Jodi Thomas (6 page)

Chapter 3

Reagan Truman watched the constant coming and going from the emergency room below her uncle’s window on the third floor. Her world had become one hospital room, and even watching the drunks stumble out seemed interesting tonight. Part of her wished she were out on a date with Noah McAllen, parked somewhere along a back road where they could talk and cuddle, but tonight, this was where she belonged.

She glanced over at her uncle’s bed. The room was lined with machines that moved and beeped and marked time, but for the old man resting, time seemed to have stood still. He drifted between life and death, swinging like a rusty pendulum from one to the other.

If Reagan could see death coming for him, she’d fight with every ounce of her energy to stop it from taking Jeremiah Truman. After five years of living in Harmony, she felt like she had a wide circle of friends, but when she’d arrived, a runaway with little hope of finding anywhere to belong, Jeremiah had taken her in as his family.

Reagan remembered how she told him once that all she ever did was reverse wishing. She was afraid of even hoping for something. It seemed easier to just wish bad things wouldn’t happen. Now, at twenty-one, she wished for a world of things, but the top of the list was that he’d never leave her.

“Reagan?” Brandon Biggs poked his head in the door. “You still awake?”

She stepped from the window into the milky light surrounding her uncle’s bed. “I’m here, Big.” Sometime over the summer she’d begun calling him what all his construction friends called him. She had no idea if the nickname was simply a short version of his last name or an adjective of description. Both fit, and the name seemed to stick. Brandon Biggs was simply Big to all who met him now.

“Did you eat any supper?” He tried to slip his big frame into the room, as if opening the door wider might set off some alarm. The muscular thug who’d bullied her when she’d first tried to fit in at Harmony High was gone, replaced by a mountain of a friend.

“I don’t think I’ve eaten anything today except a doughnut the nurse gave me,” she answered, knowing that he’d probably already guessed, for he held a bag in each hand.

At six-feet-seven and almost three hundred pounds, Big never slipped anywhere, but he tried his best to tiptoe in his work boots toward her. He set the bags down in the big windowsill designed to hold flowers and cards. Then, without a word, he circled her waist with his hands and lifted her up onto the ledge.

They would have made an odd couple if they dated, him so big and her so small. He was a construction foreman and she ran her uncle’s tiny apple orchard business while finishing her degree from an online college, but somehow they worked as friends. Maybe because they’d both been knocked around as kids, but they believed in each other. She saw the good in him, and he saw the strength in her.

Reagan crossed her legs and smiled as he handed her a cheeseburger. “You got these from Buffalo’s bar, I’m guessing. What would you have done if I’d already had dinner?”

“I’d eat them both. And of course I got them at Buffalo’s. It’s the only place open this late that makes a burger worth eating, but right after I turned my order in, you wouldn’t believe the fight that broke out.”

Reagan unwrapped her food and asked, “You get involved?” Big was made of muscle. Someone in a fight might get hurt just running into him by accident.

He shook his head. “I was just there to look after Beau and Border. They were playing tonight. Damn, if they’re not getting as good as any of those singers on
American Idol
.” After taking a quarter of the burger for his first bite, he added, “I might have been tempted to step in, but I knew you’d give me hell if I did, so I just moved over by the band cage and made sure Border could keep playing. One guy came flying from the fight and hit the chicken wire so hard it reminded me of a bug hitting the windshield. I thought about hitting him a few times for scaring the boys trying to play, but I just tossed him back into the fight.”

He might be more than double her size, but part of Reagan had always felt like she was his mother. He seemed to live his life by what she’d think of him. She was proud of the way he watched over his little brother, Border, and how he checked in on his grandmother every weekend even when he was volunteering as a fireman.

The big guy leaned against the window frame and told her the details of the bar fight. With her on the ledge, they were eye to eye as they talked and ate. He asked about her uncle, interested in the details of his condition. She liked talking to Big. It wasn’t as good as talking to Noah Mc-Allen, but it was close.

