Chapter 10
DUVAL
The family barbecue turned out to be a lot of fun.
Katie had arrived with a cowgirl hat and outfit for Ciela that had the little girl kitted out from the top of her head to her toes.
Then, she’d taken Ciela to the barn to meet all of the horses who hadn’t been so interested in something small since their barn cat had a trio of kittens.
He’d been the one to put Ciela on the back of their oldest horse, a gelding by the name of Quicksilver.
The name had frightened Noelle at first, until she saw how the old man plodded forward out of his stall with all the urgency of a hundred year old tortoise.
Later, he saw her relax as he took Ciela around the small corral on the old part of the property. He wasn’t about to let her daughter near the place where they’d found the body.
The little girl was so excited to be on the horse that he’d worried they might have a battle on their hands when it was time to sit down and eat, but Ciela surprised him by slouching in the saddle and announcing to him that, “My butt hurts. Can I get down now?”
“Yes,” he smiled at the little girl, “you can.”
She held her arms out to him and he picked up her up by her waist, but where he thought he’d set her down on the ground to walk out of the corral, she had other ideas.
Ciela wrapped herself around him arms and legs and held on.
It felt like a hug.
The best kind of hug, actually.
Something, he’d seen but never had before.
The simple gesture was… eye-opening.
When Noelle lifted her daughter out of his arms to take her in to wash hands for a meal, he fought the urge to hold on and do the chore himself.
His mother put her hand on his arm and told him that she needed help getting everything out to the table from the kitchen.
He followed her inside to help, tying to ignore the curious sidelong stare from his mother.
Finola King might be getting older, but her eye sight, both physical and emotional was remarkably sharp.
He was able to put his own thoughts out of his head while they set up the table.
And when they started dishing out the food, the moon around the table pulled him in.
There were smiles all around and the food did not disappoint.
Patricia had brought more than dessert and together with what his mom had prepared they were likely to have left overs for days after the visit.
Halfway through the meal, Duval got up to refill glasses with lemonade and iced tea. When he set Patricia’s cup town beside her plate, Noelle’s mother turned to him with a curious look in her eyes.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, McCrae.”
He lifted his gaze to her and smiled. “Hmm?”
“Noelle said that the other members of your team call you Duval.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mom smile a share a look with Katie.
He could tell by Noelle’s posture that she was listening to him, but she was helping Ciela cut her barbecued chicken breast into bite sized pieces.
“It’s kind of a convoluted thing,” he started to explain.
His mother smiled at him.
He acknowledged her with a grin. “My mom and dad are big Larry McMurtry fans.”
His mother added in a comment. “My husband liked the books more. I,” she gave Patricia an outrageous wink, “more of the shows on the television.”
Patricia smiled and Duval was happy that the two women were getting along so well.
“So when they had me, they were looking for a name and while we’re not part of the big landowner King family-”
“We’re a long distant branch on the far side of the tree,” his mother added in.
“The King family is big enough that pretty much every name they thought of was already covered by someone else.”
Noelle turned her head to look at him. “They didn’t want you to be confused for one of the other Kings.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
Noelle’s warm grin made heat crawl up the sides of his neck.
“So they turned to Lonesome Dove for inspiration.”
Patricia still looked confused.
His mother reached over and put a hand on Patricia’s arm. “Augustus McCrae is the loyal friend of the main character Woodrow Call.”
Duval leaned in against the table. “I thank God every day that they didn’t name me Woodrow or Call.”
Katie giggled. “Me, too.”
Duval looked at his sister, glaring at her. “You got a normal name.”
She shrugged. “True, but I can’t imagine having to introduce you as my brother Woodrow. Or my brother Call.”
Patricia smiled. “That would be a concern. McCrae sounds nice. And very unique.”
Noelle lifted her head to look at him as she set down the knife she’d been using far out of Ciela’s reach. “And Duval?”
He nodded. “In the original versions of the show, Call was played by Tommy Lee Jones.”
Patricia looked impressed at that. “He’s always been a ruggedly handsome man.”
Duval saw his mother fan herself and share a laugh with Patricia.
He gave Noelle a wink. “Gus McCrae was played by Robert-”
“Duval!” Patricia snapped her fingers. “That’s where the name came from?”
Duval shrugged. “It’s better than some. I consider myself lucky.”
Patricia nodded. “I think it’s fascinating.”
