by Jessie Evans
Mia tucked her arm more tightly through his. “Don’t talk like that. Surgery doesn’t mean the end. Lots of athletes come back after surgery. And you’re tougher than all of those losers.”
Pike smiled. “Thanks, sis.”
“You’re welcome.” Mia slowed, pulling them both to a stop. “You think you might be up for dinner now? Everything’s out of the oven and the sooner we eat, the sooner we can leave.”
“We don’t have to rush on my account.” Pike turned, heading back toward the house, feeling calmer after only a few minutes in the woods. It wasn’t Montana, but it was definitely far more peaceful here than in his apartment in St. Louis. “I know Mom wants to catch up, and you love dessert.”
“I do love dessert, but I also love Tulsi,” Mia said, making Pike’s jaw clench.
As long as he was in this town, he couldn’t seem to get away from that name or all the thoughts and feelings it stirred up. He had to get out of Lonesome Point. The sooner, the better.
“While you were talking to Dad, I gave Tulsi a call to see how her meeting went,” Mia continued. “She was pretty messed up about it. I think she needs a shoulder to cry on.”
“Oh yeah?” Pike played dumb, trusting his hunch that Tulsi hadn’t told Mia about their chat this afternoon even as he fought the renewed urge to go beat the shit out of Chad Cutter.
“Yeah. Apparently Chad The Douchebag denied her request for funding and then, this afternoon, her dad told her he wouldn’t cut her any slack on the rent she owes him for the barn.” Mia cursed beneath her breath. “That man drives me crazy. I know you think Dad is bad, but he’s a saint compared to Mr. Hearst. I swear it’s like he wants to drag Tulsi down instead of giving her a hand up. Ever since Clem was born, Tulsi’s been able to do no right as far as that man’s concerned.”
“What? Why?” Pike asked, angry on Tulsi’s behalf. “She’s a great mother.”
“She was also an unmarried teen mother,” Mia said, rolling her eyes. “You know how this town can be. It was a big deal around here when it happened. People gossiped and some of it was really mean. Tulsi’s dad was embarrassed and I don’t think he ever got over it. It’s amazing poor Tulsi remembers how to have any fun with her dad on her ass, acting like her entire life is one big mistake.”
“That’s a bunch of shit,” Pike growled.
“Tell me about it.” Mia sighed. “But old farts will be old farts. There’s no changing them.”
Pike shook his head and clenched his jaw, biting back all the things he wanted to say. He wanted to insist that Tulsi didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Better yet, he wanted to place a call to Mr. Hearst, call him a few choice words, and then head straight to Tulsi’s to do whatever he could to cheer her up. But then…he was part of the problem and not the shoulder she needed right now.
He’d taken things too far today. It didn’t matter that he and Tulsi had a painful personal history or that he was still hurting from the decisions she’d made. He knew better than to let hurt feelings do the talking.
Hurt feelings or your cock.
Pike winced. That, too. Tulsi wasn’t a one-night stand type of girl. He should have known better than to suggest something like that. And he should have listened to her, really listened, instead of going on the defensive. For years, he’d blamed her for what they’d lost, but three weeks must have seemed like an eternity to an eighteen-year-old waiting to hear from the man she loved, a man she’d only been in a relationship with for a few months. Yes, he’d been messed up by the worst fight he’d ever had with his dad—a fight that made their argument today look like a chuckle fest—but he should have let Tulsi help him through it instead of shutting her out.
But he’d never been good at letting people in. Letting people in led to letting people down, and he’d already had enough disappointed looks from his father to last him a lifetime. It was probably for the best that he and Tulsi had fallen apart when they did. In the long run, he wouldn’t have been good for her.
But at least you would have tried to make her happy. And if you were Clem’s father you would have stood by Tulsi and never let anyone make her feel small or ashamed.
The thought was enough to twist Pike’s guts into knots all over again. If he hadn’t shut Tulsi out, he would have been Clem’s father. And if hadn’t made Tulsi feel like what they had was over, she never would have slept with that counselor at her camp. Pike would have been her first and only. They’d been on the road to forever and would have stayed on track if he hadn’t screwed it up. This was his fault and he’d been an asshole not to realize it years ago.
