by Jodi Thomas
Several of the nurses left him their numbers and offered to drop by and check on him, but the last thing Rick needed was women problems on top of all else.
Hank drove him to Winter’s Inn and helped him up the front porch stairs. Rick had bruises all along his back, making the muscles tight.
Mrs. Biggs opened the door before they reached the porch. She had his room ready for him and had made a light supper for whenever he was ready. She also explained that Martha Q had gone to Amarillo for a few days of shopping. She planned to be back on Friday for a meeting, and then on Saturday morning she would head to Dallas for her face-lift. Mrs. Biggs said the stress of being beautiful was taking a toll on poor Martha Q’s nerves.
Rick limped inside as Hank went back for the luggage. He’d made it to the middle of the entryway when Hank handed over his two bags and said good-bye.
Mrs. Biggs took over helping him to his room.
“Are you single?” Rick asked when he saw the cozy room, mountains of pillows, fireplace going in the hearth below a big-screen TV with basketball playing. “This is heaven.”
“I’m widowed, Mr. Matheson,” she said simply. “And don’t try that Matheson charm on me.”
An hour later he asked her to marry him again when she brought him shepherd’s pie and apple cobbler.
“Now, Mr. Matheson, you can’t keep asking me that. I’ve got grandsons almost your age.”
“I know, but they don’t make women like you anymore, Mrs. Biggs. Most of the girls I’ve dated use the oven to store supplies. Half cuss more than any man I know and none of them wear anything like that sweet perfume you have on.”
“It’s cinnamon, Mr. Matheson. You’re still under the effects of drugs.” She picked up a book that had fallen from his bed. “I wanted to let you know that one or both of my grandsons will be by every night to check on me. They both said they’re glad you’re staying at the house, but my boys worry about me.” She hid her smile behind her fingertips. “My Border says Martha Q is tough enough to frighten any trouble away, but he’s not so sure about you.”
Rick laughed. The big grandsons weren’t exactly boys. Brandon “Big” Biggs was at least six foot six and probably weighed three hundred pounds. His little brother wasn’t far behind. Border Biggs shaved his head so all his tattoos would show and the last Rick heard he was playing in a band. “I’m glad they’re coming by. If anyone was planning to break in here, they’ll think we have a security team walking the grounds.”
Mrs. Biggs smiled with pride. “I don’t want to brag, but my boys would thump anyone a good one if they messed with me.” She moved toward the door. “They usually have dinner with Martha Q and me on Sunday night. Should we continue in her absence?”
“Sounds like a good plan, if I’m invited.”
“Of course.”
Just before she left, Rick added, “Starting tomorrow morning, I’ll have breakfast in the kitchen. I may only work an hour tomorrow, but I plan to work.”
She nodded and closed the door. He let his body melt back into the pillows. It had cost him to act as if he wasn’t in pain, but Rick didn’t want anyone worrying about him. He’d morphed from hurting to being mad. The first thing he planned to do when he got to his office was to go over the list of every person who’d walked in since he started practicing. If he didn’t find a name there he’d go through each trial. Not just defendants, but witnesses, families, friends, victims. Somewhere in the list was one name. One person who’d walked away hating him enough to wish him dead.
No, not wish him dead. Rick had to find someone who hated him enough to make it happen.
He leaned back forcing his body to relax. Forty-eight hours ago he’d been leaving his office feeling like he was floating without a direction. A few missing steps had changed all that. Rick now had a mission.
Chapter 10
TUESDAY
IT WAS ALMOST NOON ON TUESDAY BEFORE TANNON PARKER made it back to his loft apartment over Parker Trucking’s offices. He’d spent the night dealing with a rig that had jackknifed on a windy road in the Oklahoma panhandle, and then he’d driven back to Harmony.
Shedding his clothes as he walked, he headed for the kitchen, needing food even more than he needed sleep.
Nothing.
He called his secretary downstairs and told her to order him the usual groceries. Bread, milk, sandwich meat, canned soup, cereal, frozen pizza, and beer. She knew the brand names without having to ask.
“Oh,” he added, “a couple of six-packs of diet root beer.”
“I didn’t know you liked root beer.” She sounded more curious than interested.
“I don’t,” Tannon said, seeing no need to explain.
She took the hint. “I’ll have your order delivered in twenty minutes, Mr. Parker.”
“Good. Leave it outside the elevator door. I’ll be in the shower. Call me if we have any other problems.” He’d stood on the highway most of the night making sure the wreck was clean, but they were still waiting for the mechanic to call in a total on the engine’s damage.
A half hour later he’d downed a mixing bowl of cereal and decided he needed sleep more than the office needed him. But when he fell into bed, he didn’t relax. The long night played out in his mind. The truck would cost him thousands, but thankfully the driver wasn’t hurt.
He hated stormy nights in the trucking business almost as much as he hated snow.
Emily crossed his mind. She thought it had rained the night her parents had been killed. He’d seen the tears in her eyes when she’d told him. She wore her emotions close to the surface and he could always see everything she felt in her big brown eyes.
He took a deep breath and forgot about rainy nights. Emily was all that was on his mind as he drifted into sleep. The memory of how her eyes had sparkled when she’d rationed out her chocolate kisses for dessert was his last thought.
