All Horns & Rattles: A Baxter Boys Novel

by Jane Charles

  Maybe outside of my world is a Hallmark world. It would be nice to think so, but I’m pretty sure all of that is about as fictional as sci-fi.

  But, those movies are what Tex likes and maybe it’s what he wants. Those people just hang out, hold hands and kiss at perfect moments. Nobody is groping or yanking the clothes off the other person.

  Is that what Tex is looking for? Is that how he thinks we will be?

  Maybe I won’t have to have sex.

  Pushing the covers away, I get out of bed and grab a robe before tiptoeing into the living room and turning on the television, keeping it low. Nothing is really on this late, so I go through the DVR and pick something Tex recorded and sit back and watch one movie and then the next.

  They aren’t half bad, if you like unrealistic mush.

  But maybe, just maybe, they aren’t so unrealistic where Tex is concerned. These are about love and communication. I could do that, since I’m already falling in love with him.

  Hell, I am in love with him, not that I’ll tell him that. So not ready to go there, but I like the slow easiness of those relationships. The communication, however, is something I’m not super comfortable with. Tex wants to know things and I want to know things. But I’m so much more comfortable with him doing the telling than with me laying my past out there.

  How soon will he dump me when he gets to the truth?

  He’s a good guy, from a good family. All close and stuff. He knows nothing of my world and once he learns, especially about my parents, will he run?

  That’s what frightens me the most. We are just at the beginning of whatever it is that we are, but already I know I’ll be crushed when he ends it. All I can do is enjoy this while I have it but make sure my heart stays protected. More than it is now.

  Why is Nina asleep on the couch? Why is she watching the Hallmark Channel? She barely paid attention to it when I watched those movies and I figured she didn’t care for them. We didn’t have much choice in what to watch when she was stuck up here and I had to stay and watch over her. Not that it was a hardship or anything. But a lot of the daytime television were talk shows, reality shows, soap operas and so on. I didn’t want to bring the drama in. She’d had enough of that. At least I assumed her life had been one drama after the other, in real time, and she didn’t need to watch it unfold on television, so I picked the channel that was happy, even though there is plenty of drama, but the good kind.

  I hadn’t watched too much of the Hallmark Channel until that week, but I knew it would be good, relaxing television by what I’d seen before. My mom constantly has that channel on and I got enough of it back home to know that nothing would make Nina uncomfortable. What I hadn’t expected was to see previews for movies coming up that sounded interesting and set them to record.

  Face it, I’m a stupid, fucking, hopeless romantic. Some stupid boy from Texas who wants to dance in the moonlight and steal kisses behind Miguel’s back.

  I want a hell of a lot more too. I want Nina, and have wanted her, but I need to move slowly. But, I can’t go too slowly or she’ll lose interest. Nina is a girl of action. She’s physical and not one to just sit back and relax, staring into a fire and talking. At least not about anything meaningful and deep. And, as much as I want her naked in my bed, those fantastic legs around my hips, and me deep inside her, I won’t go there until I get a little more below the surface. No meeting of bodies until there is some meeting of souls, and hers is still so armored up that I’m not sure I’ll ever break through.

  Miguel is still asleep and shouldn’t be up for a few more minutes so I tiptoe over to the couch, lean in and kiss Nina. I figure, since I got permission last night I can go ahead and kiss her now.

  Her eyes fly open and her hands come up, pushing me back. “What the hell?”

  Then she blinks, like she’s focusing on me, and then relaxes back into the couch. “Sorry.”

  “Morning, sunshine.” I grin at her. “I think you need some coffee.”

  Nina sits up and pushes her hair away from her face. “Yeah. That would be good.”

  I leave her and head in to the kitchen, my head reeling from her reaction to me.

  Not so much my kissing her, but the way she was combative immediately. At least she calmed when she realized it was me, but what the hell has happened to her in the past that she’d come out of sleep like that?

  I’ve heard horror stories of what some kids had dealt with in the system and I’m kind of afraid to know what Nina faced. But, on the other hand, until I know, I won’t have a clue as to what is going on in her head. And, I sure as hell am not going to try and wake her up with a kiss again. At least not until I know more.

  Nina shuffles into the kitchen, yawning behind a hand.

  “How late were you up last night?”

  She shrugs. “Two or three. Couldn’t sleep.”

  I’m not sure if I should be happy or concerned. We did go out last night. We kissed. We came home to Miguel waiting for us and then sending Nina off to bed like she was five because she’s still recovering.

  “Why not?”

  Again, she shrugs. “Just couldn’t and I didn’t want to read, so I watched TV.”

  “The Hallmark Channel,” I point out as I take the first cup of coffee from the Keurig.

  “It was better than the other stuff. Wasn’t into watching infomercials or sex.” She takes the cup from me as I start making my cup of coffee. “Those don’t exactly have a plot or story.”

  Well, she watched enough of one to have all that information. “I don’t think they are supposed to. Unless, the story is hot guy sees hot girl and must have.”

  Nina snorts. “It may work if either of them were hot. Just the few I hit while channel surfing made me want to take a shower.”

