One Tough Texan

by MJ Rodgers

  “Why is that?”

  “I got nothing more to say to ya, Mr. Bonner. Now ya just get on out of here before I call the deputy and have him throw ya out.”

  Matt knew of no appropriate exit line he could offer a woman with the kind of lemon-sucking look that Etta Kleinman wore.

  He made a quick retreat. When he stepped outside the administration office and closed, the door behind him, he glanced back through the window. He saw Etta making for the telephone on her desk, Tony’s file still clutched to her bosom. She was in an all-fired hurry to call someone. He wondered who.

  Actually, he was wondering a lot of things at that moment.

  As perplexing as the information he’d gotten on Tony was, the reaction he’d just gotten from Etta at the mention of Jamie’s name was even more perplexing.

  And he meant to get unperplexed real quick.

  As JAMIE SAT IN THE CAR by herself, she kept fighting the flashes from the past. They’d come on her the second Matt had driven into Sweetspring. And each one reminded her of all the reasons she had vowed never to return.

  She looked over at Matt as he slipped into the driver’s seat. The slight frown on that bold brow told her something was up. He didn’t start the engine, but turned to face her.

  “Did you find out where Tony went from here?” she asked.

  “Before we talk about that, I want you to tell me why the mention of your name to an assistant principal just managed to get me thrown out of the administration office.”

  Jamie felt the irritation rising inside her. “Why did you mention my name? I told you I didn’t want anyone to know I was here.”

  “No, what you told me was that you didn’t want anyone to know who you were. And I didn’t tell her you were here. I just mentioned your name.”

  “To whom?”

  “Etta Oates Kleinman.”

  “Etta Oates Kleinman?” Jamie repeated. “So she married Wrey. Well, I can’t say as I’m surprised. They were always two of a kind.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Matt said.

  “I would think the answer is pretty obvious, Matt. Etta doesn’t like me. Matter of fact, I don’t think you’d find a soul in town who would react kindly to hearing my name.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s just say I had the wrong roots for the folks in Sweetspring.”

  “You mean because you lived with a foster family?”

  “Something like that,” Jamie said, her attention riveted on the window of the administration office. Even from this distance, she recognized the sharp features of one of her chief tormentors from fifteen years before. Etta stood at the window staring at the car. Anger suffused her face as she gestured and jabbered away on the telephone stuck in her ear.

  “Matt, are you sure you didn’t tell Etta I was with you?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well, she’s figured it out. She’s staring at us from the window of the administration building.”

  Matt turned around to look.

  “No doubt she’s alerted the whole town by now,” Jamie said. “Can we go?”

  Matt turned back to her. He wore his sober no-nonsense expression. “Why? Are they likely to come tar and feather you?”

  “I suppose you mean that to be funny. Just my luck you picked now to develop a sense of humor. Is there anything else in town you wanted to see?”

  Matt started the car. “No, I suppose not. We’ll stop at the café, have some lunch and be on our way.”

  “The café in town? No, thank you. I’d rather eat someplace else.”

  “Where?”

  “About a hundred miles from here.”

  “It’s a long drive to the next town,” Matt said. “Let’s at least stop off at a grocery store and pick up a couple of cold drinks.”

  Jamie nodded. As she showed Matt the way, the images kept coming. How she used to walk with her back bowed, her head down. Trying not to call attention to herself. Before the murder, she had only the two in the trailer to avoid. Afterward, the list had expanded considerably. She remembered hurrying up and down these streets. She had always been hurrying in those days-running as fast as she could to grow up.

  So she could get away and get control over her life.

  And here she was again, letting these memories be her life.

  She was angry at Matt for making her come here. And she was angry at herself for letting these memories take over. What was it going to take to release their hold on her once and for all?

  Jamie automatically directed Matt to a small grocery store that she had always gone to as a youngster. It was on the other side of town, a full ten-minute walk out of her way home from school.

  But the old woman who owned it didn’t speak English, so she wasn’t in on the town gossip. Jamie had been safe there.

