Kitabı oku: «Once Upon a Cowboy», sayfa 2

Chapter Two

“You’ve got some nerve.”

The softly spoken words came from a source Joel knew well and one who stood blocking the school exit. Patsy Armstrong. She hadn’t changed much in the last eight years. She looked like her two older daughters, tall, brunette, with a sturdy bearing that aged well.

Beth didn’t look, or act, much like her mother.

Maybe that’s why he hadn’t recognized Beth right away last night? That, plus the fact she’d been four years behind him. He’d been in her oldest sister’s graduating class.

“Hello, Mrs. Armstrong. I wondered if you were still working here.”

Actually, he hadn’t wondered. Until just this minute, she’d existed in the “out of sight, out of mind” realm of life. Joel was much too busy worrying about how Jared would react to forced hospitality. Jared’s initial response—yesterday evening—had been the same as Mrs. Armstrong’s.

You’ve got some nerve.

“I most certainly do still work here.” Mrs. Armstrong wasn’t finished. “I believe in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”

Implying Joel didn’t. She definitely wasn’t one who would consider bull riding a profession, and it wouldn’t matter how many purses Joel won or who his sponsor was. Bull riding didn’t come with benefits like unemployment, a 401(k) or retirement. Not really.

The final bell rang. Joel could hear classroom doors opening and the excited clamor of student freedom, but Mrs. Armstrong wasn’t finished. She just got louder. “Did you stop by the office and get a guest pass?”

“My nephews attend here.”

“Your name is not listed on their student cards. You’ll still need to sign in at the office. There just might be a problem.”

A problem? The McCreedys had been attending this school since Joel’s grandfather. Joel had not only studied here, but even when he was in high school, he’d helped out at the elementary school during the Rodeo Club events. The problem was Mrs. Armstrong.

“You going to send me to detention?” Joel knew the words would only make things worse, but he couldn’t control his tongue.

She opened her mouth and narrowed her eyes. Joel just knew he didn’t want to find out what she was thinking, so he did the first thing he could think of.

“I was here to return Beth’s cell phone. Wish I’d thought to take down her number before I gave it back.” He winked and moved around her toward the front door. Before exiting, he looked back. Mrs. Armstrong had closed her mouth but now had turned an interesting purplish color. Behind her, he could see Beth, two lines of students in her control.

Best place to be, safest place to be, thought Joel, would be the parking lot and inside his stepfather’s minivan. He pushed open the school door and almost ran Billy down.

Joel recognized many of the adults, parents now, starting to gather in front of the school. His name floated on the air and a few scattered greetings sounded.

Nothing like what he had expected. What was wrong with Roanoke? Eight years wasn’t that long.

“I thought I’d pick you up at the hospital,” Billy said. Careful not to jar the small boy whose hand he was holding, Billy took Joel by the arm and drew him close so his words couldn’t be heard by others. “Mind telling me what brought you to the school?”

“The hospital released me at noon and I took the truck to Tiny’s garage. I had some papers to gather up and found Beth Armstrong’s cell phone on the floorboard of my truck. Boy, she’s really grown up to be—” Joel began.

“Mr. Staples,” Patsy said, “I’m glad you’re here. I need a minute.”

Joel clearly and somewhat comically interpreted the look Billy shot him as, Look, you’ve gotten me in trouble, too.

Billy switched Caleb’s hand to Joel’s and then tossed him a set of keys. “Keep an eye on Caleb. Ryan and Matt will be out in a moment. Get them in the car and have them wait. I’ll just be a minute.”

Before Joel could protest, the chubby three-year-old tugged his fingers, looked up and said, “Let’s go, Unca.”

Unca?

At least Caleb was able to go with the flow. At Billy’s nod, Beth released Matt, who walked toward Joel as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Ryan, old enough to make his own exit, left his teacher and joined them. He didn’t look too pleased about Joel’s presence, either.

