Even Cowboys Get the Blues

by Stuart, Amie

  He released an angry, frustrated sigh. For her, everything came back to sex. He should have been more direct, more honest about his feelings, taken his time. Maybe even practiced. He just wasn’t any good at this sort of thing. “This isn’t just about getting you in my bed. If it was, I wouldn’t have spent the last four months trying to get to know you.” Trying being the operative word. “I’m trying, Toni. I’ve tried.” You haven’t, went unsaid. “Would you just think about it?” He finally added.

  “Sure, I can do that. I need to get back to work.” She slipped her feet back in her shoes and hopped up.

  He stood and stopped her as she passed him, gently pulling her into his arms. One hand rested at her waist while the other tangled itself in her silky hair. The night was too dark and the moon too new for him to read the expression in her eyes. He wasn’t sure he wanted to anyway. He leaned over and caught her lips in his, knowing there was a good chance this would be the last time he ever kissed her.

  Ty was right, he had nothing to lose, because he’d already lost his heart.

  The next evening Tim headed for the dancehall as soon as he was done for the day. He’d struggled through his morning workout with the yearlings, all through his afternoon with Ty and Pate. He wanted to drive to her place and demand answers. And not just an answer to his question, but all the answers she’d denied him with her silence.

  By the time the sun began to sink in the western sky, he was on his way to the dancehall, after skipping dinner and tuning out the questioning looks from his daughter, mother, and sister.

  He tried to make excuses to himself when he noted her GTO wasn’t in the parking lot. She’d probably ridden to work with Kellie to save gas, or maybe she was at home sick. Winter was coming, and people always got sicker then. But with every step he took toward the dancehall’s heavy front door, his stomach sank lower and lower. His heart already knew what his head refused to recognize. What he’d known since the previous night. He’d overstepped, pushed too hard. And now he’d pay for it.

  Inside, he spotted Kellie first, her nose red and her eyes like saucers in her face as she hurriedly turned away and busied herself with setting up. Rowdy sat at the bar, a beer halfway to his mouth. Behind the bar stood his aunt...alone. There was no anger in her face, only sadness and worse, pity. He quirked an eyebrow at her and shrugged before turning and walking out.

  YOU COULD HAVE knocked me over with a feather when Daddy came walking through the door not twenty minutes after he’d left. With him gone, I’d gotten out everything to do my toes, afraid he’d give me crap if I did them in front of him. Usually I hid in my room and did them unless Aunt Delaney was around but she was busy with school and I was bored.

  So there I sat, looking guilty as could be over something as simple and stupid as a pedicure. While he looked sad, and tired, like someone had died or maybe poisoned his dog, but we didn’t have a dog. I sat there with my feet trapped in warm bubbly water, resisting the urge to stuff my nail polish under the couch cushions with my now-sweaty hands.

  “Are you alright, Daddy?” I asked while reaching over and turning off the footbath. “What are you doing here?”

  He stared at me for a few heartbeats and said, “I live here.”

  I should have just kept my mouth shut, and then he would have grabbed a beer and gone to his room, but this wasn’t the daddy I knew. I blotted my feet on a towel and crossed the living room to sit beside him on the bench. The entryway tiles were cold on my feet. He sat all hunched over and looked as bad as I’d felt when Bobby dumped me. He yanked off his dress boots as if they weighed a ton each. I nudged him with my knee to get his attention.

  “You’ll be glad to know she’s gone.”

  He was right, I was glad, but at the same time, I felt horrible that her being gone left my dad looking like this. Like he’d aged twenty years right before my eyes. I leaned closer and wormed my way against his chest, forcing him to wrap an arm around me as I snaked both of mine around his waist.

  “Daddy?” I whispered, my head against his chest.

  He grunted, not even bothering to look at me or turn his head at the sound of my voice. While I listened to his heartbeat, it finally dawned on me that Daddy wasn’t just my dad, he was something more, and that made me want to cry. “I’m sorry,” I finally whispered, biting my lip.

  “Are you? Are you really?” He leaned back and frowned down at me. “I’m surprised you’re not jumping up and down and dancing for joy. I suppose it’s all moot now anyway because like I said, she’s gone.” His rant faded to nothing.

