Lone Oak Feud (Harlequin Heartwarming) (4 page)

* * *

“I
DON
’
T
WANNA
GO
TO
bed yet,” Owen said.

Zach had to hide a chuckle when he saw the don’t-play-games-with-me look his grandma gave his nephew across the kitchen table.

“Get going. Uncle Zach will be up in a few minutes to make sure you’ve brushed your teeth.”

Owen slid down from the wooden chair where he’d just finished his bedtime snack and scurried across the room.

“He’s more comfortable with you,” Zach said quietly as Owen headed up the stairs. He hated that she volunteered him to play dad.

“You need to lighten up with the boy,” his grandma said. “Have fun with him. He won’t bite.”

“Fun?” He stood and walked to the kitchen counter to dump the rest of his Coke down the sink.

Kids weren’t fun. They were small people who needed a lot from big people. They
deserved
a lot from them. But sometimes adults weren’t capable of giving kids what they needed. He’d found that out after his dad died and his mom had had better things to do.

Zach was about as qualified to take care of Owen as a carpenter ant was to build a five-story office building.

A loud thud just outside the kitchen in the backyard made him glance at his grandma. But her widened eyes said she didn’t know what it was anymore than he did.

He turned out the overhead light, leaving the kitchen shadowed and dim. Glancing out the back door, he saw movement in the yard.

“Make you a deal. You check on Owen. I’ll go investigate.”

“Don’t be foolish, Zachary. If someone’s out there, stay inside.”

“I’m a big boy, Gram. Go check on the kid.”

As soon as she was out of sight, he grabbed a set of keys from a kitchen drawer, then slipped into the formal dining room they never used. He still knew which key opened the drawer of the buffet. He took out Gram’s gun and slid the drawer closed without a sound.

Back in the kitchen, he looked out the window again. He thought he spotted someone disappearing behind the corner of the converted in-law quarters that stood halfway to the back property line.

Easing the door open, he listened carefully, but heard nothing in the frosty night. He crept down the stairs and into the shadow of the shop. About two feet from the end of the wall he stopped, straining to listen.

Seconds ticked by. Zach sensed someone was there, so he remained still, waiting. Barely breathing. Then he heard a rough, scraping noise against the stone exterior of the building, and his heart raced with adrenaline.

“Move another inch and I’ll shoot you,” he said in a low voice, holding the gun in front of him.

CHAPTER FIVE

“C
OME
ON
, Z
ACH
,
GIMME
a break.”

Zach knew the slurred, intoxicated voice immediately. He muttered under his breath and lowered the gun, putting the safety back on, and took two long steps around the corner.

His brother squatted there, his back against the wall for support. The urge to knock Josh in the head made his fingers itch. He didn’t see his brother much, but Josh was drunk more than he was sober as far as Zach could tell. A total waste. He could be so much more. Like a father, for instance.

“What are you doing here?”

“I live here.” Josh didn’t move, didn’t look up.

“Could’ve fooled me. If you live here, get inside and take care of your son.”

Josh spit into the grass in front of him. “Can’t.” He shrugged, and Zach clenched his hand into a fist.

“Why on earth not? He’s your responsibility.”

“Grandma takes care of him better ’n I could.”

“What does a five-year-old want with an eighty-year-old woman taking care of him? You think she’s going to run around with him in the yard?”

Zach almost choked on his own self-righteousness, as if he had a clue what a five-year-old kid needed.

“Save your breath, Zach. I ain’t coming back.”

“Looks to me like you’re back.”

“I just wanted to see him for a second.” He shook his head. “Still can’t believe that boy in there came from me.”

“Neither can I.” Zach wasn’t in the mood for gushing about the wonder of it all. “You think Grandma’s going to be around until he’s eighteen?”

Josh had the nerve to laugh. “That old woman’s too tough to die. She’ll kick death in the pants when it comes after her.”

“Owen isn’t her job.” Zach slid the gun under his waistband. He lodged his foot a couple feet up the stone wall and leaned on his bent knee. “She’s already paid her dues bringing up two trouble-making generations of us.”

Several seconds passed before Josh answered. “I ain’t cut out to be a dad, no matter how bad I want to.”

The words sliced through Zach’s anger. He’d had identical thoughts about himself not fifteen minutes ago. Neither one of them knew what a good parent or a normal family was.

Still, someone had to try.

“So you’re just going to get skunked and spy on your son when the mood suits you?”

Josh shrugged. “I didn’t plan on comin’ here. I just wanted to see him.”

“Where you staying?”

“Around.”

“Around where?”

Josh stood slowly, using the wall to steady himself. “None of your business.”

“Get off the property.”

Josh met his eyes then, narrowing his own as if to gauge whether Zach was serious.

“I mean it.”