Finally, he stuffed his trash in one of the bags and said, “I got to go, Reagan. I promised I’d circle by and pick up the boys’ equipment after the bar closes. I’m not sure how, but the boys both managed to get a date tonight. Two giggly girls wanted to take them out to eat breakfast at the truck stop when they finished the last set.”

“If the girls were in the bar, they’re older women.” Reagan laughed, knowing that Beau Yates couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen and Border Biggs maybe a year older. The sheriff told her once that the only way she’d let them play at Buffalo’s was if they stayed in the cage and out of the bar. “Beau Yates stutters when he talks to me or any girl near his age. Two bar babes will probably scare him to death.”

Big shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe older women will teach those two something. All Beau thinks about is playing that guitar, and Border doesn’t bother to shower until I yell at him. I’m no more than a mother hen with two homely chicks. Beau Yates never goes home, and half the time I’m not sure he can see through all that hair. His folks should probably pay me child support for all the meals I feed him.”

“You like him around,” Reagan cut in. “He’s a good influence on Border.”

“Yeah, but he might as well be living with us. His old man hates the idea of his only son playing in a band and gives him hell. Beau’s always telling me no one knows how to give out hell like a preacher. Beau says Border’s got it easy living with me.”

Reagan touched Big’s rough cheek. “You’re a good big brother, Brandon Biggs.”

He smiled. “I’d better be. I’m all he’s got. We fight from time to time, but we both know what we got now is far better than what we had at home with our mom always high and some boyfriend of hers around reminding us to disappear.”

Big Biggs lifted her from the window.

She walked him out the door to the elevator. “Thanks for bringing me supper. I hate to leave Uncle Jeremiah for more than a few minutes.”

He looked like he wanted to hug her, but she crossed her arms and he seemed to understand. “I’ll come by tomorrow. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks.”

He stepped on the elevator and she waved, already backing down the hall toward her uncle. When she stepped into the shadowy room, Reagan moved to her computer and checked her e-mail.

Nothing from Noah. He’d ridden in a rodeo in Kansas tonight for big money. If he’d won, he would have called or e-mailed. Noah McAllen had made pro, just like his dad. The whole town was proud of him. Everyone in Harmony wanted him to go all the way. Everyone except Reagan. She just wanted him home in one piece. She felt she was in a love triangle. She loved Noah and Noah loved the rodeo.

Closing her laptop, she reached for a blanket and snuggled into the recliner. She fell asleep as the sound of the machines blended with the beat of the howling wind tapping against the window.

Chapter 4

Truck Stop

Beau Yates couldn’t believe he was sitting in a truck stop after midnight with a woman who wasn’t wearing a bra. He grinned at Border, his best friend. Beau had no trouble reading Border Biggs’s mind.

In all the months they’d been playing at the Buffalo Bar and Grill, no one had tried to pick them up. Now, he was sitting right here with two groupies and they couldn’t stop chattering about how wonderfully he played and how they loved his songs. Border’s girl even kept patting on him and holding his arm like she was afraid he might get away. Every time she leaned close to him, her big bust brushed his arm and Border looked like a pup having his tummy rubbed.

Beau’s date seemed more interested in adding another coat of makeup. She talked nonstop, but he wasn’t sure her ears worked. She also had the hiccups. Every time she hiccupped, both women laughed. After a dozen times, Beau had trouble seeing the humor and couldn’t even manage to smile.

The women were probably four or five years older than them, not as pretty as they’d been in bar light, and maybe a little drunker than they were when they’d asked if the band would like to go to breakfast. But, all in all, this wasn’t bad.

This was like a date. No better, the girls were paying. Between school and practice Beau and Border didn’t have enough time or money to date, even though they’d spent hours talking about it.

“How did you boys get together and form the band?” the woman whose name sounded like some kind of fancy candy asked.

Border shrugged. “He was the only person who talked to me when I transferred here from Bailee. My big brother got a job in construction and asked me to come live with him a few years ago. I took about a second to think it over and pack.”

The hiccupping girl sounded off again and her friend chimed in with a laugh.

“I-I taught him to play,” Beau added to the answer before Border told his life story. The girls didn’t look like they were into details or even long sentences.

