Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Her grandparents’ farm was the place Tully always went when she was feeling hurt and lost. The quaint country farmhouse that always smelled like fresh sheets snapping in the summer breeze was her refuge in a storm. Her anchor in life’s angry sea.
As she parked in front of the porch and got out of her SUV, she spotted Birdie on Tully’s granddaddy’s old tractor in the field to the south of the house. Since it was June, planting season was over, but seedlings and early blooms needed to be monitored for pests like thrips and plant bugs.
Tully waited until Birdie made the turn at the end of a row before she lifted her hand and waved.
Birdie waved back and headed toward the house, stopping the tractor at the edge of the field and hopping down.
As she made her way to Tully, she pushed back her straw hat and wiped the sweat from her brow with the bandana she’d pulled from the back pocket of her overalls.
“Damn, it’s a hot one. It’s going to be a tough summer.” She stopped in front of Tully, her eyes narrowing. “What brings you out to the farm?”
Tully swallowed hard, but the lump that had been there since last night refused to budge. Thankfully, Birdie didn’t need words. She stuffed the bandana back in her pocket and hooked an arm around Tully’s waist.
“Let’s go get some iced tea.”
While Birdie poured tall glasses of iced tea, she chatted about the weather, crops, and her broken air conditioner. It wasn’t until they were sitting on the porch in the white wicker rockers that the conversation turned serious.
“I’m guessing your visit has something to do with Honky Tonk Heaven burning down again.”
Tully opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a sob.
Thankfully, Birdie wasn’t one to freak out over tears. As always when Tully was upset, she just sat there rocking back and forth, waiting for her to cry it out. Once Tully was down to soft hiccups, she handed her one of the napkins she’d placed on their tea tray and spoke.
“I know you had some grand fantasies about the dancehall, Tallulah Grace, but it’s just a building.”
Tully dried her cheeks, then blew her nose, before picking up her glass of iced tea and taking several deep gulps. When she’d delayed long enough, she finally turned to her grandmother and spoke. “I gave the Hennessys money from a second mortgage to continue renovations.”
Birdie didn’t show any signs of disbelief or anger.
She just sighed and continued to rock. “Hmm, well, I guess losing your house would make anyone want to cry.” She cocked an eyebrow.
“Or is there another reason for those tears? Like maybe Jaxon Hennessy?” When Tully didn’t say anything, she nodded.
“After seeing the way you looked at him in town the day he gave me the goose egg, I figured that was bound to happen.” She leaned back in her chair and took a sip of her iced tea as she looked out at the field of green cotton plants.
“You ready to talk about it or you want to let it simmer inside for a while longer?”
Since letting it simmer inside hurt like hell, Tully didn’t hesitate to answer. “I’d like to talk about it.”
“Then shoot.”
Tully proceeded to tell her grandmother everything.
Or not everything. There was no way she was going to talk about sex with her granny.
But she told her everything else: how she’d offered Jaxon the money and how they’d started texting every day so she could be involved with the renovations.
How much she’d learned about renovating a bar and how much she’d enjoyed being part of every single decision.
“Sounds like you’ve been a busy girl.” Birdie eyeballed her. “And a happy one. I don’t ever remember you talking about your deputying job like you’ve been talking about Honky Tonk Heaven.”
She swallowed hard. “I’m thinking about quitting my job with the sheriff’s office.”
Again, Birdie didn’t look surprised. “Your daddy know?”
“Not yet. He doesn’t know about Jaxon either.” She hesitated. “I think I might love him, Granny.”
“And does he love you?”
Tears threatened again. “I don’t know.”
Birdie sighed. “Well, that is quite the mess, isn’t it? Of course, life is messy. Always has been and always will be.” She set down her empty glass and stood. “Now I need to get back to work.”
Tully stared at her. “That’s all you’ve got for me?”
“What did you expect? You expect me to wave a magic wand and fix everything? Make Jaxon love you. Make your daddy be happy with you quitting your job. Make the fire never happen and you get your beloved Honky Tonk Heaven.” She grunted.
“That’s not how life works, Tully, and you know it.
There’s no magic potion for getting through life without trials and tribulations and hard decisions.
