Forever Mine

by Jennifer Mikels

  So despite the ranch and decades of McShanes rooted to the Double M, Jack, by choice, had no home to offer his son. And Austin was what mattered most. His feelings, his happiness, his security.

  Austin’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “It’s real neat, Mom.”

  “Yes, it is.” Storekeepers had maintained the look of a frontier town to please the tourists. Hitching posts lined the street in front of the shops. Cruising along the main street, she searched for the town’s only bridal shop.

  Beside her, Austin shifted on the seat and peered out the window. “Where’s the ice-cream parlor?”

  “Over there.” Abby pointed. She could see it hadn’t changed. Though obviously painted since she’d last been there, it still had a Gay Nineties decor. Next to it stood an old-fashioned general store with an old-style cash register.

  At the north edge of town, gas stations dotted every corner and a shopping mall stretched for nearly a city block. Wedged between a florist and a shoe repair shop was the bridal salon. The owner, according to Wendy, was a loquacious, sweet woman and self-appointed town matchmaker. Abby found that to be true. For during her fitting, the shop owner mentioned the names of several eligible bachelors in town, including Jack.

  Abby distracted the woman by raving about the dress her aunt had chosen for her to wear. High at the throat, lacey and tea-length, the soft blue dress was lovely, feminine—romantic.

  “You looked so nice in that dress. Pretty enough to be the bride,” the woman told Abby after she’d changed and emerged from a back room.

  “Thank you,” Abby responded.

  Hearing them, Austin closed his comic book and sprung from his chair. “Are we going for ice cream now?”

  “Right now,” she said, meeting him at the door. Though they could have walked to the ice-cream parlor, Abby drove. She found a parking space only two stores away from it. Head bent, she ambled beside Austin and dropped her sunglasses into her shoulder bag.

  “Mom, look, there’s Guy.”

  Abby looked up to see him outside the hardware store.

  “Hey, Abby. Whatcha doing in town?” he asked, moving toward them.

  “I came for a fitting on my dress for the wedding...” Her voice trailed off as she noticed who had accompanied Guy to town.

  “Jack!” Austin yelled, and dashed over to him.

  From his position near Guy’s truck, Jack sent her a long, slow smile. One that made her nervous.

  “Can’t believe Sam’s taking the plunge,” Guy was saying. “As long as I’ve known him, he’s been single.”

  Abby nodded absently, more interested in the secretive smile shared by Jack and her son.

  Near Jack now, not too gently, Guy elbowed him. “Remember when we were kids, and the widow Sommers decided to pursue him?” Guy swung a grin at Abby. “She believed the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.”

  “I remember,” Jack said, he and Austin moving to join Abby on the sidewalk. “Every day she brought Sam some specialty from her kitchen. I always told her how much my dad loved her food.”

  Amusement sprang into Guy’s voice. “That’s funny. Sam was trying to figure out how to stop her, and you were encouraging her.”

  “She made great pies,” Jack replied, as if that was a sufficient reason.

  Abby noticed that all during the exchange, Jack repeatedly made eye contact with Austin. What were they up to? she wondered.

  Not too discreetly, Guy cast a speculative look at Jack and then at Abby. “I’d better get back to the ranch.”

  Though Guy moved, Jack didn’t budge. Because her son didn’t have a poker face, it occurred to Abby this was not a chance meeting. “Don’t you have to leave with—” The hand she’d waved in the direction of Guy’s truck fell to her side as Guy backed out of the parking space.

  “We didn’t come to town together,” Jack told her.

  Clearly he wasn’t moving an inch until she asked him to join them.

  Her son, the acior, look center stage and turned appealing eyes up at her. “Jack could come for ice cream, too,” he said oh so innocently. “Couldn’t he, Mom?”

  Abby didn’t bother to protest.

  The ice-cream parlor looked as it had almost a decade ago. Clean. White. The only splash of color came from the wrought-iron chairs with their peppermint-striped cushioned seats.

