by Liz Talley
“Justus, I—”
“No, we won’t speak any more of it.”
Rick glanced away toward the swishing bush next to the Japanese maple, accepting the truth in Justus’s words. He knew the old man had a healthy dose of fear and admiration for him. Rick had earned it many times over, doing what many would consider fearless. Or stupid. Depended on how one looked at it. But he’d helped Justus correct his past mistakes. All because the man had cared enough to save a stupid gangbanger and give him a second chance.
And Rick had returned that favor. One night, a little more than two years ago, Rick had taken the gun from Justus’s hand. Broken and beaten, the old man had wanted to face death more than he’d wanted to face life. Rick had pulled him back to the world Ryan had wanted to save. He’d given Justus something to cling to—Ryan’s legacy. Phoenix. Now the man wanted more. He wanted a daughter who was too wounded to live up to what he wished.
“Kate isn’t the right woman for you.”
Rick jerked his head up. “Why the hell not?”
“Both of you have strong personalities. It won’t work. You need someone soft. Like Vera.”
“I’ll choose the woman for me, and I’ll be damned if you tell me who I can or can’t have a relationship with. If I want Kate, I’ll take her.”
Rick would never admit he was trying like hell to avoid tumbling into bed with Kate. He wouldn’t give Justus the satisfaction of knowing he wasn’t going to take his relationship with Kate any further.
Kate couldn’t be the right woman for him, no matter how well she fit against him, no matter how right it felt every time she appeared like a lovely blossom on a deadened tree. She couldn’t be the right woman for him because she was leaving in less than two weeks. And two weeks wasn’t enough time to take a risk. Two weeks wasn’t worth compromising all that he’d become. Not for a few nights of pleasure.
So he’d be content to play the upstanding good guy, Kate’s guide, her protector through the minefield of living with Justus. The ties that bound him would be ones of honor.
Not of selfish impulse.
There was no future with Justus Mitchell’s illegitimate daughter. That much was certain.
Justus interrupted his thoughts. “Hell, I’ve never tried to tell you what to do, boy.”
At that statement, Rick lifted one eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe a time or two, but I think it’s a bad idea to see Kate as part of your future.” Justus curled his left hand into a fist and looked at Rick as if the Lord had spoken.
“Maybe I should say the same to you.”
Justus’s bushy eyebrows knitted into a furious frown. “What do you mean? She’s here, isn’t she? She wants my money, doesn’t she? Then she’ll have to deal with me.”
“Maybe so, but you’re not mending any fences trying to control her the way you are.”
“So what should I have done? Wired her the money with no questions asked? I wanted to have a chance to fix my past. Ever since I lost Ryan and found God, that’s all I’ve wanted. Just to fix my past.”
“Then why haven’t you already fixed this with Kate? I ran all over Texas delivering checks to widows and selling land back to people you’d virtually stolen it from, but you don’t bother to call your own daughter? What the hell did you do to her when she was a child, Justus?” Rick didn’t understand this man, his motivations.
Justus’s eyes shuttered. “That doesn’t concern you. Let me fix this my way.”
Rick knew it would do no good to continue arguing. “Fine, but remember this—Kate’s like a dog that’s been kicked, and you wore the boots. You can’t expect her to come running to you and lick your hand like nothing happened. Your boot left a mark, old man.”
Justus reversed his chair, settling it against the ramp leading to the back porch. “Not much I can do about the past.”
“No, not much any of us can do about it. Just move forward. But you can’t control Kate.” Rick caught a glimpse of Vera slipping out the door and heading for the garden. He pulled his keys from his pocket and turned toward the car still sitting in the drive with the headlights on.
He needed space. He needed to think. He couldn’t do that with Kate around. Vera would take care of her tonight. Tomorrow, he might have his resolve back in place where she was concerned. Stress on the might because deep down he knew Kate had already sucked him in and he was losing the will to fight her deadly combination of vulnerability and blatant sex appeal.
No matter what he told himself.
COOL HANDS PUSHED THE HAIR from her face as a damp washcloth appeared at Kate’s elbow.
