Just Shoot Me (Cowboy Way, #1) (29 page)

From here on out, Dean Dixon was on his
own.

Tina and Hope were curled up on the sofa
laughing when Cord walked through the door of the bunkhouse. It was
a little dim, because they had the lights off to watch the movie,
but Tina saw the surprise on his face at seeing her
there.

Hope shot to her feet. “Hey, honey,” she said
with a smile as she walked over to give him a long kiss. Tina
dragged her eyes back to the movie, and opened the bag of pretzels.
She shoved a couple in her mouth and chewed until they were dry
dust in her mouth. She reached for the glass of milk and took a big
swallow, but quickly found a new rule to add to her list of pigfest
rules. Oreo milk did not mix well with pretzels.

Tina slammed down the glass and ran for the
bathroom down the hall. When she finished tossing her cookies, she
splashed her face, wondering when this would end. She remembered
her sister was sick for the whole first three months she was
pregnant. Tina figured she was probably a month or so along, so she
had a long way to go.

Maybe she should lay off the junk food until
then, she thought, as she weakly staggered back down the hall. When
she made it to the living room she wanted to hurl again, but turned
and headed back to the bathroom instead when she found Dean there
talking to his brother. She heard him call her name, but Tina shut
the bathroom door and locked it. He pounded, and she sat on the
side of the tub and waited.

“
Tina, open the damned door!” he
shouted, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Everyone thought
he was stubborn? They had never seen stubborn. He pounded and
shouted until she heard the hoarseness in his voice. Finally, she
heard his boot heels as he walked back to the living room. He was
sorry? He was going to be sorrier very soon.

Dean would soon find out that sorry didn’t fix
some things. Tina’s heart, what was left of it, shattered in a
million more pieces. Like calling his wife who had done nothing but
try to help him and his son a faithless whore like his ex-wife.
Tears pushed up her throat again, but she refused to shed them. She
held on until she thought Dean had left the bunkhouse, then opened
the door and walked to the living room. Cord and Hope were sitting
on the couch talking. She made sure Dean was nowhere in the
bunkhouse, then joined them.

“
Hey,” she said forcing herself to
smile.

Cord’s sympathetic eyes met hers. “I’m sorry,
Tina. My brother is an ass.”

“
That’s not a news flash, Cord,”
Tina said as she sat down and curled her feet under her.

“
No, but you being pregnant is,”
Cord said lightly then laughed. “I’m sure that shocked the crap out
of him.”

There it was. The first excuse from his
family. That’s why Dean acted the way he did toward everyone in his
life. Because he could. “Don’t make excuses for him, Cord. There’s
no excuse,” Tina said, as she reached for the bag of chips, but
changed her mind. She sat back to hug herself. Evidently Dean had
filled them in on what happened.

“
The condoms were expired,” Cord
said. Another excuse.

Tina shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. That’s
something he should have looked at before he said what he did to
me. Once words like that are out, there’s no taking them
back.”

“
I agree, but—“ Hope grabbed Cord’s
thigh, and he shut up.

“
Just leave it, Cord,” Hope said,
and Tina sent her thanks with her eyes.

“
I do have something you may want
to tell him though,” Tina said shortly.

She might as well get this over with so Dean
could get the ball rolling on fixing his situation before she left.
“Tell Dean that his ex-wife has never really been a mother. Perhaps
if she had a few visitations with Jeremy, she would change her mind
about wanting to be one now. I hear children are very restrictive
on a girl’s social life.”

That’s what her sister said at any rate. When
she whined about not being able to go out when Laney was a baby,
Tina had offered to babysit because she loved Laney, and the kid
wasn’t any trouble at all. Those instances got more and more
frequent, until she wound up being the child’s mother. Tina
realized now that just like Dean’s family enabled him to be
self-absorbed and treat them poorly by making excuses for him, she
allowed her sister to be neglectful of her daughter by taking on
the sole responsibility of caring for Laney.

