Lone Star Rising

He’d never paid much attention to this house from the street. It was one of many Victorian-era relics in Five Points, barely visible behind mounds of overgrown arbor vitae bushes. But he could see now that the place certainly had potential. Who was renting it out to Robbie Tellchick? Old man Mestor, most likely. He owned several in this part of town, all in disrepair like this one.

The living room opened off the narrow hallway with a set of double pocket doors, which stood open a crack. Walking past, he caught a glimpse of Robbie’s round tummy and heard her irritated voice interrogating the boys. “Where on earth did you get a golf ball?”

A childish voice gave a defensive reply, but he couldn’t make out the words.

“All right.” Robbie’s voice came back high and sharp. “I want you guys to go upstairs and do your homework and get your baths and put on your pajamas.”

“Even me?” Zack heard Mark protest.

Zack dug the necessary items out of a toolbox mounted in the truck bed under the rear window. He’d have to ask Robbie if she had a spare cardboard box. Since she’d just moved that seemed likely.

He went back to the kitchen, and she came trundling in on his heels.

“You really don’t have to do that,” she said.

Of course he didn’t, but he wasn’t going to argue the point. “Have you got a broom and a dustpan? And a cardboard box? And maybe some duct tape?”

“I think so.” She went to a door that opened to a cramped utility room, where Zack could see a washer-dryer set beyond. Thank God, Zack thought, she at least had that, with a baby coming and all. He’d never caught himself having such a purely domestic thought before. It flat out startled him.

She disappeared and flipped on a light. The room was apparently a converted porch, with a crooked old wood floor and a bank of bare windows rattling in the wind. Piles of dirty laundry and other clutter were scattered everywhere. After she rummaged around for a minute, she came back with the broom and dustpan and a sizeable cardboard box, wrestling it into the kitchen on her front like an out-of-control boat.

“Let me.” He dashed to her side and took hold of it, levering the carton flat in one swift motion. At her quizzical look he said, “It’s for the window.”

“Ah. Good idea.” She blew out a frustrated puff of air that made her frizzy bangs lift. “I guess it’s too late to get anything done about replacing it tonight. The glass shop’ll be closed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he jerked on the gloves.

She rubbed her arms, clad in the sleeves of a clingy little white T-shirt under the overalls. “The temperature’s supposed to drop tonight.”

He squatted to the floor and started scooping up glass with the dustpan. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You know, every time you call me ma’am, it just makes everything ten times worse.”

He gave her a grin over his shoulder.

“I hope you don’t think that this—” she made a wild, frustrated gesture at the chaos around her “—is the way I usually live. I’m normally very organized, but it seems like it’s taking me forever to get settled.” She stuck out her bottom lip and huffed, making her bangs fly up again.

“And to top it all off, I’m cranky and pregnant. That ‘ma’am’ bit makes me feel like a little old lady or something. Oh, I know I’m four years older than you. I remember you from high school, at least I did once my sister reminded me about you. She claimed you got the Eagle when you were only a freshman.” She gave him an assessing look. “Did you really?”

The Eagle. Zack had forgotten about it. The award stood for leadership. Integrity. Strength. Invariably the honor went to a senior, a top athlete who excelled in academics and inspired his teammates. Part of getting the Eagle entailed bench-pressing more weight than any of the other guys during football training. Even at the age of 33, Zack could still press 300.

It was that physical discipline that had enabled him to carry a heavy man like Danny Tellchick out of a burning barn with no air. Not that putting his air mask on Danny’s face had done any good. The man was already dead. The fire marshal had finally confirmed that to Zack yesterday. Roy Graves had blamed the coroner for the delay. Zack just wanted to know the truth, whatever that was. When they’d held the critical stress-management session after the fire, Zack had made sure everybody clearly understood that he was the one, the only one, who would be taking any bad news to Robbie Tellchick.

Zack covered all these thoughts with another engaging grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Cut it out. I’m not that much older than you, even if I do look it at the moment.” She raked the frizzed hair back from her forehead. “So you can just stop the ‘ma’am’ stuff, okay?”

“Whatever you say…ma’am.”

