Читать книгу Lone Star Hero - Jolene Navarro - Страница 11

Chapter Two

Vickie stood at her backyard fire pit alone, watching the dancing flames, the day finally over. She’d paid her ticket and left the party as soon as she could. Tomorrow would have been her thirteenth wedding anniversary. With the ugly emotions surfacing, it was a good thing Ashley went home with Mia, and Seth had stayed the night at her parents’ house.

She had not had a second to herself in two months and tonight she needed some alone time. A fitting end to her worst Valentine’s Day ever.

Well, maybe not the worst. Three years ago today, she found out her husband had been involved with his campaign manager, a woman she trusted. A woman that had sat at her dinner table and played with her kids. An anniversary gift she’d never forget.

She had worked so hard at being the good wife to a man that didn’t care about being a good husband or father. It was all about image for Tommy.

Dousing the fire pit with diesel, Vickie watched the flames dance high into the Texas night sky. Hands on her hips, she looked up, following the tongues of orange as they curled and danced toward the stars.

For a moment, she focused on the silhouetted hills surrounding her father’s ranch. She grew up counting the trees along the riverbank. Their smell always gave her comfort, but not tonight.

Tonight she needed to do something to purge the remaining traces of bitterness and feeling of helplessness. Maybe a good cry. She snorted. Her mother would disapprove.

Crying didn’t solve anything, just made a person look weak. Opening the elaborate cover of her wedding album, she looked at the engagement picture. That girl looked like a stranger to her now. She was made up in the image of her mother.

Tommy smiled at the camera, one arm wrapped around her waist. Her hand flat against his shirt, showing off the large diamond. She tossed the grinning groom into the blaze and stared as his face distorted before vanishing into ashes.

She couldn’t think of one single day in the last two years she had even missed Tommy and his hypercritical demands. Finding out about the other woman was her breaking point. He blamed her, telling her he couldn’t love her.

Being a wife and mother was all she ever wanted. She didn’t seem to be winning in that department, either. She rolled her head back and closed her tired eyes.

A grown woman with an eleven-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter to raise and not a marketable skill in sight.

Her mother lectured her for the past twelve years about being the good wife, even after the divorce. People in her family did not get divorced.

Against all evidence, Elizabeth Lawson hung on to the dream that Tommy would come back and beg her forgiveness, becoming the model family man. Vickie knew it was beyond over. She failed at marriage and had messed up the perfect family history. Her mother would have to find a way to deal.

The one thing she would not be, could not be, was a failure at being a mom. Her kids needed her more than ever since Tommy’s disappearing act.

She tore out another photo, her mother fussing over the intricate pile of hair the hairdresser had created around the bridal veil. Miles of perfectly preserved white lace and tiny beaded pearls surrounded Vickie along with all her mother’s plans and expectations.

Seth needed her to be strong. She knew the divorce and his father’s abandonment hurt him beyond words.

Flipping the heavy page, she ripped out another photo. Into the fire the kiss went. Running down the steps of the church...gone.

The three-foot wedding cake...history.

The breeze blew smoke into her face. Vickie’s chest and throat started to burn as tears finally escaped, one after another. Her eyesight blurred as she watched each picture vanish in the multicolored inferno.

Headlights made their way down the long drive. She gritted her teeth. Why couldn’t her mother just leave her alone in her misery? Using the bottom of her oversize T-shirt, Vickie wiped her face.

The car door opened and closed.

“Vickie?” A strong, masculine voice surprised her. She hung her head. Much worse than her mother, the ex-best friend that almost arrested her today. Officer Jake Torres.

“I could see the flames from the highway. You know the county is in the middle of a burn ban.” He walked straight toward her.

She pretended not to notice his wide shoulders or powerful legs. He was a walking cliché of a Texas Ranger. “Officer Torres, I would think you had better things to do than bother women—” A leftover sob escaped her chest. She swallowed it back down “—on their own property. Is this an arrestable offense also?”

He sat on his heels, hunched next to her as he picked up a picture that had fallen in the dirt. “Wedding pictures?”

She stared at the fire, hoping he would leave. She didn’t want to share her humiliation with anyone, especially her childhood crush. Every girl at school had giggled whenever Jake walked by. He had been her best friend but completely out of reach.

He thrust his chin to the box at her feet. “In honor of your anniversary?”

She turned to him in shock. “You remembered my wedding date? Tommy never did.” She should look away. Please, just go away before I start to think I could rely on you. “You weren’t even there.”

This time he broke eye contact first. “Yeah, I...um... I had to be somewhere else.”

Why didn’t you take me with you? “You had to run off and save the world.”

He reached out and touched her arm. His dark hand stood in contrast to her pale skin.

