Texas Trouble

Vic just rolled his eyes. “Shut up, pudgy,” he said affectionately. It was all an act, of course. Max was gentle-natured, one-winged and a pushover for a fistful of treats. “Look, Logan. I can stay a little while. Let me give you a hand with that.”

“You’ve already worked fifty hours this week. Didn’t Gretchen say she’d shoot you if you missed dinner again?”

Vic stuck a piece of Juicy Fruit in his mouth. “Yeah, but that was just the hormones talking.” He sighed. “You wouldn’t believe how insane pregnant women can be.”

Oh, yes, he would. But Logan didn’t say that, of course. He also didn’t say that Gretchen would undoubtedly get worse in the next few weeks. She had about a month to go, and if Logan remembered correctly from those last months with Rebecca…

But remembering was one thing he didn’t waste time doing.

He retrieved his hammer and a broken plank and started working out the nail that was stuck in one end.

“Anyhow,” Vic went on, “where I put the bullets, she’ll never find them.”

Logan looked up. “Where did you hide them?”

“Behind the Windex. Woman hasn’t done a lick of housework in months. Says it makes her cranky.” Vic tossed down the plank. “But what doesn’t?”

As they exchanged a sympathetic chuckle, Logan glimpsed the slow fluttering of something pale and pink at the edge of Vic’s silhouette. For a fanciful split second he thought it might be a roseate spoonbill, although he didn’t have any at the sanctuary, and undoubtedly never would. The delicate beauties didn’t show up this far inland.

He blinked, and the fluttering became the edges of a loose pink skirt. He blinked again, and saw the woman wearing it.

It was Nora Archer, probably the only woman on the planet who could wear that color with that red hair and pull it off.

She was too far away for Logan to see details, but his mind could conjure up every inch. The silly auburn curls that frothed around her shoulders. The round eyes, too big for her face, forest-colored, mostly brown with shards of green and bronze. Little girl pink cheeks, freckles and an upturned cheerleader’s nose. But a dangerous woman’s mouth, wide and soft and tempting.

Today, her head was bowed as she moved toward them, her pale face somber. She might have the coloring of a roseate spoonbill, but she had the soft melancholy of the mourning dove.

The widow Archer. He squeezed the handle of the hammer. As beautiful, and as off-limits, as ever.

Vic had noticed her now, too, and both men watched without speaking until she finally reached them. Max stared as well, cocking his head and rotating it slowly to follow her all the way. Logan smiled inwardly. It must be a male thing.

When she got close enough, he stood. While she was shaking hands with Vic, Logan dropped the hammer again, and brushed his hands against his jeans, sorry that they were gritty with sawdust and dirt.

But that was dumb. His hands were always dirty. The days when he spent all his money on designer suits and weekly manicures were long gone and unlamented.

“Hi, Nora,” he said. “I was going to call you again later.”

“Logan.”

She held out her hand, and he took it. It had been six months, and yet he knew to brace himself for the little electric jolt. She felt it, too, he could tell, though she had always been polished at covering it.

“I came to talk about Sean. To apologize, first of all. He told me what happened this afternoon. He said he did a lot of damage.”

“Not so much. He busted up a couple of enclosures. Nothing we can’t fix.”

Logan was amused to see Vic nodding vigorously, although an hour ago the manager had been ready to wring Sean Archer’s neck with his bare hands. That was the effect Nora Archer had on people. Male or female, young or old, one look into those wistful hazel eyes, and they wanted to don armor and jump on a white horse.

She let go of his hand quickly, then gazed around, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “Did he—were there birds in any of the enclosures?”

“The screening wasn’t finished yet. It was just bare boards, really. Don’t worry, Nora. He hurt stuff, nothing living.”

She smiled, still sad but clearly grateful, then turned to Vic. “He tells me you were disturbed about the bird he brought with him. He thinks you believe he killed it.”

“Well, I—” Vic looked uncomfortable. “I couldn’t be sure. It was dead by the time I got here, and he was kind of going nuts, breaking boards and—”

“I can see why you were worried,” she said. “I was worried, too. But I’ve talked to Sean about it, and he told me everything. I’m convinced he’s telling the truth about that part. He simply doesn’t have that kind of brutality in him.”