It’s how you face those trials and hard decisions that count.
How are you going to face yours? Are you going to hide out at your grandma’s and cry in your sweet tea?
Or are you going to face them head on and hurdle all obstacles to get what you want out of life? ”
“And what if I can’t get what I want?”
Birdie shrugged. “Then you accept it and move on to the next dream. There’s a whole big world out there, filled with enough dreams for everyone to have plenty more if their first dreams don’t work out quite like they thought they would.
” She headed down the porch steps. “Tell your daddy when you see him that he needs to come look at my air conditioner. I about fried my butt off last night.”
Tully sat there and watched her grandmother head back to the tractor.
Birdie had once told her that she’d never dreamed about owning a cotton farm.
That had been Granddaddy’s dream. After a turbulent childhood, Granny’s dream had been to find peace.
She had just been lucky that her dream and Granddaddy’s had coincided.
Tully couldn’t see her and Jaxon’s dreams ever coinciding.
He didn’t love Honky Tonk Heaven like she did.
She wasn’t even sure he loved her. If he did, he would have trusted her enough to tell her about Dawson driving his truck that night.
Although how could she blame him for that when she had been keeping her own secrets?
When she’d been hiding their relationship from everyone?
She had only meant to keep their relationship a secret so as not to have to deal with the fallout when he left.
But now she knew how that had made Jaxon feel.
Like a dirty little secret.
Why would he want to tell someone who wasn’t strong enough to admit to the townsfolk who she loved that he loved her?
The epiphany made her want to sob all over again.
But Birdie was right. She couldn’t solve anything by sitting there crying in her tea.
It was time to stiffen her shoulders and fight for what she wanted.
When Tully stepped into her daddy’s office, she felt like she’d felt the time she’d gotten caught stealing the Nutty Buddy.
Her stomach was nothing but a knot of nerves and her heart ached at just the thought of the disappointment she was about to see in her daddy’s eyes.
It was a good thing she hadn’t been able to eat that morning or it would have come right back up when he looked up from the report he was reading.
“I thought you went out to the farm to eat lunch with your grandmother.”
“I did, but I didn’t stay for lunch.” She paused. “There’s something I need to talk to you about, Daddy. In fact, there are a lot of things I need to talk to you about.”
His brow crinkled before he took off his reading glasses and nodded at the chair in front of his desk. “Okay. I’m listening.”
She took a seat and pulled off her hat, fidgeting with the brim. “The thing is . . . I don’t want to be a law officer.” She thought she’d see shock, or disappoint, or hurt in his eyes.
Instead, she only saw relief.
“Thank God.” He tipped his head back and closed his eyes while she stared at him.
“You’re happy I want to quit?”
He opened his eyes and sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Tully, but . . . yes.”
“But I thought you wanted me to follow in your footsteps.”
“I thought I did too until you became my deputy. Then I realized how nerve wrecking it is to have to send your daughter into possibly dangerous situations. I don’t sleep a wink when you’re on night patrol.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I thought it was what you wanted. And I’ve always wanted you to be happy. So if you don’t want to work in law enforcement, what do you want to do?”
“Well, that depends on how much damage was done in the fire.”
His brow knitted. “The fire at Honky Tonk Heaven? I don’t understand. What does that have to do with your career choice?”
She swallowed hard. “I took out a second mortgage on my house and gave the money to the Hennessys to renovate the dancehall in the hopes they’d give me a share of Honky Tonk Heaven. Or sell it to me.”
This time his reaction wasn’t as calm. He came out of his chair and bellowed over his desk. “You did what!”
“Calm down, Daddy. I realize you’re upset, but as you taught me, yelling doesn’t solve anything.”
He stared at her in disbelief and she knew he wanted to holler at her again. Instead, he sat back down and closed his eyes. After a few deep breaths, he opened them and spoke in a low, even voice that was even scarier.
“For the love of God, Tully, why would you want to own a wild dancehall?”
“You didn’t know this, but I used to listen at the vent when you got home from work.
Most of the stories you told Mama were about Honky Tonk Heaven .
. . and the Hennessys. And I guess they fueled my imagination.
