Cowboys 03 - My Cowboy Homecoming (2 page)

“C’mon kid,” Jimmy coaxed.

A ride was a ride. As soon as I’d climbed up into the passenger seat, Jimmy cranked up the radio and took off again.

Nobody talked until my family’s place came into view, and even then, I simply stared. It was hard to sort out what I was seeing. The manufactured house was still there, but the screen door hung askew. Out front, weeds choked what was once a pretty garden. The chicken coop had fallen down. There was no sign of life anywhere.

“Man.” Jimmy frowned at a dust devil blowing across the packed dirt of what used to be an exercise ring for horses. “Your brother really let the place go.”

“Ya think?” I said sourly.

Concern for me shadowed his eyes as he framed his next, careful question. “You planning on fixing the place up?”

I felt exhausted already. “If my mother doesn’t want to leave, I guess I’ll have to.”

I’d thought Lucho was asleep, but he snorted derisively from the back seat. “Maybe you ought to just burn it down. You Tripplehorn motherfuckers got a lot of experience with arson, after all.”

“Thanks for the ride.” I didn’t wait for a response, if they had one. I opened the door and jumped down, lifting my chin politely to Jimmy when I went to retrieve my duffel. Fuck Lucho. I’d be goddamned if I’d let any man see me blow my cool over a few words. A few true words.

Lucho stared stonily ahead, but Jimmy said something I couldn’t hear that made him get out and hobble up into the passenger seat. This time, I didn’t bother trying to help him. I guessed he wouldn’t have welcomed my assistance again, anyway.

Gravel flew and dust boiled up into a cloud behind Jimmy’s truck as he drove off. That left me alone to stare at my mother’s house. I couldn’t call it home, not anymore. Maybe I never could.

Something made me hesitate at the foot of the driveway. I felt like a deaf vampire—I needed an invitation to cross the threshold but wouldn’t hear it, even if it came.

I eyed the gravel path, half expecting to see balls or toys strewn around—a Frisbee or a kid’s bike. Heath and I used to play there sometimes, mostly out of boredom. We never exactly got along. When I left home, it was a kind of relief for both of us. He got to stop living in my shadow, and I got to stop watching him turn into my dad.

If only my father’s affection hadn’t been some sick contest between us. We’d spent our childhood like feral dogs, fighting for the smallest crumbs of kindness, and our dad had liked it that way.

When the time came to leave, I’d never looked back.

That’s not to say I didn’t wish things had been different. When Ma brought Heath home from the hospital he was so tiny and perfect. Even though I was sure I didn’t want a brother, something had made me love him anyway. Something had made me want to protect him, and I did, until he got big enough to stop me—until what I tried to protect him from was Dad, and Heath could never see any danger there.

I picked up my duffel and stepped up onto the porch. A faded wooden sign next to the door featured an American flag and beneath that, it said Welcome
.

Despite that, I hesitated.

I didn’t know if I
was
welcome.

I knocked three times and waited. I could hear footsteps and then a pause, as if whoever was inside peered out the peephole at me. The door flew open and the next thing I knew Ma enveloped me in such a bone-crushing hug I dropped my bag. I could barely croak out hello and kiss her cheek before she was pushing me away so she could get a good look at me.

“Look at those muscles!” Tears glittered in her eyes as she reached up to run soft hands over my regulation hair cut. “You’re so handsome.”

“You haven’t changed.” Like all kids, I’d believed my mom was pretty. Now I could see how true that was. She was fine-boned but delicate. Pale as a white rose.

“Of course I have. I’m ancient.”

No, she wasn’t. Her dark hair was threaded with light silver, but it was cool and beautiful, like some fairy frost had settled on her. She wore it scraped back into a ponytail with a yellow fabric headband across the top like a little crown. I stood there, drinking in the sight of her.

My mouth was dry with fear I didn’t even realize I carried. Would Ma be disappointed in me? Would she blame me for my brother’s death?

What did it mean if I came home again?

