A Texas Family

by Linda Warren

  “I’d like for us to look for new evidence like you mentioned.”

  “Us?” He motioned from her to him with the pencil.

  “Yes. I’m Blake’s personal assistant, and I’m very familiar with these sorts of files and court documents. I can help you go through all the files, and maybe we can catch something that no one else has.”

  “Don’t you think you’re grasping at straws?” He had to point that out.

  “You didn’t think so yesterday.”

  “Yesterday I hadn’t talked to my father. You have to remember that Asa is my father.”

  “I realize that, but he committed a crime. And you are the law here in Willow Creek.”

  His stomach churned with uneasiness. The line between family and loyalty and his job was clearly blurred. Yesterday digging through the files was a good idea because he’d been looking for answers. Then he got the answers he didn’t want to hear. Now he was torn in two ways. Suddenly, she did something unexpected.

  “Carson, please, help me.”

  The entreaty in her voice and the way his name sounded on her lips, soft and seductive, hijacked his senses and sent his thoughts spinning. He hadn’t expected that. And for a moment he was at a loss for words.

  “It’s Jared’s child, too,” she added forlornly. “Doesn’t that mean something to you?”

  “Yes.” Jared had created a baby with her, and they’d planned a life together. For that reason he was still talking to her. “But it’s also about my family, my father. I know he’s guilty, and there’s no way around that, but my kids adore their grandfather, and I don’t know how I’ll explain all this to them. I really think it’s best if I don’t get involved.”

  She stared down at her hands, and he felt that twist in his heart again. But what else could he do?

  She raised her eyes to his, and, for a moment, he was lost in those dark depths. “I have this need to see my child’s face. Each year it grows stronger and stronger. I want to know if he or she is happy and with a loving family. I have to know or I’ll never have any peace.”

  “I—”

  “I’ll make a deal with you.” She stopped him. “If you help me find my child, I will not file charges against your father. Years ago I would have loved nothing better than to hurt him severely, but now, as I said, I just want some peace.”

  “Jena... May I call you that now?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry I was testy about that yesterday.”

  “Well, this is an emotional situation.” He ran his hands over his face, telling himself it was best to stay out of this mess. But his heart wasn’t listening. “Okay,” he found himself saying. “I’ll give it my best shot, but we have to set some ground rules. First, I’m in charge, and you will follow my instructions to the letter.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll be responsible for everything we do.”

  “Okay, I get that.”

  “Good. And we will be civil to each other and respect each other’s feelings.”

  “Okay.”

  “And when I say it’s a dead end, we quit.”

  She lifted her chin with renewed determination. “I don’t know if I can agree to that.”

  He stared at the stubborn glint in her eyes, knowing how hard this was for her, and it surprised him that he sensed her feelings so well. “You have to accept we may not find anything.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ll never be able to do that.”

  He admired her honesty. “As they say, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

  Scooting forward in her chair, she asked, “Can we start now?”

  The file box was still on the floor. He reached down and pulled out the file on the case. As he slid it across the desk, she moved her chair forward. For the next thirty minutes they read through the papers several times and nothing jumped out at them.

  At the oddest times he found himself watching the way her hair gently fell forward across her face. Almost unconsciously she’d tuck it behind her ears. It was a graceful motion that seemed to hypnotize him. Or maybe he just hadn’t been around a woman in a very long time.

  She sat back in the chair. “That doesn’t tell us anything, other than facts we’re very familiar with.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do we do now?”

  He closed the file and put it back in the box. “Let’s pay Minnie a visit. I didn’t press her yesterday, but I have a feeling she knows a lot more than she’s saying.” He got to his feet. “Are you up for that?”

  “Sure. I have to call my sister to tell her I won’t be at the house. We try to keep a close eye on our mom.”

  He reached for his hat and settled it on his head. Had he made the right decision? Whether he had or not didn’t seem to matter. It just seemed important to help her. He had a feeling there were very few people in this world who had ever helped her. Except Jared. And maybe the lawyer. He wondered about their relationship...but that was none of his business.

  His main objective was to keep his father from being arrested. Yet he could feel Jena pulling him into her life, her problems, and he didn’t seem to mind. He liked her. Whatever the next few days held, he hoped he still liked her at the end.

  * * *

  JENA WAS ALMOST giddy with excitement. Carson had agreed to help her. Last night she was so hurt, so alone, and everything seemed lost. So many times she tried to call Blake, but in her heart she knew that wasn’t what she wanted to do. Too many people had been hurt already, and she couldn’t run the risk of putting Hilary in a bad situation. Sometime during the night Carson’s words had come back to her, and it seemed feasible they could work this out in a non-confrontational manner.

  As they walked out of the office she felt much better. She had hope. And she was putting a lot of trust in Carson Corbett.

  “We might as well go in my vehicle,” Carson said. “There’s no need to take two cars.”

  She got in on the passenger side of his car and caught a delicious scent. Chocolate. He had chocolate in his car. She found that whimsical for a man.

