The Halo Effect (Cupid Chronicles) (3 page)

She shucked her work clothes in favor of worn jeans and her favorite raspberry-colored blouse. She sat on her unmade bed to slide on her sandals and was overrun with doubts.

Had she made the right decision to move over a thousand miles away from the only home Tristan had ever known? Was “a fresh start” in Texas worth it? His current behavior was certainly speaking volumes.

She closed her eyes to a wave of tears then took a breath and moved to the mirror to freshen her wilted makeup and reaffirm her resolve. She’d done the right thing. She had.

Whether he understood it or not, she would protect him at all costs.

Chapter 4

Old people smelled funny. Tristan wrinkled his nose against the mix of Ben Gay ointment, baby powder, prune juice, and urine—all overpowered by the haze of general oldness. It was freakin’ sad if you asked him. Why his mom liked to come here was beyond him. She said it reminded her of her grandma—the only person who’d ever made her feel “safe,” whatever that meant.

He caught the ‘Mom’ face she shot him and tucked his iPod away into his pocket. Maybe old Mr. Myers would be up and lucid today. The dude was cool for an old man. He had some pretty tight war stories. Still, he’d rather be home working on his bike. If he could just scrape up some cash, he’d get that baby running. Maybe. He really needed some help.

He flopped down into a chair in the lobby as far away from the mass of wheelchairs as he could get and watched his mom move around the room saying her hellos. She really loved these old folks. He rolled his eyes and let his mind wander to his dream bike. Like the one the dude next door had. Now
that
was a sweet ride! It didn’t even matter that he’d almost creamed him with it tonight. That almost made it cooler. At least until his mom came over and ruined it with all her fussing. Maybe that guy would give him some pointers on his motor. But, as quick as that thought sprung to mind, he dismissed it, recalling how the big man had pinned him when he thought he was breaking in the house. No way he’d ask him for help. He could hardly ever tell when the guy was home, anyway.

Tristan shifted in his seat, already getting bored, and his thoughts turned to his father. Today Joey Nelson had called him a filthy bastard son of a whore. He’d just been mouthing off, but Tristan felt the sting clear down to the pit of his stomach. So he’d hauled off and sucker punched the punk in the nose. Sure, he’d thrown the first hit, but as far as he was concerned, Joey had started it with his big mouth. But, problem was, Tristan felt deep down that those words just might be true.

He glanced up at his mother. Not about her. Never about her. He would never think of her as a whore. Of course not. But his father, that was a whole other matter. He was pretty sure a man could be a whore, too.

“You gonna sit over here all night?”

He glanced up into his mom’s smiling eyes. Maybe if he acted reasonably agreeable tonight and helped her clean up they’d get out at a decent time and she wouldn’t ask him to come back for a while. He could only hope.

She held out a hand. “Come on. I won’t make you help with bingo, but you can’t sit in the corner the whole time. At least go visit with Mr. Myers and his cronies or help with the nighttime snacks.” Her eyes all but begged him.

He made a show of thinking it through and gave a great sigh. “Fine.” He rose slowly, purposely avoiding her hand. He brushed past her and headed toward the dining area, where he knew Mr. Myers would be sitting with his customary black coffee and angel food cake.

Sure enough, there he was. He was alone tonight. Tristan pulled up a chair and sat across from the man in the wheelchair. “Hey, Mr. Myers.”

He studied the man’s wrinkled face, his eyelids now sagged with age, his nose with a few red zigzagging blood vessels on either side. This was the first time Tristan noticed he had teeny white ear hairs. But at least no overpowering old-person smell.

Slowly, Mr. Myers peered up with pale blue eyes that showed the white rings of age. It seemed to take him a moment to place who he was with before a smile crinkled the lines of his face. “Well, hello, sonny.” He put down his fork and reached across the table to envelop Tristan’s hand with his cool, wrinkled, liver-spotted one.

Tristan couldn’t help but smile. “How have you been doing? They been treating you nice around here?” He tilted his head conspiratorially toward the front lobby area and the nurses hustling about in their worn blue scrubs.

Mr. Myers laughed. “Always, sonny. Always. The ladies love me around here, don’t you know?”

“I’m sure they do.”

Tristan’s eyes darted to the cake and he realized he was starving. Mr. Myers noticed. “Why don’t you go get yourself a slice of cake, son? There’s plenty left.” He pointed to the counter.

Tristan only hesitated a moment before darting away for a piece. He sat back down and made quick work of it in four large bites. He looked up to find Mr. Myers watching him intently with his eerie white-blue eyes.