They stared at each other for close to a full minute before Josh spit again, muttered something under his breath and set out on his unsteady way. He sauntered away from the shop and the house, across the barren field.

Zach watched him for as far as he could see him. When different shades of blackness started playing with his eyes, making him unsure whether it was Josh he saw or just more darkness, he turned away.

He shouldn’t have let his temper get the best of him. Josh needed encouragement. The world gave him nothing but a cold shoulder. He deserved more from his own brother.

What was he doing sending Josh away instead of dragging him inside?

Zach went into the house, locked the gun back in the drawer and went upstairs to find his grandma. She was reading to Owen in Zach’s old twin bed with the familiar red-and-blue bedspread. He reminded himself—not for the first time—that the guest room suited Zach just fine. He wasn’t staying.

“Grandma’s reading a story,” Owen told him.

“I see that.” Zach smiled.

“Stay and listen. Please?”

Zach didn’t really have time to hear the resolution of
The Little Engine That Could,
but he sat on the edge of the bed and focused on his grandma’s gravelly voice, wondering when she’d started getting so old.

Owen was hanging on her every word. Zach himself had been too old for stories by the time Gram had taken them in—or at least he’d thought he was.

He was just fine now, no matter how his childhood had been. And a lot of that was thanks to the bony, white-haired woman making
choo-choo
noises for all she was worth.

When the story was over, he bent toward Owen. “Night, O.” He held out his fist and Owen punched it softly as Zach had taught him to the night before.

“G’night, Uncle Zach.”

Zach wandered out to the hall to wait for his grandma. “Josh was out back,” he said as she shut Owen’s door.

She looked around, clearly pleased.

“He ran off. Staggered, actually.”

“You didn’t go after him?”

“I’ll go and see if I can find him. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

She nodded, worry wrinkling her forehead. “You think he’ll come home?”

“I’ll do what I can to get him here.”

“Don’t hurt him, Zachary,” she hollered after him as he jogged downstairs. “Just bring him home.”

Zach went out to his truck. He’d bet money Josh had headed over to County Road Nine, which was about a mile from their backyard on the other side of two fields.

He felt sure if he hurried he’d find Josh’s old blue truck parked along the side of the road somewhere, maybe in a grove of trees, but probably right out in the open. Josh wasn’t careful, but he was predictable. He made the same mistakes over and over, and that was why Zach guessed his brother was out driving under the influence, without a thought to the woman he’d killed doing exactly that nearly twelve years ago.

It was time to turn that pattern around, get his brother help.

He turned right on Walnut and sped toward Nine.

* * *

L
INDSEY
WAITED
UNTIL
SHE
WAS
in bed, curled up in her oversized Astros jersey, to dial Katie’s cell phone.

“Yeah?” Katie answered curtly. She must’ve seen it was Lindsey on her caller ID. Lindsey’s suspicion that something was bugging her must be correct.

“Are you home yet?”

“I’m studying at the donut shop. What’s wrong?”

“I was just making sure you got back okay.”

“I did.”

“Katie, you’re pissed. I can tell.”

She heard a sigh over the line. “I’m not pissed, Linds. I just don’t understand how you can even look at those people without thinking about Mom and what they did.”

“
Josh
did. Not ‘they.’”

She’d long ago learned to turn off her emotions when she needed to. Except her contempt for Josh. She wished she could turn off the nagging attraction for Zach while she was at it, but even tonight, she couldn’t help thinking about running her fingers through his dark hair, tasting his lips again....

Good grief. Enough already.

“It’s Josh’s kid, right?”

“He’s gone, Katie.” Lindsey explained what was going on next door.

“So the old hag is losing it?”

“I don’t know. What would you think if she smiled at you and acted friendly?”

“I’d think she was smoking some really strong stuff.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“I’m not saying I agree with what you’re doing. You need to butt out unless it’s bad enough to get involved professionally.”

“I don’t want it to get that far. He’s a sweet kid.”

“You’re as stubborn as Savannah in your own special way.”

“Aw, thanks. Love you, too.”

“Linds? Is Dad really okay?”

“From what the doctors tell me, yeah.”

“He didn’t look okay when I left.”

“Of course he didn’t. He was seething over Zach’s visit.”

“You can’t do that to him!”

“I don’t intend to,” Lindsey said, sweat beginning to bead on her forehead. What was it with her sisters? She was the one who was there for their dad every day, had visited him in the hospital twice a day.
She
was the one he relied on. Had been ever since the accident.

“I have to go. I have a lot of studying to do.”

“I’ll talk to you later.” Lindsey sighed as she hung up.

She set the phone on her nightstand and flicked off the lamp. Pressure built in her chest. Didn’t it just figure the Rundles were still causing problems for her family?

* * *

Z
ACH
HAD
SCOURED
THE
nooks and crannies of the county road, even taken a couple of the dirt side roads that led nowhere.

