The Staying Kind

by Cerian Hebert

  “Who? Sadie? She’s awake now. You can talk to her.”

  “No, my mother. I want to talk to her.”

  Travis didn’t reply immediately. “Not yet. You’ll get a chance, just not yet.”

  “I’ll wait. I have to see her. To find out why.” Why she had felt the need to ruin her life when Rio had done nothing to deserve it. There was no logic to it. “I’ll be ready for Todd.”

  She said goodbye to Travis and hung up the phone. God, she should have figured everything was too perfect to last.

  A half an hour later Rio was staring down at the woman who had come to mean the world to her. She couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t the bruises, the bandages, or the IV drip attached to Sadie. Sadie, who had always been so vibrant, so alive and forceful, seemed tiny now, as if the attack had somehow drained some of her stature.

  Her eyes fluttered halfway open and Rio could see she was having trouble focusing. When she did, when her gaze locked with Rio’s, a smile, albeit tired and half-hearted, trembled on her lips. “I hear I met your mother.” She spoke in a slow slur.

  Those words brought all the pain and guilt to the surface like a volcano. Rio bit back on the tears, but there was no stopping them from flooding down her cheeks. She brushed them away. “Sadie, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. If only I hadn’t wanted to contact my brother this wouldn’t have happened. You should hate me. God knows I hate myself.”

  Sadie’s hand shot out with unexpected speed and strength and grabbed hold of Rio’s. “Don’t you ever talk like that. Do you hear me? Haven’t you learned anything from me over the past few months? If you think I blame you for what that woman did, then you better think again. That woman made her choices, along with the hooligan she was with. Not you. Not ever.”

  “I can’t help it. If I hadn’t contacted Storm then she wouldn’t have tracked me down. Don’t you see? I didn’t tell her. She tracked me down. That’s the way I see it.”

  “Then you and I will have to agree to disagree.” Sadie dropped her hold on Rio and sank into the pillows. Her eyelids drooped. “Now I’m tired. Talking even for a minute sucks every bit of energy from me. I want you to sit your butt down over there and stay put while I take a nap. I hear my babies are doing fine so I don’t expect you to go rushing back to them. You have to promise me while I’m stuck in here you’ll keep them exercised. We’ll talk about the rest of it later. When I regain my strength. Okay?”

  Rio nodded and backed up to the seat in the corner where Carla had been sitting. For now, she’d do what she was told, but she had lots of thinking of her own to do.

  Rio devoted herself to remaining at Sadie’s bedside the rest of the afternoon, though she felt she’d be more useful at Cobble Creek with the horses. Sadie slept for most of the day and Carla had returned soon after Rio’s short conversation with Sadie.

  As nice as Travis’s sister was to her, how non-condemning, Rio couldn’t make herself comfortable. She stood against the wall, her hand covering the ring Travis had given her, as if her newfound happiness would be a slap in the face of Sadie’s crisis.

  All she wanted, besides the sanctuary of the stable, was an opportunity to confront her mother. Travis wouldn’t grant her that yet. Since he remained tied up at the station, once again Todd gave her a lift home, not to Cobble Creek, but to Travis’s place.

  She stared at the dark house and sighed. She didn’t particularly want to go in. Travis wouldn’t be home for a few hours and she should have dinner put together for him. First she desperately wanted a shower and a change of clothes. Which meant walking down to Cobble Creek to collect a few things.

  Storm was somewhere out there. She didn’t think he’d do anything to her, even if he was still in the area. Surely he wouldn’t hurt her. Besides, Travis said there’d be plenty of patrols out and about.

  The moon brightened her walk down the quiet road. Cobble Creek loomed, large and dark, despite the outside floodlight over the barn and a light in the house. Sadie’s car was in her spot, but the place would be completely deserted. For the first time she felt real fear. What if someone were lying in wait for her to finish what they came here to do?

  Rio stopped in the driveway, wishing she’d stayed at Shadow Oak. Surely no one would be stupid enough to return to the scene of the crime.

