Kansas Troubles (29 page)

“Why, you’re bleeding,” she exclaimed. She pulled out a couple of tissues from the box on the dashboard and passed them to me.

“Thank you.” I dabbed the side of my face tentatively. Nerves screamed when the tissues touched my raw skin.

The lady clucked under her breath. “Sweetie, I don’t know you, but I feel like I just got to say something. No cowboy is worth this no matter how good he looks in a pair of Wranglers. You don’t have to take this kind of crap.”

“It’s not what you think.” My voice sounded thick and wet, as if I had a head cold. I clenched my teeth. Don’t cry, I commanded myself,
don’t cry
. “I’m parked in front of the Civic Theater.”

She just shook her head and slowed down near the center of town.

“There.” I pointed to the Camaro. She stopped the car, and I gingerly stepped out. “Thank you,” I said, closing the door. “I’ll be okay, really.”

She shook her head again, a resigned look on her motherly face. “I’ll be praying for you, sweetie.”

“Thank you.” I sank into the buttery leather seat of the Camaro and sat for minute, trying to will the pain away. I dug through my purse for some aspirin, then realized after I found them that I didn’t have any water. The Wagon Wheel Cafe’s sign was still turned to Open, so I inched my way back out of the car and bought a Coke to go. Limping back toward the car, I swallowed four aspirin and drank half the Coke. I was concentrating so hard on making it back to the car, Cordie June had to shout to get my attention.

She was leaning against the side of a Ford pickup, smoking a cigarette.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked, pursing her lips and forming a perfect smoke ring.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said, ducking my head and letting my hair fall over my scraped face.

“Only when I’m nervous.” She smiled lazily through the smoke, then dropped the cigarette on the ground, mashing it with the tip of her boot. “Becky was wondering where you’d gotten to. I told her with all these cute cowboys wandering around, you probably got distracted.”

“I’m not feeling too good.” I started moving toward my car. “Let the others know I went home, okay?”

“Sure.” She gave a thin smile, then peered closer at me, her eyes widening. “Shoot howdy, what happened to your face?”

I touched it carefully with my fingertips. “I slipped and fell. I’m okay, but I think I’ll go on back to Derby anyway.” I opened the car door.

“You want me to tell Gabe?”

“No!” I said sharply. “I’ll tell him about it when he gets home. I’m
all right
.” To prove my point, I forced myself to slide into the seat easily. Every muscle in my body protested the masquerade.

“Whatever,” she said, shrugging. “See you later.” She started to walk away, then turned abruptly and tapped on the car window.

I rolled it down. “What is it?”

“I didn’t do it,” she blurted. I could swear I smelled fear mixed in with the vanilla scent of her perfume.

“Do what?” I bit my lip and willed the aspirin to work faster.

“I’m not saying I’m not taking advantage of it. I am. And let me tell you something. If the places were reversed, she would have, too.”

“You really think so?” I asked in a noncommittal tone.

“I know so. And I wouldn’t have blamed her one bit. I didn’t like Tyler, but I learned a lot from her about not letting anything or anyone stand in the way of what you want.” She ran her tongue nervously over her teeth.

“I’m sorry,” I said, a bit sickened by her callousness. “But I can’t say I understand.”

“Maybe it’s because you never wanted anything that bad. Maybe it’s because your life has always been easy. Maybe . . .”

“Maybe you’d just better stop right there,” I snapped. My mind flashed on my father handing me a rose to place on my mother’s coffin when I was barely six years old, going to the police station to claim the plastic bag filled with the contents of Jack’s pockets, signing the bankruptcy papers on the Harper Ranch, the ranch I poured my heart and soul into for fifteen years. “You don’t know anything about me or my life.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Okay, maybe I don’t. But I do know one thing. You’re snooping around in places that are none of your business. I’m warning you, things aren’t always what they look like.” She scowled and strode back toward the rodeo grounds, her hair glistening like spun sugar under the street lights.

