Hot Texas Sunrise

by Delores Fossen

  However, it’d seemed pretty big to Judd. Maybe because Judd was worried about Kace getting in legal hot water. Or maybe it was personal. Because of the sizzling chemistry between Judd and her, this temporary move would put her very close to his cabin. And to him.

  “See?” Leo said, showing the contents of the basket to both Cleo and Rosy. There were indeed four eggs in the basket, and it didn’t seem to dampen Leo’s enthusiasm that two were broken.

  Despite the 50-percent-yield rate of the egg gathering, Rosy smiled. “Good job.” She took the basket from him, ignoring that the egg-white goo was seeping from the bottom. “You can put a gold star on the chore chart, and you can have a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

  To a casual observer, that might not have sounded like a big deal. Maybe it even sounded menacing with the jail reference, but with stars came rewards. Like ice cream and movies. And a “get out of jail free” card could be ponied up to clean the slate of a minor or semiminor infraction, like missing chores or being late on homework. It could also be used to get extra dessert or treats.

  Leo was enthusiastic about the star and card part, too, and he ran to the fridge, taking first a card and then a small foil star from the envelope that had been taped there. He stuck the card in his pocket to go along with the other one that was there. He applied far more spit than required to the tiny star when he quadruple-licked it and stuck it next to his name and the three other stars that were already there.

  Considering that this was his first day using the chore chart, the boy had that star-sticking down pat, and he immediately pointed to another possibility. “Can I do this one?” he asked Rosy.

  “Mucking the stalls,” she said, reading the card. “We should probably save that one for Isaac or Beckham since they’re a little taller and stronger. You know, you only have to do two chores a day on a nonschool day and one on a school day, right?”

  He nodded. “But doing stupid chores is fun.”

  Cleo sighed again, saved her work on the laptop and went to the boy. She stooped down and took hold of his shoulders. “Stupid might not be the best word to use for something that’s fun.” She gave that more thought. “Actually, stupid might not be a good word to use at all. If you say it when you’re at school, the other kids might not take it the right way.”

  “School?” Leo beamed at that, too, making her wonder how Lavinia could have put that bruise on that precious little face. She’d never been around a happier kid.

  “Yes. I’m going by the elementary school this morning. I have an appointment to talk to the principal so Isaac and you can go there.” And then she’d do the same at the high school for Beckham.

  It wouldn’t be an easy transfer, and Cleo was anticipating some balking and general complaining from Beckham. There’d hardly be time for the boys to settle into their classes before school would end in six weeks, and considering everything they’d been through, there could be adjustment problems. Still, she couldn’t hold them back until fall. They needed to finish out the year so they wouldn’t have to repeat the grade.

  “I’m going to try to sign them up for some after-school stuff, too,” Cleo told Rosy. “But I need to work that out with the sitter.”

  “We got a sitter?” Leo asked, but he didn’t wait for the answer.

  When he heard the front door open and Kace called out, “It’s just me,” Leo hurried in that direction.

  Cleo followed him and spotted Kace coming in with two boxes. Not a surprise since this was his third trip to bring in some of his things, but this time he wasn’t alone. Liberty, his deputy, was with him, and Cleo knew why. Liberty was here to question the boys about their bruises.

  “I can help,” Leo volunteered, but both of Kace’s boxes were way too big for the boy to handle.

  “You can unpack them for me,” Kace said without missing a beat, and he headed for the stairs with Leo trailing along behind him. “Cleo, can you round up Isaac and Beckham for Liberty?”

  “I’ll do that,” Rosy volunteered, calling out from the kitchen. “They’re in the barn with Buck.”

  “Daddy Kace,” Liberty muttered under her breath after Kace was out of earshot. “Someday you can tell me how you talked him into doing this.”

  “I will after I figure it out myself. This is well beyond a favor, and I can never repay him for it,” Cleo admitted. Kace was disrupting his life for what could be months since it might take that long for a permanent placement with CPS. “I just hope this doesn’t cause any trouble for him.”

