by Tina Leonard
“Nice of him,” Jonathan said.
“It was,” Stormy agreed softly. “I probably wouldn’t have taken anything back. It would have made me miserable to do it. I’m sure that I would have just buried everything in a dark closet and never opened it again.”
“Jeez, Stormy.” Jonathan wiped a hand across his face, his expression worried and sincere. “I’m damn sorry.”
“I am, too,” she whispered. Sorry that I’m figuring out what matters most too late.
At the sound of a key in the lock that evening, Cody straightened, listening. The sound of feet being wiped on the mat outside reached him, and immediately, he knew who was on the porch. Going to the door, he threw it open. “Ma.”
“Hello, son. Get my bags, please.”
And that was all she said as she bustled past him. Cody grinned at her retreating back. “Good to see you, Ma.”
“I know. Get my bags. I think it’s going to rain.”
He went outside and scooped up the suitcases beside a waiting taxicab. “Do you need to be paid?” he asked the driver.
“Nah. She paid me. I just wanted to make sure she got in safely.” The driver smiled cheerfully at him. “She’s a character.”
“She is that.” His mother would take that as a compliment.
“Couldn’t say enough about ya.” He put the cab in reverse. “Said you was her only child, and she sure was glad of ya, even if you were too stubborn.” The driver waved and took off, leaving Cody standing there with a heavy heart. He was her only child, now. She’d been proud of Carlos, too. Carlos had been so good at everything, a natural. Cody had fought his way over the stumbling blocks of life. It felt good to know his mother was proud of him, even if at one time he’d thought she might have been happier if it had been he who had been taken by death rather than Carlos. Of course, that was a worry that swept the mind of anyone who was left behind. At the time, he had prayed to God to take him instead of Carlos to make his mother happy. He wasn’t sure if she could bear losing her husband and her favorite son, to be left with only him for comfort.
As an adult, he knew that fate didn’t deal in the business of bargaining chips. Still, in his heart he knew that if he could have done it, he would have given his life for the life of the child Stormy had lost. He would have done that for her.
“Get in out of the rain, son!” Carmen bellowed. “My suitcases are getting wet!”
But it was him she threw a towel over when he went inside. He hadn’t even noticed it had started raining. Nor had he realized his face was wet with tears.
He put the suitcase down and scrubbed himself dry with the towel.
“Anything changed around here?” Carmen demanded, going into the kitchen.
“No.” He could say that much had changed in his life, but he wouldn’t be able to tell the story.
“I don’t know if me leaving did much good, then.”
“What do you mean?” Cody followed her into the kitchen, eyeing his petite mother curiously.
“Thought you needed me out of the house. Wanted to give you some breathing space to live on your own.” She gave him a frank look with her dark eyes. “I’m worried that you stay single because I live with you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “That’s not why.”
“Hmmph.” His mother poured him a drink of iced tea. “What happened to Stormy?”
“She went home.” Sitting down, he kept his gaze away from hers.
“For good?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
“Por que?” Her hands were on her hips.
“Because the movie was finished and her home is in California.”
“Y su corazón? Her heart? Where is it supposed to live?”
He sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Ma.”
“I know. Me, I know. I told her I would not make a good mother-in-law. She understands this. But she doesn’t care. For you, she cares.”
“Ma, how was your trip to Alaska?” he asked to change the subject.
“All the places I saw were beautiful. I have pictures to show you. I want to know why you are sitting on the fence, afraid to get down like a little boy.”
“Ma!” Cody got to his feet. “I’m not talking about this anymore.”
“Hmmph.” Carmen gave him a pensive stare. “Annie told me about the baby. I’m sorry for you, and for Stormy.”
“Annie told you?” He should have known soft-hearted Annie would have told his mother. She would be worried about him.
“Si. So I came home.” Pointing a gnarly finger his way she said, “I think for once in your life you are very scared.”
He stared at her out of half-closed eyes.
“You were scared when your father died, and when your brother died. I know.” She waved her hand. “But you are a man now. And you are afraid of loving this woman because you’ll have to lose the, the—” she broke off as she struggled for the word, “—the outside hardness. No. That is not it. The shell.”
“Okay, Ma.” He walked out of the room.
“You say, ‘okay, Ma’, but you don’t listen. I know why you don’t listen.”
“Why, Ma?” He turned to face her out of respect, not because he wanted to hear what she had to say.
“You don’t want to care so much for one person again.” She walked up and hugged him tightly, as she had when he was a child, only now she barely reached his chest. “Cody, care. Otherwise, you are not living.” She patted his face and moved away. “You think about what I say.”
“I will,” he promised. She went into the kitchen again, and Cody rubbed at his eyes. His throat felt raw and burning. The taxi driver had summed her up in one word. Carmen was a character. Like Stormy.
“It’s good to have you back, Ma,” he suddenly called toward the kitchen, not out of respect or obligation but because he meant it more than anything.
“I know,” she hollered back. “It is always good to be where the heart is.”
