by Sandra Brown
He bent back over the open hood of the pickup and resumed his work. It was a no-brainer repair job, enabling him to concentrate on other matters.
He had known the law would come to him. They would expect Carl to run to family first. Carl had taken that into account, of course, and had warned Cecil about it on their last visitation day together. “They’ll have your place and the garage staked out. You probably won’t see them, but the bastards’ll be around, so watch yourself.” The phone lines would probably be tapped, too, Carl had said. His warnings were unnecessary. Cecil knew how to be careful.
Of course the laws were right. The brothers would rendezvous. When they did, it wouldn’t be covert. The authorities would know about the reunion immediately. What a day that was going to be!
Cecil could hardly contain his excitement. He didn’t know how he was going to survive the wait without giving away his anticipation. Parole was little better than prison. He was subject to regular visits from a parole officer who pried into every aspect of his life. He reported to work every day only to take verbal abuse from a son of a bitch like Reynolds. This was no life for him. He was too smart and too talented to waste himself on a life that any asshole could lead.
Besides, he and Carl belonged together. Soon they would be together again, doing what they did best, doing what they’d done together since they were boys—raising hell.
Cecil spent the remainder of the afternoon reviewing their plan, going over it time and again in his mind, making certain he hadn’t overlooked a single detail. It rankled a little that Carl was still the chief instigator and overseer. Even from prison he was the leader, as he’d always been, although the leadership role rightfully should have belonged to Cecil since he was the elder. But, never one to stand on ceremony, Carl had assumed that position early on and never had relinquished it.
One thing they had to get straight: From here on out, Cecil was going to have equal say. He would make that clear to his brother from the get-go. Carl shouldn’t have a problem with a more democratic approach. They weren’t kids any longer. Cecil didn’t need coaching. He had been to prison, too. The experience had toughened him. Although he’d played the sniveling weakling for the troopers, he was stronger than his brother remembered him.
This time there would be no mistakes. All the arrangements were in place. He had devised a fail-safe job and an even better getaway plan. Hell, he even had a secret weapon that Carl didn’t know about.
Bending to his repair task, he chuckled just thinking of how surprised Carl was going to be when he sprang that surprise on him.
Chapter Seven
“Jack said an Indian brave made his knife. A Comanche, Grandpa.” David interrupted his chatter about Jack Sawyer only long enough to cram a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth. “He sure knows a lot of neat stuff.”
Jack Sawyer was David’s current favorite topic. When they returned from town and David had spotted his pickup truck still parked in the driveway, he had barely allowed the car to come to a stop before getting out.
Delray met them at the gate that separated the landscaped yard from the pasture. “Did you meet Jack, Grandpa?” Breathless with excitement, David asked so many questions so fast that Anna missed most of them. Delray ordered the boy to calm down.
That was not unusual. Delray loved his grandson, but David’s high energy level frequently got on Delray’s nerves. What struck Anna immediately was the change in Delray himself. He was a man of strong convictions. He held tightly to his opinions. Once he had made up his mind about something, he never wavered. Whatever he did, he did decisively and without apology.
So it wasn’t like him to appear unsure and tentative when he informed her that he had hired Jack Sawyer as a ranch hand.
Trying not to show her shock, she signed, “That quickly? What do you know about him?”
“He’s okay. I think he’ll be a hard worker.” He wasn’t looking directly at her when he added, “He’ll be living in the old trailer.”
That was even more surprising, but before she could sign a comment, he pressed on.
“He’s fixing it up himself, so you don’t have to worry about it. In fact, you shouldn’t even know he’s around. I’ve already put him to work inside the barn. I just wanted you to know that he would be working here for a while. Now, I’ve got to get back to work. See you at supper.”
With no more explanation than that, he had turned and walked away.
In the years since Dean died, she had been responsible for the house, but Delray had done all the ranching himself. He had stubbornly refused to consider hiring permanent help, although she often had suggested that he should.
He was getting too old to work so hard, and that was part of the problem. Pride kept him from taking on a hand. He didn’t want to admit, even to himself, that he was no longer up to handling the job that had been his life’s work.
Perhaps he also felt that hiring another man would be disloyal to the son he had lost. No one could take Dean’s place in Delray’s heart. He didn’t want anyone trying to take Dean’s place beside him at work, either.
As Anna ate her dinner, she wondered why this sudden reversal in Delray’s policy. Was it a true change of heart? Had he finally admitted that he needed help? Or was Sawyer just a good salesman? Maybe. But there was another possibility—one that made her terribly uneasy.
Last evening’s news.
To settle her own mind, she tapped the table to get her father-in-law’s attention. “Are you afraid he’ll come here?” she signed.
“No.”
She read the terse reply on his lips. He added a stern shake of his head. Even so, Anna didn’t quite believe him. “Is that why you hired this man? To have someone else around just in case—”
“One has nothing to do with the other. This Sawyer showed up, needing work. I had been giving thought to taking a man on. That’s it.” Agitated, he took a few bites of food. She continued to watch him. Finally he laid down his fork and addressed her without shifting his eyes. “He won’t come here, Anna. It would be too risky for him. Besides, they’ll catch him before he gets too far.”