Vic didn’t look quite as sure, but when he opened his mouth to respond, Johnny Cash’s voice suddenly growled out of his back pocket, promising in his rumbling baritone that he found it very, very easy to be true.

Max squawked, disliking the sound instinctively, and Nora’s eyes widened.

As the manager dug hurriedly in his back pocket, Logan chuckled. “Vic’s cell phone,” he explained. “That must be the new ringtone Gretchen put on it. That’s not the one that means the baby’s coming, is it?”

Vic shook his head. “No. That one’s ‘Stop, In the Name of Love.’ Johnny Cash is the get-your-ass-home-for-dinner ringtone.” He clicked the answer button. “Sorry, honey. I know what I said. I’m leaving right now. Yes, right now. No, not five minutes from now. Right now.”

Logan pointed at the clinic parking lot, urging the other man to get going. With an apologetic smile and a wave to Nora, Vic loped off toward his truck, keeping his wife updated on every step he took. “I’m ten feet from the truck, honey…”

The few seconds after Vic’s departure were subtly awkward. Nora stood in a ray of sunshine that poured in dappled blobs of honey through the oak branches. Logan stood stiffly by the broken wood, in the shadow of the hawk enclosure, surrounded by busted planks and tools.

Well, of course it was awkward. It was the first time he had been alone with her in about nine months. It was, in fact, only the second time he’d ever been alone with her in his life.

The first time had been at Trent and Susannah’s peach party, last summer. They’d had…what…five minutes alone together in the pole shed? Other than that, their encounters had all been casual, public, superficial. The same politely chatting circle at a cocktail party. Nearby tables at a busy café. Two customers apart in the checkout line at the grocery store. Four rows down at the city council meeting.

Funny how you could fool yourself, he thought, watching her scratch an imaginary itch at her throat, then fidget with the neckline of her creamy blouse. The truth was, he hardly knew her. And yet…

“I know you’re busy,” she said. “I won’t take up too much of your time. But I wanted to talk about Sean. I’d like to know what he can do to make this up to you.”

“Nothing.” He shook his head firmly. “That’s not necessary. Let’s forget it, okay? I know he’s had a hard time this past year.”

“Yes. That’s true.” She swallowed. “I’m sure you’ve heard all about it. I guess everyone has.”

He couldn’t deny it. Eastcreek was a typical small Texas town. People talked. And when they had something juicy to talk about, like the fact that one of its social pillars, Harrison Archer, had gone stark raving mad and tried to kill two people, they buzzed like hornets.

Logan wasn’t a fan of gossip. He and Rebecca and Ben had been the subject of enough of it for him to know how little it captured of the real truth. But he couldn’t help himself. He had wanted to know. He’d wanted to understand more about that wildly mismatched Archer marriage, so he’d listened.

“I heard. I discounted about half of it, though.” He smiled. “I’ve been here long enough to know that Texans are just as good at embellishing as they are back in Maine.”

“In this case, half is bad enough.” She moved a little closer to Max’s cage, as if she didn’t want to meet Logan’s eyes while she talked. The hawk, who had been preening his wing, paused briefly, then apparently decided she wasn’t a threat and went back to work.

“The basic facts are true. Harrison did threaten to kill Trent and Susannah. He lured Trent out to Green Fern Pond, so that he could shoot him, and when Susannah found them, Harrison held them both at gunpoint. But I don’t think he would have done it, even if Sean…even if Sean hadn’t stopped him. I really don’t.”

She looked back at Logan, her fingertips hooked into the wire screening. “Of course, I don’t know for sure. He was very sick, and he was in a lot of pain. He had been for a long time.”

He knew she didn’t mean physical pain, although that had probably played its part. Pancreatic cancer wasn’t a merciful disease. But the pain that had truly destroyed Harrison Archer wasn’t the physical kind. It was emotional, and it had apparently eaten away his soul, his conscience and his common sense.

Logan knew he ought to stop her from going on. He didn’t have any comfort to offer in return for her confessional. And she didn’t need to lay out the details of her private tragedy, like an offering on the altar, buying his forgiveness for Sean.

He’d already forgiven the poor, unlucky kid, for what that was worth.

