The door bangs open, and Cal steps out. The ceremony halts. Half the crowd watches as he climbs the hill to Anne’s grave site, whispering about who he is and how he might have been the one who killed Anne.
He pushes his way through the crowd. His eyes are bloodshot, from either crying or drinking—or both.
When he gets close, Cal bumps into Patty carelessly. She almost falls, but Sara Beth catches her arm and steadies her.
“Sorry, Patty,” Cal grunts insincerely.
I’ve had enough. I step over to Cal and lean in close to him, inhaling the stink of his body odor and the alcohol on his breath.
“You’re not welcome here,” I say. “Why don’t you leave?”
Patty places a calming hand on my chest.
“It’s okay,” she says. “It was an accident.”
Cal glares at me.
“I’m not welcome here?” Cal says, making no effort to keep his voice discreet. “What about you, Rory Yates? You’re her ex-husband. What right do you have?”
His words are slurred. I look him up and down with contempt.
“Anne said you’d cleaned up your act, but this is the Cal Richards I’ve always remembered. Drunk. Stupid.” I lock eyes with him. “Worthless.”
A mortified silence has come over the crowd. Both Patty and Sara Beth try to wedge themselves between us, but neither Cal nor I back down.
“Fucking Rory Yates,” Cal spits, saying the words as if they have a bad taste. “High school football star. Texas Ranger. You think you’re so hot your shit don’t stink, but I’ll tell you something: Anne loved me more than she ever loved you.”
The dam that was holding back my emotions explodes in a flood of anger and sadness. I elbow Patty out of the way and grab Cal, shoving him back into the crowd.
Cal pushes back, and I raise my arm to drive my clenched fist into his face.
Chapter 17
DEANDRE PURVIS GRABS my arm and stops me from bringing my fist forward. I twist out of the detective’s grip, but Purvis’s interference distracts me long enough for Cal to gain his footing. He shoves me, and I begin to lose my balance. He doesn’t let go, and the two of us stagger toward the grave, pushing and pulling. We collide with Patty, who falls on her butt. Sara Beth tries to catch her and goes down on one knee. Surprised gasps come from the onlookers.
I fall backward onto the mound of dirt and pull Cal with me by his suit jacket. The fabric tears loudly.
Arms come in from everywhere to try to pull us apart. Jake jumps into the fray and tries to punch Cal, but the pastor, of all people, grabs him and restrains him.
Purvis wraps his arms around Cal’s waist and pulls him away. I scramble to go after them, but a gang of off-duty police officers swarm me. Purvis puts Cal into a rear wristlock and drags him away as Cal gasps in pain. One of the officers tries the same thing with me, but I know the move better than he does and spin out of it.
“Keep your fucking hands off me!” I roar, backing away.
The officers follow me as I walk over to a patch of grass. I pace back and forth, and the officers stand in front of me as a barricade.
I hear a new scuffle breaking out, and I look over to see Jake wrestling the newspaper editor’s camera out of his hands. Jake tosses the camera on the ground and stomps on it before the smaller man flops to his knees and claws for it.
Two officers peel off from the group in front of me to stop Jake, but Chris, always the judicious one, has taken Jake by the arm and is walking him away, trying to calm him down.
All of the mourners are in shock. Several who were knocked to the ground are being helped to their feet.
On the other side of the group, Purvis is talking to Cal, who is practically shouting at the detective.
With my anger still simmering, I point toward Cal and tell the cops in front of me, “That motherfucker should be in jail for Anne’s murder, not at her funeral.”
One of the officers, a guy who was a few years behind me at school, says, “Rory, Cal would never hurt Anne. He really loved her.”
“Bullshit.”
“He made some mistakes when he was younger, but he’s changed. He isn’t capable of murder.”
I do the math and realize that this officer—I can’t remember his name—was probably in the same class as Cal.
“You’re just biased because you two are old friends,” I say.
“No,” the officer says, losing his cool, “you’re biased because he was fucking your ex-wife.”
My anger boils over again, and I grab the cop by the lapel.
“Listen here, you—”
From out of nowhere, Sara Beth is in front of me, gently but firmly pushing me back.
“I’m going to arrest you,” the cop shouts. “I don’t give a damn if you are a Texas Ranger.”
“Easy, boys,” Sara Beth says, her voice relaxed. “Everyone just calm down and take a breath.”
Her tone has the desired effect. The cop, who’s been reaching for his handcuffs, has frozen and seems to be reconsidering.
“Rory, why don’t you come with me?” Sara Beth says, using a tone like she would with high school boys brawling in the hallway. “We’ll get out of here so these nice folks can mourn in peace.” She addresses the cop. “There’s no need to make an arrest. This man is grieving, and I’m sure y’all have some idea of what he’s going through. No one got hurt.”
She doesn’t wait for a response. She takes me by the arm and turns me back toward the cars.
Up ahead, Purvis is loading Cal into the back of his sedan.
“About time they arrested that piece of shit,” I say.
Chapter 18
I FLOP DOWN onto the couch in Sara Beth’s apartment and throw my head back in exhaustion.
“You look like you could use a beer,” Sara Beth says.