  Liberty shrugged. “He seems okay with it. Better than Judd is, anyway.”

  That got Cleo’s attention, but since she didn’t know exactly how to ask why Judd wasn’t okay, she just stayed quiet and waited for Liberty to continue.

  “He came into work in a pisser of a mood,” Liberty finally said. “And I heard him call his sponsor.” She stopped, her eyes widening. “God, I probably shouldn’t have said anything about that. I mean, in case you don’t know.”

  Sponsor as in Alcoholics Anonymous.

  “Yes, I know,” Cleo admitted, but she wanted to groan. She hadn’t intended for any of this to send Judd into a tailspin, but just being around the boys could bring back the old memories that had caused him to turn to a bottle in the first place.

  “Please don’t tell Judd that I mentioned it,” Liberty stressed.

  “I won’t.” Cleo paused. “Was it bad? Was Judd upset when he spoke to his sponsor?”

  “Don’t know. I’d popped into the alley to make a private phone call, and he was already there, talking to her. I could tell it was his sponsor by the things he was saying. I cleared my throat to let him know I was there, and he cursed and walked farther up the sidewalk.”

  So, definitely upset. Cleo had already added a “chat with Judd” to her to-do list. She could even mention her concern in a vague sort of way to Kace so he could also keep an eye on him.

  “The anniversary of Judd’s transfer from Austin PD is coming up,” Liberty went on. “So, maybe his pisser mood doesn’t have anything to do with the boys.”

  Cleo supposed Liberty had added that to make her feel better and take her out of the blame loop, but it only served as a reminder that Judd maybe had other demons. Ones that had led to his transfer to Coldwater.

  “Say, what exactly did happen with Judd when he was in Austin?” Liberty asked.

  The direct question threw Cleo for a moment. “I don’t have a clue. I figured you knew.”

  Liberty shook her head. “Never mentioned a word about it. One day Kace just came in and said Judd would be transferring here as a deputy. It was so sudden that I figured it must have been something bad.”

  Well, if it was, Cleo hadn’t been in that particular info loop, and she doubted it was a loop that Judd would just invite her into. He didn’t like sharing his baggage—baggage that played into every part of his life—with anyone.

  She hadn’t been smart to try to rope him into fostering the boys.

  Cleo heard the sound of the approaching vehicle just as Rosy came in with Beckham and Isaac. Clearly, Beckham wasn’t happy about being corralled into the house, but then he likely hadn’t been happy about being in the barn with Buck, either. Cleo made another mental note to contact a counselor not just for him, but for Isaac and Leo, too.

  “Boys, this is Deputy Liberty Cassaine,” Cleo said. “And this is Beckham and Isaac.”

  Cleo didn’t have to explain what the deputy wanted. She had already explained to them that they’d need to talk to someone from the police station and that it couldn’t be Kace or Judd.

  “Buck said you could use his office for your visit,” Rosy told Liberty.

  Liberty smiled and motioned toward Beckham. “Sorry, but I gotta talk to all three of you separately.”

  Beckham grumbled about that, of course, as Liberty led him away, and Isaac dropped down onto the sofa
to wait his turn.

  Since the front door was still open, Cleo saw the white sedan that stopped in front of the house. It was the sitter, Lissy Tate, and Cleo released the breath that she’d automatically held. Even though she doubted Lavinia would make a return visit anytime soon, Cleo had braced herself for that outside possibility.

  Lissy had come highly recommended as a sitter, and Cleo tried not to be skeptical of those recommendations as the woman stepped from her car. Lissy looked more like a matronly librarian in her prim gray calf-length dress, white sweater and pearls. There wasn’t a strand of her brown hair out of place, and as Lissy got closer, Cleo thought she knew why. There was the thick odor of Aqua Net hairspray swimming off her.

  “Miss Delaney,” Lissy greeted, her voice as prim and proper as her outfit.

  The boys were going to eat her alive.

  “Call me Cleo.” She waited for Lissy to make the same offer for first-name use, but when she didn’t, Cleo went with “Miss Tate.”

