Texas Redeemed (13 page)

“Do you really want
to know, Peyton?”

No, God, no.
“Yes.”

“When she was nine
she asked me what a prostitute is—that came after she and some friends watched
Pretty
Woman
during a sleepover. And …” Valerie eased the SUV to a stop at a red
light “… a few months ago she asked me about birth control pills. I’d never
seen Dinah leave a room so quickly. Caught me off guard, too. The thought of
curling up in a fetal position and crying did occur to me.”

Peyton swore. A
seventh-grader curious about birth control pills. “How’d she even hear about
that?”

“Kids at school
were joking around about it. As usual, the gym class sex gossip was all wrong.”
The light turned green and they were moving again. “Peyton, she’s definitely
not ready for all the dating and kissing. Believe me, if she was interested in
a boy I’d know about it.”

He still wasn’t
convinced, but he let it pass only to leave this subject.

“In other news,”
she said, “our barn cat is pregnant.”

“Is sex
everywhere?”

Valerie froze for a
second then erupted in full-out laughter. It was incredible to see her
genuinely laugh. Her shoulders shook and after a minute she coughed once, then
twice.

And somehow a dam
broke loose inside him, and he started laughing, too.

A hint of an amused
smile remained on her lips until they approached the cemetery. Then a heavy
shadow seemed to sweep through the interior of the vehicle. Somehow the sunny
autumn day seemed dusted in gray, the autumn leaves brittle, the ground made up
of traps designed to destroy a person with every step. She slowed to a stop in
a parking space and said softly, “Can you do this?”

Meaning, could he
face this place again? Could he deal with the assaulting memories of the last
time he’d been here? Time hadn’t softened the images he carried, of him being
stone sober but out of his mind, and dragged off the property in the dead of
night with his wrists bound in handcuffs and his eyes blinded by the ominous
flash of blue and red.

He heard his pulse
surging in his ears, felt his fingers tighten on the seat belt as he went about
unfastening it.

Valerie’s cool
fingertips grazed his knuckles before she unbuckled the belt for him. He found
in her eyes patience, curiosity and a dash of pity. “It’s okay if—”

“No, I … I need to
see Anna.” How pathetic was he to depend on Valerie to get him through this?
She hadn’t been with him the night he’d been shoved into the back of a patrol
car and taken to jail. But she was here now, and he knew with an indescribable
degree of self-disgust that having her close was the encouragement and strength
that filled the holes inside him left behind by his weakness.

He reached for the
bouquet of chrysanthemums, orchids and lilies in the backseat.

“They’re
beautiful.” Valerie’s mouth pulled into a wavering smile, which hit him harder
than a frown would’ve.

Peyton followed her
closely as she navigated a path between rows of granite and stone markers.
There were flowers on graves and even stuffed animals and pumpkins. Passing the
cemetery’s pavilion, she waved at the groundskeeper, who, upon recognizing
Peyton, straightened sharply as if cracked by a whip.

“Is that Mister
Ezekiel?” he asked her as they continued on.

“It is. Retired
now, but he volunteers off and on.” Valerie tossed a glance over her shoulder
in the groundskeeper’s general direction. “Like a lot of people, he can forgive
but not forget. Suppose you’re finding that out rather quickly.”

If he could ever
bring himself to forgive or forget what he’d done here, it wasn’t likely that
this town would let him.

“Anna,” Valerie
said, lowering to her knees and touching a rectangular bronze marker with the
girl’s name on it, “it’s Mommy. Guess who else is here to see you? Your dad.
First, I want to tell you something.”

Peyton retreated a
few paces, giving her room and as much privacy as he could. Gripping the
flowers’ bundled stems, he watched Valerie’s back as she lowered her head and
murmured quietly. He felt like an intruder horning in on a ritual, interfering
with Valerie’s visit with the daughter he’d never known.

Then Valerie lifted
the sunglasses to the top of her head and reached out for his hand. He didn’t
think about it, just entwined his fingers with hers and let her pull him closer.
She was inviting him, including him, letting him in.

“Okay, Anna,” she
said, “I’ll let your dad talk to you now, but I’ll be back soon. And Lucy loves
you. You know she does.”

Peyton’s eyes
landed on hers, but she wouldn’t say more. Instead she straightened and walked
away in the direction they’d come.

He set the bouquet
down at the marker. “I miss you, Anna. Is that crazy? I miss you and I never
met you, never knew you were there until … until you weren’t.” He wasn’t making
any sense but could he be expected to? Then he gave up on thinking, preparing,
and just spoke to his daughter. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back to Night Sky
sooner. It feels like a part of me’s not here. And I think it’s because you’re
that part.”