“Never as good coming up as it is going down.” Vera’s words held no judgment. For that, Kate was grateful.
“Tastes like I licked the bottom of someone’s boot. Someone who works in a pasture.” She took the cloth and wiped her face. Her stomach still rolled, but she felt enormously better.
“You can brush your teeth when you get inside.”
“I don’t want to go inside. I want to go back to Vegas and pretend none of this ever happened. This was a mistake.” Kate couldn’t believe she’d admitted to screwing up. Especially to the one woman who wished Kate would pack her bags and leave.
“I can’t say I blame you. None of this has been easy, has it? Then again, once you start something, you can’t leave it unfinished,” Vera said. Kate immediately thought of Rick. If she left tomorrow, she’d leave things unfinished between them, too.
She turned to look at the woman who’d brought her small comfort. Vera wore cotton pajamas that likely cost too much to be worn kneeling on the dirty pavers of the garden. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, her face free of cosmetics, making her look both older and younger at the same time. Crow’s-feet crinkled at the corners of brown eyes that were indecipherable in the faint light of the night.
“Must feel good to get it all out, though,” Vera said, a soft sigh escaping her as she settled on her heels.
Kate wasn’t sure whether she meant the liquor or the rage at her father. But either way, Vera was right. “Yes, it does.”
Vera pointed to the crocus she’d baptized with Bone’s cheap whiskey. “Ryan planted those when he was ten. Never know if they’ll come up or not. Some years they don’t.”
Kate winced. She’d barfed on precious Ryan’s flowers. “I’m sorry.”
Vera shrugged. “Nothing the rain won’t wash away. Organic, isn’t it?”
Kate thought it rather weird they were talking about vomit being organic, but she went with it. “I guess. So, Ryan liked gardening? That’s crazy for a guy.”
Vera’s lips twitched. “Well, he went through a phase one year. He’d attended a science camp and learned about botany. Growing things intrigued him. He went through the same phase again when Rick came to live with us—Rick worked as a gardener when he first came. That man took to the earth like no man I’d ever seen. It was odd, really. A gang member so angry with the world able to grow the most beautiful things you could imagine. Ryan tagged after Rick like a puppy. He loved that anger right out of him.”
A lump appeared in Kate’s throat at the thought of a boy loving Rick so much that he let go of the hate, that he began to dream about a future. “Ryan was special.”
Vera nodded. Kate wondered if all Vera’s thoughts wrapped around the past like a line anchoring a boat. “Yes, he was. More than anyone could ever know. You know, there are people who are born that way. Full of something so magical, so pure. He was like an angel. And I was lucky to be his momma.”
Tears sprang to Kate’s eyes. She could feel the sadness in Vera and something made her want to reach inside the woman and remove it. She touched Vera’s hand, then wrapped her fingers around it so their hands curled together.
Vera flinched, but didn’t withdraw. For the first time since Kate had stepped foot on Cottonwood, she felt something within herself shift. Click. A sort of rightness settled in her bones.
“I’d like to know more about—” she paused, the w
ords getting clogged in her throat “—my brother.”
Vera’s eyes met hers. Honesty passed between. It was the first time Kate had admitted Ryan was indeed her brother. And Justus her father. No more pretense. Only truthfulness.
“You should know about him. It’s a shame you never met him.”
“I did. Sort of.”
Like a puppy, Vera cocked her head. “How?”
“Shortly after my grandmother passed, I came to Oak Stand to settle some of her things, and he ran into me with his bicycle. Tore my new broom skirt.” Kate frowned a little. She’d saved all her tips from the bar to buy that skirt from the boutique near campus. Sixty dollars had been a fortune back then.
Who was she kidding? It was a fortune now.
Vera smiled and clapped a hand over her mouth. “You were that mean girl?”
Kate laughed. “Well, I was mad. And the damn skirt looked like it had been shredded by a cat.”
