Coming Home to Texas (16 page)

“Oh, man,” Mick moaned, his hand wiping the back of his neck.

“There's a third set of prints on the gun. And the ones on the trigger aren't Mick's.”

“Oh, man. Oh, man,” Mick kept saying, rocking a little.

Nash felt eleven things at once. Regret at his certainty that Mick had betrayed him, uncertainty as to what it meant that Mick hadn't done the shooting, worry over who had and several other emotions. He kept his mouth shut, unsure what to say.

“Which means, son—” Don kept his voice very low as he walked over and stood in front of Mick “—that while you may not have shot that animal, you know who did. Accessory to a crime is still a crime. Don't you think for one moment that you are not still in a heap of trouble. The best thing you can do now is tell us the truth.”

“Who did it, Mick?” Nash practically ground the words out through clenched teeth. This surely meant that more than one of his students had betrayed his trust—just when he thought the burn couldn't go any deeper. “I know you know, and believe me, I am losing patience here.”

Mick bit his lip and clutched the chair arms.

“Who shot the bison, Mick?” Nash asked more loudly.

“Don't be stupid, son,” Don said over Mick's shoulder. “Tell us what you know.”

“Who shot the bison?” Nash yelled louder than he ought to have.

“Marny!” Mick blurted out, his face going nearly red with the stress of the admission. “It was Marny, okay? She did it.”

Mick curled in on himself as Nash felt a wave of shock shoot through his limbs. Marny? How? Why?

“Marny Fuller shot that animal?” Don asked. “With your father's rifle?”

“Marny?” Nash repeated, still stunned. Of all the admissions he'd expected, this was not one of them.

“Yeah, Marny. Now you know why I didn't want to say, okay?”

“Son, this is a long way from okay. You've got some explaining to do.”

Mick's face went from flushed to pale, looking as though he might be sick. Nash, still struggling to put the pieces together, grabbed another chair and pulled it up next to the boy. “Tell me what happened.” Half of him was relieved that his faith in the boy hadn't been misplaced entirely, while the other half was shocked at Marny's nearly equal betrayal.

“Our dads hate Miss Ellie's family.”

Nash couldn't quite see how that fit in, but he urged Mick to continue. “Go on.”

“Mostly Marny's dad, but he and my dad talk a lot since they're both out of work. They spend a lot of time down at Lonesome's, you know?”

Lonesome's was the bar just down the block from Shorty's Pizza. Nash or Don got at least one call a week to break up a fight or some such nonsense at the roadhouse. Not exactly an uplifting place to spend a lot of time.

“What do your dads have against the Bucktons?” Nash couldn't see how any grievance warranted what was going on.

“Marny's dad worked a day or two at the Blue Thorn a while back, and he thought it'd be permanent, I guess. Only it wasn't. Marny's dad drinks a lot.” In a heartbreaking show of misplaced loyalty, Mick looked up at Don. “I mean, he's never hit her or anything like that, but Dad says he's a mean drunk, and I've seen it. He yells, mostly. Sometimes at her, but mostly at anybody he thinks ought to have hired him.”

Nash still wasn't seeing a strong enough connection. If Marny's dad had only worked a day or two on the ranch, that might explain why he hadn't shown up on the employees list. “So Jerry Fuller thinks he should be working at the Blue Thorn?”

“No, nothing like that. He holds a grudge, and I don't think he'd work there now even if they asked him. But he—well, he and my dad, actually—were both ready to get jobs building those fancy houses that were gonna go up last year. Those were supposed to be good-paying jobs, Dad said. Marny's dad said things were gonna be looking up for him and her. She wouldn't have to go to Waco to live with her mama or anything like that.”

Don came around and sat on Nash's desk. “You mean Ramble Acres? The DelTex condo development that got nixed last spring?”

“That's the one. My dad said even I could probably get a better job working on that site than working at Shorty's all summer. I could probably even buy a new car.”

Now it was starting to make sense. Nash had been told that the Buckton family had been the target of some nasty dealing by DelTex in order to gain the water access needed to build Ramble Acres. To keep from having the land rights forced away from them, the Bucktons had exposed the company's underhanded practices. As a result, the Ramble Acres project had died and taken a lot of potential jobs with it. It wasn't hard to see how these two kids had decided the Bucktons had hurt them. “So your dads think the Bucktons took their jobs away. And your lives are worse on account of it.”

Mick picked at a rip in his jeans. “If Marny's dad sends her to Waco, I don't know what I'll do. I'll never see her again.” He looked up at Nash. “Marny's dad ain't no picnic, but her mama's worse, if you ask me. Marny'd say the same.”

