Texas Redeemed

by Isla Bennet

  “But you had Mom,” Lucy said.

  “Not exactly.” The look he gave Valerie was private and unique and was something only she could decode. “Valerie was there for me until I shut her out. Finally I went to her ranch, thought we could say to hell with this town and take off, be free … She wasn’t having it. She wanted roots, commitment, love—all the stuff I couldn’t give her. I let my temper fly, and your mom’s got her own hot streak, so we said everything we could to piss each other off. I ended up here … don’t even remember how. I had a sledgehammer, and I took it all out on Grandma’s headstone because she was gone when I needed her.”

  “What happened when people found out what you did?”

  “You mean after the police came and arrested me? The chief back then, Fitz Hyatt, released me, but I’d realized two things. One, I couldn’t be the man my grandfather and Valerie needed me to be …”

  “And two?”

  “I had to take the chance Chief Hyatt had given me, and run. That’s what I did.”

  No way would Lucy tell him that the new start he was hoping for with his mom was a total lie. She didn’t want to see him hurt. Besides, he had Valerie now, and she had him.

  “The point is,” Peyton said, “you don’t need to compare yourself—or me—to a superhero. Yeah, we mess up sometimes, but sometimes we get it right, too. Make sense?” He smiled, and she didn’t feel so cold and lonely anymore.

  Lucy felt like she had a friend.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHASE HAD SHOWN up after all. Valerie had called Blue Longhorn from Memorial after the board meeting and had surprisingly been able to get through to her cousin, who worked doing maintenance jobs at a cement mixing company near the motel to pay his way. When Valerie had offered him a place to stay after Thanksgiving, he’d resolutely declined.

  But now that his sister, after her incident with Brute, was on bed rest, being treated for gestational hypertension, the ranch was a hand short and Valerie had a damn fine replacement in mind. If only he’d stop dodging her long enough for her to give him the offer.

  Still in her business suit, Valerie walked to the backyard to see Chase throwing two sticks for Mimas and Titania to fetch.

  “You’re late, Val,” he said as Titania jetted to him with the stick clamped in her mouth.

  “The meeting was delayed. Glad you stuck around though.” She crouched to ruffle Mimas’s shiny black coat. “These guys seem taken with you.”

  “My unit buddies and I had a stray. The boy was starving. You could see his ribs. Once we fed him we couldn’t get rid of him. After a while nobody wanted to, especially Musgrove. He talked about taking him to Kentucky after the tour, but …”

  Valerie glanced up at him. “Musgrove didn’t make it?”

  “Roadside bomb.” Chase’s gold-flecked green eyes, once vibrant and open, were borderline cold—as if they were the gateway to a cache of dark secrets. “I kind of wonder what happened to the mutt.”

  “I want you to see something.”

  With the dogs flanking him, Chase followed Valerie past the carriage house to the bunkhouses. She looked over her shoulder, and the picture of him walking with his military tags glinting in the sunlight was so sad that she felt tears threatening.

  There was a slouch to his usually army-straight posture, thinness to his sinewy form, a rawboned quality to the already defined contours of his face. When he grinned or laughed, a deep dimple bracketed one side of his mouth. But now, with his lips set in a firm frown, no one would ever guess.

  What had happened to the man who’d hummed with the drive to serve and protect his country, who’d been optimistic and content? How many friends—and how much of himself—had he lost to war?

  “This is a fixer-upper,” she told Chase, gesturing for him to enter the serviceable bunkhouse that boasted a living area, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Everything about the space was cosmetically tattered, but it had good bones and a bucket of soap and water and a fresh coat of paint would go a long way. “It’s private, though, and it’s all yours—plus a decent salary—if you come to work on Battle Creek.”

  Chase silently scoped out the place before sinking onto the thin, bare mattress on the bottom bunk in the bedroom. “Valerie, I don’t know how long I’m going to be in this town. I don’t know if I should be staying in Texas.”

