by Linda Warren
Hearing noises in the kitchen, he went to join Paxton and Jericho.
“Hey.” Paxton seemed startled to see him. “Jericho’s making pancakes. Have a seat.”
“I don’t have time. I…”
Jericho blocked the door. For a big man, he moved fast. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t know. I have to go into town to see Gabe.”
“It’s not even six in the morning. Eat breakfast and then go.”
The smell of bacon made him aware that he was hungry and that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning.
Paxton threw an arm around Phoenix’s shoulders. “Fill the tank and you’ll be ready to go all day.”
Pax was right. He needed strength to get through this. He turned back to the table and noticed his orange juice was waiting for him. He sat down and took a big swig, and the tight nerves that had him bound in a vise eased for a moment.
“How’s it going with Gabe?” Paxton asked around a mouthful of pancake.
“He has a private investigator on the case and I haven’t heard from him. Since it’s the weekend, he said it would be slow going, but we don’t have time for slow.”
“Doesn’t Gabe present your side and Valerie’s attorney presents hers and the judge will decide who is the better parent?”
Phoenix twisted his glass. “That’s about it, but we need something to poke holes in her case. We just need more time.”
“Stop worrying. Gabe’s a good lawyer and he’ll figure something out.”
“I’m worried about Jake. It’s his first morning to wake up without me.” He placed his fork in his plate, losing his appetite. “And I can’t find Rosie. I stayed at her place until after midnight waiting and she never showed up.”
“Did you call her?”
Phoenix pushed his plate away. “Yeah. Constantly. She’s turned off her phone. She’s not going to jeopardize my well-being by seeing me. I just want her to know about Jake.”
“Phoenix…”
He got to his feet. “I’ll see y’all later.” He couldn’t sit there and have a normal conversation when his insides burned with anger at what had been done to his life. And to Rosie’s. And to Jake’s.
Before he reached the door, it opened and his mother stood there. A new kind of anger shot through him. He didn’t want to deal with his mother and the feud this morning.
“Phoenix, I’m so glad you’re home. We need to talk.”
“I’ve said all I’m going to say.”
“I’m fixing a big dinner for the family and we’ll talk afterward. We can sort this out, but we have to talk first.”
His mother hadn’t heard a word he’d said. She was just focused on getting him away from Rosie.
“I won’t be home for lunch. I’m going into town to see Gabe. Jake’s custody is the most important thing on my mind right now, and I can’t think about anything else.”
Paxton and Jericho eased past them and out the door. Cowards!
Phoenix took a deep breath and knew he had to talk to his mother. He owed her that. “We can talk now.”
He sat in his recliner and his mother sat on the sofa. He wasn’t sure where to start. He thought of all the years his mother had loved and supported him and taken up for him when he’d done something wrong. He was never punished. He was the favorite son. He was her baby. And it would be so hard to break her heart. But the mature Phoenix knew there was no other way.
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with Rosie. I’ve seen her at the rodeos many times and I wasn’t actually avoiding her. We just never interacted because of the feud. Then one day she took up two spaces parking her trailer and it irritated me and I told her so. We had words, and I felt bad afterward because I was rude to her. I wanted to apologize, but I let it go—because of the feud. Then I found out I was a father and I went shopping for baby things and there she was. It was like fate that she was in the same store at the same time I was. I had the chance to apologize for my behavior and we agreed to call a truce. She helped me pick out things for Jake. But we both agreed that was the end of it.”
“It should have been the end of it,” his mother said in a tone of voice he’d heard many times over the years. The strong, determined voice that said she wasn’t taking any crap from her sons.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands together. “But fate stepped in once again. There was something about Rosie that drew me. I’ve been with a lot of girls over the years and not one of them ever touched my heart. It was always just fun. But with Rosie it was different. I wanted to know more about her. I didn’t remember her from school like all the other McCray kids.”
“Are you saying you pursued her?”
“Yes, ma’am. I did. And she was angry, very angry at me for invading her privacy. She told me to leave. But I wanted her to see my kid. The little boy she’d helped pick out the baby stuff for. That did the trick. Jake stole her heart just like she stole mine. I know you don’t want to hear that.”
“Son, you’ve only known her a few weeks.”
“It took a moment to fall in love.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. The moment I looked at the fire in her blue eyes, I knew I wanted to see that fire for the rest of my life.” He glanced at his mom and saw the hurt in her eyes and did his best to ignore it. “I love Rosie. It’s complicated to describe, yet it’s simple to me.”
“I want you to stop seeing her.” The words were spoken softly but lined with the power of steel.
He’d never gone against his mother in his whole life. Today he would have to be stronger than he’d ever been. Because standing up to his mom would require a man where a young boy used to be.
He rubbed his hands together until they were numb. “I’ve watched you grieve for Dad since the day he died. If I have to give up Rosie, I’ll grieve for her for the rest of mine. Is that the kind of life you want for me—one filled with sadness?” He stared directly at her.