I started talking to everyone in town about the dancehall.
People showed me old photographs and retold me stories their grandparents had told them.
I know you think it’s silly, just like you thought Mama’s obsession with depression glass was silly.
But everyone needs something that sparks their interest.”
Daddy stared at her for a long moment before he sat down and sighed.
“Your mama’s obsession with depression glass wasn’t silly.
I should have never acted like it was. Just because I didn’t understand her wanting to hunt it down at every thrift store and garage sale in the county, that didn’t make it wrong.
I guess the same goes with your obsession with Honky Tonk Heaven.
Although I wished you’d talked to me before you gave money to those no-good Hennessys. ”
It was the perfect segue into the next subject she needed to discuss.
“Daddy, I love you, but you’re wrong about the Hennessys. In the last month, I’ve gotten to know them. And while they’re loud and outspoken and rambunctious, they’re also hardworking, good people. Good people who are trying their best to live down the reputation they got when they were just kids.”
“A reputation that was well deserved. Believe me, I know. I was the one called out constantly for something those kids did.”
“Kids, Daddy. Because that’s what they were. Just kids who didn’t have any parental supervision. Yes, they were troublemakers, but they aren’t those kids anymore.”
“Jaxon wasn’t a kid when he robbed the gas station and started that tire fire.”
She didn’t want to have this conversation, but she knew there was no way around it. “I know you think you saw Jax at Mickey’s that night. But believe me, it wasn’t him.”
“And just how do you know that? And since when are you on a nickname basis with Jaxon?”
She took a deep breath before she spoke the truth. “Since we’ve been seeing each other.”
Her daddy’s eyes widened and his mouth opened as if he wanted to yell.
But then he snapped it shut and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
“I’m assuming it’s too late to tell you what a bad idea .
. . dating a Hennessy is.” She nodded and he sighed again.
“Okay, so if it wasn’t Jaxon I saw driving his truck, who was it? Dawson? Huck?”
As his daughter and a law officer, she should tell her daddy it was Dawson he saw leaving Mickey’s that night.
But if she did, she was afraid her daddy would hold that against Dawson like he’d done with Jaxon.
And that wasn’t right. Especially when she didn’t think Dawson was guilty.
He was too heartbroken when he thought Jaxon didn’t believe in his innocence.
“It doesn’t matter, Daddy, since the statute of limitations has already run out for prosecution. What matters is that it wasn’t Jaxon. Believe me, Daddy. He’s innocent.”
He studied her for a minute before he nodded.
“To be honest, I never felt right about that arrest. I let past experiences with the Hennessys color my better judgment. I realized it as soon as I sat down to fill out the report and didn’t have a speck of evidence, besides seeing Jaxon’s truck leaving Mickey’s.
And it was Jaxon’s truck. But you’re right.
I didn’t see clearly who was driving. I just assumed it was Jaxon.
Especially when he didn’t put up much of a fight when I arrested him. ”
Her heart ached at just the thought of Jaxon accepting the blame so easily for his siblings and being handcuffed. Some emotion on her face must have clued her father in on her thoughts.
“He didn’t protest too much because he was taking the blame for one of his siblings, wasn’t he?” When she didn’t answer, he cursed under his breath and rubbed his eyes. “I should have known. Jaxon always took the blame.” He lowered his hand and looked at her. “I screwed up, Tully. I’m sorry.”
“You always taught me that everyone makes mistakes, Daddy. It’s how you deal with those mistakes that count.” She paused. “Have you dealt with the mistakes you made with Mama?”
At one time, she’d thought her parents’ separation was all her mama’s fault. Now she knew how complicated relationships were and that breakups were never just one person’s fault.
His eyes turned sad. “No. But I think it’s too late. She wants a divorce.” He quickly changed the subject. “What’s going on between you and Jaxon?”
The words came easily. “I love him.”
His smile faded. “You know he probably won’t stick around now that they won’t make the deadline, right?”
“Yes. But I also knew you were going to be disappointed when I told you I was quitting.” She shrugged. “So maybe Birdie is right. Maybe the only way you can achieve your dreams is to have the courage to go after them.”