Courting Trouble (24 page)

“I deserve the truth,” Tulsa said. Her heart pounded in her chest. “We deserve the truth.” Why was it okay for Hudd to hide behind the town and his money while her family lived with the pain of the unknown?

“When my—when Connie died, people wanted me to be quiet and go away. I did that. But now I’m back. And guess what?” Tulsa’s chin quivered. “I want answers. If you won’t reopen this case then I’ll hire an investigator and take what I find to the media.”

Kyle sat taller in his chair. “Is that a threat?”

“No.” Tulsa’s voice was quieter. She didn’t want to fight with Kyle, she simply wanted his help in finding the truth. “Merely a statement of fact. I’m driven, I’m determined, and I’m ready to know.” She pressed her flat palm to her chest. “I need to know.”

“I hear you, Tulsa,” Kyle said. “I understand what you’re saying and I don’t give two hoots about protecting anyone who commits a crime, regardless of their last name. I’ll go and see Wilkes myself. See if I can’t get some details. But I can’t promise you an indictment or even a trial. Frankly, at this late date and with his waning mental capacity, I don’t think any judge in America would find Hudd Montgomery fit to stand trial.”

“Well you know what?” Tulsa asked and let her gaze lock with Kyle’s. “I don’t need a conviction as much as I need to know.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tulsa reached out and laid her fingertips on the child’s cold cheek. The burnished copper glistened beneath her touch. Savannah had scrubbed the metal to a bright, hard shine. The scent of dirt and metal and half-burned wood filled Tulsa’s nose. The scents that Tulsa associated with her sister. Savannah’s clothes, heavy fabrics thick with the smell of her trade, her gift, her compulsion, her art.

Tulsa hadn’t entered Savannah’s workshop since arriving in Powder Springs. Savannah’s workshop was a giant open space with enough room for the life-sized bears and elks and eagles she created. The walls of the corrugated-metal building held no windows. There was only one four-paned window in the top half of the workshop door and four skylights that allowed sun to cut through the dim and heavy-scented air.

One wall was a giant door that rolled. The shed built in the backyard for Savannah was originally designed for big earth-moving machines: tractors, loaders, combines, not to house the sculptures of an artist—but it worked just as well for either. The door that was a wall rolled like a garage door so that Savannah might bring in giant blocks of clay and then, after her fingertips left their magic upon the blocks of earth, ship out luxurious pieces of art.

The place was somehow sacrosanct. A spot that felt too private to invade. But after meeting with Kyle and while she waited for Savannah to return from the settlement conference, Tulsa needed to feel close to her family. This place, Savannah’s workshop, filled the hollow spot left within her. Tulsa’s fingertips trailed up the sculpture’s arm and around the lace of her pixie collar. The copper girl that Savannah had created out of clay and metal and pure talent looked so very familiar.

Ash.

A young Ash—barely six—picked wildflowers in a glen. In the child’s face were bits of every McGrath. Grandma Margaret’s strong forehead, evidenced by Ash’s furrowed brow. The mane of curly hair, although metal, appeared to dance on the wind. Tulsa, Savannah, Connie, and Ash—all four shared that trait. The lift of one eyebrow appeared identical to a look Tulsa often saw on Savannah’s face. And then there was the smile.

Tulsa’s fingertips traced the outline of the smile. A smile Tulsa remembered. A smile that floated onto Connie’s face in those few moments when Tulsa remembered seeing her mother happy. Tulsa closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to the metal. A weight—a melancholy—settled heavy around her heart. As a child she’d lived for that smile. Those moments—those days—so few each year when her mother landed back in Powder Springs. Usually broken—financially, emotionally, physically—Connie would drag herself into the old Victorian like a ragged dog too long gone from home. Connie would face her stone-faced mother and her two little girls.

When Connie returned home, she always slept—deep and long—for days, as though this was the first safe bed she’d known since the last time she’d been home. To Tulsa, her mother’s slumber felt like endless torture—knowing her mother was home but also knowing she couldn’t wake her. Eventually Connie would emerge, rumpled and worn. Her eyes swollen and squished, her hair a wild and crumpled mess of dark curls. She’d sit quietly beside the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. And in that moment—finally, after months of her mother’s absence, after days of her mother’s sleeping presence—finally that moment was when Tulsa could approach.