She scooted closer to him. “Son…”
“You don’t even know her. She’s a warm, loving, giving person, and Jake took to her right away. Just like I did. Ira married her off to an older man who beat and abused her for over a year. He finally beat her so bad she lost her child. She’s like a broken doll, Mom. I’ve never felt as deeply as I have for anyone like I do for her. It’s like we need each other to be whole. Dad said a Rebel man loves forever, and I now know what he was talking about.”
“You just feel sorry for this girl. Give yourself time and you’ll get over her. It’s just an infatuation, Phoenix.”
He stood, growing tired of beating his head against a brick wall. “It’s not an infatuation. It’s the real thing, and I’m sorry it hurts you. But it might not be too much to worry about, because Rosie broke up with me. You see, Ira threatened to hurt me if she didn’t stop seeing me, and she doesn’t want any harm to come to me. That’s the type of person she is.”
“What? That man threatened you?”
Phoenix shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I have to go to get my son back, and then I’ll find Rosie. I’m sorry.” He reached down and kissed her cheek, and a tear slipped from her eye. He braced himself against the pain he was causing her and walked out the door.
*
ROSIE TOSSED AND turned and was unable to sleep. Dixie yelped at her a couple times for disturbing her sleep. In the early hours of the morning, she fell into a deep sleep, and when she woke up, she knew what she had to do. There was no other choice for her.
She dressed and had the breakfast the inn provided and then she was on her way home. Her phone was in the bottom of her purse and she was tempted to look at it, but that would be torture, reading his messages and not able to answer—just yet.
As she drove, a plan formed in her mind. To go forward with her life, it was very clear she had to face her father and explain how she felt about what he’d done to her life and tell him he couldn’t control her anymore. Somewhere during the night she’d found her strength. She wasn’t going bac
k to being that young girl who’d been manipulated and abused. Adversity had made her stronger. She’d just lost track of that, thinking about her father hurting Phoenix. That was the last thing she wanted, and she was going to make sure it never happened.
First she went home to check on her horses and the trailer. Everything was fine. There was a nip in the air and the horses were feisty, galloping around the corral, kicking up their heels. She threw a saddle over Lady and raced her around the barrels she had set up. Exercise was what Lady needed.
After exercising all three horses, she took a shower and dressed again, this time more carefully. She braided her hair to keep it out of her face. She didn’t need any distractions for the task ahead of her. Then she was off to Horseshoe.
As a safety measure, she stopped in at the sheriff’s office and spoke to Wyatt Carson before making the trip out to the McCray ranch. It had been ten years since she’d been home. She remembered the day vividly. Her wedding was in Austin and she and her mother had driven in early. Her father and brothers had come later. She’d tried to talk to her mother but was told she had to do what her father wanted. And that was that.
After the wedding, Derek wouldn’t allow her to go home. He said her family could visit her in their home, and once again she was controlled by a man. When the divorce was final, she vowed she’d never be controlled by a man again.
She took the winding dirt road that led to the two-story house back in the woods. It once had been a beautiful Victorian house with a wide veranda in the front, but with no money the house had been in disrepair when she’d left. She was happy to see the house had been painted and looked like it had in her childhood. There were even rosebushes in the flowerbeds, her mother’s favorite. Someone had been keeping them up.
A double-wide trailer was set off to the left, Malachi and his wife Cheryl’s house. Two more trailers were back in the woods, and she assumed they belonged to her brothers Axel and Anson.
It was after lunch and trucks were parked by the garage, so she knew her father was home, and probably Gunnar, too. He and his wife lived in the house also. But Cindy had left Gunnar years ago, and Rosie didn’t know if she was back or not.
Chickens pecked in the yard, and she noticed goats in a pen. In the distance, beyond the corrals and barn, cows munched on grass. If anything good had come out of her marriage, and she was still doubtful of that, the McCray ranch had been saved, and the family could now make a living from it.
Taking a deep breath, she stroked Dixie, picked up an old newspaper she’d brought from the dash and got out of the truck. She walked up the steps with butterflies in her stomach, but she wasn’t backing out now. This was too important.
She knocked on the door, and it was opened almost immediately by Cindy. A different, older Cindy. Her dark blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she wiped her hands on a dish towel. Cindy had left because she was tired of being used as a maid and she was tired of being hit. Cindy deserved better than that, and Rosie hoped things were better now. But, then, Rosie tended to believe in fairy tales. Occasionally.
“Rosie? Is that you?”
“Hi, Cindy. I’d like to speak with my father.”
“My, aren’t you all formal and all.” She nodded over her shoulder. “The guys are in the kitchen finishing lunch. It’s Sunday so things are slow around here.” She leaned in close and whispered, “Are you sure you want to be here?”
Before she could answer, her father and her brothers Gunnar and Malachi came into the living room and saw her at the front door. She walked past Cindy to face them.
“What are you doing here, girl?” her father demanded.
Her nerves tingled with anticipation and fear. “I have something to say and I’m going to say it.”
Her father sat in his recliner as if she wasn’t there, and then he looked at her with the coldest glance she’d ever seen. “You disgraced this family and you have the nerve to come here and face us.”
That one sentence obliterated all the shaky nerves inside her. “And you have the nerve to come to my trailer and tell me who I can and cannot see.”
