Lone Tree (30 page)

Miles delivered the cinnamon rolls and a fresh pot
of coffee. The pleasing scents trailed him as he walked through the doorway.
“I’m inviting myself,” he said.

Lainie was surprised, but not displeased. He carried
a small paper bag he handed to Bobbie. She gave him a curious look.

“We put a couple in there for you and Randy,” he
explained. “He’s out at the stable, lookin’ this way and workin’ slow-like,
puttin’ a saddle on Vindication. My guess is he could be talked into throwin’ a
saddle onto Glory for you, if you ask real nice.”

Delight crossed Bobbie’s face, but she quickly
sobered. She looked at Jackie, who nodded. “Go,” she said, no inflection in her
voice.

Bobbie hesitated, and Lainie spoke up. “Get outta
here. Glory needs the exercise.”

Miles pointed to the door, and Bobbie made up her
mind. “Yessir!” She stood on tiptoe to hug him, then was gone.

Miles poured coffee for the three of them, treating
Lainie and Jackie as his guests, having no difficulty playing host in Reed’s
house. Surveying the cinnamon rolls with a practiced eye, he chose the biggest
one. Delicately, he sniffed its fragrance before biting into it. He glanced at
Lainie who sat at one end of the sofa.

“It’s legal,” he assured her. “She put one in there
for me, too. But only one.” As he did with all treats, he ate his cinnamon roll
slowly and savored it. Despite his claim otherwise, Lainie thought he enjoyed
his desserts more than his bourbon.

He made small talk, asking Jackie about her dad’s
ten-year-old pickup that kept breaking down, if he’d got that new roof on the
back porch yet, how Margene was handling retirement. Jackie’s replies were
short and polite. Lainie remained in the background, hoping Miles could somehow
get through to Jackie. He knew the Cooper family better than Lainie did.

After draining his second cup of coffee, Miles set
it down. His steady gaze remained on Jackie Lyn, on the other end of the sofa
from Lainie. She seemed either oblivious or uncaring of his scrutiny. He sat
opposite her in the armchair. He stood, rounded the coffee table and then sat
on it, situating himself directly in front of Jackie. He took her hands in his
and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Jackie Lyn, you listen to me, girl. You need to
understand something here. You are not responsible for what happened to you.
There was nothing you could do about it. And you didn’t deserve it, not any of
it. Neither were you responsible for that sprained knee Lainie’s got. The only
thing happened you were responsible for was braining that brute with a skillet
and putting an end to the whole thing. That took courage, Jackie Lyn, so don’t
you sell yourself short. It took a whopping amount of courage to do what you
did when you were already beat up so bad. By doing that, you saved yourself
from more abuse, and you saved Lainie Sue over there from a lot worse than a
sprained knee. You probably also saved both your lives, to boot. We owe you,
girl. We’re beholden to you. I know that. We all do.”

He grew silent. Her eyes remained downcast.

“Jackie Lyn, look at me,” he said, voice soft but
carrying a commanding note that expected to be obeyed.

Jackie raised her head, almost fearfully, and met
his gaze.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Jackie
Lyn?”

She nodded twice, slowly. She appeared mesmerized.
Her throat worked as she swallowed.

His head jerked downward once in a decisive,
positive gesture. “Then that’s good.”

He remained still for an instant, then leaned to
kiss her on the forehead. He moved back, dropping her hands and standing. “I’m
proud of you, Jackie Lyn, real proud. And I love you, girl.”

He glanced at Lainie, then again at Jackie. “Now I’m
going to get out of here and leave you two to yourselves. You cry, talk it out,
scream and holler if you want to. You do what you need to do, both of you. Just
so long as you get started on healing.”

Jackie remained sitting upright after he left, her
face like a mask as she stared into space. Lainie scooted over, careful of her
knee, and then gathered Jackie in close. Slowly the mask crumpled. Tears fell
one at a time, then Jackie cried in earnest, sobs shuddering throughout her
body. She held Lainie so tightly it restricted her breathing. Lainie cried with
her, and in her heart she thanked and blessed Miles. Jackie would make it.
She’d allowed herself to start feeling again.

*

The shower water was too cold for Carl Henry.
Stinkin’ jailhouses were all the same—no air conditioning and no hot water. At
least he had the place to himself, except for the guard and a black scrawny guy
at the end with a body and face full of wrinkles.

Carl’s head was too sore to put under the spray.
Fourteen stitches. Damn bitch! Two of ’em together—twice as conniving and twice
as deadly. It didn’t matter how long he had to wait to go after them, though;
he’d make things right. That was a given.

Two white dudes came in, stripped down and took
spots next to the black man, and the old one up and left. Just like that. Carl
watched them without giving them a direct look. He didn’t recognize the one
with the beer belly, but he’d run into the other one yesterday. They’d been
headed for the same empty spot at the table with their food trays. Carl had
stared him down and got the seat, but he hadn’t liked the look the man gave
him. Not mean, not all hot and ready to fight, but more calculating-like, like
he was sizing him up.

Carl figured it was time to get out of there. As he
grabbed his towel he noted there was no guard at the door. He didn’t like the
sudden disappearance of guards. From the corner of his eye, he caught the
movement of the two men when they headed his way. He turned, gave them his full
attention.

“You don’t want to be messin’ with me,” he warned.
He kept his voice even and his gaze steady. He twisted the towel up tight to
use like a whip. Neither man had a hard-on, so that wasn’t it.

He’d taken on two bruisers before and he could do it
again. The one he’d won the bench seat from had something in his hand,
something that glinted. The two men separated. Carl backed away at an angle,
not letting either one flank him. The empty-handed one started toward him
first. Not letting him get the upper hand, Carl rushed him, butted him with his
head and got a handful of balls and squeezed. The dude screamed like a girl at
the same instant something sliced, burning hot, into Carl’s side. He hunched,
jabbed back with his elbow but missed, tried to swing around to confront the
bastard but his muscles felt like putty. The useless towel floated to the floor
as he felt another jab that went deeper.

