Bed of Roses

CHAPTER NINE MAMA’S, DON’T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO LOVE COWBOYS

CHAPTER NINE

MAMAS, DON’T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO LOVE COWBOYS

S am reckoned it was time to put her foot down with Buster to get him to focus on helping her locate a car. She had been in Homestead for over two months now, and she had scoured newsletters and scrolled online fruitlessly for a new Patsy. Those two months had been the longest she had gone without a car since she got her license at sixteen, but somehow it hadn’t seemed to mess with her day-to-day very much. How long it was taking to find her a reasonably priced Mustang hadn’t been too big of a deal until her mama had enforced the Mother’s Day visit as imperative. The two hundred plus miles between Rosepine and Homestead loomed on the horizon of the coming weekend.

Her mother had an uncanny way of calling right when Sam felt the most dismal and would beg Sam by the end of the call to come on home. As if by fate, her cell phone rang as she reached the end of the sidewalk that evening. Sam stopped and pulled it from her back pocket with a huff. It was another night when Nibbler refused to leave the couch cushion, and Sam had left his leash hanging in the kitchen when she pulled her tennis shoes on.

She was in the middle of her run and didn’t want to pause the song in her headphones or her workout, but if she didn’t, then Wanette would call the Rose Garden next. She and Kathleen had become what Sam referred to as phone pen pals over the past couple months. If Kathleen didn’t answer, well then, Wanette would call Everbloom next, and Sam wanted to avoid that.

She put on her best cheerful voice and answered, “Hey, Mama, how are you?”

“When you left, we expected you to be gone three months. Three months and no more, mind you. The deal was that you would be home for Mother’s Day. Tomorrow’s Easter, which means you’ll have roughly two weeks before I expect you to be home.” Wanette annunciated each syllable slowly.

“I know.” Sam sighed. “Sorry, I should’ve visited sooner than now. But I still don’t have a car, Mama. I guess I could borrow Kathleen’s for a weekend, but I feel bad asking.”

“Well, I suggest you either ask her or just expect your daddy up there in a dozen days to pick you up and drive you home. I can live without my children on most holidays, but all three of you girls have always been home to celebrate Mother’s Day with me. This is my holiday. I need you home with me, and I refuse to let Chase and Liza Beth rob me of my time with you this year.” Wanette’s tone left no wiggle room for argument.

“Yes, ma’am. I understand,” Sam said. “Why are you blaming them?”

“If it hadn’t been for them, you might still be living in Rosepine. You might have come to your senses and kicked Chase out of your life soon enough, but you wouldn’t have run so far away to lick your wounds and whine. You will be home for Mother’s Day weekend. Do you understand me?” Wanette doubled down.

“I promise I will do my best,” Sam said.

“This time your best isn’t good enough. You are coming home, Samantha. I have to go now. I love you.” Wanette ended the call.

The positive side of her mother being short was that Sam had no time to slip up and tell her about Jack. It’s not like she had planned anything to happen, but Jack had been relentless. The morning after she puked on his boots, Sam had really thought she had run him off for good. But there he was, knocking on the back door around four in the afternoon with burgers and fries in a grease-soaked bag in one hand and a large Coke with two straws in the other. He had gotten extra onions on her burger, and she marveled at first at how sweet she thought that was. When she opened the wrapper, she gagged so badly that he had to walk a few yards away to scrape them off of her bun and onto the grass. The herbal stuff that Loretta and Kathleen had given Sam earlier had helped, but the onions that Sam had puked up had been gnarly, and she would probably never eat them again.

Since she had been wary to bring Jack inside, not quite knowing what Kathleen or Loretta would think of him showing back up after their garden talk a few hours before, they sat on the back steps together—shoulder to shoulder with their elbows on their knees, dipping fries in a communal ketchup pile on the inside of his burger wrapper while Jack told her about a car in the shop that he thought she might like.

She chewed on another fry and wondered why he had made the trek up there to see her again considering the puking situation had happened only about twelve hours ago. He talked as she ate—the greasy fries and burger tasting better than they ever had before. After they both finished their burgers, he kissed her hand and left.

