“I’m doing it because I want to, because I want to be here. Sam and I worked out our problem.”
Aware of how much hurt had existed between father and son, she felt only joy for him.
“And if I don’t get out, retire, some ornery bull might get the best of me.”
She didn’t need a picture drawn. She’d seen other men beaten by rodeo, their bodies broken, their spirits battered. She knew some had died in the arena, not only inexperienced ones, but also men driven past their prime, addicted to the thrill.
Jack touched her chin, forced her eyes to meet his. Such sadness shadowed them. “Hey?”
“I’m glad you’re quitting.”
“It’s time.” Lightly Jack touched her waist. “And it’s time for us. I want you and Austin to stay with me here.”
She didn’t doubt he believed what he was saying. But how long would he feel that way? “What about the championship? Aren’t you going to compete for it this year?”
She wasn’t listening. No, that wasn’t true. She was listening, but she wasn’t believing, Jack realized. “It’s just another belt buckle now.”
That wasn’t true. She knew it was more. Endorsements. Commercials. Was he really willing to give up all the fame and money?
“You don’t believe me?”
She longed to. “I want to.”
Trust. He drew a deep breath. This was all about trust. “If you love me—” He stopped as she shook her head.
Abby swallowed against the emotion closing her throat. He was making everything harder. Her throat felt dry. He didn’t understand. “What if I change my life for you, and you decide later that you made a mistake? What if we give up everything we have in Boston, and a few weeks or a month from now, you decide you miss rodeo?”
A mixture of exasperation and frustration whipped through him. Was everything slipping from his grasp because of what ifs? “Abby, that’s not going to happen.”
Desperately she wanted to believe him, but couldn’t. “I can’t risk letting Austin get hurt.”
Apparently the promise he’d made last night to her didn’t matter. “I told you—promised—” He stifled the urge to yell at her. “I promised that I wouldn’t hurt him.” How could he get her to believe him? “Trust sometimes comes on faith alone, Abby. I learned that the hard way. If I’d had more faith in Sam, I’d have realized sooner that whatever he’d done he’d been doing it for me.” He wanted to hold her tight until she believed him, but she pulled back. “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid. This isn’t about me. It’s about Austin. It’s about protecting him.”
He reached out, but his hand never touched her. As quickly as he’d begun the motion, he stopped it, jamming his hand into his jeans pocket. “I’m not giving up. This isn’t the end.” Eyes, dark and wet, met his. “I want forever, Abby.”
All that she longed for stood before her. But she carried a fear that he couldn’t suppress with a few promises. “All I ask is that you be there when he needs you. Don’t hurt him. Don’t let him down.”
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Jack watched her walk away from him.
Abby hadn’t expected time or distance to make the separation from Jack easier for Austin. Before they left the ranch, she’d felt her heart twist as Austin had flung his arms around Jack’s neck. For a long moment, as if it was too painful to move away, they’d stood together.
Head down, Austin had left Jack’s arms and rushed to her. He’d avoided her stare when he climbed into the rental car, but Abby had seen the tears glistening in his eyes. Nothing would be easy for him anymore. His love was being pulled in two directions. While he would want to be with her in Boston, he knew a different world now with Jack.
They returned home on Sunday. By Friday, she still wasn’t in step with the city’s quicker tempo. She rushed from the bus and walked at a clipped pace toward home, and was half an hour late picking Austin up from the baby-sitter’s. Though pizza muffins, a favorite of Austin’s, sounded like less than healthy fare, she chose that for dinner because he never balked at eating a salad with them. While she assembled everything, Austin used the time before dinner to take a bath.
Despite all the turmoil in her life, there was something comforting about being home, about being surrounded by familiar things. She’d worked hard to make a home for her and Austin. She’d saved for weeks to buy the blue paisley sofa. Some of the other furnishings, like a scarred maple breakfront, she’d found at thrift shops.
