by Sharon Sala
“What in…?” Marcus saw the open door just after Henry. He followed, hitting the steps one leap behind the old cowboy.
“Aw hell,” Henry said quietly, coming to a sudden stop just inside the doorway. She was here!
Marcus ran past him and came to a sudden stop beside the bed. Was she real? He reached out and touched her shoulder. She moaned softly. Tears sprang to his eyes as he turned and stared at the old man who was watching them from the doorway.
Henry shrugged. As badly as he wanted to stay, it wasn’t his place. She was Marcus’s daughter. And it was high time he started acting like it. “I’ll see to the horse,” he said gruffly, then turned and walked out of the house.
Marcus knelt beside Jenny, running his hand across her shoulder and down her arm in a gentle movement. She mumbled something in her sleep. He leaned forward, trying to catch the words. It was then he saw the scratches on her face and the debris in her hair.
“Dear God, Jenny!” he whispered. “What happened to you?”
A stray hair clung tightly to her forehead, plastered there by sweat and mud. Marcus pulled it away from her face and smoothed it carefully, noticing for the first time how much like her mother she looked. A huge lump clogged the middle of his throat. He had a second chance and, by God, he wasn’t going to screw that up, too.
“Jenny!” His voice was soft, as he called her from her sleep.
Jenny stirred. She heard her name, just as she had on the prairie. She struggled toward the sound, certain that he’d come home…back to her.
She moaned, calling his name aloud.
“Chance?”
But when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t him. She stared up into blue eyes, so like her own, brimming with tears.
“I thought you were Chance.” And then her breath caught on a quiet sob. “But Chance is gone.”
Marcus pulled her into his arms and held her. He couldn’t get her close enough. There were no words to be said. And when she wrapped her arms around him, buried her face against his neck and began to cry, his heart nearly burst. He’d never seen her cry. She’d never allowed it.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he said, as he patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “I’ve got you back, and you’re going to be okay. I promise. It’ll all be okay, sooner than you think. But you’ve got to tell me…please say you weren’t trying to…that you didn’t intend to…”
Jenny interrupted. “I don’t know what I intended,” she said softly as she clung to his strength. “But I know what happened to me out there, and it saved me. Oh Marcus! Chance is in trouble. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. He needs me. I’ve got to find him, and I don’t know where to start looking.”
That was all he needed to hear. Marcus leaned back and pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket. “Here,” he said. “Blow. I’ve got something to tell you that may help.”
Jenny followed instructions and then listened, her eyes growing wide with hope as Marcus told her what he’d done. The private investigator had found Chance. He’d learned that much when he’d gone to Tyler earlier in the day. He had a city and an address, and it was what she needed to hear.
“You know that I have to go.” She wasn’t asking permission. She was stating a fact.
Marcus nodded. “Yes, Jenny, I do.” He took a deep breath. “But I have something to tell you before you leave. I’m sorry I let you grow up alone. I’m sorry I wasn’t always there for you when you needed me. But it won’t happen again. I know I can’t make up for what I’ve missed. But, if you’ll let me, I promise to be a better father.” He held his breath, waiting for the words that would make his world right again. And then they came.
“Oh Marcus, I’ve waited my whole life to hear you say that. And you’ve given me the most important thing I’ll ever need in my life already. You’ve given Chance back to me.”
“Now, Jenny,” his voice was stern as he reminded her, “don’t assume that just because you find him, it’ll mean that all the problems will be over. Remember that there must have been a serious reason, or he’d never have left in the first place.”
Determination enabled her to drag herself from the bed. “I don’t assume anything, Marcus. I just need to find him. Everything else will fall into place.”
“Okay! But you’ve got to promise me something before I give you his address.”
She waited.
“Get a good night’s rest before you start looking. He’s not going anywhere, and you want to get there in one piece, okay?”
She smiled softly. “It’s a deal. Walk me to the house?” She held out her hand.
Marcus grasped it tightly. He would have followed her anywhere.
The smile on his face stayed there till well past supper. And it was with much regret that he finally went to bed, allowing himself one final look in at his sleeping daughter, who’d been given back to him this day.
11
Chance tossed the disposable razor in the trash, glared at the nick he’d put in his chin, and stomped out of the bathroom. He was going to have to do some shopping today or else grow a beard. That razor had seen its last shave.
“For two cents, I’d pack up and head back to Tyler today,” Chance muttered to himself as he walked past the rumpled bed. “To hell with ghosts and memories that want to stay buried. Maybe that’s where they should be.”
He shoved aside the curtain and stared outside. It was going to be another hot, sunny day. The only thing that seemed to vary was the degree and velocity of wind. Damn, but he missed the Triple T…and Jenny.
He’d had another dream last night, but this time it had been about Jenny. Something was wrong, he just knew it. Every instinct he had kept telling him to go back home. He shouldn’t have left without talking to her. He knew that now. Hell, if he’d had any sense, he’d have brought her with him.
