A Little Texas

by Liz Talley

  She threw back her shoulders and ran to him.

  “Daddy,” she called, her shoes slapping the temporary floor beneath the tent. “Momma’s gone, so I have to live with you now.”

  He paused, the drink in his hand halfway to his mouth, and stared at her. His face looked the same way Grams did when a roach crawled across the floor in their cramped kitchen. Like he wanted to squash her.

  She stopped about ten feet away from him.

  All the people who were talking to him looked at her. It grew very quiet.

  Her father set his glass on a nearby table. “Who let you in here?”

  Kate could feel the butterflies in her tummy thrash around. Something was wrong. Didn’t he know her? He’d sent her a bunny last Easter. Sent it home with her mom. Momma said he thought she was pretty. That he loved her. He was just too busy and important to mess with her.

  “I—I— My mom left and went to California. I have to live with you now since you’re my dad.” Her voice trembled. She didn’t want to cry. She had to go to the bathroom real bad and he was supposed to be happy his little girl had come to live with him.

  “Who sent you here?”

  “I— No one. I just came.”

  Everybody was watching her. One woman giggled behind her hand. Her fingernails were long and painted shimmery pink. Kate looked at all the adults. They seemed confused and embarrassed.

  Her daddy looked mad. “Well, you can go back to where you came from. No one asked you to come here, girl.”

  Kate grabbed her stomach because it hurt, like the time Tommy Tidwell had kicked her during recess. “But—”

  “Don’t you argue with me, missy. Turn right around and leave. Right now.”

  Kate took a step backward. Then another. She couldn’t believe it. He was mad at her. “Don’t you want me?”

  His eyes got all cold and icy looking. “I have a wife and son. You are not my child. I don’t know who gave you the idea that you belonged to me, but you don’t.”

  He pushed through the crowd. “Excuse me, Governor, while I deal with this, will you? I’ll return in a moment.”

  His grip was steel on her arm. He dragged her through the crowd, avoiding their eyes but never loosening his grasp on her. She felt her sneakers slide a few times on the grass. Finally, they were beneath the willow tree where she’d left her backpack and bike.

  He released her. “Get back on that bike and get off my property. You have embarrassed me in front of the most powerful people in Texas, girl.”

  “But my momma told me—”

  “I don’t care what that woman told you. You don’t belong to me.”

  His words felt like bullets whizzing through her body. They hurt and made her feel like she might sink down and die. Tears streamed down her cheeks, she couldn’t stop them. They dripped from her chin as she picked up the handlebars of her bike.

  She glanced once more at the man. His face was red like he’d been working in the sun. His eyes looked weird.

  “You will never belong to me,” he said.

  Kate slid onto her bike and pedaled away as fast as she could down that hard-packed drive. She imagined that she was escaping from a bad man. A boogey monster. She pedaled until her legs burned, right out the gate, all the way down the county road until she couldn’t see that big white house anymore. Then she jumped off her bike and ran. Ran till her lungs burned. Ran till she couldn’t run anymore. At some point, she realized that she’d peed on herself. Her legs were wet and her new tennis shoes squished as she ran. But she didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.

  She finally collapsed near an old wooden fence that had been nearly eaten through with termites and lay beneath the brilliant blue sky.

  She’d left her backpack. It had her opal ring and fairy journal in it. It also had the bunny he’d given her. And the picture of Justus and her mom at the state fair in Dallas, the one where her mother’s hair looked like the girl from I Dream of Jeannie. All her good stuff had been in there. And now it was gone.

  He’d probably throw it away like it was junk. Just like he’d thrown her away.

  She hated him.

  She’d always hate him.

  The erratic beeping of the heart monitor pulled Kate from the memory into the present.

  That same man lay before her, broken and weak.

  She met his eyes once again. He’d killed part of her that April day. Taken away her innocence and made her hard. Made her rebellious. Determined. Guarded. Everything that constituted who she now was.