“What happened to your face, boy? You get into a fight at school?”

Tristan cringed. “Yes, sir.”

Mr. Myers nodded. “Had me a skirmish or two in my day. What happened?”

He placed his fork down on his empty plate. “Joey Nelson called me a bastard son of a whore.”

Tristan bounced his leg up and down underneath the table in rapid succession as he suddenly realized he cared what this man thought of him. Would he find any validity in what Joey Nelson said? He’d been so twisted with confusion and anger since his mother moved them to Texas, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself half the time. He knew she was trying to protect him from his father’s general shitheadedness—maybe even something else. But he wasn’t a baby anymore. He knew the truth. And pounding in Joey’s face had been the best he’d felt in weeks.

Mr. Myers sipped his coffee then sat his cup down carefully. Tristan studied a stain on the old man’s mint green, threadbare sweater, wondering idly if his mom would maybe buy him a new one for Christmas.

“So, you hit the boy when he called you those names?”

He swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

“And your mother is the pretty lady who comes every week to help with the activities and read to us and such?”

“Yes.” He could barely meet his gaze. “Sir.”

“And may I ask about your father, young man?”

Tristan felt his face grow hot. He glanced down and toyed with a string on his jeans. “He’s not around. He don’t want me no more.” He looked up, fighting the bitter tears in his eyes at the thought of being replaced by a bimbo and a new baby. “Sir.”

“Then I say good for you, sonny. I hope you blacked both his eyes.” Mr. Myers sipped his coffee with a loud slurp. “Now. Have I told you about the time in ’43 when my buddy and I were under heavy fire from the Japs and we had to rely on our wits and our handguns to save our asses until the Infantry arrived?”

True relief that someone seemed to understand poured through him. Tristan leaned forward in his seat, eager to hear Mr. Myers’s story. “No. Tell me.”

For the next half hour, he found himself immersed in the sights and smells of the WWII battlefield. He could almost hear the cries of the wounded and taste the remnants of the gunpowder in the air.

“You should write these stories down, Mr. Myers,” he said in hushed awe, relaxing his clenched fists as the story came to its harrowing conclusion. “They’re
awesome!”

Mr. Myers cackled out a dry laugh. “Now, boy. Why write them down when I can tell them to a young‘un like you? You’ll remember ‘em, won’t you?” His eyes twinkled with merriment, but also with something more.

Tristan sat a bit straighter. “Yes, sir. I’ll remember.”

They both looked up as Tristan’s mother approached with a broad smile. “Hello, gentleman.” She leaned down and brushed a friendly kiss to Mr. Myers’s wrinkly cheek. “Are you two behaving yourselves?”

Mr. Myers winked. “Well, I don’t know about him, but I never could behave myself around a pretty young lady.”

Tristan watched his mom laugh and joke with the man as she pulled up a seat. Bingo must be over because the wheelchair crowd was descending upon the dining room for refreshments, bringing with them the distinctive smells he hated. He turned so he could be on guard.
Oh, shit
. Mrs. Roth was coming his way with her claw-like pinchy hands that always left marks on his cheeks. He looked beseechingly to his mom, but she was deep in conversation with Mr. Myers about the new shower facilities in the nursing home and some new activities volunteer that started today.
Dude. Really?!

Mrs. Roth rolled up, her wheelchair bumping the table. “Hello!” She grinned at him and he noticed her fire-engine-red lipstick was not exactly on her lips. He stifled a laugh.

“Hello, Mrs. Roth.” He managed a tight-lipped smile. Then he realized that she carried not only the
eau de old person
, she also needed a diaper change. Or undergarment change. Whatever.
Ewwww.

“Aren’t you just the handsomest young man?” she chirped, oblivious to her
stank
. Then she did it. She lifted her hand—dirty, sharp nails and all—to his face and reached for his cheek.

Tristan’s mom jumped from her seat and grabbed Mrs. Roth’s wheelchair handles, drawing her back. “Would you like some coffee, Mrs. Roth? Then isn’t it just about time to go back to your room for
Wheel of Fortune
?” She didn’t give the woman a chance to answer before wheeling her away. She shot Tristan a knowing smile over her shoulder as they wheeled off.

He could’ve kissed her. Really. Of course, he would never actually do it.

He glanced over as a short whirlwind of a girl came skipping into the dining room, seeming to float on air. He had to stop and take a second look. He’d never seen anything like her in his life.