“You probably know that Harrison blamed Trent for his first son’s death.” She turned her head back toward the enclosure. Her auburn curls slid across her breastbone, the tips catching the sunlight. “He never got over Paul’s death. Not even… Not even after Sean and Harry.”

Though many people found that part of the story perplexing, Logan had always sort of understood. The first-born, the miracle, the child of your dreams. You might love again—in fact, humans were probably hardwired to love something, anything, just to survive—but you’d never love like that a second time. Never with your heart wide open, just asking to be smashed to bits.

“Poor Trent.” Nora took a deep breath. “He blames himself, too, you know. He shouldn’t. Paul died a few years before I came to Eastwood, but from what I hear the fire was just one of those impossibly tragic accidents.”

Logan shrugged. “That doesn’t make it easier. But you don’t have to tell me this, Nora. I think I get it.”

“I’d like to explain, if you don’t mind listening. I think it might help you to understand Sean a little better.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks.” She gave him a grateful smile. “Anyhow, Harrison had just found out he was dying, and he wanted to avenge Paul’s death while he still could. So he…he took Trent out to the pond. It was the last place he’d ever been with Paul. Peggy, Harrison’s first wife, called us, and we came as fast as we could. We had no idea what we would find. And Sean…he ran ahead…”

She’d been telling the story with impressive composure so far. But finally, when she spoke about Sean, her voice trembled. Her eyes were shining, anguished, the muscles around them pulled so tight it hurt to see.

He picked up the hammer again and inspected the handle, which had felt a little loose when he was working earlier. He needed to resist this irrational urge to move toward her.

What was he going to do? Take her in his arms?

Oh, man. This was why he’d decided it was better to steer clear of her. There was something about her that wormed straight into the weakest chink inside him.

What exactly was her magic? She was small, only about five-four, he’d guess barely a hundred pounds. Nice figure, but she’d never stop traffic. She wore almost no jewelry or makeup, didn’t bother with ornamentation. She was soft-spoken and introspective.

She should have been easy to ignore.

And yet, ever since he’d moved to Texas eighteen months ago, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Not then, when she’d been a meekly married woman, clearly in the no-touch zone. And not now, when she was the epitome of Mrs. Wrong: a single mother with troubled sons. Vulnerable, grief-stricken and needy. Oddly innocent, incapable of the kind of no-strings fling he specialized in.

“Look, it’s really okay,” he said gruffly, trying to ignore the tenderness that was threatening to create itself inside him. Her problems were her problems. He couldn’t solve them. Hell, he couldn’t even solve his own. “I’m not mad at Sean, and the damage is easily enough repaired.”

“That’s very generous.” She finally turned completely around. Max grumbled, sorry to lose the attention, and the hope of a treat. “But, for Sean’s sake, I have to do more. I can’t let him get away with this. He needs to pay for what he’s done.”

Logan felt his chest tighten. He didn’t like where this was going.

“I’ll send you a bill. You can make him work it off. You know. Chores around the house. Teach him his lesson.”

She moved a step toward him. “That seems so remote from the crime, though, don’t you think? Is there any work he could do at the sanctuary? It would teach him so much more. He’d learn what you do here, for one thing. Surely, if he understood that what you do is so valuable, so unlike what his fa—”

She broke off awkwardly. But he knew what she meant.

Harrison Archer, whose family tree had put its roots down in Texas before it was even called Texas, had never thought much of Easterners, and he damn sure didn’t think much of wasting a hundred acres of prime horse and cattle country to nurse a bunch of half-dead hawks and barn owls back to health.

He’d undoubtedly passed that disdain on to his son, the heir-in-training to all the Archer arrogance. Logan hadn’t connected the father’s attitude to Sean’s outburst, but perhaps Nora was right. If Sean hadn’t heard so much at home about how worthless Two Wings was, the urge to do it violence might not have been so close to the surface.

“You’ve got a point,” Logan said, trying to sound reasonable. “It would be nice to have next-door neighbors who don’t think Two Wings is a waste of space. But I’m afraid Sean’s re-education will have to be done at home. We have only about six weeks before we open Two Wings to the public, and I’m just too busy to play guidance counselor, or parole officer, or whatever you’re thinking.”

“No, I didn’t mean you. Of course you don’t have time.”