Tentative, shy eyes—Tulsa would climb into her mother’s lap and curl into the tightest and smallest of balls. She’d tuck her chin into the curve of Connie’s neck. She’d listen to her mother’s heartbeat. She’d feel Connie’s breath. She’d smell the deep, rich, sharp scent of coffee, and smoke, and sleep, and something sweet and familiar that she only ever smelled on her mother.

Tulsa would rest her head in the curve of her mother’s neck and breathe in these smells but barely move. Her whole body buzzed with the joy of Connie’s arms wrapped around her shoulder as if she were the tiniest of cubs that nestled safe and close to its mother. Tulsa kept quiet, and she barely breathed—anything to help this moment stretch—to make it last. She wanted nothing more than to stay in this spot for eternity, would do nothing to cause her mother to shift and put her down, nothing to make Connie turn her back or walk away, because Tulsa never knew when next Connie would sit long enough to hold her again.

Connie would tilt her head and her green eyes would peer into Tulsa’s eyes, and her smile—this smile—would curve over her lips and Tulsa’s heart would burst.

This was her mama, her mother, the woman whose body she ached to be held by—without even knowing the words to tell her mother so.

“Hey, sweet baby girl,” her mother would rasp out and peck her with light kisses along her face and arms. Sweet light kisses. Each kiss left a trace of warmth, a trace of love, a trace of her mama, a trace that Tulsa would try to remember when she closed her eyes at night after she had once again been left behind.

The workshop door banged open and Tulsa jerked her hand away from the sculpture. Savannah stood just inside the door. The fading sunlight filtered in and around her and caused the unseen hints of red in Savannah’s dark curls to blaze. Her bottom teeth pulled at her top lip and she slowly shook her head no. Behind Savannah stood Bradford. Tulsa’s eyes flicked from Savannah to Bradford, then back to Savannah’s face.

“Bobby wants sole custody.” Savannah’s voice trembled over the words. She slowly let them out as if every syllable dug into her heart. “He wants…” Savannah choked. Tears filled her eyes. “He wants to take Ash away.” With that very final word, a sob burst forth from Savannah.

A vise—tight and hard—clasped around Tulsa’s lungs. She fought to breathe in and then force air out. The settlement conference was supposed to go smoothly, be easy, be an end to Ash’s custody battle. Tulsa covered the distance between them and reached out her arms. She clasped them around Savannah. Tulsa’s heart felt tight and shrunken as though the surprise and pain from this moment squeezed the beating muscle. Bradford stood in the doorway of the workshop, the golden afternoon light behind him.

“Bobby has a job opportunity in Alaska,” Bradford said. He tilted his chin toward the floor and his gaze locked with Tulsa’s. He knew—they both knew—this wasn’t good for the case, wasn’t good for Ash. “We’re going to have a hearing.”

Tulsa squeezed Savannah tighter. Her sister’s tears wet her neck.

“Hey,” Tulsa soothed. She fought her own sadness. “Wilder will
never
let Ash go to Alaska.” Tulsa ran her hand over Savannah’s loose hair. “Her life is here, her friends, her family—”

Savannah jerked her head up and ran the back of her hands over her eyes. “Ash wants to go.”

The words shot from Savannah and like she had taken a bag of wet cement to the gut, the air whooshed from Tulsa. She tore her gaze from Savannah’s red-rimmed eyes and looked at Bradford. With the slightest nod, he confirmed Savannah’s words.

“According to Cade and Bobby, Ash has indicated that she would like to move to Alaska with her father,” Bradford said.

Savannah pulled away from Tulsa. “She’s leaving me.” Savannah’s bottom lip quivered. “He’s going to get her, isn’t he? Full time.”

Tulsa didn’t know what to say. She wished she could reassure her sister, but right now at this moment, with this news, she couldn’t even reassure herself.

*

Darkness settled around the windows of the ranch house. A soft quiet permeated the rooms. Cade knocked on his father’s bedroom door. With no response, Cade gently pushed the door open. Cade’s dad lay on his bed with a book open and flat across his chest. Asleep. His jaw was slack and silver-gray stubble was on his jaw. Cade lifted the book from his father’s chest. The old man was sleeping more and more—drifting off earlier and earlier—asking to leave the ranch less and less. The fight was draining out of Hudd and with each ounce that oozed from him the smaller and older the man became. To Cade, this mountain of a man looked to have aged fifteen years in three months. Not even the stroke he’d suffered years before had stolen this much energy from Hudd.