He slipped in his own blood and went down.

*

Glen Charles and Lori visited Lainie and Reed on a
Sunday afternoon, bringing with them homemade, melt-in-your-mouth oatmeal
cookies.

“Finally broke down and hired a sitter,” Lori said.
“She goes to our church, a real sweet girl, and they like her a lot. But it still
makes me nervous to leave the kids. Promised we’d be back in a couple hours.”
She gave an apologetic look to her husband, who sat next to her on the sofa.
“For my sake. Not so much theirs.”

Because they lived in town and had already been to
the Cooper house, Lainie realized their visiting time was going to be short.

“But I had to come see you,” Lori went on with an
earnest look at Lainie. “Sometimes you just have to talk to people, tell them
you care. Took a batch of cookies to Jackie Lyn, too. She was just a year
behind me in school.” She looked down at her lap. “Can’t believe a man could do
what he did. Shouldn’t speak bad of the dead, but he deserved what he got.”

Lainie’s head jerked up. “What?”

Then she looked at Reed, who’d shoved the ottoman
alongside her armchair and now sat on it, cookie in hand. “Carl Henry’s dead?”

He gave her a sideways glance, but didn’t respond.

Glen Charles and Lori looked at each other. “Sorry,”
they said in unison. And then he added, “Didn’t mean to speak outta turn.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Reed said with a shrug. “No
secret. Just hadn’t come up.”

Hadn’t come up?
Lainie thought,
watching him. But all she said was, “When?”

“Couple days ago,” Reed answered without looking at
her. “Never made it back to prison. Was stabbed to death at the county jail.”

Lainie nodded slowly, then looked back at their
guests.

“No witnesses,” Glen Charles supplied. “No
suspects.”

“Does Jackie know?” Lainie directed the question to
the room at large.

“Not really sure,” Reed said quietly.

Lori frowned as she stared into space, as if trying
to remember if anything had been said during today’s visit.

“Ray mentioned it,” Glen Charles said. “When we took
that walk. They know.”

After Reed saw their guests out, he came back in and
looked at Lainie.

“So she’s free,” she said. “Finally and forever.”

He nodded.

“I agree with Lori. Can’t muster pity for him.”

“Doesn’t deserve any,” he said flatly.

Lainie smoothed wrinkles in her denim skirt,
thinking she might know why Reed hadn’t told her about Carl Henry. But she was
reluctant to ask to make sure. She recalled the look of Miles in the hospital:
cold, hard, silent. He could be ruthless, had money and power and clout,
possibly far-reaching clout. But could he...

“No witnesses,” she repeated. “No suspects.”

“That’s right.”

She rested a hand on each knee. One looked and felt
no different from the other. Only when she moved the right one did she know it
was injured.

“Did Miles have anything to do with it?” she asked,
and had to force herself not to hold her breath waiting for a reply.

“I don’t know,” he answered evenly.

She looked up then. He exhaled heavily, and he shook
his head and looked away. “You shouldn’t ask the question if you’re not
prepared to hear the answer.”

The cold, sick feeling grew.

Looking back at her, Reed went on, voice sounding
carefully precise. “I saw his face that night, same as you did. If you’re
asking me if he’s capable of arranging for it to be done, the answer is yes. If
you’re asking if he did it, the answer is that I don’t know and I don’t want to
know. Lainie, you’ve got to consider that the population inside a jail is
unsavory and unpredictable. Why try to read more into it? However it happened,
it had nothing to do with you, so don’t make yourself sick over it.”

But Lainie knew that if Miles was responsible for
Carl Henry’s death, it was because of her and Jackie. Then she realized that
she agreed with Reed. She didn’t want to know either.

One month later, Lainie looked across the supper
table at Reed. “I understand my house is ready.” She made sure her voice held
neither challenge nor accusation.

He glanced her way but said nothing. He continued
clearing the table.

“I understand it’s been ready for a week. Miles
thought you’d told me.”

“You’re not ready to be on your own yet. When you
are, I’ll move you over there.”

“As far as you’re concerned, I’ll never be ready.”

“Uh-huh,” he said blandly. He closed the dishwasher
and got it started. “Come on, I’ll help you into the other room.”

“I don’t need...”

At his forbearing look, she cut herself off. He
hadn’t listened to her yet and wasn’t going to start now. With her gaze holding
his—and she was no longer trying to hide defiance or irritation or anything
else—she pushed her chair back and got to her feet. All by herself.

He nodded. “Good.”

She wanted to yell at him. Scream. Swear. Instead
she made her way into the next room, walking slowly and carefully. The limp had
improved but was still there, and she knew he was looking for it. Settling
herself in the armchair, she gave him a warning look.

He caught it because he shook his head, implying
that the problem didn’t lie with him; she was just being troublesome. “Got work
to do. You want to read or watch TV?”

She looked to either side. A paperback book was on
her right, remote control on the left. “I think I’ll be just fine.”

He disappeared into the second bedroom that he used
as an office.

She sank back into the chair. If she got up, he’d
hear her and be right back in here. He seemed convinced she was unable to take
care of herself, that she didn’t even know how. He’d treated her like something
fragile ever since he’d brought her home from the hospital, and he was driving
her nuts. Sure, he’d always been bossy, highhanded, had practically made an art
out of nagging. Yet he’d also treated her as an equal, and she wanted that
back.

He’d even put sex on hold, making the decision all
by himself, which had made it necessary for her to seduce him. Admittedly, it
had been a very careful seduction, and, to his credit, he’d put up some
resistance. But she’d won. She smiled.