And then there’d been that phone call last night. It must have been around two in the morning when the phone rang, startling him so badly that he’d knocked it off the table before he’d been able to answer it. By the time he picked up the receiver, there was nothing but silence. It hadn’t been a dial tone that buzzed in his ear, though, it had been the soft, almost undetectable sound of breathing. Finally, he’d hung up and then lain wide awake for hours, wondering who had called, and why they hadn’t said a word after he’d answered.
He would have liked to believe that it had been a wrong number, or someone just fooling around. But his gut told him that it wasn’t so. He suspected that the questions he’d been asking were starting to get results.
He let the curtain fall shut, patted his pocket to make sure he had his wallet and room key. He was hungry, having been awake so long. He set his Stetson carefully on his head, adjusting it to resist the wind gusts as he stepped outside and started across the parking lot, heading for the diner across the street.
His black boots made a slow, measured clop on the hot concrete. His blue jeans pulled across his muscular thighs as he increased his stride. The soft, well-washed, blue and white striped shirt clung to his chest in deference to the wind and heat, molding gently to the wide shoulders and powerful arms of a man who’d spent the last twelve years of his life using his muscles as well as his mind to perform his job.
Oh my God! It’s him!
She’d spent hours last night calling every motel in town before she’d gotten results. She’d known the minute he’d answered that the phone call she’d gotten earlier in the day was true. But she’d had to hear his voice to believe it. And she’d recognized it instantly.
She caught her breath, pressed her fingers to her lips, and resisted the urge to shout for joy. The sun flashed in her eyes just as he walked into her line of vision, and she blinked rapidly, momentarily blinded by the bright rays. When he moved past her and stepped inside the diner, she started her car and turned to cross the street.
A car honked. She jumped, startled by the sound, and then waved an apology as she realized that she’d just pulled across traffic with
out even looking. The sight of him had rattled her that much.
It had been so long. Twelve years. And he’d changed. That was obvious. But, dear Lord, for the better. He looked magnificent!
Her fingers were shaking as she grasped the door handle and pulled. The wind caught her dress as she stepped out. She grabbed her skirt with one hand and her hair with the other. Her feet refused to move. She swallowed several times and looked down just to make sure they were still attached. She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t feel a thing. All she could do was remember.
He’d been barely eighteen, shirtless, with jeans hanging loose on his slim hips. His dark, nearly black hair, badly in need of a haircut, was held away from his face with a red bandanna wound into a rope and tied around his forehead. She’d looked up through her windshield into eyes nearly as dark as that hair, and forgot to breathe.
March, 1980
Odessa, Texas
The bell rang at Charlie’s Gas and Guzzle. It told Chance just what he didn’t want to hear. Another customer had driven up wanting gas, and he had less than thirty minutes to fix a flat before the owner came back. A horn tooted, and he frowned, swiping the back of his forearm across his eyes and cursing softly as he looked up. It was some out-of-town honeys, way out of their league. What was a car like that doing in this part of town?
“Be right with you,” he yelled, and dropped the tire iron. The flat would have to wait.
Charlie stuck his head out of the station office, started to urge Chance to hurry, and then walked back inside as he saw the boy already on the run toward the car. He didn’t know what he’d do without him. He picked up the phone and continued to call in his gasoline order. The way business was going this month, he might be able to pay off that bank loan by the end of the year after all.
“Fill ’er up?” Chance asked, wistfully coveting the brand-new, candy-apple red Mustang. These girls didn’t have to worry about who was paying their electric bill, or if there would be money for only two meals that day instead of three.
“Please,” the driver answered, and several of the girls giggled and poked each other playfully.
They’d all seen the young man, bare to the waist, hot and sweaty in the afternoon heat as he pulled furiously at the tube he was trying to get out of the tire at his feet. He’d been all muscle and brawn and they’d been instantly entranced. His handsome face and shaggy hair had been pluses, too.
They were in the mood to be daring. That was what had sent them out of Midland toward Odessa. That was why they’d driven into a part of town in which their mothers wouldn’t be caught dead. That was why they’d all urged Victoria to turn in at the gas station and ask for gas when the gauge registered full.
Chance grinned and winked at a girl in the back seat and muffled a laugh as she squealed and fell back against one of her friends. My God! How old are these girls anyway? The ones he knew were way past giggles and teasing. They knew what buttons to push to get what they wanted and had no compunctions about doing so.
He poked the nozzle into the tank and leaned one hand on the fender as he waited for it to fill. The pump kicked off with less than a dollar’s worth of gas showing. He shoved the nozzle back into place, screwed on the gas cap, and flipped the door to the tank shut.
“Let me get that windshield,” he said, and grabbed a squeegee and a rag.
Victoria was blushing three shades of red and just the tiniest bit of pink. The four freckles across the bridge of her nose were crying out for makeup. She knew it. But there was nothing she could do to quell the flutters in her stomach as the boy leaned across the hood of her car and ran the water-filled wiper onto her windshield. He was so cute! And from the way he was flirting with her friends, he knew it.
Her fingers gripped the steering wheel as he walked to her side of the car and repeated the same routine on the windshield in front of her. He leaned over to dry it as Victoria looked up. His dark eyes, filled with secrets, met her green innocent ones, and then he smiled.