What happened was her fault, but her sister
had taken advantage of her too. Because Tina let her. Tina hoped
that the detective the attorney hired would find Lori. She wanted
to be able to tell her sister that. And give her the option of
straightening up, being responsible for the child she had brought
into the world, before she sought permanent custody of
Laney.

It was the right thing to do.

Cord’s face lit up, then his smile widened.
“You’re a smart woman, Tina Dixon.”

Smart enough to know she didn’t want to be
Tina Dixon anymore.

***

“
Dean I need to talk to you.” Cord
walked up to Dean where he was loading hay bales in the back of his
truck to carry out to the field for the broncos. He swiped the
sweat from his face with his sleeve, and pulled off his
gloves.

“
Did you talk to Tina?” he asked
the same question he’d asked his brother for a week.

“
I’m talking to her tonight. Mama
talked to her yesterday.”

“
She get anywhere?” Dean asked
quickly. His brother’s sympathetic eyes answered the question. Dean
turned away to heft another hay bale. “I wish she’d talk to me,” he
grumbled as he swung it up and over the side of the truck. Damn, he
forgot his gloves, and the wire cut his fingers. No more than he
deserved.

“
I wouldn’t be surprised if she
never talked to you again, Dean. If I said something like that to
Hope, I’d probably be divorced before I could blink. We’re trying
for you, but don’t expect too much. She’s pretty set on moving back
to Dallas once school is out.”

Anger shot through Dean and he spun toward
Cord and grabbed his collar. “She is not leaving.” If he had to tie
her up to keep her here, that’s what he would do. Dean was getting
just that desperate. She couldn’t leave him. His heart took a dive
in his chest and he rubbed it.

Dean bent to lift another hay bale, not even
worrying about the sting of the wire on his hands. Maybe that would
take away the incredible pain that had been in his chest since Tina
had moved into the bunkhouse.

“
She had an idea I think you should
try,” Cord said leaning against the truck.

Dean stood back up. He’d try anything Tina
asked him to try to fix things between them. Whatever it took to do
that. “What?”

“
She suggested that you give Cindy
a taste of what she’s asking the court for. Call your attorney and
suggest he get the judge to have Cindy be required to have
mandatory weekend visitations with Jeremy. If he has to go live
with her anyway, it couldn’t hurt. He doesn’t even know her. Might
be a wakeup call for her and Daddy Bobby.”

Dean thought about that for a second, and his
spirits lifted a fraction of an inch. The more he thought about it,
the better he liked it. “That sure would keep her out of the
Cowboy, wouldn’t it?”

“
Why, yes it would.”

“
And I’m sure if I told Jeremy he
could do any damned thing he pleases when he goes there to visit,
as long as it isn’t dangerous, he could come up with some pretty
inventive things to do,” Dean said with a laugh. Fully on board
with the idea now, Dean added, “Hell, I might even buy him those
markers and finger paints he wanted the last time we were in town.”
He couldn’t help the grin that was plastered over his face. His
wife was fucking brilliant.

“
And horns and whistles,” Cord
added with a laugh.

“
I want to be a fly on the wall.
Maybe we could buy Jeremy one of those helmet cams, so he could
record her face for us. Damn, I’d pay to see it,” Dean said with
excitement.

“
What are you waiting for? Call
your attorney and let’s go to town.”

On Friday night, Dean was nervous to let
Jeremy go anywhere with Cindy, but he knew it was for a good cause.
His attorney had thought the idea was a stroke of genius and the
judge was more than happy to hear ‘the parents’ were working things
out between them. Cindy’s attorney waffled, because it was weekend
visitation, but he couldn’t convince the judge to schedule it at
another time because she didn’t have a damned excuse for not taking
him for the weekend.

Cindy didn’t work, never had. She had always
lived off of the man she married. And that lucky bastard was Bobby
Jones not him, thank God.

“
Let’s wait out on the porch for
your mother, Jeremy.” Dean couldn’t make himself call her his son’s
Mama, because that would mean she actually was a mother. And Cindy
Dixon Jones definitely was not.

“
Daddy, do I call her Mama?” Jeremy
asked as he sat in one of the rockers on the porch.

