A Long Tall Texan Summer: Tom / Drew / Jobe
Tom frowned. “In a kind way?” he asked, because the old man’s voice had shaded a bit.
“Hardly. Old man Craig drank like a fish. Beat Elysia’s mother and Luke. Day came when Luke was old enough to realize he had to do something.
He called the police, even though his mama wouldn’t. Swore out a warrant for his dad and signed it, too.” He chuckled. “They put the man away. He died in prison of a heart attack, but I think it was a relief to all of them. Would never have stopped beating her, if they’d ever let him out. I reckon they all knew it.”
That had sounded painfully familiar to Tom, who’d had his share of beatings. His and Kate’s father had never touched alcohol, but the brain tumor had made a monster of him. The two of them had been “disciplined” frequently by their unpredictable parent, especially if they ever showed a flicker of interest in the opposite sex.
Tom threw his line into the water and leaned back against the trunk of an oak tree with a sigh. He wasn’t really interested in fishing, but it was something to do. His days had been empty for a long time. In the city, there was always something to do in the anonymity of crowds. Here, he either sat at home with rented movies or fished. Fishing was much preferable.
“Hi!”
The bright greeting caught his attention. He turned his head to find Luke and Crissy with tackle boxes and fishing poles.
“I never expected to find a big city dude in a place like this,” Luke murmured dryly. “Bored to death or do you just enjoy eating cheap fish?”
“This isn’t cheap,” Tom murmured on a chuckle. “Ten dollars a day and the price of renting the tackle. Plus fifty cents a pound for whatever you catch. It adds up.”
“Bobby Turner’s no fool,” Luke said with a grin. “He figures people will pay to catch clean fish in a good location. He does a roaring business.”
Tom, glancing out over the dozens of people around the big lake, had to admit that the warm weather drew scores of fishermen.
“Mind if we join you?” Luke asked. “The best spots are already taken.”
“Is this one of them?” Tom queried.
“It sure is,” Crissy piped up. “I caught a big fish last time, didn’t I, Uncle Luke?”
“She caught a four-pound bass,” Luke agreed, settling in. “But I had to land him. She’s a bit small yet for pulling in fighting fish on a line.”
“It pulled me down,” Crissy explained solemnly. Then she grinned. “But we ate it for supper. It tasted very good.”
Tom laughed in spite of himself. The child had an incredible variety of facial expressions.
Crissy looked at him for a long time, her little face studious and quiet. “You have green eyes and dark hair,” she noted. “Just like me.”
He nodded. “So I do.” He paused, glancing at Luke, who’d gone to the small shed where bait was sold. “I guess your dad had green eyes, too, huh?”
She frowned. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “My daddy had red hair.”
Tom’s heart jumped up into his throat. The most incredible thoughts were gathering speed in his head. He stared down at the child. She had his own olive skin, his eyes, his hair. She was in kindergarten, that would make her at least five years old. He couldn’t stop looking at her as a shocking idea took shape in his mind.
Luke came back with bait. “Go put this on your hook,” he told Crissy, “and watch that you don’t get it stuck in your finger like poor old Mr. Hull did last time he went with us.”
“Yes, sir,” she said at once. “I don’t want my finger cut open!”
She rushed off, a miniature whirlwind in jeans and a short-sleeved cotton shirt.
“She loves to fish,” Luke said. “I had a date, but I broke it.” He made a face. “My latest girl doesn’t like fishing or any other ‘blood sport.’”
“Fishing is a blood sport?” Tom asked.
“Sure is,” came the reply. “So is eating meat.” He grinned sheepishly. “I’m not giving up my cattle, so I guess this girl will go the way of the others pretty soon. She’s a looker. Pity.”
Tom knelt down beside Luke, glancing warily toward the child. “She said her dad was redheaded.”
Luke’s indrawn breath was audible, although he recovered quickly enough. “Did she? She was barely older than a toddler when he died…”
“Red is red, whatever age you are,” Tom said doggedly. His green eyes met the blue ones of the other man. “She’s mine.”
Luke cursed silently. Elysia was going to kill him.
“She’s mine,” Tom repeated harshly, his eyes demanding verification.
Luke bent his head. “She’s yours,” he said heavily.
Tom looked at the little girl again, his face white, his eyes blazing. He’d never thought much about getting married, much less about having children, and all at once, he was a father. It was a shattering thought.
