Texas on My Mind

by Delores Fossen

  Great day. Next time he needed to walk in the pastures. Or buy a treadmill. A ten-minute conversation with Trisha, and he’d spilled more than he should. He’d asked about Claire, and he was betting it wouldn’t take that long to hit the gossip mill. Riley was convinced that telepathy was involved, considering the staggering speed with which news got around Spring Hill.

  And that was the reason he wasn’t going to stop by Claire’s.

  If anyone saw him, and they would, it’d get back to Daniel, who’d think Riley was horning in on his woman and son.

  Riley picked up the pace, intending to limp his way past Claire’s house, but when he was still within fifty feet, he heard a sound that had him slowing down so he could see what was going on.

  Someone was crying.

  The kid.

  And not just ordinary crying—he was wailing as if he’d been hurt or something. That got Riley moving faster, and he hurried through the gate and into the front yard. Ethan was sitting on the porch of the old Craftsman-style house, and Claire had stooped down in front of him and was trying to console him.

  “Is he hurt?” Riley shouted. He stomped down the flashback. Not now. “Jingle Bells” had to get the mojo working and fast.

  Claire snapped toward him, clearly not expecting the sound of his voice or his presence in her yard. She didn’t scream this time, but Riley could tell he’d given her another jolt.

  Well, she’d given him a bit of one, too. Sadly, just the sight of her could do that to him. Maybe she was the cure for flashbacks.

  “No. Ethan’s not hurt,” Claire answered. “He broke his favorite car, that’s all.”

  Sheez Louise, that was a lot of loud crying for a car, especially since there were about fifty others on the porch. But Riley soon saw why this particular one had caused tears. It was a vintage red Corvette. Even as a toy, it had plenty of sentimental value, and Ethan seemed to get that even though he was just a kid.

  With a part sigh, part huff coming from her mouth, Claire stooped even lower so she could give Ethan a kiss on the cheek. No shorts for her today. Instead, she was wearing a denim skirt and a top. Barefoot. And with the way she was stooping, he could see her pink panties.

  Trisha wasn’t the only one whose gaze wandered in the wrong direction.

  Riley reacted all right. He felt that stirring behind his zipper. Felt his testosterone soar past normal levels.

  He glanced around, mainly because he needed to get his attention off her underwear, and he pretended to look at the house. It was in serious need of a paint job, and the white picket fence needed repairs, but the place had always had good bones. However, something was missing.

  “No cats?” Riley asked. There’d been at least a half dozen around when her grandmother was alive.

  “Gran gave them away when she got sick.”

  Too bad because Claire had always loved them, and apparently it’d been one of the tipping points for her choosing Daniel.

  “Ix it, peas,” Ethan said, holding out the car to Riley.

  It took Riley a moment to work out the translation: fix it, please. The car was in three pieces, and Riley took them with all the reverence that a vintage car like that deserved.

  “You don’t need to trouble yourself,” Claire insisted. “Just sit down and relax. You look exhausted.”

  Judging from the cardboard box and its contents scattered on the porch, she had been going through her grandmother’s things, and she pushed some of the items aside to make room for Riley.

  “I can get Ethan another car like that the next time I go to the store,” she added.

  But the fat tears rolling down Ethan’s cheeks let Riley know the kid didn’t want a new one. Riley eased down onto the porch next to him and tried to remember how he’d repaired his own toy cars after he’d given them a good bashing. After all, what else was a kid to do with toy cars other than create a perpetual stream of wrecks, increasing the gore of those wrecks with each new play session?

  “Got any superglue?” Riley asked her.

  Claire nodded, moved as if to go inside, but then stopped. “Really, you don’t have to do this.”

  Riley couldn’t be positive, but he thought maybe this had something to do with his walking-wounded status. Something that automatically put his teeth on edge. “Just get the glue.”

  Hard for his teeth to stay on edge though when she ran inside, leaving him alone with the kid. Ethan looked up at him. “Ix it?”

  “I’ll sure try.” Riley glanced around at the other cars, but he soon spotted what had likely caused the damage. Several big-assed action figures. He wasn’t certain who or what they were supposed to be, but they looked like a mix of the Grim Reaper, Cyclops and Mick Jagger. With big-assed lips and wings.

  “Here you go,” Claire said when she came racing back out.

  Riley took the glue and tipped his head to the action figures. “Your idea?” Because they darn sure didn’t seem like something Claire would buy.

  “No. Livvy, my business partner, is responsible. She took Ethan to the toy store for his second birthday and told him he could pick out anything he wanted. He wanted those. They’re supposed to be some kind of protectors of the universe.”

  Riley nodded. “Good choice.”

  Ethan grinned. The man-pact was back on, and the kid seemed to have forgiven him or at least forgotten about the hidden cookie caper.

  “Why are you out here anyway?” Claire asked.

  “Walking is part of my physical therapy.” Riley squirted the first dollop of glue to get the rear axle back in place. “I just saw Trisha by the antiques shop. She said Daniel’s got an office here in town.”

  Riley wasn’t going to win any awards for being subtle, but he figured it wouldn’t take more than a minute or two for the car repairs, and then he wouldn’t have any reason to stay. Any good reason anyway.

