by Liz Talley
Kate brushed the dirt from her hands. “Hello, Mrs. Betty. The color is Fire two-oh-three, if you want me to do a little touch-up for you.”
Kate gave the woman a brief hug, but the older woman wanted much more. She clasped Kate into a bear hug, which was remarkably easy for a woman who was descended from good Norwegian stock and stood five foot ten in her stocking feet. “The devil take me if I wear anything that bold, child. My color has been ravishing red for twenty-some-odd years, and that’s what it’ll stay.”
Rick walked over and extended his hand. “Hello, Mrs. Monk. I appreciate your being so neighborly and bringing us some home cooking.”
Betty took his hand and gave it a hearty shake. “Some folks didn’t want me to do it, but I’ll be hanged if I listen to a bunch of narrow-minded deacons’ wives. That Sally Holtzclaw is plum hypocritical, and I’ve just about—”
“What kind did you make?” Kate interrupted before Betty could dredge up every wrong done her by her archrival and former best friend Sally. They’d been feuding for years, ever since Betty’s design-challenged niece had reupholstered the Baptist church’s choir chairs in teal satin, causing Sally to slip off the seat and show the whole congregation her girdle. One would think the two friends could have gotten past the bad feelings, but showing her undergarments to the township had stirred Sally to retribution. And so the battle had waged out of control for three years.
“Oh. I brought blueberry—Nellie’s grandmother’s recipe. Used the last of the frozen blueberries my grand-baby picked me over in Linden.”
“Very kind of you,” Rick muttered, looking a bit puzzled. It was a common reaction to Betty who name-dropped, subject-hopped and dredged the past with dizzying speed. Not many could follow her, let alone figure her out. Not even her dear departed Ed had tried. He’d always called her his Gordian knot. And he never claimed to be Hercules.
“Well, aren’t you sweet.” Betty beamed. “I’ve always liked you. You’re a most handsome fellow, even with all those tattoos.”
Rick looked at Kate before looking back at Betty. “Thanks, I think.”
“No problem.” Betty took Kate’s elbow and moved her out of the hearing range of the guys cramming muffins in their mouths. “Now, Katie, Nellie told me you’re staying with Justus Mitchell. I guess that not-so-secret secret is out front and center. If that’s so, why the devil are you staying with a man who never bothered to claim you as his own? I’m a forgiving woman, but even I couldn’t cotton to pardoning that sin.”
Kate wanted to laugh. Betty could meddle with the best of them, and after putting up with temper tantrums and tears from the many who’d unloaded their problems in her salon chair, she didn’t mince words. So Kate shot her straight. “Who said anything about forgiveness? I want his money.”
Betty cackled like the old hen she was and clapped her hands together. “Damn right. No one messes with my Katie.”
Rick’s eyes widened. “Are y’all related?”
“Not by actual relation,” Betty said. “Here’s the way it is, handsome—this little girl thinks she belongs only to herself, but she belongs to Oak Stand. To all of us.”
Kate shook her head. She’d never felt she belonged in Oak Stand. She’d always felt second-rate. Nothing like the way she felt in Vegas. There she had control. And no one knew her past. But Mrs. Betty had meant her remark as a kindness, and it struck Kate with its tenderness.
“Whoa, these muffins are good,” Georges mumbled, his mouth half-full.
“Of course they are. I made them, didn’t I?” Betty said, moving toward him. “Now, let me show you the right way to plant tomatoes. You’ve got to have a little bit of bonemeal.”
Her words faded into the background as Kate fought the dampness gathering on her lashes. Rick noticed and moved toward her. He took her hand and brushed some dirt from it. “I like your hair. It suits you. And I didn’t know Oak Stand owned you.”
Kate loved the feel of his hands on her. Loved it too much. “No one owns me. Especially not this town.”
She stepped away from him, sensing her words had jabbed him, hurt him in some way. But what did it matter? He’d made it abundantly clear several nights ago when she’d thrown herself at him.
He didn’t want her.
Just like Justus hadn’t.
Just like Oak Stand hadn’t.
