Chapter Ten
T ucker put the last shirt in the dresser drawer. The big box was finally totally empty. He’d had one of the guys on the crew go by his place and pack up some things and ship them. It had been kind of…enlightening, to realize how few things other than clothes he actually wanted.
“You sure that’s all you want, man?” the guy had asked. “What about all your awards and buckles?”
“I’ll worry about all that later.”
“Man, if it was me, I’d want to polish those suckers every day.”
There had been a time when he’d felt like that. When he’d been riding high both figuratively and literally. Now, all that just felt like debris from something that had been destroyed a decade ago. Now the only metal he thought much about was in his rib cage.
A knock at the door interrupted his musings, thankfully before they descended into bitterness.
That didn’t happen often anymore, but when it did, it was as gnawing as it had ever been.
He slid the drawer shut and headed for the living area of the borrowed home.
Which was, he had to admit, nicer than his small apartment.
And blessedly quiet, something he’d forgotten the appeal of in the constant noise of the city.
A second knock came when he was about six feet from the door. Somebody was impatient, and judging by the height the sound seemed to be coming from, he thought he knew who. And sure enough, when he pulled the door open there was Jeremy, with Maverick beside him, and behind him Jackson and Nic.
“Hey, Uncle T! You’re gonna have fun tonight. But so am I. I get to watch my favorite movie, and Nic’s mom’s making me brownies.”
He blinked. He was a bit out of practice in following Jeremy’s train-of-thought explanations. He looked at Jackson, who was grinning at him.
“Night out, bro. Friday night at the Last Stand Saloon, last chance for the locals to gather before the rodeo descends next week.”
Rodeo. Oh, yeah. He’d forgotten that. Or managed to shove it out of his mind.
“Jeremy will spend the evening with my folks,” Nic said, “since they insisted on having him to themselves. So we’re heading over to drop him off, which will give you a chance to dude up a little.
” She flashed that killer smile at him. “Not that you’re not going to be the highlight of the evening no matter what you wear. ”
“Right,” he said dryly.
The day would never come when he’d been the highlight of any evening if Jackson was around. And he preferred it that way. Jackson handled all that much better than he did or ever could. Besides, being the center of attention reminded him too much of things he’d rather not think about.
“Don’t be thinking of how to beg off, now,” Jackson warned. And Tucker had to admit he’d had the thought he wasn’t quite ready for this. And Jackson knew him too well. “I know the box with your stuff arrived, so get moving.”
And so he found himself back in front of that drawer he’d just filled and closed.
He had a couple of western-style dress shirts hanging in the closet, but thought that might be a bit much for his first venture into getting to know Last Stand.
At least, until they found out he really was a native Texan.
So he pulled out the folded shirt on top, a dark blue Henley, and a pair of lesser-worn jeans that were broken in but not too faded.
He’d wear what passed for dress boots for him, which simply meant they weren’t quite as worn as his other pair.
Half an hour later they were pulling into the parking lot behind the saloon in Jackson’s SUV.
He’d bought it used, which would surprise some, but his friend had never been one of the “biggest and best to impress” crowd.
It had what he needed, and a couple of plusses he’d wanted, ran well and looked okay, so he’d snapped it up.
Tucker thought of his own older, smaller SUV locked in the garage adjacent to his apartment in L.A.
, and wondered if it would make the long trip here.
If, of course, he were to stay. As in permanently.
They snagged one of the last spots—this was apparently the happening place on Friday nights—and got out of the car.
“You’ll get to meet Chief Highwater’s brother,” Nic said as they started to walk around the building after she’d insisted he had to come in through the front door this first time. “He owns the place and bartends on Friday nights.”
Tucker gave her a sideways glance. “The chief of police’s brother runs the saloon?”
She grinned. She did a lot of that, he’d noticed. But then, so did Jackson, now. As if the happiness was just too much to contain. He sighed inwardly.
“He does,” Nic answered. “He’s also brilliant.”
“And he has a quote for every occasion,” Jackson added.
He filed this away with all the other information he’d been given on this founding family. All told, it was a bit…intimidating, for someone who hadn’t really had a family since his father had been killed.
They had reached the front door and paused for him to read the plaque beside it. It told the story of the heroic last stand the town was named for, and when he leaned in to look at the pockmarked wall, he found one that, astoundingly, seemed to have the original bullet buried deep.
“Wow. After nearly two centuries?”
“Yes,” Nic said. “We don’t forget.”
“And I have a feeling when that two centuries mark rolls around,” Jackson drawled, “there’s going to be a heck of a party in this place.”
As far as Tucker could tell, there was a heck of a party going on right now.
The place wasn’t packed to where it was uncomfortable, but it was full.
He looked around, saw the photos that he’d check out later, and the framed drawing on the wall behind the bar that looked like a charcoal or pencil sketch of this building, standing alone.
In the aftermath of the famous fight? He’d have to ask.
There was an old-style jukebox against one outer wall, and back in one corner at the far end of the bar was an alcove that held a pool table. No one was playing at the moment, but Nic promised there would be later.
“Wait until Slater’s wife gets here,” she said. “People will be lining up to take her on.”
