Secrets, Lies & Loves

by Judy Duarte

  Then why had she slept with him? Why had she risked having a child with a man like that? “You must have seen something decent in him.”

  “At first, yes.” She placed a comforting hand lightly against the child’s head, against his ear, as though shielding him from her words. “But it wasn’t long before he let me see the real man behind the facade.”

  Rowan was unwilling to let the subject die, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. “And you got pregnant before you could end things?”

  “To make a long story short, that’s about the size of it.” She tore her gaze from his, focusing on the fretful child. But he sensed it was her way of ending an uncomfortable conversation.

  A minute or two later, as Louanne rocked back and forth, Noah grew quiet, his head still resting against his mother’s heart. His eyes fluttered momentarily, then closed.

  It had to be uncomfortable for her to sway like that, her back not supported.

  Rowan lowered his voice, so as not to disturb the child. “You need a rocking chair.”

  “I had one,” she whispered softly. “But the darned old thing is so ancient, it gave out one evening, and I nearly fell on the floor.”

  “Is it an antique?”

  “I was told my great-great-grandmother brought it to Texas by covered wagon in the late 1800s, and it was a family heirloom then. So, I guess it just wore out from overuse.”

  Rowan couldn’t quell a mounting curiosity. “Where is it?”

  She nodded toward the hall. “In Noah’s closet. I was going to haul it out to the barn, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  An overwhelming urge to see the antique and study the workmanship caused Rowan to excuse himself and go in search of the rocker. He entered Noah’s bedroom, opened the closet door and pulled out the broken chair.

  He could see why Louanne thought it was useless, but looking beyond the varnish that had been darkened and cracked by age, Rowan marveled at the handcrafted spindles, the solid mahogany wood.

  The rocker needed to be repaired, but the quality of the wood and the skill of the craftsman couldn’t be replicated today, other than by another master carpenter who loved his work.

  And Rowan was that master carpenter. He wasn’t exactly sure how he knew. But he did.

  He could repair the antique rocking chair. And properly, too.

  As he stroked the wood, the carved headrest, his memory reeled and a hodgepodge of images flashed before him. They shuffled like a deck of cards, as his mind tried to sort through the jumbled mess.

  A bar fight. A chair slammed against the wall. A fist to the jaw. Another drunk dragging him out the door. Sirens blaring. A midnight run to safety.

  Poker games that lasted until dawn. Afternoons in a carpentry shop built over a garage.

  A sense of grief settled around Rowan, the same grief that had been haunting him since he regained consciousness. It blindsided him with a solemn graveside service, a military chaplain with a worn leather bible in hand, a recorded twenty-one-gun-salute.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stood there like that, his mind going a hundred miles an hour and producing only bits and pieces of memory to grab hold of. He felt like a drowning man reaching for debris rushing along in the rage of a flooded river.

  There was so much to remember, so much still hidden. He didn’t have a grasp of everything, but something useful had finally dawned.

  Rowan was a master carpenter. And he’d just buried the only friend he’d ever had—a fifty-year-old alcoholic with a pragmatic view of life. His best friend, his mentor.

  At a cemetery, he’d stared at the flag-draped, solid mahogany casket with gold-plated handles and listened to a uniformed chaplain recite scripture meant to make him feel better. It hadn’t.

  Neither had a dark-suited, doleful representative of the funeral home, or the color guard or the tape-recorded twenty-one-gun salute. With tears blurring his vision, Rowan had stood alone at the graveside. Or at least it felt that way.

  He’d lost the only thing in the world that mattered to him. The only one who really cared a damn about him.

  The coroner had called it an accident caused by driving while intoxicated. But Rowan hadn’t believed it. A drunken Sam Vargas hadn’t lost control of his pickup and driven off the mountain road to his death. He’d stepped on the gas and turned off intentionally.

  Rowan had always feared the old man’s pain would grow too strong, that Rowan’s friendship wouldn’t be enough to keep Sam from ending the misery of a broken heart that refused to mend.