The sixty-five-mile drive back to Wichita seemed to take an eternity. Every time headlights came toward me on the lonely country road, my body tensed in apprehension until the red tail lights disappeared into the ink-colored night. Every vehicle appeared sinister, and more than once I regretted not sending Cordie June for Gabe. But I would have had to face his anger—at the person who attacked me and at me for putting myself in a vulnerable position. Tired down to my toes, I wanted to delay that confrontation as long as possible. I pushed the car to eighty miles an hour, wanting to go faster but afraid to with my reflexes as shaky as they were. I gripped the steering wheel when a spasm of shuddering overcame me and forced me to slow down to sixty-five. On the radio, sad country songs crackled through the black prairie night. A farm report came on—“Sows holding steady. Eighty-five dollars top price paid for some steers in Sioux City.” I concentrated on the prices, trying to forget what had just happened to me and what could have happened.

Within a half hour, the aspirin finally started taking effect, and my pain began subsiding. Unable to help myself, I compulsively replayed the accident over in my mind. Though it was possible that the driver was just a drunk weaving down the road, I knew it was more likely he deliberately swerved to hit me and that it probably was connected with Tyler’s murder. Was it a coincidence that Cordie June happened to be in front of the Civic Theater next to the Camaro just as the lady in the small white car dropped me off? And her veiled warnings were something I knew I should tell Gabe or Dewey or someone. She said she didn’t kill Tyler, and though I thought she was a self-centered opportunist, something inside me believed her.

Once I hit Highway 54, the road into Wichita, the muscles in my arms slowly started to unknot. Small stores that were still open and lit-up houses became more frequent as I neared the city limits. I lowered my speed and drove carefully through the outskirts of Wichita and into Derby. Tears started down my face when I pulled into Kathryn’s driveway, and the sobs that had narrowed my throat all the way home started bubbling out of me in choking, convulsive weeping. I fumbled with the house key Gabe had attached to the rental car key chain and finally unlocked the door.

I dropped my purse and limped up the stairs, tearing off my shirt. All I wanted was a hot shower and to crawl into bed. Halfway up the stairs, I turned and lurched back down to the front door and locked it. I wanted a hot shower, but I’d also seen the movie
Psycho
.

I stood under the hot stream for a long time, washing away the dirt, blood, and tears. My crying slowed to an occasional soft hiccup. The hot water soothed my aching muscles, but my upper left thigh and hip, where the truck’s fender had struck full force, felt like it had been burned with a hot brand. The whole left side of me was already a mass of pale blue and purple bruises that would no doubt darken to an angry plum color by morning. I tried to think—Would ice help? Did I want to try making it up and down those stairs again? I pulled on a clean T-shirt, then took two more aspirin, dipping my head and drinking from the bathroom faucet. My stomach started burning seconds later, and I knew I’d have to go downstairs and get some milk. I was at the top of the stairs, contemplating the distance with despair, when I heard the front door fly open and Gabe’s deep voice bellow my name. I hesitated, torn between stumbling down the stairs and throwing myself in his arms or staggering back to the bathroom and locking the door. My mind, still partly in shock, decided for me by freezing every muscle in my body.

He yelled my name again.

“Up here,” I called back, my voice faltering.

He appeared at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes looking as if someone had lit a bright blue fire behind them. His breath came in short, hard gasps as he took the stairs two at a time.

“Cordie June said you fell,” he said, tilting his head to inspect my face. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you come get me?”

“How did you get in?” I twisted my head, avoiding his determined gaze. “How did you get back?”

“Mom keeps a key hidden.” He turned my chin toward him, sucking his breath in sharply when he saw my face. “And I borrowed Dewey’s truck. You’re going to the hospital.”

“No!” I pulled away from him. “I just want to lie down.” I went into the bedroom and crawled into bed. As I did, my T-shirt rode up, and he spotted the bruises on my legs and thigh.

“Benni, what happened? How did you get these?” He sat on the bed and pushed my T-shirt higher, exposing all the bruises up to my underarm. He ran his fingers gently over them.

“Stop it,” I said, tugging down my shirt. “Leave me alone.” Swallowing a sob, I turned away from him and pulled the edge of the thin chenille bedspread over me, trying to hide my shaking.