“And they’ll lose,” Jackson put in. “Just like I did. For a librarian—and a new mom—she’s a heck of a pool shark.”
Tucker gave his friend a startled look. “Wait…she’s married to the saloonkeeper, is a pool shark…and a librarian?”
Jackson grinned once more. “Welcome to Last Stand.”
Welcome to Last Stand, Tucker Culhane.
The words spoken in Emily Stratton’s husky, warm voice spun through his mind, and he wondered if she would be here tonight. Or was she on duty, and would maybe be hanging around in case anybody too drunk to drive tried to?
“And if you get bored later, there’s that,” Jackson said, gesturing toward the wall opposite the pool alcove. “Slater just brought it in a couple of weeks ago.”
Tucker looked and saw an old but apparently well-kept upright piano over near a window.
Automatically his fingers curled as his mind shot back to the days after his rodeo career ended, when after a long haul he’d recovered from the crush injury enough to worry about other things.
Like the fact that his right hand didn’t work quite the way it used to.
It had been the third therapist he’d been sent to who had sat him down on a bench in front of a piano that looked a lot like this one and told him to make up a song using only his right hand.
He’d never even touched a piano key before, and thought this was the craziest idea he’d ever heard.
But the guy had insisted, and Tucker had started to plink, as he called it.
And it had worked. He’d gotten so distracted by trying to make up a tune that didn’t sound totally discordant that it wasn’t long before he was thinking more about that than his hand movements.
And that had been the corner he had to turn, to where now he only rarely remembered that first day he’d reached for something and dropped it because the signal wasn’t getting through.
And he’d gotten pretty decent on those keys.
Nic had apparently taken upon herself the task of introducing him to everybody in the place, so the next hour or so was a bit of a blur. Everybody seemed to know everybody, so he thought they must all be locals. He wondered if he’d remember who even half of them were, after tonight.
Some people stood out, though, besides the bartender.
Some remembered him from his rodeo days, which never ceased to amaze him after all this time.
But in particular he was interested to meet Chance Rafferty, who was there with his wife Ariel, who now helped him run They Also Serve .
He thanked them for matching Maverick up with Jeremy, and told them how much good the dog had done the boy.
“And vice versa,” Ariel said with a smile.
“I met one of your other successes, too,” he said to the tall, rangy ex-military man. “Lobo.”
That got him a wide smile from Chance, who had seemed fairly consistently solemn with anyone other than his wife. He looked at her the same way Jackson looked at Nic.
“Now that’s a good story. I didn’t know if we were ever going to get him to come around. He was deep in a hole as dark as his fur is.”
“He was a sad, sad boy,” Ariel agreed.
“And then one day Emily showed up at the ranch,” Chance said, “and he went berserk trying to get to her.”
Now that I can understand.
Tucker bit the inside of his lip to keep from saying it out loud.
“Turned out to be the second fastest turnaround I’ve ever seen in any of the dogs we’ve had.” Chance was grinning now. “The first being our own Tri, when Ariel arrived.”
The woman smiled at her husband, and Tucker felt an urge to step back, out of the path of the current that crackled between them.
Just like with Jackson and Nic. And a little later he noticed the same thing when the pool shark arrived, and the electricity between the librarian and the saloonkeeper was palpable. Quite a place, this Last Stand.
He was pretty sure it was Jackson who dropped a word to Slater Highwater, because only Jackson had the kind of persuasive power that would make this happen. Well, since Chief Highwater wasn’t here, he mentally amended. But however it had happened, he found himself seated on that piano bench.
It had been a while—a long while—and for a moment he just sat there, looking at the keys.
Remembering those first days when he’d been so distracted by the idea of making up a coherent tune that the fumbling of his fingers had taken second place.
He needed to build new pathways, the therapist had said.
Teach other nerves to take the place of the ones that weren’t working right.
It could be done, the man had insisted in the face of Tucker’s doubts.
And he’d been right. It hadn’t been easy, it hadn’t been quick, but he’d done it.
And the first time he’d played something recognizable as almost a song, he had felt triumphant.
And he’d kept at it until those new pathways were automatic.
It had helped him say goodbye to that part of his life that was over.
He still plunked, as he called it, now and then just to be sure things were still working.
“Come on, bro, haven’t heard you play in a long time,” Jackson said, leaning on the top of the upright portion of the piano.
He wanted to say no way. He didn’t want to do this, not in front of a crowd. But it was Jackson asking. And it was noisy enough in here that maybe nobody more than a couple of feet away would hear it anyway.
“Remember you asked when I start hitting all those wrong notes,” he muttered. But still he reached out, focused enough on the keys to almost ignore the people starting to gather. He glanced at them, then looked up at Jackson. “No point making a fool of myself to an empty room, right?”
“Always my philosophy,” Jackson agreed with that famous grin.
He looked at Slater, who was standing on the other side of the instrument, the classic bartender’s towel slung over his shoulder. Then he glanced at the rest of the gathering. He grimaced. “Y’all might want to have someone standing by the jukebox to drown this out. It’s been a while.”
That got him some chuckles, but nobody moved.
Welcome to Last Stand.
With the same sort of feeling he used to get in the chute before they opened the gate and let the bull out, he reached for the keys.