That got a perturbed little laugh out of her and Zack’s heart lifted. He hadn’t seen her smile, really smile, once in all the times he’d been in her presence or glimpsed her from afar in the months since her husband’s death. She smiled at her customers at the diner, of course, but it was the glazed charm of a girl whose feet hurt. If they asked him, he could tell a person exactly the when, where and how of every instance when he’d seen Robbie Tellchick since the night of her husband’s death. He could tell a person what she had been wearing, how her face had looked, the vivid color of her wounded green eyes.

She seemed suddenly lighter in spirit now. “Well, get busy.” She flapped a hand at him as if she were bossing the boys.

He laughed and they chatted while he swept up the rest of the glass.

The house was interesting, he allowed. It had possibilities.

She agreed, filling him in on some of its odd little features.

“Your boys are sure cute kids,” he said.

“A handful,” she countered. “Do you have kids?”

“No,” he said, “not even married.”

When he’d finished duct-taping the cardboard securely over the window opening, he said, “Okay. Have you got a flashlight?”

“Omigosh.” She jerked open a drawer. “The dogs! They could get hurt. They stay out there in their doghouse at night. We’d better check for glass outside the window, too, hadn’t we?”

He realized he had liked the sound of what she’d just said. She’d said we. There hadn’t been any we in Zack’s life in quite a while. Dates, yes. Plenty of dates. But nothing deep. Nothing lasting.

“You know, that’s a good thing,” Zack said as he followed her back down the hall.

She gave him a puzzled look over her shoulder.

“I mean, that you’ve got those dogs out there. They’ll act as protection tonight—” He bit off the sentence, wishing he hadn’t drawn attention to the fact that she’d be sleeping alone upstairs with nothing between her family and the outside world but a flimsy piece of cardboard.

The dogs were curled up on the porch, which was also rotting in places.

They stood up and trotted over when Robbie murmured to them. One, a fat little blond pup with sawed-off legs, looked part corgi. The other, slender of build with a long black-and-white coat, looked like he had a lot of Border collie in him.

Robbie petted them, talking baby talk as she did so, and Zack was inordinately fascinated with her long fingers as they ruffled the dogs’ silky coats, and with a glimpse of maternally lush cleavage. She straightened, pushed at her back with a palm, stretching and groaning as she did, and he found himself inordinately fascinated by that, too.

“Angus, Awgie,” Robbie commanded the animals, “stay.”

“Angus and Awgie?” Zack grinned. “Scottish dogs, now are they?”

“McBrides.” She gave her red hair a little toss that Zack found wholly endearing. “And proud of it.”

Leading with the flashlight, she took Zack around to the tall side gate. It scraped pathetically on the concrete walk and Zack had to give it a shove with his shoulder to force it open.

“This place is a wreck,” Robbie muttered, and led on.

The night was rapidly cooling and mist was beginning to swirl on the frost-bitten air as they made their way down a waffled and cracked sidewalk encroached by overgrown weeds and shrubs. Somewhere back in the tall trees lining the alley an owl hooted. The only other sound was the slap of Robbie’s tennis shoes and the clump of Zack’s boots until their steps crunched into the fallen leaves, twigs and bramble that formed drifts against the side of the house.

Outside the window in a weedy patch of mud, they found more glass, the golf ball and a cracked plastic gallon-container of ice cream—the cheap kind.

“Something tells me I didn’t get the whole story.” Robbie frowned at the evidence as the wind whipped tendrils of pale hair over her mouth. She brushed them away with irritation just before Zack saw a grin playing at the corners of her mouth.

“Boys will be boys,” he said, trying to coax that grin upward.

“Yeah. And girls will be girls. I’m nearly as p.o.’d about the ice cream as I am about the window.” Her grin materialized fully then. “I was going to have some after they went to bed.”

“Ah. So you’re that kind of girl.” He grinned.

She giggled, then shivered. Without hesitating, Zack removed the new jacket he’d only recently ordered from Gall’s supply. He admitted the thing was an extravagance. He had actually been glad to see the cold weather blowing in today so he had an excuse to wear it. “Here.” He draped it around her shoulders.

“Thanks.” She accepted his kindness without self-consciousness, he supposed on account of the baby. “Nice jacket.”

