by Jodi Thomas
“I think the bad men were looking for something, but I don’t think they found it. They didn’t find me either. Mom showed me a place under the table to hide. In the day it’s dark and hard to get to, but at night no one can see anything under there.”
Tinch watched as she picked Jamie up and moved to the bathroom. As the doctor pulled off the boy’s dirty clothes, he saw her examine him for bruises or broken bones. Then she helped him step into the shower. While he played with the warm stream of water, the doctor washed dirt off.
She glanced toward the door and saw Tinch. “Did you hear what he said?”
Tinch nodded. “It may not have been a suicide.”
“Tell the sheriff. And tell her the boy is covered with bad bruises. I’m guessing they’re about a week old. It looks like someone hit him across the back of the legs and over his back with something about the size of a broom handle. There are also bruises on his upper arms left by the grip of a big hand. He was either jerked around during the beating or held down while he was being hit.”
Tinch’s gut tightened.
Addison grabbed her medicine bag and went back into the bathroom. Tinch didn’t trust words. He walked to the kitchen and forced himself to make eggs even though every cell in his body wanted to go after whoever had beaten Jamie.
When the sheriff walked back in, she took one look at Tinch and said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Tinch filled her in on what the boy had revealed.
Alex lowered her head and took a deep breath. “If that’s true, we may be dealing with a murder and not just a suicide or accidental overdose. She might have been running from them and they caught up with her. I’ve heard of it happening. It’s almost a free crime to kill a druggie. All you have to do is give them too much and they’re dead.”
“Why would drug dealers kill a druggie? Wouldn’t that be bad for business?”
“Maybe she worked for them. Maybe she wanted out. Maybe she threatened to turn on them and go to the cops.” Alex shook her head. “But they’d have to have done something really bad to make her even threaten something like that. Even if she was using, she’d have to know that threatening a drug dealer could be a death sentence.”
Tinch raised his head. “What if they did do something terrible, like beat her kid?”
Alex met his stare. “Did someone beat the boy?”
“Doc says he’s covered in deep bruises.”
Alex began to pace. “If Jamie saw the men come in and go into the bedroom, then he’s a witness. The men may be murderers, and the only one who could ID them is that little boy. If word gets out that this is a possible murder, the men will come after him.”
“You mean, they’d come to kill him.”
Alex agreed. “I can’t lock a kid up, but we have to keep him safe.”
Tinch gripped the table with both hands. “Who knows you took him?”
“There were several people watching: the EMTs, my deputy, people around the trailer park.”
“Who knows you brought him to my place?”
“Just Gentry and me. I didn’t tell anyone else what we found. No one saw the will but Phil and me. The envelope was still sealed and scattered amid trash. The minute I saw your name, I knew what I had to do. All I could think about was getting the little boy out of there before they brought his mother’s body through. I didn’t want him to see her dead, so I didn’t stop to talk to anyone.”
“Good.” Tinch forced himself to calm down. “Call Gentry back and tell him not to write up a report or tell anyone about the boy. The fewer people who know where he is, the safer he’ll be.”
“Right.” She followed his logic. “Even if the bad guys were watching with the crowd, they won’t be able to follow a paper trail if there isn’t one. I’ll issue a statement that Jamie has been turned over to Child Protective Services in Amarillo and that we are looking for relatives.”
“Lori Anne didn’t have any other kin after her mother died, and neither did her father. I’m thinking her little half sister may have been in the same boat. If she left her kid to Lori Anne, whom she hadn’t spoken to in years, there must not be anyone else.”
“Then,” Alex smiled, “it should be real interesting who shows up to claim the boy.”
“I’ll keep him safe here.” He faced her directly. “You were right to bring him to me, Sheriff.”
“For the time being, I agree. If or when his blood relative shows up, then we’ll handle it from there.”
The doctor walked out of the bathroom carrying her little patient wrapped in a towel. “Agree to what?” she asked as she sat down still holding him.
Alex said they’d talk about it later.
Addison nodded and asked the sheriff if she could grab a shirt from the stack of clean laundry by the kitchen door.
As Alex moved to the dresser, Addison met Tinch’s gaze, and she didn’t miss that his anger matched her own. She also knew without asking that he’d protect the boy, whether he was a relative or not.
“I found a red Texas Tech shirt, will that do?” Alex said when she returned.
Addison looked down at the boy. “You want to wear a Tech shirt? It’s like a football shirt.”
He nodded and slipped off her lap. As he raised his arms for the shirt, the doctor let the towel fall. Tinch saw the bruises striped across the boy’s back and legs. He thought for a moment that he might pass out. The cruelty of the act slammed against a heart Tinch would have sworn hadn’t beaten in three years.
The shirt hung like a nightgown to the boy’s knees.
Tinch moved closer and knelt to the kid’s eye level. “Jamie,” he said in the same kind of low voice he used with horses.
Jamie leaned against the doctor and watched Tinch. His fingers gripped her wrist.
“I’m your uncle, Jamie. Until a few hours ago I didn’t even know you existed, or that your mother was looking for me. But now that I know, I’m here to help you. Your mother and my wife were sisters. That makes me your uncle.”