  Lissy nodded. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not anything like him.”

  Color her clueless, but Cleo had no idea what the woman meant. “Excuse me?”

  Lissy’s mouth tightened a little. “Gopher Tate is my uncle, and everybody thinks because he’s a pervert flasher that I’m cut from the same cloth. I assure you that I’m not.”

  Cleo paused, gave her a firm nod. “Well, that’s good to know.”

  “Lissy,” Rosy called out, coming to the door to greet her. She pulled Lissy into a hug, causing Cleo to relax just a little. If Rosy thought this woman was huggable, then maybe she would work out for the boys.

  And speaking of boys, Cleo heard Beckham snap out a very loud “no” through the door to Buck’s office.

  “Rosy, could you show Lissy around and introduce her to Isaac and Leo?” Cleo asked. “I need to check on Beckham.” She glanced at the time and huffed. “After that, I have to go to the schools and then to work for a couple of hours.”

  Of course, those two things were only going to happen if these next ten minutes went okay.

  “Just go ahead and do what you have to do,” Rosy insisted. “Lissy and I will take care of things around here.”

  Cleo might have hesitated, wondering if that was true, if she hadn’t heard Beckham growl out another “no.”

  Since she didn’t want him to do anything to add to his juvie record, Cleo left Lissy in Rosy’s hands, went to the office and knocked. It surprised her when Beckham answered the door, but it didn’t take her long to realize that he’d done that because he had been about to storm out. He would have continued the storming, too, if Cleo hadn’t sidestepped in front of him. Not just once but several times until it looked as if they were dancing.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” Beckham snarled, aiming a hard glance over his shoulder at Liberty.

  “Of course you don’t,” Cleo readily agreed, causing Beckham to give her a suspicious stare. “No one wants to talk about bad things. Well, maybe some people do, but they have that whole ‘wallowing in pity’ thing going on.” She looked him straight in the eyes, and when he tried to dodge her gaze, she caught onto his chin. “In your case, though, you need to talk about it to stop Lavinia from getting away with a crime.”

  Beckham went still and quit trying to dance around her. His forehead bunched up for only a couple of seconds while he obviously considered that, and then—bam!—the surly teenage expression returned.

  “She’ll get away with it,” Beckham declared. “People like her never pay.”

  “Never is such a long time, and she will pay. But only if you help the cops. Yes, I know helping them goes against the grain for you, but do this for Leo and Isaac.”

  Cleo knew she got him with that last handful of words. No way would Beckham do this for himself, but he would for his little brothers. Still, Beckham stayed put and didn’t turn back toward the deputy.

  “You’ve been arrested before.” Beckham lowered his voice to a whisper. “And you still trust the cops?”

  “I trust these cops,” Cleo answered without hesitation.

  Beckham shoved his hands into his pockets and looked down at the floor as soon as Cleo let go of his chin. “Stay,” he said.

  Cleo tried not to look floored by that. Beckham wasn’t one who reached out to anybody, including her. “Of course.” And Cleo gave Liberty a pleading look not to object when she went back into the office with Beckham and shut the door.

  Liberty was seated on the small leather sofa, a recorder in her lap, and the deputy announced Cleo’s arrival so that it would be on the official record. Beckham went closer, but he didn’t sit.

  “All right,” Beckham said after a long pause. Then, he repeated it as if to steady himself. “Can I call her a bitch?” he asked Cleo. “Because I’m not going to call her my grandmother.”

  “How about witch?” Cleo suggested as a compromise. In this case, the B word applied, but she didn’t want to encourage Beckham to curse.

  Beckham nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “The witch got mad when the kitten scratched her. I mean, it’s just a kitten, and it was swatting at the bottom of her gown. It smells like piss,” he added. “Her gown. She smells like piss.”

  Since Cleo had detected the same aroma on the woman, she had to agree.

