Chapter Eighteen
E mily suppressed a shiver, an odd occurrence in July in Texas. But she couldn’t help it. She looked down at the table again, where The Defender was spread out next to the abandoned pasta salad she no longer had the appetite for.
She felt a nudge at her knee, and looked down to find Lobo staring up at her as if he was worried. As if he’d sensed her upset and come to offer comfort. She shook her head in amazement.
“You really are something, dog,” she said lovingly, stroking the dog’s head. “Chance told me—or maybe warned me—you could read people, but he didn’t mention that included mind reading.”
The dog made a low, almost humming sound in his throat as she scratched behind his ears in that spot she knew he loved.
“Thanks, buddy,” she said. “I’ll be okay.” I think.
She hadn’t intended to read it tonight. She’d tossed the paper on the table when she’d gotten home, focused mainly on a cool shower and something non-hot to eat.
The downside to the foot patrols was the heat.
She’d lived here all her life so she was no stranger to the summer heat of Texas, but walking in it for a couple of hours at a time, in a black uniform was something else again.
She’d emerged from the shower barefoot, wearing shorts and the lightest weight T-shirt she had, a little damp from her hair.
She hadn’t really planned on washing it, but she just felt as if she needed to after the day in the sun.
Besides, if she left it damp it might help cool her down.
She’d felt relatively good, the chilled salad with lovely shrimp was going to taste great, and she’d sleep well after a day spent mostly walking.
And then she’d looked at that article.
She’d only meant to scan it, but as usual Lily Highwater roped her in like a calf in the arena. The woman had a knack for hooking your interest in the first paragraph and never letting go.
Some people question the sanity of anyone who would climb atop a 1900-pound twister and ride it for eight seconds.
Eight seconds is a lot longer than most people realize.
But after an afternoon talking with Tucker Culhane, I wasn’t questioning that.
I was questioning how he had survived long enough to take that first ride.
That had nailed her, if only because she knew Tucker had been only eighteen when he’d competed in—and won—the state championship the first time. So she had read on. And learned that in fact she had known very little.
She hadn’t known that when he’d won that first title he was, for all intents and purposes, an orphan.
True, his mother had been still alive, but she’d been an addict who had spent more time in jail than in Tucker’s life.
That he’d spent most of his middle and high school years trying to keep her sober, at the cost of any life of his own.
And that he had finally walked away, because she was dragging him down with her, into her ruined life.
He’d refused her calls, deleted her emails, and especially ignored her pleas for money because he knew where it would go.
It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, and made those eight seconds on the back of a rampaging animal seem like a cakewalk.
Lily had written the tale with her usual sense of emotion and truth, but Emily had the feeling this story had gotten to her more than most. And just in case that part of the grim story of his childhood hadn’t been enough, there were the two final facts that put the seal on it.
A few years ago, right after he’d won his third national, his mother had tried once more to call him.
He hadn’t ever blocked her number—Lily wrote that he had admitted it was because he needed to know she was still alive—but he ignored the call as usual.
Especially now, not wanting her to bring him down off the high of that win.
A few hours later she’d been found dead, overdosed on her drug of choice.
Incredibly, he blamed himself. If he’d only taken the call, if he’d at least gone to see her, to see how she was doing, maybe she’d still be alive.
And lastly, although of most importance to Emily, was the thing that hit her in the gut.
His father had been a cop in Amarillo, and been killed in the line of duty when Tucker was thirteen.
That was what had sent his mother off the rails, and the real reason, Lily suggested, he felt responsible.
Because Tucker Culhane had thought he had to step up for his father and take care of his mother.
He’d tried, had fought her over the drugs, had lived in poverty because she couldn’t hold a job and blew the survivor’s pension and insurance from his father on her drugs.
And yet in his view, he’d been the one who had failed.
Never mind that she never took care of you, speaking of responsibilities.
Emily resisted the urge to read it all again.
As if she could have forgotten a single word of the grim story.
That he had accomplished all he had seemed nothing less than a miracle to her.
And it was no wonder that he related so well to Jeremy.
Was it harder to lose a parent very young, or after you’d had them for thirteen years? Or just harder in different ways?
She sat there for a long time, feeling as if petting Lobo was the only thing stopping her from bursting into the kind of tears she hadn’t let loose since her grandfather had died three years ago.
She had been so lucky. So damned lucky, and she’d taken it for granted for far too long.
She’d had her loving parents and still did, plus the extended family that had been the basis for her happy, mostly uncomplicated life.
She’d had family picnics, birthdays, holiday gatherings, not to mention supporters of her every endeavor in life, from school sports to her decision to go to the police academy—although to be honest her parents weren’t overjoyed about that one.
But they’d been there for her, all her life.
Tucker had essentially had no one, after his father had been killed.
She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for him.
She tried to picture him at thirteen, grieving the parent who was dead, and trying to save the one who had checked out on him at the worst possible time.
