by Debra Webb
“Since when did you allow your father to dictate your decisions?” Patrick knew better than that. Bree had always complained about how her mother’s entire existence had seemed to revolve around her husband. She hadn’t worked outside the home, hadn’t even finished school. She’d married young and had children. Ignoring the symptoms so she wouldn’t have to be away from her family, she’d waited too late to stop the cancer that ended up taking her life.
“I was pregnant.” Bree stared out at the street. “I was afraid.”
Afraid? Patrick turned his head, stared at her profile. “You? Afraid? I find that damned hard to believe.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Bree turned to face him. Her eyes were bright with emotion. He refused to feel anything but the anger roiling in his gut. She had stolen seven years of his son’s life from him. Those years couldn’t be gotten back, couldn’t be made up. They were gone.
The rumors about Bree’s marriage that Clayton had passed along abruptly slammed in Patrick’s chest. Fury detonated again. “Did you let that bastard you were married to lay a hand on him?”
Bree shook her head. “Never. I never left him alone with Jack. And I…” She moistened her trembling lips, blinked back the emotion threatening. “He would have had to go through me to get to him.”
The rest of what Clayton had told Patrick poked through his anger and sympathy trickled into his veins. “He hurt you?” Patrick didn’t have to spell it out. She knew what he meant. If he’d had any doubts the fact that she looked away confirmed it.
“He did.” Bree met his gaze once more. “But only once. I left after that.”
Patrick tried to hang on to the idea that she’d already suffered enough to help cool his temper, but the realization of what she’d done, not for a month or a year or even two, but for seven long years pushed him over the edge. He lost the battle with his anger. “How could you keep him from me?”
He just couldn’t fathom how she’d let so much time pass.
“I kept telling myself it was the right thing to do. You were in Utah. I was here and it…was easier.”
“Out of sight, out of mind, right?” That was no excuse. He wasn’t going to accept that answer.
“Maybe.”
“I’ve been in Kenner County for six years, Bree. What’s your excuse for that?”
The silence lengthened between them. He was beginning to think she wasn’t even going to answer when she finally spoke.
“He was one by the time I saw you again. It was…too late. I didn’t want to upset his life.”
Too late. Patrick shook his head. “Does he even know who I am?” Of course he didn’t. He’d called Patrick mister.
She didn’t have to answer that question. He knew.
Patrick stood. He couldn’t talk to her anymore. He had to think. To clear his head and reach some place where reason presided.
“We’ll finish this…later. I have to think this through.”
He walked to his SUV without looking back. If he said anything else, he would likely say something he would regret. He reached for the door, felt ready to explode with frustration.
“Patrick!”
He took a breath, lifted his gaze to her. “What?”
“Dispatch just got a call about a disturbance at the Saloon. The perp is Sherman Watts.”
That would mean Watts was drunk. And just maybe he would talk. “Let’s go.”
Bree dashed into the house and right back out. She strapped her utility belt and weapon around her hips as she rushed to his SUV.
Patrick started the engine and rammed into reverse. “Just so you know,” he said, “I won’t let you keep my son from me any longer.”
THE KENNER CITY SALOON was a bar designed like an old Western saloon. Not Sherman Watts’s typical hangout. Bree knew from the times in the past that she or one of her colleagues had picked him up he generally liked the sleazier joints.
Patrick pulled to the curb at the front entrance. A number of patrons were already milling around on the sidewalk.
“’Bout time the po’got here,” someone said loud enough for Bree to hear.
Patrick hesitated at the double entry doors. “No heroics,” he warned.
Bree didn’t respond, just went inside. Her mind was whirling with this evening’s events. She couldn’t deal with anything else right now.
At least nothing personal.
Inside most of the remaining patrons were huddled in a corner discussing what was going down.
The saloon’s one bouncer, dressed in a black tee that designated him as security, had Watts cornered at one end of the long bar.
“I don’t care how many cops you call,” Watts shouted at the bouncer. “I’m not going nowhere until I get my drink.”
“Mr. Watts, the bartender cut you off. You can either take a taxi home or you can go with the cops when they get here.”
Patrick entered Watts’s line of sight and propped on the bar. “Maybe the man will settle down if he gets his drink.”
The bouncer looked at Patrick as if he’d lost his mind. “You for real, Sheriff?”
Patrick eased onto the closest stool. “Absolutely. I’ll make sure Mr. Watts gets home.”
The bouncer shrugged and walked away.
Watts swaggered over to the bar and pounded the top. “Give me that JD!”
Bree didn’t sit. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Watts. “Sounds like your taste in whiskey has changed for the better, Sherman. Since when did you bother with anything that has a reputable label?”
The bartender slapped a glass on the counter. Watts picked it up, lifted it high as if toasting Bree. “That’s right. I’m all about moving up.”
Bree despised this lowlife. He should be tossed into the pokey and the key be thrown away. “Why don’t you do us all a favor and move right on up to Montana or someplace like that?”
Watts laughed. “Maybe I will. This place is going to the dogs.” He sneered at her. “Nothing but bitches to pick from.”
