The Staying Kind

by Cerian Hebert

  No, he refused to let go. He’d fight for her. And he had a feeling the fight had just begun.

  When he woke the next morning he learned how true those thoughts were. On his way downstairs he knocked on Jessa’s door. No answer, so he knocked again, a bit louder.

  “Jessa?”

  After a moment of silence, he pushed the door open. Expecting her to be under the covers, the sight of her empty bed surprised him.

  Generally a late sleeper, Jessa rarely awoke before him. No doubt he’d to find her in the kitchen preparing her breakfast. The kitchen, however, was silent and still dark. The only sound came from the back of the house. Rio must be awake.

  He hated to disturb her, but his nerves were on edge. Panic gnawed at him, his belly and his head, growing with each passing second.

  “Rio?” he knocked on the door loudly.

  “Hold on.”

  After several seconds Rio opened the door. Her hair was damp from a shower. She looked sleepy, yet startled, as she clutched the door and studied him warily.

  “You haven’t seen Jessa this morning, have you?”

  “No. I haven’t been out of here except to use the bathroom.”

  “Damn. She’s gone. Can you help me?”

  “Of course. Could she have gone for a walk?”

  “No, not likely.”

  “Let me get dressed. I’ll be right out.”

  “Thanks.”

  He headed through the house, searching for Jessa once more, in case he’d missed her. He called her name. Silence greeted him.

  Rio came out in less than two minutes, pulling a sweatshirt over her head. “Does she have any friends nearby?”

  Travis thought about, then dismissed Jessa’s closest friend. Tina’s family was tight-knit and respectable. Surely they’d call if Jessa had shown up at this early hour.

  The alternative chilled him to the bone. The Bartletts certainly wouldn’t be so neighborly and caring. He’d known them long enough to understand they weren’t exactly the most responsible family on the street.

  “Damn,” he swore softly.

  “You know where she is?”

  “I may.”

  With luck, if Jessa went to the Bartlett’s she’d be hanging out with the daughter, Brandy, who’d dyed and chopped Jessa’s hair. The lesser of the many evils at the Bartlett homestead. If his luck didn’t hold, Jessa would be with one of the boys.

  “Let’s go.”

  Travis held the door open for Rio. When she walked past, she paused on the porch. “Which direction?”

  Travis pointed up the road. “Next door neighbors.”

  “Shall we walk or drive?”

  “Walk. I’ll be able to hear them if they’re outside. I’d prefer the element of surprise.”

  Rio examined him. “Too bad you weren’t in uniform. You’d be more intimidating than sweats and a baseball jacket.”

  Travis stepped off the porch onto the path that led to the driveway. “Wouldn’t work. This family is very familiar with the law. It’s hasn’t intimidated them before. I doubt it would start now.”

  “Hmm, well, we’ll see.”

  They walked into the darkness in silence. A weak breeze rustled the branches overhead, and the sound of their footfalls broke the morning peace. The sky in the distance began to transform with a faint grayish pink of the sunrise.

  Travis listened hard to the silence. The Bartlett house wasn’t too far away and he could see the lights from it before he heard the voices. Rio paused and glanced up at him. Jessa’s voice broke the stillness of the morning. And then male laughter, followed by his daughter’s. The chill inside him boiled up into quick anger.

  Rio stopped. “Do you want me to come with you? I can leave if you’d rather.”

  He appreciated her respect for his privacy to deal with the matter. She was mostly a stranger and this didn’t concern her, despite the fact he’d invited her on this hunt for his daughter.

  “You can go back.”

  “I’ll put the coffee on,” she offered softly. Without waiting for his response, she headed to the house, her footfalls fading quickly. Travis directed his attention to the matter at hand.

  In the back yard, Jessa and an older Bartlett boy perched on one of the many four-wheelers that had transformed the yard into more of a used vehicle lot.

  So far neither of them had noticed him standing in the darkness next to the house. Before he barged in on them he wanted to get an idea of the situation, the conversation. As much as he disliked eavesdropping, in this case he felt it warranted.

  Whatever the boy said to her, Jessa thought it very amusing. He leaned in close to her and pushed her hair away from her ear before kissing it.

  Oh hell no.

  Travis couldn’t take anymore. He drew in a deep breath, pushing down on the anger. It wouldn’t do to approach the situation with the desire to wring this kid’s neck.

  “I suggest you remove your hands from my daughter.” His voice out of the darkness startled the couple.

  The boy jumped away and swung around to face Travis. Jessa quickly leapt off the four-wheeler, the smile on her face dying completely.

  The boy recovered first. His shock melted, replaced by a cocky grin. “Hey, nothing was going on.”

  “I doubt it,” Travis replied evenly. “Jessa, over here now.”

  Jessa didn’t move immediately but glanced at the boy, then complied, avoiding Travis’s glare.

  “Start walking home. I’ll meet you there and we can have a talk.”

  Jessa hesitated for a moment before she stalked away.

  After several long seconds, when she was no longer in earshot, he returned his attention to the Bartlett boy.

  “What’s your name?”

  The boy didn’t reply right away and Travis didn’t think he would answer. Travis didn’t plan on budging until he did.

