Along Came a Cowboy (33 page)

I push open the door and stop.

Jenn stands in front of the full-length mirror, braiding her hair in two braids. She's beautiful in the turquoise and rhinestone shirt and matching boots I wore when I was her age.

“Grandmom found it in her cedar chest and dropped it by awhile ago. I hope it's okay for me to wear it,” she says to my
reflection, her green eyes wide.

I swallow against the lump in my throat. “Definitely. But I should have bought you something new.”

She grins. “This is a perfect fit. Besides, it's vintage. How much better can it be?”

“Vintage?” I say with mock dismay. “Knock-knock.”

Still looking in the mirror, I see Jack behind us, his expression guarded. He holds up a turquoise cowboy hat. “Mrs. Donovan sent this.”

Armed with the knowledge that I'll be able to tell him the truth soon, I toss him a playful smile in the mirror. “Jenn's saying I'm vintage. I think that's just another way of saying I'm old. What do you think?”

He shakes his head and stares at us both, his mouth slightly open. “I think she looks enough like you to be your daughter.”

His words strangle the air from my lungs. My mind races, frantic to erase them, to cover them somehow.

The buzzing in my ears blares as Jenn's gaze meets mine in the mirror.

I stare back, as if I'm encased in concrete, unable to break free.

Her eyes flare as she realizes the truth. “No way,” she whimpers.

“Jenn. You weren't supposed to—”

She spins to face me. “How. . .how could you?”

I try to pull in a breath. I've had this nightmare so many times. Is it really happening? “I didn't—I was going to—”

She puts her hands to her ears. “I hate you!” she yells and runs toward her room. The door slams.

I'm still frozen, my ragged breath the only sound. No. This can't be the end. I have to make her understand.

“Rachel.” Jack's hand touches my shoulder.

I jerk away and stumble down the hall to Jenn's room and slam my fist against the door. “Jenn! We have to talk.” There has to be a way to fix this. With my ear to the door, I try again. “Honey, let me in.”

I hear movement; then suddenly music blares. I jerk away from the pulsating rock music vibrating through my brain. She hates that music. She just wants to drown me out any way possible. I jiggle the doorknob, but it doesn't budge. “Please,” I whisper, knowing she can't hear me. I stay there as the radio DJ announces the nonsensical title to the next song and the next. Every time there's a tiny pause in the broadcasting, I knock, but she ignores me.

Finally I give up and walk back to the living room.

Jack's standing where I left him, looking at the family pictures on my wall. He turns to me, his brow furrowed. “What's going on?” he yells over the music.

“Going on?” I croak. “Surely you've figured it out by now.” I shake my head. “All this time, she's been trying to get me to help her find her birth mother, and I—”

“Birth mother?” he repeats dumbly. “She's adopted? But she looks. . .”

The realization dawns on him more slowly than it did Jennifer, but I see his eyes widen as the truth hits him. I turn away, unable to bear any more disgust and disappointment in the eyes of someone I love.

I'm not who he thought I was.

I'm not who Jenn thought I was.

All these years of being a big fraud has finally caught up with me. “Why don't you mind your own business?”

He laughs, but there's no humor in it. “I thought you were my business.” I may not be looking at him, but the disgust is
evident in his voice. “If I remember right, I told you all about my past on our first date. And I believed you were finally beginning to trust me. I must seem like a real idiot to you.”

My chest tightens. “I'm sorry I hurt you. But look at it this way: You've paid me back. My relationship with Jenn will never be the same.”

I can feel his breath hot on my neck, and when he speaks, he doesn't yell, in spite of the music. “Relationship?”

He doesn't say anything else, and for a few seconds I think he's gone.

Then, “Relationships are built on truth and trust.”

I flinch.

“No wonder you couldn't say you loved me.”

He's right. I was never the pure innocent girl he must have imagined I was. Not even back then. Not after that night. “Just leave me alone, Jack. You're better off, anyway.”

Apparently he agrees, because the front door slams.

I turn and sink into my glider. The rock music pounds in my head, and I try to let it wipe out conscious thought. But I can't. I remember how I felt when, without discussing it with me, my parents decided to send me off to live with Tammy and Russ. And I'd done something horrible. How much more must Jenn feel betrayed by me? As the sunlight outside dims, I blink my swollen eyes, push to my feet, and walk down the hall. I bang on her door again. “Turn the music off so you can hear me,” I shout.

Sudden fear clutches me. Would she do something crazy? I have to know she's okay. I sprint to the bathroom and grab a hair pin from the drawer. “Sorry, babe, I'm coming in.” I stick the pin in, and the knob twists easily under my hand.

The music booms even louder, but the room is empty. I run over to the window where the curtains are flapping. For a
second, I can't take it in. She's gone. Gone.

My legs turn to lead again as I realize whom she would have called. Is history repeating itself in spite of my efforts to the contrary? “Lord, please protect her. Help me find her quickly.”

In the living room, I fumble in my purse until I find my cell phone and punch in Jack's number.

“Jenn's gone.”

“What?”

“I finally unlocked her door and she's gone. Are you home?”

“No. I've just been driving around.” His voice is husky. “Thinking. I'll come right over.”

“No.” I grab my keys from the hook. “I won't be here. I have to do something now. Do you have Dirk's phone number? I'm sure she's with him.”

“We can only hope.”

“Hope?” I snarl into the phone. Argh.

“I'll call him. Call you right back.”

In seconds my phone rings. “He's not answering.”

“Probably too busy seducing a hysterical girl.”

His voice is soft. “Rachel—”

“Where would he take her?” I snap.

