Diamonds and Dust (Lonesome Point, Texas) (3 page)

She had far more to lose than pride. That she had let it slip her mind, even for a day, was terrifying.

No matter how deeply he’d hurt her, Pike still had the power to make her feel like a lovesick schoolgirl, a fact that should have sent her running for the safety of her parents’ ranch hours ago. She’d promised Mia that she would supervise cleanup while Mia got ready for the meet and greet fundraiser, but Tulsi could have pled sick. Mia would have understood.

For a moment, the urge to run was so great that Tulsi almost dropped the rope in her hands and made a break for her truck.

“Woman up,” she muttered to herself instead, continuing to coil the thick divider rope around her arm. “You made a promise, and you’ll keep it.”

She had to keep this promise. Knowing she’d done her best to help Mia raise money for the ghost town restoration would make it easier to back out of the float trip later this week. Mia was looking forward to her pre-wedding float trip with her fiancé and closest friends as much as most brides-to-be looked forward to the big day, but there was no way Tulsi would survive twenty-four hours of forced proximity to Pike.

She would have to see him at the wedding shower trail ride, the rehearsal, and the wedding Saturday afternoon. That would be more than enough torture, especially considering her daughter Clementine would be home from camp on Saturday to join the wedding party. Clementine and Mia were as thick as thieves, and it had been assumed from the moment Mia set the date for her wedding that Clem would be the flower girl. If Tulsi had even hinted that Mia should find another little girl to do the honors, her best friend would have immediately known that something was wrong.

Tulsi’s only shot at keeping her secret under wraps was to keep her chin up and pretend this week was business as usual. And if Mia or her fiancé, Sawyer, or any of Tulsi’s other friends noticed she seemed a little off, she could always blame her weird mood on her business woes.

Last Friday she’d learned that Head Starts for Good Hearts, the charitable organization that had provided funding for her Equine therapy business, was under new management and had decided to direct their efforts elsewhere in the community. They’d given her sixty days’ notice, but that wasn’t nearly enough time to find alternative funding. Grant boards were notoriously slow. Any grants she applied for now wouldn’t be awarded until Christmas or later. By then, she’d be out of business. Even if she could convince her dad to let her stop paying rent on the barn for a month or two, the upkeep on the horses would be too much for her to float with her few paying clients.

She was on the verge of losing everything she’d worked so hard for and ending up back where she started when she’d come back to Lonesome Point after college as a single mother with barely a penny to her name. Clem was going into first grade this year, so if Tulsi found a job that kept school hours she wouldn’t have to pay for childcare or ask Mia for extra babysitting help. But the thought of working as a waitress or a sales clerk at one of the stores downtown, while all the kids who had flourished under her treatment lost their connection to the horses that had brought them self-confidence and healing, was enough to break her heart.

She had an appointment to talk to the new chair of Head Starts—a man she’d gone to high school with, who she hoped would empathize with her position—on Monday. God willing, she’d be able to convince him to restore funding. If not, she would simply have to find another way to keep the business afloat. She was working miracles for her kids and she wasn’t going to give up on them without a fight.

Most people assumed shy, reserved Tulsi was a pushover, but when it came to the precious things in life, she had a fiercely protective side.

Speaking of precious things…

Tulsi tugged her cell from her back pocket, dialing her dad’s number as she loaded the last of the rope into her wheelbarrow and went back for the metal stands.

“Grandpa Central,” her father answered, sounding upbeat for a man who’d been watching a high-energy six-year-old all day.

“Hey, Dad. Thanks for the help today. I’m almost done, and I’ll be by to get Clem in an hour. Can you make sure she has her things ready to go?”

“I thought you two were sleeping here tonight,” her father said, a frown in his voice. “Clementine made me put fresh sheets on the top bunk and she has all those weird dolls of hers tucked into the bottom one. We already picked out bedtime stories.”

“I’m so sorry, but we can’t, Dad.” Tulsi sighed as she lugged one heavy metal stand toward the wheelbarrow. She’d told Clem three times that they weren’t staying at Grandpa’s, but her daughter wasn’t a fan of listening to things she didn’t want to hear. “Clem’s leaving for camp tomorrow. We have to go home and get her packed. But we’ll come stay the week after the wedding. She’s dying to go on a trail ride before school starts.”