“Yeah. Can I make a suggestion?” Zack didn’t know why he was sticking his nose in her business. “Can you maybe let all of this go for tonight?” Maybe it was because he’d been in these boys’ shoes, once. A kid that could use a little mercy.

Her eyes rose up to meet his, illuminated by a thin bar of light shining between the unbroken glass above the cardboard and the ratty window shade. She studied him briefly with a defensive look, as if to say, What concern is it of yours? Then her face softened, looking sad again. He felt a tightening in his chest, staring into those pretty green eyes. He’d first looked into them when he was fourteen years old and they hadn’t changed a bit.

The two of them had been standing outside a school bus on a misty autumn night much like this one.

The cheerleaders and the football team had ridden the long highway home from a trouncing at the hands of the Kerrville Wolves. Throughout the whole trip, Zack had sat and studied the back of Robbie McBride’s fluffy, bright hair from his seat several rows behind her, had listened to every note of her laughter as it drifted back to him in the darkened bus. Robbie McBride, the beautiful redhead, the popular senior, a girl way out of his league. In the parking lot, the kids had dispersed to their cars quickly, not wanting to linger in the atmosphere of defeat, and when Zack found himself standing alone with her, he saw his chance.

“Uh, Robbie. Are you planning on going to the dance next week?” To this day, he didn’t know how he’d ever gotten up the nerve to say this.

She turned and smiled up at him. “Me? Are you talking to me?” It struck him then that she had hardly been aware of him standing there, that she was waiting on someone else, her ride most likely.

He recalled trying to be cool, glancing around the dark parking lot, up at the soft channel of light filtering down from one of the windows of the bus. He noted some of the other guys waiting for him over by Spike Porter’s Mustang. “Nah. I was talking to Spike over there.”

She laughed lightly. “Okay. Yeah, I’m going. I never miss a dance.”

“Oh. Cool. Have you got a date?” He had never asked a girl out before.

She looked up at him, clearly astonished, as her expression grew first wide-eyed, then amused, as if some unbidden thought had caught her by surprise. That’s the first time those eyes of hers had truly mesmerized him, standing there beside the bus, with the fog of their breaths mixing for one long moment. She frowned, then blinked, as if coming out of a trance. “I’m sorry. What’s your name?”

“Zack. Zack Trueblood.” He tilted one shoulder forward so she could see the number on his letter jacket. “Number eleven?” He arched one eyebrow at her. “And you’re Robbie McBride. So now that we officially know each other, how about it? The dance?” Not only had he never asked a girl out on a date, he’d never even acted this cocky in the presence of a female before. Well, hell. He never had to do anything but stand there around most girls. Most girls got so giggly in his presence it was pathetic. Except for Jenna, his best friend Mason’s little sister. But Jenna didn’t count. She was a husky little imp who could land a punch to his six-pack as solidly as Mason could.

But this was Robbie McBride, senior girl extraordinaire. A real woman, who was probably used to guys acting a little more smooth.

Those beautiful eyes narrowed slightly, and the beginnings of a smile played at the corners of her gorgeous mouth. “Are you a junior? A sophomore? Or what?”

“Or what,” he said with a shrug as if it didn’t matter. It didn’t, to him. “I’m a freshman,” he finally admitted.

Her smile widened. “Well, Zack Trueblood, I am flattered. I really am. For a freshman, you really are kind of a cute, but you know—” her voice brightened “—I’ve got a boyfriend.”

As if said boyfriend had been summoned right out of the mist, Danny Tellchick came ambling up, wearing a blue corduroy FFA jacket and stiff boot-cut jeans that swallowed his rangy frame. What does she see in this guy? Zack had wondered. Even back then, before Danny had gained fifty beer-belly pounds and managed to fail miserably at life, Zack had thought he was a tad short for the likes of Robbie McBride.

Now he wondered if Robbie Tellchick remembered that night at all.

“I think your oldest boy, especially, could use a break, don’t you?” he said quietly, bringing his thoughts back to what was important in the present. The idea of a twelve-year-old being told to put on his pajamas made Zack cringe. “Maybe seeing me, when he wasn’t expecting it, kind of bothered him, you know?”

She looked down at the white circle the flashlight made on the ground. After a moment she nodded.

“Mrs. Tellchick?” He swallowed. “Robbie?”

