now when her mother had left. That action had shaped the rest of her relationships. She wouldn’t randomly bring someone into the girls’ lives and not be double darn sure that she wasn’t setting up the same scenario for her girls to have to survive. The twins had their hopes up, higher than she’d ever seen them. They were just hanging there, waiting for a fall and disillusionment. She knew the twisting confusion, knew the ache it left inside. She had to be their rock, the foundation for their tender hearts, so they never experienced one moment of that.

  “I’m not denying I’m attracted to you and the sex would probably be fantastic, but it’s not only me I have to think about. I won’t continue to give my girls false hope.” Robin rose and emptied her coffee cup into the sink. Her heart heavy, she could barely stand the hurt look in Chad’s eyes.

  His body tensed. She waited for him to rise and shake some sense into her, but he didn’t. His quiet, terse reply made her feel even worse.

  “I won’t stop you, Robbie. Go home, if that’s what you think you need to do. But I’m not Lloyd. I’m not your mom or your dad or any others who’ve left you. There’s something between us, something that could be wonderful and I’m not going to give up until you believe that.”

  Rising, he shoved the chair back under the table and left the room, not touching her or trying to persuade her in any way. The bedroom door shut and the water in the shower turned on.

  His cup sat alone on the table, foretelling.

  Robin shivered and stared out the window. Her hands shook, her stomach churned and, without the slightest provocation, she might throw up.

  She was right, though. She knew she was. She’d stay away for a few days. The chemistry would diminish. When she went to work in town, they would end up friendly strangers, waving at each other on the streets of Echo Falls.

  That thought brought no comfort.

  ~~CHAPTER EIGHT~~

  Clouds billowed over the sun and the wind kicked up the Texas dust. Chad looked across acres of rolling land, dirt brown and parched, pumpkin vines dry and withering. Getting in his truck, he drove to the storage shed to store his tools.

  They hadn’t been to the farm in three days. Three days that left him heart sore and uncertain.

  If he hadn’t been overwhelmed in work, he would have…what?

  Chad paused, brain stumbling. Irritation spiked. What? What would he do? Trying to respect Robin’s feelings was slowly grinding the stoppers on his temper. The weather pushing him didn’t help. Only a week until Halloween and, unless he missed his guess, they’d be dodging rain storms and cold spells until trick-or-treating time. Long range forecast was even talking about possible snow. Hard to imagine when it was still sixty-five degrees, but there was no rhyme or reason to Canadian cold fronts blowing down the plains into the panhandle of Texas.

  He shut and locked the door on the storage shed. Most of his pumpkin crop was stored and in no danger from any change in weather. Tiredness swept over him as he walked to his truck and slammed the tailgate closed.

  For the first time since he’d purchased the farm, his heart wasn’t satisfied. It had always been enough before, even after Gwynne. This was the first time the farm would finish the season in the black instead of drawing on the family trust. He should be celebrating, calling his family to share the good news, but even that success was flat.

  Robin wasn’t here to share it.

  The girls weren’t here to swing up in his arms to celebrate.

  He played that kitchen scene over and over in his mind. Maybe, if he could have said things differently, he could have convinced her. Chasing after her would have led to fumbling with the same arguments, the same words and that wasn’t going to change her mind. She had to believe him and she didn’t.

  Chad swallowed hard against the acid burning in the back of his throat. He needed to see Robbie’s face, to hold her. His whole body ached. To add insult, the girls hadn’t been awake when he’d left that morning. He didn’t hug them goodbye. That burned like a blistered sore. He wanted to give her a few days to cool down,
think this through and maybe miss him, too. But what if she didn’t? What kind of karma did he have that the women he cared about just walked away?

  Chad parked the truck near the house and gripped the steering wheel until his hands cramped. Rover and Bessie raced to meet his truck.

  At least that was something. The last three days he’d been the one to feed them and amazingly they’d all become friends. If only he could work the same deal with Robin.

  Calling to the dogs, he walked to the shed to feed them. Propped in the doorway, he watched the animals. The puppies tumbled over each other, nipping at Bessie while she tried to eat. The kittens sniffed their food. The dogs wolfed down their meal in a few bites.