“
You play that by ear, son. You
call her whatever the heck you feel like calling her. Cindy is her
name,” Dean said gleefully as he sat down in the rocker beside him.
She was raised in south Texas. The south. If Jeremy called her
Cindy, she would shit a brick. But it was a helluva lot better than
the other names he’d like to suggest his son to call
her.

“
Did you pack your finger paints
and markers?” Dean asked.

“
Yes sir, and my new whistles and
horns!” Jeremy squealed. “Thank you for getting those for me. I
love them. Laney does too. We play train.”

“
That sounds like fun.”

“
Maybe Ma-um, Cindy will play train
with me,” he said, looking at Dean uncertainly. Damn, he hated
confusing his son. This is going to help him though, Dean reminded
himself.

“
Well if she doesn’t, you can play
by yourself.”

“
I’mma miss Laney,” Jeremy said
sadly. “Why can’t she come with me?”

“
Because Cindy isn’t her mother,”
Dean explained patiently.

Cindy wasn’t anyone’s mother. Jeremy didn’t
understand that, because Dean’s attorney had warned him about
bad-mouthing Cindy to Jeremy. Dean knew he didn’t have to say a
word anyway. His son would understand it all on his own very
shortly. And that was too damned bad, but Dean didn’t have a choice
here. If he did, his son would never be exposed to Cindy. If he
didn’t do this, Jeremy would probably end up living with her once
the DNA results on Bobby came back.

“
I wish Laney could come anyway,”
Jeremy persisted, but headlights at the end of the driveway told
Dean the show had begun. He stood and handed Jeremy his backpack.
“You’ll have fun. Just play with your toys,” Dean said, shoving him
toward the steps.

And give that bitch hell, he added
mentally.

On Sunday morning, bright and early, Dean was
jarred awake by his cell phone ringing on the night stand. He
patted around on the table until he found it, then answered.
“Yeah?”

“
Dean this is Cindy,” she said
angrily.

“
Something wrong?” he asked
innocently. He glanced at the alarm clock and saw it was just now
six-thirty. Something had definitely happened.

“
What the hell
hasn’t
happened is a better question! I’m bringing Jeremy home on the way
to the emergency room.”

Dean sat up, and fear shot adrenaline through
him. “Emergency room?”

“
For
me
, not him!” she spat.
“I slipped on his fucking marble, and I think I broke my ankle.
Bobby is bringing me to the E.R. But we’re bringing
him
home
first!”

“
Oh, I’m sorry you got hurt,
darling,’” he drawled smoothly. “Hope everything is
okay.”

“
It will be as soon as I bring him
home,” she grated through her teeth. “We’ll be there shortly.” As
Cindy was hanging up the phone, Dean heard her yell.
Jeremy get
in the car
!
Now!

Dean laid back in the bed and laugher rumbled
in his chest, then spread to his stomach. Before long, he was on
his side holding his stomach while he howled with laughter. Dean
laughed so loudly that his mother came through his bedroom door in
her pink chenille housecoat and fuzzy slippers, looking
frantic.

“
Dean, what happened? Is Jeremy
okay?”

“
He’s fine,” Dean said then laughed
a little more. He was breathless when he said, “But Cindy’s not. It
worked, Mama!”

Barb Dixon grinned and put her hand on her
hip. “That’s my boy. Just as bad as his Daddy. I knew he could do
it.”

Dean sobered then. “He is just like me isn’t
he?”

“
Worse. That nut didn’t fall far
from the tree for sure.”

It was true. And damn he was proud of that
boy. He just hoped that enough damage had been done that Cindy
decided to drop the custody suit. That would be a huge relief, and
he would owe Tina a huge debt. Not that he didn’t
already.

“
Thank you for helping, Mama,” Dean
said, looking at her. She had talked to Tina twice, and even though
it hadn’t helped, at least she had tried. Dean wasn’t giving up. He
was going to keep fighting until she listened to him. He loved her,
and she was going to listen to him. He only hoped she heard him,
and believed what he said.