Just Down the Road

by Jodi Thomas

  Reagan whirled and stormed down the hall.

  She banged on Big’s door so loud it shook the second floor.

  “Come on in, Reagan,” he yelled. “We’re the only two in the house; it’s not like I don’t know who is knocking.”

  She darted into his room. He stood a few feet away wearing only pajama bottoms. The sight of all that muscle and hair shocked her speechless. In all the time they’d been friends she’d never seen him without a shirt on. Noah must have known that when he’d asked about the scar. If there was one on Big’s chest, the overgrowth of hair had completely hidden it.

  “What do you want, Rea?” he asked as he set down the book he must have just pulled from the shelf behind him. “It’s getting really late and I have to be at work at seven.”

  “Can I sleep with you?”

  “Sure, honey.” He stepped to the bed, pulled the covers up, and motioned her in, as if she were stepping into a car and not his bed.

  Reagan climbed in before she changed her mind.

  When he lay down, he didn’t touch her. Big simply stacked his pillows, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited as if he’d seen the lightning and was holding his breath for the thunder.

  “Aren’t you going to touch me, make love to me, you know, sleep with me?”

  He looked at her for a long minute, then said, “In that outfit, it’s real tempting, but I don’t think that’s what you came in here for. If I believed you wanted me that way, I’d be a lucky man, but you don’t.”

  She burst into tears, and he opened his arms to hold her. Between sobs she mumbled how much she hated Noah and how she was a woman, not a girl.

  Finally, when the tears stopped and most of the tissues in the box beside his bed were wadded on the floor, she sat up and brushed her hand across his chest. “How’d you get so much hair? You must have started growing it in grade school.”

  He grinned. “Don’t you have hair on your chest? Let me see.”

  She slapped his chest laughing. “Not on your life, and no, I don’t have hair. When people say you’re a bear of a man, I didn’t think to take it literally.”

  Big laughed, “My little brother is getting it too, big-time. I keep telling Border that he’s wasting his time getting tattooed. By the time he’s twenty no one will see them unless he shaves his whole body.”

  She laid her cheek on his chest. “Maybe you need all this hair to protect such a big heart.”

  “Well, don’t go telling folks about my hair, or my heart. I might have to split a few heads open if they thought I was getting soft.”

  She smiled and cuddled beneath his arm. After a while, she said, “Noah called me a virgin.”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” Big said slowly, as if he felt he had to choose his words carefully.

  “I know. But I’m not.” The need to tell the truth had weighed too long on her mind. “I was raped when I was fourteen.”

  Big tightened his arm around her slim shoulders and pulled her close enough to kiss the top of her head. “I figured it was something like that. You want to tell me about it?”

  “No. It was a long time ago.” She waited awhile, knowing that some sorrows have to come out before a wound can heal. In a low voice, as if reading from a script, she began. “A group of girls and guys went out. One of the boys was old enough to drive and we all piled in, not really planning anything, just driving around, you know. The guys took me home last because I didn’t have anyone waiting up for me. Only we didn’t go straight to my house. The kid driving turned off in the driveway of an old house that looked abandoned. They each took their time hurting me while the others stood outside the car holding the doors so I couldn’t get out. When they were all finished, the driver dragged me out of the car and kicked me for scratching him, then left me to walk home. It was almost sunup when I made it in. I took a shower and told myself to forget it, but I couldn’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Rea,” he said simply, and she knew he meant it.

  “Now that I’ve told someone, it doesn’t weigh as heavy.” She patted his fur. “How do I get over it?”

  Somehow she knew this one man would know. When he was a kid, he’d been the biggest bully in town, and she’d always known he was trying to pay back an ounce of the hurt he’d had done to him.

  “Maybe you don’t get over it. Maybe you just get through it and spend the rest of your life moving one day further away from what happened.”

  She smiled up at him. “I love you, Big. I really do.”

  “I know. I love you, too. Now go to sleep before I start wondering what’s under all that flannel and fuzz.”