Not even twenty-four hours in town and Joel had managed to annoy everyone except Caleb. Joel figured he’d just broken a record, but knew there’d be no applause.

Ryan led the way to a minivan parked toward the back of the parking lot. To get to the car, Joel had to walk by people he’d once called friends. Most looked surprised. Some taken aback. Once his nephews—all little replicas of Jared—had stowed backpacks and secured their seat belts, Joel took his place on the passenger side.

With his truck needing repairs, Joel couldn’t leave. With Joel himself needing repairs, Jared couldn’t turn him away. Add to that the fact he had just enough money to get to the next town, some twenty miles away—well, no matter how you looked at it, storm clouds were gathering.

“So,” came the beginning of a conversation from the backseat, “why did you take the money?” Oh, yes, Ryan was definitely his older brother’s clone. Arms crossed, wasting no time, eyes accusing, Ryan wanted answers.

“What?”

“Some of my friends say you’re a thief, that you stole money before you left town. Is that why you never came back? Is that why we don’t know you? Why are you back now?”

Joel’s experience with kids was almost nonexistent. He was pretty sure, though, that Ryan was a bit more mature—and cynical—than most eight-year-olds. Even so, Joel doubted that Ryan would understand that half of Solitaire Farm had, at one time, belonged to Joel, and that as a young, stupid kid, he’d wanted his share right then, in cash.

“I didn’t steal any money. I took what was mine.”

Ryan made a psst sound as Billy opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel. Wow. Joel was curious to know what Beth’s mother had wanted to say, and why—as the school secretary—she had a right to say anything. Instead, he looked at the little men in the backseat and shelved his questions. Billy, looking a little annoyed, took advantage of the lull.

“What did the doctor say?”

“The doctor said the accident did not make things worse and that I feel better than I deserve after hitting that fence last night. He recommended a good physical therapist.”

“You hit that fence really good.” Ryan suddenly forgot his annoyance and sounded impressed. “Trey says it will cost a pretty penny.”

“Trey?”

“Max McClanahan III,” Billy explained.

The McCreedys’ nearest neighbors were the McClanahans. Joel had spent his childhood chasing after Maxwell McClanahan II, who must be married and a dad now, with a son also named Max. One who was about Ryan’s age. Joel suddenly felt a little humbled by all he didn’t know.

“Joel never does anything halfway,” Billy said before turning to face Joel. “I’m looking forward,” he said glumly, “to hearing what’s really wrong with you and what made you come back now.”

“You have to go to a therapist because you hit a fence?” Ryan questioned. “I hit fences all the time. You do walk funny. Is that because you hit the fence?”

“Joel doesn’t walk funny,” Billy said.

“Just slow and careful,” Joel agreed.

“Mommy couldn’t walk at all,” Matt finally added to the conversation, “right before she died.”

“Okay,” Billy said quickly, “who wants ice cream?”

To Joel’s way of thinking, it was the perfect time to change the topic of conversation. Matt’s comment was a bit too deep for an errant uncle to elaborate on. Looked like it was way too deep for a grandfather to deal with, too.

“Dad’s not with us,” Matt pointed out.

Ryan wasn’t about to let that interfere with the possibility of getting ice cream. “We can take him something.”

“It will melt.”

Billy, who’d mastered the art of keeping kids happy during his forty-year stint as the principal, said, “He’ll be eating plenty of ice cream tomorrow during Caleb’s party.”

“I’m three,” Caleb chattered. “’Morrow.”

Matt sat back, satisfied that his father wasn’t being left out.

Joel had to admire him. He was the gatekeeper of the brothers. Ryan, it looked like, was the mouth. Caleb was the comic relief.

Jared didn’t know how lucky he was.

Watching the boys sit forward on their hands, anticipating an ice cream stop, triggered some memories. Of course, back then, Jared had been the gatekeeper. Joel had been the comic relief. The one who had jumped over the gate, landed on his head and got all the attention.

They shared mouth duty.

Or tried to share.