  She’d lost her mother, her father and her dreams that day.

  But she’d forged new ones. Ones that she still clung to. Dreams of Fantabulous. And independence. Dreams that felt cloudier by the day. Who was she if she didn’t have her anger to protect her?

  She looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I shouldn’t have done what I did. I hurt you.”

  Anger boiled inside her. Even as he lay so vulnerable and sick, she wanted to hurt him. Make him pay for the act he’d perpetrated on a nine-year-old girl.

  At the same time, as much as she longed to hold on to that kernel of hate, she wondered if perhaps it was time to let it go. To let the resentment slip into the past and take the hurt with it. Then, perhaps, she’d have room in her heart for better things. Things like faith, hope and charity.

  Rick’s image appeared.

  And maybe she’d have room to fall in love.

  “Yes, you did hurt me. I was young. I didn’t realize the way the world worked.” Kate sighed, finally glancing at him.

  “I—I was a bastard. Mean. I hurt you out of pride. Damned pride.” She could hear the disgust in his voice and wondered how long he’d felt that way.

  Kate pressed her fingers into her eyes. She was tired of crying, but when she pulled her hands away, they were wet. “I shouldn’t have gone to Cottonwood that day. I didn’t know. I thought…” Hell, did it matter anymore? Was she any different than any other kid who’d been unwanted by a parent?

  A choking noise came from Justus. She jumped up to fetch a cup of water, but his good hand caught her and pressed her into the chair. For someone who’d suffered another stroke, his grip was firm. Her eyes jerked from his hand to his face.

  He was crying.

  “I tried to forget about you. Tried to pretend you weren’t my kid. But the wee hours of morning bring truth when they bring the sun. You can’t hide from your mistakes at dawn.” Tears slid down his weathered cheeks and dropped onto the sheet. He made no attempt to brush them away. His good hand was on her arm, gripping her the way he’d done the day he’d dragged her toward that pink bike beneath the weeping willow.

  “I’m so very sorry, Katie. You were just a little girl. A little girl who wanted to be loved. I still see your face. See how hurt you were. It haunts me.”

  His words surrounded her, settling around her shoulders, pressing her down. And as the regret in his voice penetrated her heart, a flood of sadness, anger, need came gushing forth. “So why did you wait? Why did you ignore me all these years?”

  His eyes shuttered. “I’m a fool. I didn’t want to face you. I was about as ashamed as a man can be. And I was scared you wouldn’t talk to me. When your letter came, I—” He paused. “I couldn’t ignore what I needed to do.”

  She dropped her head. “It feels too late, Justus.”

  “No, don’t say that. It’s not too late for forgiveness. Even Jesus forgave while nailed to the cross. Please, Katie. I’m a foolish, unworthy man.”

  A sob rose in her throat, overpowering her. She let it loose. Let the storm that had gathered inside her for over twenty years come forth. Her body fell forward onto the bed as she shook with the emotion he’d unleashed within her.

  And in that small room surrounded by the machines that monitored her father’s vital statistics, Kate cried like she’d never cried…not since the day her father had denied her in front of a crowd of Texas’s most influential. All the frustration, loneliness
and hurt spilled out onto hospital sheets that smelled of bleach.

  She cried until her nose ran and her head throbbed. At some point, she realized her father stroked her head soothingly.

  “Shh, my Katie, shh,” he said, his voice still heavy with the tears he’d cried.

  But Kate couldn’t stop. The emotion flooded her again and again until finally she stilled beneath his hand, exhausted and replete.

  “It’s okay, Katie,” he said, patting her head in an awkward manner. “It’s okay.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him square in the eye. “I forgive you.”

  And as she said the words, she meant them.

  No more hanging on to the hurt of the past. No more hating Ryan because he’d had what she didn’t. No more hating Vera because she’d stolen her mother’s dream. No more hating her mother for being so weak. No more hating Oak Stand. Kate was just plain tired of being so angry about her past. It was time to let it all go.