  She laughed, pulled up the cover, and turned onto her side of the bed.

  He reached and turned off the light. “Oh, by the way. Thanks for making me dance with that nurse.”

  “You’re welcome. So, it wasn’t so bad.”

  “It was good,” he said. “So good we plan to do it again next week. Same time, same place.”

  She laughed. “Don’t tell her you’re sleeping with me.”

  “She wouldn’t believe it anyway. I’m not even sure I do.”

  Chapter 20

  TURNER RANCH

  TINCH WORKED MOST OF THE MORNING WITH THE HORSES. He liked having Jamie around. He helped out any way he could, and on the gentler horses Tinch let the boy ride as he walked the animals.

  About one o’clock Addison showed up with a bag of Mexican food, fast-food style. Tinch and Jamie stopped to have lunch. The morning was cool, but without wind it seemed perfect jacket weather. Tinch disappeared in the house and grabbed a gallon of milk, glasses, and a cookie jar before meeting them at a picnic table under a hundred-year-old live oak his great-grandmother had planted out back.

  “How’d it go?” Addison whispered as she passed out tacos and burritos.

  “Fine. No problem. The kid never runs out of questions.” What were the horses’ names? Why would someone hurt them? Why did Tinch have so many canned goods? How come he could cook?

  “You any good at answering questions?” She smiled as he handed her a glass of milk.

  “You should try me sometime, Doc,” he said as he clicked his glass to hers in salute.

  Jamie drank his milk and started on his second taco. Between bites he asked Addison questions.

  His third question drew Tinch’s attention.

  “How come you’re not married?” the boy asked.

  Addison finished chewing and said simply, “I was once. It didn’t work out.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were too young. It turned out I wanted different things than he did. I think of it like a marriage that lasted a week, but breaking it took almost six months.”

  The boy didn’t seem all that interested, but Tinch listened, waiting, until Jamie asked, “What kind of different things did you want?”

  Addison shrugged. “I wanted to go to school and he wanted to travel. I wanted to settle somewhere and he wanted to live out of a van. I wanted to save my money, he wanted to spend it.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “We should have talked about it before we got married. My parents told me it was all wrong from the first. When they told me to stop seeing him, I thought I’d show them, so we ran off.”

  “Did you love him?” Tinch asked.

  She shook her head. “I was in love with the idea of love. I thought it would be romantic to be Gypsies, but after six months all I wanted was to go home. I wanted out of the marriage, and he must have felt the same way because he beat me to the door.”

  Tinch could think of a few more questions, but Jamie seemed more interested in his food. “You want some more milk?” Tinch asked, more to break the silence stretching than from any need to push the milk.

  The boy looked surprised. “I can have more milk?”

  “Sure.” Tinch gulped down the lump in his throat. “You can have as much as you want.” By the time he poured the kid another glass, Jamie had finished his second taco.
Tinch reached for the cookie jar. “Since you’ve got milk left, you might as well wash down a few cookies.”

  The boy ate a half dozen cookies while Tinch finished his meal. The back view of his place spread out before him. The grass was still green, but the aspens along the creek half a mile away were beginning to turn yellow and brown. This was his favorite time of year. Lori Anne had loved the spring and got all excited every year when the earth began to bloom. Every March she’d start planting flowers too early, and the last frost would catch them, but she didn’t care. She loved working in the dirt. She loved making things grow.

  He fought down sadness, thinking about how she would have loved meeting Jamie.

  Tinch stilled, his cup halfway to his mouth as he realized that he hadn’t thought of Lori Anne all morning, until now. For three years she’d always been in the back of his mind if he was awake, but this morning she wasn’t there. He had the feeling she’d somehow moved on, leaving a new hollow spot inside him.

  Glancing over at Jamie, Tinch grinned. The kid was sound asleep, his head on an arm that rested on the table, a half-eaten cookie still in his hand.

  He stood, lifted the boy slowly, and headed for the house.

