She rocked a bit as the dark night swirled around her. Why the devil had she continued ordering whiskey? She stifled a belch as Rick shut the driver’s door and came around to stand beside her.
Justus puffed up like a blowfish. “Right now, this is your home. And I am—”
“Not going to go there tonight,” Rick finished, his voice soft but firm. He put a hand on the small of her back.
Before she could think better of it, she leaned into him, allowed him to support her, even though it made her angry he thought he had to intervene.
“Kate, come inside,” Justus demanded, banging his good hand on the wheelchair tray.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said, aware she sounded more like a teenager confronting her dad after a night of necking at the drive-in than a grown woman. Her stomach lurched against her ribs.
“I’ll damned well tell you what I want to. I’m your—”
A brittle laugh escaped her. “You want to play daddy now? Tonight? I’m nearly thirty-one years old, Justus. Too late, buddy. You had your chance and you didn’t take it. Or have you forgotten that day? That would have been a good time to play daddy.”
Her mind tumbled back to the day he’d rebuked her in front of all those people. Pain struck fast and fierce, boiling up inside her, banging against her heart. She couldn’t stop the rage. “How could you do that? I was
nine.
Nine years old. Do you know what it did to me? You are cruel and the worst person I can even—”
“Kate,” Rick said. “Stop. It’s not the time.”
“I hate you,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the man who’d hurt her so many years ago. “I will never be your daughter, so you might as well save us the drama, give me the money and let me go back to Vegas.”
Kate could feel the contents of her stomach rising, burning a path up her throat, through her nostrils. As the hurt and anger from long ago came forth, so did the whiskey. She broke away from them and ran for the garden behind the house.
She made it in time to vomit on Vera’s emerging flowers.
She sank to her knees and let her body rid itself of the poison.
Then, for the first time in a very long time, Kate cried. She cried for the little girl she’d once been, a little girl who had stupid dreams of a family, of a room with a bed that didn’t poke her with its broken springs, of a dinner not served on a TV tray. Dreams of shiny dolls and brand-new books. Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas Eve services. Good-night kisses and baby brothers with toothy grins. Then she cried for the woman she’d become. A woman who held so fast to the pain of the past that she couldn’t see the present with a man. Any man.
And she wept because she didn’t know what else to do.
Jeremy was wrong. Kate the Great couldn’t fix what was broken this time.
“You’re telling me to stay away from her? You sent me to get her, if you recall.”
“I remember,” the old man said, halting his chair directly in front of him, “but that doesn’t mean I want you sniffing around her. Anyone with eyes can see what’s going on between you. She’s not—”
“The sort of girl to be with riffraff like me?” Rick couldn’t stop himself from baring his teeth at Justus. He wasn’t good enough for the daughter Justus had thrown away? The irony didn’t skip past him.
“Come now, Enrique, don’t play the poor servant boy with me.”
“Don’t treat me like one.”
“Just because you feel subpar does not mean the world views you as such.”
The man’s words seared Rick. “Who said I view myself below any man?”
Justus shrugged. “It’s evident in the way you react. If you paint yourself in that light, you should expect to be treated as less than what you are.”
Anger boiled over. The old man was cruel sometimes, but there was an elemental truth to his words. Rick had been raised to accept he was of the servile class. His people were washerwomen, maids, gardeners and migrant workers. It did not matter that he was born an American citizen. In many people’s eyes he was an intruder, unwelcome and unwanted like weeds in the cracks of a sidewalk.
Justus’s mouth tilted in a parody of the Cheshire cat, his hand mimicking the animal’s tail as he flicked it toward Rick. “I don’t cotton to stereotypes. I respect the man you’ve become.”
“Justus, I—”
“No, we won’t speak any more of it.”
Rick glanced away toward the swishing bush next to the Japanese maple, accepting the truth in Justus’s words. He knew the old man had a healthy dose of fear and admiration for him. Rick had earned it many times over, doing what many would consider fearless. Or stupid. Depended on how one looked at it. But he’d helped Justus correct his past mistakes. All because the man had cared enough to save a stupid gangbanger and give him a second chance.
And Rick had returned that favor. One night, a little more than two years ago, Rick had taken the gun from Justus’s hand. Broken and beaten, the old man had wanted to face death more than he’d wanted to face life. Rick had pulled him back to the world Ryan had wanted to save. He’d given Justus something to cling to—Ryan’s legacy. Phoenix. Now the man wanted more. He wanted a daughter who was too wounded to live up to what he wished.
“Kate isn’t the right woman for you.”