“I feel like I could use three,” I say.
She brings two bottles of Coors Light, one for her and one for me. I take a few long gulps and then set the bottle on a coaster on the coffee table.
Sara Beth sits next to me and opens her mouth to speak, but her phone starts buzzing inside her purse. She sets her beer down, looks at the number, and then turns the phone off.
She turns back to me and says, “So how are you doing with all this, Rory?”
I don’t want to talk about the disaster at the cemetery.
Or Anne’s murder.
Or the shooting that sent me to McAllen.
Or my father’s cancer.
I just want to escape all of those thoughts—escape from the pressure cooker I’ve been living in. So I turn the conversation to her. “Let’s not talk about me. Tell me about your life now.”
She says she’s doing well. She loves teaching at the school. They’ve got her coaching the volleyball team, and she tutors a few athletes from the football and baseball teams on the side. She likes helping the kids who could get scholarships if their grades were half as impressive as their sports stats.
She looks happy as she talks, and I’m struck by how pretty she is. Her caramel-streaked hair is pulled back, and her olive skin is tanned and luminous. She has a few wrinkles around her eyes that weren’t there when we were kids, but I think she’s actually much prettier. She was a cute girl with an infectious enthusiasm, but she’s grown into a beautiful, composed adult. She looks like she has her life together, a fact that impresses me considering my life is in such disarray.
“How long has it been since we’ve seen each other?” I say.
We discuss the handful of times we ran into each other when she was in town visiting her parents, but we realize that we haven’t hung out since I dumped her our senior year.
“When you broke up with me right before prom,” Sara Beth says, “that was probably the last time we really spent any time together.”
She says the words with a playful, fake acrimony, although I suspect that beneath the act, there probably is some lingering hurt.
Suddenly, I feel an ache in the pit of my stomac
h.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her earnestly. “I wish I’d never upset you, but the truth is, I fell for the love of my life.”
Sara Beth shrugs off the memory. “It’s okay. If I were you, I would have dumped me for Anne, too.”
After high school, Sara Beth went away to the University of Texas and then stayed in Austin for years afterward. At the same time, Anne and I went to Baylor in nearby Waco. I got a job as a highway patrolman in our hometown and eventually moved to the Ranger Division’s Waco office, and Anne went to work at our old high school. I lost touch with Sara Beth completely.
After my divorce, I heard she was back in town. I thought about calling her up to try to renew our friendship, but a part of me was afraid Sara Beth’s candle still burned for me.
So I never called. And then soon enough, I was seeing Patty.
“You know,” Sara Beth says, “Anne, Patty, and I used to joke about how we were all your exes.”
“Oh, the things you must have talked about when you were out for drinks.”
Sara Beth laughs. “Actually,” she says, “none of us ever had many bad things to say. We all still thought the world of you. We wanted you to find a good woman who could make you happy.”
“I found three good women,” I say, “and I managed to screw up every one of those relationships.”
Sara Beth smirks slightly. “I’d say Anne is the one who screwed up the marriage.”
“It takes two,” I say. “I did my part.”
We’re quiet for a moment.
Then Sara Beth asks, “Did you ever find out who she had been cheating on you with?”
Chapter 19
I EXPLAIN TO Sara Beth that I was angry about the adultery for years but recently came to understand that it was mostly my fault. My wife was at home, hoping to have a life with me, while I was working long hours for the Texas Rangers. I’d be gone late into the night or wouldn’t come home for days—always on the hunt for different criminals. And when I was home, I was sullen, distracted, angry. How do you go to Home Depot to pick out curtain patterns when all you can think about is the serial murderer you are trying to find?
Anne was my wife, but I was truly married to my job.
I practically pushed her to find romance from another source.
“Did you ever tell her you blamed yourself?” Sara Beth asks.
“I did. We had a good talk about it. Tears and hugs and forgiveness. That’s how we became friends again.”
“Did you ever think about getting back together again?”
“I did,” I say.
“But not her?”
I shake my head. “She was with Cal at that point.”
Despite not wanting to talk about Anne or Cal, I had somehow brought the conversation back to them.
“I need to get out of these shoes,” Sara Beth says. “Hang on.”
She disappears, and I glance around her living room. She has nice things. There’s nothing fancy, but I can tell she takes care of what she can afford. I spy an old wooden guitar leaning in the corner. A decoration, I assume. I’ve never known Sara Beth to play.
I find a pick wedged under the strings. I strum the guitar a few times.
“You missed your calling,” Sara Beth says from her bedroom.
I laugh. I was never cut out for playing guitar or singing.
I set the guitar back and stop in place when I see Sara Beth walking back into the room. She has changed into a long UT sweatshirt that hangs halfway to her knees. Her legs are bare and look muscular and tanned, just like I remember. Her hair is down now, dark and luxurious, like milk chocolate cascading over her shoulders.
“I’ve got a good idea,” Sara Beth says, and she holds up a bottle of tequila.
“That’s a terrible idea,” I say, but I grin at her.
She brings out two shot glasses and two more beers for chasers, and we sit next to each other on the couch.
“To Anne,” Sara Beth says.
“To Anne.”
