Chance McCall (36 page)

He sat on the edge of the bed and thought about his sister and her family. There was still something he had to do. He picked up the phone book, searched the pages until he found the number, and then dialed.

“Hello?” Logan Henry’s voice was low and subdued. Chance heard the defeat and, for only an instant, a bit of sympathy surfaced. But it didn’t last long.

“This is Chance,” he said. “I want to meet with you tomorrow. There are things we need to say to each other, and I don’t think either one of us wants an audience.”

Panic surged through Logan, along with elation. Either his son was going to beat hell out of him, or…maybe there was a possibility of something else.

Logan was too quiet. Chance suspected it was fear. “I don’t want to fight,” he said. “Just talk.”

“Will you come here?”

Chance inhaled sharply. Once he would have given a year of his life to have his father ask him that. Now…it was too late…simply too late for it to matter.

“Give me directions.” He wrote quickly and then hung up without a good-bye.

Logan replaced the receiver, sat for a long moment in thought, and then buried his face in his hands and wept.

Chance knocked at the door to hell and the devil answered.

“Come in,” Logan said, and stepped aside. The look on Chance’s face mirrored the knot in his belly—hard.

Chance followed him into the den. A large wet bar ran the length of one wall. From the looks of the bottle sitting on the counter, Logan had been fortifying himself for this meeting.

He walked over to the bar, refilled his drink, and then offered one to Chance.

Chance shook his head.

Logan shrugged and tossed the fiery liquid down the back of his throat, relishing the quick kick of numbness that followed.

Chance frowned. He’d watched his mother drink herself to death. He drank an occasional beer, but he’d never been tempted to acquire a taste for the strong stuff.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” Logan asked.

Chance heard something in the tone of Logan’s voice besides sarcasm. If he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn it was regret. He yanked his hat off his head, tossed it on a nearby chair, and stared at the man who called himself his father.

Logan stared back. It was unnerving to look at a familiar face and know that the person behind it was a stranger.

“There’s something I want to say to you,” Chance said.

Logan held his breath. His fingers tightened around the glass until they turned white at the tips. He had no idea what was coming. But when Chance finally spoke, a band of pain that had been around his heart for the last twelve years finally broke and disappeared.

“Victoria and I…we never…” Chance hesitated and then continued. “We were never intimate.”

Logan took a step back, reached blindly for the chair he knew was there behind him, and sank down onto it. He wiped his hand across his face.

“Thank God!” he said. “And…thank you for telling me.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Chance said. “I did it for Victoria. She deserves a clean slate. I don’t give a damn what you think about me.”

“Okay, I accept that,” Logan said. “But I listened to you. Now you owe me the same privilege.”

Chance frowned. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t owe this man a thing, but still he sat there waiting.

“I did your mother a terrible injustice,” Logan said. “I treated her badly…and I know it. It’s something I’ll regret for the rest of my life.”

Chance’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t want to hear this, but Logan kept talking.

“What I did to her…and to you…is unforgivable.” He held up his hand as Chance started to turn away. “Wait! Hear me out. No matter how wrong I was to become involved with Letty, I’m not going to say I wish it hadn’t happened. There’s one thing that Letty and I did that turned out right. We made you, boy, and I’ll be forever grateful to her that she didn’t have the abortion I wanted her to have.”

Chance started to shake. All this was coming too late to matter.

“But there is one thing I wish hadn’t happened.” Logan stood up and walked as close to Chance as he dared. The look on his son’s face kept him from touching him.

“I’m waiting.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, boy. That night…at the dance…and the fight…I just lost my temper.”

Chance was quiet. Logan watched the emotion he was trying to deny coming and going in those dark, secretive eyes.

“Bad habit,” Chance finally said.

Logan grinned. “That’s what Letty always said.”

An old pain dug into his belly and spun Chance around. “I’ll be leaving now,” he said.

Logan reached out, unable to stop himself. “If you wanted to, we could…”

“Don’t say it!” Chance said. The bitterness he’d been trying to hide shot up with the threat. “Don’t you dare be nice to me now, you bastard. I thought I needed acceptance from you, but that was before I knew who you were. I don’t need you now…or anything from you.”