He looked at Tinch for a minute, then said, “My momma says you have horses. Is that true?”
“It’s true. I raise a few head and take care of others that have been hurt. I’ve got a barn full right now. If you’d like to stay with me for a while, I could really use your help to take care of them.”
“Can my momma come too?” His eyes bubbled with tears.
Tinch fought to keep from touching the boy. He didn’t want to frighten him, but he couldn’t lie. “No, son, your momma is dead. The sheriff told me.”
Tears waterfalled over the boy’s eyes as if he’d just remembered. “I know. The sheriff told me too.”
“Do you know what dead means, Jamie?”
“Sure. My grandma died last year and my grandpa has been dead since before I can remember. It means that my momma isn’t coming back. Not ever.”
Tinch stood while the doc talked to the kid softly. The boy seemed to know more about death than he did. It had been three years since Lori Anne died, and Tinch hadn’t cleaned out her closet or pulled the things she used off her side of the sink. He’d been acting like one day she’d just walk back into his life … like he’d tripped and fallen into hell and any day now he’d climb out and all would be the same as it had been before cancer came to visit.
Not ever, Tinch thought. Not ever coming back. He slammed into the reality of his life, and the blow hurt too deep for tears. Somehow he thought if he just didn’t think, didn’t live, he’d get past the mourning, but in truth, he couldn’t get over it.
He moved to the kitchen, away from the others. As he cooked, three words kept rolling over and over in his mind. Never coming back.
By the time he got the egg sandwiches ready, the boy was playing with the kitten. He watched the kid eat and the cat clean up every piece he dropped. Somehow the kid’s laughter let Tinch remember to breathe.
“You want me to take you and the boy back to your place when he finishes?” Alex whispered.
“It’s
a nice night. I could carry him across the field.”
“I wouldn’t mind driving you,” Addison added in a whisper. “If you don’t want to ride in a police car. Maybe it brings back bad memories.”
The doc was looking at him again as if trying to figure out what felony he’d committed lately.
Tinch glared at her. “It doesn’t.”
“I can hear you all talking,” the boy said. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to stay with my angel doctor.”
Alex smiled. “Don’t you want to be with your uncle? He’s a good cook.”
“I want him to stay here too,” Jamie said without looking up.
Tinch raised his eyebrow and looked at the doc.
“You two can have my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch for tonight.” She sat down and helped herself to half of Tinch’s sandwich.
“Not bad,” she added after her second bite. “If you’re spending the night, you’re cooking breakfast.”
Tinch smiled. “Thanks for the invitation and the compliment on my cooking, but I don’t want to put you out.”
“No trouble. If you left, I probably wouldn’t sleep anyway. The boy will feel safer with you around, and I’ll feel better being able to see that he’s safe, at least for tonight.”
“I agree.” For a moment she studied him, noticing he didn’t blink or look away. “We can do this,” he added with a slight nod.
“We can,” she nodded back, sealing a pact between them.
Addison stayed with the boy as Tinch walked the sheriff out. The cowboy no longer frightened her, Addison realized. When she’d taken the time to look in his eyes, she’d seen an honesty that surprised her. She almost laughed aloud at her own fears. If he’d planned to rape and kill her, he could have crossed the land between their houses anytime the past few weeks. She’d even slept with her Mace next to her bed a few nights, just in case.
Now, somewhere out there was a real threat. No matter how much Addison wanted her peaceful little house to herself, the boy’s well-being was more important. Tinch might be the fighter, but she was the healer. Right now, Jamie wanted them both.
An hour later, she awoke to the boy’s crying. She slipped off the couch and tiptoed to her bedroom.
Tinch lay on his side with the boy in the middle of the bed. “I can’t get him to stop crying, no matter what I say,” he whispered.
Addison curled up around the boy on the other side of the bed. “Jamie,” she whispered. “Jamie, do you want to hold my hand?”
The boy wiped his eyes. “Yes.” He rolled to his stomach and held her hand. Then slowly, breath by breath, he went to sleep.
In the bathroom light’s glow Tinch could see the doc’s blue-gray eyes watching the boy. She looked so pale beside him with her light hair and long bare legs—like a porcelain statue, he thought.
She looked over the boy and saw Tinch watching her. “Go to sleep,” she ordered in a whisper.
“Any chance you’ll hold my hand till I do?”
Addison couldn’t stop the smile. “Not one chance in a million.”
When the boy was sound asleep, Tinch reached with his free hand to the blanket he’d tossed on the floor beside the bed. With one swing, he floated it over all three of them.
“Thanks,” the doctor whispered.
“You’re welcome.” He grinned.
Chapter 17
MONDAY
SEPTEMBER 26
TRUMAN ORCHARD
AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN, REAGAN WALKED AMONG THE apple trees on her land and cried silently.