  I get what she is saying, but is she against sex of any kind? I hadn’t thought about that. I know she isn’t affectionate and I’m okay with that, but intimacy is something I’d really like to have in time.

  “Shame on you for looking at such things,” Miguel says as he comes into the kitchen.

  Nina’s face turns bright red.

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “You should have been in bed asleep,” he chastised.

  “I know. Sorry.”

  “Do you need to go back to the doctor?” He asks her with concern.

  “No. I am fine.”

  I know Miguel tries Nina’s patience, but he’s about the only guy she won’t tell to go fuck off, and she’ll put up with it.

  The phone on the kitchen wall rings and Miguel grabs it.

  “What?” he barks.

  “Sometimes he can be as welcoming as an outhouse breeze,” I whisper to Nina before I take a sip of coffee.

  Nina wrinkles her nose. “He just doesn’t like anyone to call this early.” She looks up at the clock. “It’s only five-thirty. Who is calling at this time anyway?”

  “When?” Miguel says into the phone with urgency.

  “How bad?”

  He listens to whoever is talking but his irritated morning mood is gone, replaced with agitation or worry.

  Nina and I share a look of concern.

  “I’ll be down. First plane.” With that he hangs up the phone and looks at us.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My brother had a heart attack.”

  And for the first time ever, I see a mist of tears in his eyes.

  “He’s in ICU. Not sure if he’s going to make it. Needs surgery.”

  “Go!” Nina says as she gets up. “We’ll watch the place. Don’t worry about us.”

  He pushes his fingers through his hair. “Need a ticket,” Miguel says absently. “I haven’t flown in…I can’t remember.”

  “I’m on it,” I tell him and grab my laptop to pull up the travel sites. “Miami?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll get you booked and out of here. Go pack.”

  Nina goes to the desk and pulls out the emergency card. A credit card that Miguel use
s once a year to keep it active, but only has it for emergencies because he hates using credit. This is an emergency.

  19

  I get dressed while Tex books a flight for Miguel as he packs. Those two are going to be busy so I head on down to open up the gym. There are a few early morning stragglers, but Sunday morning is our slowest time. Not that I mind, especially since I’m worried about Miguel. Will he be alright traveling down to Miami by himself? His brother lives in Little Havana, with a lot of Miguel’s family. Miguel is the only one who moved up here and that was for the boxing.

  His picture is on the wall from when he was a middleweight champion. There are other pictures too, of guys who have won important matches. There was a picture of Johnny, from the first fight he won just last year. It disappeared about a week after he did. I’m not sure what Miguel did with it, but I’m not going to ask.

  Poor Miguel. First Johnny shits on him and now his brother is in the hospital. He’s kind of close to his family. About as close as you can be when you live so far away, but I know he talks to his brothers and sisters at least once a week so this has to be tough on him.

  I don’t even know if my family is still alive. I assume they are, but I guess something could have happened to them. Maybe that is why neither Dylan nor Noah came to look for me.

  Shit! I never considered that possibility. Are they buried in a grave somewhere and I didn’t know? Should I try and find out?

  Would it make a difference if I did know?

  Yeah, it would. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so badly, them not finding me, if I knew they couldn’t, instead of assuming they didn’t want to have anything to do with me. That’s the only reason I haven’t really tried to look for them. I know the caseworker isn’t going to tell me anything about Jade because she is still a minor, but I could find information on Noah or Dylan. But why should I want them if they don’t want me? Then again, if they are dead…

  The only family I know for certain that’s alive are my parents, and I couldn’t care less what happens to them. If they hadn’t been fuckups when I was a kid, I’d still have my family.

  “Miguel’s plane leaves in three hours. The car will be here in thirty,” Tex says as he comes up to the front desk.

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Shaken and worried.”

  Four guys who are regulars walk in, looking like they’d been hung out to dry and put away wet, or whatever phrase Tex usually says when someone looks like shit. “You guys are moving a little slow this morning.”

  “Bachelor party last night,” one of them says.

  “Got the whistle belly thumbs and skull cramps?” Tex asks with a grin.

  The four of them blink at Tex. Thank God I’m not the only one who doesn’t understand what he just said.

  “Hangover.” Tex shakes his head.

  “Yep,” one of them says.

  Another holds up a huge bottle of water. “Aspirin, hydrate and sweat it out,” he says.

  “Just don’t puke on the floor,” Tex calls after them and then chuckles. “Damn, I haven’t felt as bad as they look since my freshman year at college.” He shakes his head. “That one commode-hugging, knee-walking night taught me the important lesson of moderation.”

  “Commode-hugging, knee-walking.” I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah I had one of those—once!”

  “Why Horns, you just turned eighteen, are you telling me you did a little underage drinking?” he teases.

  “I was fifteen and it so didn’t happen again.” I cringe remembering that night. “I was pretty sure I went to hell and back and may have died at one point.” Then I look at him. “You weren’t exactly legal when you ended up hugging that commode.”

  His face tinges with pink. “Yeah, well, I never said I ain’t had a few stupid moments in my life.”