Rick jerked his head up. “Why the hell not?”
“Both of you have strong personalities. It won’t work. You need someone soft. Like Vera.”
“I’ll choose the woman for me, and I’ll be damned if you tell me who I can or can’t have a relationship with. If I want Kate, I’ll take her.”
Rick would never admit he was trying like hell to avoid tumbling into bed with Kate. He wouldn’t give Justus the satisfaction of knowing he wasn’t going to take his relationship with Kate any further.
Kate couldn’t be the right woman for him, no matter how well she fit against him, no matter how right it felt every time she appeared like a lovely blossom on a deadened tree. She couldn’t be the right woman for him because she was leaving in less than two weeks. And two weeks wasn’t enough time to take a risk. Two weeks wasn’t worth compromising all that he’d become. Not for a few nights of pleasure.
So he’d be content to play the upstanding good guy, Kate’s guide, her protector through the minefield of living with Justus. The ties that bound him would be ones of honor.
Not of selfish impulse.
There was no future with Justus Mitchell’s illegitimate daughter. That much was certain.
Justus interrupted his thoughts. “Hell, I’ve never tried to tell you what to do, boy.”
At that statement, Rick lifted one eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe a time or two, but I think it’s a bad idea to see Kate as part of your future.” Justus curled his left hand into a fist and looked at Rick as if the Lord had spoken.
“Maybe I should say the same to you.”
Justus’s bushy eyebrows knitted into a furious frown. “What do you mean? She’s here, isn’t she? She wants my money, doesn’t she? Then she’ll have to deal with me.”
“Maybe so, but you’re not mending any fences trying to control her the way you are.”
“So what should I have done? Wired her the money with no questions asked? I wanted to have a chance to fix my past. Ever since I lost Ryan and found God, that’s all I’ve wanted. Just to fix my past.”
“Then why haven’t you already fixed this with Kate? I ran all over Texas delivering checks to widows and selling land back to people you’d virtually stolen it from, but you don’t bother to call your own daughter? What the hell did you do to her when she was a child, Justus?” Rick didn’t understand this man, his motivations.
Justus’s eyes shuttered. “That doesn’t concern you. Let me fix this my way.”
Rick knew it would do no good to continue arguing. “Fine, but remember this—Kate’s like a dog that’s been kicked, and you wore the boots. You can’t expect her to come running to you and lick your hand like nothing happened. Your boot left a mark, old man.”
Justus reversed his chair, settling it against the ramp leading to the back porch. “Not much I can do about the past.”
“No, not much any of us can do about it. Just move forward. But you can’t control Kate.” Rick caught a glimpse of Vera slipping out the door and heading for the garden. He pulled his keys from his pocket and turned toward the car still sitting in the drive with the headlights on.
He needed space. He needed to think. He couldn’t do that with Kate around. Vera would take care of her tonight. Tomorrow, he might have his resolve back in place where she was concerned. Stress on the
might
because deep down he knew Kate had already sucked him in and he was losing the will to fight her deadly combination of vulnerability and blatant sex appeal.
No matter what he told himself.
“Tastes like I licked the bottom of someone’s boot. Someone who works in a pasture.” She took the cloth and wiped her face. Her stomach still rolled, but she felt enormously better.
“You can brush your teeth when you get inside.”
“I don’t want to go inside. I want to go back to Vegas and pretend none of this ever happened. This was a mistake.” Kate couldn’t believe she’d admitted to screwing up. Especially to the one woman who wished Kate would pack her bags and leave.
“I can’t say I blame you. None of this has been easy, has it? Then again, once you start something, you can’t leave it unfinished,” Vera said. Kate immediately thought of Rick. If she left tomorrow, she’d leave things unfinished between them, too.
She turned to look at the woman who’d brought her small comfort. Vera wore cotton pajamas that likely cost too much to be worn kneeling on the dirty pavers of the garden. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, her face free of cosmetics, making her look both older and younger at the same time. Crow’s-feet crinkled at the corners of brown eyes that were indecipherable in the faint light of the night.
“Must feel good to get it all out, though,” Vera said, a soft sigh escaping her as she settled on her heels.
Kate wasn’t sure whether she meant the liquor or the rage at her father. But either way, Vera was right. “Yes, it does.”
Vera pointed to the crocus she’d baptized with Bone’s cheap whiskey. “Ryan planted those when he was ten. Never know if they’ll come up or not. Some years they don’t.”
Kate winced. She’d barfed on precious Ryan’s flowers. “I’m sorry.”