“I guess the fresh sheets will keep,” her dad grumbled. “But you two shouldn’t be on your own. I know how scatterbrained you are, Tulsi. Half the time you forget to lock the front door.”

“I do not, Dad.” Tulsi rolled her eyes. “Clem and I are fine at Bubba’s.”

“Just don’t leave the stove on again,” her dad continued, clearly determined to bring up every minor mistake Tulsi had made in the past six years. “And bring me that stereo system you stole when you moved out. With your mom gone on her trip, the house is too damned quiet.”

“I’ll bring the stereo over soon.”
Her
stereo, the one her mom had given her for her birthday last year, but there was no point arguing about it. “And Clem and I will make lots of noise next week. I promise.”

Her dad sighed. “Well, all right. Hopefully, I’ll still be alive by then…”

Tulsi lifted her eyes to the heavens and prayed for patience. “You’re as healthy as a horse, Daddy. See you soon.” She ended the call before her father could lay the guilt on any thicker.

When she’d been living with her parents, her father had made no secret of the fact that he found it embarrassing to have a grown daughter living at home. But ever since Tulsi and Clem had moved into Bubba’s house, while he was on tour with his band, Dad had been acting like an abandoned puppy.

A cranky puppy, with a tendency to bite.

There was no pleasing the man, something she should have learned a long time ago. Since the day she’d told her parents she was pregnant at eighteen with no potential husband in the picture, as far as Dale Hearst was concerned, Tulsi had been able to do no right. He’d supported her throughout the pregnancy and beyond, but he’d done it all with a disappointed grit to his jaw. Even as he spoiled Clementine rotten—doting on her in a way he never had his own daughters—he treated Tulsi like a prized filly who’d gone lame the night before her first race.

She was grateful her father didn’t punish Clem for what he saw as Tulsi’s failure, but it would have been nice not to be a disappointment in the first place. Having her daughter so young had been hard, but she’d never regretted keeping Clementine. She loved her baby girl with every piece of her heart and she put everything she had into being the best parent she could be. Tulsi couldn’t understand how anyone—especially her own father—could see that as failing.

But Dad had never been the easiest man to get along with, which made Tulsi grateful to have a place of her own, even if it was only until Bubba came back to town.

She finished stacking the last of the metal stands into the wheelbarrow and with a glance at her watch to make sure she was still on schedule, rolled it down the street. She unloaded at the visitor’s center—stacking the stands and ropes in the back room—and delivered the wheelbarrow back to the gardener’s shed. Finally, after one last check-in with the head of the cleanup crew, Tulsi grabbed her purse from the old general store and hustled down the dusty street at a trot, ignoring the pain shooting through her aching feet.

In an effort to be festive, she’d worn her new brown boots with skinny jeans and a sparkly brown tank top. This morning, dressing up had seemed like a good idea, but now she wished she’d stuck with her comfy work boots. After two days of running around the ghost town fetching water for the talent, carrying amps, and being Mia’s right hand woman while her best friend kept all the concert balls in the air, Tulsi felt bruised from the kneecaps down.

She already regretted rescheduling all of her clients for Tuesday in preparation for Mia’s wedding festivities. When she was planning out her week last Friday, taking every day off but one had seemed like a scandalous indulgence. Now, she had a feeling she was going to need more than a day to recover from the excitement of the weekend.

By the time she made it through the ghost town gates and across the now empty parking lot, she was in pain. By the time she had power-walked a mile down the old highway to where the volunteers had parked under a small grove of Chinese Pistache trees, she couldn’t keep the grimace from her face.

The boots had to go. Stat.

Tulsi dropped the truck’s tailgate and hopped up to sit on top, moaning with relief as she tugged off her boots and socks and let her bare toes wiggle in the breeze. The desert wind was warm, but it was cooler under the shade trees than anywhere else she’d been today. For the first time in hours, she felt the sweat beading around her hairline begin to dry. With a sigh, she lay back in the truck bed with her hands laced behind her head, watching the green leaves sway against the pink and purple sky.

