Lone Star Hero

His jaw flexed. “And I’m my father’s son.”

Maria gasped and reached for his hand. “No. Oh, mijo, don’t ever say that!”

“Did you forget what I did?”

She stood, the chair toddling on back legs before settling down. “No! You will not speak of that. The fault was mine.” She picked up her Bible. “You are not your father, you’re not!”

Jake pushed away from the table and pulled his mother into his arms, hugging her short frame against his chest. “I’m sorry, amá. I shouldn’t have said anything.” He closed his eyes and buried his guilt. “I just wanted you to know the Vickie I know. The summer we moved here, well, she helped me...I don’t know, she helped me in ways I can’t explain.”

“I remember her as a sweet girl, I do, but you are from different worlds.” Her head shook against his chest before stepping away. “I was their housekeeper. It would be easier if you turned your attention to someone more like us.”

“Mother, we’ve already had this conversation.” He sighed.

“Maybe you hang on to your love for her because she’s safe?”

As the words sank in, he stared at his tiny mother. Safe, with no risk of being in a real relationship. Did he? Vickie had always kept him at a distance, no jealous rages to worry about.

His mother went to the sink and ran the washcloth under the water. “You’re a good man, Jake.” Keeping her eyes down, she started wiping the counter. “Juan always bullied—his sisters, me, even his dogs.” Her lips tight, she neatly folded the dishrag and draped it over the pewter faucet. “But enough of that nonsense.”

For a moment Jake’s brain echoed her words. She never, ever mentioned his father by name. Never spoke of him.

“Here, take this.” She slipped a blue piece of paper from her Bible and held it out until he automatically took the handwritten number. “This is Anjelica Ortega’s cell phone number. Her mother gave it to me. We know you’ll be perfect together. She needs an honorable man after losing her husband. Call her. She’s waiting to hear from you. If nothing else, it’s just a date, right? When was the last time you went out for fun?”

With a sigh, Jake took the number and slipped it into his wallet, hoping that simple action would put the discussion to rest for now.

His mother meant well. She truly believed he needed a wife and children to be happy. He had tried dating, and it never felt right.

He remembered Anjelica and Steve from school. They were younger and always together. No one had been surprised when they married a month after graduation and two months later, he went to boot camp. In less than a year, she was a war widow. That was years ago. He hadn’t seen much of her in town.

He hadn’t seen much of Vickie, either. She was always working at the Mercantile or hiding on the ranch. She had made the first step by coming to his home. But then she ran off, putting distance between them, again.

This time he would follow her. There was no reason to tell his one-track-minded mother his new plan.

He pushed his hair off his forehead and flexed his jaw. Right now, his brain needed a break from all this emotional turmoil. He didn’t want to think about Anjelica and her young soldier or Vickie and the coward she had married.

He flopped down on the overstuffed leather sofa and wrapped his fingers around his remote. He just wanted to watch some football for the next few hours. Tomorrow he would map out a plan to get to know Vickie again. Seth needed guidance, too. He knew from firsthand experience that having a bad father was worse than not having one at all. The flag football game would be a good place to undo any damage Tommy might have caused to the boy’s confidence.

Chapter Five (#ulink_5b4224fa-66b3-5b37-9635-57170d1d10e4)

Jake pulled his black Silverado to the front of Vickie’s trailer. He grinned as he leaned over the steering wheel. Who would have thought Vickie Maria Lawson would choose to live in the old worker’s house.

Two decades had passed since his mother had taken the job as the Lawsons’ housekeeper. The rent-free trailer had been one of the benefits. Coming from a tiny, one-room house in the crowded border-town of Eagle Pass, this single-wide trailer felt huge. For the first time he’d had his own room, his own bed.

Stepping out of his truck, Jake heard music blaring from the narrow trailer. The tune sounded like something from their high school days.

On the first step, the worn wood gave and dangerously shifted under his weight. That needed to be fixed. He jotted the note in his mind.

He wondered why she moved in here instead of her parents’ house. The big house, as they called it growing up, could easily fit five families.

He remembered his first trip to the big house. Looking over from his old home, he had once thought the trailer a mansion. A grin followed a chuckle. The Lawson home had awed him with the massive rooms, winding staircases and endless hallways, making him feel he had fallen down the rabbit’s hole into Alice’s Wonderland.

He remembered the moment the oldest daughter, Miss Victoria Lawson, entered the grand room. Struck dumb would be an understatement.

Until the next week, anyway, when he found her in the old barn behind his trailer, sitting in the dirt, wearing a ratty T-shirt. She was feeding three abandoned lambs, laughing as they climbed over her, fighting for the bottle she held.

He smiled. Her laughter from that day would be forever branded in his memory.

The other night he had tried to explain to his mother how Vickie had helped him. She had done so much for him that summer. She had saved him from falling into a deep, dark hole of despair.

She now lived in his old house. If he hadn’t believed before, he absolutely knew God enjoyed a sweet bit of irony.

With a deep inhale, he moved forward. They were no longer kids hiding from their mothers or teenagers trying to figure out life. Maybe this time they could get it right.

The music covered his knock. Jake could smell freshly baked cookies as he eased open her unlocked door. He would need to talk to her about that safety issue, mental note number two.

Pausing in the door frame, Jake leaned his right shoulder against the edge, crossing his arms. He couldn’t stop the smile from growing as he watched Vickie jump around while singing into a whisk. Her high ponytail swung with each movement.

Leaping to the side, her bare feet landed hard on the worn carpet, rattling the thin walls. His grin grew. She had always hated wearing shoes, much to her mother’s horror.

Vickie spun around and screamed. One hand over her chest and breathing hard, she threw the whisk at him.

Laughing, he ducked and the silver utensil went sailing out the open door.

“Jake Torres! That’s not funny. You scared me to death.”

“You left your door unlocked, but please don’t stop on my account.” Closing the door, he moved farther into her living room. He paused and surveyed the small space. “Wow, the trailer looks the same as it did when I lived here, but I don’t remember it being so small.”

Vickie walked to the counter and turned the volume down. “Yeah, well, you realize you’re, like, one hundred times bigger now?” She tried to suppress a giggle. “Back then I was taller than you.”

He savored the sound he’d been denied for so many years. “We were ten.” He tapped his knuckles on the old counter that separated the galley kitchen from the living area. “I can’t believe your dad still has this old thing with the original furniture.”

“I’m saving up my money to buy us a house. No reason to waste it on furniture when this works.”

He slowly looked over the small living space remembering when this little house had made him feel safe for the first time ever.

A family portrait of Vickie and Tommy with the kids hung on the wall giving Jake a kick in the gut and bringing him back to the present.

Vickie had moved to the other side of the Formica counter and started cleaning. “Daddy had a contract to haul it off when I first moved back.” She looked up at him with a gleam in her eye. “My mother just about had a heart attack when I announced I wanted the trailer.”

“But your dad gave it to you, anyway.”

“Of course. He offered to buy me a new house, but I wanted this one.”

“Why?” Jake couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice.

“Believe it or not, some of my favorite memories with my best friend happened here.”

He shot one eyebrow up and stared at her. “Really?”