  More slowly this time, she approached the barn. All she had to do was grab some things and go back to Travis’s place. It would be quick. Yet her heart still lodged in her throat, even as she climbed the staircase to her apartment.

  Inside, the silence filled the room to the point where she switched on her radio, so she felt someone else was there with her.

  She didn’t pay attention to what she grabbed. She pulled out a pair of jeans, a sweater from her closet, bra and undies from her drawers, and shoved them into her old backpack.

  Before she left, she switched the radio off. The silence didn’t have a chance to take over the room before her cell phone rang.

  Thinking it was Travis, she answered it quickly. “Hi.”

  For a long moment the person on the other end didn’t speak. If she hadn’t heard breathing, she’d have thought it an empty line, then someone drew in a ragged breath.

  “Hello. Who’s there?” She kept her voice stern and solid. She refused to reveal how dread gripped her by her throat. Being on the farm alone, knowing her brother was out there somewhere, scared her plenty. Icy fear slid down inside her and pooled in her belly.

  “It’s me, Rio. It’s Storm.” His voice was a rough whisper. Rio picked up on the panic in those few words.

  “Oh my God. Storm, what the hell? Why did you do this?” Rio dropped into the closest seat. “Where are you?”

  “Jesus, Rio. I’m not gonna say. Listen to me—”

  “The hell with that! You could have killed her, Storm. She had nothing to do with anything and you nearly beat her to death. I don’t want to listen to you.” Raw distress heated up inside her, quickly boiling into anger.

  “No! Oh God, Rio, it wasn’t me. Christ, what a mess.” Storm’s voice cracked and she could hear the tears in it.

  “Our mother was here. The police have her. Who was with her if it wasn’t you? And where were you when this was happening?”

  “It was her boyfriend. Shit, he’s as bad as . . . as . . .”

  He couldn’t say the name. Rio squeezed her eyes shut and fought to keep the face of Pete Moffett from rising in her mind.

  “He was the guy in the house? What about you? Where were you? You were here, weren’t you?”

  “I . . . they made me drive. It’s his car, but I had to drive.”

  Rio stood again. The idea of another man out there, someone other than her brother participating in what happened to Sadie, made her sick. Someone else on the loose, an unknown. A man her brother felt was worse than Pete Moffett. She should have stayed put at Shadow Oak like she promised Travis.

  Quickly she strode to the door and engaged the lock. She wanted to shut out the lights, not that it would do any good. If someone spied on her, he’d see she was inside.

  No, her mind was playing tricks. The guy had to be long gone.

  “So you didn’t go in the house?” Rio wanted to keep her brother on the phone. He might not tell her where he was hiding, but talking to him gave her some comfort. Maybe she could at least try to help him out, talk him into turning himself in.

  “No. Drove up to it and let them out. Mom wanted to go down to the barn. Jerry—her boyfriend—he said they’d take the house. Damned guy laughed when he found it unlocked. They went in. I waited a few minutes and then said screw this and left. I shouldn’t have done it, but Jerry . . . Shit. Either way my life was screwed. If I had waited and the cops showed up, or if I left and Jerry caught up with me. Rio, he’d have killed me for sure. I’m not lying a
bout that.”

  “Well, he nearly killed Sadie.” Rio walked to the kitchen. She didn’t have any kind of weapon except for a few sharp knives. She dug one out. If this Jerry came through the door, he wouldn’t come near her without her getting in a few jabs of her own.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be enough to stop him, but she refused to leave him unscathed. Her heart beat against her chest until it hurt. The likelihood of this guy returning to the scene of his crime was slim, but she had to play it safe.

  “I didn’t think they’d hurt anyone. Mom wanted to grab a few things. Figured whoever lived there had to have bucks, some decent stuff around to steal. Jewelry, whatever.”

  “You came all the way up here to steal from my boss. Oh my God. Why? And how in hell did you find me? I never even told you what state I was living in.”