  Finally, the boy’s cocky stare faltered. His eyes darted away, his lip drawn up in a sneer. “Danny.”

  “Okay, Danny. How old are you anyway?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Travis nodded. His blood pressure climbed again. He felt the heat in his head, burning in the cool air. “You do understand my daughter is only fifteen.”

  “So? We weren’t doing anything.” The boy’s voice was defiant and lazy, as if he’d been in this position before and didn’t think he had to worry about one little thing.

  “Hmm.” Travis stepped toward the boy, crossing his arms over his chest. “If you consider meeting a fifteen-year-old girl at God knows what hour ‘nothing,’ then you need to rethink your definition of the word. Call me old-fashioned, or an overprotective father, but I’d say there’s something going on here. So, Danny, I suggest you leave my daughter alone. If I find you’re meeting with her, talking to her, or doing anything with her, then we’ll have more than a little chat. Jessa is one underage girl you don’t want to mess with. I guarantee that.”

  Travis didn’t wait for the kid to respond, but swung around and walked away. He flexed his fists at his side, tension bristling off him in waves. He wouldn’t have hit the boy, but he wanted to hit something.

  This couldn’t be where Jessa wanted to head in life. Not his daughter, the sweet girl who’d been fascinated by horses and fairies and writing stories. He understood she’d become interested in boys at some point of her teenage life, and fifteen certainly fell within the appropriate age group. He always hoped she’d be attracted to the decent guys. Not the troublemakers.

  Now he had to decide what to do about it. Ban her from ever walking down the road alone? Ground her for life? Send her to work at Sadie’s every day after school? Locking her bedroom door?

  So many options. Unfortunately, none of them made any sense or would stop her from
leaving again. No, he had to dig to the heart of the problem. Why was she so hurt now? Laura had left years ago.

  Jessa had been crushed after her mother left, but not broken, not defiant. So it had to be his fault. For staying in the service and being sent to Afghanistan. That had been the catalyst for her current behavior.

  Somehow he had to make amends.

  When he arrived home Rio sat alone in the kitchen, dressed and ready for work, drinking coffee at the table. While she didn’t say anything when he walked in, he felt the weight of her curious stare.

  “She did come back, didn’t she?”

  “I heard her go upstairs. I’m leaving for Sadie’s now. Don’t flip out on her.”

  Travis frowned, and she shifted under his gaze.

  “I know I have no right to put my two cents in, I just know yelling won’t accomplish much. Believe me.”

  Rio carried her mug to the dishwasher and put it away, then grabbed her jacket and left.

  No, he didn’t want to accept advice from her, didn’t need her to know anything about the situation between him and his daughter. She already knew enough, and probably wasn’t the kind of woman to sit around and observe when she might be able to help. Travis didn’t know whether to be thankful or resentful of that fact.

  You invited her here. Whether you like it or not, she’s a part of your business. He couldn’t very well justify resentment toward Rio. If anything, she’d been forthright in offering advice and stayed out of something that didn’t concern her unless invited.

  Travis headed upstairs to Jessa’s room. Something had to be said right now. When he knocked he didn’t receive an immediate response. He raised his hand to knock again.

  “I’m getting ready for school,” she told him, anger in her voice clear even through the closed door.

  “Be downstairs in fifteen minutes,” he told her firmly. “We need to talk about this.”

  Not bothering to wait for her reply, Travis went to his own room. He had to get ready for work as well. He grabbed a quick shower and dressed in his uniform, then headed downstairs. Jessa sat slumped at the kitchen table, picking at her cereal. She glanced up at him through narrowed eyes.

  “Can we hurry up? I don’t want to miss the bus.”

  Travis sat across from her and rested his elbows on the table. Cool head, stay calm.

  “Well, maybe if you hadn’t decided to take off this morning you wouldn’t have to worry about missing your bus. What in the world were you thinking, Jessa?”

  She stared at her cereal bowl, stirring the spoon through the milk and remaining cereal. “I was thinking I couldn’t sleep and I wanted to go over and talk to a friend. It’s not like I was going to get lost walking to Danny’s house.”

  “Okay, first of all, Danny is eighteen years old. That’s enough for me to say you cannot see him. Then I have to consider the type of kid he is.”

  Jessa raised her gaze to him. “Please, so what if he’s eighteen? He’s only three years older than me. Big deal.”

  “It is a big deal. Three years at your age is a huge deal. And, Jessa, he’s bad news. You’ve known them nearly all your life. You know what kind of family they are, you know the problems they cause. Why would you want to be involved with a boy like him? There’s nothing but trouble to be had over at their house.”

  “I don’t care,” she replied defiantly, a slight tremor in her voice. As tough as she tried to be, the little girl inside still poked through.

  Her attention dropped to her food, her face hardened with anger.

  “I do care. When I was on the police force we were called over there more than any other house in town. You know what I’ve had to deal with from those kids over the years. I love you, Jessa, and I hate to see you hurting like this. I’m so afraid you’ll do something you’ll regret.”