  The silent house stared at him.

  Is this how his evening was going to go again?

  Explode a TV dinner in the microwave and fall on his face in bed? If he couldn’t give the twins their bath or have a cup of coffee with Robin, there wasn’t any point. He needed advice and there was only one place to get it—his grandmother.

  Chad got in his truck and drove to town. The lights blazed at her house. Chad pulled up next to Tom’s vehicle. Good. He didn’t want to talk to the whole damn family. He jumped over the bottom two steps on the porch, walked its length to open the back door and entered the kitchen. His Grandmother and Tom looked up from eating chocolate cake at the round oak table. Tom’s stance eased from protective to welcoming when he recognized who was at the door.

  His grandmother’s kitchen was painted daffodil yellow. Filled to the rafters with green plants and knickknacks from fifty years in the same house, the warm kitchen smelled of spices, the small TV in the corner emitting the dialogue from the latest hit comedy. Chad felt a part of himself settle, the sameness comforting.

  “Can I get a piece of that cake?” He hung his hat on the coat rack by the door and walked to the sink to wash his hands, striving for normalcy and not succeeding.

  “Only if you come give your grandma a hug.” She rose from the table and walked toward him with her arms outstretched.

  Emotion clogged his throat and he struggled to shove it back.

  His grandmother folded him into a hug.

  He held on. Needed to hold on.

  “What’s wrong?” Olivia’s eyes pierced his.

  “Oh, man. What isn’t?” Chad forced himself to take a deep breath. He let her go and joined his brother at the table.

  Tom reached out to shake his hand, holding it a little longer than usual. “You look like hell.”

  Chad smirked. “Thanks. You, too.”

  Tom snorted. “I just got off a twenty-four hour shift. A few hours comatose will cure my problem. What’s your excuse?”

  “Crop’s in.”

  Tom nodded. “Congratulations.”

  “I’m in the black.”

  “Well, that calls for a celebration, doesn’t it?” Tom leaned back in his chair. “You’ve come to the end of harvest for what? Four seasons now? Didn’t end up looking like the walking dead.”

  At the stove, his grandmother wore orange tennis shoes, black pants and a Halloween sweatshirt. She dished up his food and walked to the table.

  “Robin took the girls and went back to her house. She won’t answer my calls. I’ve worked twenty-four hours a day for the last three days just to keep from going over there and slinging her over my shoulder to carry her and the girls home.”

  His grandmother put a steaming plate of beef stew in front of him with a piece of hot crusty bread, his cake and a cup of coffee. Seating herself across the table from him, she crossed her arms. “Eat.”

  He wasn’t hungry, but she’d never let him get away with that. Picking up the fork, he shoveled a couple of bites of the stew into his mouth and chewed. The familiar mouth-watering taste had him shoveling in a few more bites.

  “What happened?” Tom sipped his coffee.

  Swallowing, Chad put his fork on the side of his plate. “We had an argument about happily-ever-after.”

  Tom’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Come again?”

  “Happily-ever-after. She thinks they don’t happen for her. So she doesn’t want to take a chance on me.” Chad paused to swallow hard. His grandmother reached her hands across the table and gripped his.

  “I don’t know how to fight this, Grandma. I thought maybe if I left her alone for a few days, she’d come to her senses.”

  “Do you want to fight for her?” His grandmother’s blue eyes challenged him to spit out exactly how he felt. The words bubbled up and out before he could stop them, think about them, decide if he wanted to be that vulnerable again.

  “Yes. I love her.” His stomach lurched and then settled when Tom’s hand grasped his shoulder.

  Sighing, he thought over his words. It felt right, damn right. “I can’t stand the thought of her and the girls in that neighborhood. I can’t sleep from worrying about them, but I can’t force it either. She’s made it pretty damn clear what she wants.”

  Olivia nodded her head. “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.”

  Chad interrupted, lifting his fork again. “I know the Bible verse, Grandma.”

  “It was your grandfather’s favorite verse. There is a time to love, but good things have to be cultivated. From what I understand from her, she was raised with no one who cared about her, Chad. That sorry excuse for a man who left her pregnant and on her own, well, may he burn in hell. The issue here isn’t love. It’s trust. Trust takes time. You’re trying to overcome years of bad with a short time of good. Go see her. She’ll come around.”