“Catch who, Grandpa?” David asked.
“Nobody. And don’t talk with your mouth full.” Returning to Anna, he said, “The state police called today. They asked if I wanted somebody out here to watch the house. Just as a precaution. I told them no.”
She lowered her eyes to her plate. Delray tapped the table. Sensing the vibration, she looked up at him again. “I honestly don’t think there’s any danger. But if you want me to, I’ll call them back and accept their offer.”
To have someone guarding his family would be to acknowledge his own apprehension over Carl Herbold’s escape. Delray would consider it a weakness to take such drastic precautions. He would make the concession if she asked him to, but he wouldn’t like it.
She shook her head no; Delray looked relieved.
His decision was made, and the subject was now closed. But whether he admitted it or not, Anna doubted Delray would have hired Jack Sawyer if there had been no prison escape the day before.
“I wonder what Jack’s having for supper.” David leaned forward so he could see the trailer through the window.
Their days were so predictable that any variation in routine was remarkable, especially to a five-year-old with boundless curiosity. Her son had learned sign language along with English, so from the time he could use his stubby fingers to communicate, he had asked countless questions like any other child. At the end of each day Anna’s hands would be cramping from answering them.
“Maybe Jack doesn’t have any supper. What’s he gonna eat? Does he know how to cook, Grandpa?”
“It’s none of our business what he eats,” Delray told him. “He just works here, is all.”
“Maybe sometimes he can play with me.”
“You stay away from him, David, and I mean it.”
Crestfallen, David said, “But he’s nice. He likes dinosaurs, too.”
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“He’s here to work, not entertain you.”
Anna signed, “Did he say where he is from?”
“He’s sort of a drifter.”
She gave her father-in-law an inquisitive look, indicating that she didn’t quite understand. “Like a hobo? A tramp?”
“No, he works. He just moves around a lot. Never stays too long in one place. He could be gone tomorrow.”
Stricken by that possibility, David asked, “Do you think he’ll leave tomorrow, Grandpa? Mom, will he?”
She signed that she didn’t think he would be leaving that soon. Delray told David to finish his supper, which he did without further conversation. Secretly she wished that David would ask a few more questions of Delray. She wanted to know more about Jack Sawyer herself, but for the time being she kept her curiosity to herself.
Following the evening meal their routine was for David to clear the dishes from the table and carry them to the sink while she and Delray relaxed over a last cup of coffee and discussed the day’s events.
Delray wasn’t a talkative man, and for that reason he didn’t mind her silence. But tonight he seemed especially quiet. After a time, she asked, “Did you read in the newspaper about Ezzy Hardge’s retirement dinner?”
“Long overdue if you ask me,” he said. “He’s got to be near eighty.”
Anna smiled into her coffee cup. The retired sheriff wasn’t that much older than Delray. “You should have gone to the dinner. There was a large crowd. You would have known a lot of people there.”
“I wouldn’t have been caught dead there. The tickets were twenty bucks apiece.”
It wasn’t the cost of the ticket that had kept him from going. He wouldn’t have attended the community function if the tickets had been free. Of course it never would have occurred to him that she might like to go. Ezzy Hardge had been sheriff all her life. She felt he deserved a good sendoff. But if she had suggested they go, Delray would have said no.
The first time Dean brought her home to meet his father, he had warned her beforehand that Delray wasn’t the outgoing type. She discovered that to be an understatement. Dean’s mother Mary had been Delray’s second wife. Before finding happiness with his new family, Delray had lived through terrible times. Those troubled years had left their mark on him.
What little social life he had had died along with Mary and Dean. Gradually his small number of friends stopped notifying him of their get-togethers. He seemed not to notice or mind.
At first Anna had thought that he was embarrassed by her handicap and that he felt awkward using sign language in public places. Or that he was sensitive to her being a young widow and was reluctant to leave her at home alone in the evenings, especially after David was born.
Eventually she had come to realize that his solitude had little to do with her. He didn’t like people in general. He resented their curiosity and gossip. He rebuffed any act of friendliness or kindness because he mistrusted the motive behind it. He preferred living in semi-isolation. Her impairment gave him a good excuse and made it convenient for him.
“Get all your errands run today?”
His question roused her from her thoughts. Suddenly remembering something, she held up her finger to indicate that she would be right back. She fetched a business card from her handbag and brought it back to Delray.
“Emory Lomax.” His lips formed the name, then a curse, which she hoped he spoke beneath his breath so David couldn’t hear.
“I went into the bank,” she told him. “Mr. Lomax made a point of crossing the lobby just to come over to say hello.”
“Oily bastard.”
Although the word was strangely out of context, she understood what Delray meant. “Oily” was a perfect word to describe the loan officer. Whenever he touched her, which was each time she saw him, she felt the need to wash right away. “He asked that teller who knows sign to interpret for him.”
“What did he have to say for himself?”
“He reminded me that an interest payment is past due—”
“I mailed it yesterday.”