Chapter 11
MUSIC FILLED THE BAR AS BEAU PLAYED FROM THE CAGE in the corner. Few folks were in the place tonight and most of them came to eat, not dance, but it didn’t matter to Beau. He’d come to play. He’d tied his black hair back as always and wore his cowboy hat low so that he could almost believe he was alone in the bar.
Border had gone with his brother over to the Truman farm to check on the place. Reagan Truman and the Biggs brothers were an odd pairing of friends, but she must trust them because folks said she let very few on her place and she’d given Big the key. The brothers planned to stop for catfish at a shack out that direction when they headed back.
Beau would rather play than eat tonight. He’d been thinking about how he’d never be a star if he didn’t start collecting “hard times.”
He’d spent his childhood being afraid to do anything. His father used to make him hit his knees and pray for forgiveness for things he thought about doing wrong. Only problem was Beau hadn’t really thought about anything, and by the time those evil ideas climbed in his dreams, he sure didn’t want to mention his thoughts to God for fear the Lord would take them from him.
“I like your music.” A woman’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
Beau looked up. She was about his height and had on red cowboy boots pulled over her skin-tight jeans. Unlike most of the women who trolled the bar every night, she didn’t look old enough to walk in the door. Fake ID, he thought, but he didn’t plan to mention it to Harley if the owner hadn’t noticed. Blond hair, big blue eyes that twinkled with laughter.
“Th-thanks,” he managed, and liked the way she giggled with a bit of nervousness.
“Would you play something for me?” she asked.
“I-if I know it.” He didn’t dare look down at her body again. As long as he kept his gaze on her eyes, he had a chance of being able to talk without stuttering. “W-what would you like?”
“Anything. I’d just like to know you’re playing it for me.”
Beau played an old Lee Ann Womack song called “I Hope You Dance.”
She sat at the nearest
table and didn’t move until he’d finished, and then she thanked him and walked away. The fringe on her western vest brushed her hips as if she planned it that way just to tease the boys. Her hair was sandy blond and tied up in a ponytail with a blue satin ribbon. She was Sunday morning beautiful even in the smoky lights.
He couldn’t see where she went, but when he packed up and walked out the back door, she was sitting on an old Ford Mustang convertible that someone had restored to better than new.
“Want to go for a ride?” she asked as she opened the passenger’s door.
Without a word, he stored his gear inside the kitchen and climbed in. It was cold, too cold for a midnight ride with the top down, but Beau didn’t care. He felt like he was living some kind of wild dream with his eyes wide open.
They drove out of town until she found a lonely stretch of blacktop that looked like ink flowing across gray earth. She raced through the night with the radio playing and her hair dancing in the wind. He had no idea where he was going and didn’t care.
When they could see no lights from town, she stopped and asked him if he wanted to drive. He nodded and they ran around the car switching seats, but she didn’t stay on her side. She slid across the console where a blanket padded the space between bucket seats and cuddled against him for warmth.
Beau drove slowly, wishing the night would last forever. He didn’t even know her name, and for some strange reason it didn’t seem to matter. He figured sometime later, when this dream was over, he’d realize that a girl like her would never have anything to do with a guy like him, but tonight he planned to enjoy the perfection of one moment.
After a half hour they switched drivers again and she pulled back onto a main road. She slowed to the speed limit and headed toward Harmony. “You don’t have to talk, Beau, but could you move over so I could feel your warmth next to me?”
He moved against her side putting his arm along the back of her shoulder. The frosty night air blew his hair, but he didn’t seem to feel the cold with the radio on and her so close.
When there were no cars coming, she slowed, tugged his hand from her shoulder, and moved it inside her jacket until his palm rested over one of her small breasts.
“Don’t say anything,” she whispered. “Just feel me.”
He thought of stuttering out that he wasn’t sure he could talk, but it didn’t seem necessary. He took his time feeling of her breast and decided he liked small breasts just as much as he liked big ones. Not that he’d felt enough to form a clear opinion.
When the lights of town came into view, she moved his hand to her shoulder and drove back to the bar.
The place had closed, but there was enough light for him to see his junker of a car sitting alone in the lot. When he climbed out, she handed him the ribbon she’d pulled from her ponytail. He laced it between his fingers. She nodded once and drove away.
Beau stood there in the cold for a long time trying to figure out if he’d just had a very real one of those dreams he should be asking forgiveness for or if the girl had really been there in her 1965 write-me-a-ticket red convertible.
The next night he asked the bartender and Harley if they’d seen her and no one remembered a girl like her alone in the bar. Harley said he always carded ponytails twice. Any woman wearing a ponytail was either too dumb to know she looked like a kid or older than she wanted folks to think she was. Either way, he wanted to know the truth.
Later, when he told Border about the girl, Border said it was probably one of his dreams. He had so many about biker chicks and cheerleaders that one was bound to drop out of his head sometime. Beau just happened to pick it up.
Beau caught himself looking for the Ford convertible in every parking lot and watching women with blond hair. He tried to picture each one dressed as she’d been, but none fit. Finally, he decided it was good that he didn’t find her again. He wouldn’t know what to say anyway and even if he did, he’d never get the words out.
