“Sorry to bring this down on y’all. I didn’t know,” said Cann.
“I know you didn’t. Now get going. This ain’t the old days. We’re not lookin’ for shootouts with Rangers. Speaking of that. There’s some artillery in the floor compartment. Sometimes ther’re hostiles in the badlands. Do not do anything to call attention to yourselves.” Cann gave a tight nod and turned the engine over. “There’s two thermoses of coffee there,” he pointed to the thermal carrier, “‘cause you’re not sleepin’ tonight. Stay away from the interstates. Head toward Uvalde and Del Rio. Take 90 out to Marfa and then drop down.”
“I know how to avoid confrontations, Brant.” Cann felt bad about bringing trouble to the MC doorstep, but he still had a modicum of self-respect.
Brant pressed on undeterred as was his right as the last word on what happened on SSMC grounds. “Yeah, well, you’re not by yourself this time, are ya? House is so close to the river… if you see somebody comin’ who looks suspicious, the two of you wade across and call me on this.” He handed Cann a burner phone. “Rangers won’t cross into Mexico.” Brant lowered his voice. “But I’m tellin’ you right now, do not touch that jail bait. Find a way to keep your wick soft for a week. There’s no hot water out there. So it shouldn’t be hard.” Brant laughed when he caught his own accidental pun.
Cannon Johns gaped at the prez in utter astonishment, not finding him the least bit funny.
“Just sayin’.” Brant chuckled softly. “And when you get back you and I are gonna have a real-McCoy-type sit down concerning your future. For now you take this.” Brant handed over a fistful of cash. Five hundred dollars worth of U.S. currency. Five hundred dollars in fifty, one hundred, and two hundred peso notes.
Bud had been listening so intently, trying to overhear what was being said between Cann and the old guy she’d secretly named Billy Goat Gruff, she jumped when Brigid knocked on her window. She looked around for the button that would lower it.
“Hi.” Brigid smiled. “There’s not time to go shopping or gather stuff up for you, but here’s what we had around the clubhouse. A few magazines.”
“Thank you.”
Bud’s tone was so sincere that Brigid was struck by it. It made her wonder if small kindnesses had been rare in her young life.
CHAPTER Four
Cann turned away from town.
Bud said, “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the way you expected your homecoming to go.”
“Yeah, well.” He rested both hands at the top of the steering wheel. It didn’t escape Bud’s notice that the pose showcased his biceps. “Turns out it’s a textbook case of no good deed shall go unpunished.” He snorted derisively. “Happy birthday to me.”
Bud let that comment hang heavy in the air of the truck cab for half an hour before saying, “Where are we going?”
“Just on the other side of Big Bend.” Cann’s anger was still palpable, but starting to wear off. “You been there?”
“Big Bend? No. We didn’t, um, do vacations.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s wild. Remote. That’s not all bad. One of the best things about it is that you can see the stars just like it was a thousand years ago. No light pollution in the night sky.”
“Light pollution,” she repeated quietly.
“I know what you’re thinkin’.”
“What?”
“That you can’t plan cities without lights. You need ‘em to drive by and keep people safe. All the advertising though? We could do without it.”
“Commerce is what fuels modern life.”
“So they say.” He reached down and opened the air vents to let in some fresh air. “It’s quiet, too. So quiet you can hear somebody comin’ from a long ways off. I mean if it’s an engine.”
“I knew what you meant. You’re not gonna get into trouble for this.”
Cann snorted. “How do you figure that? If your daddy wants to claim I kidnapped a minor, he’ll do it. And who do you think people are gonna believe? Me? Or a Texas Ranger?”
“They’re not like almighty virtue, you know.”
“Doesn’t matter. Public perception is what matters. Once again. Who do you think people are gonna believe? Me? Or him?”
She stared hard at Cann’s profile. “I think they’ll believe me.”
He barked out a derisive laugh. “Really? And what are you gonna tell ‘em, little girl?”
“I’m not a little girl. When I get the chance, I’m gonna tell the truth. That you’re this baby’s hero. That he owes you his life. He or, um, she.”
Cann could tell by her ragged intake of breath that she meant what she said. And for a second or two, it felt to Cann like time froze in place. The last thing that he’d ever expected to be called in this life or any other was hero.
Of course he knew Molly felt that way, but it was just a vague idea of loving him no matter what. Not the kind of thing the girl meant.
“I’m no hero. I’m just a guy who happened across a runaway girl.”
“That’s what makes you a hero, Johns. People come across runaways every day and just keep walkin’. Not you.” She watched his profile illuminated by the dashboard lights and repeated, “You’re different.” He glanced out the driver’s side window and almost missed what she said next because it was so quiet. “Special.”
He didn’t know what to think about that or feel about it either. Cann knew he wasn’t the world’s most educated guy, but if there was one thing he did know, it was that he was not special. Different, maybe.
After they’d ridden in silence for a while, Bud said, “You want me to pour you some coffee?”
Cann nodded. “Yeah. That’d be good.”
“Are you sleepy?” she asked.
He smiled. “No. But I probably will be before we get there.”
“You want me to drive?”