He tugged the bedspread off me and gathered me in his arms, whispering softly against the top of my head, “
Esta bien, querida. Todo va ha estar bien. No dejare que nadien te aga dano
. It’s okay, I won’t let anyone hurt you.
Esta bien
, it’s okay,
esta bien
.” He rocked me back and forth, murmuring in a mixture of English and Spanish until my trembling slowly subsided. His voice was so soothing and I felt so safe that I didn’t want him to ever stop. But eventually he did, and, when he did, he had questions. Loving husband with a touch of Sergeant Friday.

“Tell me how this happened,” he said, his voice firm, though his hand still stroked my hair.

“I need some milk,” I said. “I took six aspirin. My stomach hurts.”

He started to say something, then stopped. He went downstairs, brought me back a glass of warm milk, and silently watched me drink it. The air between us was thick and sultry with tension. When I finished, he sat the glass on the nightstand and said, “Now, talk.”

My voice still raspy from crying, I told him everything, from my heated conversation with Rob to my encounter with the truck to Cordie June’s veiled warning. “That’s all,” I concluded with a shuddering breath and watched his grave face, waiting for him to get mad, start lecturing me,
something
.

He stared blankly at the wall behind me, his face somber, his thoughts and feelings a secret. Was his reticence partly my fault? I couldn’t help but wonder, thinking back to all the times I’d withheld the truth from him, not lying exactly, but not trusting him either. Why didn’t I go straight to him when I was attacked tonight? Had he been Jack, I would have. I knew it and I suspected he did, too. It was like a tug of war between us—neither one of us willing to let go, be the first to be completely vulnerable, completely trusting. I wanted to ask what he was thinking, but instead closed my eyes and rested my head against the headboard.

“Did you hit your head?” he finally asked. “I think we should get you checked out.”

“No. I don’t have a concussion and I’m sure nothing’s broken. The truck just sort of pushed me. I rolled when I hit, and the ground was padded with weeds.” I brought my knees up to my chest. “Please, Gabe, I don’t want to go to the hospital. I just want to stay here with you.”

“Okay,” he said. “It’s against my better judgment, but—” His face grew hard. Apprehension seized my heart. The attack on me put things on a whole other level for him now.

“What are you going to do?” I asked uneasily.

“Shhh.” He gently brushed his lips across my forehead. “Not tonight. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Right now, you need to sleep. Are you hungry? Do you want me to fix you something to eat?”

“No. I’m tired. I do want to sleep.” I could barely get the words out. His tenderness was almost harder to take than anger because it was so unexpected. Downstairs, the phone rang.

“It’s probably Becky,” he said. “She was worried when she heard you fell. I’ll set her mind at ease and then come to bed after I take a shower.”

Feeling absolutely safe now, I fell asleep immediately and never heard him get into bed. But during the night, something woke me, the faint touch of lips on my neck, a warm breath in my ear.

“
Querida
,” he whispered, his hands under my shirt, avoiding my bruises, softly caressing me in places he knew I couldn’t resist. “I want to make love to you.” Emotion roughened his voice. Though I couldn’t see them in the dark I knew the exact shade of his eyes—a dark, cloudy blue. “You can say no . . . if it hurts . . .”

“Yes.” My answer came out as a sigh, and in my mind I tasted him already. I traced his jawline, rough as sandpaper under my fingertips.

So, in his childhood room we made slow, gentle love. As I held him close, my head tucked into his shoulder, smothered in his musky scent, I wondered what it was that drew me to this man, why I so desperately wanted to crack his granite shell and what I would do if this was all we ever had. Afterwards, when we lay wrapped around each other and his measured breathing told me he was asleep, I thought of Jack, as I did at odd times, and how quickly and irrevocably my life changed when he died, in the blink of an eye, it seemed. I thought about how different love was with Gabe. And that someday, when the time seemed right, I would tell him how the passion I felt to connect with him overwhelmed me at times, how this desire was not like anything I’d ever experienced, even with Jack; how the feel of his hands, his husky, foreign words, the distant, troubled light in his eyes, haunted me.

I ran my palm lightly down his forearm as it curled around me, possessive and protective even in his sleep. Someday I would tell him. But not tonight.

“THANKS, BUT WE’LL have to take a raincheck,” Gabe said into the phone as I hobbled into the kitchen the next morning. I wasn’t as sore as I expected, but I certainly wasn’t going to be dancing the ten-step tonight. He hung up the phone and turned to me, his face somber. “How do you feel?”