He grabbed his hat, walked out of the room, out the door, and never looked back.

Logan sighed as he went back to the bar. The house echoed as the front door slammed shut. It was a lonely sound. He stared at himself in the plate-glass mirror over the bar.

“Yes you do, boy,” he said softly. “You need it…and you need me. You just don’t want it. But I do, Chance. By God, I do.”

The sun had risen on a new day in Texas as Chance approached the retirement home. There were a couple of things he still needed to do before he could call this chapter of his life closed. One involved another visit to Charlie. And this time it would be special.

The first time he’d found him, he’d been a stranger and Chance had been looking for answers. Now, he remembered everything, and regret for what had happened to the old man was uppermost in his mind.

He stopped short at the door to Charlie’s room. A short, middle-aged woman with curly brown hair was standing beside Charlie’s bedside. Her slightly plump figure was encased in blue stretch pants and a loose fitting red and white top decorated with gold stars. She looked up at him and smiled. Chance had the strangest inclination to salute.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I didn’t know Charlie had company. I’ll come back…”

“Come in,” the woman said, and went to meet him. “I’m his daughter, Laura. I didn’t know anyone ever came to see Dad. It makes me feel good knowing someone still cares. We live so far away…”

“You probably don’t remember me,” Chance said as he shook her hand. “My name is Chance McCall. I used to work for—”

“Yes, I do!” she said, and the smile on her face grew. “Dad talked about you for years.”

Chance felt instantly at ease. She didn’t look much like Charlie, but when she smiled, he got goosebumps. She was Charlie’s daughter all right.

“Do you come often?” she asked.

Chance shook his head. “I live up in Tyler. In fact, this is the first time I’ve been back to Odessa since high school.”

Laura nodded and walked back to her father’s bedside.

Charlie seemed asleep but, then again, maybe he wasn’t. His hands moved through the air and his mouth moved silently as he talked to whoever was presently occupying his mind. His eyelids fluttered as if he was trying to find his way back to reality.

“He’s not doing so good this week,” she said, patting her father’s arm. “I just wish we lived closer. I feel so helpless.”

“Why didn’t you move Charlie close to you?” he asked, and then thought that the question might have been out of line. Thankfully, she did not seem to mind.

“My husband is in the service. We move around so much we don’t have a place to call home. If I moved Dad every time we moved, he’d be lost and disconcerted…You understand, I’m sure. Right now we’re in Virginia. But not for long. I don’t know where I’ll go when David…that’s my husband…leaves again. He’s going to the Persian Gulf. He’ll be there at least a year, maybe more, and I’m not allowed. Not after the last mess.”

“What are you going to do?” Chance asked.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “We looked into buying here, but with the economy and our budget, it’s not in the cards right now. We can either afford the lot, or the house.” She laughed.

A lot was explained in that one answer. Charlie’s daughter did love him, and she was doing more than most by making long trips back to visit him. What she said finally registered.

“You mean…if you had the land, you could manage to build a house on it?” he asked.

She nodded. “We think so. But…I’ve quit worrying about it. We’ve looked and it’s no go. I suppose I’ll rent…but it’s so expensive and such a waste of money at our age.”

Chance took a deep breath. This was going to come out all wrong, he just knew it. But he had to try.

“Laura…I don’t want you to misunderstand, but if you’re not real picky about neighborhoods…I have some land in town. I’ll sell it cheap.”

Laura smiled and patted his hand. “Thanks, Chance. But we couldn’t manage a large mortgage right now.”

“It’s yours for a dollar, if you want it. And the neighborhood isn’t dangerous, it’s just not on the best side of town.”

She stared. “A dollar! But, why? Why would you offer a total stranger such a thing?”

Chance looked down at the old man.

“I owe him,” he said. “More than you’ll ever know. Money could never repay what he’s done for me. But now, the way he is…it’s all I can do. If I do it for you…I do it for him…don’t you see?”

Laura began to cry. The tears ran silently down her face. “Now I know why Dad thought so much of you,” she whispered, digging in her purse for a tissue. “He always said you were special. He was right.”