She didn’t belong here. She belonged in Vegas, with Jeremy and her friends. She belonged to a city that didn’t sleep, where no one called her Katie.
She belonged to herself and she needed to get out of the place that made her feel as though she didn’t.
But, as Vera had said, some things you can’t leave undone.
Kate grabbed the empty cartons and headed to the side of the house where the garbage cans sat. From the corner of her eye she saw Vera pull up in a Lexus sedan. The older woman stepped out of the car, looking quite pretty with her hair tied in a low ponytail with a scarf and wearing a lime-green jacket over her factory-worn designer jeans. She carried a large bowl and a bag from a fancy gourmet store that was definitely not located in Oak Stand.
“Kate,” she called, stopping on the front pavers. “Will you give me a hand?”
“I’m filthy,” Kate called back, but walking toward her anyway.
“Just grab the sacks from the trunk, if you don’t mind. You can set them on the porch.” She headed inside without waiting for Kate to agree.
“Fine,” she said to no one in particular as she approached the car. The trunk was unlatched and she lifted the bags out and set them at her feet. Under the last bag lay a halter. She lifted it out. It was a strange item to be sitting in the middle of a perfectly clean trunk.
“That belonged to Ryan’s horse.”
Kate dropped it in the trunk, wondering if Vera had gotten the therapy she needed after Ryan’s death. Carrying this kind of stuff was creepy. “Oh.”
Vera’s touch was a light caress on her back. “That was how he died. On his horse.”
Kate had never thought to ask about how Ryan had died. Things had felt too heavy to think about much beyond the cold silence with Justus and the hot pandering for Rick. “He fell?”
Vera nodded. “Rick found pot in the ashtray of the Mustang. It wasn’t Ryan’s. Or at least he swore it wasn’t, but Rick was hard on him. I guess because of his own mistakes. Ryan got angry because he didn’t believe him and took off in a gallop on his quarter horse, Tolstoy. We don’t know what happened really. Tolstoy came back and Ryan didn’t. Rick found him crumpled in a ditch out by the ruins of the Spanish mission.”
Sadness lurked in Vera’s eyes, but she told the story in a matter-of-fact way. As if she’d told it the same way many times before.
“I’m sorry.” It was all Kate could say.
Vera nodded, looking at the halter. “Justus shot that horse. Loaded the rifle, went out and killed him. It was Justus’s way of dealing, as extreme as it was. But Rick…” She sighed. “Rick went crazy. He thought it was his fault.”
“Why?”
Vera shrugged and shut the lid. “He kept saying ‘I should have believed him’ as if that would have prevented it. But it wouldn’t have. It was a freak accident. I guess I knew. What’s that saying? ‘Only the good die young’?”
“I’ll probably live to a ripe old age then.”
At this the woman finally smiled. “Me, too.”
Vera didn’t say anything else. She headed up the walk with the remaining bags, leaving Kate wondering what kind of help she’d actually been. She hadn’t done a thing other than pick up the halter.
She glanced at the porch as Rick appeared.
Is that why he stayed under Justus’s thumb? Guilt? Perhaps he couldn’t cut the ties that bound him to the Mitchells because he felt responsible for Ryan’s death. Which was ludicrous, but the mind and heart worked in mysterious ways.
Rick rubbed a hand across his chest and looked out at the horizon. Kate could feel his angst. His trouble. If she had to guess the source, she’d
say things at the center, work with the clients wasn’t going as planned.
Yeah, welcome to the club, buddy.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WE CAN’T HOLD A CAR WASH, stupid. It’s February,” Carlos said, leaning back in one of the chairs surrounding the dining table at Phoenix.
“But it’s not cold outside when the sun’s out,” Georges said, spreading his hands. “You have a bad attitude, man.”
Rick tried to be patient. The guys had only been here for four days and were still adjusting to one another. Two clients—Joe and Brandon—were from the Tango Blast organization, a relatively new albeit violent gang. They seemed the most dangerous of the group. The other three were Mexican Mafia, but from different barrios. They’d been low men in the gang and their personalities reflected their status. “We can disagree, but let’s not name call.”