Then, as if she sensed his appraisal, she stopped her laughing banter with one of the old folks and turned smiling eyes to his. She was no girl. That much was obvious. She had wisdom in her icy blue eyes. How he knew that, he would never know. But he did.

He couldn’t turn away as she broke from the group of people and made a beeline for him. She pranced like a fairy and bounced to a stop in front of him. She was barely bigger than he was. He was startled to see a small diamond stud through her nose and wings of some kind tattooed on her chest, barely peeking out from behind her filmy blouse the color of a ripe tangerine.

“Hello,” she said in the cutest voice he’d ever heard.

They both looked over as his mother came back to join them. The strange woman-child with supernatural eyes and a pixie haircut smiled at her.

“Tristan,” his mom said, “I see you’ve met the new activities volunteer.”

He shook his head dumbly wondering if he should be so quick to not want to come back. There was no way this little lady wouldn’t liven things up around here.

“We were just introducing ourselves.” The woman offered him her hand. “I’m Ariel.” Her eyes seemed to speak volumes about a secret between them. He wished he was in on it.

Noble rode like the Devil himself was after him. He got out of town and opened the throttle full bore. He needed the sense of freedom to center himself. It was his therapy.

He let the wind whip its greedy fingers through his hair as he changed lanes and continued to head north. He just wished he could keep going and not have to turn back tonight. He’d love nothing more than to feel the cool Hill Country air kiss his skin as he rode the snake-like curves and dipping valley roads like a long, fanciful rollercoaster. He’d love nothing more than to be blessedly free.

But, he was grateful that Jed and Kyle had returned from their honeymoon—though they were sickeningly doe-eyed and love struck—and let him have a night off. And it couldn’t have come at a better time as the letter from his grandfather weighed like a lead brick in his pocket.

He wasn’t sure how he’d found him. Noble had left that life behind many years ago. But the letters had been coming more and more frequently lately. He’d trashed them all without opening a single one. He didn’t care what the drunk had to say to him. He could rot in that jail cell for all he cared.

But this last one . . . this one he’d addressed to
Baptiste Blackfeather,
using Noble’s middle name. The more “traditional” white man’s name that his grandfather had always preferred to call him while growing up on the reservation. When he addressed him at all, anyway. Guess the old man knew that would get his attention. But why? What the hell did he want?

Noble stuffed the questions to the back of his mind and sped up to pass a slow-moving big rig. He let the Harley’s big tires eat up the pavement mile-by-mile as his sense of peace returned. This was better than any pansy-assed yoga.

Eventually, he slowed to turn around and head back to town. While he waited for a couple of cars to pass, he wondered what he would do with his time tonight since he didn’t have to go into work. Maybe he could hit his old park then head home for a frozen pizza. He couldn’t go over and bum around with Jed anymore now that the old chump was a married man, though he’d really love the chance to toss around his idea of buying into Gentry’s with him. But the timing wasn’t quite right. They’d just gotten back from their honeymoon and needed time to settle into their routine. There would be time soon enough.

Idly, his thoughts drifted to Sweet Cheeks and her kid next door as he pulled into traffic heading back south.

Damn if he hadn’t almost killed the kid tonight! And Mama Bear had been right there protecting her cub yet again. Hell, she was something else when she was fired up. And the poor kid went from being scared shitless to absolutely humiliated when his mom came over screeching like a banshee. Noble couldn’t really blame him. He’d seen the kid heading to and from the school bus most days. He seemed kind of quiet and a bit of a loner. At least until he blared that God-awful music from the garage doing whatever it was he did in there all the time. Man, the kid needed a music lesson. Journey, Boston, Peter Frampton, the Doobies . . . that was music. Classics. Not that inane, grinding crap he was killing his eardrums with over there.

And Mommy. Phew, he thought as he sucked in a breath of the cool night air that he felt clear down to his lungs. Mommy was hot. No doubt about it.

He’d dreamt of her. Nearly every night since tackling her boy in the garage last week, she’d haunted his dreams with her intense golden eyes, creamy complexion, and compact but voluptuous body. He didn’t know her name or anything about her, but she toyed with his subconscious in a way that was truly mind-blowing. Sure, she was cute. Pretty, even. And he was sure she must be a nice lady, if a bit overprotective. But what was it about her that had her so latched onto his dreams?

He must be horny. That had to be it. He hadn’t been laid in way too long. Sure, he’d had ample opportunity with all the women flaunting themselves at the tattoo studio. Some all but stripping and throwing themselves at him. But he wasn’t up for that. Literally.