  Her father’s hand slid to hers and he gave it a squeeze. She watched as his eyes closed and his face grew slack. His breathing rose slow and steady. He looked at peace.

  And he was very much asleep.

  Kate removed her hand from his and wiped her eyes. She turned toward the table for a tissue to mop her face, and that’s when she saw them out of the corner of her eye.

  Rick and Vera stood in the doorway.

  Vera had tears streaming down her face, and the man who’d stood beside her over the past week had suspicious moisture glinting in his own brown eyes.

  No words were said.

  Vera simply held out her arms.

  Kate didn’t think twice. She rose, took three steps and fell into them. Vera wrapped her arms around her and held her, murmuring soothing endearments into her hair as she stroked her back.

  Kate didn’t bother to think about the fact that Vera was mad at her. Or the fact that visiting hours were over and the no-nonsense nurse had her arms crossed and foot tapping.

  She let her father’s wife hold her.

  Because Kate thought that she might have finally found a family.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RICK’S CAR ATE UP THE HIGHWAY as they traveled back to Cottonwood. It was two o’clock in the morning. Kate was utterly exhausted, yet, at the same, tingling from the enormity of what had occurred.

  She stifled a yawn and glanced in the little mirror clipped to the sun visor. Yikes. She barely recognized the person staring back. Her eyes were swollen from the crying, her nose red as Rudolph’s and her hair vaguely resembled a dust mop. Outwardly, Kate was a mess.

  But inside, she was as still as a pond in August.

  It felt good to rid herself of the turbulent emotion that had rocked so steadily inside her for so many years. She looked over at Rick, at the way the light played on the hollows and planes of his face, and her heart moved in her chest.

  And that was a first for her.

  She’d always figured the heart that she’d protected for so long had shrunk until it was a wizened little seed like the ones they’d planted at the center. But now it had awakened and throbbed within her. Aching and tenderly new.

  She didn’t say anything. Just slid her hand beneath the one Rick rested on the gearshift.

  He looked at her.

  The air crackled and the mood changed.

  No sorrow or tears. Only potential.

  “I’ve got to go by the center and check on things. I called the doc and he stayed for a while. Said he was making headway.”

  “Good. That’s good.” She studied his face again. What did he want? Where could they go from here?

  “Do you want to go home with me?” His words were quietly spoken.

  “So I won’t be alone?”

  A smile touched his lips. “Yeah, that, too, I guess.”

  Kate paused. Did she really want this? Her body did, had already reacted to his words, tightening and anticipating. But she didn’t have the luxury of being impulsive with Rick. He was too important to her. “I thought we’d agreed it would be a mistake.”

  He nodded. “I know, but like everything with you, Kate, I can’t fight myself. I can’t let you slip through my fingers and not grab hold of some piece of you. That feeling hasn’t changed.”

  He tore his eyes from the lonely road and looked at her. His dark eyes were almost mystical. “You’ll go back to Vegas, but I want the memory of your skin on my lips. The memory of your smell, the sounds you make when you come, the feel of your hands on my body. I’ll keep those memories.”

  “What if you hate me afterward?”

  Another little smile. “I could never hate someone as incredible as you, Kate.”

  She worried her lip as she turned her head and looked out the window. He’d once said she used sex to gain control. Was she doing that again? Trying to recapture herself after pouring everything out in that hospital room? Reestablishing what she’d always been so that she didn’t have to deal with the woman she’d become? A woman who could forgive and maybe love.

  She wasn’t sure.

  She hadn’t been sure about anything since she’d left Vegas…was it only a little over a week ago? Seemed impossible she’d experienced all she had in the course of such a short time. But there was one thing that was certain, and that, too, hadn’t changed since Vegas. She wanted Rick. Body and soul. And that scared her so badly she didn’t want to think about it.

  “Rick?”

  He tightened his grip on her hand. “Yeah, babe?”