  It was hot in the little store, much as she remembered it being. The little old woman was nowhere in sight. A teenager sat behind the cash register, dressed in shorts and a tank top, her feet bare. She was leafing through a fashion magazine.

  “Help you?” she asked, with no enthusiasm and no Spanish accent.

  “Just a couple of cold drinks,” Matt said.

  “Co-cola’s out back in the freezer,” the teenager said. “Compressor got too noisy to keep in the store.”

  Matt went out the back door looking for the freezer.

  Jamie’s eyes lingered on the chocolate candy. She remembered the countless times she had stood in this exact same spot and looked at them. The grocery lists she’d been given each week had never included a chocolate treat for her.

  Jamie had a sudden impulse to splurge. She was just reaching into her handbag to pull out some change when she heard some heavy boots stomping into the store behind her.

  “Jamie Lee!”

  Jamie whirled around in surprise at the sound of her name being yelled. The big man who yelled it stood like a windbag of bad news in the doorway of the little store.

  He had a prominent beer belly and his nose was red and bulbous. His dark hair was a matted mess and his triple chins needed a shave. His shirt and jeans were filthy and he smelled of things that should be buried. The sneer line he once had to add consciously to his mouth was now a permanent fixture.

  It had been a lot of years since she’d seen him. But she would have known him anywhere.

  Wrey Kleinman.

  Wrey was looking her up and down as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. Jamie knew why. She was no longer that scared little fifteen-year-old who bowed her shoulders and kept her head down and wore ragged, scratchy clothes and butchered hair.

  When Jamie thought of the mean-spirited, ultrafastidious Etta Oates tied to this coarse, dirty man for life, she knew that there was such a thing as justice in the world.

  It was that knowledge that had Jamie standing straight and tall and confident and smiling.

  Wrey Kleinman knew Jamie wasn’t smiling at him. The acknowledgment entered his facial features, blurred by fatty flesh, and balled the hands at his sides.

  “Damn, it is you! You got some gall coming back here!”

  Jamie felt every one of her muscles automatically tensing. When she was fifteen, they would have been preparing her to run. And run fast.

  But the day she left Sweetspring she had promised herself that no one would ever brutalize her again. If she ran now, she would be letting it happen. She wasn’t going to let it happen.

  Jamie stood her ground, calmly preparing herself. She replayed every self-defense move she had learned. She visualized kicking Wrey in the shin and groin. Slamming his nose with the heel of her palm. Even reaching for one of the beer bottles on the counter and breaking it over his head.

  She’d do every one of these things if he dared to touch her. Adrenaline percolated through her, washing away the memories of fear, changing her as she faced him.

  Wrey must have read those confident feelings in her face.

  She saw the surprise enter his eyes. He was hesitating, clearly unce
rtain as to what to do next. And then something new entered his eyes, something Jamie could have sworn looked almost like fear.

  In her preoccupation with facing down Wrey, she had almost forgotten Matt was with her. She hadn’t heard him reenter the store. Suddenly, she simply felt him at her side.

  “Someone you want to introduce to me, Jamie?” Matt asked evenly.

  Jamie purposely turned her back on Wrey to look at Matt. “He’s no one important. Did you get the cold drinks?”

  Matt lifted up a can in each hand. But Jamie noticed that even as he did so, he didn’t take his eyes off Wrey.

  “How much?” Jamie asked, turning to the clerk.

  The clerk was staring at Jamie wide-eyed. Her eyes darted to Wrey and Matt. Wrey probably was carrying around at least 250 pounds of flab on his six-four frame. He no doubt outweighed Matt.

  But Matt had two inches on him, and he was packing solid muscle, not fat. Jamie knew neither of those facts was escaping Wrey’s attention.

  “Will a dollar do it?” Jamie asked the clerk calmly.

  She nodded mutely.