“You ready to dine and dash?” Mia asked as they started up the porch steps.
Pike nodded. “Sure, but…Mia?”
“Yeah?” Mia stopped and turned back to look at him with her kind brown eyes, those eyes that had no idea he and her best friend had once broken each other’s hearts.
“Is there anything I can do to help Tulsi? Maybe fund her work for a few months or something, just until she can sort things out and get back on her feet?”
Mia’s expression softened in a way Pike knew he didn’t deserve. “You’re a sweetheart, but I don’t think so. Tulsi’s got a lot of pride. She wouldn’t want charity from a friend, especially not one she had a crush on for forever.”
Pike blinked, wondering if maybe Mia wasn’t as clueless as he thought, but then his sister added in an urgent voice—
“But don’t ever tell her I told you that, okay? She would kill me dead and then die of embarrassment herself. And then Clementine would have to grow up without a mother or a cool Aunt Mia. And she needs me to teach her how to take over as the prankster of Lonesome Point when I retire.”
Pike laughed. “Like that’s going to happen anytime soon. Gram told me about those naked cowboy blow up dolls you put in her barn. She thinks you traumatized the horses.”
Mia grinned. “I was going to get her with those a long time ago at the ghost town, but the timing was off. I just wish I could have been there to see her face.”
“You should ease up. Gram’s getting up there. You’re going to give her a heart attack one of these days.”
“Nah,” Mia said, waving her hand in the air as she trotted up the steps beside him. “Sugar Britches loves it when I mess with her. It’s all part of our twisted and wonderful relationship. I prank her, she treats me like her indentured servant—it all works out.”
“She’s still dumping the ghost town stuff on you?” Pike asked, holding open the door for Mia before following her into the lasagna-scented house. His mother looked up from the island in the kitchen, as they walked in, and smiled. His dad was already parked at the table attacking a salad, obviously intending to eat dinner with the family after all.
“Totally, but I don’t mind,” Mia said. “The benefit concert was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. It was amazing to see Bubba up on stage.”
Pike and Mia joined their mother in the kitchen, pouring wine, while she carved up the lasagna, and helping to bring the side dishes to the table. Over dinner, they talked about the concert and the wedding, Mom’s volunteer work at the hospital, Dad’s new ideas for the ranch, and Pike’s flight down from Arizona after his vintage Mustang died just outside of Phoenix. They avoided talk of baseball or baseball injuries, and at the end of the meal, his father walked him to the door and gave him a firm pat on the shoulder.
It wasn’t a hug or an apology, but it was as close as Jim Sherman ever got to “I’m sorry,” and as Pike followed Mia down the steps, he felt guilty all over again.
His family wasn’t perfect, but he had a mother who adored him, a father who loved him in his own frustrating way, and a sister who was one of his best friends. Meanwhile, Tulsi had a disapproving father she’d been intimidated by for most of her life, a mouse of a mom who lived in her husband’s shadow, and a sister who’d run off when Tulsi was fourteen never to be seen in Lonesome Point again. Thank God for Mia, or Tulsi might not have made it through having a
baby at eighteen. His sister was an amazing woman and a wonderful friend, but when Mia dropped him at her store and left to go see Tulsi, Pike couldn’t help feeling that it should be him.
It should have been him who stood by Tulsi all those years ago, and it should be him going to her now. As he stood on the front porch of Lavender and Lace, watching Mia’s truck drive away, the truth suddenly hit him—hard, making his chest ache.
He was still in love. He was still in love with Tulsi Hearst, after all these years, after all the water under the bridge. He didn’t want to leave the past behind and move on; he wanted to reach back across time, take eighteen-year-old Tulsi’s hand and never let go. But it was impossible. She wanted nothing to do with him. She’d made that clear this afternoon.