In her darkened apartment, Stormy rolled over and groaned. Eventually, she had to open the blinds. Maybe even turn on the TV. Go for a walk. Never in her life had she been so overwhelmingly tired and depressed. All it seemed she could do was either sit on the bed and cry, or walk out to the living room to sit on the sofa with tears streaming down her cheeks. And sleep. She slept most of the time to keep from thinking about the baby. To keep from thinking about Cody.
Forcing herself to sit up, Stormy pawed her hair back. She took a sip of water from the glass on her nightstand and rearranged the gown she’d been sleeping in for two days. The silence in her room was deafening, the darkness suffocating. As if trained, her hand reached for the small bottle of pills beside the glass of water. Suddenly, she realized it had been at least two days since she’d put anything nourishing in her body. She slept, she cried, and when it got too painful, she washed down a pill.
She was dying. This dark, closed-up apartment had become her shell and she was inside it, shriveling into nonexistence. A memory, beckoning like a too-intense light beam, flashed its painful presence into her mind. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor in a small room, listening to people walk in the halls outside. Occasionally, they would bring her something to eat. Something to drink. Make certain she didn’t have anything she could use to harm herself. They were trying to make her well, but she knew she had to heal herself so that she could get out of there.
Instantly, she knew she was at a crossroads, a defining moment in her life. She had to heal herself, this time for good, or she’d always exist addicted. Which was not living at all.
She would be dead inside. Slowly, she put the pill bottle back on the table and pushed herself out of bed. Throwing open the curtains in her bedroom, she looked down on the busy street below. The cars hurried, the people hurried, but Stormy took a slow, deep breath. “If I ever have the chance at love again, I am going to allow myself to depend on that person, to lean on them if necessary. I will never again lose someone because I tried to fit their love to what
I thought it should be.”
The promise she made to herself brought strength flowing into her soul. It would be hard to give up even a small part of the control she desperately held over her own life, but until she did, she would always be the shy, uncertain child of counterculture, drug-taking parents. They had changed. She had not.
Now she had to, or she would never be truly well.
That evening, Cody went down to the sheriff’s office to find Sloan. He and the codgers were sitting in the dimly lit room playing a three-handed game of hearts.
“Looking for a fourth?” Cody asked.
“Be helpful.” Sloan barely looked up at him as Cody seated himself on an old wooden chair. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Finding myself in California. Isn’t that the popular thing to do?” He didn’t want to answer any questions, so he gave a flip answer and hoped that would satisfy his friend.
“Still look lost to me,” Pick said.
“Nah. Not lost,” Curvy argued. “He looks like his horse walked on him. Something happen out there while you was locating yourself?”
“No.” Cody shook his head and looked at the hand he’d been dealt.
“Well, did you do anything?” Sloan asked. “Please tell me you at least went surfing or something. Did you at least unwind that braid of yours a little?”
“You guys get off of me,” Cody told them all sincerely. “I came down here for a little R and R.” He threw down another card, beating the others, and pulled the pile to his side. “What’s been happening in my absence?”
“Not a damn thing, as usual.” Sloan pressed his lips together. “No excitement without you around.”
“Right. I’m always the life of the party.” He pulled in another round of cards. “Did Wrong-Way ever return?”
“Hell, no. Hera’s still on the warpath, too, so I recommend you stay away from her shop. She’s liable to do something drastic to anyone who says the wrong thing to her. Ha-ha-ha.” Sloan looked at Cody’s unsmiling face. “Guess that wasn’t very funny.”
“No. It wasn’t.” He shook his head.
Sloan sighed deeply. “I think she’s feeling scorned.”
“What does she see in him?” Cody picked up the three cards his beat.
“Who knows?” Pick eyed the growing pile in front of Cody unhappily. “Who can explain why and when love hits?”
“Not me. I didn’t understand it when it hit me and I hope to hell it never does again,” Sloan said.
“How come you’re dating those sassy little sisters of Tate’s then?” Curvy demanded.
The sheriff shrugged. “For fun. To have somebody to go out with when I want to see a movie.”
“You can take us. We’ll go with ya,” Pick offered.
“Thanks, but I like to look at something pretty after a hard week at the office.” Sloan pulled in a round of cards. “It’s nothing serious, and they know that.”
“Who knows what?” Cody realized he’d missed something in the conversation. His mind had been caught by the mention of movies, which had necessarily made him think of Stormy.
“The twins know it’s nothing serious.” Sloan picked up all the cards and reshuffled the deck. “I take one out one week, and the other the next week. It’s a very simplified arrangement.”
“Sounds complicated to me.” Cody looked his friend over steadily.
“Nope. I invited you to come with me on a date with the twins, remember? Well, I knew you weren’t ever going to be available, and I wasn’t in the mood to pass up pretty women—despite their relationship to Tate—so I happened upon this deal. The women were very supportive of it.” He grinned. “They like knowing that each of them gets a turn every other Friday night.”