  Upon entering, Jack waved to an older couple seated at another table with their granddaughter. “Remember the Williamsons?”

  Abby settled on the chair he’d pulled out for her. “Yes,” she said, recalling that Mr. Williamson once ran the ice-cream store. “Did he ever let his son take over?”

  “Three years ago.” As Austin took a seat, Jack lifted the boy’s cowboy hat from his head. “Want the usual?” he asked her.

  “What’s the usual, Mom?” Austin’s eyes were fixed on a banana split someone at the next table was eating.

  “A chocolate soda.”

  “With lots of whipped cream?” Jack rounded a look at a waiter in a white jacket and straw hat who was suddenly standing beside him.

  “Lots,” Abby assured him.

  “I want that, too, then,” Austin said.

  Watching the waiter set down water glasses, Abby realized that the last chocolate soda she’d had was here, with Jack.

  “Double chocolate?” the waiter asked after Jack ordered three sodas.

  Abby couldn’t resist. “Double chocolate.” She laughed as the waiter walked away. “I’ll take a long walk later.”

  Jack set his and Austin’s hats on the chair beside him. “I don’t think a few pounds will hurt. You look terrific. In fact, you don’t look any different than you did eight years ago.”

  Abby snuck a look at Austin to see how much of their conversation he was taking in. His nose was buried in a comic book. At seven he apparently thought his favorite superhero’s adventures were more interesting than anything happening to his mother.

  “Sam said you’re having a bridal shower for Laura.”

  Abby nodded. “We’re surprising her with it while you and Sam are at the ranchers’ meeting.” A hint of a frown veed his eyebrows and she wondered if he was feeling cornered by ranch responsibilities. While that wasn’t her concern, her aunt was. “You haven’t said more about the wedding.”

  “There’s not much to say.” Jack shifted on the chair. “They seem happy, don’t they? That’s all that really matters.”

  Abby heard no disapproval in his voice. “So you don’t dislike her?”

  “I never did, Abby. Who wouldn’t like her?” he asked honestly. During the past days, he’d seen Laura’s efforts to fit in, helping wherever she was needed, charming guests.

  “Someone’s waving at you, Jack,” Austin informed him.

  “Jack!” a woman practically squealed. Tall, bosomy and dressed in short shorts and a T-shirt that bared her midriff, a twenty-something blonde gushed when she reached their table. “You are Jack McShane, aren’t you?” With his nod, she swiveled a know-it-all-look at her companion, who was now beside her. “Told you.”

  An equally tall and well-endowed brunette set a pen and napkin before him. “Could I have your autograph?”

  Wide-eyed, Austin stared at both women, especially the one woman’s navel ring.

  Abby noted that they’d inched closer as if needing to be in Jack’s breathing space.

  The blonde released a huge sigh that heaved her ample bosom. “We saw you at the rodeo in Prescott.”

  Abby regarded the woman’s adolescent dreamy-eyed look. She supposed rodeo groupies came with the championship buckle he’d won.

  Jack scrawled his signature and, delivering a well-practiced smile, he handed the pen and autographed napkin back to the woman.

  “I heard you’ll be teaching the wilderness-survival class like you used to. I’d just love to join it,” the blonde said, her words practically a purr.

  What the woman would love was to get closer to Jack, Abby guessed. She was glad to see Austin
was again caught up in his hero’s battle to save the planet Zentur.

  “You got the wrong information,” Jack said, wondering who she had gotten it from. Were people in town assuming that since he was back for more than a few days, he was staying permanently? “I won’t be teaching the class.”

  “Oh.” The blonde’s features drooped with disappointment. “I hope you’ll change your mind. If you do—” She set a slip of paper on the table beside Jack’s hand and sent him a slow-forming smile. “Call me.”

  Abby realized that she could have been invisible. What if she’d been Jack’s fiancée, or his wife? “Does that happen often?” she asked Jack once the two young women had moved away.

  Jack didn’t miss the hint of annoyance m her voice. “Often.”

  “Unbelievable. And you love it.”

