by Jodi Thomas
As always, the funeral director seemed to understand. “I’ll take care of the details and let you know.”
As Tyler stood to walk them out, Liz leaned forward in her chair. “Mr. Wright, would it be all right if I talked with my cousin for a few minutes longer? We’d like to use your office.”
“Of course, dear.” He hurried out, probably to go check on his housekeeper.
Tinch stared at Liz, trying to guess what she knew that couldn’t wait. “What did you find out about Sadie Noble?” he asked directly.
She shook her head. “Nothing, but if you want, I could hire someone to tell us what the police report won’t.”
“I’d like that. If the boy is going to stay with me, I’ll need to know as much about his life before as possible. If there is a direct relative claiming him, I want to know he’ll be safe there.”
“The boy got to you.” Liz grinned.
Tinch thought of arguing, but he couldn’t lie. “I just want to know he’ll be taken care of. I don’t think I’d be any good at it, but I want to make sure no one ever hurts him again.” He smiled. “The kid’s something, Liz. He likes to tickle horses under the chin, and then he laughs. Near as I can tell, he’s had shit for a life, being moved around by a mother on drugs who didn’t even make sure he had food all the time, but he still finds such wonder. He’s four years old and he already knows what death is.”
Liz put her hand on Tinch’s arm. “I’ll do everything I can; in the meantime, you’ve got to keep him safe and I have an idea that might help. My husband and his friend who bought Gabe’s old place were specially trained to install security. It might be worth our time to install something that will let you know if anyone uninvited comes on your property.”
They spent a few more minutes talking, and then Tinch followed her out on Lone Oak Road to Denver Sims’s place. Denver and Liz’s husband, Gabe, had been in the army together. They knew security. Within an hour they’d given him a list of everything he could do and packed Tinch’s pickup with tools.
The two men followed Tinch home, and by dark they had a gate put up on the entrance to his property. One step onto his land was wired with sensors that set off a chime that sounded in every room of his house and the barn. If anyone drove onto his land, he’d know it.
When he finally waved them good-bye and walked back into the house, Tinch felt as tired and dirty as if he’d been working all afternoon with the horses.
Addison sat at the dining table working on her laptop, and Jamie played in the living area twenty feet away, with two boxes of dominoes he’d found.
“Thanks for staying with him,” he said as he sat down.
“I didn’t mind. Jamie’s nice company.” She stretched her long legs across one of the other chairs. “We walked around your place and then went through your drawers looking for something for him to play with.”
“Good. Find out all my secrets?”
She raised her pen and tapped her cheek. “Of course. Apparently, I was wrong about you. Completely wrong. You read books about horses, nothing R-rated. Play stock market games all day on your computer and have no tobacco or junk food in your house. Which, by the way, is carrying being good way too far, in my opinion.”
He shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint you. I grew up an only child who lived in order. I used to think it gave me control, but I gave up on believing that a few years ago.”
“If you’re wild, Tinch Turner, one would never know it from your life here.”
He didn’t like talking about himself. “Any chance you found anything for supper, Doc?”
“Jamie didn’t want to eat until you came in. We made sandwiches. I told him we could eat and watch an old John Wayne movie we found under your TV.”
Tinch smiled. “I’ve been looking for that movie. I’ll clear the dominoes off the coffee table if you’ll bring the food in. We’ll have a wild night.”
Halfway across the wide living area, Jamie looked up and noticed Tinch coming from the kitchen. The boy jumped up, spilling dominoes everywhere as he ran to hug his uncle. They both held on tight for a moment. The world might be shifting constantly around them, but they had each other.
When he let go, Tinch said, “You want to help the doc bring in those sandwiches or help me pick up the mess you just made?”
“I’ll help her,” Jamie whispered. “She needs a lot of help in the kitchen.”
Tinch laughed. “Good idea. I’ll meet you in front of the TV.”
Halfway through the movie, Jamie was sound asleep, his head on Addison’s leg and his feet in Tinch’s lap.
“How’d he do this afternoon?” Tinch asked as he muted the TV.
“He cried a few times. Told me not to tell you because you’d think he was a baby.” She stroked the little boy’s hair. “He asked about you every half hour. I think he was afraid you’d go away for good like everyone else in his life.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He lifted Jamie over his shoulder and took him upstairs. If he stayed here, Tinch decided he’d fix up one of the bedrooms down the hall from his room, but for now, if the boy woke up, he wanted to be close. From the few things Addison had said while they ate, he knew she felt the same way.
When he came back down, Addison was curled up on the couch sound asleep. He thought of telling her he could handle this tonight, and she could go on home. Neither of them had slept more than a few hours last night. But Tinch didn’t want to say good-bye to her and he was too tired to think about why.
He took her hand and pulled her slowly to her feet. “Come on, darlin’,” he said. “It’s time to call it a night.”
She mumbled something as he guided her up the stairs. “I laid a shirt out for you to sleep in if you want to get out of those scrubs,” he said, as if having a woman in his bedroom were a normal night. “The bathroom is that way.”
When she came out of the bath, Tinch lay on one side of the king-size bed. Jamie was curled up in the middle. He watched through slits as she slowly lifted the covers and slipped into the other side.