The autumn wind whirled around her, whispering of change in the dampness before sunrise. The past week had been day after day of settling, of moving from one life to another. She had details of her uncle’s will to work out and plans to make for what he wanted done. He wanted money deposited for a new fire truck anonymously, and he wanted Foster and Cindy Garrison to have a house he owned in town that his sister had once lived in. Only he’d left a list of repairs he wanted done before they moved in, as if he thought the gift had to be perfect when it was given. Because the former home nurse and his wife had moved into a hotel after Jeremiah went to the hospital, Reagan wanted the repairs completed as fast as possible.
The Garrisons loved her uncle, and he’d known they’d lost their home a year before they’d come to help him. Jeremiah wanted them to have a home back, and as always, he wanted it done right.
Once she’d taken care of those details, he’d told her to get busy with the fall work in the orchard. She could see through his plan. He wanted her busy so she wouldn’t spend her time grieving for him.
She knew what she had to do, but she felt so hollow inside she wasn’t sure her whole body wouldn’t implode. Every day for a week, details and work had kept her running. Still, when her head hit the pillow, she couldn’t sleep. In the back of her mind one fact kept circling. Noah, her closest friend in the world, hadn’t bothered to come, or even call. What if he was hurt somewhere? What if he’d had a car accident? What if a bull had finally killed him? What if he no longer cared or remembered her?
Forcing herself to walk back to the house, Reagan didn’t even bother to push the tears off her cheeks. She just ignored them, feeling like the only way she could survive another day was to become hard as rock and feel nothing, like she had years ago when she’d been running the streets alone.
The memory of all those years when no one cared about her, when no one loved her, came back like an avalanche of ice washing over her, freezing her to the bone. She remembered waiting in a hallway of a big building when she’d been four or five. People passed her for what seemed like hours and no one stopped. No one even looked at her. She’d been told to wait and not move. So she sat, her things in a bag on one side of her and a bottle of water someone had given her on the other. When a woman came to get her, Reagan was scolded for spilling the water. No one noticed she’d also wet her pants. They just moved her to another chair, another bench, another house, and so on.
Everywhere she moved was always temporary. It was never home. Never right. Until, finally, on a rundown farm on Lone Oak Road, she’d found her home, and no matter what happened she’d never leave. She’d become a Truman as truly as if she’d been born on a branch of the family tree. She knew all the old stories and the names of all the relatives who had passed on. She knew every inch of the land.
As she walked out of the trees, she saw Brandon “Big” Biggs standing beside his truck waiting for her. In his work coat and the beard he’d started growing, he looked like a bear dressed up in a man’s clothes. He’d called her every night from his job. He’d even called Saturday morning to tell her he wouldn’t be in until Monday. From the looks of him, Big had left the job and driven through the night to reach her.
With a sob, she ran toward him, needing someone to hold her before she shattered completely.
He caught her in a welcome hug and lifted her off the ground. He didn’t ask her why she was walking in the cold. Big never questioned her. He was first and always her friend. Maybe because his parents hadn’t wanted him either, he always seemed to know when she needed him to stand close.
He shifted, lifting her legs and carrying her into the house. “Have you slept, little one?”
She shook her head, not remembering the last time she’d even tried. For the past two, maybe three days she’d sat on the porch watching the night and wondering if there had been anything she could have done to keep her uncle alive for just a few more months, a few more years. Then maybe she’d have been ready to let him go.
“He’s gone,” Reagan whispered.
“I know. That fact’s not going to change, Rea.”
Big carried her up the stairs and into her bedroom. He pulled the covers back with one hand, dropped her on the bed, then tugged off her boots and wet jacket. Without a word he tossed his own coat on the floor and crawled into bed with her.
He cuddled her close against him and kissed her forehead. “When you stop shivering, I’ll go turn
up the heater.”
Bundling the covers around her, he fussed over her.
“Just stay with me,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be alone.”
He sat up and leaned away from her.
She stared at his back, wishing she could take the words back. He was a good friend, but no one should see her so broken.
Then she realized he was removing his sweatshirt.
A moment later, he was back, scooping her up against him. “Go to sleep, Reagan. I’m staying with you till you run me off. In the meantime, maybe we’ll both get some needed sleep.”
Reagan closed her eyes and let out a breath, warm against this bear of a man. “Thanks,” she whispered as she relaxed into sleep.
Four hours later when she heard a pounding on the door, Reagan cuddled deeper against Big. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was wake up and face the world.
“Honey,” he whispered as his hand cupped the back of her head and tugged. “You got to wake up. Someone’s pounding on the door like all hell’s broke loose.”
Reagan tried to think of swear words to put together to let him know how little she cared, but he was pushing her out of bed.
“It might be important,” he said.
She stumbled out of the bedroom and was halfway down the stairs when the front door came flying into the foyer, knocking over the line of framed pictures of all the old Truman relatives.
“Rea!” Noah yelled. He stepped over the lumber and glass as he looked around. “Rea, are you here?”
The shock of seeing Noah after months of missing him made her light-headed, and she sat down on the step. As always he was dressed western in jeans, a wool shirt tucked into his slim waist and boots, but this time he looked thinner, older, harder than when he’d left six months ago. Same beautiful almost-black hair, same brown eyes, same handsome face but no easy smile.