It was like his coach said—you can lay down and quit or you can get up and fight, but there’s no going back. There was no way back to the Tulsi he’d known, but maybe there was a way to get close to her again, to bridge the distance between them and reclaim the friendship he’d lost. The truth was he wanted more than friendship, but he’d count it as a victory just to be able to look into Tulsi’s eyes and know she didn’t hate him anymore.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tulsi
It was the worst night ever and it was all Pike Sherman’s fault.
If he hadn’t come to town, Tulsi wouldn’t have spent half her afternoon crying, lied to her best friend about why she needed cheering up, or been forced to endure a fifteen minute lecture from the director of Bibles and Bunk Beds, detailing all the ways she was failing to bring her daughter up properly. If Tulsi hadn’t needed to make sure Clementine and Pike saw as little of each other as possible during Pike’s visit, she wouldn’t have sent her daughter to camp in the first place. Clem was too young, and obviously had too much intelligence and personality for the stuffy old women running Bibles and Bunk Beds.
Tulsi had been prepared for a phone call about Clem sneaking off to explore or trying to jump off the big diving board, even though only the older kids were allowed to use the high dive. She hadn’t been prepared for a lecture on teaching Clem to keep her mouth closed and her ears open.
“It’s like they hate her for having a brain!” Tulsi sobbed, swiping another tissue from the box Mia had fetched from the bathroom moments after she came through the door and saw the state Tulsi was in.
“They don’t hate her,” Mia said, patting her knee. “How could anyone hate Clem? She’s the best.”
“It s-sounded like they hated her,” Tulsi said. “Mrs. Beatrix made it seem like she was some sort of a monster. I know calling God a jerk face was bad, but she just wanted to know why he killed all the innocent babies in the flood. That’s not being a monster; that’s having a sweet heart!”
Mia’s brow furrowed sympathetically. “Of course it is. And it’s a valid question.”
“Well, apparently the church camp people don’t like kids who ask questions.” Tulsi wadded up the tissue in her hand. “I should go pick her up right now. I don’t care if she begged to stay.”
“And then she would give you no end of grief and you’d both be even more miserable than you are now,” Mia said, pinning her with a hard look. “If she wants to stay, she’s obviously doing okay and having fun. And Mrs. Beatrix can’t mess up all the good parenting you’ve done in a week.”
“But Clem must be so confused,” Tulsi said with another sniff. “I’ve always encouraged her to speak her mind and think for herself.”
Mia held up the tiny trashcan from the bathroom for Tulsi to toss her tissue. “She’ll be fine. She’ll be home for the wedding on Saturday and we can talk to her then before she heads back to camp for the last night.”
“But what do I say?” Tulsi asked. “That part of the story’s always bothered me, too.”
“Tell her that parts of the Old Testament are weird and violent and it’s okay to be creeped out,” Mia said with a shrug, making hard answers seem easy the way she always did. “I mean, the Noah story is scary. I don’t know why people think it’s so perfect for kids. Cute two by two animals do not make up for wiping out the rest of creation in a big scary flood. I guess most kids don’t get that, but Clem’s advanced for her age. We’ve known that for a while.”
Tulsi sighed. “She’s so much smarter than me.”
Mia laughed. “She is not. Don’t be crazy. You’re smart!”
“Not the way she is,” Tulsi said, but the words didn’t bring on another round of tears. Talking to Mia was working the magic it always did, making her feel better even though talking didn’t change any of the things that had gone wrong. “I’m not always going to have answers to her questions, you know? No matter how hard I’ll try.”
“And that’s okay, too,” Mia said gently. “It’s okay for Clem to know that we’re all searching and trying to do the best we can. The only people who think they’ve got life all figured out are the ones who’ve stopped paying attention. And those people are the real jerk faces.”
Tulsi smiled as she rested her cheek on the overstuffed couch cushion. “At least she didn’t say anything worse than jerk face.”
“Yeah, that would have been bad.” A guilty expression flickered across Mia’s features. “I guess some people should start watching their mouths in front of Clem a little more than they do right now.”
Tulsi chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. I slip up sometimes, too.”
Mia lifted a wry brow. “I don’t think ‘flipping’ counts as a swear word.”