“Dear God,” he breathed.
Luke put a hand on his shoulder, noting how the other man tensed at once. He didn’t like being touched. Luke withdrew the comradely gesture. “She thought you were a big city playboy,” he explained. “She never considered trying to get in touch with you, especially after the way you acted before she left town.”
Tom grimaced.
“If it’s any consolation, Fred had leukemia when they married, and he was already infirm. They lived together as friends, nothing more, and she was fond of him. She needed a name for Crissy. For a small town like this, we’re pretty tolerant, but Elysia couldn’t bear having people gossip about us more than they already do.” He searched Tom’s eyes. “You’ll have heard about our father, I imagine?”
Tom nodded. He drew in a long breath. “My father was a madman,” he confided quietly. “I’ve had my share of beatings, too,” he added, and a look passed between the two men. “The difference was that my father died of a brain tumor—while he was beating my sister for smiling at a boy she liked. He called her a slut, if you can imagine being labeled that for a smile.”
Luke grimaced. “Good God, and I thought I had it bad.”
Tom laughed coldly. His eyes were on the child. “One time,” he said half to himself, “in my entire life, and there was a child.”
Luke looked down at the ground. “Elysia was your first?”
Tom hesitated, but he was too stunned by what he’d learned to conceal it anymore. “Yes,” he said bluntly. “And the last. There hasn’t been anyone else, ever.”
Luke looked up, quietly compassionate. “Not for her, either,” he said. “Not even her husband.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Yes, I am,” Luke countered. “He was too ill most of the time, and she never felt like that about him. She was honest. Then when Crissy was born, they seemed to find common ground. That child was wanted and very much loved.”
Tom’s hand clenched by his side. “And now that I know about her—” he nodded toward the child “—what the hell do I do?”
Chapter 3
“On that subject,” Luke mused, “I would say that you’ve got a real problem on your hands. Elysia never meant for you to find out about Crissy. And here I’ve given the game away.”
He shook his head. “Crissy gave it away,” he replied, “when she said her dad was redheaded. I believe in recessive genes, of course, but not to that extent. She’s a dead ringer for my sister, Kate.”
“I noticed that, too,” Luke replied.
“What am I going to do?” Tom groaned, pushing his hands through his hair in frustration. “I can’t walk up to Elysia after all this time and demand my rights to my daughter. I let her leave New York pregnant, although I swear I didn’t suspect that she could have been after one night, and I never even tried to see her again. She won’t understand why.”
“Care to tell me?”
Tom laughed coldly. “Because I was too ashamed,” he said. “I got drunk and had sex,” he said with self-contempt. His eyes closed. “My God, I thought I was sure to go to hell after that. I didn’t realize that the hell was going to be living with myself afterward. I missed her,” he confided. “She’d been with me for two years, and it was like losing part of my own body. But every time I thought about what I’d done, I was too ashamed to try to contact her. I never thought of a child,” he added huskily. He shook his head. “I wasn’t very clued-up for a twenty-eight-year-old man. And Elysia thought I was a playboy. How’s that for irony?”
“You should have told her the truth,” Luke told him. “She’s not the sort of woman who would think less of you. I’d guess that it would impress her very much.”
“How could I have told her something like that? I’m thirty-four now, but when I knew Elysia I was twenty-eight already. How many male virgins of that age have you ever known?” Tom asked him with an irritable glance.
Luke grinned. “One.”
Tom burst out laughing. It didn’t seem so terrible now, that he’d had a woman and a child had come of the experience. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more pleasure he felt. Those pangs of conscience were receding at least a little. But he was knee-deep in problems, with no solutions in sight. Elysia was the biggest one of all. He remembered the things he’d said to her recently and he wanted to throw back his head and scream. Even if she’d have let him come around Crissy before, she’d never allow him close to the child now. He’d burned his bridges by accusing her of sleeping her way up the corporate ladder. He groaned aloud. How could he have been so blind?
“You might come to supper tonight,” Luke said.
Tom’s eyebrows lifted. “She’d have me stuffed and baked if I walked in the door. Either that, or she’d smother me in all that tomato sauce you said she made.”
“No guts, no glory,” Luke reminded him. He looked at the child, who was just joining them. “Crissy, what would you think if Mr. Walker came to dinner tonight?”