  “Well, you’ve been in Night Sky since before Thanksgiving. Give it a try. Cordelia can’t work and I need somebody who can handle her load.” Valerie sat beside him and watched the dogs creep close. Titania rested her chin on his knee, a plea for a good ol’ scratch between the ears. “Dinah and Cordelia want you around. So does Lucy. So do I. You’ve got yourself a little fan club around here.”

  “Aw, that’s gonna have to change. I don’t need fans. I’m a civilian now and … I don’t know. I’m just trying to get things to make sense again.”

  “We love you, that’s all.”

  “Same here.”

  Valerie brushed at a lock of his hair with her finger. How long had he been out of the army to have let his hair grow all the way to his collar? More questions were building, but asking too many too soon would only make him shut down—or leave. “I can’t speak for them, but I’m not gonna pressure you to talk about whatever’s eating you inside out.”

  After a long pause, he nodded and tucked his dog tags into his shirt. “All right. A try is all I can promise.”

  “That’s good enough for now.”

  “YOU’RE STILL ACTIVE with Doctors Without Borders,” Chief Lindsey said without preamble after he’d summoned Peyton to his corner office, which had one of the best Hill Country views this part of town offered.

  At attention, Peyton inclined his head. “I am.” He’d never hinted otherwise, though he’d passed on the opportunity to join Malcolm’s group in Bangladesh. Another offer hadn’t come through since.

  “An assignment in Chad’s become available. You were selected from the pool of surgeons. Take a look.” Chief slid a packet of documents across the desk. “I made this clear before, Turner. Your position here can be permanent.”

  Peyton held up the documents. “At the cost of my field work?”

  “No.”

  “The administration’s okay with courting a surgeon who’d leave Memorial for a mission at any time for any duration? Come on, Chief. Does this flexibility have to do with the hospital expansion, which I know you’re in favor of?”

  “Again—no.” Chief Lindsey leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “I’ve chatted with the ER in Baltimore. And I’ve been watching you at Memorial. I know to expect more than ‘either/or’ from you. You can be committed to this hospital and your field work and your family—if that’s what you really want.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said to Chief.

  “Do that.”

  Peyton put it all out of his mind—the Chad assignment, the conflict of being pulled in two directions, the tug-of-war between permanent and temporary—as he finished his shift. Afterward he went to the hospital cafeteria for a sandwich and coffee, and that same conflict surged to the forefront of his mind.

  What sacrifices would he have to make in order to divide his time … his life? Would Valerie understand his need to continue accepting potentially dangerous missions? Would his field work even make a difference when she was, in many ways, still holding back? Would they ever scrape the surface of what lived beneath friendship—beneath sex, even?

  In the cafeteria’s cashier line, he accidentally crumpled the bills in his hand, not realizing that the cashier waited with a questioning look.

  “Do you have enough cash on you?” someone asked. “I can lend you a few … Doctor Turner?”

  Peyton handed over the money and glanced at the woman beside him. Shannon Dash, the hospital guide—the one who’d brought him to the children’s library the day he’d first laid eyes on his daughter.

  “Hi, Shannon.” He pocketed his change and collected the turkey sandwich and coffee.

/>   She smiled. “Suppose you had enough cash after all.”

  Peyton found a just-vacated table in the hospital courtyard and was unwrapping his sandwich when Shannon approached again. “Pull up a chair,” he said, saving her from the awkward “May I sit here?”

  “Thanks.” With a plastic fork she flipped over a slice of cucumber in her salad. “A review came out in the Gazette about that new place in the warehouse district, out behind the Thaines’ boot place. Beer from the best brewery in Wellesley County … country-western swing music … a mechanical bull. Good location.”

  Kitty-corner from Blue Longhorn.

  “Relax. It’s just a no-pressure place for no-pressure people.” She drew a finger over his hand. “We could meet at midnight.”

  It was a variation of countless conversations he’d had with women. An invitation to drinks or dinner or something innocuous would turn into sex but wouldn’t go beyond that—if it even got to that point at all. That routine had worked for him when there’d been nothing permanent in his life.

  “I might be busy that night,” he told her, leveling a meaningful gaze at her, hoping to save them both from embarrassment.