  “Yes, he does,” Claire answered.

  Clearly not chatty today. Riley went in a slightly different direction. “I guess Daniel did that so he could see you. And Ethan.”

  She didn’t huff, but that’s exactly what she looked as if she wanted to do. “You know how you don’t want to talk about your injury or the pain? Well, I don’t want to talk about Daniel. Deal?”

  Since she was as testy as he was, it was best to let it drop. Besides, it really wasn’t his business, only idle curiosity as to why the kid looked more like Riley than any real kid of his probably would.

  Best to move on to a different conversation thread. “How’s the box sorting going?”

  The sigh that left her mouth was one of frustration. So, testy, nontalkative and frustrated. Oh, yeah, this was a good visit, but at least the car repairs were going well.

  “I’m still looking for the letter Gran mentioned on the calendar. I have no idea what was in it or even if it was from her.”

  Riley glanced at the stack of letters that’d been tied together with white ribbon. “It’s not one of those?”

  Another sigh. Man, he was picking at scabs today. “No. Those are from various men,” Claire said, her forehead bunching up. “Gran was obviously, um, popular. It’s strange to learn she had so many things going on in her life that I never knew about.”

  Apparently that was a pattern Claire was continuing to follow when it came to her son’s paternity. Riley frowned. He really needed to get his mind on something else. Heck, the memory of her pink panties flash was better than this.

  “I brought down more boxes from the attic, and I’ve got at least twenty others to go through,” she went on. “Maybe I’ll find the letter in one of them.”

  “Maybe she decided not to give it to you,” Riley suggested. “Or she could have lost it.”

  He’d dropped in that last idea only because the first one sounded kind of sinister, as if the letter might be so
god-awful that her grandmother had decided Claire shouldn’t see it after all.

  “I think it might have been from my mother.” Claire didn’t look at him. She suddenly got very interested in picking at the nonexistent lint on her skirt. “Or my father.”

  From her mother, yes, he could understand that. The woman had ditched Claire and then had died a while later. Not in a clean, it’s-your-time kind of way, either. She’d gotten drunk, thrown up and had choked to death on her own vomit. But Claire’s father was a different matter.

  “Do you even know who your father is?” Riley asked.

  She shook her head. Didn’t add anything else. Apparently, any talk involving fatherhood was off the table. In this case, that wasn’t a bad thing.

  From what Riley had heard, her father had never been in her life and had left her mother before Claire was even born. That made the man lower than pig shit, and as a kid Riley had often thought about what it would be like to punch the idiot for doing that.

  His own parents had disappeared from his life when he was a teenager, but that’s because they’d been killed by a drunk driver—an accident that Claire knew about all too well since she’d been in the vehicle.

  And was the sole survivor.

  Being in the backseat had saved her from dying in the head-on collision. The drunk driver had died on impact. His parents, shortly thereafter.

  It had hardly been his parents’ choice to leave. And despite the fact he’d been planning to go out of state for college, Riley hadn’t left, either. He’d stayed at home with Logan to help raise his then fourteen-year-old sister and Lucky. Though Lucky had been Logan’s age, only younger by a few minutes, he had still required some raising.

  Along with occasional bail money.

  Heck, Lucky still required occasional bail money.

  Riley had wanted nothing more than to get out of town fast and find his destiny, but instead he’d gone to college in nearby San Antonio to be closer to Anna until she turned eighteen and headed off to her own college choice. Logan had taken it a step further and even dropped out of the University of Texas to be home. It was just something family would do for family.

  Unlike Claire’s scummy parents.

  Riley added the last bit of glue to put the car’s hood back in place and blew on it so it would dry. It didn’t take long, and he examined his repair job before he handed it to Ethan. However, Ethan reached for it first and missed, and his hard little hand bashed right into Riley’s shoulder.

  Riley bit back the thousand really bad curse words that bubbled up in this throat. The pain exploded in his head, and it was a good thing he was sitting, or it would have brought him to his knees.

  “Sor-wee,” Ethan blurted out.

  Riley wanted to lie and say it was okay. No sense making the kid feel bad for an accident, but he was having trouble gathering enough breath to speak. However, he did manage to utter a “shit.”

  “Sugar,” Claire corrected. She scrambled toward him, and before Riley could stop her, she started unbuttoning his shirt. “Here, let me take a look.”

  “Are you qualified to do that?” he grumbled.

  “Sure. I’ve been looking all my life.”

  Riley appreciated the smartass-ness, but he knew it wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. When Claire eased back the bandage on his shoulder, the color drained from her face. Every last rosy drop. He didn’t have to see the raw, angry gash to know that she was about to lose her lunch.

  “God, Riley,” she said on a rise of breath. A breath that landed right against his neck.

  Apparently, there was a semicure for blistering pain after all, and it was Claire’s breathing. Of course, it helped that her mouth was now plenty close to his. Close enough to kiss...if he’d been in any state to kiss her, that was.

  He wasn’t.

  Did that make the desire go away? Nope. Which meant this situation with Claire could turn out to be trouble.

  “Sugar,” she said. And then she added other words. Fudge and divinity. Substitutions for the kid’s sake probably. “I didn’t know you were hurt this bad.”