Sometimes it had felt like the farm—make that the town of Roanoke—wasn’t big enough for two McCreedy boys.

Since his release from the hospital Joel had caught glimpses of his hometown and the people who made it special. In many ways, it was just another small town with its inhabitants going about their day, doing their jobs, taking care of their families and making memories. Since leaving eight years ago, Joel had been in towns a bit smaller and cities a lot bigger. He’d never stayed long enough to know who owned the auto repair shop, or even who was the fastest grocery store cashier, or which little old lady at church gave the best hugs, or what flavor ice cream was ordered the most at the ice cream parlor.

All three boys wanted chocolate. Billy chose vanilla.

Joel joined the boys and had chocolate, minus the cone. They ate inside the Ice Cream Shack because, according to Matt, “We can’t drip in the car. Grandpa likes to keep his van clean.”

“Caleb drips,” Ryan agreed.

“I yike ice cream.” Caleb nodded vigorously and lived up to Ryan’s accusation. In just a matter of seconds, his ice cream cone was gone, but there was enough ice cream smeared on his face and on the floor to make another one. Ryan had just a bit on the side of his cheek. Joel took his last spoonful and looked over at Billy and Matt. Billy was making headway, but Matt was so careful not to drip or make any kind of mess that he almost had a full cone.

Then Matt stopped licking altogether. His eyes were glued on the front window and toward the parking lot.

Ryan gloated. “It’s your teacher, and you have ice cream on your nose.”

He didn’t, but Matt believed him and rubbed his sleeve across his clean face.

Joel jumped up and held open the door. It gave him an even better view of his rescuer and Matt’s teacher. Her blond hair bordered on white. It fluffed out and just hit the top of her shoulders. A dark blue skirt was topped by a white-and-dark-blue-striped blouse. Colorful tennis shoes finished the outfit.

He’d like to chase those tennis shoes. “Anything else change?” he asked.

She raised one eyebrow. “What?”

“Besides you growing up while I was away.”

She hesitated. “I’m not as easy to get along with now.”

“I don’t believe it for a minute,” Joel said, and checked out her hand, her left hand. No ring. He should have checked earlier.

“Let me buy you an ice cream.” It wasn’t exactly the dinner he’d suggested earlier, but she’d already turned that down. This could be a start.

Was it his imagination, or did the look she shot Billy appear sympathetic?

“Hi, Beth,” Billy greeted, frowning in Joel’s direction. “Looks like our paths are crossing quite a bit these last twenty-four hours.”

“Susan called. She’s wanting ice cream.” Beth looked at Joel, her expression wary. “I’m in a hurry, so no thanks.” Her chin went up, for no reason since he’d done nothing to insult her, and she headed to the counter. She ordered a full gallon of bubblegum.

Bubblegum? This might be her only flaw.

She followed that by ordering a chocolate chip cone. Joel stepped forward to pay, but she shook her head. The young man behind the cash register looked bored. Definitely not the kind of kid who would notice a guy trying to impress a girl and help him out.

“Bubblegum?” Joel questioned.

“Susan’s pregnant. It’s all she wants to eat. She puts blueberries on top.” With that, Beth stopped paying attention to Joel, smiled at all three of the boys, especially Matt, and took a seat at the opposite end of the ice cream parlor. She pulled a book from her purse while she waited for her order.

“I feel like I struck out,” Joel complained, “before I even made it to bat.”

“What do you expect?” For the first time, Billy’s usually calm demeanor slipped. He stared at Joel, an unwavering expression that said talk, confess, convince.

“I expected—” Joel carefully chose his words because his nephews, staring at him all big eyed and tense, didn’t need to hear the family’s dirty laundry “—I expected to be able to say I was sorry and for all to be forgiven.”

“That may take a bit of time.”

“I was eighteen, an adult. Granted, I didn’t leave in the most sensible manner. But I didn’t expect for the whole town to treat me like a pariah.”