Her eyes had clouded again, and he realized his rejection had been more forceful than he’d intended. Damn it. Why couldn’t he reach equilibrium with this woman? Why couldn’t she just be another pretty neighbor? Why did the idea of having her, and her little boy, at Two Wings every day make him so uncomfortable?

“I meant your manager. Do you think Vic might have time? I promise you, Sean can be a hard worker. He’s smart and he’s strong.”

Logan had started shaking his head when she began to talk, and he didn’t stop. She frowned, clearly wondering why his resistance was so absolute.

“And of course I’d be happy,” she said cautiously, “to make a donation to Two Wings, to offset whatever inconvenience or expense Sean’s presence might create.”

“I don’t want your money.”

Crap. That had come out too harshly, too, especially given the obvious differences in their financial states. Smooth, Cathcart. Whip out the whole bag of insecurities, why don’t you? Want to tell her about the puppy that died when you were two?

She studied him for a minute, her wide forehead knitting between the brows. “What’s really the matter, Logan? Do you think Sean killed that bird? Is that why you don’t want him here? You’re afraid he’s crazy?”

“No. Of course not. No.”

For a minute he considered telling the truth. She knew he was attracted to her, and vice versa. It had never been put into words, but it was as obvious as a neon sign. Would it be so bad to just talk about it?

But what exactly would he say? I’m not interested in a long-term relationship with a woman like you, but as you know I’m wildly turned on by you anyhow. I’m afraid that if we spend too much time together, I might seduce you, and I might end up breaking your heart….

Yeah, right.

Not in this lifetime.

Besides, the attraction was only part of the problem.

The rest of it was that he just didn’t want to get involved in the Archer family tragedy. Call him a selfish bastard, but he didn’t want to feel their pain. He didn’t want to dig around in the muck of their grief and see if he could help them drain the swamp. He didn’t want to lend his ear, offer his shoulder or hold the Kleenex while they cried.

He couldn’t help them anyhow. Bereavement wasn’t like some club you joined. There wasn’t a secret handshake he could show them, no guided tour he could lead to help them feel at home.

It was a private hell, and everyone was locked up in their own solitary fire.

“I’m sorry, Nora,” he said. He picked up the tool box to show that he was out of time. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”

CHAPTER THREE

“JEEPERS, NORA. I ASKED you to come because I wanted to talk about Sean. But now I think we’d better talk about you, instead.” Jolie Harper, the music teacher at Eastcreek Elementary School, leaned forward, elbows on her desk. “You look awful. Aren’t you sleeping?”

“Not much.” Nora plopped into the visitor’s seat, relieved to be able to drop the brave face for once. She had volunteered in Jolie’s classroom several times a week for the past three years, and had come to trust her completely.

“I try to sleep, but my mind won’t shut off. I keep second-guessing every decision I make. I’ve told Sean he’ll have to work off the damage to the Cathcart place. But am I being too hard on him? Too soft? Does he need more freedom? Less? Evelyn thinks—”

“Ugh. Spare me what Evelyn thinks.”

Jolie stood and went to the window. Using her thumb and forefinger, she wedged a crack in the blinds so that she could peek into the rehearsal room, where her assistant was helping Sean and three other students learn “The Star Spangled Banner” on the guitar, flute, clarinet and bells.

She grimaced. “They sound terrible. Any chance they’d let us have our spring show in August this year?”

Nora smiled, although the joke, obviously meant to lighten the tension, paradoxically set off a new pang of guilt. The guitar was another former love that Sean no longer enjoyed. Getting him to practice was like pulling teeth, and half the time Nora just didn’t think it was worth the struggle.

They couldn’t fight all day, every day, could they? What kind of life would that be for a nine-year-old boy?

Or was she taking the easy way out, craving peace, even at her son’s expense?

She reached up and rubbed her aching forehead. This was the kind of emotional tail-chasing that kept her up all night. For Evelyn, life was so straightforward. In her opinion, Nora was a naive woman who had no idea how to steer her sons through this dangerous storm and should rely on Evelyn for guidance. End of debate.

In those sleepless hours before dawn, Nora sometimes wondered if she might be right.

“So why did you ask me to come in, Jolie?” She braced herself. She might as well know the worst. “Has something else happened?”