“Come in. Come in. I made coffee and rolls.” She took my arm and pulled me toward the kitchen. On the way there, I smelled baking bread and lemons and beeswax. As run-down as the outside of the place looked, inside it was immaculate, like a diorama or a dollhouse. Everything was spotless. Every knickknack was in its place, every surface shone, every corner sparkled, dust-free and pristine.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Oh, you know.” She picked at the fancy polka-dot apron she wore over a white blouse and jeans. “I have my ups and downs.”

“I’m sorry about . . . everything.”

She shook her head. “I think I was born under a bad star or something. First Calvin and now Heath . . .”

Any bad star belonged to them alone, and maybe me for my failure to prevent things, but my mother swallowed hard and then put on the false smile she’d perfected over the years.

She took a breath and sighed it out. “It doesn’t bear hanging on to the bad when things are looking up. You’re home. You’re safe. That’s blessing enough for today.”

“That’s right. I’m here now.” My voice cracked.

“And I’m so grateful.” She cleared her throat and motioned for me to sit down at the kitchen table. “Want some coffee and rolls?”

The napkin-wrapped basket of rolls sat next to a mountain of butter and jar of homemade jam. Whole wheat and honey. My favorite. I took one and bit into it, almost moaning out loud when the rich, yeasty flavor burst in my mouth. I didn’t bother pacing myself after that, carelessly slathering butter on my second and third.

“These are even better than I remember.”

“You could always put away a lot of them.” A little shiver passed through her small frame. “I’ll make you all the rolls you can eat, now that you’re home.”

“I’d better keep on working out so I don’t get fat.” I sighed with contentment and heaped a fourth roll with jam. Only the long-held belief that a real man had manners kept me from shoveling it into my mouth before talking. “Thanks for getting me a ride from town.”

“I called over to the ranch house and you know what? Emma doesn’t live there anymore. Speed Malloy runs the place for her now. He was the Crandall’s foster son. He came—I don’t know—about twenty years ago?”

“I remember Malloy.”
Did I ever.

“I was just sick when Crandall passed. He was still so full of life. I sent a casserole with Mrs.—”

“Tell me about things here.” Ma used to be nervous most of the time, afraid of public places and strangers and germs. She didn’t like driving and only went out if someone took her. I’d been worried how she’d even been getting groceries. “Have you been able to drive the truck?”

“I don’t go anywhere, really. Mrs. Cliff calls to see if I need anything when she heads in to Silver City. She’s been very kind.” As she talked of our nearest neighbor, she traced an old wound on the table. “The younger Mrs. Cliff. Kyle’s wife.”

I nodded again. Kyle was my age; we’d gone to school together. It was hard to imagine him with a wife when the last time I saw him he’d just learned to light his farts on fire. “Have you thought about what you want to do?”

My mother’s blank gaze met mine. “Do?”

“About the house,” I said as gently as I could. “About where you want to live now Heath is gone.”

“I live here, silly.” She got up like she’d been shot from her chair and went to the sink to give it an unnecessary wipe-down.

“You want to
stay
here?”

She gave me a look that clearly said,
Duh
. “This is my home. Where else would I go?”

“Closer to town, maybe? To a smaller place that needs less work?”

“Now, why would I want to do that?”

“You’re isolated out here. Do you really want to be all alone?”

“I’m not alone, honey. You’re here now. Run along and put your things in your old room.”

And just like that, she’d both condemned and dismissed me. “Ma—”

“Heath gave the room a more adult makeover after you went away.”

“Ma. I can’t sleep in Heath’s room.”

“As much as I miss him,” she said quietly, “we can’t change the fact he’s gone. It’s your room now. You can feel free to put your stamp on it as you go.”

No.
“What about the office?”

She stopped scrubbing and looked back at me. “That’s your daddy’s.”

“He’s not here.”

“You can’t mess with your daddy’s office, honey. He wouldn’t like that.”

“What’s the worst he can do? Call me from prison and tell me to stop it?”

“
Hush
.” Her pretty white teeth savaged her lower lip. “You can’t change Daddy’s office. He wouldn’t like that. Don’t ask me again.”

I knew enough about strategy to regroup and plan a better offensive. “I’ll stay in Heath’s room, but just for now. We’re going to have to talk about staying here. Part of it will depend on whether I can get a job. You know that’s not going to be easy . . .”