  “Did you love her?” I whispered.

  “Even more than I loved your mom, and I never thought that was possible,” he whispered.

  I hugged him as tight as I could while his eyes turned red. For so long he’d refused to talk about my mother that the shock of hearing he’d actually loved her brought tears to my own eyes. He kissed my forehead and pushed me away, slowly easing to his feet. “Think I’ll have me a beer and call it a night.”

  I watched as he dried his face with his hand and headed for the kitchen, fighting a war over what to do or who I should call. Uncle Ty? Poppy? Uncle Zack? I stood and spotted my mess in the living room, but before I could go clean it up, Daddy reappeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “I love you.”

  I looked up at him, at the sadness on his face and in his eyes, and decided maybe it’d be best to leave him to grieve alone. “Think I’ll just clean up my mess and have an early night, too,” I said with a nod.

  He nodded, too, and smiled a little, his eyes clearing for just a minute.

  “I love you, too,” I whispered as he turned and headed toward his room. He paused, but he didn’t turn back, and I stood frozen until I heard the click of his bedroom door.

  I couldn’t lie. I was glad she was gone, but I felt horrible for Daddy. I couldn’t imagine loving somebody that much. And that he loved her more than my mom hurt like hell. Once I was done putting away all my toe crap, I tiptoed down the hall, but the lights were off in his room, and I could hear the shower running. Again, I debated whether to call Uncle Ty but remembered the expression on Dad’s face. I didn’t think he’d want anyone to see him like that. He probably regretted letting me see him like that.

  I tiptoed back upstairs and spent the evening writing in my journal about how much I hated her for what she’d done to him. When I woke the next morning, a Saturday, the sun was up and I’d slept on my journal, pen still clutched in my fingers, and a big blue stain on the mattress from where my pen had bled. I stayed inside all day, cleaning, and fixed spaghetti for dinner. A home-cooked meal wouldn’t make up for The Witch leaving, but my chores were done and the house smelled the scent. I did my best to act normal when he came in late that afternoon.

  “What’d you cook?”

  “Spaghetti,” I replied, my back to him as I loaded the dishwasher.

  “Smells good,” he replied from just behind me, his hands squeezing my shoulders as he kissed my head. I turned around and leaned against the sink’s edge, crossing my arms. He looked better. Tired but better.

  “Aint Susie came down earlier looking for you.”

  “Aunt...and she found me,” he said with a nod

  “That’s what I said,” I shot back with a smirk that caused his lips to twitch.

  He chuckled and shook his head. Things would be fine. Great even.

  At least they would have been, if I’d kept my mouth shut.

  “Is the reason you won’t talk about my mom because you loved her so much?” I shouldn’t have asked, but well, it’d been buggin’ me all day. He never talked about my mom, but he loved Toni more? That didn’t leave me much choice. I just didn’t understand, no matter how many damn times I turned it over in my head.

  His head drooped just a bit as he turned away from me. “Yeah,” he said with a few small nods.

  Daddy was a proud man. I shouldn’t have asked. I knew better, I just couldn’t help myself. “I’m sorry for asking.
” I folded my arms in front of me and waited to see what he’d say.

  “I’m sorry you had to ask.” His head shifted to the side, and he frowned, his eyes cloudy. “It was selfish of me to never talk about her. It just hurt.”

  I sighed a long, heavy sigh and gave him my best ‘suffering’ look. “Wanna talk about her now?”

  If anything, his head drooped lower. “What do you want to know?”

  “Do I look like her?”

  He laughed and finally looked at me, taking one huge step in my direction and wrapping his arms around me. “You know damn good and well you look just like me. But you act like her,” he added with another chuckle. “She could be moody.”

  I looked up at him, my arms wrapped around his waist. “So you’re saying I’m moody?”

  “And you have her freckles.” He kissed the top of my head. “Feed me, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  So that’s how I found out my mom was in prison.

  Whoever said be careful what you wish for sure the hell wasn’t lying.