Right now, Chance didn’t want to think about how special Charlie was to him, or he’d start to cry too.

“If you’ll call this man,” he quickly wrote down Ken Oslow’s name and phone number, “he’ll handle everything for you. I won’t be in town much longer, but I’ll try to come back as often as possible and visit.”

“When you come,” Laura said, “stay with me.”

It was an offer he didn’t refuse.

Ken was surprised to hear Chance’s voice, and then what Chance asked of him made him grin with delight.

“I’ll be more than happy to do that,” he said, as Victoria walked into the room. “Boy, oh boy, it’s a wonderful gesture, Chance. And you know what’s even better? It’s going to piss Logan off big time.” He laughed. “Yes, that’s right. He doesn’t give anything away…ever.”

Victoria smiled as she listened to her husband and brother’s conversation. They were hitting it off, just as she’d predicted. But she wondered what they’d concocted that was supposed to aggravate her father. She found out as soon as Ken hung up the phone.

“Chance just gave away his land in Odessa to Charlie Rollins’s daughter. He’s selling it to her…for a dollar. That way she can be close to her father while her husband is overseas.” He slapped his leg and laughed some more.

Victoria grinned. “You’re right, I suppose,” she said. “If Daddy knows that something he’s paid taxes on for twelve years has just been sold for a dollar, he’ll have a fit.”

“It’ll be good for him,” Ken said. “And from the sound of Chance’s voice, it was good for him, too. He really liked Old Man Rollins, didn’t he?”

“He was the only father Chance ever had.”

Ken nodded. The laughter disappeared from his voice as he hugged her. “Well, whether he likes it or not, now he has two. Logan seems hell bent on proving that he’s not an asshole. Personally, I think it’s a lost cause.”

“Kenny!” Victoria said, and punched her husband playfully on his arm. “He’s not that bad.” And then she looked at the expression on Ken’s face and sighed. “Well, maybe he is…but he tries.”

They stared at each other and then broke into laughter.

There was one more thing left for Chance to do. And this time, it wouldn’t be so easy to cure the pain that lingered inside. He couldn’t get rid of it for a dollar. And it wasn’t going to go away by getting mad. He had a score to settle and, strangely enough, it was with himself.

He cast a long shadow across the tombstones as he walked slowly along the pathways, his dark eyes somber as he searched the markers for the one bearing his mother’s name. The sun was hot on his back. The wind was one long steady gust. He shoved his hat down tight on his head and narrowed his eyes against the searing heat.

He almost missed it. The small, flat stone was barely noticeable against the higher grass framing it. But there it was.
Leticia McCall. Rest in the peace you never knew
.

Chance’s heart skipped a beat as the tears shot instantly to his eyes. He knelt.

“Well, Mom,” Chance said softly, brushing away the dust on the marble, “I’m back. You always knew I would be, didn’t you? But I came back for a reason. This time, I need something you can’t give. I need your forgiveness.”

His voice broke. He wiped tears with the heel of his hand and swallowed before he could speak again.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was so busy feeling sorry for myself, I didn’t think of you.” His voice softened, his touch lingering across the gray stone as he traced her name with his forefinger. “I love you, Momma, and I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m so, so sorry.”

For long moments he knelt, absorbing the memories that flooded his mind as he remembered earlier days when he’d been younger, when she hadn’t been so lost.

Then he stood and turned, brushed the dust off the knees of his jeans, and shifted his hat on his head. The lowering sun caught him full in the face, highlighting the strong planes and features that had been imprinted by his parents’ fleeting love. He started to walk away, then stopped and looked back. For one long moment he stared down at the tombstone. He could almost hear her calling, “Chancey…is that you?”

“Yes, Momma. It’s me.” He touched the brim of his hat, in a strange gesture of courtesy to someone long gone, and said, “I’ll be seeing you.”

20

“
Juana, did you
get all the stuff to make enchiladas yesterday?” Jenny asked.

She nodded, and continued to shuck the fresh sweet corn piled high in the sink.

“Are we going to have corn tonight, too, or is that just for—”