“What do you mean, I wasn’t ever going to be available?” Cody glowered at him. Sloan stopped shuffling. Pick and Curvy stared with rapt interest.
“Well, you…you know,” Sloan said uncomfortably. “If you gave up and went out to California, Stormy’s got you pretty well tied down.”
Cody bit the inside of his jaw. The three men stared at him.
“We couldn’t work things out,” he finally confided to his three friends.
Sloan set the pack of cards down. “Are you sure?”
“It wasn’t meant to be from the start, I guess. We’re too far apart. Our lifestyles are too different,” he said heavily.
“There’s a child’s future to think about,” Pick intoned.
Anguish tore through Cody, but he stared at his fingernails as he said, “She lost the baby.”
“Ah, hell,” Sloan said. “I’m sorry, Cody.”
He couldn’t say that he was, too, because he was afraid he’d start crying. Tears stuck at his eyes, blinding him, and finally, he got up and left his friends sitting in the office.
The three men sat silently watching the big man leave.
“Guess I’ll mosey outside and make sure he gets to his truck.” Pick got slowly to his feet.
“He’ll be fine, mother hen,” Curvy said, getting to his feet too. He went to the doorway. “Good night, Sloan.” Impatient with Pick’s slow gait, he snapped, “C’mon, slowpoke! What’s taking you so long? We’ll never catch up to him with you moving like a turtle!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Pick said placidly. He reached out a hand to his friend, who helped him move out of the office and down the hall.
That left Sloan sitting by himself in the near darkness. He sighed heavily, his heart sad for his friend and his loss. Pursing his lips, he leaned back in the chair for a moment, his hands clasped behind his neck. Losing someone you loved was the hardest thing that could ever happen to a man. Admitting a relationship wasn’t going to work out was a son of a bitch. Saying goodbye to it was the pits.
Without wanting to, knowing it was going to hurt, Sloan reached to unlock the bottom drawer of his desk. He pulled out a picture frame, which showed him and his wife smiling, dizzily in love. Damn, but Celia Wintergreen was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Sweet, sweet.
He knew exactly why Cody was hurting so bad. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell him any way to make it better. It had been so many years since Celia had left.
Yet every day of his life, he still thought about her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Four weeks later, Cody rode along his fences, noting repairs that needed to be made. A few things had to be done, such as buying hay and other supplies to get the ranch through the winter in good condition. All in all, they had survived another summer pretty well. He felt lucky that he’d been able to stay on the profitable side of the business. Some of the farmers and cattlemen he’d talked to had put up a good struggle, but the heat had simply beat everybody down for a second summer in a row.
Surely, next summer would be better. Hopefully, the winter would be fairly mild as well. Cody eased back in the saddle, realizing that these were the same thoughts he had every year about this time. Only, this year, he felt different. The building anticipation and sense of securing the ranch for the winter was missing. The usual pride in his achievements and the ready-to-fight spirit hadn’t come to him. But it was only November. The feeling of just tending to the ranch as a chore and moving through the motions would clear up soon enough, like sunshine breaking through a cloudy day. All the excitement and chaos of having the movie set on his land had been new and different. It was probably natural to feel that life as he’d always known it was routine now.
He pulled the horse around suddenly, deciding that enough was enough. If he was ever going to get past this curious, detached feeling about his life, he had to call Stormy. He had to prove to himself that there was nothing between them. Talking to her would be difficult, but he would face it. Then he could return to normal. The way his life had been before Stormy.
Inside the house, he dialed her number, still remembering it without a hitch. Impatiently, he waited for her to answer, but the number just rang and rang. Suddenly, the line clicked on, and his heart
soared.
“Hello?” a male voice said.
Caught off guard, Cody hesitated.
“Hello?” the man demanded.
“This is Cody Aguillar,” he said, “I’d like to speak to Stormy Nixon if she’s available.”
“I’m afraid she’s not.”
Cody’s insides turned clammy at the terse reply. He knew exactly who the man answering her phone was: the guy who wanted to marry her. Obviously, she wasn’t waiting for Cody to call her.
“As much as this is none of my business, I’m going to tell you something,” the man said.
Here it goes, Cody thought. Stormy doesn’t want me calling her anymore. “Shoot,” he said briskly.
“Stormy has left for Africa. She’s got some sites she’s planning to look over. Tonight, she’s staying with her folks so they could take her to the airport. I happen to know that they’ve gone out to dinner, so you probably can’t catch them. But if it were to be of interest to you, her plane is connecting through Dallas sometime tomorrow. If you’re interested in speaking to her, they might be able to get a message to her.”
Cody listened disbelievingly to the advice he was receiving. “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
The phone went dead in his hand. His jaw sagged. Stormy would be in Texas soon. He might be able to get hold of her, if he wanted to. He could hear her voice in Texas, so much closer than California.
Or he could just let her go about her business, relieved that obviously she had recovered just fine without him.
“Hi, Uncle Cody!” Mary cried, running toward him.
“Hey, ladybug!” He swept her up in a giant hug. “What are you doing over here?”