To Joel’s surprise, Billy didn’t rush to assure him that everything was all right and his friends would come around. Instead, his stepfather’s lips pursed together and a definite look of disappointment came over his expression.

“What?” Joel asked. “I chose the rodeo over the farm. It wasn’t big enough for the two of us, anyway, and it was Jared’s dream, not mine. Still, I should be able to come home for—”

“You boys stay put,” Billy ordered. “Matt, finish your ice cream. Ryan, clean Caleb’s face.” He stood, motioning for Joel to follow him outside.

Joel stood too quickly, and then had to wait for his balance to return. All three boys looked at him like he was in trouble.

Beth still had her nose in her book.

The late-September sun still hovered high in the sky. A few cars were traveling down Main. Billy’d already made it to a distant picnic table. He sat with a rigid demeanor, his lips still pursed.

Joel waited, but Billy looked as if he expected Joel to do the talking.

The sunlight shimmered on the black-topped street in front of the Ice Cream Shack. Across from it was the barbershop where Joel had first climbed in a chair, sat on a padded seat with a cape over him and felt grown-up. Next door was the grocery store, not nearly as big as what the city boasted, but with a candy aisle that lived up to a preschooler’s dreams. Everything looked the same; it was the feel of the place that had changed.

Fine. Joel would start. “Out with it, Billy,” he ordered, carefully sitting across from his stepfather. “What’s going on? I expected Jared to be mad, but to turn me away when I’m truly down on my luck? And people I waved to on the street this afternoon, they either waved back at me like I was a ghost or they didn’t wave at all. At the school, I ran into people I grew up with, parents now, and they looked at me like I’m not real. Then Mrs. Armstrong practically tells me to never step foot in the elementary school again.”

“You really don’t know?” Billy asked.

“I. Really. Don’t. Know.”

“Maybe that knock on the head did permanent damage?” The words may have been in jest, but the look on Billy’s face was serious.

“I really don’t know what’s going on,” Joel repeated.

Billy looked at the sky, ran a hand over mostly nonexistent hair and sighed.

“It’s one thing,” Billy said, “to hurt people by taking what belongs to you.”

Joel opened his mouth. He’d been stifled on the farm, had always felt out of his element, and on top of everything else, Jared didn’t want to share, especially after he’d married, brought his wife to Solitaire Farm to live and had a baby.

But Billy wasn’t done. “It’s quite another thing to hurt people by taking what doesn’t belong to you.”

The words hung in the air, an invisible yet tangible barrier between Joel and the stepfather he so admired. It hadn’t been an easy decision, asking for his share of the inheritance, in dollars, instead of pitching in and staying on the family farm. But the will had stated that at eighteen Joel could sell his share. Because of the economy, it was a lot less than he’d expected. Still, Joel taking what was his hadn’t caused the sale of Solitaire Farm; it had only caused a bigger mortgage.

“What? Are you saying the money you gave me didn’t belong to me, because as I see it, having Jared buy me out was the best solution to—”

“I’m not talking about your half of the farm,” Billy sputtered. “I’m talking about the Rodeo Club Fund.”

Joel leaned forward, perplexed. “What about the RC money?”

Billy’s expression took on a hard edge. “The money that I put in my office after the festival the night you left.”

Joel growled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What about the RC money? I remember attending the Fall Festival because it was my last night in town, but—”

“I put it in my office,” Billy said. “The treasurer said he figured we’d made double the usual. I was about to unlock the safe when my cell phone rang. One of the kids had gotten kicked by a horse. I didn’t think twice. I took off.”

That was Billy. He was a hands-on principal, and kids were his top priority.

“I took off,” Billy continued. “About an hour later, I went back to the office. I’d never forgotten that I needed to lock that money away.”

A bad feeling started prickling in Joel’s stomach. This wasn’t some proverbial story that Billy was telling to make a point.

“The money was gone,” Billy said, “and so were you.”

Joel had been sucker punched more than once in his twenty-six years, but never before had he realized that words had more impact than fists.