Sam was totally baffled and watched as he walked back toward the auto shop. The man confused her. Sam was slowly learning that he played the role of “the gentleman” well when he wanted, and the role fit him like a good pair of Levi’s.

The next day, she got a call from an unknown local number and pulled her phone to her ear. Lo and behold, when the connection went through, it was Jack’s deep drawl asking her out on a date. She almost choked from surprise, first because her phone was working, second because he had gotten her number at some point from someone, and third because he was asking her out on an actual date over the phone.

She was flattered. And promptly told him no, and then he hung up. She had told Kathleen that she’d listen to her and Loretta’s warnings, and Sam had no doubt that Kathleen would kill her if she went out with Jack. The two women had made her solemnly swear on a cowboy paperback in the garden that day to let cheating lying stinking dogs lie. Even Noah had warned her about Jack.

Sam knew to leave it alone, but the more she decided against it, the more Jack started showing up in her life. A visual of Loretta coming in cussing one evening when she had gotten an order to make a bouquet for Sam, per Jack and his credit card info left on the florist shop voicemail one morning.

“I ain’t condoning this, Sam, and I ain’t makin’ an arrangement for him.” Her voice was so shrill it could have cut through glass. “He’s bad news, Sam.”

“People can change, Loretta. I wasn’t always the best person, but I grew up,” Sam spoke softly, but she couldn’t seem to convince Loretta to soften her heart toward Jack. And never mind Kathleen. Sam knew that was a lost cause.

“Loretta pointed at Sam as she brushed past her. “You’re absolutely right. People can change. Just not Jack. You’re gonna get hurt if you get too close to him. He ain’t no good.” The women in Sam’s life were normally right when they warned her about something, and she could hear Inez’s voice chime in.

Your trio of wise sages say he’s no good, kid. Listen to women who know better.

Wanette had been right too. Sam was indeed hardheaded. But she swore she had good reason to be stubborn. Jack made her feel beautiful and wanted again, and she didn’t think of Noah in those times. She needed a distraction, and Jack was eager to be that for her.

A day or so later, Jack called her up at the flower shop and asked her to meet him that night at Scottie’s. She felt like a teenager with a dirty little secret all day because of it. She waited ’til Loretta was in bed and Kathleen was in front of her nightly Westerns, and she slipped through the kitchen and out the back door. She even made it all the way to the driveway without setting Nibbler into a barking tirade.

Jack was egotistical and wasn’t the be-all and end-all in Sam’s book, but he was funny. And he was hot. Any woman would agree with her there. Besides, she had never been with the bad boy before, and it was a lot of fun. She was getting quicker at running, she told herself as she ran by the moonlight-dappled path. She felt so very alive as her legs and heart pumped in double time. At the edge of town, she slowed to a walk and caught her breath before swinging open the dented metal door at Scottie’s.

Her eyes lasered in on him as soon as she walked in. He leaned near the end of the bar, two shots of whiskey in his left hand, and his eyes trained on the door like he knew just when she would arrive. His face softened into a smile when their eyes met, and he held out his hand.

She felt like he had just cast a spell on her again. Between the liquor and the small talk over the next couple hours, Sam learned more about him and found him aggravatingly charming all over again. He was a good dancer, a pool shark through and through, sure, but he also was observant and didn’t seem to miss a thing.

Sam felt very small and feminine next to him. He was lean but tall, and when they stood side by side and Jack flexed his arms on the rounded side of the bar, she began to see him in a whole new way. It didn’t help that the night was filled with more laughter and fun than she had expected.

On the walk home, when Jack tugged her off the path, she didn’t argue with his suggestion for a detour. They walked past the B&B and then on what looked like a goat’s trail before a clearing opened ahead of them. Right in front of them was a small log cabin, cocooned by the cedars and pines in the middle of the meadow.

“This was my great-uncle’s. We were really close, and I was his favorite when I was growing up. This was his hunting lodge back then.” His voice was filled with pride.

“It’s really nice back here.”

He tugged on her hand. “You gotta see it up close. Come on.”

When they reached the cabin, Jack pulled a key from under a red-painted rock in the mulch near the front door and waved it in front of her.

“Gotcha.” He unlocked the door, flicked the lights on, and stepped back to hold the door for her.