“I’d like that,” the child said seriously, grinning up at him. “I’d like to know all about Indians.”
Tom sighed. “I only know family lore, and not much of that,” he confided. “Kate and I went to live with our grandmother, and she didn’t like that side of our family at all. She refused to let us talk about it.”
“How mean,” Crissy muttered.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Tom agreed, having just realized that it was a form of discrimination on the old woman’s part. “But my sister’s husband knew someone on the Sioux reservation who was related to our great-grandfather—and therefore to us. He asked for the history, and Kate went to see the woman and wrote it all down.” He searched the little face so much like his own. “One of our ancestors was at the Little Bighorn, and we have distant relatives in Canada and South Dakota among the Sioux.”
“Do you visit them?” Crissy asked, wide-eyed.
“I haven’t yet. I think I might like to,” he added. He smiled. “Maybe you and your mom could come along.”
“You could ask her,” Crissy said doubtfully. “She doesn’t like to go places.”
“You said she took you to a powwow,” Tom reminded her, cherishing the memory.
“She liked it,” Crissy agreed. “She told me all about the Plains Indians and about that place where General Custer got shot, too.”
“Colonel Custer,” Tom told her. “He had a Civil War battlefield promotion to Brigadier General, but that was a brevet commission. He was only a colonel in the 7th Cavalry.”
“Touchy subject, hmmm?” Luke teased.
“Very,” Tom replied. “And isn’t it a hell of a thing that it should be? I haven’t paid a lot of attention to my ancestry before now.” He looked at Crissy. “But it’s in the genes.”
“It sure is,” Luke replied amusedly.
“I want to catch a big fish for you to eat at our house,” Crissy said. She tried to throw the hook into the water, but she wasn’t tall enough to cast the line out.
Tom squatted just behind her, holding her with one arm while he guided the small hand holding the line. “Like this, sweetheart,” he said gently.
She grinned at him over one shoulder. “Thanks. You smell nice,” she added.
He chuckled, hugging her close. “So do you, tidbit.”
He got up, leaving her to hold the pole tight in both hands. He’d never used endearments, but the child seemed to invoke them effortlessly. He stared down at her with pure pride, unaware that Luke could see that pride.
“She’s very like you,” Luke remarked quietly.
“Yes,” came the reply. Tom went back to his own pole, baited the hook and tossed the line out into the lake. His thoughts were dark ones. He knew Elysia wasn’t going to want him in her house, but he had to try to make his peace with her. He glanced at his daughter and knew that it was worth the effort.
They caught five big bass between them, which Luke volunteered to clean. “Come over about six,” he told Tom.
Tom glanced from the child’s eager face to Luke’s. He grimaced. “I don’t know…”
“You have to,” Crissy pleaded. “Me and Uncle Luke and Mama can’t eat all these big fish alone. Please?”
“Okay,” he relented. “I’ll see if I can rent some body armor,” he murmured to himself. “Boy, am I going to need it!”
He went home to clean up, wondering how Luke was going to fare when he broke the news to Elysia. It would probably be bloody.
“You what?” Elysia exploded.
Luke held up a hand. “Go upstairs and clean up, pumpkin,” he told Crissy.
She hesitated. “Mommy, you have to say it’s okay,” she told her mother somberly. “I invited Mr. Tom to come help us eat the fish. He helped us catch them.
I like him,” she added belligerently. “He’s going to tell me all about Indians.”
“Go on,” Luke prompted, smiling. “It will be all right.”
Crissy went, glowering at her white-faced parent on the way.
“You can’t,” Elysia cried when her daughter was out of sight. “You can’t have him here! If he’s around her enough, he’ll see…!”
“He already has,” Luke said.
He jumped forward and helped her into a chair, because she looked as if she might faint.
“You told him,” she accused hoarsely.
“I did not. Crissy did.”
“Crissy? But she doesn’t know!”
“She told him that her dad was redheaded,” he explained. “It wasn’t a great leap of logic from that to the way she resembles his sister—not to mention himself.”
“Oh, dear God,” Elysia whispered, closing her eyes. “Dear God, what’ll he do?”
“Nothing, judging by this afternoon,” Luke said. He knelt by her chair, one hand on hers in her lap. “Listen, he’s not vindictive. He doesn’t blame you. He’s got secrets of his own,” he added, hoping to get her attention.
