Lonestar Sanctuary (11 page)

"Over my dead body." Rick propped his boot on the lowest rail of
the stall. "You okay?"

Elijah stared at the mare and colt. "Did you request Allie's references yet?"

"I talked to the rodeo boss, and he told me she was a great worker,
and he hated to lose her."

Elijah nodded, his face without expression.

"Are you having second thoughts about hiring her?"

"Not at all. I was going to tell you not to bother with the references." Elijah seemed to snap back from whatever place he'd gone.
"You've called your contacts about her, haven't you?"

Yep.

The old man took a stogie out of his pocket and chewed on it
before taking out a match. "Any word?"

"Some." Rick told Elijah what he'd found out. The boss would have
to know. The Bluebird Ranch was prime land for carting Mexicans
across the border. They'd have to watch Allie.

"I do not hear you calling for me to throw her off the ranch."

Rick settled onto a hay bale. "I'm going to marry her, Elijah."

Through the swirl of smoke, Elijah's dark eyes studied him. "Why
would you do this?"

Staring into Elijah's dark eyes, Rick could smell the sharp, sting ing odor of gunpowder, the underlying stench of raw sewage in the
streets, and the stink of fear. Taking a deep breath, he began to recount
to Elijah the promise he'd made to Jon.

RICK SAT ON A FOLDING CHAIR WITH A MAKESHIFT TABLE MADE FROM A
cardboard box between him and his bunkmate Jon Siders. Rick glanced
at the cards in his hand. A full house. Jon was toast.

He shoved an empty Tabasco bottle to join an assortment of QTips and candy wrappers. "I'll see your dime and raise you a quarter."
They'd had to improvise to play poker, but it helped the time pass.

Jon frowned at his hand, but his gaze wandered back to the letter
in his lap. All he'd done since he got it was brood.

"Are you going to play?" Rick said, not bothering to hide his impatience.

"I need to get home."

"Don't we all."

Jon frowned and threw his cards to the table. "My parents are
badgering Allie again."

"Man, just call them and tell them to lay off." It was a familiar discussion. While Rick had suffered from lack of parental care, Jon's parents had been the interfering type.

"I've done that.You don't know my parents." Jon pushed back from
the table. "I'm afraid of what they might do if I don't come back."

If Rick had been a religious man, he would have crossed himself.
"Don't give fate any ideas," he said. He wished he had a drink. A little
Jack Daniels might help him bear this discussion.

"God's got my fate in his hands." Jon smiled. "Thanks for that
reminder."

Rick shifted uncomfortably. Jon's only failing as a friend was how
often he brought God into the conversation. Sometimes Rick almost
expected to see the Big Guy sitting across from Jon, talking with him.

"What are they doing now?" he asked, more to change the subject
than because he was interested. He'd never met the wife and kid. He
was stationed in Europe by the time Jon married her.

"Telling her if she respects them, she'll change churches and start
coming with them." Jon's eyes took on an uncharacteristically hard
glint. "Over my dead body."

"What's so wrong with that? I thought you were all about family."

"Their church is practically a cult. At the very least it's a toxic environment. They won't even talk to people who leave it. It's all about the
letter of the law and nothing about love. My parents believed mightily
in the old adage `spare the rod and spoil the child.' At church they were
always smiling and sweet, but at home I rarely got more than a nod of
recognition. I'm not having my family exposed to that."

The type of church Jon described was how Rick thought they all
were, but he decided to keep this appraisal to himself. "Allie can just
say no.

"And she has." Jon's gaze fixed on Rick's face. "We've gone to the
wall together, buddy. You're the only one I'd trust to take care of
things if I don't get home."

Death was not on Rick's agenda. Not his and not his best friend's.
"Don't change the subject just because you're losing." He tapped his
cards against the box. "You folding?"

Jon grinned, but his eyes held a trace of sadness. "And let you win?
Not on your life." He shoved a handful of gum wrappers into the center. "I call. Show me what you've got."

Rick laid out his cards with a flourish. "Read 'em and weep, my friend." Even as he raked in his winnings, his thoughts danced away
from Jon's words.

RICK SHUDDERED AND CAME BACK TO THE PRESENT. ",ION TOOK A BULLET
meant for me. I have to take care of his family," he told Elijah.

