He’d thought he made the right choice so long ago. Or, rather, that he’d forced her to make the right choice. But looking at her now, it was easy to see that she carried a heavy burden.
“Bree.” He swallowed. Where to begin? “I heard about your fiancé. I’m sorry.”
She crossed her arms. “Thank you.”
“It must be hard being a single mom. I’m sure his family helps you a lot.”
Sabrina found a supply chart inside the desk and pulled it out. “No. They aren’t involved.”
“Why?”
“Levi’s father didn’t know I was pregnant when he left.” She placed the clipboard on the desk. “I’m really not comfortable talking about this. Especially here. Do you want something?”
Something was wrong. Her voice was missing the bitterness and pain he would’ve expected from a woman in her situation. She couldn’t even look at him.
First she’d been abandoned by him. Then she’d lost her son’s father.
The boy on the cot stirred and he knew the conversation he wanted to have with her would have to wait.
“Sorry about that.” Karen breezed back into the room. She stopped three steps inside the door. She looked back and forth between Tony and Sabrina. “Everything all right?”
“Yes,” Tony said. “I’d better be going. I only wanted to stop by and introduce myself.”
“Come on back to my office,” Karen said, “and I can go over the schedule with you.”
He nodded. “I’ll be right there.”
Karen waited at the door for a moment. Tony crossed his arms. She pressed her lips together. “I’ll just go get the schedule for you.”
He waited for her to leave and turned back to Sabrina. “I don’t want things to be like this. Can we get together sometime and talk? Please.”
“What do you want?” Her eyes were red. Was she holding back tears?
His mouth dropped open. “I need to know you’re okay. That my leaving didn’t force you into a doomed relationship with a guy that was no good for you. That you won’t hate me forever.”
She lifted her chin. “I know you’re only going to be in town a few more weeks, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stay away from me while you’re here.”
There was the pain and bitterness he’d expected. Aimed at him. Of course. She couldn’t be angry with a dead man. It was easier to be mad at him. She’d confirmed his fear. Her life hadn’t turned out as planned and it was his fault. He couldn’t go back to San Antonio without setting things right. But where did he start? “I need you to know that leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Good.” Sabrina turned her back to him and opened a supply cabinet at the back of the room.
* * *
AFTER HIS BRIEF meeting with Karen, the assistant director, Tony decided to stay for rest of the day. The kids at Little Mountain were a different kind of intense than the ones at St. Paul’s Mission. He could see a little of himself in the eyes of the children at both places.
He was signing out at the front desk when Sabrina closed and locked the medical office. For a brief moment, their eyes met.
He caught a whiff of honeysuckle as she whisked by.
Taking his visitor badge off and setting it on the counter, he nodded at the woman behind the desk. “Thanks. See you tomorrow.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and almost ran to the parking lot. He stopped short when he saw her open the door of a beat up gray Toyota. At least he thought it was gray. Wasn’t that the same car she drove in high school? It’d been on its last leg back then. How had it lasted this long?
Catching up to her, he cleared his throat.
“I’m in a hurry, Tony.” She kept her back to him and opened the door.
“Please. I need to get this off my chest.”
She tossed her purse on the seat. “You’ve got two minutes.”
Tony rubbed his palms on his jeans. She wasn’t going to make this easy. “I am so sorry for the way I treated you. And the way I left. I never meant what I said that night.”
“Yes, you did. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have said it.”
“That’s just it. You ruined your reputation by vouching for me the night I was accused of robbing that store, so I couldn’t let you take any more chances on me until...” He paused. “Until I could deserve you.”
Sabrina shrugged and looked down at her feet. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We were young. I’m over it. I went on with my life, just like you.”
“Is that what you think I did? Just went on with my life like nothing happened?” He pointed to the diamond on her left hand. “Looks like you didn’t have a hard time moving on.”
She whipped her head up to look at him. Anger flashed in her eyes. “You’re the one who left me. You have no right to judge me for the decisions I made when you left.”
Is that what he was doing? Judging her? The truth was, he was jealous of the man she’d loved enough to have a family with. Angry, even. “I only left because I thought it would make things easier on you.”
She threw her hands in the air. “How was leaving me when I needed you the most supposed to make things easier for me?”
“When I heard you tell Adalie you wanted to put college off for at least a year so you could go to Louisiana with me, I panicked. Without me around stirring up trouble, I thought the town would forget about me, and you would go to college like you were supposed to.”
“Well, guess what? It didn’t work.”
“If I’d stayed, you’d never have become a nurse. We’d both be stuck in this little town forever.”
Her hands curled into fists. “Here’s a newsflash for you. I’m not a nurse. I still haven’t finished college and I like this little town.”
Tony sucked in a breath. “Your scholarship—”
“Got yanked right after you left.” She pulled herself up tall. “And thanks to your disappearing act, people just shook their heads when they saw me. So I pulled a page from your book and ran away, too.”