There was a
stinging sensation behind his eyes, along his sinuses. Maybe allergies, he
figured, moving the bouquet a bit closer to the marker and away from his face.
“I’ll bet you’re doing a good job watching over your mom and sister, but how
about I help with that?” He didn’t have the strength to tell his daughter that
walking away was still a possibility because all of this was coming at him too
fast, too heavy, for him to handle.

His only answer was
the hum of the groundskeeper’s edge trimmer in the distance.

The stinging behind
his eyes converted into hot tears that trickled to his chin before freefalling
onto the grass. He didn’t utter a sound, just let the tears gather and fall as
he pressed his fingers to the marker.

After a minute he
scrubbed his hands over his face where his skin felt warm, as if freshly
struck. He dragged in a deep breath. “Goodbye, Anna.”

He felt overheated
and drained and angry and broken and somehow at a strange level of peace when
he found his way to the parking lot.

Valerie stood
leaning against the SUV. As he came nearer he could see that her eyes were
misty, the tip of her nose was pink, those tempting lips were drawn into a
quivering line and she had a balled-up tissue in her hand.

This was his
Valerie—hurting, vulnerable and honest.

It was her honesty
that he’d wrapped himself up in all those years ago, the scary and reassuring
feeling that if there was one person left in the world he could trust, it was
her.

“Are you okay,
Peyton?”

“I will be,” he
said, recalling his grandfather’s words the day he’d returned to town—and
wishing he was right.

Peyton’s gaze
locked on hers. He knew she could see the tears shining in his eyes but he
didn’t care. Nothing else made sense but to touch her. He folded his arms about
her, tightly, bringing her up against him hard.

She dropped the
tissue and the sunglasses clattered onto the pavement, forgotten. Then her
hands were diving into his hair, her gentle rush of an exhale filling his ears.

He bent slightly as
Valerie brought him down to her height, guiding his head to rest on her
shoulder as he continued to hold her to him. And he found something there he’d
stopped hoping for a long time ago … comfort.

W
ORKING
AT THE
computer for hours without
snatching a break really wasn’t a good thing, Valerie realized, finally
swiveling her office chair away from the screen and closing her strained eyes.
Coincidentally—or not—she’d been buried in bills and payroll and daily chores
since the morning she and Peyton had visited Anna’s gravesite almost two weeks
ago.

Last week he’d
called and a left brief, to-the-point voice mail message.
“I want to see
you. We should talk about visitation. Call me, when you have time.”

She had made sure
that she hadn’t time, simply because she didn’t know how to address the obvious
fact that something had shifted and settled between them at the cemetery. It
couldn’t be ignored that they’d held each other, drunk in one another’s grief.
With him in her arms, she’d been almost weak-kneed to finally have those long
moments to mourn with him—moments she’d been deprived of when their daughter
died.

But once they’d
gotten in his SUV, they’d ended up in their own little awkward universe. He’d
turned on the radio, maybe for her benefit, but she hadn’t paid attention to
the music. In fact, neither of them had spoken until she scooted out of the
vehicle and said faintly, “I’ll call you,” not knowing when that would be.

Now he wanted her
to keep her word. Could she do that—face him while pretending that grieving
Anna hadn’t literally brought them together?

“Of course I can,”
she murmured aloud, alone in the utilitarian office confronted with a desk
cluttered with spreadsheets and binders and files. She stood, stretched her
legs and put her fingertips to her eyes as if to rub away the strain.

She’d camped out
here for over two hours, placing orders, scheduling meetings with potential
buyers and animal checkup appointments with her friend, Vet Boone. At some
point she’d downed an entire mug of spiced cider, because she now glanced down
at the blue ceramic surprised to find it empty.

Soon she’d need to
be at Peridot to pick up Felicity for the hike in Dunesboro Wild that they’d
been planning for months but had rain-checked several times thanks to their
erratic schedules.

Getting out in the
wilderness, even for only a few hours, would do her some good. Nothing put
things in perspective like the unpredictability of nature in its rawest form.

Valerie took a
moment to tidy her workspace, noted the appointments she’d scheduled today on
the corkboard she, Cordelia and Jack shared.

Then she drifted to
the bookcase in the corner, scanned the odd assortment of hardcovers and
paperbacks that had wound up there whenever someone had brought reading
material into the office but had forgotten to take it with them. Her fingers
touched the creased spine of
Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

“‘I want to live my
life so that my nights are not full of regrets,’” she quoted, plucking the book
from the shelf and opening it. She knew the D. H. Lawrence novel well—had read
it twice after purchasing it for a dollar at a university book sale.

Regrets. Oh, she
had plenty of them. And since that afternoon when she’d come face-to-face with
Peyton at Memorial, her nights had indeed become full of them.

And full of thoughts
of Peyton.

“Val, hey.”