“I’ve seen the way you drive, sugar. You’re not getting behind the wheel at night on the roads between here and Big Bend. We need to go as fast as we can without getting stopped and the two-lane blacktops have surprises at night.”
“What kind of surprises?”
“Cows that get out. We’d definitely survive that in this dually, but we don’t want to be left by the side of the road with a cow carcass and a disabled vehicle. Other animals wander out onto the road sometimes. Deer that…”
“Get caught in headlights?”
They both laughed.
“Yes. Sometimes signs are down right before you get to a hairpin curve. One time, way out near where we’re goin’, I saw twin mountain lions by the side of the road. Babies. Not more than a few months old. Damnedest thing.”
“Mountain lions?” She sounded alarmed.
“Told you it’s wild out there. And remote.”
“But mountain lions?”
“They gotta live somewhere and they have no appreciation for city planning.”
“Ha. Ha. Are there lots?”
“Lots of mountain lions?” He smiled wickedly. “At least two.” She looked out into the darkness. “Not here. We just left Austin. Bet you can get somethin’ on the radio.”
She turned on the radio and scanned the dial from one end to the other then said, “That’s it. What’s your pleasure?”
“Don’t care. You choose.”
Bud put it on a country station and settled back into the passenger seat.
Cann was thinking back to Molly’s pregnancy and how awful morning sickness had been.
“You ever get sick?” he said. “At your stomach?”
“I did.” Her hand automatically went to her abdomen like she couldn’t talk about it without touching. “That’s over now. It wasn’t fun at all.”
“So if you graduated from high school in June and your dad wanted you to go to college, how come you’re not in school?”
“I was gonna go to Texas Tech, but I found out I was pregnant. So I told Daddy I decided I wanted to go to a different school and start in January. The different school part was true.”
&nb
sp; “Where was it you wanted to go?”
“Where does everybody in the known universe who’s in their right mind want to go? The University of Texas, Austin.”
He nodded. “Don’t imagine Texas Tech has much to say about city planning.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So why were you goin’ there?”
“Daddy was transferred to the Lubbock office last month.”
“And you needed to go where he was living?”
“He wanted me to live at home. I guess so he wouldn’t have to pay somebody else to do the stuff I do.”
“What kind of stuff do you do?”
“You know. Everything. Shopping. Cleaning up. Laundry. Cooking.”
“Seriously.”
“Yeah. It’s just been the two of us most of my life. When I was little he got help sometimes, but he told them to teach me how to do stuff and by the time I was, hmmm, maybe eleven? I could handle it.”
“Jesus.” Cann was remembering what he’d been doing when he was eleven. He and his brother had been out on bicycles looking for trouble and never failing to find it.
“What? It’s not as bad as it sounds. Actually it was pretty good because he was gone a lot and I could do what I wanted.”
“You mean he left you alone? When you were eleven?”
“Don’t sound so shocked. I was very mature for my age.”
“Like you are now.”
“You teasing me, Johns?”
As that question seeped into his brain, his mind immediately formed a picture of Molly hanging sheets on a line to dry. Her grandmother had taught her that sheets dried in clean air have a smell and crisp feel that no dryer can reproduce. It was a lot of extra trouble, but Molly thought it was worth it.
So Cann had put a clothes line at the back of their property and once a week plain white sheets could be seen hanging from the parallel lines. He’d been surprised that Target had wooden clothes pins. He would have thought they’d be a vintage item for sale on Ebay or some such, but there they were as she said they’d be. He bought enough to last a lifetime.
He’d come home one day in the middle of the afternoon and surprised her while she was hanging up the sheets. He grabbed her from behind and breathed in deep, as always enjoying the fruity smell of her shampoo. When she squealed, the baby who was sitting in the playpen nearby was startled and kicked up a fuss. It took some doing to convince his little girl that Cann was a good reliable daddy and not a monster.
All the while he was trying to calm the baby down, Molly was laughing at him for starting a ruckus.
She had a wide smile and a sunny disposition that seemed to fit her auburn hair and light freckles. He thought she was as beautiful as a goddess fallen to Earth.
“Johns?”
“Hmmm?”
“Where’d you go?”
“Right here.” He replayed the question in his head and was shocked to realize that teasing was exactly what he’d been doing. Since when did he tease? “Why do you keep calling me Johns?”
“Same reason you call me sugar. You don’t like Bud. I don’t like Cannon.”
His response was a grunt, but it was agreeable.
By midnight Cann had drunk half a thermos of coffee and was ready for a roadside spray. Apparently he wasn’t the only one thinking that.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Bud said.
“Okay. Side of the road is the best I can do.”
“What?”
“Any place that has bathrooms has cameras and TVs. People have seen your face. You’re a kidnapped child. I’m an outlaw. This is how it is.”
“I’m not a child.”
“I’m not an outlaw. Still. Here we are.”
“I can’t see snakes in the dark.”
He sighed. “All right. I’ll run the snakes off for you first.”
“You can do that?”
He grinned at her. “How long did you say you’ve been in Texas?”
“All my life.”
“If you say so.”