  Jamie reached into her billfold. She heard Wrey’s boots stomp out the door and smiled to herself. She suddenly had no desire to get the candy. The impulse to fill a craving from the past had just walked out the door.

  The clerk rang up her purchase. “That’s the first time I ever saw old Wrey get that angry and retreat. Who’s your friend?”

  Jamie glanced over at Matt, who was standing calmly in the aisle of the dark, hot store looking as big and solid and deadly cool as a mountain lion. Her insides tingled.

  She turned back to the clerk and smiled. “He’s kin.”

  “Sure wish I had some kin like him. What’s Wrey angry at you for? You’re a stranger.”

  “Well, you know Wrey. It doesn’t take much to rile him up.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. He come on to you, didn’t he? And you turned him down.”

  “He comes on to a lot of women, does he?”

  “All the time. Thinks cause he owns the feedlot he owns everyone in this town. He’s just a bully, always out looking for a fight.”

  Jamie smiled at the clerk. Well, at least some of the folks of Sweetspring seemed to be getting wised up when it came to Wrey Kleinman. Not that they would probably end up doing anything about it. Excuses always got made for rich men like Wrey in small towns like Sweetspring.

  “I have to be going now,” Jamie said. “Much obliged.”

  “You take care now. And come back real soon, hear?”

  Next cold day in hell, Jamie thought. But she sent the clerk a smile and wave as she and Matt headed for the door.

  Jamie was blinded as she and Matt stepped out into the bright sunshine after being inside the dark store. Which is why she had no forewarning of the danger.

  By the time she knew what was happening, she was already in the dust and it was way too late for her to do anything about it.

  Chapter Seven

  Matt sensed the shadow bearing down from the left even before he saw the tire iron in Wrey’s right arm. He dropped the cold drinks in his hands at the same instant he pushed Jamie out of harm’s way. The tire iron connected hard with his left shoulder, the force of the blow vibrating through Matt’s bones.

  Matt swung around, grabbed Wrey’s arm and wrenched the tire iron from his grasp. Then he threw him facedown into the dirt and pulled his arm up hard behind his back.

  Wrey let out with a sewer stream of curses. Matt dug his knee into Wrey’s kidney. Wrey howled.

  “There’s a lady present, Mr. Kleinman,” Matt said evenly. “You will kindly watch your language.”

  “She’s no lady, she’s—”

  Matt dug his knee into Wrey’s kidney a little harder. Wrey howled even louder.

  “And speak only when you are spoken to,” Matt said.

  Matt kept a tight hold on Wrey as he looked up at Jamie. She was standing no more than five feet away, her face white, her eyes huge. Her beautiful suit dress was soiled. He knew she’d landed in the dust when he’d pushed her, trying to get her out of harm’s way.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded. She appeared composed, but he didn’t miss the excessive brightness of her eyes.

  “Jamie, why don’t you make yourself comfortable in the car for a few minutes,” Matt said, careful to keep his voice even and conversational.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Mr. Kleinman and I have some things to discuss.”

  Jamie didn’t say anything. She just looked from Matt’s face to Wrey’s beet-red one in the dust and then back to Matt’s. And then she did two things that Matt didn’t expect at all.

  One, she smiled. And two, she turned toward the car.

  Matt felt more than relieved by that smile. It assured him like nothing else that she was okay. He was also rather relieved by her compliance with his request. It came at a time when he didn’t need an argument, and she hadn’t given him one.

  As soon as she was safely inside the car, Matt got off Wrey and pulled him to his feet. He kept the man’s arm behind his back and steered him toward the side of the store. They walked all the way around to the back near the loud compressor running the big freezer where Matt had gotten the cold drinks earlier.

  Matt took a look around. This was a sparsely populated side of town. This time of day, no one was about. What with the rickety fence all around and the noise of the compressor, not a whole lot could be seen or heard.

  “Now this is how it is going to go,” Matt said to Wrey. “If you mind your manners and answer my questions real nice like, I’m going to let you walk again sometime soon. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Wrey called Matt a foul name in response. Matt twisted Wrey’s arm. He howled.