  “I’ve never touched alcohol again.” My stomach still recalls all too well what happens when you drink too many beers and whisky and combine them because someone said it would be fun.” I haven’t done a lot of things since that night. No drinking and certainly no sex. Waking up naked in a bed with a guy I thought I liked, but didn’t really, then running for the toilet to puke my guts out before lying on the bathroom floor because the cold tile next to my face actually felt good was the worst morning of my life. That’s when I decided no guys, no parties, no alcohol and no drugs. I hadn’t gotten to the drug part of partying, but if I didn’t like the alcohol part, I knew I wouldn’t like any kind of drug. And, it wasn’t just the getting sick part. I didn’t like the lack of control and how easy it was to just give in and go along with shit. Girls like that usually ended up in trouble one way or another and I wasn’t about to screw up the rest of my life, especially from a night I could barely remember.

  Nina didn’t strike me as a drinker. She’s too level-headed for stupid shit like that, but I didn’t know her when she was fifteen. Besides, we all do stupid shit when we’re young. At least she isn’t hitting the alcohol now. For one thing, Miguel would have a shit-fit if she did because she’s only 18, and second, because she’s living with him now. Hell, Miguel won’t even keep a beer or bottle of wine in the place and the only time he comes close to anything resembling alcohol is at communion, and I’m not even sure that’s real wine at his church. The Baptists back home used grape juice, but I have a feeling Catholics use the real stuff.

  “Well, I’m ready to go,” Miguel says as he comes in with his suitcase.

  Nina gets up and goes to hug him. I’ve never seen Miguel so worried or sad. I’ve seen him pissed, angry, happy, and worried about club things, but never worried or sad about personal stuff.

  “You call if you need anything,” she says.

  “Just don’t burn the place down.”

  That’s something my parents would say when leaving us kids alone. “We won’t. I promise.”

  “You call Joel and Ian to cover shifts if you need to.”

  “I’ll works days while Tex is in school and he can work the nights,” Nina says. “We’ll figure out the rest if we need to.”

  His eyes narrow on Nina’s. “You rest and don’t spend all of your time here.” Then he wags a finger at me. “You watch her. She’ll overdo it if someone doesn’t stay on her.”

  On her is exactly where I want to be, but I know that is not what Miguel means. If he knew my thoughts, he’d box my ears. “I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

  Nina rolls her eyes.

  “No disrespect,” he barks at Nina.

  “Sorry,” she mumbles.

  “We’ve got this Miguel. Don’t worry and go be with your family,” I tell him.

  “Well, call if you have any questions, not sure about something.”

  “We will,” Nina says. “Tex and I both know how things are run.”

  Miguel still hesitates.

  “Have you never gone away before?” I ask.

  “No. Not since I opened the place.”

  It’s like leaving his baby with a sitter for the first time. “We’ll take care of the place, Miguel. I promise.”

  He heaves a sigh. “I guess I have to trust you kids, but if you screw up, you’re fired.”

  We both grin at him. We aren’t going to screw up and he knows that.

  “Your car’s here,” Nina says as a black sedan pulls up outside.

  “You sure these drivers are safe?” Miguel asks. “What’s wrong with a cab?”

  I grab his suitcase and head to the door. “These cars are cleaner and nicer than a cab and it’s already paid for.”

  “If you say so,” Miguel grumbles.

  I get it. The man doesn’t like change. Any kind of change. If you can’t take the subway, you take a cab. Why use a computer for accounting when paper ledgers have worked perfectly for years?

  And, why have a cell phone when there is a phone at the club and in the apartment? Things like that. Nina managed to get his books, memberships and all business-related stuff on a computer, but the man didn’t get a cell phone until last fall. I
t’s funny, but for a girl who has never owned a computer, she sure knows her way around one. It must be from her school or all the time she used to spend at the library doing papers and stuff.

  I open the door for him as the driver puts his suitcase in the trunk. “We’ll be fine, Miguel. Just worry about your brother and try to enjoy the time with your family.”

  Miguel looks up at me. “Tell Nina to look for her family.”

  I blink at him. Until the hospital, I didn’t even know what family was out there.

  “She needs to find them. Sometimes it’s too late and I don’t want her to be sorry.”

  “I’ll tell her,” I assure him even though I don’t know much more than she has two brothers and a sister.

  After shutting the door, I wait until the car drives off. I really hope his brother is going to be okay.

  20

  “Did he have any other instructions before he drove off?” I ask Tex when he comes back in. For a minute I didn’t even think Miguel was going to leave. Hell, the longest he’s ever been away from this place was to go to Mass, which is a block away, or to the grocery store, the other block away, or the rare visit to a doctor.

  “Yep.”

  “What?”

  “To find your family before it’s too late.”

  I thought Miguel was going to let up about that, but I should have expected it. Now that his brother has had a heart attack, he’s going to be on me more to reconnect with my family. Miguel just doesn’t get it.

  “Well?” Tex asks.

  “Well what?”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Nope.”

  “Care to tell me why?”