  “Are you okay?” Louanne asked from the doorway, a sleeping Noah in her arms.

  No, he wasn’t okay. Things were a jumbled up mess. But the darkness had cleared, leaving him a clutter of memories to clean up and sort through.

  Somehow, he managed to nod, while he scooped up the two pieces of the rocker and carried them into the living room.

  He had a feeling Louanne would follow him, after she put Noah back to bed. She’d looked at him with knowing eyes, as though aware of his struggle to remember and willing to help him sort through his thoughts.

  But sharing his feelings wasn’t something that came easy to Rowan.

  And now that Sam had died, he wasn’t sure whether he would ever open up again.

  Chapter Nine

  “What happened in there?” Louanne, no longer holding the sleeping baby, joined Rowan in the living room, where he stood over the rocking chair that had triggered his memory.

  He didn’t respond, in part because he was just beginning to grasp what had happened himself. But there was another reason he held his tongue. Rowan wasn’t used to putting his feelings into words.

  “You appeared to be deep in thought.” She eased closer. “I hope that means you’re beginning to remember things.”

  A tear welled in Rowan’s eye, and he swiped it aside with the back of his hand in a desperate attempt to hide his emotion. He turned his head, avoiding her gaze.

  But she didn’t take the hint. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  No. Yes. Hell, he didn’t know. But maybe if he voiced his scattered thoughts, the pictures would fall into place and revelations of Sam would unleash the rest of his memories. He just hoped the other images locked away in his mind weren’t as unsettling as this one.

  Louanne took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I can sit with you, or leave you alone—whichever will make you feel better.”

  He gripped her hand tightly, not wanting her to leave, yet reluctant to share the mishmash of feelings with anyone, especially her.

  Yet maybe she was right. Talking it out might help. But where did he start? Which memory did he call up?

  The funeral was the most recent.

  The bar fight came first.

  He closed his eyes and tried to clear a vision of the night he’d first met Sam.

  It had been late—a hot, dry and windy Saturday night in late September. A Santa Ana condition, Southern Californians called it.

  A frat house party was just beginning to pick up steam, but Rowan had grown restless; he didn’t know why. The heat? A fight with his old man? Maybe both.

  So he’d thumbed his way from Westwood to the Sunset Strip, where he found the nightlife more interesting. More entertaining.

  Being underage had never stopped Rowan from drinking or bellying up to a bar. He’d matured earlier than most teenage boys. As long as he was being served by a woman, he’d merely had to flash a smile rather than the fake ID he kept in his pocket. And that night at Wild Willie’s had been no different.

  “I met Sam Vargas in a bar. He was a fifty-year-old drunk who was getting his butt kicked by a couple of beefy bouncers.” Rowan shrugged. “Things are still a little disjointed. But for some reason, I have an idea I’d been warned to stay out of nightclubs and keep my nose clean, but I wasn’t much for heeding rules.”

  “Sam must have been pretty special,” she said. “You had his number programmed in the top position of your cell phone directory.”r />
  Rowan nodded. “He was. I didn’t know it at the time, but that surly old alcoholic would become the best friend I ever had.”

  She smiled, as though understanding something that was just making sense to him. “What did you do? Help Sam find his way home and tend his wounds?”

  Rowan slid her a cocky grin. “No, actually, he took me home and tended mine.”

  She lifted a brow. “I thought Sam was getting the butt-kicking.”

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t just stand by and watch.” Rowan shrugged. “I’ve always been pretty scrappy, I guess. And two big, sober thugs beating on a skinny old drunk didn’t seem fair to me. So I figured I’d even the match.”

  “Did you?”

  “In a way.” An odd sense of pride settled over him. “The bartender called the police, and I knew I’d be in a ton of trouble if they figured out the ID I carried was fake. And Sam would probably get hauled to jail. So we took off like two drunks in a three-legged gunnysack race, staggering, falling down, helping each other get up again and laughing like hell.”