“You’d better leave, girl. You’re not welcome here.”
“You sold me off to Derek Wilcott like a prized heifer, and he beat and abused me almost every day of the time I spent with him. He beat me so severely the last time that he killed my child. That’s why he went to prison. That’s what you did to your daughter, and you still can look me in the eye and say those cruel words to me.”
“That’s all in your head. Derek said you fell down the stairs and lost the baby, and he went to prison because the judge believed you and not him.”
“Did you bother to come to the trial or check the records or ask anyone for the truth?”
“There was no need.”
“I guess not if you don’t care anything for the daughter who went through hell to save this ranch.” She looked around at the new curtains and furniture. “I see you’ve used the money well.”
“I think you’d better leave,” Gunnar said.
Rosie ignored him, walked over and laid the newspaper she’d saved from the trial in her father’s lap. “Read it. The truth is in there, the real truth, if you’re interested.”
He made no move to look at it.
“I sent you almost every dime I received from my divorce, and your response was to disown me and not to allow me at my own mother’s funeral. But I came anyway. After all the cars had left the cemetery, I sat with her for a long time and cried because she was the only one who cared anything about me. When I was in the hospital from the beating, she came. Did you know that?”
Her father didn’t look at her or respond.
“She came every day I was in the hospital, and she gave me money to rent an apartment so I wouldn’t have to go back to that house. Did you know that?”
“Where would she get money to do that?”
“She said she’d saved it from the grocery money, because there were days she thought about leaving and she wanted to be able to do it if she ever had the nerve.”
Her father’s sun-browned skin turned pale.
“But she stayed. God bless her, she stayed through it all, but she never forgot her baby daughter. She gave me the strength to get back up on my feet and make a life for myself.”
“You live in a horse trailer.”
“But it’s my trailer, paid for with money I earned. Someday I will have enough money to buy my own home because I’m working very hard to accomplish that.”
Her father stared down at the newspaper in his lap.
“If that’s all you have to say, you can leave now,” Gunnar told her.
She glanced at her older brother. “No, that’s not all I have to say. Before I came here, I went by the sheriff’s office and told him you threatened Phoenix Rebel, so if anything happens to him, he’ll know who did it. Just stay out of my life and never threaten Phoenix again.” She turned toward the door, but Gunnar stood in her way.
“You’re not leaving here with that high and mighty attitude. You stay away from Phoenix Rebel or I’ll hurt him so bad you’ll never recognize him.”
“Gunnar!” Rosie was surprised when Cindy joined the conversation. “If you harm one hair on that man’s head or on Rosie’s, I will leave you and I will take my children and you will never see them again.”
“Shut up, Cindy.”
Cindy marched toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
She threw the dish towel on the floor. “Leaving. A family who would do what they did to Rosie is a family I do not want to be part of. This time I won’t be coming back.”
“Stop it!” Rosie shouted. “I don’t want to come between you and Gunnar. That’s your problem, and I don’t want any part of it. I just want to make it very clear that my life is my own, and I will not stand for any of you to interfere with it. That’s my bottom line.”
Gunnar grabbed her arm and squeezed. “How dare you…”
“You
should know Sheriff Carson is waiting at the road. If I don’t come out of here in thirty minutes, he’ll be coming in. And you’ll be going to jail.”
“Let her go.” Malachi spoke for the first time. “This whole family is screwed up. I almost lost my wife and kids over a Rebel fight, and I’m not going to do that again. I’m not taking part in hurting Phoenix. I’ll lose my kids.”
Gunnar let go of her arm and glanced at their father.
Ira McCray nodded his head. “Let her go,” he muttered so low she barely heard it.
Gunnar let go and headed for the stairs. “Cindy, c’mon. I was just trying to scare her. Cindy!”
Rosie stepped closer to her father. “I will marry Phoenix Rebel.”
He looked at her then, his eyes glazed over with something she couldn’t define. Could it possibly be regret? “Kate Rebel will never allow her son to marry you. You’re dreaming.”
Turning, she swung toward the door, not letting her father’s words deter her. She’d come here with a purpose and she’d accomplished it. Now she had her whole future ahead of her. Her future with Phoenix.
Chapter Fifteen
Phoenix spent the morning in Gabe’s office, talking with Levi Coyote on the phone. The PI had run a thorough background check on Valerie Green Stephens and her husband, Colonel Kyle Stephens. Levi was immediately contacted by the FBI to cease and desist his investigation of Colonel Stephens. Levi had explained that he was only interested in talking to the colonel about his wife and had nothing to do with national security or anything else. He was still waiting for the okay to do that.
The call from Colonel Stephens was crucial. He could answer a lot of questions about the future for Jake and why Valerie suddenly wanted custody of her child. It might be a pipe dream, but they all were waiting for that call.
In the meantime Levi had found out other details. Valerie was back in Colorado a month after her grandmother had passed away. She had hired a good lawyer, and it had taken weeks to get her case heard. Eventually she’d had the custody ruling overturned because the court hadn’t done enough to locate her.