  Attached to the dashboard was a police radio. A coffee cup rested in the console along with bows, ribbons, hair clips and ponytail bands—little-girl stuff.

  Carson slid into the driver’s seat, and suddenly the car was way too small, too intimate in a way she couldn’t explain. Or maybe she could. She just didn’t want to.

  “You like chocolate?” she asked to get her mind on something else.

  “Why?” He turned onto the highway that ran through Willow Creek.

  “I can smell it.”

  A smile touched the firm line of his lips, and her stomach flip-flopped for no reason. “I keep it for my kids. It’s a treat for them after school. I’m more of a peanut-salty-taste type guy.”

  She could have guessed that one. He was a man’s man all the way. She fiddled with a ponytail band from the console.

  “That’s my daughter’s. We have this fight every morning about her hair. She’s four years old and has all these ideas about how she should look. Her friend Chloe has a mother who does her hair into a French braid and does fancy curls with a curling iron. I told Claire her daddy doesn’t do curling irons and my fingers just will not do a French braid. When she gets older, she can do her hair any way she wants, but as long as Daddy’s in charge, it’s a ponytail. I’ve got the ponytail mastered.”

  She could hear the love in his voice, and she knew he was a good father. “I saw a gadget advertised on TV that makes French-braiding hair easy. You might look it up.”

  “Oh, please, we spend entirely too much time on Claire’s hair the way it is. Now, Trey, he’s easy. Sometimes I have to remind him to comb his hair.”

  “I remember when Beth was pregnant with Trey,” she said before she could stop herself. He didn�
�t seem to mind the reference to his late wife, though.

  “I was here for the birth and in the delivery room. I was the first person to hold him. It’s a moment a parent never forgets.”

  Her throat clogged with tears, and he must’ve sensed her distress. “I’m sorry. That was callous.”

  “It’s okay. It hurts, though, that I will never get that moment back. It hurts that it was stolen from me for no reason other than revenge.”

  Silence ensued and she was fine with that. She’d rather not talk anymore. He crossed the railroad tracks and turned down a dirt road that led back into the hills where the Voltree family lived.

  As they crossed the cattle guard, he asked, “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “I’m more than ready.” But she braced herself for the encounter with Minnie.

  Chickens scurried to get out of the way, and an old hound dog barked at them. The mobile home was old and showed its age with rusted spots and rotted wood, similar to the Brookses’ property—unkempt.

  They got out and she followed him up the steps to the front door. He knocked but no one answered.

  “Let’s check around back,” Carson suggested.

  They walked around the trailer, and the hound dog sniffed at their feet. Minnie and her husband, Bilford, were on a makeshift patio, sorting through fresh vegetables from the large garden that took up the rest of their property. They had a vegetable-and-fruit stand on the outskirts of town. For as long as she could remember, that was how they made a living.

  Minnie carried a crate of tomatoes to the bed of a truck that was backed up to the patio. When she turned, she saw them. Nervously, she wiped her hands on her apron.

  “Constable,” she acknowledged.

  At the sound of her voice, Bilford swung around and hurried over to shake Carson’s hand. “Whatcha doing out this way?”

  “We’ve come to talk to Minnie.”

  Bilford squinted at Jena. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Jena Brooks.”

  “You don’t say. My, you’ve turned into a pretty little thing.”

  She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she didn’t. He didn’t mean anything offensive. It was just the way he talked.

  Carson stepped forward. “Minnie, I have more questions.”

  Minnie walked beneath the roof of the patio, which was basically sheets of tin nailed onto two-by-fours. “I told you I don’t know nothing.”

  “Before you tell me a pack of lies, I talked to my father and he admitted to everything.”

  Her eyes grew big and wild. “Now, Constable.”

  “What’s this about?” Bilford wanted to know.

  Carson turned to him. “Minnie delivered Jena’s baby.”

  “What?” The man looked from Minnie to Carson. “She left town to have the baby. Everybody knows that.”

  “No, I did not leave town to have the baby.” Jena couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Roland and Curly kidnapped me and took me to the Bar C ranch, where Minnie was waiting. She gave me something to induce labor, and then she took my child from me.”

  “I did not!”

  “This is crazy,” Bilford said.

  “It’s not crazy,” Carson told him. “It happened. We just want to know what Minnie did with the child.” He looked directly at Minnie. “I’d advise you to cooperate.”

  “Okay. I delivered it.” Minnie sank into a folding lawn chair. “That’s all I did.”

  “Why would you do that?” Carson asked.

  “Asa holds the note on this property, and he said if I helped him, he would deed it over to us. We barely make ends meet, and he was only asking for me to deliver a baby. I’ve done that all my life. I didn’t see the harm until it was too late.”

  Carson shook his head. “Did Asa deed you the land?”

  “Yes,” Minnie replied.