“So you decided to get back at the Bucktons for what they'd done to you.” It still made no sense given how much time Marny had spent with Ellie, but who could say how a teenage brain put facts together?
Oh, Ellie.
She was going to be stung by this. Badly. At a time when she was already hurting. She'd poured as much time and attention into Marny as Nash had into Mick. Now Marny's outburst at the church program made a sick sort of sense.
What a mess of pain this is, Lord. How on earth do we find our way out of it?

Nash's gut sank lower when he remembered something. “The first shooting took place even before we met. Did you and Marny do that one?”

“We were just messing around then. Marny is a really good shot. I thought at first she was just letting off steam or something—she thought it was fun to scare the herd. I didn't think we'd actually hurt anyone.”

If Nash had a dime for every time he'd heard that phrase... “But you did. Do you get how serious this is, Mick? I know you were trying to protect Marny, but do you hear what I'm saying?”

Mick looked at Nash. “I get it. I get it.”

“Do you?” Don stood up from the desk.

“What happens now?” Mick practically whined. Nash fought the twin urges to hug and shake the boy. Things could go any number of directions now—most of them bad.

“Now we bring in your dad, Marny and her dad. Things are going to get very messy from here.”

Mick's face sank as he realized just how far this tangle spread. The boy put his head in his hands and cursed, and Nash couldn't blame him.

“Take his statement,” Don said. “And I'll find Miss Fuller. Then we'll ride out to the Bucktons' and let them know what's up.”

“Let me talk to Ellie before you talk to Gunner, okay? This is going to hit her hard, and she deserves a heads-up before we hit the whole family with this.”

Don paused a bit before nodding. “Well, I suppose another hour won't pretty this up none. Mick, give me Marny's cell number, 'cause I know you've got it.”

While Mick replied, Nash pulled out the statement form, and the whole world started its downward spiral from there.

Chapter Sixteen

I
t had been a long time since Nash had been that surprised. Marny was the one who'd shot the bison? He'd held his anger in check while he'd questioned Mick, but hadn't been prepared for what he'd learned. Now he had to tell Ellie, had to watch her investment in the girl go up in flames the way he'd just experienced. The cruelty of it—the sheer unfairness of heaping so much pain and betrayal on one woman at one time—gnawed at his gut and made his fingers anxiously flex and fist as he walked into the church.

“They're in here,” Dottie Howe said as she pointed to one of the Sunday School classrooms, where Theo and Ellie were talking with all of the after-school kids. Well, nearly all. Mick was still at the station and no one could find Marny. Now Nash knew why.

“Is it true?” Dottie asked, her voice a cringe. She clearly knew what had happened—probably half of Martins Gap had heard that Mick had been brought in on suspicion of shooting the Blue Thorn bison. Right now only Don and Nash knew that wasn't the whole story.

“Best not to say anything at this point, Dottie. I'll keep Theo informed as things progress, though, I promise you.”

Nash peered in the window of the classroom door and knocked. The whole room startled at his face in the glass. When he entered in full uniform, the air thickened. “Miss Ellie, may I see you for a moment?”

Ellie smoothed her palms against her pant legs. “Sure.”

“Is Mick going to jail?” Lucy asked, clearly upset. Nash was glad to see most of the kids were rattled by what they'd heard. That was a much better response than apathy or, worse yet, admiration.

“It's a bit early to say anything like that.” It was a stall, but it was also a half-truth. Based on what he'd just learned, Nash quite honestly wasn't sure what the next move ought to be.

Ellie stepped out of the classroom and shut the door behind her. “What's happened?”

He pulled her into the next room and closed the door. “Well, I brought Mick in for questioning. Alone. His dad waived his right to be present, fine and dandy with leaving his son to twist in the wind. I'd like to have a word or two with that guy.”

Ellie ran an agitated hand through her hair. “To be so...disregarded like that. I can't imagine how that hurts someone Mick's age.”

You
'
ll find out more about what that
'
s like in a minute
, warned a voice in Nash's head. Ellie had told him she lost her mom at thirteen and her dad when she was just out of business school, but she still knew nothing but love and support from her family. That was half of why Derek's unfaithfulness had hit her so hard. She trusted the people who loved her to have her back, and up until recently, they had. He hated to be the one to pry another crack of betrayal into the safe wall that had been around her life.

She caught his expression. “There's something else, isn't there?” She threw her glance to the ceiling. “What could make this worse?”

Nash moved to the windowsill and leaned against it. “While we were talking to him, the evidence report on the rifle came in. We needed to run prints on the weapon in addition to ballistics. The rifle is registered to Mick's father, and Mick's prints were definitely on it.”