And in that moment she felt a blast of anger at a woman she’d never even known.
Yet a few minutes later she felt a little twinge about her own reaction. Because somewhere, in that part of her mind that always tried to look at both sides—a plus in her work, sometimes a pain in her personal life—a different thought arose.
Maybe you just don’t understand. Maybe she couldn’t go on without him and you don’t get it because you’ve never really, truly loved someone like that.
And that, she thought much later while lying awake in bed, was the genius of Lily Highwater. She writes a profile of someone else, and you end up analyzing yourself. Quite a knack. No wonder she’s able to go toe to toe with the chief. The man she loved.
As she lay there in the darkness, she sadly had to admit she had never loved anyone like that.
She’d seen it in her parents, and knew they loved her more than anything, but she’d never felt it herself.
Thirty-one years old, and she still didn’t have that basic human need figured out, even growing up with the proof of it all around her.
Maybe that’s why Tucker had grabbed her the way he had. Because what she didn’t understand, he’d never had.
*
He really wished now he hadn’t agreed to this.
The public appearance tomorrow, plus the interview.
He hadn’t really thought about the one following the other.
If he’d just agreed to the rodeo gig, it would have been over in a minute, with maybe a little push afterward, if anyone really remembered him.
If he’d only agreed to the interview, he could have hidden out here on the ranch until any fuss died down.
But no, Culhane, you had to stomp right into the bear trap, having to appear in public while that damned interview is fresh in the minds of anyone who’s read it.
Which, according to Nic, would be everybody in town. The Defender was a foundational brick in the structure of Last Stand she’d said just now, looking a little too happy about his imminent humiliation.
But then, in a quiet tone that told him she wasn’t laughing at him, but at his doubts, she said, “Tucker, you’ve got a genius at handling this stuff right there.”
She waved toward the corral, where Jackson was working the big paint on a lunge line, trying to tire him out a bit before doing anything else with him.
“Just ask,” she added before walking toward the fence.
Which left him feeling a bit silly for not having thought of that, because it was true.
When it became official that he was leaving Stonewall , he’d been the target of the entire Hollywood media complex.
Compared to that, Last Stand would be a piece of cake.
Besides, Jackson already had them on his side, completely, so maybe a little of that could bleed over onto him.
Maybe.
He waited until Nic had mounted the trim little bay she was currently working with and reined him around to head back toward the main ranch barn and corral for a training session.
She was, he’d gathered early on, one of the premier horse trainers in the state, and the top here in Last Stand and the surrounding area.
She’d already had more people wanting her services than she could take on, and now that she was linked to Jackson, the demand had only increased. Amazing what a famous name would do.
He waited until that famous name had reeled in the peevish pinto to walk over to the corral.
“He calm down any?” he asked, leaning his arms on the top rail.
“Some,” Jackson said. “But I think I’m more tired than he is.”
“Maybe he didn’t sleep last night either.”
Jackson gave him a glance, then turned back to the horse.
He unleashed him, and set him loose in the corral.
Splatter snorted, gave a half-buck, then trotted off to enjoy his freedom.
Jackson looped the long lead over a fence post, grabbed the top rail and came over the fence in that single smooth motion that had become a trademark on Stonewall .
Then he crossed his arms and leaned against the post, looking straight at Tucker. “So, did Mrs. Highwater trick you into talking too much? Ask sneaky questions? Tell you a lie to get you to open up?”
He blinked, drawing back slightly. “No. She didn’t do any of that. She was more than nice. She even gave me the chance to change my mind on…the stuff about my mother.”
“Just like she was with me.” Jackson’s mouth twisted slightly. “She’d never make it in L.A.”
“I don’t think she’d want to.”
“Agreed.” He hesitated, then said, “Look, bro, I get it. Believe me, I get it. But it’s done, it’s out, and you don’t have to carry it around locked up inside anymore.”
“I just…I’m not used to pouring my guts out like that.”
“I know. You’re not used to being the focus of interest, either. But you’re back where people remember you now.”
Tucker studied his friend for a moment. “I know I used to ask how you put up with it, but kidding around. Now…how do you put up with it?”
Jackson shrugged. “It’s part of the job, for me. Not so much for you, before, but now—” he gestured behind them to where a van with several children was pulling in the drive “—you’ll be more important to them than I am, because you’ve lived it.”
Tucker stood there, watching as Jackson headed over to greet the arrivals.
He’d never thought of it that way, and likely never would have on his own.
But the idea that what he’d been through might somehow be of help to the lost, devastated kids who came here made his misgivings about what he’d done fade a little.
It’s not all about you, Culhane.
He wasn’t Jackson, recognizable on sight by half the world it seemed, but maybe, just maybe he really could help.
And when he followed the big star over to the van, he saw a small hand pointing toward him. When he got close enough he heard one of the kids asking the driver, “Is that him, the guy you read to us about? The guy whose dad got killed, like mine did?”
Yeah, maybe he really could.