  Shannon’s hand quickly retreated, and she stood. “My break’s about over, so I should go. Thanks for offering the chair, Doctor Turner.”

  Peyton watched her leave. Taking her up on what she offered would’ve been easy. Short-term satisfaction that came with no expectations always was. Accepting a Doctors Without Borders assignment in Africa wouldn’t ordinarily be easy, but in this situation it was. Moving toward a future in Night Sky—with Valerie—was the greater challenge.

  But the woman he loved was worth the risk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “ARE YOU SURE this isn’t a date?”

  Valerie considered the question as she sat on the dresser in Cordelia and Jack’s bedroom and watched her cousin thumb through a copy of Elle. When Cordelia had been prescribed bed rest, and became stir-crazy the first day, Lucy had donated magazines, books and video games to the carriage house.

  “Uh …” she said, recalling the phone conversation with Peyton the day before. He’d mentioned watching a Food Network program that reminded him of her, because the dive featured was a Midwestern trailer restaurant that specialized in chicken wings, which was still her favorite food. Somehow they ended up debating Buffalo wings versus hot wings, bleu cheese versus hot sauce, and then before she realized it they were agreeing to go out for dinner—together.

  “New question. Did you wax?” Cordelia wiggled her brows.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s a date. So about your outfit. Wear jeans. Dress ’em up, dress ’em down. Doesn’t matter as long as they flatter your ass.”

  Valerie hopped off the dresser. “You’ve been reading too many of these magazines, cuz.”

  “God, you’re right.” Cordelia set the magazine aside. “Distracting myself with all this reading is having an adverse effect. I even sent Jack to Nottering’s Drugs to buy me a tube of Wonderland Red lipstick. It’s supposed to be the best wintertime shade for my complexion.”

  “Why so desperate for a distraction?” Valerie paused. It wasn’t her business, but … “Are things okay with you and Jack?”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  “Because you’re both under a lot of stress with the baby and … well, ever since the incident with Brute—”

  “How long does everyone intend to hold that over my head?”

  “And all the arguing, Delia. Even people in town are talking about it.”

  Cordelia’s smile was quick, but her nostrils flared. “Our arguments never last long. Come on—the guy went to Nottering’s Drugs to buy me lipstick! We’re fine.” She rubbed her tummy. “I’m not worried about Jack and me, or this little peanut. It’s Chase.”

  Though he had accepted the job and moved into the desperately-in-need-of-renovating bunkhouse, Chase remained a recluse, spending his downtime either shut up indoors or hanging around the warehouse district.

  “Val, he’s so quiet and distant, and hasn’t even once teased me about weight gain.”

  “Is he talking about Afghanistan yet?”

  “No,” Cordelia said, “and it’s irking the hell out of me. What happened over there?”

  They sighed in unison, then Cordelia lightly slugged her shoulder. “Go with jeans. And get a move on. Just this once, don’t be late.”

  Valerie ended up taking Cordelia’s advice, choosing low-slung boot cuts and pairing them with a charcoal-colored sweater and her burgundy-red high-heeled boots that were old, but familiar and comfortable.

  What would happen tonight? Peyton wasn’t the man he’d been before. Even then, when he’d been reckless with no direction and a chip bigger than Texas on his shoulder, she’d loved him. Now that she’d had a tantalizing taste of who he was now—the loyal protector who was capable of giving her the passion she’d given up on hoping for long ago—she wanted more.

  She wanted a guarantee that putting everything she cared about on the line for a do-over with him wouldn’t blow up in her face. She wanted to know that he really had grown up, and that she and their daughter wouldn’t be collateral damage. She wanted the love brewing between them to come with an unbreakable bond.

  But she didn’t have any of those reassurances. All she had was an instinct to be cautious, and a heart urging her to take the risk.

  Valerie found Lucy stretched out on the living-room floor browsing a textbook, with Bowie lazing in the subtle dip of the small of her back. “Smokin’ outfit, Mom.”

  “Thanks.” Valerie debated whether or not to even broach the subject, but ultimately stretched out on the floor beside her and tapped the world history textbook. “Studying?”