The inside of the little cabin was wall-to-wall heart pine and stone, whitewashed mortar trimming the logs with a smattering spiderwebs in the corners. It smelled like mothballs and obviously had not been lived in for a long time. But the place felt warm and welcoming. Jack locked the door behind him and stepped up close behind her. His body felt like a stone statue. She remembered Jack saying he lived above the auto shop, so whose living room were they standing in?

“Who owns this place now? You?” Sam asked. Something in her gut told her not to turn around.

“Pretty much.” Jack lowered his mouth to be level with her ear, his lips brushing against her earlobe when he spoke. “Kathleen’s leaving it to me.”

A bright red warning flare went off somewhere inside Sam. This must’ve been Thurman’s. He had said it was his uncle’s, his great-uncle’s . “Does she know you come down here? Or that she’s leaving it to you?”

“She doesn’t have to know anything, baby.” Jack nipped at her earlobe.

She tried to move away, but his arms tightened around her, wrapping her in a bear hug from behind. The realization of how vulnerable a position Sam was in hit her like a wrecking ball when his arms tightened around her like a python, and he strung kisses from her ear to her neck.

“Let me go, Jack, I don’t like this.”

“Aw, come on, baby, just relax.” His breath was hot and heavy when he murmured against her ear, licking a trail to the outer rim of her ear and flicking his wet tongue into its hollow.

“No, Jack! Let me go.” She bucked against him, but his grip tightened, and pure panic enveloped her whole body.

“Calm the hell down, just relax, you’re too uptight.” He was stronger than Sam could have ever imagined, and the panic turned into fight-or-flight mode. She chose the former and stomped on his steel-toed work boot, but it didn’t faze him.

He growled against her neck, “Stop it, Sam.”

“Let me go, and I’ll stop, Jack.” Her voice quavered. She really didn’t want to hurt him, but if worse came to worst, she could and would.

“You’re gonna do what I say, Sam. I said to be still, dammit.”

“Like hell I will.” She kicked back into his shin and squirmed to the right the best she could.

He let out a string of foul language and pushed her hard, sending her to the hardwood floor in front of him and knocking the breath out of her. He grinned when she gasped and tried to sit up. He made a tsking noise as he walked over to straddle her, his feet planted on either side of her thighs.

“Now that’s better. You’re gonna do what I say, Samantha. You might even like some of it.” His words were a mixture of anger and liquor.

He dropped to his knees on either side of her hips, and Sam thrust her knee upward with as much force as she could. She hit her target, and Jack seized on the way down, a yowling high-pitched howl sending him careening, grabbing at his crotch as he folded into the fetal position. The high-pitched noise that came from him reminded her of what a wounded and dying animal might sound like. His knees locked up, leaving him moaning and curled up on his side. Sam panted as she scrambled back from him and straightened up when she realized that she was out of danger.

“You bitch,” Jack groaned as he glared at her, daggers shooting from his eyes.

“Don’t ever speak to me again. Don’t even look at me,” she spit at him, her voice cracking as she shouted the last few words over her shoulder. She unlocked the door with shaking hands and took off like a wild hare. She ran like her life depended on it. The trees were a blur as she ducked their branches, leaped over logs, and jumped over holes in the path. She was breathless and sobbing when she reached the porch and began banging on the front door with both hands. Kathleen swung the door open as Sam collapsed into her arms. Kathleen swiftly locked the door behind her and then hollered for Loretta without letting go of Sam.

“I have a gun!” Loretta squawked from the back of the house as her footsteps testified she was running toward them.

“We don’t need a gun. We need tea and cake and maybe a shot of whiskey.”

Kathleen led Sam to the kitchen and sat her down on a chair. Loretta grabbed a quilt from one of the settees in the living room and wrapped it around Sam’s shoulders, then poured a mug half full of tea and topped it off with whiskey. She pressed it into Sam’s hand. “Now talk,” she said.

Kathleen’s face got darker and stormier the more Sam told them what had happened. The black clouds only dissipated for a moment when Kathleen erupted into laughter at the part when Sam kneed Jack firmly in the balls.

“I knew you were tough. I didn’t know you were wily too. Brava, my girl, brava.”