She had changed his life, though. Before he was just nervous around girls his age who were big-breasted; now it was pretty much every female on the planet.
Border asked him a few times to repeat what happened and each time he did the memory became more dream and less real. Details were being airbrushed out with words. The girl had been right. It was best he didn’t talk about it. Then, maybe he could keep it real for just a little while longer. But he tried to remember every detail. The girl, the car, the night.
He tied the blue satin ribbon to his guitar and thought of her as he played and wished it had been his songs she’d heard on the radio. When he did make it big he wondered if she’d hear him and think of the night they raced the wind on a moonbeam road to nowhere.
That night as he slept on the Biggs brothers’ couch, when all was still, she came to him in his dreams. They rode through the cold air keeping warm as they pressed against each other. He’d whisper to her without stuttering in his dreams. He’d tell her how she’d changed his world.
He crawled out of bed before dawn and wrote a song about needing the closeness of another’s body more than he needed words. Someday, he thought, long after I make it big, she’ll hear the song on the radio and know I was thinking of her when I wrote it.
Chapter 12
WEDNESDAY
RICK CRAWLED OUT OF BED ABOUT TEN O’CLOCK FEELING like he’d have to get better to die. Every muscle and bone in his body hurt. He moved slowly to the bathroom. Taking a shower or a bath was out of the question with all the gauze wrapped around his ribs and back, but he did manage to shave and did his best to wash. He pulled on a T-shirt and old pair of jeans Mrs. Biggs must have washed from the pile in his bag of dirty clothes. She’d left them on a shelf in the bathroom along with a stack of fresh towels.
Walking out of the bath, he moved like an old man to the kitchen. Day three after the accident didn’t look any brighter than days one and two had. At this rate, he’d spend the rest of his youth holding on to door frames and accompanying every step with a groan.
Mrs. Biggs smiled at him, but didn’t say a word as she went about getting his breakfast ready.
“I don’t want much,” he said as he lowered to the chair.
“Just eat what you can. The cat will eat the rest.” She smiled at a fat tabby cat sitting in the window. “Martha Q calls him Mr. Dolittle but I refuse to address him so formally, so I just call him Cat.”
By the time Rick had finished his first cup of coffee, Hank, his cousin, had arrived. Mrs. Biggs poured the rancher a cup and left the room as if she knew the babysitter had arrived.
“I don’t think you should go in for a few days, Rick,” Hank began. “You need rest.”
“I’m fine. I can make it a few hours.” Rick remembered his years in high school football when he’d felt terrible after a game. His mother had always made him go to school the next morning, promising him she’d come get him if he didn’t feel better by lunch. A dozen times he’d told himself he could make it to lunch, and by then, he’d decide he could survive the rest of the day.
This seemed like one of those days.
He looked at Hank. “You’re not worried about me resting. You’re worried about me going out, right?”
Hank leaned forward. “The steps were sawed, Rick. Maybe it was some kind of sick joke, maybe it wasn’t meant for you, but I’ve got to think that the guy who did it couldn’t have been thinking of anyone else. Someone out there meant to harm you, maybe even kill you. We fixed the steps, but we haven’t fixed the problem.”
“I can’t just hide.” Rick shrugged, then groaned. “Sooner or later, I have to step out that door and get some answers.”
“All right, but I’m going with you.”
“Fine, then you can help me get dressed.”
By the time Rick was dressed he was swearing and Hank was laughing. He claimed it would have been easier to put a tux on a cow than put clothes on Rick.
They walked out to Hank’s truck with Hank still laughing and Rick still hurting
.
By the time they were parked in front of his office, Rick was exhausted. He leaned back and tried to think why he’d been so determined to get out of bed this morning.
“Want to go home?” Hank asked. “I can turn around.”
Rick had made it this far. He wouldn’t turn back now. “I’ll stay a few hours. My car’s still parked out back, I might as well drive it over to the B&B. Martha Q told me I could put it in her garage.”
“Sounds good. While you’re working, I’ll take Alex to lunch.” Hank helped him out and followed him up the stairs one at a time, then left as soon as Rick was inside his office. He wanted to be helpful, not mothering. “I’ll be driving back by here if you want me to help you down the front stairs. It might not be a bad idea.”
“I think I can make it.” Rick didn’t even sound too sure to himself. “But I’d appreciate some help with a few boxes. I’m taking files home. I’ll be ready by the time you finish lunch.”
Hank nodded and left without another word.
Rick closed the door and slowly lowered himself to the old couch he’d borrowed from the office next door months ago. It took him several minutes, but he finally relaxed enough to breathe normally. In the shadowy room he stared out at the old town square and tried to think of one person in town who wanted him dead.
After a while he decided he’d lived a pitiful life. He’d never loved anyone passionately or hated anyone or anything enough to fight. All he’d ever done was go to school and date people as shallow as himself. He was good to his mother like every decent Southern boy. He went to church now and then. Tried to be polite and kind to folks, but he’d never fought for a cause or marched for what was right.
Maybe someone saw him and just decided he was a waste of air and thought they’d just take him out with a few missing steps.