“I didn’t know.” Stepping over to her, he took her face in his hands. How had things gone so wrong? “Everything was planned. You were going to finish school and become a nurse.”
“No, we had everything planned. Then you decide to leave. I have the same CNA certification I had when I graduated high school. That’s how perfect our plan worked out.”
The words slapped him in the face. He had hurt her. On purpose. And it killed him. Had he done it for nothing? “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care. Not anymore.” Sabrina slid into the car and slammed the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
SABRINA SNUGGLED DEEPER into her pillows. It was Sunday afternoon and she wasn’t moving until she finished the book she was reading. She caught a whiff of honeysuckle and listened to the bees humming a steady rhythm as they gathered sweet nectar from the rose bushes growing along the rock wall.
How long had it been since she’d had the time to read a book? In Houston, what little time she had between two jobs and Levi was spent taking classes at the local junior college. Simple things like reading for pleasure were luxuries she hadn’t been able to afford for a long time. Especially in the middle of the afternoon.
“Don’t you look like the cat that ate the canary.” Her dad stood in the hallway and grinned.
Sabrina closed the book and stretched out across her bed. “That’s how I feel.”
“Are you sorry you came home?”
The question surprised her. She’d been too ashamed to visit after Levi was born, but Salt Creek would always be home. What would people think of her now? After all, she’d found acceptance by excelling at school.
“No, Dad, I’m not.” She got up and padded across the carpet to brush a kiss against h
er father’s cheek. “It’s one of the few decisions I got right.”
Dad wrapped an arm around her and hugged her. Not one to show emotions, he stepped back quickly. “I got to run to San Saba.”
“I guess Levi’s going with you.” She was glad that her father and Levi had bonded so well. But her father was used to doing things by himself. She didn’t want Levi to become a pest.
“No. Levi’s out at the barn trying to build a hutch.”
“A hutch?”
“He found some baby rabbits and he’s convinced he can take care of them.”
Sabrina slipped her shoes on. “I better go help.”
“I told him no one knew more about taking care of orphaned animals than you.” Dad shuffled down the hall.
By the time she trotted down the path to the barn, sweat soaked her T-shirt and caused it to cling to her back and chest. She pulled the shirt away from her skin. Not a blade of grass waved underneath the bright blue sky.
The shade of the barn offered little relief without a breeze. Levi sat next to a cardboard box, boards and pieces of plywood littering the ground behind him.
“Whatcha got there?”
“Bunnies.” Levi tilted the box so she could see the three tiny animals.
“Where did you find them?”
Levi pointed toward the stock pond. “I was trying to build a hutch for them, but I can’t find the right-sized pieces.”
Sabrina sank to the ground next to him. “Honey, I think you need to take them back where you got them. Their momma is going to be looking for them.”
“But they don’t have a momma. I looked and looked and I couldn’t find her anywhere. Maybe a coyote got her.” His hazel eyes were wide with concern.
“That’s how they protect them.” Sabrina carefully picked up each kit and examined it for injuries. “These babies are fat and healthy, which means they have a good mother who knows the best way to keep her babies safe is to not draw attention to her nest.”
Levi wrinkled his nose. “She protects them by leaving? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Come on.” Sabrina stood up with the box. “I’ll explain it while you show me where the nest is.”
They walked through the pasture, talking about different animals and their habits. Once they found the grassy area where the rabbits had been, Sabrina assured Levi the mother would be back. “We’ll come check tomorrow, to make sure.”
“But if she doesn’t, you’ll help me take care of them?”
“I’ll even help you build a hutch.” It was nice to see that Levi had inherited her love of animals. Most of the time, he was so much like Tony she wondered if she’d had any influence on him at all.
When they got back to the house, Levi plopped on the couch and flipped on the television. That wouldn’t last long. Dad only got three channels with the antenna. Would Dad let her order satellite television? Now that she had a job, she could pay for it herself.
After a few minutes, he turned the television off. “Does Grandpa have any board games?”
“I bet I still have some in my bedroom.”
Levi followed her down the hall and settled on her bed as she opened the closet. Reaching up to the top shelf, she removed a board game and accidentally knocked the wooden box from the shelf. It landed on the floor with a thump.
“What’s that?” Levi jumped off the bed and scooped it up.
Her hands shook. “My treasure box.”
“A treasure box?” His eyes opened wide. “What’s in it?”
All the things near to her heart. She ran her fingers over the polished wood. Dad had made it for her when she was five years old. She’d been convinced that every rock and broken piece of pottery she found held some sort of magical secret. As she grew, the treasures changed. The things she’d put in it later still had the power to tear her heart out. She lifted the lid.
Levi watched her carefully pick up each item from the box and show it to him. The arrowheads she’d found while hiking with Dad. She swallowed a lump and touched the newspaper clipping of her mother’s obituary. A faded ticket stub from the first movie Tony had taken her to see fell on the bed. She replaced it in the box.