She turned her face up to him again.

“I told you this once, but I want to be sure you understand that I really meant it. I want to help you and the boys in any way I can.”

She looked back down to the ground. After a long silence, without looking up at him, she said, “It wasn’t your fault, you know that, don’t you?”

He did know that. And he also now knew some things she didn’t. But that wasn’t the point. Danny Tellchick had died a horrible death, possibly a suspicious one, and now his defenseless family was thrown into turmoil and suffering through no fault of their own. If Zack could only push a giant “undo” button on the whole thing, he would. But he couldn’t change anything. All he could do now was step in, be of some assistance somehow, in some way.

“Could I…would you let me come and fix this window? Tomorrow?” He wanted to add, no strings attached. He wanted to say, I don’t mean anything by offering. No pressure. It has nothing to do with the fact that I had a wild crush on you in high school. I just want to help. But saying all that, with her so recently bereaved and being in her condition, might seem foolish—insulting, even.

Her eyes darted around, obviously tempted by the offer. “I go to work really early. The boys get themselves off to school.”

“What time do you get home?”

“Around two. Then I usually try to get a little something done around here before I feed the boys supper. Sometimes I have to go back for the dinner shift if Nattie Rose needs help.”

“Why don’t I come over here at say, about two thirty? Tomorrow’s my day off from the fire station. I’ll have plenty of time to drop by and measure earlier—I can do that from the outside—and then I can have the glass all ready, so it won’t take much time. I have all the other materials. I own my own carpentry and remodeling business.”

“I…I don’t know when I’d be able to pay you. I mean, we are finally getting a little social security income now, but…” She bit her lip and glanced at the window. “I sure don’t want my landlord to see this.”

Her admission tore at his heart so much that he made an involuntary move toward her and reached out to comfort with his open palm. But she shifted sideways, out of range of his touch, bringing her hands up to grasp the lapels of his jacket, clutching it tightly around her shoulders. She looked so vulnerable with her tummy protruding and her messy hair reflecting the misty yellowed light from the window that it was all Zack could do to keep from turning her toward him and wrapping his arms around her.

“Don’t worry about paying me. A guy like me clears plenty in a town full of historical houses.”

She nodded, then sighed dejectedly. “Okay. I think this time I’m going to just have to accept your kindness. I really appreciate it, Zack.” Clutching the jacket, she bent awkwardly to retrieve the flattened carton of ice cream.

“I’ll finish this. You’d better get out of the wind.”

He hoped his offers of help hadn’t hurt her pride. It occurred to him then that he hadn’t told her what he came to say. Until now, Danny Tellchick’s death certificate had read “under investigation,” but soon the young widow would receive a supplementary certificate of death that revealed the truth. But for now Zack decided that bad news could just wait until a better time. Those boys weren’t the only ones who needed a little mercy around here.

CHAPTER THREE

I WOKE UP at 2 a.m and couldn’t go back to sleep. The wind is rattling the creaky windows of this old house worse than a hurricane.

I switched on the lamp and prowled around this room like a cranky mamma bear who’d been jolted out of hibernation, until I found this journal on the dresser. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to follow my sister’s advice and scribble down a few of my black little thoughts.

Markie wants me to seek counseling. But what’s a counselor going to tell me? Mrs. Tellchick, you’re sad? You have some very bad memories to deal with here? You’ve got another baby on the way, and you get to raise this one by yourself?

All summer Markie kept reminding me that this baby may seem like a burden now, but that he is a real person, who is probably going to grow up to be absolutely wonderful, a blessing. I know that. And that’s not the point.

Markie is all idealistic about having children because she’s recently met her beautiful all-grownup and well-behaved son, Brandon. She forgets I’ve got three that I’ve been raising from scratch, out on a dryland farm where Danny and I barely eked out a living. I don’t have any idealistic illusions about raising babies. Sleepless nights. Health worries. A steady stream of bills.

And then they become little boys, with all their antics. Like that broken window!

I have absolutely no hope of producing a girl. I’m convinced Danny didn’t have any girl genes in him. None. Nada. Zip. He used to joke that we were raising our own little home-grown football team.