He felt something tug on his sleeve and he looked down to see Ciela looking up at him. “Do I get a team name, too?”
The team.
He’d been talking about the team.
They’d come close to talking about S.W.A.T. but they hadn’t talked about the Rangers.
He felt horrible.
He should have been more vigilant about their conversation.
“Mister King?”
He looked at Ciela and then lifted his gaze to Noelle.
He hoped she could read the worry he was feeling. And hopefully the plea in his eyes, too.
“Baby,” Noelle put her hand on Ciela’s shoulder trying to turn her around.
Ciela didn’t turn around. She kept her eyes on him and Duval felt himself start to panic.
“Well,” he swallowed, “having a team name is something that doesn’t always happen on the spot. It happens after we get to know each other. The name comes from an event or from something that means a lot to the person or their team.”
“See, baby? A team name could take some time. You just met Mister King and his friends.”
Ciela folded her arms across her chest and sat back in her chair. She didn’t look at him or her mother. “I don’t like waiting.”
Duval had to smother the smile he felt.
Noelle’s daughter was a force of nature.
He leaned in and gently bumped her arm with his. “Me, too. You can ask my mom.” He pointed across the table at his mother, knowing that his mother would easily step in to help.
She had thousands of stories to tell about him.
Normally, he huffed and rolled his eyes when she started in with those memories, but today?
Today, he needed that help.
True to form, his mother leaned into the table, her gaze fixed on Ciela’s shoulder trying.
“Sweetheart, I could tell you chapter and verse on my boy.” She crooked a finger at the little girl beside him.
“Why don’t you come over here and sit with me and I’ll tell you all about his world famous temper! ”
Ciela turned to him with comically wide eyes. “You’re famous?”
There was a beat of silence and then everyone at the table burst into laughter.
Stunned for a moment, Ciela joined in, laughing.
With a look to her mother, she got a nod and Duval helped her down from the bench on the picnic table.
Ciela skirted around to the other side of the table and between his mother and Patricia, Ciela was quickly settled on Patricia’s lap.
“I remember when McCrae was about your age,” she lifted her hand and tapped Ciela on the tip of her nose, “he was determined to cut his hair like his father. I told him that he needed to wait until after his school pictures. After all,” she looked at him across the table, “we’d already had his hair cut and sadly, my son’s hair did NOT grow quickly. ”
Ciela looked over at him. “I like your hair.”
He smiled at her. “Thanks.”
She nodded and turned back to look at his mother.
“Well, it was the style at the time to be a little longer.”
Noelle reached out a hand and touched his arm. “Don’t tell me. You had a mullet.”
He arched a brow back at her. “It was a style and remember, I wanted to cut it.”
His mother gave him a pointed look. “You wanted to change it again because the little girl down the block said you looked like a hippie.” She scoffed. “You didn’t even know what a hippie was, but you were suddenly bound and determined to cut it.”
“And you,” he nodded, “told me I had to wait until after school pictures.”
“There was a reason,” she shook her head. Then she looked down at Ciela. “A reason he wouldn’t listen to. So the morning of school photos,” she turned her head and nodded knowingly, “I woke him up to find that he’d somehow gotten hold of his father’s hair clippers.”
Beside him, he heard Noelle gasp.
Ciela didn’t seem to understand.
His mother was only too happy to fill her in.
“Later, I’ll show you a picture, dear, but suffice to say that McCrae had no idea how to use the clippers. He had chunks of his hair missing all over his head. The only thing we could do to fix it was to cut the rest of it off, leaving just a hint of hair at the front.”
Duval sagged in his chair, hanging his head. “I looked bald in my photos at school.”
He looked over at Noelle and saw her fighting to hold back a laugh.
“I’m sure it was… a look.”
He raised a brow at her and she burst into laughter.
His sister joined her and soon, his mother was laughing so hard she had tears streaming down her face.
Ciela looked at all of them like they’d lost their collective minds and in a way they had.
He normally had an issue with his mom breaking out stories to tell them to others, but this?
This he didn’t mind.
They’d just finished dessert when Duval got a call from West.
He asked if he could stop over and give them an update in the case.
For a moment Duval hesitated.
They’d had a wonderful day with Noelle and her family and he wasn’t eager to talk about the woman whose body had been found on the property, but he knew how much it was worrying his mother.
And really, the likelihood of West just ‘being close’ wasn’t likely.
He was couching his visit as a casual thing, but there was more to it.