  He walked across the yard and up a few stairs to his study door at the side of the house. There he laid the kid on a long leather couch and covered him with a throw.

  Jamie wiggled a little as Tinch tugged off his muddy tennis shoes, but he didn’t wake. The kid had been at a run all morning, wanting to do everything, understand every detail.

  Tinch stared down at him. He was a good kid with more than his full share of problems. He hadn’t missed how dearly the boy loved animals. All morning he’d helped whenever he could.

  Without turning on any lights, Tinch moved across the shadowy room to his desk and computers. He might not own a phone, but he had a computer system better than most banks. He followed the markets, ordered supplies, and communicated with everyone who needed his help with horses. The past few years, when he couldn’t sleep at night, he’d started a blog about caring for horses that had thousands of readers.

  He made sure the volume was off on the speakers and hoped the low sound of the printer wouldn’t wake Jamie. As he walked out of the room, he left the door wide open so he could hear the boy if he yelled out.

  Addison was right where they left her when Tinch made it back outside.

  “He’s asleep. I took him through the house twice this morning to go to the bathroom, so he knows his way around well enough to find us when he wakes.” Tinch sat down across from Addison, not trusting himself to be closer. “Any news from town?”

  Addison nodded. “I touched base with the sheriff. No one has asked about the boy yet, but one man called to see when Jamie’s mother’s funeral was. When the sheriff said they were waiting on next of kin, the caller hung up.”

  Tinch shrugged. “It could have been someone from the trailer park.”

  “Alex asked if I could stay with Jamie a few hours this afternoon while you go in and talk to Tyler Wright. She says if there’s no family back in Kansas, the county will pay for the burial, but you might want to have some say in the service.”

  “I’ll pay for the service. It’s my responsibility.” He looked at the doc. “Do you feel safe alone here with the boy?”

  She nodded but didn’t look too sure. “You’ll be back before dark?”

  “I’ll be back before dark.” He stood and began collecting the trash.

  “I’ll do the dishes,” she said as she helped him.

  He led the way into the kitchen and began stuffing the remains of their meal into a trash bin under the sink. When he looked up, Addison was still standing in the doorway.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” She finally moved. “I just didn’t expect your house to look like this.”

  “Like what? Clean? I have a woman who comes in once a week.”

  “No, not just clean, but decorated and everything in order.” She gave him a quick smile. “It’s just that every time I see you, you look like you just stepped away from rolling in the dirt. I kind of thought you’d live in a cave.” Her grin gave away her attempt at teasing.

  Tinch frowned as if offended. “So you figured I’d live in a pigsty?” He walked across the room to a beautiful pine staircase. “Lady, every time you see me, I’ve been in a fight.” He popped the buttons on his shirt. “The work I do with the horses is hard and dirty, so if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go clean up before I head to town.”

  He heard her laughter as he took the stairs two at a time in a hurry to hit the shower. Tinch wasn’t sure if he wanted her to see that he could clean up, or if he just hated the thought that she was in his house. No one except the housekeeper had ever set foot in his place, not since Lori Anne died.

  He walked across the wide bedroom and into his bathroom. As he stripped, he noticed Lori Anne’s things lined up on one side of the sink, exactly as they had been the day she died.

  The memory of his words to Jamie drifted into his mind. “Do you know what dead means, Jamie?” he’d asked, and the boy said simply that it meant someone’s never coming back, not ever.

  “Not ever.” Tinch picked up the laundry basket beneath the sink and raked all her things into it.

  He did the same to her drawer of makeup and the medicine cabinet on her side. After setting the basket in her closet, he stepped into the shower. He hadn’t been saving them for her; all her things had been there for him. His Lori Anne was gone, and it was time he stopped pretending. He couldn’t expect Jamie to understand death if he wouldn’t face it himself.

  An hour later he walked into Tyler Wright’s office at the funeral home. One of his Matheson cousins, a lawyer who’d married Gabe Leary, joined him.