I just got tears in my eyes when I wrote that last part. Part of me feels like all of my hopes and dreams died with Danny in that barn. My husband wasn’t perfect, but I’ve been with him since junior high and I don’t know how to be any other way. I sure don’t know how to raise these boys alone!

Seeing Zack Trueblood has got me picturing the fire in my mind all over again. It seemed like it just exploded at one point. One minute I was standing at the kitchen window, thinking I smelled smoke, and the next I was outside staring up at a whole wall of the barn engulfed in flames. I knew when I ran out there, even as I was punching 9-1-1 on the cell phone, that there was no way the fire trucks could make it from town in time. It only took me a couple of minutes to figure out where all the boys were, and that Danny was nowhere to be found.

I feel so guilty now because now I’m thinking about Zack again.

I’m thinking about him following me into the kitchen last night. (Brave man!) That sounded a little sarcastic, even to myself, but I mean that literally. Zack Trueblood is the bravest man I know, bar none. He’s so brave it takes my breath away. I’ll never forget what he tried to do for me and my boys. The man plunged into a burning barn to pull out my husband’s body. I get tears in my eyes every time I think about it. And here they come, right on cue. These late-night weeping sessions have got to stop. My sister’s right. I am exhausting myself. I don’t think I can write any more right now.

THE NEXT DAY a blast of cold Canadian air howled down from the north, making Zack’s job on the window much more of a hassle than it should have been.

“You want something hot to drink?” Robbie called through the pane to him when she could see that he was almost done.

“Sounds good.” His fingers were getting stiff with cold as he smoothed a seam of glazing around the glass. For more than one reason, he was glad he hadn’t delayed getting this window fixed for Robbie. A stiff norther was swooping down off the Edwards plateau. The gray clouds gathering on the northwest horizon promised a cold rain later. The beginning of the fall rains was both a curse and a blessing for local firefighters.

It signaled the end of the grass fire season, but it also gave rise to the inevitable auto incidents in which folks who didn’t understand how to drive the treacherous Hill Country roads after a flash flood got swept off one of the many low water bridges in the area.

While he’d been walking the perimeter of Robbie’s house earlier this afternoon, he’d noticed quite a few more things that needed repair: loose shingles, broken porch rails, a badly bent gutter spout. He was going to have a word with old man Mestor about all of that. In Zack’s opinion, that old boy needed to spend more time over here fixing up his rentals and less time gabbing with his cronies over at the Hungry Aggie.

Zack knew Mestor employed pick-up loads of Mexicans out on his farm, and he could dern well put some of them to work on his shabby rental properties in town.

Zack was all about civic pride. Five Points had all the historical significance and charm of the Hill Country towns surrounding it and capitalizing on its potential was just a matter of getting old guys like Mestor to have a little more vision. Flag waving and decorating Main Street for the odd summer barbecue wasn’t enough. In Zack’s mind, the town’s charm would have to come from more permanent improvements. But sometimes it was like pulling eyeteeth to get people to do things right.

“I hope you don’t mind chamomile tea,” Robbie explained when he poked his head inside the kitchen door and said, “All done.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any coffee,” she went on as she poured steaming water into a teapot. “Ixnay on the caffeine.” She patted her tummy. “Pregnant and paranoid, that’s me,” she said as Zack stepped into the kitchen. “I see a potential threat to my fetus in practically everything I eat, drink, drive, breathe or even think about.” She shot him an arch-browed glance as if he were in the “think about” category.

He chuckled. “Tea will be fine.” He’d never cared for the herbal stuff, but he’d drink kerosene if it meant he got to sit in Robbie Tellchick’s kitchen and listen to her banter—and look at her—while he sipped it.

He held forth the bag he’d forgotten about earlier. “Uh, hope this isn’t too toxic. I guess it’s a good thing this norther blew in since I left it on the front seat of my truck.”

She took the insulated sack and peeked inside. The little smile he was coming to crave played around her lips. “Why thank you, Zack.” She pulled it out. “Ooo. Häagen-Dazs. The good stuff.”

“Ice cream probably seems kind of dumb with this cold weather setting in.”

“Not to me. It’s my one indulgence. And the gallon that boys destroyed was going to be all I could afford this month.” The smile became full-fledged. “It was so nice of you to remember.”