She forgot she was blushing. She forgot she wasn’t supposed to leave Midland or be in this part of town. She forgot there were four other girls in her brand-new car, an early graduation present. She caught her breath, and then tentatively, without blinking, returned the smile.
Chance stopped in mid-swipe, fascinated by the innocence of her face. Damn, but she was pretty! And then he remembered who he was…and what he was supposed to be doing…and finished the window in quick time. He leaned down, braced himself against the door, and stared at the girl again.
“Good thing you stopped, honey,” he said softly, “you might not have made it home. You owe me ninety-three cents.”
Victoria blushed and grabbed for her purse. “Here,” she said, thrusting a dollar bill into his hands, “keep the change.”
Chance whistled softly. “Pretty, and a big tipper, too.”
The girls erupted into another fit of giggles as Victoria turned on the ignition and shot out of the driveway.
Chance grinned and hurried back to fixing the flat tire.
The girls laughed and joked with each other all the way back to Midland. But late that night, when she was almost asleep, Victoria remembered the boy at the station and smiled. She was going back, and soon.
“Here boy,” Charlie yelled, as Chance emerged from the washroom. “Payday.”
Chance breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Unlike most boys his age, who had jobs after school and on the weekends for extra spending money, his pay went to cover bills and, if there was enough left over, to buy some extra food. They’d gotten their last cut-off notice this morning. He looked down at his watch. He had just enough time to get to the utility department and pay before they cut the electricity off…again. He hated it when that happened. Then he had to come up with what was owed, plus the late fee. His mother never seemed to be able to come up with the money for either.
“Thanks, Charlie. Gotta run. See you tomorrow.”
He stuffed the money into his pocket, grateful that he’d been paid in cash. He wouldn’t have had time to go to the bank and still make it to the utility department, and he suspected Charlie knew it.
It was late that evening when he started home with what was left of his paycheck in a brown paper sack. His mouth watered as the aroma of lunch meat and fresh bread wafted upward. It had been a long time since morning and breakfast.
His feet turned the last corner of the block as he headed for home. The shabby, two-bedroom house, with peeling paint and cracked windows, came into view. It sat alone on a corner, bounded by empty lots on either side. The old pickup truck he’d bought for a hundred and fifty dollars last year was sitting in the driveway.
That meant his mother was either home, or she was out with one of her “friends.” The grass needed cutting. He’d have to ask that cranky neighbor across the street if he could borrow the lawn mower again. He knew what he’d say. Sure! Only he’d have to mow the neighbor’s yard first. The hinges squeaked in protest as he yanked the screen door open, balancing his sack on one knee as he fumbled for his key.
“Chancey, is that you?”
The shrill, whining voice sent shivers up his backbone. He gritted his teeth, shifted his sack, and slammed the door behind him. She was home…and drunk…again. It was the only time she called him by that stupid name. The rest of the time she didn’t call him anything. She didn’t have time. What with the constant traffic of men coming and going, she didn’t have time to do any talking. She was too busy screwing the town’s male population.
Chance walked through the house, frowned at the assortment of clothing scattered on chairs and couch, tables and lamps, and wondered what the hell she’d been doing today. It was her day off from the job she had shuffling drinks down at Crosby’s. He set the sack down on the kitchen table and was putting the food in the refrigerator when Letty McCall sauntered into the room.
“Honey? Didn’t you hear your momma call?”
“Yes, Mom. I heard you,” he said shortly.
“W
ell, why didn’t you answer me? You could have frightened me you know. Might have been a stranger coming into my house. A woman can’t be too careful, you know.”
“Hell, Mom, you don’t know any strangers. And if one happened by, you know where he’d be. He wouldn’t be robbing us. He’d be…”
The slap cut across his cheek, stinging his conscience as well as his face. It was nothing more than he deserved. He knew what she was, but she was still his mother. And they were all each other had. He blinked slowly and licked at his lower lip. Those sharp red claws of hers had cut it.
Letty McCall took one look at the blood on his lip and burst into tears. Chance sighed, held out his arms and caught her as she fell forward, sobbing loudly.
“Chancey, please…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt…”
“Hush, Mom,” he said, patting her gently on the back. “I deserved it. It’s been a long day. I guess I was just tired.”
Her sobs quickly escalated into hiccups that gave way to a moan. “I need a drink,” she mumbled, turning away, forgetting everything in the rush of adrenaline that surfaced at the thought of more cheap whiskey sliding down her throat.
“Shit,” Chance said to himself. He slammed the door shut on the meager stash of food, and headed for his room.
It was his sanctuary, the only place in this house that was off limits to the men who came and went. And they knew it.
He’d claimed his territory the hard way after one of Letty’s “friends” had wandered into it instead of the bathroom. It had amounted to one hell of a fight and the neighbors calling the police. Luckily for him, the patrolman who answered the call grasped the situation and simply hauled the drunk to jail to let him sleep it off. After that, word got around. Letty McCall’s boy was to be left alone. Unfortunately, that rule did not apply to Letty.