  Travis covered her hand with his. “I know you won’t like it, but I forbid you to go to their house. I’ve already told Danny he’s to stay away from you. I mean it. You are not allowed over there. I’ll be driving you in and picking you up from school every day and I’ll drop you off at Sadie’s after school. You can work for her during the week. I can’t have you home by yourself anymore. Not until I know you won’t run off again.”

  “Just terrific,” Jessa snapped, yanking her hand away. “So, I’ll have no life at all.”

  “You’ll have a life. I don’t want you throwing it away. We will work through this, Jessa. We’ll do it together.”

  Jessa shoved her chair back violently and stood, flashing an angry glare at Travis. “It’s no wonder why Mom left you,” she spat and ran out of the kitchen, leaving Travis to stare after her in stunned silence.

  Chapter 8

  “Another early morning?”

  Rio glanced up from the feed bin where she scooped out Fleur’s and Barnaby’s breakfast, and smiled at Sadie. “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep. I figured I could start early since I lost time yesterday when I rode.”

  “Oh, my dear, riding is never lost time. I’m sure you’ll learn that soon enough. Mucking stalls? I call mucking stalls lost time. A necessary evil, in my opinion. So, did you love it?”

  Rio chuckled. “Riding or mucking?” Sadie had already asked her opinion of riding, as if she really worried about Rio’s thoughts while up on Dante’s back.

  “Riding, silly girl. I hardly need to know how you feel about mucking.”

  “I did,” Rio replied honestly, glad she could put Sadie’s mind at rest.

  “Wait until you learn more. When you take a jump for the first time up on Dante you’ll know what flying is like.”

  “I can’t imagine reaching that point anytime soon.”

  “Wouldn’t be too sure. I bet you’ll be there before you know it. I plan on making this happen.”

  Rio smiled. “Well, I hope I don’t disappoint you.”

  “Oh, now I have a good feeling about you. You may be keen on leaving here, but there’s something in your eyes telling me you want to settle down. And why not here?”

  Rio shrugged. She had no answer. She also wasn’t as convinced as Sadie about her desire to stay put. Resting had been nice, but once Rio realized she’d started to set down roots, the antsy sensation wrapped around her mind.

  How could she find enough to hold her here? She couldn’t stay with Travis forever. After only one day, she noticed the tension in the air. Whether it had anything to do with her, or came solely from the situation with his daughter, she wasn’t sure. It didn’t change the fact she was an intruder and interrupting their lives and problems.

  “I want to stay,” she replied, hoping she sounded convincing. “If I do I’d need permanent accommodations. There’s not too many rentals in town, and I can’t stay with Travis forever.”

  Sadie waved her off. “There’s plenty of room in this old farmhouse. If it comes down to it, you can move in here. In fact, I think it’s a fine idea.”

  One Travis would not go for. At least not until he realized she wasn’t some troublemaker out to destroy lives. That’s unfair. If he’d thought so lowly of her then he wouldn’t have insisted she stay with him.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Humph. You’re a tough nut, Rio. I’ll get through to you. Or Dante will. After he’s done feeding why don’t you saddle him up and we’ll put in an hour while the sun is shining? Then after the stalls are mucked we can have another hour.”

  Rio grinned. “You are a slave driver.”

  Sadie winked. “I hate to think you’ve wasted away all these years. We have a lot to catch up on.”

  Sadie’s words certainly weren’t too far from the truth. Rio had a heck of a lot of catching up to do, and she was convinced Sadie meant to get her through it quickly.

  Once Sadie had her and Dante in the riding ring, she transformed from sweet old lad
y to tyrannical coach. For over an hour she drove Rio relentlessly. Without being nasty or overly critical, Sadie didn’t let even the smallest mistakes slip past.

  Rio discovered her boss was a perfectionist and she expected Rio to share those qualities. By the end of the session she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to thank Sadie for getting her involved in something she had started to love, or to curse at her for involving her in something so consuming, both physically and emotionally.

  After Sadie released her from the lesson, Rio walked Dante out, gave his dark coat a vigorous brushing, then set him out in the paddock with Barnaby and two more horses, Dusty and Angel.

  The rest of the morning she cleaned stalls and hauled bales of wood shavings. It felt satisfying to bury her head in this hard, physical work. Her mind tried to wander in directions she wanted to shy away from. Unfortunately, no direction was acceptable. She didn’t want to think of settling in here. If she became too comfortable then maybe she wouldn’t ever want to leave. And if things turned sour, she’d have to live with it. Best to burn her bridges before they burned her.

  The Lithgows’ circumstances didn’t help much. She couldn’t become involved, yet ignoring it while living under their roof seemed downright impossible. She had to stay out of it and play by his rules until she could find a place of her own. If she found a place of her own.

  Best to leave, no matter what I’ve already said to Sadie.

  When she was riding Dante later in the day, the motion of the big horse cantering underneath her, Rio knew she couldn’t go anywhere.

  By her third riding lesson she’d fallen madly in love.

  “This is ridiculous,” Rio said with a sigh.

  She sat against the headboard of her bed, surrounded by at least a dozen bags and feeling about two inches tall. Never in her entire life had so much money been spent on her. By anyone. Yet here she was, like some spoiled debutante, wanting for nothing.