“Vickie, are you all right? Has Tommy done something?” She jerked her arm back. Don’t let him think you need a friend, Victoria Maria. She turned her face away from him and focused on the fire. “I’m fine. This is not about Tommy. He’s in Florida planning his new future, and I’m here with the kids. That’s all I need.” Please leave before I do something stupid like cry in front of you.

He pulled his hand back and stood. “You’re a good mother. Listen, I know you’ve had a couple of rough years, but you have people that are here for you if you need anything.”

The problem with that was she needed to learn to take care of herself. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she focused on the popping of the fire. Maybe if she ignored him, he’d go away.

* * *

Looking around, he spotted the green water hose, neatly curled up like a snake. With a turn of the old knob, he had the water running full blast. Stretching the hose from the old barn to the pit, he started smothering the flames. Jake scanned the area for any wayward embers.

Vickie burst from her chair almost eye to eye with him, even barefoot. He always liked her height. He frowned. Was that the problem? His mother was always trying to match him up with short women.

“Hey! That’s my fire. Just because you wear a uniform now doesn’t mean you...”

“Victoria, it’s so dry, the smallest spark could turn your father’s ranch into an inferno.”

Standing, she crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at him.

He smiled.

The hostility in her glare was so much better than the defeated look he saw earlier.

With a deep sigh, she looked away and ran her fingers through her dark blond mane. “I’m sorry.”

Tonight her hair hung loose, looking wild as the flames reflected off the long strands. He loved it down. Most of the time, she kept it styled and starched. He had to lean in a bit to hear what she muttered.

“I don’t know why I say the things I do. It just pops in my head and out of my mouth.” She turned her face back to him. Her eyelashes glistened with moisture. “I’m so tired of fighting. Seth and I had another argument earlier today.”

Jake concentrated on putting out the flames. He could control this fire for her. He had no idea how to help her with the rest of her life. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Talk to him, explain what’s going on. Believe me, sons are very forgiving of their mothers.”

He shoveled some dirt from the nearby mound into the pit. The last of the flames died out, separating them with a column of thick smoke.

She flopped back down in the camping chair. “I’m sure he’d be much happier without me as his mother.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t blame him. I don’t want to be around me, either.”

“Seth loves you. He’s just angry and confused right now. Give him some time.” He coiled the hose. Standing a good ten feet away, he could still see her shivering as she huddled into a ball.

With the fire out, all the heat vanished, leaving the cold breeze and smoke between them.

He didn’t want to leave, but he had to get going.

A few steps and he was next to her. He slipped off his jacket and laid it over her thin T-shirt. Sitting on his heels next to the camouflaged chair, his hand resting on the canvas arm, as close to her as possible without touching, he said, “Listen, Vickie, I know it’s been a tough couple of years, but life will get better.”

“Thanks.” Her tight-lipped answer gave him the first clue that their friendly discussion had ended about as fast as it had started.

He stood. “Call me if you need anything.” Like the hardheaded idiot he was, he waited. After a few extensive minutes loaded with nothing but his own breathing, Jake stepped back. “Good night, Victoria.” Another pause, just to make sure she had nothing else to say.

With a locked jaw, he walked to his patrol car. He forced himself to look straight ahead, no turning back, not one glance over his shoulder. No, she had made it clear over the years she didn’t need him. So why did he think tonight would be any different?

* * *

Vickie watched as each step took Jake farther away from her. She bit her lip as her fingernails cut into her palms. The urge to call him ripped at her throat. He slipped into his black SUV and reversed out of her drive. A new type of sadness wrapped itself around her heart. She hadn’t felt so alone with him next to her.

Thick smoke rose from the fire pit. She wanted to throw her whole album into the now-soggy, mud-filled hole, but it was a part of her children’s history. A part of her history—the good, bad and ugly.

Instead of dwelling on old hurts, she knew her time would be better spent focusing on the good and reading her Bible. Two months ago, holding her unconscious son’s cold hand, she prayed for God’s forgiveness, wise words and a new heart.

She had released the bitterness and anger; now she needed to put that new life into action. So many people deserved apologies from her. Where did she start?

* * *

Vickie walked back into her little single-wide trailer. For a second the thin walls of the narrow trailer closed in on her. It had been their temporary home for almost two years now. A stark difference to the three-thousand-square-foot home they had in San Antonio.

That life was gone, along with the money and the delusion of a happy ever after.

Snuggling deeper into the sturdy jacket, Jake’s warmth and scent surrounded her—outdoors and leather.

On the faux-wood coffee table sat the Bible her father handed her when she signed the divorce papers. All he ever said about the whole mess was, “Stay focused on your faith. The Lord has you.”

Why didn’t God give her a man of faith like her dad?

She let the pages fall open. She had marked Jeremiah 16:19 on the night she sat in the waiting room when her son had almost died. “‘The Lord is my strength and my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.’” Her soft words helped fill the emptiness.