“Probably to the ranch.”

“I'll be right there.” I open my car door.

“Let me take you. You're in no shape to drive.”

“I don't have time to wa—” His truck pulls into the driveway behind my car. I slam the door and flip my cell shut. I also don't have time to waste arguing.

When I climb into his truck, he looks over at me. “It will be okay.”

“That depends on how quickly we find them.”

“Dirk—”

I hold up my hand. “If you're going to tell me again what
a fine, upstanding young man he is, I'm going to have to take my own car.”

A muscle in his jaw jumps, but he keeps his lips clenched together.

We ride the rest of the way to his barn without speaking. Dirk's truck is parked right outside, and my stomach clenches. What will we find? Are we too late to stop Jenn from repeating my mistake?

As soon as I open my truck door, I can hear a male voice yelling. Jack is already running toward the barn, and I'm on his heels through the door. I stop in my tracks as I see Dirk inside the dirt-floored arena.

“Are you crazy?” he yells. “You can't do this.”

Jenn, her hair flying wildly around her shoulders, looks down at him from inside the chute, astride a bull. The bright green shirt and red hair are incongruent with the brownness of the arena and the paleness of her face. The word
surreal
flashes through my mind. This can't be happening.

She glances up at me and lifts her chin.

Black spots dance in front of my eyes, and everything starts to fade. I blink and steady myself with my hand. “Jenn,” I call shakily, “come on out and let's talk.”

“I don't have anything to say to you,” she yells, her voice hoarse from crying.

“I have plenty to say to you,” I call back. “Please get off the bull.”

Dirk climbs up on the chute gate in front. It can't open with him on it, surely. A movement near Jenn catches my eye. Jack has slipped around behind her.

Please, Lord, keep her safe
.

J
ack's husky voice rings through the empty arena, but I can't tell whether he's talking to Jenn or the bull. I edge closer, and she answers him, so I guess he is talking to her. He continues to talk in low soothing tones as if the back of a bull is the perfect place for a long conversation.

Every muscle in my body is taut. I feel as tightly coiled as a lion ready to spring, yet as helpless as a mouse in a trap.

She looks over at me and nods, then reaches up toward Jack. A sigh of relief pushes from my lungs.

Dirk leans in to help Jack get her off the increasingly restless bull. Apparently, his foot catches the latch, because the chute gate he's standing on swings slowly open. He lets go of Jenn and teeters, then drops to the ground, trying to close the latch back.

The bull, sensing freedom, slams his massive body against the gate. Dirk loses his balance and stumbles backward.

Jennifer, still on the bull's back, screams.

I run toward them.

The bull throws his body sideways and meets no resistance. I reach the fence just as Jack snatches Jenn straight up in the air.
I sink to my knees. The bull rampages out from under her into the arena, snorting and bucking.

Jack stands on the back side of the chute with Jenn cradled in his arms.

Dirk, back on his feet, climbs the fence and jumps out of the arena. He starts toward them, but Jack waves him away. He carries Jenn as if she were a baby and sets her down on the bench behind me.

I clamber to my feet and sit next to her. I reach toward her, and sobbing, she clutches my hand. Tears gush as I stare down at our clasped hands. For a brief second, she's mine again. It's as if none of this awfulness ever happened.

“That was close,” I say quietly, rubbing my trembling thumb across the back of her hand.

Jennifer stares up at me, her body shaking, her eyes clouded with fear and doubt. “I wanted you to pay,” she whispers. “I thought it would serve you right if I got thrown off a bull.”

I instinctively put my free hand over my heart. “It probably would have served me right, but I'm so thankful it didn't happen.”

“How could you do this to me?”

“Jenn, things aren't always as they seem.”

Her choked laugh is edged with sarcasm. “No kidding.”

“There's no explaining why I did what I did. I guess that's why I put this off so long.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Were you ashamed of me?”

I shake my head. “I was ashamed of me.” My insides clench as I remember the day I handed her to Tammy. “I wanted you to be a phoenix, baby. Beauty rising from the ashes. And you are.”

“Did you hate me because I was a mistake? Is that why you gave me up?”

I clasp her hand a little tighter, and she jerks it away as if she just realized we were touching.

“You were never a mistake. I loved you. More than life itself. That's why I gave you up.”

“How could you have kept this from me all these years? Would. . .Mom—” She stumbles on the word. “Would they not let you tell me?”

I push her hair back from her face, and again she jerks away.

“No, I was the one who wouldn't let them tell you I was your birth mother. I said I didn't want you to know because I didn't want you to be embarrassed, but the truth is, if I couldn't be your mother, I, at least, wanted you to look up to me. Not to see me as someone who would do something so despicable.” I pull in a shuddering breath and swipe at my face, slick with tears. “It was pride.”

“My whole life has been a lie.”

“You have two parents and an extended family who love you an incredible amount. That's not a lie.”

“I loved you.”

Her past tense stabs me. “Jenn, we were going to tell you this afternoon. Your mom and dad are probably at my house by now, actually. I called them yesterday, and they agreed to come today so we could tell you together.”

Jenn stares at me as if I am a stranger and pushes to her feet. “It's too late now. I want to go home.”

I follow her out of the barn then look around blindly for my car. Without speaking, Jack climbs in the crew cab truck and starts the motor. Suddenly, I remember I rode with him. Jenn gets in the backseat, and with great effort, I get in the front. My whole body is heavy with defeat. So this is what it's like when everything you fear will happen, does. I've lost them both.

I look over at Dirk, leaning on the fence, his head buried in his arms.