"He has been gone two years, si? Why only now are you looking to
help them?"

Rick winced at the blunt words. "I could make an excuse and tell
you I couldn't find her, but the truth is, I didn't look very hard. I was
wallowing under a mountain of guilt and just wanted peace. So I came
here." He still couldn't tell Elijah the full truth of why he would carry
that guilt all his life.

"And how did the child's death fit in with this?" Elijah asked.

Heat swept up Rick's neck. "That was a separate incident." But
interconnected more than he wanted to face. He could still see the
eight-year-old's face in his mind, the wide dark eyes, the fear. Until
the gun barked in his hand and obliterated the boy.

The fact that it was an accident failed to expunge his guilt.

Elijah nodded, his dark eyes still studying Rick's face. "I have kept
quiet to let you heal, but the time for silence is past. Sweeping your
guilt under the straw will only make it stink. Better to bring it to the
sunshine. Is this your penance, Rick? Coming here to El Despoblado?"

"I believe in this place just as much as you. Have you forgotten I
was a throwaway kid myself once? If not for the Bluebird Ranch, I'd
be in prison somewhere. The woman may not have been worthy of
Jon, but she's still his wife. And I have to help her and the kid."

"You seem to have forgotten what it means to be desperate," Elijah
said softly. "Could desperation be Allie's sin? I am content that you are to help her. But do not assume too much about her guilt and shut
yourself off from a true marriage with her."

A true marriage? That was not the plan.

THE AROMA OF ENCHILADAS FILLED THE KITCHEN WITH WARMTH. ALLIE
had the teenage girls help her prepare supper. They grumbled about
it, but she held firm, and they'd fallen into line. The boys went out
with the ranch hands to feed and water the stock. They were all too
tired to talk much during supper.

The girls kept stealing glances at the black night devoid of streetlights. The barns' security lights provided the only illumination, and
the darkness swallowed their beams only a few feet out.

"What do you do all evening?" Latoya asked after the dishes were
done. "Let's hop in the whip and see some action."

"The whip?" Allie dried her hands.

"Some wheels," Devin said. "I'm with the Betty. This place is
whacked."

"We've got board games," Allie said. She tried to hide her smile,
but it came breaking through. "Monopoly, chess. Check out the game
cabinet."

"Video games?" Devon asked, fingering the ring on his lip.

"They belong to Rick. You'll have to ask his permission," she said.

Leon fixed a stare on Rick. "What games you got?"

"Video games are a privilege. Once you earn the right to play,
we'll scrounge up a game on Saturday night," Rick said.

"Earn 'em? Oh man, you talkin' smack!"

"You'll get points for grooming horses, feeding them, cleaning the
pens. When you get enough points, you can take me on in Pac-Man."

"Pac-Man," Leon said. "Man, don't you got no Tomb Raider or
Madden football?"

Rick shrugged. "Take it or leave it."

"Like we got a choice," Leon grumbled.

"Grow up," Rick said. "There are always choices in life. People are
going to pull you in all directions. Where you end up is a direct result
of how wise your decisions are."

Allie wondered if he really believed that. Did he own every
wrong decision he'd made? It wasn't through any decision of hers
that her parents were dead and that Jon had left her to raise Betsy
alone.

Betsy rubbed her eyes, and Allie read the fatigue on her face. "Let's
get you to bed, Bets. You've had a long day."

Betsy tugged on her hand and pointed to the door.

"You want to go tell the horse good night?" Rick asked.

"I'll take her," Allie said when he moved toward the door. She
should have guessed what Betsy wanted before Rick had.

"I'll go with you. That cougar might still be prowling around."

Allie wanted to object, but maybe he wouldn't insist on talking in
front of Betsy. She took Betsy's hand, and they stepped out into the
moonlight.

"I can't get over how black it is here when night falls," Allie said,
giving Betsy's hand a comforting squeeze. The new dew on the ground
smelled fresh.

They reached the barn, and he shoved open the sliding door. Allie
and Betsy went through first. Allie watched as her daughter ran to the
stall holding the newest addition to the ranch. The sores on the mare's
withers were crusty, and the harsh glare from the bare bulb overhead
showed every bone through her rough coat. Rick scooped some sweet feed into a bucket and offered it to the mare. She nosed the bucket
and began to eat.