“Watch yourself, Watts,” Patrick cautioned.
Bree had let this guy’s name-calling go when they interviewed him at his friend’s trailer. Considering what she’d already been through this evening, she wasn’t taking any grief from him tonight.
“I guess you thought Julie Grainger was a bitch, too,” Bree suggested. She hated that word. Hated scumbags like Watts who just kept repeating the same crimes over and over until they got bored and escalated to something worse. Like rape or murder.
Watts’s expression sobered instantly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective. I told you I didn’t know that fed.”
“We have a witness who says you did,” Patrick countered. “That you were engaged in a heated exchange with Grainger only a few days before she was murdered. That makes you a person of interest to this case.”
Watts shook his head drunkenly. “The only heated exchange I’d like to do is with your sidekick here.” He hitched a thumb in Bree’s direction. “You nailed that yet, Sheriff?”
The next thing that happened startled Bree so that she could only stand there, stunned.
Patrick jumped off the stool, grabbed Watts by the lapels of his shirt and jerked him close. “How about I nail your ass to the wall for murder? You could make all kinds of friends in prison.”
Two Kenner City officers charged into the saloon at that moment. Lucky for Patrick. Bree was pretty sure he was about to cross a line he knew better than to cross. Her emotions were raw, his no doubt were as well. He wasn’t thinking rationally.
“Take this piece of crap in for drunk and disorderly conduct,” Patrick instructed one of the officers as he shoved Watts toward the other one. He glanced at the bartender. “I guess he won’t need that drink after all.”
The bartender shrugged and took the glass away.
Watts laughed as the officer cuffed him. “You shouldda slugged me while you had the chance, Sheriff. Maybe you don’t have the gu
ts to be a man.”
“Come on, Watts.” The officer pushed Watts into motion.
The second officer started reading Watts his rights.
“I know my rights,” the jerk muttered.
As he was hauled past Bree, Watts stalled. “You come on down to the jail and see me, little girl. I like squaws.”
Watts laughed like the idiot he was as the officers hauled him from the saloon. The huddled patrons watched until he was gone then took their places once more. The night was young, they still had drinking and partying and celebrating to do.
Bree walked out of the saloon. She was spent emotionally. She needed to go home and forget this day had happened. She’d had more than enough grief and worry and anger for one day.
She dragged out her cell and called her sister. Gave her location and closed the phone. The last thing she wanted to do was climb back into that vehicle with Patrick. She couldn’t take anymore tonight. She couldn’t bear the way he looked at her.
“I can take you home.” He paused next to her.
She turned to him, looked him square in the eyes. “No. You can’t. We both need to think. I can’t deal with anything else.”
“I’m not leaving you standing out here like this.”
Bree threw her hands up. “It’s a public street, Patrick. There are lots of lights and people all over the place. My sister will be here in fifteen minutes. Just go home and leave me alone.”
She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Fury twisted inside her. She just wanted this night to be over. She wanted to hold her son in her arms until she fell asleep and then to forget this day ever happened.
Patrick got into his SUV but didn’t drive away until her sister’s minivan arrived.
Bree settled into the passenger seat.
“You okay?”
Bree couldn’t answer. If she spoke, if she even looked at Tabitha, she would burst into tears.
Because she was not okay.
PATRICK PARKED in front of the Morning Ray Café. He couldn’t go home. He’d thought he could, but he couldn’t.
He had to talk to someone.
The only person who could possibly understand was his mother.
Nora Martinez lived above the little restaurant that had been her saving grace. She’d been telling Patrick that since he was a kid. After his father had died she’d needed something. Her only child was in school everyday and didn’t need so much of her time and attention. Nora had needed this to fill in the gaps.
Patrick had come home from school to his mother’s warm hugs and the smell of home-cooked meals and desserts. She’d worked hard to be mother and father. Still did.
She would understand and be able to explain what he was feeling.
The ache in his soul was something he had never experienced before. He kept seeing that little boy with those big blue eyes.
His boy.
The one who didn’t even know his name.
He climbed from his SUV and shuffled to the door. Exhaustion clawed at him. Not a physical weariness, but an emotional one.
He pressed the buzzer that let his mother know when after-hours deliveries arrived. He had a key but he didn’t want to startle her.
It took a minute or two but soon she was padding across the tiled floor in her robe and house slippers. She worked hard all day being the perfect hostess and chef. The nights were her haven from the noise and the crowd. Though she loved every minute of it, she needed her down time as well.
She shoved the key into the plate glass door, her face puckered in confusion.
“Is something wrong, son?”
Only everything.
But he wasn’t a little boy anymore, he was a grown man. Crying was out of the question, though he felt exactly like doing exactly that.
“I need to talk.”
“Well, come on in.” She took him by the arm and tugged him inside. “You want some coffee?” She locked the door and turned to him. “Something to eat?”
He wasn’t sure he could deal with food or even anything to drink. He just needed her to listen and help him make sense of this…this news.
He shook his head.