  “This is getting more interesting than a good novel. What happened next?”

  “Sam took me home to his house in Hollywood Hills, and after celebrating our bravery, washing the blood from our faces and our scraped knuckles, I crashed on his sofa. And the next morning, he showed me his workshop.” Rowan relived the moment, the bond that the late-night brawl had forged. And he thanked his lucky stars that he’d gotten to know the older man, because the two barroom buddies developed a friendship that gave Rowan a purpose in life—even if that purpose hadn’t been enough to give Sam a reason to keep living.

  “What kind of workshop did Sam have?” she asked.

  “He was a master carpenter. And he’d made a fortune at his craft, but his wife died four years ago, leaving him wasted by grief. The nights were the hardest for him, so each evening he did his best to drown his sorrow in 90 proof.”

  Rowan found more than a friend and a father figure in Sam. He found a mentor, as well as a craft he loved. So he overlooked Sam’s fondness for Jack Daniel’s whiskey—straight up—and soaked up every woodworking lesson and each piece of advice the pragmatic old carpenter shared.

  In hindsight, Rowan probably should have directed Sam to an AA meeting, but at the time, he was drowning a few of his own sorrows. He wasn’t sure why, though. That part of his memory was still locked away.

  “Sam’s phone number had been disconnected,” Louanne said, her voice soft and gentle, as though trying to nudge his memory.

  But it wasn’t necessary. “Sam died a couple of weeks ago, after he missed a turn on a winding mountain grade, crashed through a guardrail and went over the edge.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. Sam was the father I never really had.” Rowan furrowed his brow and closed his eyes, trying to block out the memory he’d temporarily forgotten. But it wasn’t any use. His grief wouldn’t let the truth slip away. “The police report said he’d been drinking, which was true. And they chalked it up as another drunk driving statistic. But I don’t think that’s exactly what happened.”

  “You don’t think alcohol played a part in the accident?”

  “Oh, it contributed to a degree. Sometimes drinking helped Sam forget. But other times, it made him more melancholy. More depressed.” Rowan looked up and caught her sympathetic gaze. “You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think he wanted to end it all and join his wife.”

  She nodded, as though understanding. But what he didn’t tell her, what he would keep inside until his dying day, was that he hadn’t been there for his friend that night.

  Another tear escaped, slipping down Rowan’s face, and he quickly swiped it away. But not before Louanne spotted it.

  He wanted to hide his pain, retreat into a world of his own, which he suspected was his natural reaction to painful emotions.

  But she wouldn’t let him. She slipped her arms around him, offering the same loving embrace she’d recently offered her teary-eyed son.

  He should have waved her off, sucked it up. Told her he wasn’t a baby. Insisted it was only one little tear, and that he had everything under control.

  Instead, he rested his head against her cheek, closed his eyes, lost himself in her breezy, wildflower scent and accepted whatever she had to offer.

  It helped, he supposed. The comfort. The understanding. But it also stirred something else—something much bigger than a growing arousal and an overwhelming desire to take her to bed.

  It stirred the kind of things that were best left alone—soft and sappy things that made a guy weak and vulnerable. Made him want to say all kinds of things he couldn’t possibly mean.

  Rowan wasn’t sure where all the emotional stuff was coming from.

  The lust he could deal with—the urge to make love with Louanne, then go on his way. But what he found more unsettling was the desire to stay wrapped in her arms for as long as she would hold him.

  And that scared the hell out of him.

  He slowly pulled away, then dragged a hand through his hair. “I…umm…I’m sorry for running off at the mouth like that. And for being such a wussy.”

  “Hurting from the loss of a friend isn’t something to be ashamed of.”

  No. But letting someone know how torn up he was inside didn’t sit well with him. “Yeah, well, thanks for listening.”

  “Anytime.”

  He nodded, then walked away, down the hall and into his bedroom. Once inside, he closed the door—but only on Louanne. Not on the feelings and urges she’d aroused. He slipped off his pants and climbed back into bed. But he couldn’t sleep. Way too much had happened tonight.