  “Nope. Just reading. And drawing—sort of.” She revealed two sheets of folded sketch paper that were hidden under the book.

  Valerie unfolded the paper, impressed with the drawings. “Incredible. Sign one for me? I’d love to add to my collection of L. Jordan originals. Unless Nathaniel’s already called dibs on these.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I am.” Valerie refolded the drawings. “So, want to visit him soon, let him have a look at these ideas?”

  Lucy stuck the drawings in the book and faced her. “What the hell? When I wanted to visit Gramps, you ragged on me to pretty much forget about fashion and focus on the ranch. Now I’m doing that stuff, and you’re still freaking out. Back off, okay?”

  “First things first,” Valerie said as Bowie raised up and stretched and found a more comfy spot underneath the coffee table. “Lose the attitude, fix your tone.”

  “Sorry.”

  “‘Sorry’ is no good here. Just listen.” She smoothed an errant tendril of the girl’s toffee-brown hair from her face. “I’m your mom, and I’ll never back off. You’re gonna want to get used to that.”

  “I just don’t understand what I’m doing wrong now.”

  “You’re suffering, and you’re hiding it from me.” When Lucy’s eyes flickered to her, Valerie knew she had stumbled onto something massive. “Talk.”

  The girl slowly sat up. “It’s nothing.”

  “Bull.” She had to push, had to dig for the truth. “Is this about Peyton?”

  “No.”

  “So, what, you miss hanging out at Fork with your friends? I thought we had an understanding that as long as Marin—”

  “I don’t care about Marin Beck. And I don’t care about hanging out, either.” She shifted her gaze to the side. “Owen McNamara just wants to be friends.”

  “The little boy from the feed store?” To be fair, Owen was getting taller by the day and wasn’t so much a “little boy” anymore. Apparently, her daughter had already noticed that. “Since when did you want to be more than friends with him?”

  “God … here we go.”

  “You usually talk to me about this kind of stuff …” Valerie felt her daughter’s nervousness and could practically see her tho
ughts. Drop it! Let it go already! “And that’s part of the reason I don’t believe you. Doesn’t Owen deserve better than to be a convenient fall guy to blame for what’s really bothering you?”

  As Dinah’s footfall sounded on the front stairs, Lucy scrambled up. “Unless you want me laughed out of school, please don’t blab about this.”

  Confusion built as Valerie noticed that Dinah carried two suitcases. “Whoa. What’s going on?”

  “Cordelia’s lonesome for company, and Jack invited us to spend the night at the carriage house. He’s whipping up pasta and hot buttered rum. Oh, cocoa for Luce and Dee.” Dinah smiled innocently as Lucy scurried over to claim her suitcase, but the mischief in her eyes couldn’t be hidden. “Don’t worry, Val. He promised to send over the rum recipe for you to try out.” When Lucy thundered up the stairs to get something that needed to be packed, Dinah added in a whisper to Valerie, “But it’s no fun drinkin’ it alone.”

  “Ah.” This feeling that everyone on Battle Creek knew what should’ve been private was what Lucy would call cringeworthy. “Cupid Dinah, you’ve got the night off. I don’t need you shooting arrows my way.”

  “So you say.”

  When the headlights of Peyton’s SUV flashed across the front of the house, Valerie was hit with apprehension and met him in the driveway, going straight to his window before he had a chance to open the door. He lowered the window. “Val, what’re—”

  “This chicken dinner thing. Good or bad idea? What’s your gut telling you?”

  Peyton waited a beat before leaning out the window until their noses almost touched. “Hot wings are always a good idea.”

  “Buffalo wings,” she said with a smile, feeling the wave of nervousness ebb.

  “Suit yourself.” He reached across the vehicle’s console to push open the passenger door, and she got in.

  In jeans and an umber-brown chambray shirt, he looked casual … and sexy. At twenty-one he’d been handsome with potential to be as notoriously good-looking and charming as his father was said to have been. Over time age and life had chipped away at that handsomeness, leaving him with an appeal that struck her as too intriguing to resist.