“You knew where I kept the key to my office, you knew I’d put the money in there, and you took it.”

“I—” Joel opened his mouth in indignation, but finishing the conversation was not to be. They were no longer alone. Beth stood behind the three boys, her hand on Matt’s shoulder.

“Matt’s got a stomachache,” she explained, her gaze going from Joel to Billy and back to Joel. To prove it, Matt held his stomach and doubled over a bit, moaning.

Beth shifted uncomfortably. “Is everything all right? Do you want me to run the boys home?”

“Everything’s fine. Or, at least, it’s going to be,” Billy rushed to assure. His eyes never left Joel’s face. Disappointment battled with anger.

Nothing was all right, not in Joel’s life and apparently not in Matt’s life, either.

Billy looked at Joel for a long moment before saying to the boys, “Let’s head home before your father sends out the hunting dogs.”

“We don’t have any hunting dogs,” Caleb complained.

“Shut up,” Ryan said. He quickly and somewhat apprehensively looked at Billy, but instead of Billy offering the reprimand, it was Beth who chided, “Don’t say shut up, say be quiet.”

“I might throw up,” Matt added to the conversation. Because of the threat, apparently real, Matt rode shotgun in the front while Joel went in the back with Ryan and Caleb. Beth, with a backward glance, headed for her own vehicle. She clutched her ice cream in her arms.

Why he cared about her opinion so much, Joel didn’t quite know. He needed to tell her, as well as Billy and apparently the whole town, that he was innocent.

No wonder lukewarm didn’t begin to describe the way the town of Roanoke had responded to his return so far. Fundraising for the Rodeo Club Fund was tradition in Roanoke, going back fifty years. The Fall Festival was the Friday before Thanksgiving and put preschoolers on the back of sheep, brought a real carnival with a Ferris wheel and a roller coaster to town, and allowed the high school’s marching band—usually about ten of them—to show off. It was fried chicken on picnic tables and a speech from the mayor.

Next to the Fourth of July celebration, it was the town’s favorite, and the earnings helped with the cost of Roanoke’s annual summer rodeo, where Joel’s first taste of bull riding, at age eleven, led to big dreams and, later, exhilarating reality.

The whole town, as well as his family, thought him a thief. This probably, no, definitely, included Beth—although she hid it better—and her mother.

“Billy,” Joel started. “Something’s very wrong here. I didn’t steal—”

;

“Little pitchers have big ears,” Billy said. The three boys moved, but to prove Billy’s point, Matt covered his ears. Ryan adopted an all-too-familiar judgmental look. One pretty advanced for a boy of eight.

The only forgiving one was Caleb. He clutched a raggedy napkin in one hand, held up two fingers with his other hand and informed Joel, “’Morrow. I be three.”

“How about your truck?” Billy asked, settling behind the steering wheel and starting the van, effectively changing the subject again. His lips were still in a straight line. The smile that usually reached to his eyes was missing. It seemed for his grandchildren he was willing to put on an act and pretend nothing was wrong. Still Joel could only wonder … maybe the question really was, How soon will your truck be fixed so you can go?

“I arranged to have it towed to Tiny’s Auto Repair right after they checked me out of the hospital. He wasn’t there. If possible, I’ll stop by tomorrow morning. I think the door will be an easy fix, but I’m a little worried about the front bumper.” Joel didn’t really want to talk about his truck. More than anything, Joel wanted to protest his innocence.

He’d not stolen money from the elementary school’s office, Billy’s office, right before he left town. Thanks to his inheritance, half of the farm, Joel’d had a bank account in the six digits. At the time, he thought it would last forever.

“Tomorrow is Caleb’s birthday,” Matt reminded.

“I won’t miss it.”

If he was invited, that is. He’d not been invited to the house, not really, not by his brother. Billy was acting as the go-between and in just an hour, Joel would be facing a brother who did not want him home. Since Jared’s weapon of choice had always been silence, a literal invitation seemed doubtful.