  “I’ll take the Fifth on that one.”

  “Holy cow!” Austin straightened on his chair as the waiter placed chocolate sodas topped with whipped cream and cherries before them. “I’ve never seen a soda this big. You were right, Jack. They make the bigge—” As if he knew he’d said too much, he slapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes darting to Abby.

  Just as she’d thought. This was a planned meeting. With a look from her. Austin sunk his neck lower in his shoulders.

  “When did you two talk about the sodas?” she asked them both.

  Jack’s eyes danced with devilment. “We’re done for. We’ve been caught,” he said to Austin.

  “At breakfast, Mom,” Austin confessed. “I told Jack we were coming here.”

  Jack wasn’t going to back off, she realized suddenly. It hadn’t mattered what she’d said to him yesterday.

  “Did you say your baseball team was called the Blue Jays?” Jack asked Austin, trying to change the subject.

  Mouth full, Austin wagged his head while he swallowed. “The Orioles.” He paused in bringing the spoon to his mouth. “Next spring, I get to play in the minors.”

  It was clear to Abby that they’d discussed Little League before this. “Austin played in T-ball this year,” she explained, not certain how much Jack had been told.

  “I was a shortstop,” Austin piped in between slurps on the straw.

  Abby had never considered Jack the fatherly type. She didn’t think he had the patience needed for dealing with a child. But he’d been sensitive, caring and inordinately patient with Austin whenever he showed him how to do something. It seemed sad to her that he believed he never wanted a child of his own when he was so good with one.

  “Mom.” Austin leaned toward her and spoke low. “I got to go to the bathroom.”

  Abby pointed to a nearby door. “It’s right there.”

  After a quick swipe at his mouth with his napkin, he took off.

  “He’s a great kid, Abby,” Jack told her.

  “Thank you.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. She simply couldn’t, with so much guilt weighing her down. Maybe she should just tell him the truth. No, she couldn’t. It didn’t matter that the truth was fair to Jack or that it would alleviate her of guilt. The truth wouldn’t be good for Austin. If he learned to love Jack, he’d be hurt. He could live without a father. What he couldn’t live with was a father who’d put him second, who’d be absent from his life more than he’d be with him.

  Jack leaned forward. “About yesterday—”

  Abby waved a hand in the air. “There’s nothing more to say.”

  There was plenty to explain, Jack thought, but he couldn’t do it in a public place with Austin due back any moment.

  Avoiding his state. Abby searched for something less personal to discuss. “When I was helping Wendy, she said something about Guy thinking of quitting rodeo.” Slowly she ran a fingertip over the rim of the soda glass. Like Jack, Guy seemed obsessed with the danger, needed the thrill. “I never thought he would want to leave the circuit.”

  “Wendy wants him home.” He looked to the door in response to the jingle of the bell above it. A family of four came in. “Wendy thinks Jack needs her daddy around.”

  “That’s important,” Abby agreed. “But what kind of a father will he be if he’s forced to stay home?” Her own father, a drummer, had eventually chosen his music over her and her mother.

  A tall man with reddish-brown hair and a booming laugh, he had been her world. When he hugged her, she’d always felt so safe, felt as if no one could hurt her, nothing could go wrong. Ironically, the person who made her feel that way was also the one who’d hurt her the most. “I’m happy for them, if it works out.”

  Out of loyalty, Jack wanted to come to Guy’s defense. “You have doubts?”

  Abby dipped her spoon back in the soda. “Not really.”

  He cooled an urge to defend his friend. The conversation wasn’t about Guy any longer, Jack guessed. “You were thinking about your father, weren’t you?”

  “My mother, actually.” She’d been a heartbroken woman who’d never stopped looking for her husband to come back to her. In retrospect, Abby believed her mother had been clingy, too dependent on him. “He hurt her badly. But she should have known he wouldn’t settle down forever. Musicians are always on the go, chasing a dream.”

  Jack heard her unsaid words. Like rodeo cowboys.