“I—” She bit her lip. “I have a confession to make. Don’t be mad at me, but I did some meddling.”

“What kind of meddling?” Did Kyle Cliff have sisters?
Please, God, please. Don’t let her be matchmaking.

“When I called Speed Malloy to see if someone could pick you up, I also asked if they might need another hand.”

“You did?” I sat back in my chair. The J-Bar?
Why did my first thought center on a pair of furious brown eyes?
“That might not be so easy, Ma.”

“Why not? You loved riding when you were a kid. I thought maybe it would be a way for you to ease back into civilian life.”

“But—” I let myself imagine it. “There’s a helluva lot more to ranch work than riding.”

Ranching had been my secret dream at one time. Working outdoors in all seasons. Taking care of some land and a few animals. I’d wanted to be a cowboy since I was a little kid. I’d only chosen the army because it came with a guarantee I’d work on the other side of the world.

Ma pressed on. “I know you were going to look for work in Silver City, but I go way back with Emma Jenkins, and I figured if anyone would hire you around here, it would be the J-Bar, because it’s spring, and—”

“What did they say?” Excitement built inside me. I tried to tamp it down because I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

“Speed Malloy says if you come by sometime tomorrow morning, he’ll talk to you. He’s got a hand that broke his foot.” Her eyes widened comically. “Did I really say that? That sounds so strange. One of their
hands
broke his
foot
!”

I didn’t laugh with her; I was way too preoccupied with how I’d come across as a job applicant, seeing as there were plenty of good reasons to pass on hiring a Tripplehorn in general, and me specifically. It’s not like I knew anything about ranch work.

I was way too preoccupied with how I would work side by side with someone who hated me.
Someone who lit me up like a Christmas Tree, who hated me.

“Did they say when I should go over there?”

“Before eight.” Ma stacked my empty plate and coffee cup and brushed the crumbs off the table, into her hand. “Will you go? He said there are no guarantees, but he’ll talk to you.”

“That’s—” Anxiety and excitement fought for space in my head. “I will. That’s great, Ma. Thanks.”

“It’s settled then.” She brightened immediately. “I put a laundry hamper in your room for the things in your suitcase that need washing.”

“But—”

“You can’t tell me you’re anxious to do your own laundry. I know young men better than to be fooled by that.” She took my coffee cup to the sink with hers. “Skedaddle now. If you feel like it, maybe we can watch some television later?”

“Television?”

“Heath . . .” For a split second, she was unable to hide her grief. She drew in a shuddering breath. “Heath liked that show about the storage lockers. He went to an auction and bid on one once. He said it was like looking for buried treasure.”

Typical. Heath had always believed in the lucky break. Too bad he never got one.

Watching her wash the dishes, I saw my future yawn out ahead of me—the whole of my life from that moment: small talk at the table with my mother. Fixing up my dad’s place. Doing the shopping and the yard work and escorting her to church.

My throat clogged with anxiety. “I’ll be just down the hall, then.”

“Mind you,” she called after me. “Don’t be worried about me seeing your dirty underwear. I don’t even think when I’m throwing it into the machine.”

Up until then, I hadn’t given my privacy much thought. I tensed up at the loss. “I’ll do my own laundry.”

On my way down the hall, I passed the larger of the two small bedrooms—the room my dad had always used as his study—and the “guest” bathroom, which was now mine. My mom and dad used to share the master bedroom on the other side of the hall.

The last doorway led into the tiny room I used to share with my brother. He’d redecorated, if you could call it that. Gray-and-beige-striped wallpaper framed cheap black lacquer furniture and mirrored night tables. The posters featured half-naked women and whiskey bottles and cars and . . .
Christ.
I wanted to put my head in my hands and cry because it dawned on me that I was back, right there at the beginning, and it was sad, sad, sad.

I blew out a deep breath and began making a list of changes I would make. Remove the posters, strip the tacky black sheets off the bed, take all the furniture outside and burn it . . .

Goddamn.
Maybe Lucho was right and the Tripplehorn go-to response to problems of any kind was arson, but I’d been around the world, and it was just as big a damn place as everyone always said, and now I was at home again, and nothing had changed at all.