Sullen eyes met his comment and worry settled in his gut. Nothing was working the way he’d envisioned it. He’d been a delusional fool to think the guys would accept him just because he’d been in their shoes at one time.
Not to mention he literally ached for Kate. He tried to stop himself from gravitating toward her, but time and time again, he found himself seeking her out, if only to soak her in as she teased the clients and did what he sought to do…bond with them.
Brandon spoke next. “Listen, not a car wash, man. That’s, like, what the cheerleaders do in high school.”
Joe grinned. “I took my mother’s car for a wash every time. Mochilas. Tight asses and—”
“How about a detail place?” Brandon suggested. “We could wash, wax and buff that shit up.”
Rick could see lightbulbs going off in their heads. He’d asked to meet with them right after their last GED class with the purpose of brainstorming ideas for raising money for the center.
The foundation had given the center enough money for the year, but the guys in the three-month program needed to earn their keep. Taking on responsibility was as much a part of their rehabilitation as therapy and education. Learning to work together to find solutions was key in getting them to accept a world where disagreements were met with honesty and compromise, not with guns and knives.
“That’s whack, dude,” Manny said, shaking his head.
Tension thickened.
Rick slammed his hands on the table, breaking through the testosterone flare-up in the room and drawing their attention to him. “Actually, there’s nothing like that in Oak Stand, outside of a do-it-yourself place on the outskirts of town. I’m good with cars myself.”
“Yeah,” Joe said, glancing out the back window to where the Mustang sat in the drive. “That’s a sweet ride.”
Rick could feel their interest. For the first time. “I restored it. Me and a friend, that is. So I know my way around a vehicle.”
The guys nodded.
“But we’re too far out from town,” Joe said. “Old ladies ain’t gonna drive out here so this chunty can rag her car.” He jerked his thumb toward Georges as he delivered the insult. Georges flipped Joe off.
Rick reminded them about using derogatory terms for the umpteenth time.
“Well, they damn sure ain’t gonna let us drive their cars. They’ll think we’re stealin’ them or something. We’ll be laying the wax and hear sirens,” said Joe.
Rick spent the next thirty minutes helping them iron out the particulars of the business. The guys were wary, but enthusiasm laced their words and several guys showed surprising entrepreneurial skills in their negotiations. Then he watched silently as they sketched out logos and talked about names for the business, one of which was Banjo’s. Letting the dog stay had proven to be the right move. The guys loved the scrawny mutt. The dog was another piece in the puzzle for creating the right environment.
Rick drifted away from the table, leaving them to take ownership of the business idea. He’d follow up later and make a suggestion or two for drafting the plan, but he wanted to give them space. That seemed like the right move.
He entered the kitchen, set his mug in the sink and ran soapy water for the dishes stacked on the counter. Starting tonight, the clients would share in meal preparation and cleanup. Up until then, he’d borne the burden. For some reason, he hadn’t thought much about feeding the guys. He’d spent much of his planning on the programs and supplies. Thank goodness, Vera and other townspeople had shown up with welcoming dishes. Another thing to tweak.
As he finished loading the dishwasher, Kate breezed in.
“Hey,” she said, grabbing a kitchen towel and wiping the counters. “I finished organizing all of the paperwork into different files. When you have time, I’ll show you how I set it up so it’ll be easy to put your hands on what you need.”
He watched her smooth strokes as she buffed the stove and knew exactly where he wanted to put his hands. And it damn sure wasn’t on files. He looked at the half-eaten cinnamon roll sitting on a plate he’d missed on the far counter. It made him think of that morning several days ago. The morning he’d told Kate he’d made a vow. She’d teased him then about eating things that weren’t good for him, and he’d replied that “some things were worth it.”
He looked at the delicious woman bent over picking up a bread tie from the floor.
Wasn’t Kate the same thing?
Decadent. Sweet. And absolutely worth it.
She turned and caught him watching her and the air crackled. “What?”
Laughter from the dining room jarred him from his wicked thoughts. It was getting harder and harder to drag himself from that place. And he knew his connection with Kate wasn’t only physical. It was something more. “Nothing.”