The rooms were decorated with a mixture of Early American furniture and whatever pleased her. She’d have liked a home with a yard for Austin. She’d have liked that cottage with the white picket fence. Actually, she’d have preferred a renovated barn, she thought wryly, but that was part of a fantasy. This apartment suited her, and had been home for her and Austin for the past three years.
At the sound of splashing, she wandered to the bathroom and peeked in. Her son was aiming his squirt gun at his toy boat. “Dinner is almost ready.”
“Okay,” he murmured. A wet washcloth was draped over his head now.
Abby stepped back before he rose from the water because he’d found modesty recently. Though they’d already fallen back into a routine, she knew he was still missing the ranch, and Jack.
She was, too, she admitted to herself as she returned to the kitchen and checked on the muffins. Even here, he was a part of them.
The moment Austin got home, he’d hung the cowboy hat from Sam on a hook that used to hold his Boston Red Sox baseball cap. He’d propped a Polaroid photo that Laura had taken of Jack and him against his Captain Cosmo bank.
More importantly, since they’d arrived home, Jack had called every night. That was good and bad. While the phone calls saved Austin from being lonely for his father, she worried about what would happen when the restless streak surfaced, and Jack was back in rodeo. A late event, a celebration, a different time zone might mean no phone call.
“Are you going to answer the phone, Mom?”
“The—” She gave her head a shake, then snatched up the receiver.
At the table, Austin ended his fascination with rolling a cherry tomato on his plate. “Who is it? Is it Dad?”
Dad. How easily he said the word. When had he begun to think of Jack that way? She nodded but held up a finger to indicate she needed time to talk to him. Friends, divorced and raising children, complained about ex-husbands and ex-wives. They either never involved themselves in their child’s life, or they kept insisting on petty requests that played havoc with the child’s life and emotions. Though Jack had made no demands, Abby kept expecting them. With the portable phone, she wandered to the living room so Austin wouldn’t hear. “Do you plan to call next week?”
“Say hello, Abby.”
“Hello.”
“Better.”
She heard the smile in his voice. “Jack, we need to set up a schedule so I have Austin home for your calls.”
“Is this a good time?”
The lightness in his voice annoyed her. This was serious business. “Yes, this time next week would be fine.”
“This time tomorrow.”
She needed to make him understand why his nightly calls could cause trouble. “Jack, he’ll expect you to call every night if you keep doing it.”
“Then I’d better keep doing it. Tell me. Have you heard from the honeymooners?”
Abby knew that tone. He wasn’t willing to listen to what made perfectly good sense to her. At least not tonight. If he was in no mood to discuss something, he could be maddeningly stubborn. “A postcard.” Cradling the phone between her jaw and shoulder, now that her conversation with him wasn’t something Austin couldn’t hear, she returned to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. “My aunt wrote about leis, hula dancers and luaus.”
“All Sam wrote was Wow.”
The humor of the situation reaching her, she laughed with him. “How wonderful.”
“Mom?”
“You
r son’s growing impatient.”
“Can’t have that. Bye, Abby.”
It was his abruptness that had her stammering. “Uh, bye.” She’d been dismissed, she reflected while handing the telephone receiver to Austin.
Excitement popped into the boy’s voice with his greeting. “Dad, hi!”
Frowning, Abby left the room. She’d have to make Jack listen to her. A week, a month, a year from now, would he still be calling his son? Would he still bring the same kind of joy to Austin’s face? Would he be there when Austin needed him?
A week went by, school started, and she and Austin fell into a world of routines and schedules. After school, he went to the neighbor’s, Mrs. Averson’s. Usually Abby was home by five o’clock. Today nothing was going right.
A co-worker had knocked over her iced tea during lunch. Most of it had landed in Abby’s lap, leaving a stain on her cream-colored slacks. She had to work late, missed a bus, and by the time she was a block from the bus stop, a muscle in her calf ached from a too-strenuous workout that morning in her aerobics class.