“Well, come on, let’s go upstairs. I’ll turn my DVR off. I can watch my soaps another time.”
That made him smile. His mother was addicted to the daytime soaps. She had been for as long as he could remember.
Upstairs she settled on the comfy old sofa she’d had forever. “Sit down, Patrick.” Her brow furrowed with worry. “It can’t be that bad.”
He lowered into the chair directly across from her. “It’s…not good.” That felt like the wrong thing to say. Learning that he had a son wasn’t wrong…it was everything else that was not right.
“It’s about Bree, isn’t it?”
His mother had always been able to read him like a book. “Yeah, it’s about Bree.”
Nora curled her legs under her and sank deeper into the big cushions. “Start at the beginning, Patrick. You know how I hate it when you leave out parts.”
Where exactly was the beginning? Their relationship had ended eight years ago. But Nora knew all about that. No need to start that far back.
“When Bree and I ended our relationship, she was pregnant.”
Surprise flared in his mother’s eyes. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and wished he knew how to feel about this. Mad. Sick. Disgusted. Anything would be better than this turmoil of emotions playing tug of war inside him.
“Obviously, she didn’t tell you,” Nora guessed.
He moved his head from side to side. “I found out tonight when I saw my seven-year-old son for the first time.”
Her breath caught.
“He…he looks just like I did when I was a kid.” Patrick stared at his hands. “Same hair. Same eyes. Everything.”
“Did Bree say why she didn’t tell you?”
It didn’t matter why. It was wrong, no matter the excuse. “She said she thought, at the time, it was the right thing to do. Her father didn’t want me in the picture. Probably because I’m not Ute. She did what he told her.”
Nora digested that information for a moment. “And you don’t believe that?”
He dropped his head back on the chair. “For as long as I’ve known Bree she was her own woman. She doesn’t take any grief from anyone and she definitely doesn’t let anyone tell her how to live her life.”
“But,” Nora cut in before he could continue, “she was young. Pregnant. And scared.”
Bree had said that.
Patrick just couldn’t swallow that excuse. “She’s the most fearless female I know.” He met his mother’s gaze. “Besides you. That’s a cop-out if I’ve ever heard one. She just didn’t want to tell me. To punish me or something.”
Nora shrugged. “Maybe a little, but you don’t know how it feels to wake up one day and learn you’re carrying another life inside you, Patrick. It’s an overwhelming rush of anticipation and excitement and most of all fear. Every decision you make, every move you make, even what you eat and drink affects that tiny life growing inside you. It’s a humbling experience, dear. I’m certain she was terrified. Especially considering the two of you had ended your relationship on such bad terms.”
How could his mother take her side? “Okay, so maybe she was scared at first. But what about a year later. Or two years later? We’re talking more than seven here, Mom, and I still wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t shown up at her house early tonight.”
Nora’s face softened. “What’s his name?”
Patrick closed his eyes and envisioned his son. “Peter.”
Nora repeated the name. “I like that.” She settled her gaze onto Patrick’s. “There’s only one thing to do.”
He was all ears.
“You and Bree have to work this out. The important thing here is the boy. He needs both of you and you both deserve to be a part of his life. So, do whatever it takes but work it out.”
Th
at was a lot of help. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Well, that’s simple. Patrick, my mother had an old saying about moments like this.”
There she went with her mother’s sage advice. “Mom—”
“If you’re walking down the road and you come upon a mule in the ditch—” she turned her palms up “—you don’t ask why the mule is in the ditch, you just get it out.”
“What does a mule have to do with the fact that I’m a father and nobody bothered to tell me?” He needed clarification not more confusion.
“You have to get that mule out of the ditch, Patrick. Remember, it doesn’t matter why it’s in the ditch, you just have to get it out. Wasting time wondering why is just that, a waste. We have a tendency to waste a lot of time wondering why. Why are we too short or too fat? Why are prices so high? Why don’t we make enough money? Why does so-and-so have this or that? Don’t waste any more time. Get the mule out of the ditch, son.”
As if his thoughts and feelings had suddenly all lined up and fell right into place, he knew exactly what he had to do. He smiled weakly at his mother. “You’re the smartest woman I know.”
“I’m not smart, son. I’ve just lived a lot more years than you.” Nora pressed a hand to her chest. “I have a grandson.”
And Patrick was a father.
A father who wanted to be a part of his son’s life. All he had to do was get that mule out of the ditch.
He thought about the way he’d reacted tonight. And of how afraid and vulnerable Bree must have been to make the decision she made.
The why didn’t matter…all that mattered was his son.
And Bree.
They would work this out.
Tomorrow morning he would call her and make the first move. He would give her tonight to think about things. Then they would form a plan.
Pride wasn’t going to get in the way of doing the right thing.
Patrick was man enough to admit that what happened eight years ago was as much his fault as Bree’s. He wouldn’t give her another reason to run from him or to avoid him.
Even if they were never anything more than friends, their son had to come first.
He’d been right about needing to mend fences. Tomorrow he would take the first step.