That did. She looked at him through misty eyes. “He does?”
“You remember what we were speculating about?” he asked. “Well, we were right on the money. Sex was a taboo at home. Their father beat them for showing the slightest interest in the other sex. He said his conscience was eating him alive about you. He thought he’d go to hell for sleeping with you.”
She gasped. “Good heavens!”
“He said that it’s taken all these years for him to come to grips with it,” he continued quietly. “The main thing that came out is that he was angry at himself, not at you. It was guilt and shame that caused him to let you go without a word, and kept him from coming after you. He didn’t even consider that you might become pregnant. His father taught him that desire was nothing more than sick lust.”
She closed her eyes and shivered. “How he must have felt,” she whispered.
“He’s a case,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose there was a woman brave enough to chase him at all until you came along. That cold reserve of his is rather formidable, even to other men.”
“I’ll say,” she agreed, remembering the Tom of six years ago. She looked up. “Why is he coming to dinner?”
“Because I invited him.” He held up a hand. “This can’t go on,” he informed her. “Half the town’s talking already about the way the two of you avoid each other. We all have to live here. It’s time to make peace. Or at least, a public peace. This is the first step.”
“He’ll be lucky if he gets in the door unwounded,” she said coldly. “Do you have any idea what he’s been saying to me lately?”
“No,” he said warily.
“He’s accused me of sleeping with that damned Frenchman to market my boutique’s designs,” she said furiously. “He thinks I’m a slut!”
“No, he doesn’t…”
“You can’t imagine the things he said to me at the business meeting just the other day,” she added. “Not to mention that we were about to have lunch in Rose’s Café downtown and when he saw me come in the door, he gave up his place in line and left.”
He pursed his lips. “He didn’t mention that.”
“He was probably too busy thinking of ways to get to my child,” she raged. “Well, he won’t get her. He can come here tonight, but you are never to invite him into this house again while I’m living in it, Luke! I won’t be persecuted by him, not even for my little girl’s sake!”
“He’s not out for revenge,” he reminded her. “He’s had as rough a time as we had. Maybe rougher. You can at least try to be sociable, can’t you? Crissy likes him.” He searched her wan face. “You loved him once.”
“A long time ago,” she replied, “and he never felt the same way, even then. He talked to me, but it was never more than that, until he got drunk. He doesn’t love me. He wanted me that once, and now he doesn’t anymore. He thinks I’m a gold digger, out for money and nothing else. He told me so. That was a week or so before the business meeting.”
“Tom actually accused you of that?” Luke was surprised, because Tom hadn’t said anything about that to him, either.
“We had words on the street, and I slapped him.” She flushed at her brother’s level look. “Well, he deserved it! He made me out to be cheap, and all because that French buyer had humiliated me loud enough for the whole town to hear.” Her eyes flashed. “Hell will freeze over before I give him a contract for our designs,” she added coldly. “He did that deliberately because I wouldn’t have an affair with him.”
“Did you tell Tom that?”
“He didn’t let me tell him anything,” she replied. “He made a lot of nasty accusations and I hit him. I’m glad I hit him,” she added. “I only threw a shoe at him and missed at the business meeting, but I’ll practice,” she assured herself. “Next time, I’ll knock his brains out!”
Luke had to bite back a grin. “He has got quite a few hang-ups,” he reminded her. “It will take a brave woman to live with a man like that, if she can even get him in front of a minister to get married. He’s frozen halfway through because of his father.”
“I wish I’d known that in New York. It’s too late to matter much now. A man that age isn’t going to change.” She stared out the window and grimaced. “But I’m sorry he had a bad time of it.” She glanced back at her brother with a rueful smile. “I guess his upbringing was like ours.”
He smiled sadly. “I guess it was,” he agreed. “The world is full of wounded children who grow up to be wounded adults. Sometimes they get lucky and find solace in each other.”
“Sometimes they withdraw and strike at anyone who comes close,” she replied.
He chuckled. “An apt description of our Mr. Walker. But he has a weakness. Crissy. She winds him around her finger.”
“He really likes her?” she asked.
“He’s crazy about her,” he said. “She likes him, too. If you’re wise, you won’t try to separate them. There’s already a bond growing.”
“I wouldn’t deny him access,” she said defensively.