  “Your phone number came up on our caller ID at home. Jerry did the rest. He’s a lot smarter than most of the guys Mom hooks up with. Twice the brains and twice the cold bastard. He tracked you down.”

  “And you had to come up too. You couldn’t stay down there and out of trouble. Goddamn it, Storm. Why haven’t you learned from your past? Why would you let her drag you into this?”

  “Figured I could stop him if things got out of hand, but he made me stay in the car. I chickened out and left them. Shit, he’s gonna kill me. He’ll find me and kill me.”

  “You have to go to the cops, Storm.” Rio kept her voice as calm as she could make it despite the fear and anger threatening to choke her.

  “God.” The oath burst from him. Rio heard the dread behind it.

  “The cops will catch up to you sooner or later. It’ll be so much better if you turn yourself in. Especially since you called the cops to tell them what Mom and Jerry were doing.”

  “Rio, I can’t go back to jail.”

  “Then you should have thought about that before you got into the damned car. Now there’s a woman—an innocent woman—in the hospital. Go to the cops and maybe they’ll go easy on you. If you don’t they’ll find you eventually.”

  She paused and sucked in her breath. She wanted to help him, but there wasn’t any easy way out of this. “Either the cops will find you or this Jerry will.”

  “Shit.”

  “I’d take the cops over him, Storm. This guy is capable of beating an old woman. What do you think he’d do to you?”

  “Shit.” The single, repeated word sounded broken, desperate, soaked with tears.

  “Please. Think about it. Go to the closest police station. Help them, Storm.”

  Suddenly Rio wasn’t alone. She brought the knife up, poised to fend off an attack, until she recognized Travis standing in the doorway, a look of alarm on his face, his eyes wide, his fists tight.

  Rio dropped the knife to the floor, her body slumping in relief. Everything would be okay if Travis was there. She mouthed the word “Storm” and pointed at her phone.

  Travis nodded. His body relaxed some, though visible tension had tightened his jaw. He came further into the room.

  “Please Storm, it’s the right thing to do.”

  When she heard the muffled sobs from the other end of the line, her own tears welled up. She wished she could wrap her arms around him, give him fifteen years’ worth of comfort. If only she’d been there, long ago—after Pete—maybe things would have been so different for him.

  It was too late to regret the past. She could only face the future. Through tears, she fastened her gaze on Travis, now standing close enough to swipe the wetness from her cheek.

  “Look forward, Storm. You have to move on and leave the pain and fear behind. Please Storm. Don’t be afraid of the future.”

  Because for the first time in her life, with Travis there beside her, his hands on her shoulders, she wasn’t afraid of what lay ahead of her.

  She’d found a place she could stay forever.

  Epilogue

  “Awesome job, Rio!”

  Sadie stood at the fence, her shiny black cane resting against the railing as she clapped her hands enthusiastically. Rio grinned at her mentor, then at Travis and Jessa before moving Dante out of the lineup of thirteen other horse and rider teams toward the young woman who held the ribbon out for her.

  Third place yellow. It might as well have been blue. Might as well have been the biggest, bluest ribbon in the world because that’s how wonderful she felt when they fastened her ribbon on Dante’s bridle. Top of the world, in fact.

  With her prize, she urged Dante into a trot and headed to the out gate. The rush, the joy, flowed through her like a river, more powerful than she had expected.

  Maybe it was everything combined. The joy of riding Dante and competing with him after all of Sadie’s hard work and faith. The joy of seeing the man she loved waiting for her with as much happiness and pride written on his face as she felt in her entire body. It was almost too much to bear.

  “It’s only third place,” she said as she slid out of the saddle into Travis’s arms.

  “You did beautifully. I couldn’t have asked for a better job,” Sadie declared with pure satisfaction. “I think I made the right choice putting you up on Dante right away instead of starting you slowly with Fleur.”