Vera shrugged. “Nothing the rain won’t wash away. Organic, isn’t it?”
Kate thought it rather weird they were talking about vomit being organic, but she went with it. “I guess. So, Ryan liked gardening? That’s crazy for a guy.”
Vera’s lips twitched. “Well, he went through a phase one year. He’d attended a science camp and learned about botany. Growing things intrigued him. He went through the same phase again when Rick came to live with us—Rick worked as a gardener when he first came. That man took to the earth like no man I’d ever seen. It was odd, really. A gang member so angry with the world able to grow the most beautiful things you could imagine. Ryan tagged after Rick like a puppy. He loved that anger right out of him.”
A lump appeared in Kate’s throat at the thought of a boy loving Rick so much that he let go of the hate, that he began to dream about a future. “Ryan was special.”
Vera nodded. Kate wondered if all Vera’s thoughts wrapped around the past like a line anchoring a boat. “Yes, he was. More than anyone could ever know. You know, there are people who are born that way. Full of something so magical, so pure. He was like an angel. And I was lucky to be his momma.”
Tears sprang to Kate’s eyes. She could feel the sadness in Vera and something made her want to reach inside the woman and remove it. She touched Vera’s hand, then wrapped her fingers around it so their hands curled together.
Vera flinched, but didn’t withdraw. For the first time since Kate had stepped foot on Cottonwood, she felt something within herself shift. Click. A sort of rightness settled in her bones.
“I’d like to know more about—” she paused, the words getting clogged in her throat “—my brother.”
Vera’s eyes met hers. Honesty passed between. It was the first time Kate had admitted Ryan was indeed her brother. And Justus her father. No more pretense. Only truthfulness.
“You should know about him. It’s a shame you never met him.”
“I did. Sort of.”
Like a puppy, Vera cocked her head. “How?”
“Shortly after my grandmother passed, I came to Oak Stand to settle some of her things, and he ran into me with his bicycle. Tore my new broom skirt.” Kate frowned a little. She’d saved all her tips from the bar to buy that skirt from the boutique near campus. Sixty dollars had been a fortune back then.
Who was she kidding? It was a fortune now.
Vera smiled and clapped a hand over her mouth. “You were that mean girl?”
Kate laughed. “Well, I
was
mad. And the damn skirt looked like it had been shredded by a cat.”
Vera laughed. The sound was soft against the night, and her face was framed against the fingernail moon. “He said a mean girl screamed at him. I remember that day. He’d gone with a friend to get an ice-cream cone at the Dairy Barn. Justus hadn’t wanted to let him go because he’d just gotten that mountain bike and couldn’t handle it that well. But Ryan insisted he could ride it fine.”
“Yeah, right into me,” Kate muttered, before smiling. “He was a cute kid. Hated him on sight.”
Vera drew back, but then realized Kate was joking. “He cried because he tore your skirt. He was like that. Felt everything too much. It worried him you were mad, and he didn’t know who you were. Took all the quarters he’d been saving for the arcade and said he was going to buy you a new skirt.”
Kate shook her head, as something new lodged in her gut. Something called shame. Remorse. Or whatever a person called the feeling of hating a golden-haired, blue-eyed boy because his father loved him, then finding out the boy was truly worth the love. “I left that afternoon. Only came to pack some stuff and dispose of the rest.”
“He said he’d find you. You had eyes the same color as his. I never made the connection, though I should have. I’d heard the rumors, but I didn’t want to face them.”
Kate didn’t want to talk any more about the past tonight. She didn’t want to push it with Vera. Didn’t want to undo the good that had been done. “Almost everybody knew, Vera. No one else wanted to face it, either.” She gave Vera’s hand one last squeeze.
Vera sat stock-still and watched as Kate rose to her feet. “Well, it’s late, and you need to brush your teeth.”
“And grab a shower.” Kate reached down to offer assistance standing.
As Vera took her hand, a fleeting peace brushed Kate, gentle as the wings of the dragonflies that often buzzed lazily along the edges of the East Texas ponds. Vera accepted. Vera adapted. Vera would heal.
Kate didn’t believe in divine intervention—she was far too pragmatic. But something had happened between the two women. Like stones being pulled from a wall of doubt, they had made progress in opening the boundary that separated them.
Silently, they walked the twisting path of the garden, emerging into the porch light where Justus sat like a worn gargoyle. Kate didn’t acknowledge her father, just glided past him.
There was honesty between them, too. But it hurt too much to acknowledge or embrace it. Anger still licked at her insides like the aftertaste of the whiskey, only harder to wash away.