Ellie had caught his expression. “Well, that can't have been much of a surprise.”

There wasn't really an easy way to say it, so Nash chose direct fact. “But so were Marny's. Ellie, Marny is the one who shot at the bison. Mick came clean once he knew we had a third set of fingerprints. Mick gave her the rifle, but the shooter is... Ellie, it's Marny.”

He watched the same disbelief he'd known wash across Ellie's features as she slumped against the wall next to him. “Marny? Marny's been shooting at my bison?”

Her voice broke a bit on the word
my
. The pain washed over her face the way it had crept over his own heart—it was the worst kind of betrayal to think someone you'd invested in, someone you cared for and had tried to see the good in, could turn around and do you harm. If life offered emotional sucker punches, this was one of its most lethal.

And hadn't she just had the only thing that hurt worse from Derek? To have care and charity thrown back in your face was one thing, but to have your love and loyalty stomped on—and with your best friend? Nash felt the news he delivered turn his gut as if he'd eaten something toxic.

“Why?” The word was almost a moan, a knife blade to Nash's heart.

“Mick gave me some idea, but I won't really know until I can bring her in. It has something to do with her father.”

“Her father? How? What grudge could he have against Blue Thorn?”

In the weeks since Nash had met her, Ellie had become possessive—protective, even—of the ranch. At first she'd called it “the ranch,” but now she often said “our ranch” or even “my ranch.” Some part of him rejoiced at her reconnection with her family land—mostly because a growing part of his heart was wishing she would stay. The dangerous truth was that he was falling for her, and at the worst possible time.

“According to Mick, Jerry felt the Ramble Acres development would change things for him and the whole town. When your family shut that DelTex project down, it seems he blamed the Bucktons for taking away his chance at work.”

Ellie pushed off the wall, hugging herself in a protective way that made Nash's throat tighten. “That's ridiculous.”

Of course it was. Nothing about this made any logical sense whatsoever.

“We did nothing to hurt Marny's family,” Ellie continued as she walked along the bank of windows that looked out on the church's little garden. “What DelTex was trying to do with Ramble Acres was wrong. Gunner and Brooke and Gran did the right thing. And even if some people would have benefitted from Ramble Acres, nothing warrants shooting innocent animals.” She looked up at Nash. “I can't picture it. I know Marny's no sweet, innocent little girl, but I still can't pull up an image of her sighting a rifle at our animals.” She looked at Nash with alarm in her eyes. “What's next? Sighting a rifle at us? We invited her—her and Mick—onto our land. We put our faith in them.”

“Near as I can tell, she's been fed a daily dose of bitterness and anger by her father. He talked about hurting the herd as payback. The reason she wasn't at the program last time was because Jerry found out about your involvement and the group's visits to the ranch. I think you were getting through to her at the same time her dad was telling her you were the root of everything bad happening to her. Confusion messed with her mind. She couldn't figure out how to care and hate for the same thing at the same time, and choosing your care meant rejecting her father.”

“She ought to reject him,” Ellie snapped, her anger rising.

“You said yourself Gunner rejected your father. You saw how it messed him up for a while.” Ellie had given him a short version of Gunner's sketchy past, how he'd done a lot of regrettable things before making peace with the family. “What girl wouldn't snap under the emotional strain Marny knows? I'm not saying what she did was right or even forgivable. But I can connect the dots and see how it happened. She convinced Mick to take his father's rifle. I don't think she was consciously firing at you or your animals. She was firing at everything wrong in her life.”

“I helped her,” Ellie blurted out in a voice tight with pain. “I gave her money so she could buy a new hair dryer. I prayed for her. And all this time...”

Nash couldn't stop himself from taking a few steps toward her. He knew what this felt like. He knew the jagged edge of this realization and how deeply it cut. Hadn't he pounded a car panel with a sledgehammer to work it out of his own system? It was bad enough to swallow it himself, but to watch Ellie buckle under it tore him to pieces. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Ellie...”

She shrugged him off. “Does everyone think I'm a doormat they can walk over? Do I have a Hurt Me sign on my back?”

He didn't have an answer—for either himself or for her.

“Why does this kind of stuff keep happening to me? Am I some kind of magnet for people who think it's perfectly fine to hurt me?”

“No,” he said, catching her hand as it flailed in the air. “You care. Deeply. And you expect others to care as deeply as you do. Up until now, the people who you care about have always been on your side. That's a blessing a lot of people have never had. Now you've been hit from all sides with people who threw that care back in your face.” He gripped her hand more tightly “I hate that it's happened to you. Over and over like this. There's nothing,
nothing
wrong in how you care. It's who you are.”