  “We traveled constantly because he needed to for his job. He’d play for a couple of weeks at a club. Sometimes it would be longer, but never more than a month or two.” She’d been young, ten, but not unaware. “One day we checked into a motel in San Jose, California. He left to play at some club, promised to kiss me good-night when he came home, and didn’t come back.” She looked toward the rest room door. “Guy isn’t like my father was,” she said in fairness to him. “From what Wendy has told me, he’s tried really hard to be with her and Jodi in between rodeos.”

  Having had his fill of the ice cream and chocolate syrup, Jack set down his spoon. “Do you want me to check on Austin?” he asked as her gaze focused on the bathroom door again.

  Abby knew her son well. “Give him a few more minutes. No doubt he got sidetracked. He plays Michael Jordan and shoots balled-up paper towels into the waste basket.”

  “He’s doing that now?”

  “Probably,” Abby said lightly. She gave Austin the mental count of ten.

  On five, he came out of the rest room. Only tables away, he stopped by Chris, the boy he’d met the other day at the ranch. As he made eye contact with Abby, she gave him a silent look of approval that he could stay and talk to the boy.

  “Tell me something,” Jack began curiously. “After your parents divorced...”

  “They were never legally divorced. My mother never stopped believing he’d come back. But I never saw him again. He never called. He acted as if he’d never had a child.”

  Jack set a forearm on the table. There were questions he hadn’t thought to ask the first time she’d told him. “What did your mother tell you?”

  All he cares about is his music. “She used to cry a lot when I asked about him, so I stopped. I didn’t want to make her sad.” On her twelfth birthday, Abby remembered waiting for a birthday card from him. When none came, she convinced herself that he would call. When he didn’t, she decided that she no longer had a father, and gave up waiting to hear from him. In her mind, he’d died. “He shouldn’t have married. He probably loved us in his own way. Just not enough.”

  Jack stared at her bare ring finger. Like her own mother, she was raising her child alone. She didn’t have a lot of luck with men, Jack reflected. First her father, then him, and finally Austin’s father had all left her. “Has it been tough playing supermom?”

  Abby inclined her head questioningly. “Supermom?”

  “Having a career and raising a child can’t be easy.”

  “I had help.” Abby finished the last of her ice cream. “After Austin was born, I went to work at a local paper in Houston. Aunt Laura watched him at her boutique. Then this job in Boston three years ago.”

  Admiration doubled for her. He’d always known her dete
rmination, her tenacity, when she wanted something. Around the ranch, people said that a person with those traits had pioneer spirit. “You’ve done well for yourself.”

  “We both have. You’re famous now. Was being a four-time world champion a goal?”

  As she stood, he took his cue, and rising, he set money on the table. How often had he been somewhere, seen a woman with the same rich copper-colored hair and thought of her? “No, being a five-time winner is,” he finally answered.

  He’d offered the lighthearted answer, but he knew there might be serious consequences to that decision. While riding Roper that morning, he’d felt the nagging pain in his recently injured knee. “I advise you to consider retirement,” the doctor had said the last time he had seen him. But he, not a doctor or anyone else, would decide when he quit rodeo.

  “Why do you want to?” she asked.

  He could feed her bull about wanting to make history, but the facts were simple. If he quit, he’d have nothing to do. He couldn’t come back to the ranch, couldn’t resume his job there. He couldn’t stand side by side with Sam as if nothing had changed. Eight years ago, any chance of that had been shattered. Lies. He’d never get past how many of them Sam was guilty of. Or how much those lies had changed his life. Always he’d wonder what might have been between him and Abby if things had been different.

  “Mom, shouldn’t we go?” Austin’s voice came from behind her.

  “Yes, we should.” A check of the time revealed they’d barely make it back to the ranch in time for the craft class.

  “What’s his hurry?” Jack asked.

  “Pottery class,” Abby said, watching as Austin ran out to the car and stood by the passenger-side door.

  She considered how easy it had been to be with Jack. There should have been tension like yesterday, something, anything, so she wouldn’t have felt so comfortable with him.