Jolie cast one more glance into the rehearsal room. Apparently satisfied that Sean was safely occupied, she leaned against the edge of her desk, close enough to speak softly and still be heard.

“Not really. Nothing dramatic. It’s just that…he seems very remote. He doesn’t volunteer for anything extra, doesn’t go for the chair challenges. He doesn’t hang out with his friends much, either. He sits by himself whenever he has a choice. He doesn’t cause trouble. He just doesn’t…” She sighed. “Doesn’t engage.”

Nora laced her fingers in her lap and squeezed tightly. Out of nowhere, she felt the urge to talk to Harrison. She would like his advice, of course, but she’d also like to be able to tell him that she understood so much better what he’d been through with Paul.

Intellectually, any human being could grasp that it was terrible to watch your son suffer and die. Anyone with a heart could sympathize with a tragedy like that.

But when you actually went through it, when the fear that your child might be hurting, might be in danger, ran through your veins like a fiery poison, threatening to blow your heart up right in your chest…that was a whole new level of understanding.

“I see that apathy at home, too,” she said. “At first I thought it might be an improvement, a sign that he was calming down. But it’s not natural. It’s too bottled up.”

“Right.” Jolie’s shiny blond ponytail bounced jauntily as she nodded, but her face was very serious. “Like a fire behind a tightly closed door.” She glanced toward the window again. “Is he still seeing the counselor?”

“Yes, but he’s down to once a week. It was the psychiatrist’s suggestion. He said it was time to move toward normalcy. I thought it might be too soon, but he said we should try.”

Evelyn had pooh-poohed Nora’s doubts, eager to accept the psychiatrist’s recommendation. The older woman didn’t set much store by talk therapy, which she believed encouraged brooding on your troubles, instead of moving past them. She called it “wallowing.”

“I’ll phone him tomorrow.” Just making the decision loosened the knot in Nora’s chest slightly. She leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath. The varied scents of the classroom were soothing to her. The sharp, alcohol sting of whiteboard markers, the crisp sweetness of new textbooks, the warm musk of children.

And best of all, the muted laughter of students in the next room struggling to make music.

She’d always planned to be a music teacher, like Jolie. She loved working with kids, watching them light up as their clumsy efforts suddenly bloomed into beautiful sounds.

When she first went to visit Harrison at the Bull’s Eye Ranch that summer ten years ago, she’d been only twenty-one, just out of college, still interviewing for teaching positions in South Carolina. By the time she landed a job, she knew she might be pregnant. And by the time classes started in South Carolina that September, she was living in Texas, married to a very rich man twice her age.

Harrison quickly quieted her talk of teaching. Motherhood, he insisted, was a full-time job.

Understanding why he was a bit overprotective, she’d indulged him. He’d bought her a beautiful piano, so that she could keep up with her own music, and she’d appreciated the gesture.

Someday, she’d always promised herself, she’d start over. When the boys were older. When Harrison felt more secure—about her, and about them. She’d earn her Texas certification, and she’d finally stand in her very own classroom.

Guess someday was on permanent hold now.

And she didn’t mind. There was only one goal that mattered anymore. Shepherding what was left of her family through this crisis.

But she didn’t want her worries to monopolize this whole visit. Jolie had problems, too.

“So did the PTA finally agree that you need new sheet music?” Nora knew that the recent budget cutbacks had slashed the school arts programs. Jolie would have had to cancel the Independence Day concert if Nora hadn’t written a personal check for new instruments. She’d write another, if the PTA didn’t come through with funds. She might write one, anyhow. One of the nicer aspects of having money was being able to give it away.

“It’s still under advisement.” Jolie rolled her eyes. “Which means they’re waiting to see what the Phys Ed teacher needs. If it’s a choice between music and sports, we all know who—”

Suddenly, midsentence, she lurched forward, though she must have been reacting to some sixth sense. Nora hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Jolie murmured under her breath. She flung open the door to the rehearsal room. “Madeline, grab Sean.”

Nora was only a foot behind her, so she had just entered the room when Sean’s guitar hit the floor. Obviously the instrument had been flung with force. Contact with the linoleum made a hideous sound, part splintering wood, part ghastly harmonies from reverberating strings.