  I CRIED AND cursed Tim Caldwell all the way to the eastern side of Houston. I reached Beaumont before fatigue won out and I had to stop for the night. I’d been driving since dawn on about three hours of sleep and barely made it inside my hotel room before falling across the bed fully clothed.

  In the days that followed my escape from Bluebonnet and Tim, I stayed near the coast, but on the Texas side of the state line, and took a job bartending in another nondescript town.

  One afternoon, I packed up my things and drove to the state line. I sat on the side of the road for over an hour staring at the “Welcome to Louisiana” sign, sweating until my T-shirt was stuck to my back and I nearly passed out from hyperventilating. I turned around and went back to my shitty hotel and my shitty bartending job. Torn.

  I could feel myself pulled back to Bluebonnet. Back to Kellie whose front door I’d wedged a note in. I’d spent an hour on it, and felt as if I’d betrayed her by leaving. I hoped she’d forgive me for leaving her. Back to Tim who spoke to my heart and soul—and body. He was the first man I’d allowed to get so close. The first to come so close to making me give up the good fight. I’d felt so tempted to say yes, to move in with him and Rene, who I also missed. She was a prickly little girl who needed a mama as much as Kellie needed a sister. A family.

  But my fear had won. And now, my fear was keeping me out of Louisiana.

  As much as I’d thought I was ready to face my demons, to find my baby, I wasn’t. So I tended bar for the rowdy college crowd that invaded every weekend and watched yet another hotel eat away at my meager savings while I fought a war with myself about confronting my father. Or going back and confronting Tim.

  I tossed and turned in the nights to come, falling into the deepest sadness I’ve ever experienced. My father was the only one who knew what had happened to Nichole besides my stepmother. The thought of kidnapping and torturing her for the information I wanted held a certain appeal, but even in Louisiana that was illegal—if you got caught. Or the alligators don’t dispose of the body. The convent they’d sent me to was now closed, the state had the records, and they weren’t talking.

  Though truly, it wasn’t just the thought of Nichole that pulled me back to Louisiana, but the thought of seeing my baby brothers, J.T. and Will. They’d be grown now. What had happened to them, and what did they think of me? I shook my head. They probably thought I was dead.

  One of the happiest memories of my childhood was of Papa, Mama, the twins, and I on a picnic. The boys were just over one at the time, and I couldn’t have been more than five myself, but it was the last time I remember ever seeing my Papa laugh. In the days that followed, he’d holed up in his attic studio to finish his ‘important work’—that’s what Mama had called it. A painting. One Friday, Mama left us with the housekeeper while she went to town to run errands. She’d never returned. And that had been the end of everything good in my life.

  TIM FELT RAW. As if only bubble gum and twine held him together. He’d run the gamut of every emotion known to man by the time Susie tracked him down Monday afternoon. With a sigh, he’d unsnapped the lead and turned Jojo out into the pasture to play with the fillies.

  “How are you?” she asked, resting her elbows on the top of the fence.

  “Fine.” He took up a spot at the rail, and adjusted his hat so it sat low on his head. Susie wasn’t one you could slip stuff by. Anger, hurt, pain—fury—still roiled in his stomach like a bad meal. Truth be told, he wasn’t inclined to hide much anyway. The only thing getting him through was work and Rene.

  “Just fine?” she countered.

  “What the hell do you want, Sus?” he snapped. “I should maybe slash my wrists and bleed, so you can see how badly I hurt? Or should I just hole up in the house, and maybe get some therapy like Ty?” He was hot, tired, and dirty. He didn’t want to think. Not about Toni, or about the questions his daughter had asked the previous night. He’d opened himself up for them and a lot more, and there was no going back now even though he was wrong on every level.

  “I’m sorry, Tim. She left Kellie a letter. Maybe Kellie would let you read it,” she suggested.

  He laughed loudly enough to startle a few of the nearby horses. There was no way in hell he’d grovel to Kellie or anybody. At the same time, he felt a deep, ugly jealousy that twisted his insides even more at the thought that she’d taken the time to write Kellie a letter. He’d known they were close, but that was the final indignity.

  “I’ll pass. Go home, Sus. Go home and leave me alone.”