“I love the way you play,” the one next to Border said, rubbing against his arm. “Do you have tattoos just on your hands, or all over?”

Both women giggled.

Border nodded like a bobblehead. He wasn’t used to girls talking to him. He was a younger model of his big brother, Brandon “Big” Biggs, but Border shaved his head and had been collecting tattoos as a hobby since he was sixteen and could pass for eighteen.

“What did you say the name of the band is?” his girl asked between hiccups.

“T-the P-partners.” Beau answered, fighting down his stutter. As an only child, he blamed his parents for his not being able to talk to girls. If he’d had a sister, maybe they wouldn’t seem so frightening, or if his father hadn’t given him weekly sermons on the evils of females, or if he’d had time to date at fifteen like most guys he knew, maybe he could at least talk.

“I think that’s cute that you two are partners,” Border’s date said, then began repeating “The Partners, the Partners” over and over, as if her brain had gotten stuck.

The waitress, a girl who’d been in Beau’s senior class, slung four midnight breakfast specials down on the table and frowned at Beau. He dove into the food, irritated that he cared one way or the other what Willow Renalls thought of him.

The girls picked at their food and complained about the truck stop not serving alcohol. Border’s date seemed to be fascinated with the condiment basket that came with breakfast. She put butter and honey on her toast, syrup on her sausage, ketchup and hot sauce on her eggs, and grape jelly all over one pancake while going on and on about how she loved breakfast.

Beau broke into their rant as he moved the basket of little packets away from her. “W-we also play over in C-Clinton once a month and by C-Christmas we p-plan to have a few nights lined up in Amarillo.”

The girls giggled, and Beau guessed either he’d gone too deep into conversation or they’d noticed he was afraid of them. The one next to him began circling smiley faces across her pancake, and the one beside Border started patting Border on the head. Her hands were so sticky, they stuck every few pats.

Border tried to push her away as he ate. Her breasts bumping against his arm seemed to no longer hold his interest now that food was on the table, or maybe Border had finally looked up to his date’s face and didn’t like what he saw. She had that kind of puffy round face that’s pretty in the spring of a girl’s life, and for her it seemed a very short spring. The dark circles painted around her eyes and the bloodred lipstick didn’t help.

Beau ate his free meal and tried to think of something shallow enough to say.

The girls found it first. They both decided they had to go pee. Beau’s date stumbled getting out of the booth and drew everyone’s attention, even the waitress. Then she asked everyone she passed where the potty was while her friend urged, “Hurry,” as they moved along.

Once they were gone, Beau looked at his best friend . . . his only friend. “You want to get out of here?”

“Hell, yes.” Border shoved half his scrambled eggs into his mouth. “Even if we got lucky with those two, I have a feeling we’d be waking up itching in the morning.”

Beau laughed. “Go outside and call your brother’s cell and ask him to come out and pick us up. It’s two miles back to town.” Beau didn’t like the idea of walking back in the dark, but it seemed better than staying here. “Don’t come back in. I’ll tell them you’re sick. After I think your brother should have had time to get here, I’ll say I’m going to check on you.”

“What if they don’t believe you, or worse, want to see how I’m doing? It’ll take my brother several minutes to drive out.”

“Then we run.” Beau tried to smile. “And pray your brother reaches us before the two run us down. I have a feeling they won’t be happy when we disappear.”

While Border vanished out the front door, Beau pulled out a ten he kept hidden in the back of his wallet and put it under his plate. The women would probably pay before they left, but he doubted they’d leave a tip and he didn’t like the thought that Willow would have to clean up this mess.

Ten minutes later, Beau stepped outside. Border was already in his brother’s truck, but Beau stood in the dark and glanced back into the window. The two dates were still giggling as they slung scrambled eggs at each other. “I’ll never do that again,” he swore to himself.

The only thing he’d done right tonight was leave the tip. The rest of the evening, even the kiss in the car on the way out, he wished he could forget.