Much later that night, while my mother slept, I crept into the kitchen where I knew I’d find a big box of trash bags under the sink. I didn’t want her to watch me bag up Heath’s things. Despite her stoic words, no mother should have to go through that.

I didn’t believe in ghosts or—well . . . maybe I did. I had ghosts, like every soldier who has ever exchanged fire with the enemy has ghosts.

I didn’t believe in wistful spirits who hang around because they’re lonely or sad, or because they couldn’t catch a break while they were alive, but all the same my neck prickled while I went through Heath’s clothes. His scent still hung in the room—both familiar and heart-wrenching—a not altogether pleasant combination of man and feet and hopelessness. It reminded me of how the room used to smell when we were kids and I couldn’t keep him from throwing his dirty clothes all over the floor. It made the fried-chicken dinner Mama served ball up in my stomach like hot lead.

How could she stand living there? Why didn’t she get in the truck, no matter how scared she was to drive, and just head somewhere else? Somewhere different.

Somewhere
better
.

It took such a short time to pack up Heath’s things. There wasn’t much to show for his life. Some nice clothes. A fat wad of cash and a small stash of drugs. A gun.

Christ. Did he never learn the proper care of a weapon?

I found a stack of newspapers and laid them out on the bed. Mechanically, I went through the motions of breaking Heath’s Glock down and cleaning it. When I was through, I wrapped the reassembled piece in papers and went looking for something to tape the package shut.

The house was silent just then, except the floorboards, which gave up a hollow rebound creak with each step I took.

I stopped outside my dad’s office door, as hesitant to enter as I’d ever been when I knew he’d be sitting at his desk, waiting to tear me a new one from some imagined infraction.

I fought the urge, drilled into me from day one, to knock.

The knob felt cool in my hand. I pushed through and nothing happened. No alarms went off. There were no trip wires. The room was still the disorganized, jumbled mess of crap it had always been, but white spaces showed my father’s wall of crazy—where he’d posted information he used to support his paranoid conspiracy theories—had been taken down. Probably by the Feds. It looked to me like Heath had taken up where my dad left off, though. There were articles lying around. Clippings from the local papers, with names highlighted.

Disgusted, I rifled through Dad’s drawers looking for tape of some kind.

While I was there, I also looked for deeds, legal papers, wills, and bills, because I was pretty sure my mother never looked at such things, and my brother had been dead for months. What I found confirmed my worst fears.

Ma had been collecting the mail and shoving it unopened into the desk drawer where my dad kept his checkbook. From the size of the stack and the increasingly redder ink near the top, it appeared I needed to get cracking on unraveling their financial mess before someone came and locked us out of the fucking house.

I told myself finding the bills was a good start, but as I spread the many demands for money out on my father’s desk, I wasn’t so sure I could go a lot further than that. Mortgage, insurance, credit cards, utilities, lawyers: the list was endless.

Groaning—a little sore from the long bus ride—I leaned back in the office chair. It complained noisily, almost as if it resented having me sitting there in my father’s place. Probably it did. I knew Dad would resent it.

I let my gaze drift around that sad fucking desktop. Scarred with water rings and a burn or two from when my dad smoked cigarettes, the wood was chipped in some places and splitting in others. Littered with flyers and newspaper clippings.

I hadn’t looked too closely at those before, but as soon I did, I noticed a familiar face: a dark boy wearing jeans, a western shirt, a tooled leather belt with one of those big, fancy silver buckles, and a look of such fierce pride he nearly leaped from the page.

Luminous brown eyes. Brown skin.

Lucho.

This much younger Lucho
,
whose name and age appeared beneath the picture—Luis Reyes, 15—was standing in front of the burned-out shell of El Rey Taqueria in Silver City. It lay amid a dozen or so unrelated articles. A prizewinning horse. A liquor store robbery. A storm that dropped golf-ball-sized hail on the cars at some dealership in Texas.

An article on the army’s role in Afghanistan caught and held my attention, and I blinked back tears.

Maybe Heath had given me a thought or two sometimes, like I’d spent time thinking about him. Maybe he wished he’d had the chance to make things right between us.