“That’s what I told him. He said the two of you need to meet and discuss how and when you’ll start reducing the principal of the loan. He offered to come here for the meeting.”
“I bet he did.”
“To save you a trip into town, he said.”
“More to the point, to give him a chance to look the place over.” Delray took a toothpick from the glass holder in the center of the table and clamped it between his teeth as he stood up. “I’m going to watch TV. Maybe there’s some good news tonight.”
He was angry over the loan officer’s conversation with her. Possibly a little afraid about the news from Arkansas. As he left the kitchen, Delray resembled an aging bear, one who had lost his claws and feared he could no longer protect himself.
“Is Grandpa mad at me?” David asked.
Anna reached out and drew her son close, hugging him tightly. “Why would he be mad at you?”
“ ’Cause I talk too much.”
“He’s not mad. He’s worried about grown-up stuff.”
“That man at the bank?”
She nodded.
David made a face of distaste. “I don’t like him. He smells like mouthwash.”
Laughing, she signed, “Grandpa doesn’t like him either.”
“Do you?”
She shuddered. “No!”
Emory Lomax couldn’t carry on a conversation without rubbing his hand up and down her arm, or holding her hand too long after shaking it. Certainly she had never encouraged his attention. She had been nothing except polite. But Lomax’s ego couldn’t separate common manners from a flirtation. The next time he touched her she should call him what he was—an asshole—and tell him to keep his hands to himself.
Could she get the teller to interpret that? she wondered.
“Bath time,” she told David, shooing him up the stairs.
As he splashed in the tub with his fleet of plastic ships, she went through her face-cleansing routine. Usually she approached it as a necessary, no-fuss procedure, which she performed without thinking too much about it.
Tonight, however, she took a few extra moments to study her face closely in the mirror above the sink. The hated dusting of freckles was responding to the summer sun. She must remember to apply sunscreen before going out. Her deep blue eyes were her father’s. Her small nose was her mother’s. Luckily she had inherited the best of both of them.
Unluckily, she had lost her parents far too early. They had died, months apart, shortly after she married Dean—her mother of liver cancer, her father of heart disease.
She wished they had lived long enough to see her healthy, hearing son. Of course she wished Dean had, too.
Impatient with herself for dwelling on sad things, she pulled David from the tub. He took forever to dry off, put on his pajamas, and brush his teeth, delaying bedtime until she had to scold him mildly. When finally his head was on the pillow, she sat down on the edge of the bed for his prayers.
He closed his eyes and folded his hands beneath his chin. She watched his lips form the familiar words. “God bless Daddy who’s already in heaven. God bless Grandpa. God bless Mom. And God bless Jack.”
Anna wasn’t sure she had read his lips correctly. David seldom changed his prayer. Since the nighttime ritual had begun, there had been very few extra “God bless”es. Once for a raccoon. They had treated the scavenger like a pet, scattering Lucky Charms on the porch for him every evening, then watching from inside when he came to feast. One morning Delray found him dead in the road just outside their gate. He’d been run over. David had prayed for him for several nights.
Another time he had asked God’s blessing on a teddy bear he’d accidentally left at McDonald’s. By the time they discovered the toy missing and went back for it, it was gone. The teddy had been remembered for about a week.
Those were the only two exceptions she could recall.
But was it really
all that surprising that David should include Jack Sawyer in his prayers? His arrival was the most exciting thing to happen to David in a long time.
To a boy David’s age, Sawyer must seem like a character from an adventure story. He wasn’t as old as Delray, not by twenty years or more. He wasn’t soft and pale like the pediatrician who had treated David since he was born. He didn’t have the gentle mannerisms of the minister who sometimes came to visit them even though the last sermon they’d heard from him was Dean’s burial service. Jack Sawyer wasn’t like any other man within her son’s small world.
With his boots, his Indian-made knife, his knowledge of dinosaurs, and his battered pickup truck—a faded orange Chevy that bore its scars as proudly as a war veteran—it was little wonder that he had made such a striking impression.
After saying a final amen, David opened his eyes. “Do you think he liked me, Mom?”
It was pointless to play dumb and pretend that she didn’t know he was referring to Jack Sawyer. “I’m sure he did. Who wouldn’t like you?” She reached out and tickled his belly.
Usually he enjoyed the tickling sessions and wanted them to continue even when Anna was ready to call it quits. But tonight he didn’t respond with his customary giggles. Instead, he rolled to his side and stacked his hands beneath his cheek.
“When I grow up, will I be as tall as Jack?”
“You may even be taller.”
“I wish I could show him my dinosaur book.” Then he yawned hugely and closed his eyes.
Anna remained seated on the edge of his bed, stroking his hair, her heart and throat feeling tight as she gazed down at him and wished Dean could have known him. Dean would have made a wonderful father. David had been cheated out of that.
Delray was the only adult male in his life. Delray was a good man. Although outwardly stern, underneath he was kindhearted. But he wasn’t a daddy to David. It was difficult for him to show affection. He couldn’t be silly for silliness’ sake. He seldom laughed. David’s constant activity annoyed him. Worse, he let his annoyance show.