You're Not Safe (Texas Rangers) (11 page)

 

 

Greer sat in her office going over the details for the fund-raiser she was hosting for the Crisis Center. She’d started at the center years ago answering phones during the late-night hours. She’d planned to simply answer phone calls. Stay on the fringe. But somewhere along the way she’d caught the attention of Dr. Stewart, who became chairman of the nonprofit’s board last year. Dr. Stewart had liked Greer and invited her to join the committee.

Greer had said no at first but Dr. Stewart wasn’t an easy man to refuse so she’d promised to help a little. Give Dr. Stewart an inch, and he’d charm you out of a mile.

Greer had found herself on the marketing committee and somehow had agreed to host a fund-raiser at Bonneville.

No sense worrying how she’d gotten sucked into this event. She was here and all she could do was make the best of it.

Tables. Chairs. Signs. Food. Wine, of course. Her checklist was complete. She was good at logistics. Ask her to arrange the field workers for harvest. Done. Coordinate Bonneville’s booth at the growers’ association meeting. Easy. Handle a truck, broken irrigation lines, or bug infestation. No sweat. But ask her to deal directly with people, and she was damn near a mess.

She’d not always been like this. Before the accident she could walk up to anyone and start a conversation. Her parents had held many business cocktail parties, and they expected Greer and Jeff to make an appearance. Ironically, it was Jeffrey who didn’t like the limelight and Greer who filled the conversation lulls with lively chatter and laughter.

The crunch of gravel under tires had her looking out her office window toward the main entrance. No one came or left the vineyard’s main entrance without her seeing. She didn’t like surprises. Too many lawyers and reporters had surprised her at her parents’ Austin home after the accident. Twelve years had softened the leeriness but not broken it.

A white four-door sedan drove up in a cloud of dust, parking in front of the main tasting room. She didn’t recognize the car and found herself tensing as she rose. She still hated surprises.

The driver’s-side door opened and a tall, slender woman dressed in soft pinks appeared. Dark sunglasses hid her face but Greer would have recognized the stiff-backed posture anywhere. Her mother.

Smoothing her fingers over her hair drawn back into a tight ponytail, she moved toward the front door. Though the urge to hide was strong, she refused. She’d made a promise to stop hiding from the world, and though she had her faults, she never broke a promise.

Greer pushed open the front door and found her mother studying the building with a critical eye. Mom had not been to the vineyard in well over a decade and the times they’d met had been at the family home in Austin or at Jeff’s grave. The vineyard had changed a good bit since then. Greer took pride that she’d been so much a part of the vineyard’s transformation.

“Mom,” Greer said. “This is a surprise.”

Glancing from side to side, Sylvia Templeton approached her daughter. Those who didn’t know Sylvia would describe her smile as bright, but Greer saw the frost. “How are you doing, Greer?”

She allowed her mother to wrap a stiff arm around her. “I’m fine. What brings you out here?”

Sylvia released her daughter and stepped back as if she didn’t like the physical contact. “Can’t I come and see my daughter?”

“Of course.” Already formality had hardened Greer’s tone. Before the accident her mother had not been the most approachable person, but after she’d all but ignored her second child. Hard disappointments had enabled Greer to build the wall between them brick by brick. “You’ve not been out here in over ten years, Mom.”

“Maybe it’s time, Elizabeth.”

The sound of her first name grated. “What do you want, Mom?”

Sylvia and Lydia had been sisters. Lydia was the younger of the two and from what little Greer had gathered Lydia had been the vivacious one. The outgoing one. The sisters had had a falling out long before Greer was born and had barely spoken over the next three decades. Family lore hinted Sylvia had stolen Lydia’s fiancé. Greer had always discounted the idea. She could never picture her father with her aunt. Once she’d asked her aunt, who’d not laughed at the absurd question. Instead, Lydia’s expression turned sad. Greer had never received a real answer.

Manicured fingers carefully brushed a stray hair from Sylvia’s eyes. “I can’t visit?”