  Even though every movement throbbed like hell, Riley jerked his shirt back together and even managed to do some of the buttons. “We agreed not to talk about this, remember?”

  “Yes.” Claire cleared her throat. “I’m not sure I can hear it anyway. It hurts too much to think about it.”

  And he couldn’t take that look on her face. Pity. Something he divinity sure didn’t want.

  “I’m all right,” he told Ethan. Riley forced a smile that possibly looked even creepier than his earlier one since the muscles in his face were stretched tight. “My shoulder just needed some fixing like your car, but it’s better now.”

  No way did the kid believe that. No way could Riley take the time to convince him, either. Not with the pain still shooting through him. Plus, he felt a flashback coming on, and he didn’t want to have one of those in front of the kid.

  Not in front of anybody.

  He fished through his pocket, grabbed the new bottle of meds and downed a couple of them, somehow managing to get to his feet in the process. “Better go. These knock me out pretty fast.”

  Still pale, still looking at him as if he were the most pitiful creature on earth, Claire stood. “You want me to drive you home? It’s nearly a half mile, and that’s too far for you to walk—”

  “No, thanks.” Riley was already off the porch and into the yard when he heard the footsteps hurrying after him. Not Claire. But Ethan.

  “Sor-wee,” Ethan repeated and he held up one of the winged action figures. He took Riley’s hand and put the toy in it. “For you.”

  Well, that was far more touching than Riley had ever thought it would be. The kid had a good heart. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to give me your toy.”

  But Riley was talking to himself because Ethan gave him a little wave and raced back toward the porch.

  Riley felt a tug of a different kind. Something akin to the same feelings he’d had with his kid sister when he’d helped raise her. A stupid tug in this case because Ethan wasn’t his to raise.

  Even if everyone in town thought he was.

  Yeah, the whole situation with Claire was definitely trouble. So much so that even “Jingle Bells” might not work on this one.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CLAIRE WISHED SHE could go back in time and stop her grandmother from purchasing a single roll of wallpaper. Or better yet, use that going-back-in-time superpower to stop wallpaper from ever being invented.

  She held the steamer over the wallpaper, following the instructions to a tee. She waited, then scraped. Like the three million other steam, wait and scrape sequences, she didn’t get a lot for her efforts. A postage-stamp-size piece of the paper came off. Only to reveal another layer of wallpaper beneath that one.

  There was enough of it to create a quarantine facility to contain an outbreak of Ebola.

  That’s the way it had been for the bathroom and the kitchen. Layer after layer and layer. It was entirely possible there weren’t even any walls left, that the entire house was held together with varying colors of floral wallpaper—each layer seemingly more butt ugly and more steam resistant than the last one.

  Steam, keep steaming, scrape.

  She got off another piece and tried to hold on to the reminder that one day this would all look as if it weren’t stuck in the seventies. One day she’d be able to finish off the walls and the floors, and clear out the boxes so that she could see a sign she wanted to see.

  For Sale.

  Steam, keep steaming, scrape.

  But on the scrape segment of this particular square inch of space, Claire heard something that had her climbing off the step ladder. It wasn’t Ethan, either, because she could see him. He was sitting nearby cr
eating a toy-car postapocalyptic scene on the floor.

  Claire stepped around Ethan and looked out the screen portion of the front door. She’d left the actual front door open to catch the semicool breeze.

  Uh-oh.

  This was an unholy alliance if ever Claire had seen one.

  Livvy, Daniel and Trisha.

  All three of them had just exited their vehicles and were strolling toward the front porch. Claire was sure there was a joke in there somewhere: a blond Realtor, a brunette lawyer and a redheaded wedding planner all walk into a house...

  But she couldn’t quite come up with a punch line that would ease the sudden knot in her stomach.

  Claire had known Livvy was on her way because Livvy had called to say she’d be there sometime that afternoon. But the other two certainly hadn’t given her a heads-up. Too bad or she would have been somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  If Claire had still been in third grade, such wimpiness would have earned her the chicken-dookie label, but it was a label she would proudly bear if she could have just delayed this meeting with Daniel.

  Thankfully, Livvy had brought wine with her.

  Claire put her steamer and scraper aside, opened the screen door and steeled herself for this visit.

  Livvy went ahead of the other two, teetering up the limestone walk on sparkly silver heels so thin she could have picked her teeth with them. They matched her sparkly silver pants and top stretched around her latest boob job. Like with her husbands, Livvy liked to trade up in bra sizes every couple of years.

  Claire wasn’t sure exactly what Livvy’s natural hair color was. That, too, had changed frequently over the past eight years since they’d bought Dearly Beloved together. Today it was I Love Lucy red with threads of acid green and was piled on top of her head like a volcanic eruption.

  Somehow, Livvy made it all work.

  “Vee!” Ethan squealed, and he rushed out to greet Livvy. She scooped him up, spun him around and made piggy snorting sounds while she kissed his neck.

  Ethan laughed like a loon, and Claire lapsed into a smile despite that abdominal knot. Yes, Livvy always made it work not just with her son and hair but also with everything else. Livvy created magic.