Chapter 5

Harmony County Hospital

Tinch Turner woke slowly. He was still on the examining table, but someone had pulled up the sides as if fearing he’d fall off. They’d also dimmed the lights and covered him with a white blanket. He wouldn’t be surprised if Georgia hadn’t taken care of him while he was out. She was sneaky like that. Women with hearts were hard to stay mad at.

Touching his head, he felt the stitches running just below his hairline as he sat up. Most of his aches felt warmed over, as if he’d been in so many fights they all just started hurting again when some new wound came along.

“You feeling better?” the doctor in white asked as she stepped into the room. Blood, probably his, now stained her lab coat.

Without the blood in his eyes, he could see her clearly. Tall, very tall for a woman, with high cheekbones and light hair. “I’m fine. Thanks for stitching me up, Doc.” With her starched coat and fair skin he decided she could pass for an angel.

“No problem. You’re free to go. I’m guessing from what Nurse Veasey said, you have a charge card on file.”

Tinch watched her, not knowing if she was trying to be funny. She didn’t look like the type. She was all business and proper. The kind of woman who’d never even talk to him unless she had to.

He stood slowly, feeling his body ache with each movement. When he finally faced her, he found himself looking into pale gray eyes. “I’ll be . . .”

The room began to spin and he leaned forward.

The doc caught him and pushed him back against the table. “I don’t think you’d better drive, Mr. Turner. I’ll have the nurse call whoever you want to come get you, or I could check you in for the night. We’ve got a few rooms open in maternity.”

Georgia stepped in the room and helped him lie back down. He closed his eyes and willed the world to settle. “Thanks, Doc,” he managed to say calmly, “but I’m not spending the night. Not in this place.”

“Who should I call, Tinch?” Georgia sounded concerned.

“No one. I’ll be all right in a minute. I can drive. Give me a minute and I’ll walk out of here.”

“I don’t think so. If Dr. Spencer says you need someone to drive you, we’re not letting you go until her orders are filled.” Georgia had that general stance about her that hinted she would fight if need be.

Tinch would have laughed if he could have. Two women wouldn’t stop him. No one ever stopped him from doing whatever he wanted to do. “I got to go home.” He decided to try reason first. Too bad it must have dripped out with his blood.

Georgia patted his arm, but her words were for the doctor. “You rented that place way out on Timber Line Road, didn’t you, Doctor?”

She waited for the doctor to nod, then added, “Tinch lives in the only other house out that direction.”

When the doctor didn’t comment, Georgia set her plan. “You could give him a lift. He’s just down the road.”

Tinch opened one eye enough to see the doc shake her head.

“I’m not sure it would be the safe thing to do,” she said.

Georgia laughed. “He’s not dangerous to anyone but himself. You’d be safer driving him than being in a car with him on the road.”

“I don’t need a ride,” he said, wondering if he could manage to stand and make it to his truck before he passed out. He’d slept there before; he could do it again. “I’m not sure I’d be safe with the doc.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tinch.” Georgia was in no mood to listen. “If you’re not going to take a room for the night, someone has got to drive you home.”

Dr. Spencer looked like she’d been asked to pick up a stray dog on a busy highway. “All right,” she frowned. “I’ll pull my car up if you’ll wheel him out. You’re right, he’d be a danger on the road.”

She was gone before he could argue, so he turned on Georgia. “I don’t need or want any help. I’m fine.”

Georgia pulled a wheelchair from the corner and helped him into it. “I’m not taking responsibility for you passing out and running off in a ditch. Let someone help you, Tinch, before it’s too late.”

Tinch fought down nausea. “That Dr. Spencer didn’t look too excited about playing Good Samaritan, Georgia.”

“The doc doesn’t like men, any men from what I can see, so you be polite to her. If she snubs the rich ones who come by to flirt with her, you can imagine what she must think of the bottom-of-a-barrel ones like you.”

“Thanks for the compliment.” He frowned. He’d never considered himself in any barrel, much less at the bottom of one. He’d loved Lori Anne since they were in middle school and never really cared one way or the other what any other girl thought of him.