“Of course you can.” She noticed the nail on her mother’s right index finger was chipped. Mom never chipped a nail. Ever. A small insignificant detail but it mattered. “Why now?”

Sylvia took a step back and surveyed the new tasting building. “You’ve made so many improvements out here.”

Avoidance. It was classic Sylvia. But Greer was curious enough about the visit to play along. “We completed the tasting room last fall. With Aunt Lydia so sick it was important to me it be finished before she died.”

“Our financial advisor called me when you cashed out your trust fund to invest in these buildings. I considered calling you then but decided you are old enough to make such decisions.”

“What’s the point of having the money if it’s not working for me?”

“You have no safety net now.”

“No.” She’d come to believe safety nets were an illusion. She’d had money and family behind her before the accident but neither had cushioned her fall. Money was nice, but it couldn’t protect you completely.

“You aren’t worried.”

“I’m not.” For a moment neither spoke as memories of the accident and Jeff danced between them like specters.

Sylvia’s lips flattened and she turned as if the distant horizon held great interest.

Greer didn’t push. Her mother was a hard woman but not unfeeling. Losing Jeff and then several years later her husband had devastated the woman. She couldn’t fully love Greer anymore but that didn’t mean she couldn’t love.

“I hear you are having a fund-raiser for the Crisis Center tonight.”

“You hear? From who?”

“David Edwards. He also told me about Rory and what happened.”

She straightened. “What did he tell you?”

“That Rory was dead.” She shook her head. “We don’t need to rehash the details.” She fingered the long pearl strand. “I think you’d avoid the public eye, especially now.”

“I did nothing wrong. I didn’t have any contact with Rory.” And still a tiny hint of guilt poked and prodded, asking,
Could you have done more for him?

“That has little to do with public perception.”

It shouldn’t hurt that others judged her still. But it did. “I can’t control what people think, nor will I worry about it.”

“You should worry.”

“I stopped wondering what the David Edwardses of the world thought about me a long time ago.”

“Men like that can make your life hard, Elizabeth.”

“Greer. My name is Greer.”

Sylvia stood silent, the chipped manicured index finger wrapping and unwrapping around her strand of pearls. “Why are you doing this? Why must you bring up the past?”

Lydia’s dream would not survive if Greer couldn’t learn to deal with her fears of a more public life. “The Crisis Center is in real need of funds. I want to help.”

Her mother studied her. “If you hadn’t given all your money away, you could have written them a check.”

“I didn’t give it away. I invested it in the vineyard. And the Crisis Center needs the publicity as much as it does the money. It’s a way I can help and I am.”

Her mother shook her head. “You realize by helping a crisis center you will be raising questions about the past. I think you chose them on purpose. You want people to remember.”

Ah, here was the crux of the visit. Though a flip response begged to be spoken, she saw the truth in her mother’s words. She’d not only stopped running from the past but was running toward it head on. “I’m helping the Crisis Center with a need. I cannot help what people choose to think.”

“Of course you can, Elizabeth. You could have chosen a different charity. Animals. The environment. Cancer, for God’s sake. But you chose a center that helps people in crisis. People who have . . .”

The silence hurt more than an oath. After all this time, her mother couldn’t acknowledge the pain that drove Greer to such a desperate place. “People who have tried to kill themselves.”

Sylvia grimaced. “I don’t think it’s necessary to say it.”

“Why not? It’s the truth.” She couldn’t summon anger or outrage. Her voice remained quiet and calm. “I tried to kill myself after the accident. I’m not proud of it, and I’m forever grateful you found me in time.”

Her mother raised her chin, which trembled just a little. “Don’t.”

Vague memories of her mother screaming for help echoed in her mind. “Thank you for saving me.”

Sylvia drew in a deep breath. “You’re being dramatic.”

Frustration welled inside her and she found herself getting irritated despite years of telling herself her mother’s opinion didn’t matter. “If I can help someone who is in a bad place and keep them from making the choice I did, then I guess it’s worth the risk of people dredging up the past.”