Nothing.

Josh was gone. There was no sign of his rusting, blue Chevy anywhere.

Not more than ten minutes had passed from the time he’d watched Josh walk away to the time Zach had headed back outside to track him down. A healthy guy could run to the county road in that time, but Josh was drunk. The only exercise he got was running from trouble. There was no way he’d made it to the road before Zach.

He’d have to find him. Apologize. Convince him to come home and be a dad. He’d have to wait till daylight, though.

The neon sign in the window of one of the two taverns in Lone Oak beckoned to him as he drove. He hadn’t been in the Lazy Goat in years, but he found himself pulling into the gravel lot beside it.

Josh might’ve stopped here to bolster his confidence. All he had to do was go north through the field instead of east. Downtown Lone Oak, such as it was, was only a couple of long residential blocks from the field and their backyard.

Zach sucked in a breath before opening the door to the tavern. Just as he expected, when he took a step inside, all heads turned his way. The good news was there weren’t many people there at ten o’clock on a Sunday night.

He glanced over the dark, smoky interior, searching for Josh.

Not much had changed in the years since he’d been there—if anything. A pool table and a dartboard crowded one back corner. Two older men looked to be in the middle of a cutthroat game of pool. A handful of mismatched tables were occupied. At the far end of the bar a man and a woman were getting cozy. But there was no sign of his brother.

Zach made a path toward the unoccupied end of the bar, where the female bartender looked him over, waiting for his drink order.

“Zach Rundle,” the short woman said slowly.

He studied her more carefully, trying to come up with a name. Her face was familiar but he couldn’t place her. He slid onto a stool, not overjoyed at being in a place where everyone knew his name.

“What’ll you have?”

Glancing at the tap, he saw his brand and ordered a draught.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” the woman asked as she filled a mug.

“You’re familiar.”

“If you’d’a showed up for school more than once a week you might remember. Heather.”

He nodded as he set a five on the bar. “Heather Casper. I remember fine.”

“Rawlins, actually. Haven’t been Casper for a long time.”

“Married?”

“Divorced. You?”

“Single. Liking it that way.”

She raised an arched eyebrow to tell him she wasn’t interested in him, anyway.

“You know my brother Josh?”

“Know him well.”

“He been in here tonight?”

“Haven’t seen him for a while,” she said as she wiped down the bar.

“How often does he come in?”

“Used to be nearly every night, but he hasn’t been in for over a week as far as I know.”

So he wasn’t getting his liquor here. Ellington and Layton were only ten miles down the road in different directions. Josh must be avoiding people who knew him.

Heather emerged from behind the bar and headed to the noisy table in the front corner. Zach took a swallow of beer and considered his options.

The way he saw it, he could leave tomorrow as he’d planned, go back to Wichita and make the commission meeting tomorrow night to fight for the zoning change. He was just about ticked off enough at Josh to walk away, to let him mess up his life some more.

Just about.

Or he could stick around and track down Josh. If he didn’t find him tomorrow, he could zip down to Wichita for the meeting and come back Tuesday to resume his search.

He had to try. Josh needed a shove in the right direction.

Zach would do what he could to get Josh back home with Owen, to get them help. There had to be some kind of classes or programs for single fathers. And help for the drinking. Josh could probably still get his old job back. Gram would be there as backup, he had a place to live for free... Josh could do this.

Then Zach could go back to Wichita for good, back to the drama-free existence he appreciated more each day. Peace at last.

Heather was back behind the bar, looking at a man a few feet from Zach.

“Hey, Humph. What’re you doing out on a Sunday?”

Kurt Humphrey. He hadn’t changed much since ninth grade, when he and Zach had fought in the gravel lot behind the school. Zach couldn’t remember why now.

“Looking for you, darlin’.”

“As if.” Heather smiled. She flipped a cardboard coaster on the bar, drew a beer without asking what kind, and set it in front of him.

Zach didn’t care to watch her flirt, and he had nothing to say to Humphrey so he stared at the swirled grain of the ancient wood under his drink. He felt Humphrey looking his way and tensed. He wasn’t up for a confrontation.

But Humphrey ambled off to the table he shared with two others. When Zach turned to see if he recognized either of them, he met three sets of eyes.

“Jerks,” he muttered to himself as he turned back toward the bar.

“Who? Humph and company?” Heather was closer than he’d thought, mopping off the bar. “What’d they do to you?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“They’re decent, unlike a lot we get in here.”

“Regular saints.” The good guys. As opposed to the Rundles.

Heather crossed her arms over her chest and leaned on the bar in front of Zach, studying him.

“What?” he asked.

“You’ve changed.”

He chuckled, not actually finding anything funny. “You don’t know me. Never did.”

“No, but I know people. I spend six nights a week dealing with all kinds. You still brood, but you’re different. Not so angry at the world.”