  “Tim—”

  “Spare me.” He strode across the arena and exited the gate, never bothering to look back and see if she were still standing there. He headed toward the house, ready to end a long day. He’d been running on little sleep anyway, most of his night taken up with thoughts of Toni and Charlene. He stamped the dirt from his boots once he reached the top of the porch, and out of habit, took them off before entering the house.

  Lysol and tomato sauce assaulted his nose as he stepped inside. Rene had cooked and, from the smell of it, cleaned. He felt unsure of how to act with her. He shouldn’t have broken down in front of her last night, he shouldn’t have said a word about Toni or her mother, but he had, and he couldn’t take it back. He wasn’t sure if her cooking and cleaning were pity or an attempt to make peace after all the grief she’d given him about Toni.

  Though she hadn’t ever said a word, he knew Bobby Marshall had given her her first kiss and her first heartache. He’d even gone so far as to talk to Jessa about it, about whether he should let Rene cry on his shoulder or leave her be. Jessa had said that he should try and let her know he was willing to listen, but otherwise leave her be. So that’s what he’d done.

  Like puberty and zits, these were all part of her passage into adulthood. That might be true, but she was still his baby, and he was tired of failing her. Last night had been a turning point for him and Rene. He could sense it in her attitude, and when she asked about her mother, hurt shining sharp in her eyes, he couldn’t do anything but tell her the truth. Minus the really ugly parts.

  Over a plate of spaghetti he talked. Probably much more than he should have. “You know the old cottonwood in the far pasture?”

  She nodded, her mouth full of spaghetti.

  “That’s where we made you.” Their fourth time together, or maybe the fifth. The day had been a crisp, cloudless Indian Summer. He grinned and chuckled dryly as the expression on Rene’s face took on the look of somebody who had just eaten a spoonful of shit.

  She wiped her mouth and swallowed, her puckered scowl never changing. “That is the grossest thing I’ve ever heard in my the entire damn life. I’ll never ever again be able to ride by the tree.”

  “If we hadn’t made you, you’d never be able to ride by it at all,” he countered. His chuckle sounded rusty. What had once been too bittersweet to examine too closely had now taken on a surreal quality. Other, more painful memories had ta
ken the sting out of his history with Charlene.

  “So what happened? Why did she leave?”

  Her blue eyes—his eyes—never wavered as she studied him. He struggled against the urge to settle her on his lap and kiss away the hurt on her face, like he hadn’t done since she was little. How the hell could he make her understand?

  “Honestly, I’m not sure. She’s never said, but I know it didn’t have anything to do with you, baby.”

  The forkful of spaghetti paused halfway to her mouth before clattering to the plate. “What do you mean ‘she’s never said’?”

  “You know about your Uncle Rowdy?” He stood and got a beer from the ‘fridge, then rejoined her at the table.

  “You mean about Uncle Rowdy and his daddy? What does that have to do with ‘she’s never said’?”

  He settled back in his chair and took a sip of his beer while trying to figure how to explain about her grandfather. He couldn’t blow this one, so he opted for gentle, brutal honesty. “Rene, I’m trying very very hard to say this and not fuck it up. Can you understand that? Of all the talks we’ve ever had, or should have had, or even might have in the future, I can’t fuck this one up.”

  She set down her fork and swallowed, nodding her head. For once, she stayed blessedly silent.

  “Do you know about your Uncle Rowdy?” he asked again, enunciating each word.

  “Uncle Rowdy beat up his dad.” Her voice was just above a whisper. Then she fell silent again, licking her lips and waiting for him to speak.

  He sighed. At sixteen, poor Rowdy had snapped and beaten his father severely enough to put him in the hospital. Of course, if he hadn’t, Rowdy’s mom would probably be dead. Then Big Rob had died of a massive coronary the night before he was due to be released.

  “Abuse, in any form, has very far-reaching consequences. Your Uncle Rowdy’s daddy, your grandfather, was not a nice man.” He shook his head for emphasis. “He used to beat on your Grandma Liv, on Rowdy, and on your Momma when she lived there. But your Momma,” here he sighed, and then pushed on, “some people, they just don’t deal well with—your Momma says she didn’t know how to let herself be happy back then.”