Valerie dropped the
book as if it’d caught fire. Did she just
yelp?

“Sorry to scare—”
Jack tossed his keys onto the desk and strode her way with a quiet footfall for
someone so big. “You okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah! Of
course. I-I’m good,” she stammered, crouching to retrieve the book.

Only, Jack had
already reached down and swept it up in his bear paw. “Dropped this.” He
glanced at the cover and the quizzical expression on his face appeared and
disappeared in the span of a half second. “Here you go, boss.”

“It’s literature.”
Why did that sound so stupid coming from her lips? “I read it in college.”
Twice.

“Okay.”

Except the way he
said the word sounded like “Oookaaaay,” and Valerie gritted her teeth, pressing
the book between her hands. “Anyway, I’m heading out for a few hours—hiking
with Felicity.”

“Where’s Luce?
Haven’t seen her around.”

“She spent the
night at the Carews’ house. They’re all going to the Halloween party at the
orchard together. Are you and Cordelia going?”

“That depends on
whether or not she decides to talk to me. It’s only noon. The day’s still
early.” Jack dropped his large form into the office chair and logged into the
ranch’s Outlook account. “I’m optimistic.”

Confused, Valerie
stood in front of the desk and set her book down. “Why the silent treatment?”

“We had …” he
sighed, shaking his head, narrowing his blue eyes “… words … about her running
around here working an even heavier load than before the pregnancy. She’s doing
that ‘taking stupid chances to prove she’s tough’ thing, and it’s driving me
goddamn crazy. Valerie, the doctors keep warning her that this baby … it’s not
a sure thing.”

The high risk of
Cordelia’s pregnancy wasn’t news to Valerie. “She’ll be forty at the beginning
of the month, and she’s miscarried before.”

“And she shouldn’t
be working herself into the ground doing hard labor. Any minute we could lose
that baby.” He stopped, with his hands poised over the keyboard. “When she
loses a baby, she falls apart, and
I
have to put her together again. I’m
tired of holding her together.”

Valerie didn’t like
the heaviness behind his words. “Jack?”

“Look, I’d rather
her not be pregnant at all than to keep going through this hell.”

“She’s tough.”
Valerie fell silent when his blank look told her the attempt at reassurance
offered zero consolation.

“Tough? That’s what
she wants us all to think, isn’t it? She’s Rhys Jordan’s tough daughter who can
do anything and never fails. She’s stubborn. Tell her that she can’t do
something and she’ll go to hell and back to prove you wrong.”

“Is that so
horrible?” Valerie asked, feeling his words scratch a little too close to home.
There had been people who’d urged her to sell the ranch, to even consider
giving up her daughters for adoption, because they’d doubted she could be a
rancher and a single mother. The nay-sayers
had
given her that extra
shot of determination to, as Jack said, prove them wrong.

“Let’s find a
solution, then,” she said in response to his silence. “Should we make one of
our guys full-time, then? Bring someone else on?”

“Yeah, and have Dee
bust my balls over it.”

“If she shouldn’t
work then we need to bring somebody on. It’s common sense, and once she gets
over her pride, she’ll see there’s no point in busting your balls. Coop’s back
is ailing him, and if we can’t count on Cordelia we need somebody who can pick
up their slack.”

“A full-timer.
Another hand. If Will or Steven bump up their hours, it won’t be enough. Ripley
can’t handle more than what’s already on his plate.” Jack scratched his square
jaw. “I’m a math whiz, but not a miracle worker. The budget can’t handle
another man’s salary plus room and board—not at the rates these local guys’re
asking.”

Valerie couldn’t
dispute that. When Jack had busted his leg last year in a tractor accident,
he’d been able to perform his share of the accounting duties but recruiting a
replacement to take over his labor had been impossible. In the end she’d upped
her part-timers’ pay to persuade them to work longer hours, and borne a large
slice of the burden herself.

“Fred Alvin’s got
an open house coming up at his horse farm. It’s bound to draw in a lot of faces
around Wellesley County—new faces from Meridien and surrounding towns. Maybe
even as far as San Antonio. We should scout then,” she suggested.

Jack dipped his
head in an almost-nod. “I’ll crunch some numbers and look into it, Val.”

She headed out the
door, but he stopped her with “Yo, forgot this!” and lobbed the book her way.

With her pickup
loaded with a backpack, camera bag and two hiking sticks, Valerie took a dusty
back-roads shortcut into town. Peridot stood several yards from the courthouse.
In her hiking getup of hoodie, shorts and boots, she looked out of place in the
boutique hotel that boasted an upscale bistro and martini bar—usually
frequented by tourists and people from the city who had more money to spend
than much of Night Sky’s population. So upscale, in fact, that the last time
she’d dined there had been for Felicity’s surprise birthday party last year—and
even then she’d suppressed her shock at discovering that the Dom Perignon she’d
drunk to toast her friend cost several hundred dollars
a bottle.