They were well past Uvalde and, at that time of night, it was really unlikely that another car would come by. Cann eased off to the side of the road and parked. He walked around to her side of the truck, stomped around, yelled a little, then opened her door.
“There ya go. Snakes all gone. I’ll go back around the other side so you can have some privacy.”
She didn’t like it, but couldn’t argue that it was the only choice. She worked up the courage to walk a few feet away. Luckily there were a couple of tissues in the bottom of her bag. She squatted and was relieved to realize that pee doesn’t make any sound when it hits the dirt. Feeling a lot less embarrassed, she walked back to the truck.
Cann had taken the opportunity to relieve himself on the other side of the road and was back at the truck by the time she got there.
“You good?” he said.
“Yeah. It was an adventure.”
He snickered and started the engine. “That’s really the first time you’ve ever peed in the great outdoors?”
“Yes. Men are made differently, you know.”
“No,” he said seriously, “I hadn’t noticed that.”
“So. Are you in a lot of trouble with your, ah, gang?”
Even in the dim light from the dashboard she could tell that he was giving her a withering look.
“It’s not a gang. It’s a club.”
“Okay. Don’t be so sensitive.”
“It’s not being so sensitive to want to get things right.”
“Club. Gang. Who really cares, Johns?”
He turned on the radio and fooled with the dial. The only station he could get clearly was on AM, a bible thumper preaching God, guns, and gays. For the first two. Against the last.
“We’re not really going to listen to this, are we?” she asked.
“Not a big range of options out here and I need to stay alert.”
“This is gonna keep you alert?”
He smiled. “Not likely to get sleepy with that goin’ on.”
Cann was a little amazed that he was smiling, given the fact that he’d brought a heap of trouble right to the SSMC doorstep. Potentially. He reached over and shut off the radio abruptly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“That my daddy’s a Ranger?” He gave her a glance that said no nonsense. “There was no reason to think it’d be an issue.”
“Not an issue,” he repeated drily.
“Look. He’s gone for weeks at a time. That’s how it’s always been. How did I know he was gonna come home?”
“I don’t know how you knew it, but you obviously did. That’s why you ran, right? If you’d thought he was gonna stay away until after your birthday, you would’ve stayed in a nice warm, dry comfy place.” He emphasized the word ‘dry’ to remind her that when they’d met she’d been in a situation that spelled desperate any way you looked at it.
Her shoulders sagged. “I didn’t know when or if, Johns. Honestly. But I couldn’t take that chance. When he left, he said, ‘When I get back we’ll be taking care of things’.”
“So he’s not getting a ‘parent of the year’ award.”
She snorted. “He kept the water and lights and gas turned on. Left money for groceries and stuff. That was pretty much it.”
“So you’re sayin’ you raised yourself?”
“Not exactly. I had a next door neighbor who kind of looked out for me. She taught me how to do stuff that men don’t know how to do.”
“Toenail paintin’?”
“No. Laundry.”
He barked out a laugh. “You think men don’t know how to do laundry?”
“I never met any.”
“Sure you have.”
“What’re you saying? That you know how to do laundry?” He gave a quick dip of the chin. “You’re lyin’.”
“Whatever.”
“Maybe you’ll get a chance to prove it to me.”
He laughed. “So you’re sayin’
that, if I play my cards right, I might get to do your laundry? Pretty slick, kid.”
“How’d you learn to do laundry?”
Cann’s good humor died a death as sudden as a balloon pricked by a pin.
Bud not only saw it. She felt it, too. The atmosphere in the cab of the truck became heavy, pregnant with something. Sorrow maybe.
“Tell me what happened, Johns.” He said nothing, just stared ahead at the ribbon of blacktop illuminated solely by his own headlights. “I’m stumbling all over your landmines. If we’re going to be together for a week, I need to know where they’re located.”
He sucked in a big breath suddenly, almost like he’d forgotten to breathe until his body went into survival and overrode his brain.
“It’s not a kid story, sugar. It’s a grown up story.”
“You got away with that I’m-so-much-older-than-you thing when you were hidin’ under that big red beard, but I can see your face now. You’re not that much older than me.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “I can see you’re gearin’ up to repeat the whole I’m-an-old-man-in-a-young-man’s-body thing. I may not have the same experiences as you, but I’ve been taking care of myself and running a household for most of my life. Not hanging out at the mall. That doesn’t make me ancient, but it does mean I’m responsible.”
He glanced over at his passenger and noticed her fingertips were lightly petting her belly, like she was trying to soothe the tiny person growing inside her.
Christ, he thought. Life really is a miracle.
“Okay. I hear you. I’ll make a deal. It’s not a pretty story. Hell to live. Hell to tell. I’ll tell you what happened. You can ask questions if you want, but only until we get to the safe house. That’s my deal. After that, I don’t ever want to hear anything about it again.”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“I had a girl. Her name was Molly. She was just like her name sounds. Pretty. Optimistic. Good heart through and through. Met her when I was fifteen and that was it for me. Pretty soon after high school she turned up pregnant. I can’t say I was sorry. I was too busy bein’ happy to be sorry.
NOMAD (Sons of Sanctuary Book 3) Page 4