  Rio grinned. “Jessa has done an amazing job with her. I think you made the right decision too. Besides,” Rio ran her hand down Dante’s smooth neck, “he and I have it together. I can’t imagine being on any other horse. I can’t wait until the next class.”

  She slid her arm around Jessa’s shoulders, hugging the girl against her side. “My yellow will look nice next to your two blues. I think I’d like to keep the blue streak going.”

  As Jessa grinned widely, Sadie vowed, “With that attitude I have no doubt you will. Now take the horse to the stable. And Jessa has to head to the ring to practice for her next class.”

  Sadie and Jessa, leading Fleur, headed one direction and Rio, along with Travis and Dante, returned to the barn, Travis with a tight hold on Rio’s hand.

  “So, how does it feel?”

  Rio couldn’t stop smiling. “Like I’ve started my life fresh and it’ll be the most incredible life in the world.”

  “You are a strong woman, Rio,” Travis squeezed her hand. “You deserve all this and more.”

  “I wish it could be as perfect for Storm.” The only cloud on her otherwise sunny horizon. Her mother currently resided in jail and would be there for a very long time. For that Rio couldn’t summon one speck of sympathy. This punishment was a long time coming and Rio refused to shed any tears for Katrina Presley’s fate. Jerry, the boyfriend, had been caught two days after the break-in. As a habitual criminal, this latest incident was enough to put him away for years.

  Even so, several weeks passed before Rio felt completely comfortable. At least she had Travis there to bring her through it.

  Putting her last meeting with her mother out of her mind proved to be difficult. It didn’t take much to recall that scene. Katrina on the other side of the glass, leaning back in the plastic chair, staring at her with a sneer on her thin face, dispassion in her dark eyes.

  “Why did you do it?” This was the only question Rio could think to ask at the time.

  Katrina had shrugged indifferently. “Because you owed me.”

  The retort had taken Rio by surprise. “Owed you for what?”

  “Look at you, in those fancy clothes. That hell of a big diamond on your hand. Life has been pretty awesome for you, and why shouldn’t you share the wealth?”

  “Because what I have has nothing to do with you. You’ve done nothing but make my life miserable.”

  “Except for one small detail. I brought you into this world, sweetie. For that I think you owe me a bunch.”

  “Then why did you go after Sadie? Why beat her up? She’s done nothing to you.�
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  “Why should that make any difference? She’s got a nice place. Why not go in? She wouldn’t miss a few things. Jerry was the one who knocked the old lady around.”

  The way Katrina had spoken, so casually, as if she were talking about a trip to the grocery store, had infuriated Rio. The anger, like a white-hot poker, hit her straight in the gut. She’d never been given to violence, but if safety glass hadn’t been separating them, Rio might have grabbed her mother by the throat.

  “You really don’t care, do you?” Rio asked, deadly calm. She’d refused to let Katrina see her rattled.

  “Why should I? She don’t mean anything to me. I’m in it for me, same as Jerry.”

  “And Storm? You okay with ruining his life?”

  “He made his own decision. Don’t pretend he’s the same old kid he was. He’s a man now. At least he knows who’s on his side. Sure wasn’t you.”

  “I’ll always regret not being able to help him. And I hope you’ll never hurt him again.” Rio stood, but hadn’t taken her eyes off her mother. The woman would never change.

  “Enjoy your life, Katrina. I hope you spend a lot of years here. Maybe someday you’ll realize what you’ve done. The mess you’ve made of our lives. Somehow I doubt you ever will.” With that, Rio had swung around and strode away, putting Katrina Presley completely out of her life.

  For good.

  Storm was still in jail. Because of his cooperation with the police, though, he’d been given a much shorter sentence. Rio hoped when he finally got out he’d set himself on a different path. With their mother locked away, there was the possibility he wouldn’t be so inclined to slide back into his old life. If Rio could help him along the way, then maybe she could feel somewhat redeemed, and be able to let go of her guilt for leaving him behind so long ago.