“You smell like whiskey and look like something the cat wouldn’t drag in.” Georgia was on a roll. “I bet you didn’t even clean up before you came to town. You got dirt under your fingernails and horse shit still on your boots.” She pushed him toward the doors. “I swear, Tinch, germs wouldn’t even live on you.”

“You finished?” he asked, figuring he probably deserved anything she said. She’d guessed right about him not cleaning up. He’d worked with the horses until dark, then climbed in his truck and headed to town for a few drinks.

“No, I’m not finished,” she answered as she shoved him outside. “Lori Anne died three years ago, and nothing is going to bring her back. It’s time you got on with your life.”

Tinch didn’t hate Georgia. He hated the whole world. No one seemed to understand. He didn’t have a life to go on with without Lori Anne. She’d been his best friend through school, his lover as soon as they both turned sixteen, and his wife the winter after they’d both graduated from high school. With his parents dead, Lori Anne had been his friend, his lover, his wife, his family, his world. When she’d died of cancer, she’d left him hollow and alone. She left him with nothing inside or out.

He stood as a tiny BMW pulled up to the curb. “How am I supposed to get in that thing? It looks like she drove it off a bumper car ride.” He leaned down to see the doctor at the wheel glaring at him. “I’ve seen toys in kids’ meals bigger than this thing.”

Georgia opened the door and helped him in. “You’re going, so stop complaining unless you want to sleep in the maternity ward.”

“No thanks.” He swore as he folded into a pretzel and Georgia shoved.

As he leaned back in the seat, the nurse patted his arm again. “I’m sorry, Tinch, but it’s time someone said something to you. All your friends are worried about you.”

She closed the door without hearing him say, “Tell all my friends to go to hell.”

Thank goodness, the doctor didn’t say a word as she drove away from the hospital. He caught a glance of her in the fading light. A statue of starch and ice, he decided. Strange that such a cold woman would pick a profession like doctor, or maybe it was just him she was so cold toward.

She didn’t ask which house was his. She just drove through the night as he leaned back and wished everything and everyone would go away.

When she pulled up in front of his place, she stopped and said, “You need any help getting in?”

“No,” he snapped as he fumbled for the door.

It took every ounce of his concentration to make it out of the car and up the steps. He heard her drive away as he opened the door and moved inside.

Tinch made it two more feet before he crumbled to his knees. He didn’t cry or scream or cuss. He just leaned forward, his head in his hands, and wished for the thousandth time that he could stop breathing.

A mile away Addison pulled her BMW into the dilapidated garage and walked across the darkened yard to the house she’d rented. As always, she’d forgotten to leave the porch light on. Her only excuse was she’d never lived anywhere but the city. She’d never known such blackness on moonless nights before.

Her body felt numb, she was so tired. When she stepped on the porch, she looked back south toward Tinch Turner’s house. She could barely make out the outline of his place against the sky. He hadn’t turned on a light either. Maybe, like her, he liked the shadows now and then. Stepping inside, she walked across the living room and into her bedroom, stripping off clothes as she moved. By the time she bumped into her bed, she wore only a T-shirt and panties as she tumbled into the unmade bed she’d left almost twenty-four hours before.

“Sleep,” she whispered, knowing that tonight, finally, she would.

Hours later, a knock on her door woke her. For a minute, Addison couldn’t figure out where she was, and then she told herself she was safe. She was in control of her own life. No one was pushing her. Her family didn’t even know where she lived.

When the knock came again, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and went to find the noise.

A tall man wearing a western shirt, well-worn and well-fitting jeans, and a cowboy hat stood on her porch. Without the blood and dirt, she almost didn’t recognize Tinch Turner, the bothersome neighbor she’d treated last night. The thought crossed her mind not to answer, but since she hadn’t even latched the screen door last night, and the wooden door stood wide open, it would have been hard to act like she wasn’t home. All he had to do was turn around and he’d see her standing on the other side of the screen.

While she thought about what to do, he shifted and she couldn’t help but think that he was a man built in balance. He was tall, but not lanky, slim, but not thin, with shoulders that looked strong from work and not from pumping iron. He might spend his nights drinking and getting into fights, but he spent his days outside.