  Yet there was still a lot more to deal with—his anger and resentment for one, especially since he didn’t seem to have a target for it.

  Something told him the painful memory of Sam was only the tip of the iceberg.

  And he doubted whether Louanne’s soothing embrace would help defuse the raw emotions that still simmered somewhere in the murky depths of his mind.

  The night passed slowly and fretfully, as Louanne tossed and turned. In spite of her exhaustion, her mind and heart refused to rest.

  She’d tried to comfort Rowan in his grief, but couldn’t have been much help. The man had pulled away and returned to his room, broad shoulders carrying a load she couldn’t share.

  According to Rowan, Sam became the dad he never really had. And his sister Emily said Rowan had never gotten along with their father.

  Did Louanne dare call Emily again? Dig into Rowan’s past so she could shed some light on things?

  Not without Rowan’s okay. It wouldn’t be right, no matter how badly she wanted to help, no matter how much she wanted him to find peace and renew a relationship with his father—something she’d never be able to do with hers.

  She’d tried to tell herself that Rowan’s problems weren’t her own. That she had plenty to keep her mind active, alert, on edge. And she certainly didn’t need to borrow more worries. But it didn’t seem to help.

  Finally, an hour of so before dawn, her eyes grew heavy, and she eventually dozed off. When she woke, feeling tired and sluggish, she climbed from bed, peered through the blinds and realized morning had begun without her.

  Louanne padded down the hall to check on Noah, who was still sound asleep, thank goodness. The poor baby boy wasn’t likely to get a full night’s sleep until that pesky tooth broke free.

  Glad to have a bit of time to herself, in spite of it being nearly eight o’clock, she quickly showered and dressed. On her way to start breakfast, she glanced into Rowan’s bedroom. Funny, how it no longer seemed like Lula’s room, even with those old movie posters she’d left adorning the walls.

  The door was open, the bed made.

  Obviously, Rowan was awake. She expected to see him in the kitchen, but found it empty, with everything just as she’d left it the night before.

  Where had he gone?

 
She wandered into the living room.

  No Rowan.

  And no rocking chair. Had he carried it out to the barn, as a favor to her?

  She took another quick peek at Noah, found him still asleep and went outside to look for Rowan. The summer sun had made a good start on its westerly trek across the Texas sky, having already burned off the morning dew and warmed the summer breeze.

  When Louanne reached the barn, she swung open the door. The whiny creak and groan of the rusty hinge reminded her it needed oil. As she stepped inside, the familiar scent of leather and hay accosted her, as tiny specks of dust and straw danced in the light of day. In the far corner near the back door, the rocking chair rested in two pieces on the worktable.

  But that wasn’t what caused her heart to thump or what made her catch her breath.

  The Harley was gone, which meant Rowan had left. And he hadn’t even said goodbye.

  She knew the time was coming, that Rowan would leave someday, but she wasn’t prepared for it today.

  Nor was she ready for the fist of disappointment that slammed into her chest.

  The Harley ran a little sluggish, but it felt good to open the throttle and race down the road. Rowan hadn’t been able to sleep last night—not after opening up and dumping his grief on Louanne. So he’d risen at dawn and taken the rocking chair out to the barn, a dilapidated old building that could use some refurbishing itself.

  Four dirty windows, one at each side of the structure, had provided light for his search for tools he could use. Apparently, Louanne’s dad hadn’t done much carpentry, so Rowan had made a mental list of what he’d need to not only fix the rocker, but restore it to mint condition.

  He loved working with wood, cutting and sanding and carefully joining the pieces together in such a way that it brought out the beauty of the grain.

  At one time, before Sam died, Rowan had dreamed of going into business with his mentor. But widowed and in his fifties, Sam no longer had the drive he once did, before his wife passed away.

  “I lost the magic when I buried my Jenny,” he’d said on several occasions.