  Tom ate the last of his cake. “I don’t know her yet, but seems to me if she’s been let down by that many people, your best approach is to be there for her in whatever way she’ll let you.”

  “Finish eating, dear. Then go home, get a good night’s sleep and go see her tomorrow.”

  Chad looked at his brother for confirmation of his decision to see Robin, something he had wanted to do for three days.

  Tom shrugged. “What do you have to lose?”

  Chad finished his meal and spent the rest of the evening talking with his Grandmother and Tom. During the lulls in the conversation, he tried to figure what he’d say when he knocked on Robin’s door. When the nightly news came on, he yawned.

  “Looks like you both better skedaddle or you’re going to be sleeping here tonight.” His grandmother rose and cleared the dishes.

  “I will after the news.” Chad yawned again.

  “I’m waiting for headlines, then I’m gone too. Thanks for dinner, Grandma.” Tom rubbed a hand over his tired eyes.

  “Always like to eat with my two favorite grandsons.”

  “Guess that leaves Rick out.” Tom chuckled.

  Olivia returned to the table and fussed with the placemats. “He’s in a class by himself.”

  Chad and Tom looked at each other and smirked.

  She sat and leaned back in her chair, a satisfied smile spreading across her face. “He’s given me great-grandchildren, something you two aren’t in spitting distance of. Yet.”

  Their attention turned to the television when the news started. The first ten minutes were filled with the possibility of heavy rain and maybe snow soon.

  Tom’s cell phone rang. Picking it up, he frowned at the number then answered. “Applegate.”

  Chad turned down the volume on the television.

  Tom listened for several seconds and then stood. “What’s the address?”

  He froze and turned to stare at Chad.

  The hair on the back of Chad’s neck rose, his breath held in his lungs.

  “Canyon Road. Got it. I’m on my way.” Tom slapped his cell phone shut.

  Black fear flashed hot, leaving him weak. “That’s Robin’s neighborhood. What? What happened?”

  “A shooting just across the road from her house. They don’t have him contained. I put the word out to keep me notified of any problems in that area.�
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  Chad rose so quickly his chair tipped over.

  Tom handed Chad his hat then put on his own. “Let’s go.”

  The two hurried out the door and around the porch to Tom’s truck. His grandmother followed and stood in the yard to watch them leave.

  Chad called back to her before he slammed his door. “Pray, Grandma.”

  “I already am, honey. Now go.”

  The night had finally calmed some. The shrill of the ambulance sirens faded away, but a half dozen police cars were still across the street. An officer had come over and told her to stay in the house. Robin pulled the comforter tighter around the girls and snuggled them close against her. The ball of tension in her stomach was making her nauseous. With the lights out, the darkness seeped into every corner. The only light came from the flicker of the television and the police car lights that flashed a consistent strip of red and blue through the living room windows.

  The sound of Lindy sucking on her fingers broke the silence. Boo followed with a hiccup, a leftover hitch from all their sobbing. They’d wanted Chad and they’d wanted to be at the farm. They didn’t understand. They’d been crabby and uncooperative for three of the longest days of Robin’s life. They’d been in an argument about bath time when all the gunfire had erupted across the street. It sounded as if the battle was right in their living room.

  “I’m still scared, Mommy.” The words slurred around Lindy’s fingers.

  “The police are here now. Everything is okay.”

  “I want to go to Mr. Chad’s.” Boo squeezed closer to her side. Her tiny body shivered.

  Robin sighed. An arrow of guilt pierced her heart. She didn’t know what to say. She’d made an idiot of herself with Chad, even though she still felt she’d done the right thing. This is what she’d been afraid of. She’d always stood on her own two feet and handled all life had to throw at her. Now she felt totally out of her element and the girls were relying on someone else for comfort.

  Tears burned at the back of her eyes. Truthfully, she wanted Chad to storm in the door, sweep them all into his arms and carry them back to the farm where they’d live happily-ever-after. The pain from knowing that would never happen for her made her want to sob, too.