  Carson motioned to the older man. “Sit down, Bilford. If Pa deeded you this land, you knew exactly what your wife was doing. Don’t give me any more I-didn’t-know-what’s-happening crap.”

  Bilford sank into the other folding chair. “I told ya this was going to bite us in the ass someday.”

  Carson placed his hands on his hips. “I want the whole story, Minnie.”

  She smoothed her apron with a shaky hand. “Roland and Curly brought her to the basement, and I gave her something to induce labor. Everything should’ve gone smoothly, but the baby was breech and things got difficult. I eventually turned the baby and...”

  “What was it?” Jena could barely get the words out.

  Minnie shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t lie, Minnie,” Carson said. “What was the baby? Girl or boy?”

  “I told you I don’t know. There was so much blood. It was everywhere, on the baby, the bed, everywhere. As soon as the baby came out, Asa pushed me away and wrapped the baby in a big towel. He barely gave me time to cut the cord. With the baby in the towel I didn’t get to look at it really good.”

  “You don’t expect us to believe that, do you?” Carson asked.

  “It’s the truth,” Minnie cried. “Asa took that baby covered in mucus, blood and fluids before I could do anything.”

  It seemed as if they were talking about another person, not her. But suddenly that night hit her full force. She could see the blood drip, dripping onto the floor, feel the excruciating pain, hear her cries going unheard and sense the loneliness of that room where there were no friends—just enemies.

  “If you’re lying,” Carson was saying, “I’ll make sure you do some jail time.”

  “Tell them everything you know,” Bilford urged.

  “I have.”

  “What happened after the baby was born?” Carson asked.

  “I took care of Jena.”

  “Took care of me?” Jena’s patience snapped with a vengeance. “There was blood because you botched the delivery. You botched it so bad I bled for days. I eventually had to have surgery to stop the bleeding, but I still had problems years later. Six months ago I had to have a partial hysterectomy. Do you know what that means, Minnie?”

  Minnie looked down at her hands, unresponsive.

  “I will never be able to have children. You took the only child I will ever have and gave it to a madman. And your ineptitude scarred me for life. I don’t understand how you could do something like that to another woman—to a teenage girl.”

  “I’m sorry.” Minnie hung her head.

  “Sorry doesn’t change anything. I’m begging you to tell us everything you know.”

  “I did.”

  Jena curled her hands into fists, wanting to hurt the woman, wanting her to feel some of the pain that Jena had endured. But that would accomplish nothing.

  “What did Asa say to you when he took the baby?” Carson continued with the questions.

  “He was talking crazy. Saying she would never pass the kid off as a Corbett. She’d taken his son, but she would not take his name. It made no sense to me.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Asa went upstairs, and Roland and Curly followed him. I cleaned up and tried to make Jena comfortable.”

  “After that?”

  “I just wanted to get out of there. Roland and Curly came for Jena and I left.”

  “You left me with those two goons!” Jena shouted. “You had no idea what they were going to do to me. How could you just leave?”

  “Honey, I had to get out of there.”

  Jena’s vision blurred with anger. “You let two of the meanest men in Willow Creek manhandle me. That angers me so much I could pull your long gray hair out by the roots and strangle you with it.”

  “That’s uncalled for.” Bilford got to his feet.

  “Sit down and shut up,” C
arson told him, and then he turned to her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded but realized her body was shaking with years of pent-up rage. She took a long breath to calm her nerves.

  “As you left the house, did you hear anything? A baby crying?” Carson asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “Just Roland and Curly.”

  “My wife was in the house with a new baby and you didn’t see or hear them?”

  “Asa said Beth had a rough night with the baby and for us to be quiet.”

  “Now, see, you didn’t mention that. What else are you not telling us?” Carson kept firing questions.

  “I just forgot.”

  “What else are you forgetting?”

  “Nothing. Leave me alone.”

  “You put yourself in the middle of this mess, Minnie. Now you have to face the consequences.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve worried about it all these years? It wasn’t right. I knew that, but Asa has a lot of power. I was just trying to save our home. I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you, Jena. If I knew anything else about your baby, I would tell you.”

  Jena turned and walked back to the car. She couldn’t handle any more. So much heartache, and there was no end in sight. Had she made the right decision coming back here? In her mind she knew she had, but her heart was struggling to stay in one piece.

  Carson joined her, and they drove away from the Voltree property. They didn’t speak. Emotions were very raw. Without her knowing it, tears slipped from her eyes. She quickly wiped them away, but more followed.

  Carson pulled over to the side of the road. “Are you okay?”

  She flipped back her hair. “Yes. I just keep wondering when the pain will stop.”

  “I’m sorry she wasn’t much help, but I believe she was telling the truth.”

  “That’s what’s so sad. Your father is holding all the cards. He made sure no one knew what he did with my child but him. He’s won.”

  “There was another condition I forgot to mention. Don’t give up on the first day.”

  She looked at him through her tears. “It’s hard not to.”

  “We’re just starting.”