The tequila burns, and I slurp down a mouthful of beer to cool the fire in my throat.
Sara Beth pours two more shots.
“I don’t know about this,” I say.
My eyes fall to her barely covered legs.
“Oh, come on,” she says. “One more shot. And then I’ll make you some dinner and we can sober up.”
Beneath her sweatshirt, she must not be wearing a bra because I can see the faint outline of her nipples. I wonder if she isn’t wearing any underwear.
This is a bad idea, I think. This is a bad, bad idea.
I open my mouth to speak but hesitate, not knowing what to say.
Then there is a knock on the front door—and it’s loud, agitated.
Chapter 20
“OH, DAMN,” SARA Beth says, and she sets down her shot glass and heads for the door.
I can see the front door from where I’m sitting on the couch. A high school kid is there—a football player, by the looks of him.
“Jim,” Sara Beth says. “I forgot we were meeting.”
Apparently, she’s scheduled to tutor the boy this evening. She apologizes, and they try to figure out a date to reschedule. He has a test coming up in history, and from what I can gather, he’s desperate for Sara Beth’s help.
I lean back in the couch and grip the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger.
What a day.
What a week.
What a…
How far back can I go and still use that expression? I could go back to the shooting with Wyatt Guthrie, but the truth is, life hasn’t felt normal since the divorce. It has progressively gotten worse, and the past few days have certainly been the rotten cherry on top of a spoiled sundae.
Fuck it, I think, and I lean forward and grab the shot glass.
I throw it back and hiss as the liquid burns my throat and turns to lava inside my body.
“Rory,” Sara Beth calls, “I want you to meet someone.”
I rise, feeling self-conscious about the way I must look. I’m wearing a suit, but it’s wrinkled and dirty from my brawl with Cal. Sara Beth and I must make a pair: me in my suit and her in her makeshift nightgown.
“Rory, this is Jim Howard. He’s the quarterback at the high school.” She tells Jim that I was the QB back when we were in high school.
“A long, long time ago,” I add, extending my hand.
“Nice to meet you, sir,” Jim says, his voice full of respect. “You’re a Texas Ranger now, aren’t you?”
“That’s the rumor,” I say.
“Jim has a real shot at a good scholarship,” Sara Beth says. “And maybe even the pros one day. But you’ve got to keep your grades up, don’t you, Jim?”
She nudges his arm. He looks a little embarrassed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then the Tigers are in much better hands than when I was slinging the football,” I say, trying to be polite. I’m anxious for the conversation to end.
A few seconds is all I need to tell that the kid has a huge crush on Sara Beth. The boy—who is handsome despite a peppering of acne—looks a little flustered seeing Sara Beth like this, with nothing on but a sweatshirt that leaves her lithe legs exposed.
When I was in high school, none of the teachers looked anything like Sara Beth. I can easily imagine the kinds of things the boys talk about in the locker room. Jim probably got a good ribbing by the other kids for being tutored, and I suspect the boy isn’t half as dumb as he pretends to be. The worse he does in school, the more time he gets to spend sitting next to his teacher, smelling her perfume and tingling inside when she puts an encouraging hand on his shoulder.
I imagine the boys probably had similar thoughts about Anne.
As if the kid can read my mind, Jim says, “I’m real sorry about Miss Yates. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral today.”
“Thanks for saying that,” I tell him. “It was nice to meet you.”
I head into the kitchen to get another beer. When
I return, the boy is gone.
“Where were we?” Sara Beth says. “Oh yeah: shots and then dinner.” She picks up her glass and notices mine is empty. “Want another?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“You okay?” she says.
“No,” I say, flopping back onto the couch. “I’m not.”
She sits down next to me, and her sweatshirt rides up her thigh. She puts a comforting hand on my wrist. “Talk to me.” She smells like citrus body lotion.
“My life is a mess,” I say, “and I’m so incredibly sad about Anne.”
Sara Beth tells me to relax, then she shifts on the couch so she’s facing me. She loosens my tie and undoes the top button of my shirt.
“We need to take your mind off your troubles,” she says.
“Maybe I should just get drunk,” I hear myself say.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Sara Beth says, and she leans in to kiss me.
I hesitate for a second, warning bells sounding in my brain. The alarm doesn’t say I shouldn’t do this—just that I should proceed with caution. But Sara Beth’s mouth feels so soft and warm against mine that I mute the alarm and kiss her back. I need something to take my mind off Anne, my father, the mess that is my life.
I need an escape.
Sara Beth throws her leg over me and straddles my body. I wrap my tongue around hers. She starts undoing the buttons of my shirt. I put my hands on her smooth legs and run my fingers up her thighs. I wondered earlier if she was wearing any underwear. I slide my hands underneath her sweatshirt and find out that she’s not.
Chapter 21
I WAKE TO the sound of running water. I lift my head off the pillow. The bathroom door is open, and I can see Sara Beth in the shower, her body blurred through the pebbled glass door. The sun is shining brightly through the window.
I roll over and swing my bare feet to the floor. My head pounds. My mouth feels like sandpaper and tastes like I’ve been gargling hydrochloric acid.
Texas Ranger Page 5