“It does too. And sometimes I say ‘damn it’ under my breath when I’m driving.”
“Rebel.” Mia poked her playfully in the leg. “All right Miss Potty Mouth, are you ready for pie now?”
“I am so ready for pie,” Tulsi said, sliding her legs out from under her. “Let me go grab plates.”
Mia waved her back onto the couch as she hopped to her feet. “Don’t worry about it. I know where everything is. You just relax. You’ve had a rough day. Let me wait on you.”
“You don’t have to,” Tulsi said as her cell began to buzz behind her on the couch, where she’d hurled it after her lecture from Mrs. Beatrix.
“I want to.” Mia pointed to the phone as she headed toward the kitchen. “If that’s the camp, don’t answer.”
“I have to. Clem might have changed her mind about coming home.” Tulsi snatched the phone from the cushion and glanced at the screen to see an out of state number. For a second, she considered letting the call go to voicemail, but on the off chance that it was one of her clients calling from out of town, she tapped the green button. “Hello.”
“Hey, T.T., what’s up? I got your message a few minutes ago. My cell died so I’m calling from a friend’s phone.” Reece’s usually soft, husky voice was raised to a shout and there was a ton of background noise—the rumble of a large crowd and the blare of buzzers—but no one called Tulsi T.T. except her sister.
“Hey you!” Tulsi smiled, amazed that Reece had called her back so quickly. Usually, it took at least three days for her sister to get around to returning a call. “Oh, nothing much. I was just feeling down about Daddy and some other stuff and wanted to hear your voice.”
“You needed someone to tell you that he’s an asshole, and you shouldn’t listen to a word he says?”
Tulsi’s smile widened. “Something like that.”
“He’s an asshole,” Reece said, shouting to be heard over a sudden roar of approval from the crowd at whatever stadium she was in tonight. “It doesn’t matter that he’s great with Clementine and has mellowed out since we were kids. He’s still an asshole, his thinking is back asswards, and he doesn’t have anyone’s best interests at heart except his own.”
“He’s still charging me rent to use the barn,” Tulsi said, ignoring the voice in her head that said it was disloyal to gossip about Dad when he’d done so much for her and Clem. “And he said he’s kicking all the therapy horses out if I miss even one month because of the funding cuts.”
Reece swore
colorfully, calling Daddy a few curse words Tulsi had never even heard before, proving she wasn’t the Hearst sister with the potty mouth. “He’s leaving the ranch to you when he dies, anyway. And you’ve worked your ass off breaking horses for him for free and hiring staff to keep the rest of the ranch running. What the hell is wrong with him?”
Tulsi shrugged, smiling as Mia returned with two generous slices of apple pie topped with vanilla ice cream. “I don’t know. He says he’s trying to teach me responsibility.”
“You’re plenty responsible. It’s not your fault your funding was cut all of a sudden. Do you want me to call him for you? Tell him he’s being a dick?”
Tulsi sputtered at the thought. Reece and her father hadn’t seen each other in person for nearly twelve years and only talked on the phone for a few minutes at Christmas and on Father’s Day. They preferred to communicate with passive aggressive gifts and the occasional smart-ass greeting card. “Oh my God, no. That would only make it worse. He’d know I’ve been talking about him behind his back.”
“So what? I think it’s high—” Reece broke off, her voice dropping as she spoke to someone in the background. “Listen, I’m about to ride in a few minutes. Want me to call you back later?”
“No, no, that’s okay,” Tulsi said, pulse leaping the way it always did when she thought about her big sister’s career. Bull riding was a terrifying sport, and being the only female rider in the pro circuit ensured Reece attracted more than her fair share of attention. The combination of danger and scrutiny her sister endured on a weekly basis made Tulsi positively ill with nerves, but Reece loved her job and swore she wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. “You go get ready. And please be careful.”
Reece laughed. “I don’t do careful. I don’t do good girl, either, so let me know if you change your mind and want me to rip Daddy a new asshole for you.”
Tulsi’s stomach roiled. “You say that stuff just to freak me out, don’t you?”