Her Texas Rebel

“Sorry about that.” Karen breezed back into the room. She stopped three steps inside the door. She looked back and forth between Tony and Sabrina. “Everything all right?”

“Yes,” Tony said. “I’d better be going. I only wanted to stop by and introduce myself.”

“Come on back to my office,” Karen said, “and I can go over the schedule with you.”

He nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

Karen waited at the door for a moment. Tony crossed his arms. She pressed her lips together. “I’ll just go get the schedule for you.”

He waited for her to leave and turned back to Sabrina. “I don’t want things to be like this. Can we get together sometime and talk? Please.”

“What do you want?” Her eyes were red. Was she holding back tears?

His mouth dropped open. “I need to know you’re okay. That my leaving didn’t force you into a doomed relationship with a guy that was no good for you. That you won’t hate me forever.”

She lifted her chin. “I know you’re only going to be in town a few more weeks, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stay away from me while you’re here.”

There was the pain and bitterness he’d expected. Aimed at him. Of course. She couldn’t be angry with a dead man. It was easier to be mad at him. She’d confirmed his fear. Her life hadn’t turned out as planned and it was his fault. He couldn’t go back to San Antonio without setting things right. But where did he start? “I need you to know that leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“Good.” Sabrina turned her back to him and opened a supply cabinet at the back of the room.

* * *

AFTER HIS BRIEF meeting with Karen, the assistant director, Tony decided to stay for rest of the day. The kids at Little Mountain were a different kind of intense than the ones at St. Paul’s Mission. He could see a little of himself in the eyes of the children at both places.

He was signing out at the front desk when Sabrina closed and locked the medical office. For a brief moment, their eyes met.

He caught a whiff of honeysuckle as she whisked by.

Taking his visitor badge off and setting it on the counter, he nodded at the woman behind the desk. “Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and almost ran to the parking lot. He stopped short when he saw her open the door of a beat up gray Toyota. At least he thought it was gray. Wasn’t that the same car she drove in high school? It’d been on its last leg back then. How had it lasted this long?

Catching up to her, he cleared his throat.

“I’m in a hurry, Tony.” She kept her back to him and opened the door.

“Please. I need to get this off my chest.”

She tossed her purse on the seat. “You’ve got two minutes.”

Tony rubbed his palms on his jeans. She wasn’t going to make this easy. “I am so sorry for the way I treated you. And the way I left. I never meant what I said that night.”

“Yes, you did. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have said it.”

“That’s just it. You ruined your reputation by vouching for me the night I was accused of robbing that store, so I couldn’t let you take any more chances on me until...” He paused. “Until I could deserve you.”

Sabrina shrugged and looked down at her feet. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We were young. I’m over it. I went on with my life, just like you.”

“Is that what you think I did? Just went on with my life like nothing happened?” He pointed to the diamond on her left hand. “Looks like you didn’t have a hard time moving on.”

She whipped her head up to look at him. Anger flashed in her eyes. “You’re the one who left me. You have no right to judge me for the decisions I made when you left.”

Is that what he was doing? Judging her? The truth was, he was jealous of the man she’d loved enough to have a family with. Angry, even. “I only left because I thought it would make things easier on you.”

She threw her hands in the air. “How was leaving me when I needed you the most supposed to make things easier for me?”

“When I heard you tell Adalie you wanted to put college off for at least a year so you could go to Louisiana with me, I panicked. Without me around stirring up trouble, I thought the town would forget about me, and you would go to college like you were supposed to.”

“Well, guess what? It didn’t work.”

“If I’d stayed, you’d never have become a nurse. We’d both be stuck in this little town forever.”

Her hands curled into fists. “Here’s a newsflash for you. I’m not a nurse. I still haven’t finished college and I like this little town.”

Tony sucked in a breath. “Your scholarship—”

“Got yanked right after you left.” She pulled herself up tall. “And thanks to your disappearing act, people just shook their heads when they saw me. So I pulled a page from your book and ran away, too.”

“I didn’t know.” Stepping over to her, he took her face in his hands. How had things gone so wrong? “Everything was planned. You were going to finish school and become a nurse.”

“No, we had everything planned. Then you decide to leave. I have the same CNA certification I had when I graduated high school. That’s how perfect our plan worked out.”

The words slapped him in the face. He had hurt her. On purpose. And it killed him. Had he done it for nothing? “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care. Not anymore.” Sabrina slid into the car and slammed the door.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ubd1f6704-cb28-576d-96db-ab50cfcebb0e)

SABRINA SNUGGLED DEEPER into her pillows. It was Sunday afternoon and she wasn’t moving until she finished the book she was reading. She caught a whiff of honeysuckle and listened to the bees humming a steady rhythm as they gathered sweet nectar from the rose bushes growing along the rock wall.

How long had it been since she’d had the time to read a book? In Houston, what little time she had between two jobs and Levi was spent taking classes at the local junior college. Simple things like reading for pleasure were luxuries she hadn’t been able to afford for a long time. Especially in the middle of the afternoon.

“Don’t you look like the cat that ate the canary.” Her dad stood in the hallway and grinned.

Sabrina closed the book and stretched out across her bed. “That’s how I feel.”

“Are you sorry you came home?”

The question surprised her. She’d been too ashamed to visit after Levi was born, but Salt Creek would always be home. What would people think of her now? After all, she’d found acceptance by excelling at school.

“No, Dad, I’m not.” She got up and padded across the carpet to brush a kiss against her father’s cheek. “It’s one of the few decisions I got right.”