  “You don’t learn real quick like, do you, Wrey? Good thing I’m a patient man and you got so many bones in your body.”

  Jamie waited in the car. It was getting uncomfortably warm. The only thing that saved her was the fact that the car was parked facing away from the direct rays of the sun.

  She took off her suit jacket and brushed off the dust she’d tumbled into when Matt shoved her aside to protect her from Wrey’s attack. And found her hands were shaking.

  She knew it was a reaction to the fight. Watching Matt move against that savage attack by Wrey had been one of the scariest experiences of her life. His lightning reflexes had subdued that bully and had his nasty red face in the dust even before she’d gotten to her feet.

  She had grown up a victim of violence; had learned to defend herself as an adult, to try to wipe away the childhood memories of the fear it had bred. But she had never had someone stand up for her like that. The impact of what Matt had done was still unfolding new feelings inside her.

  She checked her watch. Matt had been gone five minutes. She’d witnessed how well he could handle himself. She shouldn’t be worried. But she was. If something happened to him now…

  She was just reaching for the door handle when Matt came strolling out of the store. He was alone, carrying two new cans of cold drinks, looking just as cool and composed as always. Her heart did a happy, little leap.

  Matt opened the car door. She didn’t know how to thank him for what he’d done. She didn’t have the words.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” was all she could think to say.

  “Hold these a moment, Jamie.”

  Jamie took the drinks he placed in her hands. “Where are you going?”

  “Just over there. Be back soon.”

  Just over there proved to be a big red Range Rover with a personalized license plate that read “Wrey.”

  As Jamie watched, Matt fiddled inside the cab for a minute or two and then returned to the Cadillac and got in. He started the engine and backed out to turn onto the road leading out of town. During the entire time, Jamie didn’t see Wrey make an appearance.

  “What happened?” she asked, unable to keep the curiosity down
any longer.

  “Let’s just say we fell into a vigorous discussion from which he won’t be recovering anytime soon.”

  Jamie grinned.

  “He told me Lester Wilson was your brother. Is it true?”

  Jamie’s grin overturned. Dear Lord, here it was. Again. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, soundlessly. “Yes.”

  “Damn it, Jamie, you could have told me Lester was a member of the foster family who took you in. I couldn’t have been less prepared to face this town if I had rode in backward.”

  “This is not something that’s easy for me to talk about.”

  Matt’s eyes darted in her direction. His voice instantly gentled. “Jamie, I’m not going to repeat what you tell me. You can trust me.”

  Yes, she could. She knew that now. Slowly, in a voice whose volume was no more substantial than feathers blowing in the air, she found herself relating Wrey’s terror campaign against her in the long year and a half that followed the finding of Lester’s knife and led to the day she left Sweetspring. When she got to the part when Wrey threw her into the mud and sat on her, she saw Matt’s hands tighten on the wheel.

  “Where were your foster mama and daddy?”

  “They weren’t welcome in town, so they didn’t come into it. But I had to go to school, so he targeted me.”

  “Couldn’t you turn to someone for help?” Matt asked.

  “There wasn’t anyone willing to stand up to Wrey. Everybody felt sorry for the boy who’d lost his daddy. ‘Course, they knew he was inheriting the feedlot, which meant he was rich and a major employer. And I was, well, I was just…”

  “Part of some trash down the road a piece,” Matt quoted Deputy Plotnik’s words when her sentence trailed off.

  Jamie heard an amazingly earthy oath come out of Matt’s mouth followed by Plotnik’s name. But the one that preceded Kleinman’s name both shocked her ears and warmed her heart.

  Matt apologized for his language as he popped open his soft drink. They zoomed past the Welcome to Sweetspring sign. He raised his hand in a mock toast.

  “Good riddance,” he said.

  Jamie clicked her can with his and smiled.

  She was no longer upset that he had made her come to Sweetspring. As a matter of fact, she was glad.