Before she could move, he turned and faced her.

She froze, unsure what to do.

His piercing blue eyes drank her in with a slow movement from her toes to her hair.

“What are you doing here?” Addison pulled the blanket closer, as if it offered her some protection.

“I came to say I’m sorry for not thanking you for bringing me home last night.” He smiled, showing straight white teeth, which surprised her. If he’d really been in as many fights as Nurse Veasey claimed, he should have been toothless by now.

“Forget it.” She expected him to turn away, but he didn’t move. Maybe her one neighbor was one too many, Addison thought.

He finally shifted. “I was wondering if I could ride into town with you next time you go. I need to pick up my truck. Ten miles is a little far to walk.”

“Why don’t you call someone?” She didn’t want to get to know Tinch Turner. They had nothing in common, nothing to talk about. With her work schedule she didn’t have time to make friends, and the last thing she wanted was a man in her life. Between a demanding father still trying to direct her life and the memory of a husband from her teens who’d used her as a punching bag, she’d had enough.

“I don’t have a phone,” he said. “Never needed one until today.”

The idea that someone might not have a phone, even a cell phone, was out of her realm of reasoning. She’d gotten her first phone when she was in grade school and carried a cell since high school. “How’d you get to my porch?”

“I walked. I don’t think it’s a mile between my house and yours. If you skip the road and head across the field, it’s not even that far. When the Rogerses lived here, they’d always ring that bell if they needed me and I’d run over.” He pointed to the corner of the porch as if she might not have noticed the huge bell mounted on the railing. “Course, they were both hard of hearing, so I always said I’d fire off a shot and hit the bell if I needed them.”

Addison thought of slamming the door. She didn’t have time for small talk. “Look.” She decided to be direct. “You woke me up. I worked a twenty-hour shift and I’m not due back till noon.” She felt for her watch, trying to remember where she’d left it. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Noon,” he said. “I figured you’d be awake.”

“Oh no!” She looked past him at the cloudy day. If she’d been guessing, she would have thought it was closer to dawn.

Running toward the bedroom, she yelled over her shoulder. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes. You can ride along, but I’ve got to get to the hospital fast. I’m already on duty.”

Addison showered, pulled on clean clothes, and walked out of her bedroom with her hair still wet.

If she’d thought about it, she might have guessed she’d find Tinch Turner waiting on the porch for her.

Though all the shutters were open, she saw no sign of him outside, or on the porch. Shrugging, she decided he wasn’t her problem.

One step more and she halted. The cowboy was standing in her kitchen, a tea towel tucked into his jeans like an apron and his hat pushed back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Anger and panic warred inside her. He was in her house! She knew he was wild, probably violent and possibly crazy.

“Well, Doc, I couldn’t find much in the way of real food, but I made you an egg sandwich.”

“You’re cooking?” It seemed a strange thing to do before he killed her, but Addison had slept through the few psych classes she’d taken.

“I figured you’d want to eat something before you go.” He raised an eyebrow. “You planning on leaving with a wet head?”

“Look, Mr. Turner. I’m not your problem and I’m leaving.” Addison rushed toward her purse. “If you want a ride, you’d better be in the car when I back out of the garage.”

She knew she was probably overreacting, but she’d had all she wanted of him or any controlling man, and if he was insane, she had pepper spray in her purse.
Somewhere!

“I don’t need someone worrying about my hair or if I’m eating,” she said as she kept looking and tried not to sound panicky. “I am none of your concern. I can take care of myself, and I moved here with the nearest neighbor a mile away for a reason.”

She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d yelled at her and stormed out, and she wouldn’t care. He’d stepped over the line when he’d stepped into her house.

Gripping the spray can in a death grip, she hurried for the door.

He met her there, the egg sandwich in his hand.

She raised the pepper spray and widened her stance, then looked up into laughing eyes.

“Sorry, Doc.” He held the door for her as he wrapped the sandwich in a paper towel, unaware she’d been ready for an attack.

With a huff, she stormed past him.