He took the towel from her and hung it up. “Actually, I do want to show you something.”
She slid him a wicked smile. “Oh, really?”
He tried to ignore the stirring in his body and focus on where he wanted to take her. “Really.”
He headed out the kitchen door past the guys at the table. Their discussion had grown pretty loud.
“That name is chignon. Beast,” Brandon said. He leaned forward, forearms on the table in an aggressive manner.
Manny pulled his attention away from Brandon to look at Rick. “Yo, chulo, where you going with my chica?”
Rick shook his head. He was no player. Those days were long over. “Does she know she’s yours?”
Kate rolled her eyes. “When will men ever learn? We ladies belong to ourselves.”
“That’s what we let you think,” Joe said.
Rick told them they would return momentarily and the guys went back to arguing over a name.
He led Kate out the door and down the front steps. The wind announced another cold front moving in from the north, but the sun broke through the clouds to throw some much needed heat upon their shoulders. He headed down the sloping hill toward a small copse of woods that clung to the banks of a stream ribboning the property.
Kate didn’t speak, just tilted her face up to the sun. He curled his hand and placed it in his pocket, so he wouldn’t touch her, fall into her. His body was like a guitar string, tight and ready to be played by her.
But not now. There was something he wanted to show her, a secret place that he hoped would help her understand that someone had wanted her.
The pine trees didn’t grow thick in the stand of woods. They towered above the dogwoods and redbuds, showing premature signs of awakening. Tangled graying vines curled around a small ramshackled fort built next to a huge pine tree.
“What’s this?” she asked, approaching the weathered little building. She walked straight to the door hanging on rusted hinges.
“It’s Ryan’s fort,” he said quietly, still feeling reverence for the secret place Ryan had hung out in.
She swung her head around. “Why would you bring me here? It’s falling down.”
He had good reason, but he wanted her to find out on her own, so he shrugged. Her brow furrowed as she turned and pulled the door open past withered dandelions blocking the th
reshold. The wood creaked and one board actually fell to the ground.
“Oops,” she said, ducking her head to peer within.
“He built it himself with boards and scraps he found around Cottonwood. He’d started it before I came to live here. In fact, the day Justus pulled up with me sulking in the back of the truck, the roofers were accusing each other of misplacing boards and a box of nails. Turns out Ryan hauled the material almost two miles across the pasture on a four-wheeler they used on the ranch.”
“I guess a lot of little boys want a fort,” she said as she brushed a cobweb away and stepped inside. “I wonder why he built it so far away?”
“So nobody would find it.”
She glanced out. “But you did.”
“He showed it to me. You’re the only other person who knows it’s here.”
Something flashed in Kate’s eyes. He couldn’t read it. She disappeared inside the fort, and he stood where he was. He wanted her to see something of her brother other than the portrait that hung over her as she shoveled peas into her mouth at dinner. He wanted her to feel like she had one tiny piece that neither Vera nor Justus held.
He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that this would help Kate move toward a better place. He wished he’d thought of it earlier, but he’d been so wrapped up in all that had been going on that he’d forgotten Ryan’s secret fort and all that lay inside.
KATE WONDERED IF THE STRUCTURE was dangerous. A young boy had built it, so it couldn’t be too sound. Yet it had weathered several years and still stood.
The tang of mold and decaying earth met her nostrils. The floor of the fort had been covered in an old piece of linoleum that curled at the edges. Faux wood. She and her grandmother had had the same pattern in the used trailer they’d rented in Happy Place Trailer Park—the name was a total oxymoron. Nothing happy about a run-down trailer park choked with weeds and soaked in poverty.
The fort walls were held together by exposed rusting nails. Large cracks allowed outside light to fall in bright slashes across the dirty linoleum. Two large sheets of plywood served as the roof and there was only one window, which had Plexiglas covering it. The contents consisted of one rickety TV tray, a camping chair and several boxes. One lone, faded poster of Angelina Jolie dressed as Lara Croft dated the fort as early 2000s.