Vera laughed. The sound was soft against the night, and her face was framed against the fingernail moon. “He said a mean girl screamed at him. I remember that day. He’d gone with a friend to get an ice-cream cone at the Dairy Barn. Justus hadn’t wanted to let him go because he’d just gotten that mountain bike and couldn’t handle it that well. But Ryan insisted he could ride it fine.”
“Yeah, right into me,” Kate muttered, before smiling. “He was a cute kid. Hated him on sight.”
Vera drew back, but then realized Kate was joking. “He cried because he tore your skirt. He was like that. Felt everything too much. It worried him you were mad, and he didn’t know who you were. Took all the quarters he’d been saving for the arcade and said he was going to buy you a new skirt.”
Kate shook her head, as something new lodged in her gut. Something called shame. Remorse. Or whatever a person called the feeling of hating a golden-haired, blue-eyed boy because his father loved him, then finding out the boy was truly worth the love. “I left that afternoon. Only came to pack some stuff and dispose of the rest.”
“He said he’d find you. You had eyes the same color as his. I never made the connection, though I should have. I’d heard the rumors, but I didn’t want to face them.”
Kate didn’t want to talk any more about the past tonight. She didn’t want to push it with Vera. Didn’t want to undo the good that had been done. “Almost everybody knew, Vera. No one else wanted to face it, either.” She gave Vera’s hand one last squeeze.
Vera sat stock-still and watched as Kate rose to her feet. “Well, it’s late, and you need to brush your teeth.”
“And grab a shower.” Kate reached down to offer assistance standing.
As Vera took her hand, a fleeting peace brushed Kate, gentle as the wings of the dragonflies that often buzzed lazily along the edges of the East Texas ponds. Vera accepted. Vera adapted. Vera would heal.
Kate didn’t believe in divine intervention—she was far too pragmatic. But something had happened between the two women. Like stones being pulled from a wall of doubt, they had made progress in opening the boundary that separated them.
Silently, they walked the twisting path of the garden, emerging into the porch light where Justus sat like a worn gargoyle. Kate didn’t acknowledge her father, just glided past him.
There was honesty between them, too. But it hurt too much to acknowledge or embrace it. Anger still licked at her insides like the aftertaste of the whiskey, only harder to wash away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DAYS LATER, KATE SAT ON the back patio of Phoenix watching a clean and noticeably healthier Banjo chase doves in the brush. A cool breeze threatened the spiky locks she’d perfected around her face. She’d streaked her dark tresses with a deep red last night and liked how colorful it looked in the brightness of the day. She looked down at the planter at her feet. “Ugh! This soil keeps washing out of the pots. Why is it so light?”
Kate wiped her hands and frowned at the water spilling over the sides of the planter.
Random pots scattered the flagstone. Some were already filled, while others still awaited the tomato plants sitting in plastic cartons on the porch.
“Because we’re using a moisture-binding potting soil. It’ll help the plants stay succulent when summer gets here.” Rick shoveled more soil into the pots. His tanned hands patted a hill in the center of one pot before cupping a hole in the center of the mound.
She and Rick hadn’t spoken about the night at Cooley’s even though she could feel the strings of tension tightening between them. She still wanted him with an intensity that surprised her, and he still fought against the magnetism between them, but they had other things to deal with. Rick’s clients had arrived and Kate spent the past few nights making polite small talk with Vera and Justus at the dinner table. It was enough to set her on edge and make her grind her teeth as she slept. The only thing that got her through those evenings was the truce she and Vera had arrived at that night in the garden.
“My grandmother never planted anything until after Easter. It’s already thundered in February, you know,” she said, pulling a tender tomato plant from the plastic container.
“What does that mean, bruja?”
“Stop calling me witch,” she grumbled, gently breaking apart the roots of the plant the way Rick had showed her earlier.
“You mean you don’t know?” Georges, one of the clients, called from across the patio. “If it thunders in February, it will freeze in April, cholo.”
Kate smiled at Georges. He was the only guy who showed any openness toward the staff at Phoenix. The other four were eerily silent, almost sullen, as if they already regretted their choice to come here.
