Chapter 7 #3
He didn’t know Jacob was watching him, or that Pearl had slipped her hand in the crook of his elbow. His focus was on Holly and Travis’s arm around her shoulders. Like everyone here, his regret for their loss was real and deep.
He had given notifications of death to many families over the past ten years, but that had always been where his connection to the family ended. And once the murder was solved, the case became a number in their system, and they moved on to the next tragedy.
Only nobody killed Helen Dillon, or the boy who hit her drifting car. His lack of attention to driving ended his life, and an unknown heart problem ended hers.
* * *
Garrett’s eyes were blurred with tears. He and Helen got married in this church.
What was happening felt surreal. This was wrong—so wrong.
It was beginning to dawn on him that the time was coming when he would sleep alone in that big house.
Travis would be in college. His mom would go home to Santa Fe, and Holly would go back to Dallas.
The light in his world had gone out. His heart was broken.
* * *
Holly felt sick. If she’d had to speak right now, it would have been nothing but a scream. Travis hadn’t stopped crying since they walked into the church, and she was determined to keep it together for him. Entering the church with all eyes on them was the worst.
She knew Gunner was here. She’d seen him with his family as they were going down the aisle, but she wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at the sympathy on his face without coming undone.
She held it together all the way through the prayer and the first song, but when Garrett’s old friend, Wes Duggan, a cowboy preacher from Amarillo, began reading the eulogy, the sob she kept swallowing finally came up, and the sorrow in it was so palatable it was felt throughout the congregation.
It was an emotional slap Gunner didn’t see coming.
Her sadness was heartbreaking, and the thought of her in so much pain without being able to help triggered every protective instinct in him.
Just like the day she’d been knocked out by that baseball and he thought they’d killed her.
He’d never been that scared for someone else before.
Meeting up with her again now felt like she’d been a gift from the universe, but before they could further the idea of a relationship, life had knocked her out again, and it was going to take time for her to find her way back.
He wanted that for her. But it wasn’t going to be easy, and it might not work out.
Him in Crossroads and her back in Dallas.
Gunner was a pro at maneuvering through hard times and hard choices, but sometimes life just sucked.
* * *
For Holly, the rest of the service was a blur.
After the eulogy, the pastor took the podium and began to speak. She tried to focus, but every time she lifted her head, all she saw was the rose-covered casket and the two cowboys with their heads bowed—honor guards standing with their hats in their hands.
So, she bowed her head instead and let the words roll over her until the last song was sung and the service was ending.
God give me strength. I have to look at their faces now.
Feet were shuffling in the aisle. The congregation would move past the closed casket on the way out of the church, and they would stop to acknowledge her and her family on the way out.
There was the church dinner yet to endure. All she could think about was going home, crawling into bed, and pulling the covers over her head like she’d done as a child when she had bad dreams.
And then out of the blue, her grandmother leaned over, kissed the side of her cheek, and whispered in her ear. “Chin up, my darling girl. This, too, shall pass.”
Holly heard the shuffling of many feet as the ushers began moving the congregation down the aisle one by one. She took a deep breath and whispered in her brother’s ear. “We can do this.”
And they did, maintaining a measure of composure through every touch—every kind word—every offer of regret. Until Gunner. He said nothing, but the touch on her shoulder as he passed was enough to trigger the tears rolling down her face.
Gunner took Jacob and Pearl home so they could get back to business, then caught up with the procession going to the cemetery. He just needed to let Holly know he was there.
The sun was high in the sky when he found a place to park. As he started toward the little tent where the family was seated, he saw movement in the distance. It was a lone coyote watching, likely bothered by the number of humans who’d suddenly appeared on his route to somewhere else.
He glanced down to sidestep a broken tombstone, and when he looked up, the coyote was gone and the pastor was saying a prayer. A passage was read from the Bible, and then it was over. He stayed long enough for Holly to see him, and when she did, she quickly motioned him over.
“You are welcome to come to the dinner,” she said.
He cupped the side of her face. “Thank you, honey, but I wouldn’t want to intrude on family time.”
She leaned into his hand and whispered. “Intrude, please.”
He blinked. “Is something wrong?”
Her eyes welled. “Distant cousin. He has been hitting on me ever since they arrived last night. He has bugged me off and on our whole lives and can’t even see how inappropriate it is to do that when we’re in the midst of all this.”
“Ah… Just point him out and leave the rest to me,” Gunner said.
Holly sighed. “His name is Carl Warwick. A second cousin once removed from my mother’s family. Black Wranglers. Blue shirt. Bolo tie. Belt buckle the size of his ego. Thank you, a thousand times.”
“For you…anything, anytime,” he said. “See you back at the church.”
The tension she’d been feeling was gone. She knew from childhood that when Gunner Kingston made a promise, he kept it, and she suspected he was going to make an impression on Carl Warwick he wasn’t going to forget.