Jake had given her that verse on the way to the ambulance. God would be her refuge. She moved to the last door in the tiny hall. Her son was hurting. She grew up with two sisters and had no idea how to deal with an eleven-year-old boy that wanted his father.

He’d gotten so angry when she told him he wouldn’t be going to Tommy’s wedding. He blamed her for everything, the divorce, his father’s leaving, his trouble with Rachel.

She protected the children from the worst of the betrayals, but she was losing her son.

Tommy wanted to focus on his new bride without the kids around. Her fingers gripped the edges of the cherished Bible. Of course, he made her tell the kids.

Leaning her forehead against the handmade warning sign taped to his door, she softly prayed. “God, please lift me up to be the kind of mother my children need. Cover Seth and Ashley in your love.”

The trailer filled with heavy silence. She laid a hand against the plastic trim to support her now-weak legs. “I love Seth and Ashley so much. Thank you for the gift of being their mother.” She waited for a heartbeat...two... “Help me use the right words with them to heal any hurts.”

The phone rang. Instead of answering, she moved to the freezer and pulled out the vanilla ice cream.

“Victoria Maria, it’s your mother.” Her mother’s sweet Texas drawl was leftover from her Dallas debutante days.

She was getting better at ignoring it.

“I need to talk to you about Seth.” Her mother continued. “I know you’re in that trailer.”

Vickie could hear the disgust in her mother’s tone. Each time she came to the house, her mother looked around the room as if she had found a roach running across the toes of her high-heeled shoes. Vickie closed her eyes and waited.

“Victoria Maria Miller, pick up.”

Elizabeth Marie Lawson never screamed, shouted or yelled, but she had a voice of steel and she expected to be obeyed.

With a heavy sigh, Vickie picked up the landline with one hand and used the other to fill her mouth with ice cream.

She knew it was a petty form of rebellion, but it felt good to answer while still chewing.

“Mother, I’m not his wife anymore....” She made sure to swallow loudly, “and I’m back to Lawson.”

“Are you eating while talking to me?”

Vickie put the spoon in the sink. “Sorry, Mama.”

“Sweetheart, I’m not sure if going back to Lawson is the best thing for the children. They should have the same last name as their mother. I think it is upsetting Seth.”

“Mom, everything upsets Seth.” She wanted to curl up in bed, pull the blankets over her head and not listen to her mother’s lecture. “Mom, it’s been a really long day. Is Seth okay? Do I need to pick him up?”

“No, no. I think it’s good for him to be around his grandfather. He needs a strong man of faith in his life. We were praying for his father, and Seth said you won’t talk to Tommy when he calls.”

“Mom, Tommy is getting married in less than a week.” She hung her head and rubbed her forehead. “Please don’t encourage Seth in the idea his father is coming back.”

On the counter, her cell phone started vibrating.

“Victoria, he should...”

“Sorry to cut you off, Mom, but Lorrie Ann is on my cell. I should take it.”

“Oh, I hope everything is okay. Why would she be calling you?”

“I don’t know. Love you, bye.” With a flip of her thumb, she received the call while hanging up on her mother.

“Lorrie Ann?” She couldn’t image why Pastor Levi’s fiancée was calling her. Slight nausea rolled her stomach. In Vickie’s darkest moments, she delivered some of her ugliest words straight at Lorrie Ann. Bitterness, jealously and anger filled her thoughts just two months ago. Embarrassment made her want to disconnect the call.

“Hi, Vickie. Sorry to be calling late, but I was organizing my weekly schedule. I have a couple of ideas I would love to talk to you about. Could I come over Friday night? It’s about the wedding and the youth program.” She laughed. “Right now it seems everything in my life is about the wedding. Would seven o’clock work for you? Oh, sorry. I’m being a little pushy. Between Aunt Maggie, my mom and Yolanda, not to mention every woman in the church who sees John as their adopted son, I’m going a little crazy.”

“Um...no problem. You can come over.” Vickie had no idea what to say. “You’re always welcome here, and I owe you so much. Whatever you need, sign me up.”

“Be careful what you say. I will hold you to it. See you Friday, and please have an open mind. Bye.”

Vickie ended the call and sat there on the tall stool, looking at the phone. Twelve years ago, she had been jealous of Lorrie Ann and Jake’s friendship, and pulled the mean-girl trick. She started lies about the girl she considered a rival. Hurtful, horrible lies and when they grew, she remained silent. She didn’t do any better when Lorrie Ann came back to town over three months ago. Her eyes started to burn.

Somehow she was the girl everyone hated, but they were too afraid to say anything to her. The idea of someone treating her children like that tore at her heart.

She took a deep breath. Take the good in. She exhaled, pushing her lungs until they burned. Forcing all the bad out. “God, thank You for this opportunity to make it right.”