“You don’t care if the past gets unearthed? I would think you of all people would want to bury it deep.”

“It’s there regardless. Pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t change anything.”

Sylvia’s lips flattened. “When you dredge up the past, you fuel the gossips.”

Greer struggled with temper and a deep disappointment. “Are you worried about me or yourself ?”

Sylvia raised her chin. “Both of us.”

“You have no reason to feel ashamed, Mom. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Didn’t I?” For the first time in a long time raw pain flashed in her gaze. Tears glistened. “I am your mother. It is not easy for me to relive the past.”

“I’m not trying to relive it, Mom. I’m trying to learn from it.”

“What is there to be learned?”

“Forgiveness,” she whispered.

Green eyes flashed. “Mine or yours?”

“Maybe we both need to forgive each other.”

Her mother hesitated and then shook her head as if clamping her armor back in place. “Your actions are a direct reflection of me.”

Bitterness settled in the pit of Greer’s stomach. “So what you’re saying is forgiveness is impossible?”

She huffed her exasperation. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Sylvia shrugged her shoulders as if trying to fend off unwanted weight. “I don’t need more gossip at the club.”

“You don’t want me to hold the fund-raiser because it could make some of your friends at the country club talk?”

“Is that so terrible? They’re all I have left.”

“You have me.”

Sylvia moistened dry lips. For a moment she didn’t speak and then she cleared her throat. “I plan to come to your fund-raiser.”

“Really?”

“I’m invited, aren’t I?”

Greer wrestled with the lump settling in her chest. As saddened as she was by this conversation a part of her wanted her mother to recognize what she’d accomplished. “Of course. I don’t control the invitation list. The board of directors does. It never occurred to me you’d want to support me.”

Sylvia arched a brow. “Don’t be smart.”

“I’m not being smart. I’m stating facts. You’ve not wanted any communication with me since the accident. Did we exchange five words at Aunt Lydia’s funeral?”

“I don’t do well at funerals.” She shook her head. “You are so much like Lydia. She was never happy with her life. Always wanted to strike out and make her own path. I cringe when I think of the mistakes she made.”

“What mistakes did she make?”

“I don’t want to discuss it.”

“Was loving Dad her mistake?”

Sylvia’s gaze turned icy. “Did she tell you that?”

This moment confirmed the stories about Lydia, her father, and mother were true. “No. She never said a word. All I know is she took me in after I left Shady Grove. She gave me a home and a purpose.”

“I often thought all this was to spite me. She could be willful and devious.”

Greer flexed her fingers. She’d done her best to keep her emotions in check but if they continued on this same path she’d regret what she was going to say. “You can trash me all you want, Mom, but don’t say a word against Lydia. Ever.” The sharp edge to her words had her mother straightening.

“Lydia was my sister.”

“I know. And you loved her. Like you loved me.” In the distance the black nag whinnied and swished her tail, drawing Greer’s attention away from her anger. “Thank you for coming, Mom, but I’ve a full day ahead of me. I have heard and understood your message. You are not happy with me. Again. But there is nothing I can do about it.” She smiled as well as any Austin debutante. “We’d love to have you at the event. You can get the tickets at the center. They cost a hundred dollars each but that includes a lovely afternoon here and all the wine you can drink.”

Her mother looked as if she’d say more but then thought better of it. She lowered into her car and drove away, leaving Greer standing there alone, fists clenched and more determined than ever to force herself back into the public eye.

 

 

An hour later, Greer was at her desk, trying to concentrate on a column of numbers that refused to add up. Her thoughts had been distracted by her mother’s visit and, of course, Rory. Mitch. Bragg. The list grew.

A white van drove up the driveway toward the tasting room. She pulled off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and shut off the computer screen, grateful to leave the accounts receivable behind for today. She stretched out the stiffness in her lower back and moved outside, grateful for the day’s warmth after so many hours inside. She wouldn’t love the heat in twenty minutes but for now it warmed her bones.