He planned to stay awake and listen to her breathing, but he fell asleep within seconds, too tired to even think about how good the doc looked wearing nothing but an old flannel western shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the first few snaps left undone.
Chapter 21
SATURDAY
OCTOBER 1
BEAU BEGAN SKIPPING HIS CLASSES TO WRITE SONGS DURING the day, and then he’d meet Willow, no matter how late, after she got off work. They didn’t talk as much as he figured most couples did. They just drove out to some isolated spot and made out. They went about as far as a couple can go and not have sex. Willow was willing, but all those sermons his father had pounded into him for years kept Beau from going all the way.
That, and the fear that she might get pregnant and he’d be tied to someone forever. He liked Willow, but they’d pretty much run out of anything to talk about by the third date, and he couldn’t see not talking to someone sleeping next to him for the rest of his life. Once he asked Willow what she thought would happen if she did get pregnant, and she said it wouldn’t matter. Beau didn’t know much, but he knew it would matter.
Some nights he thought he’d lose his mind. He was so close to losing control. He wrote a song about standing on the edge, wanting to fall. Border thought it was about suicide and started watching Beau like a warden. Willow was the only one who knew what the song was about, but she told him she didn’t like the idea of him writing something about their personal lives. She said her mother said it sounded a lot like bragging to everyone about what they’d done.
That night they didn’t park out in the dark or talk. He just drove her home.
Beau spent the next two days working on a song about the deafening sound of silence and how sometimes a man feels alone even when he’s holding someone’s hand. When he picked her up on her day off, they drove to the duplex and he played both songs, then tried not to act disappointed that she didn’t want to hear them again.
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They kissed awhile on the couch at the Biggs brothers’ duplex and got about as naked as a couple can get and still be ready to look dressed by the time someone unlocked the door. When he drove her home, she wanted to continue the heavy breathing session, but for once Beau needed to talk.
After he asked a few times, Willow finally said she didn’t like either of the new songs. She suggested he write about something else, like the weather, or prison, or train rides. He told her he couldn’t.
The next night when he drove out to pick her up, she’d already left.
Beau felt like they’d broken up and somehow he’d missed the fight. He sat in the truck stop parking lot and wrote words on scraps of paper about being too dumb to date and how it was hard to break a never-was.
The next Wednesday night he went along with the Biggs boys to the old bed-and-breakfast where their grandmother worked. She always cooked for them on Wednesdays when there were no guests staying at the Winter’s Inn. Beau went along for the meal and because Border thought it might cheer him up.
He loved Mrs. Biggs’s cooking, but like everyone he just tolerated the old lady who owned the place. Martha Q Patterson was one of those people who seemed to have lived several lifetimes in her almost sixty years. No matter what anyone talked about, she had an experience to tell. She also had the habit of one-upping every story. If someone said he broke his leg, Martha Q had had her leg fall off. If someone said she’d fallen in love with a guy from France, Martha Q would relate how she once had an affair with twins from France who didn’t speak a word of English. She thought of herself as the star in this life and all others were simply bit players.
So when Beau found himself sitting alone with her in the parlor, he decided to ask for advice. Why not? He couldn’t feel much more depressed about breaking up with Willow or missing the fight they should have had to end it. Plus, he figured, listening to Martha Q ramble along about what all he did wrong would somehow serve as penance. He figured it had to be some kind of sin to touch a girl like he touched Willow, even if she was doing her share of the touching.
He sat on the edge of his chair, waiting for her to build her nest with pillows. The room was a mixture of cowboy western and Victorian. If Queen Victoria married John Wayne, they’d probably hire Martha Q to decorate.
“So.” Martha Q folded her hands over her middle roll of fat. “I heard you broke up with this girl you finally got to go out with you.”
“Looks that way, but we didn’t say any words or yell at each other. She just wasn’t there when I went to pick her up, and the next night when I dropped by on break she said she didn’t have time to visit because they were shorthanded.”
Martha Q raised one eyebrow. “Was the place busy?”
“No.” He didn’t want to admit that he’d sat out front and counted all eight people in the truck stop even though only three were sitting in the café.
“Then she was saying good-bye to you,” Martha Q said matter-of-factly. “Might have been that hair of yours. Double too long, if you ask me.”
“But shouldn’t she have at least said something like ‘I don’t want to see you again’ or ‘Drop dead, loser’?” He pushed his hair out of his face. “And I don’t think it was the hair, Miss Q.”
She’d told him a dozen times not to call her Miss Q. First, she’d been married seven times, so she didn’t qualify to be “miss,” and Q was not her last name or middle initial. It just followed along after Martha.
Martha Q frowned and ignored his last comment. “It’s been my experience that in this life you don’t always get a good-bye kiss, and some folks don’t want to stay around for the autopsy for who killed the relationship. Others, unfortunately, want to beat any feelings between the two of you to death so that you can’t remember the good times without feeling the pain of the breakup. I’ve tended to get involved with the second type myself, and I can tell you I’d prefer your girl’s choice.”
“So you’re saying I got off easy.”
“That’s about it.”
“But I don’t even know what I did wrong.”
“Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong, Beau. Sometimes it’s more a matter of not doing anything right. Tell me, what did you like about this girl?”
Beau smiled. “I liked the way she kissed.” He thought of adding how he loved the way she felt and smelled. He liked the way she kind of giggled when he touched her breasts. She had nice breasts, not big, but nice. They sure had felt good in his hands.
“What was her favorite color?” Martha Q interrupted his R-rated thoughts.
He shrugged. He’d never thought to ask.
“Her favorite TV show?” Martha Q shot questions. “Her favorite movie? What class did she hate in high school? When she was little, what doll did she collect? What would she be if she could be anything? Where would she live if she had the world to pick from?” When he didn’t answer, she added, “What kind of underwear did she wear?”
When he opened his mouth to answer, Martha Q held up her hand. “I’ve figured it out. Boy, you didn’t love this girl or probably wouldn’t even like her, I suspect, if you spent a few hours talking to her. But you do love women, and I fear you’ll break many hearts because there are a great many women out there who can’t tell the difference between a man loving them and a man who just loves women. I suspect you’ll write your share of sad songs too.”
Beau put his head in his hands. The old bag was right. He liked Willow but probably for the wrong reason. Maybe she liked him for the wrong reason as well. She seemed to just want a boyfriend, and he happened to be the one who came along.
“What do I do?” he asked.
“About what?” Martha Q snorted. “About being a man and looking at women just because they’re women? Well, I’m not a doctor, but I’d say your illness is terminal.”
“Thanks a lot.”
She laughed. “All right, I’ll tell you what you got to do, but you have to promise to do it. I don’t like giving advice that’s not used.”
He wasn’t sure if she really had the answer or if she just saw her chance to get even with the entire male population by picking on him.
“Next time you meet a girl, look at her eyes. Don’t walk away without knowing her eye color, and don’t look down once you start talking to her.”
“All right.”
“Second, if you get lucky enough to have another female come up to you, you’ve got to spend at least five hours talking to her and listening to her before you touch her. That means no hand holding or kissing, or anything else. Five solid hours of talking to any girl. If she says one thing that bugs you in that time, walk away. No, run. If she does anything that bothers you, run. I’ve got enough experience to know that it’s those little things people overlook the first hundred times that will drive you crazy when you marry someone.”
Beau remembered the hiccupping girl and decided old Martha Q might have something. He hadn’t been with them thirty minutes, and both of those girls would have led him to murder within a few hours. When he’d climbed into the backseat of their car after he finished playing, the one now hiccupping grabbed him and started kissing him. If the truck stop had been a few more miles away, she would have had his clothes off before they had time to order breakfast. At that moment he thought she was pretty near perfect. Ten minutes later in the café, he couldn’t wait to get out of there.
“Thanks,” he said, and meant it.
She leaned closer. “If you really want to make it as a singer, boy, you got to concentrate on that goal. Women can get you mixed up and lost faster than you think it’s possible. I know, I’ve been the mixer for many a goal-seeking man.”
He smiled. “You sound like my dad.”
Martha Q laughed. “Well hell, I ain’t never been compared to a preacher.”
She stood and walked to a cabinet. Pulling a pair of scissors out, she cut one long strand of rawhide on a pillow that said Happy Trails. “Tie that hair back, boy, and buy you a black hat. There’
s got to be more to you than the music.”
Beau tied his hair back and smiled as Border called for them to come in to dinner. He didn’t talk to Martha Q any more that night, but he thought about what she said. Five hours of talk seemed like a long time when girls anywhere near his age made him nervous. Half the time he couldn’t stop the stuttering when he first met them, so he’d better look for one who really loved to talk if he planned to ever get kissed again.
Martha Q had been the first female in a long time who hadn’t made him fall over his words. Maybe he should just date old bags. The thought made him shake his head to rattle that idea out.
Saturday night he stepped into the cage with his hair pulled back and wearing a black Stetson that he’d found at the secondhand store. Halfway through the second set, Border took a break and Beau picked up his old Gibson and began to play one of the sad songs he’d written. Everyone was already moving off the dance floor, planning to grab a drink between sets. Without the speakers, his song would be little more than background music, but Beau needed to play even if no one listened.
As the song ended, he looked up. No one was dancing. No one was even talking at the tables. Everyone in the place, including Harley behind the bar, was staring at him.
For a moment, Beau thought he must have broken some huge rule of what to play in bars, and then a roar went up. Folks were clapping and yelling and laughing.
“What’s wrong?” Beau looked at his friend just behind him.
Border smiled. “I’m not sure, partner, but I think they just witnessed the birth of a star.”
Beau grinned and touched two fingers to his hat in thanks. “Maybe Martha Q was right about the hat,” he whispered.
Chapter 22
SUNDAY
OCTOBER 2
TYLER WRIGHT SAID GOOD NIGHT TO AUTUMN AND CLIMBED the stairs to his quarters above the funeral home. He could hear the wind whipping around the buildings downtown like an angry teenager stirring up trouble. Tomorrow there would be leaves and trash to clean up as well as branches, but tonight all he wanted to do was be alone. His Kate had been gone two weeks and he hadn’t heard a word from her.