  “Thanks for coming, Liz,” he said as he gave her a light hug.

  The petite blonde smiled. “Glad to help if I can.” She laughed like a woman who laughs often. “I love leaving the girls with Gabe. He always gets that panic look in his eyes for a moment before he starts calling people to come over to help. Last week I spent a day at the office on an old case and he had my mother, my sister, my two great-aunts, and my niece as backup.”

  Tinch hadn’t seen the Matheson clan in months, but he wasn’t surprise when Liz dropped whatever she was doing to come when he called. Mathesons were like that. “I don’t know what I’m getting into here, Liz. I don’t even know if I have a right to make any decisions for Lori Anne’s half sister.”

  Liz pulled a file from her bag. “Alex dropped by our place and filled me in on what happened. I’ll check everything out once the autopsy is done. If Sadie Noble had no kin but the boy and she wanted you to have him, I’m guessing what you’re doing is right with the law.”

  Tyler Wright walked in looking a little flustered. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, “but I just returned with my housekeeper from her checkup and it took forever. I guess I thought women who got pregnant simply waddled around until one day it popped out. I never dreamed it was so complicated.” He laughed. “I must have made Autumn nervous because she made me let her out downtown, saying she needed to walk the last block alone. I would have followed her in the car, but she gave me that look that told me I’d better not even try. I wish my Kate were back. She’d know what to do.”

  Tinch almost felt sorry for the man. Tyler Wright seemed a man of order. He’d never seen him when his shirt wasn’t pressed or his tie not perfectly tied. The funeral director always seemed a model for the perfect gentleman.

  “How is Kate?” Liz asked, as if they were just in the funeral home director’s office to visit. “I hear she’s retiring from the army soon.”

  “She’s off working somewhere right now, so I’m not sure how she is at the moment.” Worry wrinkled his forehead. “Top secret stuff, you know. But she promised me she’d be home in a month. I’m counting the days, I can tell you.”

  Tinch had no idea what the man was so worried about. T
yler was one of those people who seemed to care about everyone. He wasn’t surprised the man worried about his housekeeper, but she wasn’t likely to get too lost in Harmony, and his future wife didn’t look like the type who would be sent on a dangerous mission just before retirement.

  Sitting down behind his desk, Tyler opened his book as if signaling that it was time to get down to business. Then he turned to them with his caring gaze and asked, “How may I help?”

  Tinch waited a few heartbeats, hoping Liz would explain, but when that didn’t happen, he began. “My wife’s sister died, and I think my wife would like it if she could be buried close to her.”

  The funeral director nodded. “I’ve already checked with the cemetery, and there is a pair of plots just east of where your Lori Anne rests.”

  Tinch thought of screaming that his wife wasn’t resting, but he knew the funeral director was just trying to be kind.

  Tyler began to write. “The sheriff told me her name was Sadie Noble; do you know her birthday?”

  “No.”

  “Was she ever married?”

  “I don’t think so.” Tinch realized how little he knew.

  “Her license listed her birth date as June 3, 1987, and she renewed it a few years ago still using the name Noble,” Liz offered. “I’ve talked with the records office in Kansas City, and they have no record of her ever filing for a marriage license.”

  Tinch looked at Liz. He’d always thought of her as an airheaded cheerleader type who’d never grown up, but suddenly he realized he was wrong.

  Tyler wrote down the information. “So, do you want just her dates of birth and death on her small stone?”

  “No,” Tinch decided. “Add ‘Loving mother of Jamie.’” He wanted the boy to know that no matter what happened with the results of the autopsy, his mother loved him. “And Jamie told me his mother’s middle name was Ann. I’d like that added also.”

  Tyler smiled. “That sounds nice. Now, moving on.”

  Tinch lifted his hand. “Mr. Wright,” he said. “I’d like everything else set up just like my Lori Anne had. Same casket, same flowers. Everything. When the body is returned and the paperwork is done, schedule a service in the chapel.”