Texas On My Mind

Nothing scurried out at her.

So she began the sorting. She’d set aside another area at the end of the hall to deal with the contents of each box. One pile for stuff to keep. Another for items to be donated. A final one for trash.

She’d yet to put anything in the trash pile.

Not a good sign.

Of course, it was probably wishful thinking on her part that a charity group would want copies of old magazines and newspapers, panties with shot elastic and mismatched socks. This box was pretty much the same. Magazines from the 1980s. More newspapers. A Gerber baby food jar filled with buttons. Another had sequins. There were some Mardi Gras beads, though Claire couldn’t recall Gran ever mentioning a trip to New Orleans.

And then Claire saw the old photo of Riley’s parents—Betsy and Sherman.

More bittersweetness.

Claire had been in the car with them the night they’d died. Still had both the physical and emotional scars from it. It’d been pouring rain, and they’d given her a ride from the high school basketball game where the Spring Hill Mavericks had won by eleven points. Daniel was away visiting his sick aunt and had missed the game. Riley had stayed behind to be with Misty. Anna was home studying. Logan was on a date. And Lucky was at a rodeo.

She remembered all those little details. Every last one of them. The knock-knock joke that Mr. McCord had told just before the crash. Mrs. McCord’s laughter at the lame punch line. The Alan Jackson song playing on the radio. The way her band uniform was scratching against her skin. But Claire couldn’t remember the accident itself.

Sometimes she would recall a blur of motion from the red car that’d plowed into them. But Claire was thankful that it stayed just a blur.

She put the picture aside—definitely a keeper—and moved on to the next items in the box. Desk calendars. At least a dozen of them stacked together. They were freebies that an insurance company had sent Gran, but there was a handwritten note on the first one she looked at. January 5.

Enroll Claire in school.

She checked the year, not that she didn’t already know. Claire had been five years old. And two days earlier her mother had left her at Gran’s house. Dumped her, really, not even taking the time to say goodbye. If her mother had known it would be a real goodbye, that in a year she’d be dead, maybe she would have said a proper farewell.

At least that’s what Claire liked to tell herself.

The ache came. The one that crushed her heart and had her eyes burning with tears that she refused to cry. Never had, never would shed a tear over her worthless excuse for a mother. Claire pushed it all aside. Not her bridge, not her water. Not anymore. And she wouldn’t repeat the mistakes her mother had made. She’d be the best mom ever to her son.

She flipped through the calendar and saw another note. “Bennie” with a heart drawn around it and the time 7:00 p.m. No doubt a date. Claire had vague memories of the man. He’d worked for Riley’s family and had been seeing Gran around the time Claire moved in.

Claire did the math. Her grandmother had been in her late forties then, a youngish widow, and had no trouble attracting men. Apparently, she didn’t have trouble unattracting them, either, because six weeks later, Bennie’s name had a huge X through it, their date obviously off.

Beneath the X, Gran had scrawled, “Pigs do fly if you kick them hard enough in the ass.”

Ouch.

Claire moved on to the next calendar. There were more notes about doctor’s appointments, parent-teacher meetings and more dates with men who’d initially gotten their names enclosed with hearts. Then, had been X’ed out.

She hadn’t remembered her grandmother having an appointment book, and the woman didn’t use a computer, so this must have been her way of keeping track. A good thing, too, since there were a lot of date-dates to keep track of. Claire read each one, savoring the little tidbits Gran had left behind.

Get cash to pay McCord boys.

That was an entry for the September when Claire had been ten. There were two more for the same month. Events Claire remembered because she’d been close to the same age as the McCord boys and had begged to help Riley and Logan move the woodpile and do some other yard chores. However, Gran had insisted it wasn’t work for a girl and that she would pay Riley and Logan despite their having volunteered.

More entries. All of them brought back smiles and childhood memories. Until she landed on October 14 of that same year.

Give Claire the letter.

Claire frowned. What letter? It’d been a long time, twenty-one years, but she was pretty sure she would have remembered Gran giving her a letter. And who was it from?

Hoping she would find it, Claire had a closer look in the box. Not the careful, piece-by-piece way she’d been taking out the other things. She dumped the contents on the floor and riffled through them.

Nothing.

But there was a book. Judging from the battered blue hardback cover, it was old. She opened it, flipped through it, hoping the letter was tucked inside. But no letter. However, it wasn’t just an ordinary book.

It was a journal.

Her mother’s journal.

Her mother had scrolled her own name complete with hearts and flowers on the inside cover. Then Claire’s attention landed on two other words centered in the first page. Her mother had drawn a rectangle around it.

Fucking kid.

Claire slammed it shut and couldn’t toss it fast enough back into the box. She definitely hadn’t wanted to see that. She wanted to erase it from her head.

She didn’t want to cry.

Where the heck was that letter? It’d get her mind off those two words that were now burning like fire in her gut. She stood to get another box but didn’t make it but a few steps when her phone buzzed.

Riley.

And this time, the name didn’t just pop into her head. It actually popped onto her phone screen. She checked on Ethan. Asleep, finally, so she eased the nursery door shut and went into the living room to take the call.

She also took a minute to steady her nerves. No way did she want Riley to hear she was shaken up by two words written by a woman who’d abandoned her.

“Claire?” Riley greeted her.

Just the sound of his voice calmed her. It excited her in a different way, too, but for now, she’d take it. Claire needed something that wasn’t dark and heart crushing.

She scowled when she felt the little flutter in her stomach at the mere sound of his voice. “Eat any good brownies lately?” she asked.

“Very funny. You might have run off Misty and Trisha, but you still left me here with three women barely old enough to be classified as women. And Trisha and Misty didn’t stay away. They returned and didn’t leave until the swing shift arrived.” He cursed, and he didn’t use any of the compromise words. “At least I haven’t been involved with any of them.”

Not that batch. These were women from the historical society. Nobody under sixty in the bunch. Of course, it was possible one or two of them had the hots for Riley. He seemed to bring that out in women of all ages.

“They won’t be coming back,” Riley continued. “Neither will the twins, their sister or the midmorning shift.”

“Really? Trisha will be so disappointed.” But for reasons Claire didn’t want to explore, she actually felt good about disappointing Trisha. Probably because Trisha had used her 36-Ds to seduce Riley in high school.

Seriously, who had boobs that big in the tenth grade?

“Not sure disappointed is the right word for it,” Riley went on, “but she seemed upset that I didn’t want her here. Like I said, it’s nothing personal. I just need some peace and quiet.”

“But not peace and quiet right now? Or are you calling to tell me I’m off breakfast duty tomorrow?”

He huffed. “The peace and quiet doesn’t apply to you right now. And, yeah, you’re off breakfast duty.”