  “The piss witch,” Beckham went on, clearly trying to give some edge to Lavinia’s new name, “got mad and said she was going to kill the cat. She started chasing it around with a skillet. Leo thought it was a stupid game, but when he went to scoop up the cat, the piss witch grabbed him by the arm, and she slapped him. I don’t mean like a little tap, either. She hit him hard enough to knock him on the floor.”

  Oh, God. Cleo had thought she’d been ready to hear this, but she clearly wasn’t. Her breath got trapped somewhere between her lungs and her throat. Everything inside her tightened and throbbed.

  “The piss witch was going to hit Leo again,” Beckham continued, “but I pushed her. Not hard enough. I should have pushed her harder.” A muscle in his jaw flickered. “She came after me and hit me here with the skillet.” He motioned toward his left arm, then his side. “I managed to knock the skillet out of her hand, and that’s when she slapped me.”

  Obviously, Liberty was affected by this because she swallowed hard. “What about the bruises on your neck?” she asked. “How did you get those?”

  Beckham took his time answering. “When she slapped me, Leo caught onto her leg, to try to pull her back, I think. He was crying then...and the kid almost never cries. But he was wailing loud enough that the piss witch tried to kick him. I reached down to move Leo out of the way, and that’s when she grabbed me by the throat. I shoved her again. That time it was hard enough to make her fall. I took Leo, found Isaac and got us out of there.”

  Cleo clamped her teeth over her bottom lip to stop it from trembling. It didn’t help. And worse, she was on the verge of crying. She could feel the tears sting her eyes and anger churned inside her. She wished that she’d punched the piss witch in her face.

  “Isaac didn’t see any of this so don’t push him on it,” Beckham told the deputy. “And Leo...well, don’t push him, either.”

  Cleo laid a very unsteady hand on Beckham’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and before she totally lost it, she turned to Liberty. “I know this is a big favor, but do you think you can wait to talk to Isaac and Leo? I want to be with them for that, but I have to get to the school for my meeting with the principal.”

  “Sure.” Liberty turned off the recorder and stood. “This should be enough to back up the restraining order. Along with Audrey’s report. Dr. Holcomb,” she said to clarify. “It’s a good report. She really went all out to say that she believed every word the boys had told her and that the grandmother shouldn’t be allowed to see them.”

  Cleo would thank Audrey for that, and she didn’t ca
re if Judd was Audrey’s motivation for her all-out report. Right now, Cleo would take anything that would help the boys.

  “I didn’t hit the piss witch,” Beckham added when Cleo turned to him. “Mom always said I shouldn’t hit a girl or woman.” His voice caught, and Cleo could tell by the way he was blinking hard that the tears were threatening.

  She blinked back her own tears, hugged him despite his going stiff and got out of there fast. Thankfully, there was no one in the living room, but she could hear Rosy and Lissy in the kitchen.

  “I’m leaving for my meeting at the school,” Cleo called out, and she hurried off before anyone could see her.

  She still had an hour before the appointment and with the school only five minutes away, she would get there in plenty of time—time that she would need to sit in the parking lot and settle her jangled nerves.

  The moment she was in her car, she took off, and she made it to the end of the driveway before the eye-blinking quit working. The tears spilled down her cheeks. Cleo wouldn’t have minded that so much, but the tears also blurred her vision so she pulled off to the side and just cried it out.

  Cleo hated what the boys had gone through. Hated that she hadn’t been able to stop it. And hated just as much that she might not be able to stop it from happening again. All those bruises. And Beckham’s words kept repeating in her head.

  She hit him hard enough to knock him on the floor.

  If Miranda had been watching that from heaven, then it must have broken her heart. It was doing the same to Cleo. Miranda had loved those kids with everything she had, and the fact that their future was so uncertain made the cancer and her dying even more painful.

  And the grief over losing her.

  Miranda had tried to help with the grief by leaving each of the boys a letter, but she hadn’t managed to finalize the paperwork to give Cleo custody. The lawyer had still been in the process of writing that all out. Cleo still might be able to use that, though, to show intent, that it had been a dying woman’s wish that her children not be left in the care of their grandmother.