“What’s in here?” Levi held up a small manila envelope. She plucked it from his hand. “Photos. Let me find the ones of my mom.”
She shuffled the pictures of Tony to the back and laid out some family pictures on the bed, instead. “I never met any of my grandparents.” She pointed out the picture of her dad’s family.
“Why not?”
“Dad’s parents both died before I was born.”
“Like my dad’s parents?” Levi nodded. “That’s why he joined the Army. ’Cause he didn’t have any family left.”
Guilt slammed into her like a wrecking ball. Her throat tightened as Levi looked at the picture of his great-grandparents. She’d always thought she was protecting him by letting him think his father was dead. But she’d taken away an entire family from him. Family who would’ve welcomed him with open arms.
“What about your mom’s parents?” Levi sorted through the photographs. “Where are they?”
“They disowned my mom when she married my dad. So I’ve never met them.”
“Really? Why would they do that? Grandpa’s great.”
She pointed to a picture of her mother as a child. “She was a dancer. A very good one. She gave up an invitation to join a ballet company to marry Grandpa. Her parents thought she was throwing away her future on a farm boy.”
“Wow.” Levi looked at the picture with renewed interest.
She straightened all the pictures and replaced them in the envelope. The only contact she’d ever had from her mother’s parents never made it to the treasure box. The card she’d received in the mail after her mother died. Unfamiliar handwriting introduced the sender as Sabrina’s grandmother. It ended with an invitation to come live with them. Sabrina had taken great pleasure in burning the card and she never told her dad.
* * *
IT WAS LATER than usual when Tony finally got out of bed Monday morning. Hanging out at Little Mountain the last couple of days had left him exhausted, but how could his muscles ache when he hadn’t done anything physical? It was going to take him forever to get back into shape. He pulled a T-shirt over his head and followed his nose to the kitchen.
Papa sat at the dining room table. “Morning.” He eyed Tony over the top of his newspaper.
“Have I gotten any phone calls?” The wooden chair scraped against the tile as Tony slid it out to sit down. He’d been hanging out at the group home for the past week, but he needed permission from the director to do anything outside of the home. Anderson was supposed to be returning this weekend.
“No.” Abuela slid a fried egg onto his plate.
Papa probably knew as much about the boys as anyone. He knew everything that happened in Salt Creek. “What do you know about the boys causing trouble in town?”
“They’re not the problem.” Papa folded his newspaper. “Anderson is.”
“Travis Anderson? The director?”
“It’s not good to talk about others, Papa.” Abuela set a glass of orange juice in front of Tony.
Papa waved her away. “I can when it’s the truth. He’s greedy. He’s not interested in those kids, just the check the state gives him each month.”
Great. Tony’s specialty was troubled teens. Adults were an entirely different matter. “Most of the boys are good kids,” Abuela said. “They just need guidance.”
“What kind of trouble have they been causing?”
Papa put his fork down. “A few of them snuck out and broke into the high school. Stole some things. Even took one of the buses on a joyride.”
“Hmph,” Abuela snorted. “If you ask me, the ringleader isn’t even from the
home. It’s Nick Johnson. He’s no good.”
“Johnson?” Tony stopped midchew.
Abuela sighed. “Yes, mijo. The same family.”
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t thought about the Johnsons in years. Their patriarch was as wily as a snake charmer. Monroe Johnson had been the mayor of Salt Creek for as long as Tony could remember. How a weasel like that kept getting elected, he’d never know. His boys weren’t much better. Acid churned his stomach.
“How is Nick related?”
“Nick is Monroe’s youngest grandson. He was just in elementary school when you lived here.”
The chair groaned as Tony leaned back. He’d gone to school with the two oldest boys, Kurt and Allen. Both of them hated him with a passion. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Yes.” Papa cleared his throat. “Anderson’s the campus director. But Allen Johnson is the executive director for all group homes in more than three counties.”
“How’d he get that job?”
Abuela shrugged. “Allen got the job when his daddy donated the old ranch to the state to turn it into a group home.”
Tony scrubbed his hand over his face. “No wonder nothing’s been done. The director of the home has to report all problems to the regional manager. Who is sweeping all the trouble under the rug? Anderson or Johnson?”
“My bet is Johnson,” Papa said. “Too much trouble would cause the home to lose their license and that would make the family look bad.”
At least his questions about Nick had been answered. “I met Nick at the basketball courts last week.”
How was he supposed to help the kids if the real trouble began from outside the home? Would his involvement be welcome? He knew it shouldn’t matter—after all, he’d be returning to San Antonio in two weeks. But the chance to be a thorn in the Johnsons’ side made him all the more determined to find out what was really going on at the home.
“Why are you asking about Little Mountain?”
“Deputy Butler asked me to try to get to know some of the kids from the home. He thinks there’s more to the trouble than just boys getting rowdy.”
Her Texas Rebel Page 6