Needing to stop, she detoured to a Chinese takeout across the street and picked up sweet-and-sour pork for dinner. Thoughts of a long bath accompanied her walk home. A step in the door, she kicked off her shoes, grabbed a can of soda and was heading for the sofa when the doorbell rang. She’d thought she’d have some quiet time before Austin came home from his Cub Scout meeting.
Keeping the chain in place, she opened the door and peeked out. A florist deliveryman grinned at her. For a long moment after she accepted the glossy white box, she simply stared at it. This wasn’t fair. Not fair at all. As she lifted the lid and pushed back the green tissue, her heart thundered. Why? Why was he making this so difficult?
Her hand shook as she read the card.
Love you,
Jack
Clutching it, she raised one of the long-stemmed red roses from its bed of white baby’s breath and green ferns.
“I’m home, Mom.”
The rose in her hand, Abby spun around.
He was scowling at her. “You didn’t have the door locked,” he said in a chiding tone that made her smile.
She had forgotten one of the house rules in her shock at getting the flowers.
“What’s that?” he asked about the box in her hand.
His gaze lowered, making her look down, making her aware she was absently fingering the petal of a flower. “Roses.”
Curious, he stepped closer and peered into the box. “Who did ya get them from?”
Abby slipped Jack’s card into her pants pocket. “Your dad.” As he looked up at her with wide eyes, she ran a quick finger down his nose. “Hang up your jacket now. I brought Chinese takeout home. Do you have much homework?”
“Reading.” He gathered up his backpack from the chair he’d dropped it on.
“You can do that after dinner.” Alone in the kitchen, she couldn’t resist and inhaled the sweet fragrance of the flowers. All through dinner, her mind played tricks with her. She thought about the roses, she could even smell them, though they were in a vase in the other room. As lovely as they were, it was what they represented that was weakening her. He was romancing her, making her feel young, tempting her with fantasies. And she had to stop him before she began to believe in one special one again.
She cleaned up the kitchen after dinner and waited until Austin was busy with homework before she made a phone call. “I want to thank you,” she said after his greeting. “The flowers are beautiful, but—”
Jack laughed in the soft caressing way that had always melted her. “No buts. I’m glad you like them.”
If there was just the two of them, everything would be different, but she had someone else to think about. Why didn’t he understand that? “Don’t send any more,” she insisted, determined to be firm.
“Sorry, Abby. Learn to enjoy them.”
“Why?” Weakening, she felt a twinge of desperation streaking through her that he was making the situation so difficult. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded.
“Because you’re wrong. Because we belong together. Because I’m not going to let you forget me.”
Did he really think that was possible? He was the father of her son. He was the man she loved.
“Dad knows you like flowers, huh?” Austin mumbled between gnawing at a chicken leg after an enormous bouquet of daisies, carnations, baby’s breath and daffodils arrived one evening. It was one of many flower bouquets she’d received during the past weeks. Little reminders, she assumed, recalling Jack’s words.
Frowning, she took a vase from a kitchen cupboard and finished filling it with water before facing him. She didn’t want Austin to get the wrong idea. “Yes, he does, but the flowers don’t mean anything, Austin.”
As if she’d said, “Tomorrow is Christmas,” he beamed at her. “You like them, don’t you?” he asked.
In an avoidance move, Abby fussed at arranging the flowers before joining him at the table. “Yes, I do.”
His grin widened. “That’s what he told me.”
They were conspiring, she decided. “Did he?”
“Uh-huh. He said he loved you.” Mouth full, he slanted a look at her.
Abby felt as if her son was viewing her through a microscope.
Dead serious, he reminded her, “That’s probably why he sent them.”
Who was the parent here? she wondered, not unable to see the humor in the situation.
“Dad said he’d send me chaps and spurs for my Halloween costume. You know, like the kind Guy always wears. Everyone at school knows my dad is a real cowboy.”
“I thought—” She never finished her sentence.