It had been so long since she’d taken a moment to watch the world go by. She couldn’t help being reminded of those evenings in Springfield, when she and Pike would take a quilt out to the hay field behind Aunt Willa’s house and lie staring up at the sky for hours. They did their share of making out, but there were times when they simply held hands and watched the clouds drift by. Times when they stared up at the stars while they whispered about the things they were hopeful for, the things they feared, and the dreams they were certain were about to come true.

Fast forward seven years and all of Pike Sherman’s dreams
had
come true, and then some. He was the star pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, making more money than God, and had a rich, fulfilling life far from Lonesome Point. He dated models and movie stars, vacationed in Bora Bora, and had bought his mother a BMW convertible for her fiftieth birthday. He rarely saw his father and avoided pressure to come home for Christmas by flying his family to his ranch in Montana for the holidays. Mia said he had a mansion, a stable full of horses he paid people to ride during baseball season, and a tree house with heat and running water, where their much younger cousins camped out on Christmas Eve.

And soon, in a fancy tent not far from here, that man who had everything would be schmoozing with people who had paid two hundred dollars a ticket for the pleasure of shaking his hand.

Pike was living big, but Tulsi wouldn’t exchange places with him for a million dollars. She might not have fame or wealth, but she had things that were more precious. She had an amazing little girl, wonderful friends, good work, and a hometown where she felt safe. Life…was perfect.

It didn’t matter that her two best friends were getting married and moving on with their lives while Tulsi was still alone. It didn’t matter that Bubba had left Lonesome Point and she would only see him on special occasions or that she was about to lose the job that had given her more satisfaction than anything she’d ever done, with the exception of raising Clem.

Everything was going to be fine. Better than fine.

The leaves blurred before her eyes, but Tulsi sucked her lips between her teeth and bit down. She wasn’t going to cry. She and Clem had their health and each other, and at least Mia and Sawyer were going to stay in Lonesome Point after they were married. Things were still good. Or at least they could be a whole lot worse.

The thought was barely through her head when she heard Mia’s voice calling from the road.

“Hey, Tulsi? What’s up? You okay?”

Tulsi sniffed away her tears and sat up, her lips parting to tell Mia she was fine, but then she saw the man in Mia’s passenger seat and all her words fell away.

There, not fifty feet from the truck, wearing a black cowboy hat and a denim button-down that made his hazel eyes look a dreamy greenish-blue, sat Pike Sherman. His sandy brown hair was shorter than the last time she’d seen him and the skin at the edges of his eyes was lightly wrinkled, but otherwise he looked exactly the same—except more impossibly handsome. The years had banished the last of the adolescent softness from his cheeks, transforming his strong jaw into a thing of angular beauty. The rest of his face was equally chiseled, gentled only by his full lips. Those soft, generous lips that had once kissed hers with enough passion to make the world stop turning.

Even before she met his eyes, Tulsi was having a hard time catching her breath. When her gaze connected with his, the wind rushed out of her like she’d taken a hoof to the gut.

Suddenly, she felt like she was naked in a polar ice storm, not fully clothed in the middle of a sweltering southwest Texas summer evening. The look in Pike’s eyes was
that
chilling and so ripe with contempt Tulsi had to fight the urge to flinch.

At that moment—as her heart lurched and her throat locked with panic—she was forced to rethink everything she’d assumed for the past seven years. Because, at that moment, she understood that Pike Sherman
hated
her. He hated her with a passion as hot and intense as the passion they’d shared when they were kids.

“Earth to Tulsi.” Mia reached past Pike to wave a hand out the passenger window. “Are you coming or not? We’ve got to jam, sister.”

Tulsi wrenched her gaze from Pike’s, but her heart was still beating so fast her voice trembled when she asked, “Coming where?”

“To the meet and greet.” Mia shook her head, sending her red curls bobbing gently. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did you drink enough water today? You know we had six people down with heat stroke in the medic tent by noon.”

Tulsi forced a smile. “I’m fine. I can’t make it to the meet and greet. I have to go take care of some stuff at home. But y’all have fun.”