I’d never know, now.

My heart staggered and then picked up speed. There were
so many bills
. How was Ma even buying food anymore?

I did some quick calculations in my head. I could afford to pay the most pressing demands right away. For the rest, I’d have to have a sit-down with Ma and find out what her resources were. If they were as bad as I feared, I’d have to do some fancy shuffling. My savings weren’t going to last long at all.

The ache that had started behind my right eye when I found my brother’s drug stash blossomed into a full-blown migraine once I’d realized how deeply messed up my mother’s finances were. There were, even still, demands from the funeral home and the cemetery where she’d laid Heath to rest, and they were threatening to sue.

I heard my mother shuffling down the hall and didn’t bother to hide what I was doing. There was too much at stake to keep her in the dark about this.

She poked her head past the door and frowned at me. “I told you not to come in here.”

“Have you just been shoving all the mail into Dad’s desk?”

“Yes.” She licked her lips nervously. “That’s where Heath told me to put it.”

I took a deep breath, buying time and gathering patience. “Heath’s not here anymore, so we’ll need a new system. We’ll go through these bills together soon so we can decide which ones need to be paid first. We’re going to have to talk about where the money will come from, ’cause I don’t have enough in savings to pay for all of these.”

“I—” She closed her mouth. “Your father won’t like this.”

If pretending Dad was going to come home to fix things helped her get through things, I didn’t want to be the guy who burst her bubble. But I had to do
something
.

I fought the urge to raise my voice. “Do you think he’d rather accept my help or lose this land?”

Her eyes went blank.

Folks always say you shouldn’t wake up a sleepwalker, but my ma was deliberately ignoring reality. She wouldn’t thank me for pointing that out, but at some point, she had to adjust to reality.

“Someone should pay the bills, don’t you think?” I tried to speak gently.

“Yes.” She agreed. Her vacant gaze scared the hell out of me. “I guess you should pay them, now that Heath isn’t here.”

I closed my eyes. On the one hand, I hadn’t come home to take Heath’s place. It wasn’t fair of her to ask that of me. On the other, she would never understand.

“I’m the man of the house now, Ma. I’ll take care of it.” I hated saying those words, but if they eased things between us, I’d use them. Her fear—and the long, virginal nightgown she wore—made her seem like a little girl. She needed me.

She nodded her agreement. “All right.”

“Are you okay, Ma?” How easily had I slipped into a role I’d spent years running from?
I’m the man of the house, now. Are you okay, Ma? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of things.

“I’m all right.” A slightly more relaxed smile curved her lips upward. “Get some sleep, honey. You don’t have to fix everything tonight.”

“I’m used to sleeping less,” I reassured her. “I’ll sack out when I’m done here.”

I watched her leave, then turned back to Lucho’s older-than-his-years image. Even at fifteen he’d seemed poised on the brink of manhood, radiating the same inner confidence he carried today. I was drawn to him like a heat seeking missile.

When I’d brushed my fingers over his hip to help him up into the truck, he’d lifted that knowing eyebrow, his direct gaze daring me to . . . what? Take him up on the sensual challenge in his eyes? Let my hands roam over his body the way his gaze was making its way over mine?

That was pure goddamn chemistry.

I’d had some visceral responses to men and some of them led up to porn-worthy, indecent encounters, but no one had ever provoked feelings that sudden or irrational . . .

I want this man.

He’d responded to my touch as if he was on the same page—like a bolt of pure lust shot through us right there on the damn street. He’d breathed me in. Devoured me with his eyes.

I had the most disturbing feeling he’d taken a little bit of me with him when he’d left.

I blew out a breath.

Then he’d heard my name, and it all dissipated like so much smoke.

Guess he knew all about the Tripplehorn crazy, and he was perfectly willing to hold it against me.

Still . . . for whatever reason, I just couldn’t look away from that picture.

Goddamnit
.

When I saw him again, I was going to work like hell to earn his trust, and if he ever lit that fire of welcome in his eyes again—I wouldn’t waste a second chance to find out what could happen between us.

I stacked up all the outstanding bills, the most pressing of which was the mortgage. First thing in the morning, I had to call the bank and explain the situation.