“But it’s going to complicate things. He doesn’t like me at all, and it’s mutual.”
“He doesn’t know you, Ellie. Give him a chance.”
“Even if I would, he’ll never give me one,” she said finally.
He saw that arguing with her wasn’t going to solve anything. He winked at her instead. “I’ll clean those fish for you.”
She was a bundle of nerves by five-thirty. Crissy, in a neat little pink skirt and tank top, was setting the table. She glanced at her mother with wry amusement for such a young child. Elysia, in a sedate denim dress and loafers, was pacing the floor. Her hair, in a neat chignon, gleamed in the sunlight filtering through the window.
Luke came down the hall with a grin on his handsome face. “You’ll wear holes in the floor,” he told her. “Quit that.”
“I’ll go mad long before six o’clock,” she moaned. “Oh, Luke, why did you…” Her voice trailed off into a faint gasp as she heard the crunch of car tires on the gravel driveway. She looked out the window, and there was the gray Lincoln.
“He’s here.” She choked.
“Is it him?” Crissy called, running into the living room. She looked out the screen door. “It is!” She opened the door and ran to him. “Hi, Mr. Tom!”
The sight of the child running toward him aroused odd sensations in Tom Walker. He opened his arms and caught her, lifting her high, his eyes twinkling with the joy that raged inside him. This was his own, his child, his blood. Amazing how attached he’d become to her in such a short time. He hugged her close, laughing.
She returned the enthusiastic hug, and chattered brightly about the meal they were going to have as he carried her effortlessly into the house.
“Gosh, you’re strong, Mr. Tom,” she said with a grin. “I’ll bet you could lift my pony.”
“Not quite,” he mused, setting her back on her feet. He shook hands with Luke and then turned to Elysia.
Her face was drawn. She looked frustrated and even a little frightened.
He reacted to her expression rather than to her cold greeting. “It’s all right,” he said gently, searching her eyes quietly. “We’ll call a truce for tonight.”
She drew in a steadying breath, ignoring the comment. “Dinner’s ready, if you’d like to sit down.”
“Come on and help me bring in the food, Crissy,” Luke said to the child, herding her out of the room.
Tom heard the kitchen door close and he searched Elysia’s worried face for a long moment. “I’m not very good at this,” he began slowly.
“At what?” she asked tersely.
He shrugged. “Apologies. I don’t think I’ve made two in my entire life. But I’m sorry about what I said to you the other day.”
“You needn’t butter me up because you like Crissy,” she said coldly. “Regardless of your opinion of me, I’m not vindictive.”
He searched her eyes. “She’s a unique young lady. You’ve done a good job with her.”
She moved restlessly. “Thank you.”
He stuck his hands into his slacks pockets with a long sigh. “Are you and Luke close?” he asked suddenly.
The question should have surprised her, but it didn’t. “Yes,” she said. “We were physically abused children, so I guess we were closer than kids who had a normal upbringing.”
His face grew very hard. “It’s a damnable world for some children, isn’t it? Even with the new protective laws, the secrecy hangs on. It’s so hard for a child to accuse a parent, even one who deserves a prison term.”
“I know.” She searched his lean face with quick, curious eyes. “You want to know if Luke told me what you said to him, don’t you?”
“He did, of course,” he said knowingly.
She nodded. “He thought…it might help if I knew it all.”
“And did it?”
She lowered her eyes to his chest, flushing. She’d been more intimate with this man than with anyone in her whole life. It hadn’t bothered her before, but now it did. Vivid memories flooded her mind of that night with him. They were embarrassing and they made her self-conscious around him.
“I won’t stop you from seeing Crissy, if that’s what you mean,” she said, evading a direct answer, her tone cold with her inner turmoil.
“Thanks,” he replied.
Neither of them spoke, having too much trouble finding the right words.
When Luke and Crissy came back, two pairs of eyes looked toward them with open relief.
“Shall we eat?” Luke murmured.
Crissy reached up and took Tom’s hand. “You have to sit beside me, Mr. Tom, so you can tell me about Indians.”
“Native Americans.” Elysia corrected her without thinking and then flushed at Tom’s keen glance.
“Is that right?” Crissy asked her companion.
“Actually it is,” he told her. “Or, if you prefer, indigenous aborigines.” He grinned. “Those two words get a workout lately.”