“Yeah?” She pulled her arm from his grasp. “Well,
who I am
feels like a great big punching bag right now. You know, I thought you were overreacting a bit back there in the garage, but if I had that hammer right now, I'd be hitting something, too.”

He grabbed both her shoulders. “It's Marny who is in the wrong here, Ellie, not you. Mick and Marny have betrayed both our trusts.”

Understanding filled her eyes. “It's LA all over again for you, isn't it? No wonder you were beating at that piece of metal as hard as you were.”

“Maybe.” In many ways it was, but there was another layer to this he hadn't had in LA. The pain of betrayal cut just as sharp, but now there was Ellie. Ellie understood how deep his hurt had cut, and could see things about him he'd lost the ability to view. She saw his gift as indestructible and invaluable when he'd thought it smashed beyond use. Against his will, and perhaps even without him realizing it, Ellie made him want to put himself out there again because Ellie was worth the pain. And even though Mick and Marny's betrayal hurt, he couldn't say he truly regretted doing the program. Not when it had brought him closer to Ellie.

“Look.” He held her gaze, feeling the protector in him rise above the wound Mick had inflicted. “I will not let them hurt you. You or your family or your animals. I mean it. You have my word, Ellie.” He allowed himself the luxury of pulling her toward him. She resisted for a moment and then laid that reluctance down. When she gave in and leaned against his chest, he could not have pulled back for all the world.

Nash felt her give a little shudder and then a big deep breath, as if fighting back a bout of tears. “I'm glad you're here,” she said into his chest. Even as he told himself not to, he slipped his arms around her. He'd give the world to hold her tight and to tell her he would make it all okay, but he had no idea what the next hours held. Nor could he trust himself with her in this embittered state. He settled for a soft “I'm glad I'm here, too.” And he was.

For the first time since he'd set foot in Martins Gap, Nash felt as if maybe God had sent him here to help Ellie, rather than simply run here in flight from himself.

* * *

The next hours flew by in a blur of conversations with Gunner and Gran, updates on searches for Marny and her father, and the various procedural events as the case unfolded. Finally, just as evening fell, Don and Nash called Gunner to let them know they had found Marny and her father and were bringing them to the sheriff's office for questioning.

Ellie insisted on going with Gunner. He'd argued at first, but Ellie dug in her heels until Gunner relented. Now she stood with her brother outside the Martins Gap sheriff's office, steeling herself to go inside.

Nash stopped her at the curb. “You don't need to be here, Ellie. Gunner and I can handle this.”

“I know that, but I want to be here.” She looked up at him, touched by his continual efforts to protect her. Derek hadn't even bothered to protect her from the cameras that were all over the restaurant the day she had discovered his cheating. Every day Ellie discovered new ways Derek's charm had blinded her to his many shortcomings.
Thank You, Lord. I
'
m grateful we broke it off. That
'
s Your healing.
Nash felt like part of God's healing, too. Someone to keep her safe while she put her heart back together. Someone who might very well steal that heart once it healed—and may have stolen it already.
It
'
d be a mistake to trust that pull toward him now. Not yet.
She squared her shoulders. “Would you have let Don question Mick without you?”

“Not a chance.”

“I need to see her eyes, hear her voice. I need to try to understand why she'd do this.”

He gave her a cautionary stare. “You may not get the answers you want, Ellie. You may be hurt by what you hear.”

“What's one more hurt? I've had a target on my back for weeks now. I'm starting to feel armor plated.”

“Some thick skins aren't worth having. Like I said, Don, Gunner and I can handle this. I doubt Jerry Fuller's going to be anything even close to kind in there.”

“And like I said, I need to be here, even if it hurts.” She allowed herself a crack in the armor plating by adding, “But I wouldn't mind it if you stay close.”

The request brought warmth to his eyes. “I'll do what I can, but I am on duty here. Just promise me if things get nasty you'll step outside and let us handle it.”

“I've seen some impressive chef temper tantrums. I've learned when to duck.” The small joke bolstered her confidence a bit. “No one in here has big knives and heavy pots, so I think I'll be okay.”

The three of them walked into the sheriff's office, where Don already had set up chairs around a folding table. The tough edge Marny usually displayed seemed on its last legs, giving her face a twisted, tired appearance. Dark circles lurked under her eyes. She sat back in her chair, a forced posture of false calm as she thrust her long legs out in front of her, one ankle rocking back and forth. The ankle stilled when Marny caught sight of Ellie behind Gunner. Jerry Fuller, a thin man who shared Marny's sharp features on a hard-lined face, sat next to his daughter, his arms crossed over his chest in a defiance that visibly doubled when Gunner sat down. He looked as if he'd scoured the house for his last clean shirt.