"Do they always make it?" Allie asked. The guy had some good
qualities, even if she hated to admit it.

"Not all." His gaze met hers. "We try our best, just like we do with
the kids."

"How'd you end up here, Rick?" Allie wanted to know, but she
wasn't sure he'd talk about it. He seemed different tonight. More
wary, and she wasn't sure why.

He leaned on the rail and watched the mare eat. "Like most of the
others. I'd been in trouble shoplifting, a stolen-car spree, fights at
school. A teacher who took an interest in me heard about Elijah's
ranch and talked Child Protective Services into sending me and a few
other kids here. I wanted nothing to do with Elijah, but I couldn't
resist a horse that he'd rescued two months before." He smiled.
"Whiskers was his name, and he was five. His owner had raised him to
buck in the rodeo, but he beat Whiskers to get him to do it."

Allie winced. "The rodeo where I worked was always careful not
to mistreat the animals. No rodeo boss would stand for that."

He nodded. "The chute boss saw lacerations on Whiskers and disqualified him. The owner was going to sell him to the pet-food factory, but Elijah got wind of it and bought him instead. But Whiskers
wouldn't let anyone near him. The day I arrived, he looked in my
eyes, and I looked in his, and we each saw a soul mate. He wouldn't
let me ride him that day, but by the time my time here was over, I was
riding him all over the ranch. I came back every summer until I
joined the army."

"And then when you got out?"

He nodded. "Elijah wrote me all ten years I was in, then offered me a job when I told him I was resigning. He needed help, and I
needed a sanctuary."

Sanctuary. The word made a warm sensation well up inside Allie.
That's what she and Betsy needed -a safe haven where they could
grow and put down roots. Elijah seemed all about helping other kids.
Why had he never sought out Allie's mom? He'd been content to take
his granddaughter and let his own daughter disappear into the underbelly of the city.

She'd come here expecting some kind of ogre and discovered a
man who cared about kids. The dichotomy between what he professed
and how he'd acted with his own child left her shaking her head and
wondering who was the real Elijah.

Maybe when he found out who she really was, he'd throw her out
the way he'd tossed her mother onto the street.

THE OFFICE HAD THE APPEAL OF A BEAUTIFUL SNAKE. LOVELY COLORS AND
form, but inspiring the same dread in Allie as coming face-to-face
with a rattlesnake. She looked forward to her time in the big, comfortable room with the tin ceiling until she looked down at the way
the black marks jittered their way across the ledger page.

The last two days had been placid, and she began to relax until
she realized the work she had to do. Leaving Betsy napping on her
bed, she entered the office prepared to do battle but was already mentally waving a white flag.

She dropped into the cracked leather chair and squinted at the
new stack of receipts in the tray. These files wouldn't be easy to whip into shape. The sun was too bright in here. She closed the blinds, but
her eyes weren't ready to deal with this yet.

She pulled open the lap drawer and glanced through it. Paper
clips, rubber bands, a couple of erasers and mechanical pencils, a pack
of gum, and a few keys. Nothing really interesting.

Allie tried the drawer on her right and found it full of file folders.
The soft gold of the manila folders made it easier to read the tabs.
Glancing through them, she found them labeled with different categories of bills like electricity, food, and maintenance. The next drawer
held blank envelopes and postage stamps. The top drawer on her left
contained cleared check stubs and blank checks.

She moved to the last drawer and tugged on it. It refused to budge.
Maybe it was stuck. Yanking on it, she could feel the lock that held it
in place. Why would Elijah have a locked drawer?

The keys in the lap drawer. She pulled it open again and glanced at
the keys. They all looked like door keys until she moved them around
and found a smaller key hiding under a large one. It might fit.
Fingering it, she thought about whether she had the right to invade a
place Elijah obviously wanted to keep hidden.

Maybe she didn't have the right, but she was going to take it anyway. She wanted to get at the truth behind all her mother had told her.
Selena had told at least some lies. Fitting the key into the lock, she
twisted it and heard it click. The drawer slid open with a gentle tug.