Cade unfolded a quilt that lie at the foot of his father’s bed and spread it out over him. Cade had turned toward the lamp on the bedside table when he heard his dad.

“Your mother was a good woman,” His father’s voice was a growl, still thick with sleep. “Too good to have to put up with me.”

Cade turned back to his dad. He laid there, his gaze focused, his hands on top of the quilt, and locked eyes with Cade.

“I wasn’t much of a husband to her or a father to you.” His dad paused and his gaze drifted through the shadows of the room. “Or Wayne.”

Cade could think of little to say. Hudd was simply who he was. A hard-charging man bent on a successful career.

“You provided for us. We had a home, clothes, food, an education—”

“Back then I didn’t think there was much more than work and money, but now…” Hudd shook his head and the slack side of his face didn’t register anything, while the eye on the side untouched by the stroke lifted. “Age does a helluva number on a man.”

Cade’s throat tightened. The corners of his mouth pulled down. His dad didn’t talk about his feelings; he didn’t discuss weakness and age. Little jolts of anxiousness danced along the back of Cade’s neck.

“You need anything, Dad? Water? Something to eat?”

Hudd met Cade’s gaze. “I know what’s happening, son.”

The muscle in Cade’s jaw flinched and his teeth locked tight. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and willed away the pricks of heat that threatened the backs of his eyes. Tears were unacceptable. No matter how much Hudd loved him, the old man would anger if he saw Cade cry.

“I’m okay and then…” Hudd’s words drifted off and with them his gaze, searching the room, searching for words. “And then it’s like I get lost.” His dad’s gaze once again met Cade’s. “A blackness, that I don’t even know is there—then I come back to this. To me. I don’t know what I missed, but I know I sure as hell missed something.”

Cade scrubbed his hand over his mouth and jaw. “Dad, it’s… Dr. Bob said… well, it’s not good. It seems that—”

Hudd held up his hand to halt Cade’s words. “That wackadoo? Like I’m going to believe him.” While the words and the actions were classic Hudd, the tone—the tone was soft, the fight drained from the words. “Damn doctors don’t know a damn thing. I know what’s wrong. I know what’s going on, and well…” Hudd looked at Cade, his eyes filled with as gentle of a kindness as Hudd could find. “I want you to know that I know. Don’t let the weight of this kill you, son. We all got to go sometime and hardly any of us gets to choose when or how.”

Cade bit down on his bottom lip and nodded. The lump in his throat threatened to expand and fill his eyes with tears.

“Now why don’t you get the hell out of here and let an old man sleep.”

Cade turned back toward the lamp and clicked it off before he let his fingertips wipe the tear from under his eye.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Where’s Mom?” Ash swung into the kitchen. Her long black curls bounced around her shoulders. She yanked open the refrigerator door.

“In her workshop,” Tulsa said.

“Still?”

Tulsa nodded. “Still.”

The sharp blade of the knife Tulsa held slipped silently through the rigid flesh of the red pepper until the
thwack
echoed in the kitchen when the blade hit the chopping board. Ash walked to the back windows and stared out toward the workshop in the yard. A frown creased her brow.

“She’s usually inside by now.” Ash glanced over her shoulder to Tulsa. “Unless something is bothering her.”

Tulsa stopped cutting. Her eyes flicked up from the cutting board to her niece. Savannah had purposely banished herself to her workshop—fled the house—not yet confident that she could disguise her own feelings and have a rational conversation with Ash about Alaska. Tulsa didn’t feel nearly as conflicted about her emotional state or about everything she wanted to say to Ash. A fourteen-year-old girl moving to Alaska with a father she barely knew was a bad idea. A detour that could mess up Ash’s life. Ash was running. Running away from the rules and the structure that Savannah provided. Rules and structure that at fourteen, Ash didn’t want, but rules and structure that Ash desperately needed.

Running off could become a habit—an unpleasant one. The problems that you tried to escape went with you. Tulsa would argue that you carried your problems wherever you ran to, whether you paid them any attention or not.

“The settlement conference was today.”

Ash’s eyes flickered. The corners of her mouth dropped. She slid onto a stool at the counter. “Is she mad at me?”

“Should she be?”