“Phone’s ringing, Mom.” He jumped from the kitchen chair, banging it into the microwave stand behind him. “Bet that’s Dad.”
Abby eyed the kitchen clock above the sink. “No, it’s too early.” She let him answer the phone, knew by his conversation he was talking to her aunt, and then Sam. Abby stood near until he handed her the receiver. Briefly she talked with Laura about Ray.
“He’s doing well. With Jack staying, Ray could retire, but Jack asked him to help until he gets back in the swing of everything.”
“That’s good.” Had he done that to keep Ray feeling useful or was it to keep the door open? If Ray stayed on the job, Jack could leave whenever he wanted.
“Will you come for Thanksgiving?” Laura asked.
Abby hated to disappoint her, but during the past weeks, she’d been working on a series for the newspaper about the city’s homeless, so leaving Boston and flying to Arizona for Thanksgiving didn’t seem like a possibility. “It’s doubtful,” she said, and explained why.
“I wish you were coming here,” Laura said.
“We’ll be there for Christmas,” Abby promised. Though the idea of returning to the ranch so soon was something she didn’t want to do, she felt Austin needed the family gathering with Sam and her aunt, and with Jack.
“He never went back to rodeo, Abby,” Laura said out of the blue. “Sam said Jack told you he wasn’t planning to.”
That wasn’t what she’d heard. Days ago, Austin had told her that Jack planned to be in Oklahoma on Halloween night. She assumed his restless streak had returned. “He told Austin he’d be taking a trip to Tulsa for the rodeo there.”
“Oh, that,” her aunt said airily. “It’s a public appearance for a charity rodeo. He’s not on the rodeo circuit again.” She was so quiet for a long moment that Abby almost squirmed. “You don’t believe him, do you?”
“Aunt Laura, I think he meant what he said to me,” she said honestly. “But that doesn’t mean he’ll stay at the ranch forever.”
“No one can offer guarantees about anything.”
Abby could think of other things she’d rather discuss with her aunt. “I’ll try again to see if we can come for Thanksgiving.”
She heard Laura sigh. “We’d really like you to come,” she responded, seeming to accept Abby’s desi
re that they change subjects. “We’ve missed you. So has Jack. He talks all the time about not being able to see Austin,” she said, taking a threesixty with their conversation. “After all, Abby, Austin has two homes now,” her aunt reminded her.
Abby’s heart stopped. Custody? Would Jack go to court, make demands? Some couples split their child’s time—six months here, six months there. She couldn’t stand six months away from Austin. She’d never endure even two weeks.
Perhaps he’d meant what he’d said about settling down. Then again, what if he grew restless, wanted to join the rodeo circuit again? Wasn’t that her real concern? She hated her doubts about him. Oh, she hated all of this. She wanted a guarantee that he wouldn’t hurt Austin. And he couldn’t give her a guarantee. He couldn’t prove he meant what he said, and for Austin’s sake, she couldn’t take any chances.
“Abby, we really have missed both of you.”
“We’ve missed you, too.” She wished she could reach through the phone and give Laura a hug.
Suddenly emerging from his bedroom, Austin stepped close. “Can I talk to Dad now?” he whispered.
“I’ll ask if he’s around.” Abby finished talking to her aunt then asked about Jack.
“Yes, he’s here. I’ll get him for you.”
“For Austin,” Abby piped in, but she was holding a silent phone. “Here.” She held it out to her son. “Aunt Laura is getting him for you.”
“I’m going to a party after trick-or-treating,” Austin announced the moment Jack took the phone.
Jack had come in from the corral, to see Laura on the telephone. Abby, Laura had mouthed. He’d washed his hands, grabbed a glass of ice water and was talking quietly with Sam about buying several more head of cattle when Laura had handed him the phone.
“Mom got me a black eye mask. She said there was a cowboy on TV long, long ago who wore one.”
“The Lone Ranger,” Jack said.
“That’s him. I wanted it because my friend Carlos is-wearing one and a cape.”
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