“If there was one thing my dad taught me, it was how to fight your way out of a room. Thank God he did. I don’t want to think about what Jack would’ve done.” Sam shuddered, and her eyes began to burn again. “I really thought he had a good side after all. I was wondering if maybe the bad boy thing covered up a sweeter side. I was wrong. I was so wrong …” Her voice finally trailed off.

“You know what we could do, Katty,” Loretta said in a low voice as she wiped her hands on a dish towel with one hip leaned against the front of the sink and her opposite leg propped up like a flamingo’s.

“Hush.”

“What’s she talking about?” Sam asked.

Kathleen put on the kettle for more tea. “Nothing. We are not going to the woods. Sam has proven that she can take care of herself.”

Loretta looked down at her thin hands and flipped them over, looking at her palms. “We could let the woods take care of him for us. Lord knows how many women we’d save the pain of knowing him, Kathleen.”

“Shut it, Rett. We’re doing this the right way. I’m gonna call the Lightner boy soon to tell him.”

“Are you seriously telling me you’d take Jack Reynolds out in the woods and kill him for me?” Sam gasped.

Loretta’s birdlike shoulders shrugged, but she didn’t look up. “If he touches you, he messes with me.”

Sam had known the women loved her. They had consoled her. They had guided her. They had picked at her and teased her playfully from time to time, but something about this night felt different. Like a new form of womanly protection that Sam had only felt before from her mother and sisters. A bond had been forged where you’d die for the other. Hell, you’d kill if you had to.

Kathleen’s jaw was set, and her eyes flashed unspoken warnings aimed at Loretta while she dialed the phone and waited for someone to pick up on the other end until the call finally went through. “Yes, this is Kathleen Scott, I need to talk to Bobby as soon as possible.”

There was a pause, and then she said, “Uh-huh, yes. It’s Kathleen. We don’t need fire or medical, but I need Bobby up here at Rose Garden as soon as he can get here. Jack’s acting up. Okay, then. Tell him that I’ll be expecting him within the hour.”

Samantha was horrified to think she had to talk to a cop, but Kathleen took the lead when a big man with a badge lumbered in and sat down with the three women in the kitchen. Kathleen made a pot of midnight coffee and poured him a mug as she flawlessly relayed everything Sam had told her and occasionally looked at Sam for clarification.

“Okay, I will put all this on file. I’ll also go find him and warn him that he shouldn’t reach out to any of you or come out to Rose Garden again.” The sheriff looked over at Sam. “Now pertaining to the physical attacks on you, would you like to press charges, ma’am?”

“No.” Sam decided. “I don’t want to go to court, I don’t want to spend one more minute of my life thinking about the parasite. He can go to hell on his own. He don’t need my help.”

Sam pointed at Loretta and gave her a knowing look. Loretta zipped her lips with wide innocent eyes, and the officer smirked. “Well, if you change your mind, you can come to the station and talk to me at any point. I’ll be speaking to Jack fairly soon. And I’ll do my best to put the fear of the law into him for you ladies.”

“Bobby, tell your family Happy Easter for us, you hear? I hate starting your Good Friday like this, but I’m grateful for good boys like you protecting us here in Homestead. Tell your mama and daddy hello for me. Who knows? I may see them at church for the sunrise service.”

Kathleen pressed an Easter egg–shaped tin of cheese straws into his big hands and patted his arm as she walked him to the front door. “Oh, and if you’ll let Jack know something from me, that would be grand, dear. Tell him that if he shows up near my property again, I will shoot him and drag his body over the threshold. Make that clear to him,” she said in a sugary sweet voice.

Bobby’s eyebrows shot all the way to the brim of his hat, but he just nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

When he had gone, Sam finally let out the breath she had been holding. “Sweet Jesus, Kathleen! You shouldn’t joke about killing Jack to an officer. If something ever happened to him, they’d come haul you to jail first thing.”

“Loretta and I changed Bobby’s diapers as a baby in the First Methodist nursery. That boy was in Bubba’s grade. He would sooner haul the Easter Bunny or his own granny in before he’d take me to jail. Being a withered old lady is sometimes alibi enough, Samantha.” Kathleen winked to the lift.