  Could there ever be a future for them? She couldn’t believe she even batted around the thought of commitment. It had been her long-established belief that love was for other people. Not her. Was she contemplating letting herself go there? Long-distance relationships were hard for even the most stable of couples. Stable and Kate were never used in the same sentence. “Never mind.”

  His hand tightened on hers. “Stop overanalyzing. Tonight we won’t think. We’ve done too much of it. No mulling, debating or talking ourselves out of it. Tonight we do. Even if in the light of day, it seems certifiable.”

  “No regrets?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not a selfish boy anymore, remember? This is not about fulfilling a need, this is about being with you.”

  Her heart swelled and contracted. She nodded because tonight was different, almost magical, like destiny was at work again, binding them together.

  His thumb stroked her hand in small circles. This time it did not soothe, it stirred.

  Moments later, they entered the drive to Phoenix. The lights blazed in the house. There was life there now and it made Kate’s heart glad to know the guys within were on the same path she’d walked. Letting go, nourishing their hearts with forgiveness, growing, becoming something they’d never thought possible.

  “Wait here. Won’t take but a moment.”

  So she did. And she didn’t think about anything other than the way Rick would feel against her. His mouth. The inked breadth of his chest. His calloused hands clasping her hips. His eyes as he slid into her.

  By the time he’d jogged back, she’d worked herself up to a fine level of anticipation. Anticipation for hot sex. No thinking. Only doing.

  “Okay, everything’s good.” He slid behind the idling car’s wheel and put the gear into Reverse before he even shut the door. Maybe he’d been thinking the same thoughts she had.

  The short ride to his cottage was silent, each of them soaked in the thought of each other.

  Rick shut off the car and reached for her.

  She was ready and straddled the console to get to him. Her mouth met his as her hands sank into his short hair.

  “Oh, yes,” he breathed against her mouth before sliding his lips down her neck. His hands were just as busy, running up and down her back, cupping her ass before sliding up again.

  With one hand she groped for the door handle. She had to get closer to him, feel him between her thighs, and she couldn’t do that in the position they were in.

  R
ick dragged her over his body and out the door that fell open. He stepped out, breaking neither the hold he had on her ass nor the kiss he’d deepened so that she groaned with need. And then they fell onto the cold grass.

  “Oh!” she said, landing on his body.

  He laughed and rolled her over so he cradled her in his arms. Then he went back to consuming her with his mouth.

  She sighed and ran her hands down the muscles of his back. He felt so damn good. So hot. Her body throbbed, pulsed, even, on the cold, slightly damp ground.

  She didn’t care if her butt grew numb from the cold. Not when one of his warm hands shoved the hem of her shirt upward then followed the path he cleared. All the way up to where her small breast waited beneath the lacy bra. The sweater was Target, but the lingerie was Parisian. And sexy. That’s how she rolled.

  His fingers plucked her nipple before his hand curved round the flesh that barely filled his palm.

  “We’ve—” He groaned as her hand closed over the hardness lurking behind his fly. She stoked him through his jeans, enjoying the nice length straining against the denim. Very nice indeed. He ripped his lips from her collarbone. “We’ve got to get inside. Now.”

  She smiled. “Yes, we do. No free shows for your boys up there.”

  He lifted his head and smiled at her. In one motion, he leaped to his feet and held out a hand.

  Kate took it then, as suddenly, she was in his arms, like Scarlett in Rhett’s as he strode up the grand staircase. Except Kate wasn’t fighting Rick, and she was no spoiled damsel. She was a willing participant, so she wiggled loose and swung her legs so they fell. Then she twisted and encircled his waist with them. “Better,” she whispered against his lips as she rocked her hips so his hardness rubbed right where she needed it.

  “Mmm…” He groaned against her mouth, grasping her hips and helping her with the delicious friction she was creating with her movement. “My keys…”

  He pressed her against the door. The cold window-pane hit her back. She squealed.

  “Sorry,” he said, setting her on her feet. “I don’t know where my keys went.”