Carlos, Joe, Brandon, Georges and Manny had arrived by a church van, each hauling a makeshift suitcase and a scowl. Or at least that’s what Rick had told her.
Only Georges had abandoned his serious demeanor for some lively teasing. He’d had Trudy pitching a fit when she’d found everything on her desk moved cock-eyed on the second day of GED classes. He’d also held an actual conversation with Rick, rather than merely grunting his replies.
“Well, that’s why we’re planting them in these containers. They’ll be easy to move to the cover of the back patio if we get frost.” Rick patted the soil around the plant Kate had set in the hole. He sat back and assessed the planting critically, narrowing his brown eyes as he studied his handiwork.
She watched as he rose and retrieved anther plant, handing it to Manny without a word. The plump gang member wrinkled his nose at the container.
“So why we gotta plant these things, anyway? This seems stupid if you ask me,” Manny said, setting the tiny plants beside the wooden pot and studying the other members sprawled about doing much the same.
“I didn’t ask you,” Rick said, returning to her side.
Georges snickered. “He already told you, dude. We’re gonna grow our own vegetables. It ain’t that bad. You ain’t shoveling horseshit or nothin’.”
“Shut the f—”
“Guys, you’d do well to note there is a lady present,” Rick cautioned.
“What lady?” Kate joked, looking around. She hit Rick with a smart-ass grin.
He rolled his eyes. “Seriously, let’s start watching the way we speak to others. Part of this program is learning to present yourself as a new person. We’re letting go of who we once were to find a new path.”
“Now there’s your horseshit to shovel,” Joe said, tossing a trowel onto the patio. It clanked against the rock before scuttling toward Manny.
Rick stiffened beside her. She placed one hand on his forearm in warning. There was going to be resistance. There was likely going to be out-and-out rebellion before Rick could make any true progress.
“The trowel will probably work, though I notice Georges puts out a lot of bullshit. Might need a shovel for his,” Kate joked, squeezing Rick’s arm. She could feel him take a deep breath, feel his forearm relax under her fingers. She liked the way he felt, warm from the sun, strong from the labor he perfo
rmed. He was no milk-white accountant in a knockoff designer suit. He was full-on man, and even though they were far from being alone, Kate felt a familiar heat surge inside her body along with the buzz of aggravation that it would go unfulfilled.
Georges laughed, interrupting her wicked thoughts. “You know it, muchachos.”
Manny pulled a face and slid the trowel toward Joe. “Just plant the damn tomatoes, man.”
Joe looked at the garden instrument, then looked away, his jaw set. “Whatever. I’m out.”
He rose from the patio, hitched up his sagging pants and headed for the center where Trudy stood at the side of the house, motioning a woman wearing a circus costume their way.
Rick sighed and pulled away from her. She felt the frustration coming off him in waves.
“Uh-oh,” Kate said, watching as the woman in what was actually not a circus costume but a hideous Western skirt headed their way. “Betty Monk moving in at 12:00.”
“Who’s Betty Monk?” Georges asked, shielding his eyes against the rays bearing down on them.
“Yoo-hoo,” she called, her brightly patterned skirt swishing around her red cowboy boots as she balanced a basket on one arm. “Hiya, boys!”
Betty Monk was the coproprietor of The Curlique Beauty Salon in Oak Stand, where Kate had worked each summer to earn extra money. All that was left of the bouffant Betty used to wear were faded wisps of rose-colored hair held in place with Aqua Net above her penciled-on eyebrows and road-mapped face. Bright red lipstick matched the boots she wore, curving into a Texas-size smile.
“Look what I brought you boys—muffins. Right from the ovens of the Ladies Auxiliary,” Betty said, shooing Banjo away as she maneuvered toward the patio.
No one said a word as Betty tousled Brandon’s hair, which was as absent as her own since he wore a buzz. Brandon ducked his head and moved away, but it didn’t deter Betty.
“Why, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. If it isn’t my favorite gal, Katie Newman. What in the blue blazes have you done to your hair, girl?” Betty handed Georges the basket. He immediately lifted the gingham cloth and peered within.