She couldn’t fathom
patronizing the hotel as its “regulars” did, let alone actually living
long-term in a suite, as Felicity did.

As for food, she
preferred the fare at the rambunctious, come-as-you-are Jamaican-Mexican
restaurant in a converted old row house near the Christian church. Will’s
parents, Diego and Fatima Aturro, ran the place, and she always felt at home
there.

Valerie jogged up
the wide concrete stairs to Peridot’s entrance, appreciating the elegant
architecture and the attractive green vertical banners that flanked the
revolving glass door entrance.

She kept her eyes
straight ahead, intending to make a beeline to Felicity’s concierge desk, since
her friend didn’t usually check her cell during a shift. In her periphery were
patrons dressed to the nines with smartphones and briefcases.

“Felicity,” she
said as her friend, decked out in a black short-sleeved geisha dress, resumed
her place at the concierge desk. She glanced at the nearby Roman numeral clock.
“We oughtta hurry if we’re going to get a decent hike in. Besides, I don’t
exactly blend with this clientele—especially stomping around in boots with no
makeup on.”

“Lucky much? I
have
to
use an arsenal of makeup daily.” She collected her purse from a locked
drawer behind the desk and seemed excited to be leaving. Today was her day off
but she’d taken a partial shift to cover for a coworker. “Walk with me to the
bistro. Hurry.”

Valerie followed
Felicity across the marble lobby, watching her breezily greet guests and wave
to hotel staff. More than once someone smiled at Felicity only to then catch
sight of Valerie and wrinkle their brow at her clothes.

“Ignore it, Val,”
Felicity said, also noticing. “You think I wear four-inch stilettos because I
like
to? Peridot demands polish, even if it means sacrificing comfort to look
good. Even if it means dealing with stuck-up—Have a good day! Please do visit
Peridot again.” She smiled indulgently at the couple wrestling a pair of
suitcases down a corridor with a burdened bellboy following close behind.

At the rear of the
bistro, the full bar stretched across the width of the room was awash in soft,
electric-green light.

“I don’t hike under
the influence.”

“You may want to
after this.” Felicity leaned against the bar and discreetly pointed to a blonde
woman and her lunch date. They sat opposite each other at a table. A
suit-wearing server paused to deliver two martinis with olives before moving on
to another table.

“Okay, what am I
supposed to be seeing here?”

“Him,” Felicity
said slowly, as the man rose from his chair, leaving his drink untouched, and
then bent to listen to something the woman said over the din of conversation
and piped music.

“Peyton.”

Felicity graced her
with a sympathetic frown. “Didn’t you tell me he’s been trying to get close to
you?”

“Close to
Lucy.
And only because he thinks he has to—not because he wants to.” Valerie turned
her back to Peyton and his date, faced the bar and glanced sidelong at
Felicity, who continued to watch his table.

“She looks older,
maybe early forties. Put-together. Fresh highlights—”

“Seriously, quit.”
Valerie chanced a subtle peek over her shoulder as Peyton walked off toward the
corridor leading to a public phone and restrooms, and the woman tossed her
Charlie’s Angels curls and sampled her martini.

“Dear God, look at
that rock,” Felicity commented, apparently also noticing the woman’s enormous
princess-cut diamond set. “Is she
married,
then?” She gasped. “To him?”

Valerie felt every
cell in her body solidify. Peyton had demanded to know whether she was
seriously involved with someone, whether another man was raising their
daughter. But it hadn’t occurred to her to ask him about his relationships
because she’d been so certain that he avoided attachments of the meaningful,
long-term variety.

“I’m not
comfortable standing here spying.”

“Then let’s go. I
only brought you here because, well, he was a real womanizer back in high
school, and if he’s doing the same thing now you shouldn’t get wrapped up in
that drama.” Felicity bumped into a stool in her haste to follow Valerie out of
the bistro. “My gear’s upstairs, so give me a few minutes to change and I’ll
meet you in the lobby.”

Valerie was almost
out of breath by the time she reached the hotel lobby. How could Peyton sweep
into her and Lucy’s lives as if he had the right—the freedom—to do so? Did the
“put-together” blonde even know about Peyton’s child?

Get a grip,
she coached herself, resting her backside against a pillar as people milled
around her.
It’s not like he was ever yours.

“What are you
hiding from?”

For some reason, it
didn’t surprise her in the least that Peyton had spotted her. He’d probably
seen her in the bistro but had pretended not to. She waited for him to step
around the pillar, and then they were face-to-face. “Who said I’m hiding? I’m
waiting for Felicity. We’re going to Dunesboro Wild.”