As an afterthought, I added that picture of Lucho to the pile. He didn’t belong in my dad’s office.

Taking the papers with me, I turned the lights off in the study before I left, hoping I wouldn’t have to enter the room again.

Back in my room the bed was still made. I didn’t want to lie in it. It suddenly seemed so goddamn symbolic: lying in my brother’s bed, which my mother made, in my father’s house.

It seemed like once I succumbed to the idea of it, once I lay down, I’d stare up at that same old ceiling and become part of the place forever.

I’d never get away.

By habit, I took out my own gun, a Sig Sauer M11, and broke it down to clean it.

A quiet tap on the door interrupted me. “Yeah?”

My mother stopped just inside the door, clasping her hands together. “A gun?”

“I—” I glanced down at my weapon. “Yes.”

“Must you keep that weapon in the house?”

“I was in the army, Ma. I’m used to having a sidearm. I don’t know how comfortable I’d feel without one.”

“But you’re home now. You’re safe.”

“No one is safe. I don’t sleep without a weapon close at hand anymore.”

She sighed. “Do you promise to keep it taken apart or, unloaded or locked up?”

“No.” I met her unhappy gaze.

“
Junior
.”

“It’s the truth. I don’t promise any of those things. I can’t sleep if I don’t have my weapon. I know what I’m doing, I won’t let anything happen.”

“That’s what everyone says, and then their kids pick it up, or someone robs them and shoots them with it, and—”

“There are no children in this home and I promise you—I promise—no one is going to take my weapon and shoot either of us with it. That’s the best I can do.”

She glared at me.

“Did you need something?” Why had she come in the first place?

“I’m sorry for what I did.”

“What do you mean?” I checked the Sig’s load and made sure the safety was on before tucking my weapon out of sight between the mattress and box spring of Heath’s bed.

“Your daddy didn’t worry me about the bills. He said a man’s job was caring for his family.”

“I remember.” I sat back down on the bed, relaxing now that my weapon was ready where I could reach it easily.

“Heath was just like him. He told me he’d worry about money. He said I should just do my part and care for the house like I always did and he’d take care of the rest.”

“I understand, but—”

“I know I shouldn’t have put those bills into Daddy’s desk but there were so many and I didn’t know where I’d find the money to pay them.” She stared at her bare feet. “Did I ruin everything? Are we going to lose the house?”

“No, Ma. I told you. I’ll make some calls in the morning and straighten everything out. What account are you using for groceries?”

“Yancy Slade takes care of that.”

“Dad’s lawyer?” I knew Slade. I remembered him very clearly from the worst night of my life. “Please tell me that old bastard doesn’t still have his hooks into us.”

“Honey.” She frowned at me. “Yancy Slade has been a godsend. He takes care of me. He helped me with everything when Heath . . . when—”

“So he’s been paying for your groceries?”

She lowered her lashes over a spreading blush. “When I told him driving is very stressful for me, he contacted Mrs. Cliff directly on my behalf and gave her some sort of card to use for my purchases.”

“He does this out of kindness?” I didn’t believe it for a second. “Because he’s such a warmhearted man?”

“He has never asked for a single thing in return.” She eyed me like I’d impugned her pastor. “He’s a good man. You’ll see when you meet him again. He picks me up every week and drives me to Tucson, to the”—she lowered her voice—“facility to see your father.”

“Right.” I couldn’t picture Yancy Slade doing anything out of the goodness of his heart. “I hope he’s keeping a record of the money he’s fronted you so we can pay him back.”

“I’m sure he is.” She fiddled with the lapels of her robe. “He filed another appeal on your Daddy’s behalf. Daddy might get to come home if the court decides his appeal has merit.”

My stomach roiled unhappily. “Ma, you know what Dad did, don’t you? You were at the trial?”

“I most certainly was. But Mr. Slade and your Daddy explained how the whole thing was a ghastly mistake. Yancy says the trial was a farce. He says the District Attorney brought in tainted evidence and the judge hamstrung the jury by narrowing the definition of—”

“Wait. You can’t just take Dad’s defense attorney’s word about what happened, Ma. Did you read about the trial in the papers?”