On The Texas Border (9 page)

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about locking me in the file room and slashing my tires.”

“Oh, please.” Edna bristled. “Jonas mentioned that, but believe me I’m not that juvenile.”

Abby stepped close to her. “Somebody is, so now
I’m warning
you.
Stay away from me.” She moved toward the door, but Edna blocked her way.

“I can’t do that until you stop encouraging Simon. A daughter in Mexico?” She laughed caustically. “If he believes that, he must be getting a touch of Alzheimer’s. It’s ridiculous, and you’re not doing him any good by indulging his stupid fantasy.”

Abby watched the color fluctuate in Edna’s cheeks. “A daughter would really cut into your inheritance, wouldn’t she?”

“There isn’t a daughter,” Edna screeched.

“We’ll see,” Abby said and walked away.

“You’ll regret this,” Edna shouted after her, but Abby didn’t turn back.

A
BBY WAITED THE REST
of the day for Jonas to call, but he didn’t. She had dinner with her mom and waited. By seven, she’d had enough. She grabbed her purse and told her mother she was going out. Gail had a barrage of questions, but Abby didn’t answer any of them.

She headed straight for the warehouse. She had on jeans and a white knit top. Maybe she should have changed—but what for? she asked herself. Jonas wouldn’t notice.

She couldn’t believe he hadn’t called. He’d said he would, and Jonas always kept his word. Something had to be wrong.

As she drove up, she saw Juan standing by an old truck. She asked where Jonas was, and he pointed to the stairs on the side of the warehouse.

“Does he live there?” she asked.

“Sì,”
Juan answered and got into his truck.

Up until that moment she’d had no idea where
Jonas lived. She’d assumed he lived in a house. But where? She’d never gotten that far in her thinking. No wonder he was here all the time. He never left. Why did he put up with this? she wondered.

She climbed the stairs slowly, and found a solid wood door. It was ornately carved, and she knew it came from Mexico. Tentatively she tapped the brass knocker.

There was no answer. She heard soft music. That meant he had to be home. She tapped again. The music stopped and the door was yanked open. “Juan, if you—” Jonas paused when he saw her.

Abby’s breath caught in her throat. Jonas stood there in nothing but a towel. His hair was wet from the shower and there were droplets of water on his naked body.

“Abby.” Her name came out in a rush.

“Jonas, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Come in. I’ll get some clothes on.” He disappeared from her sight.

She stepped into Jonas’s home and glanced around. There was a large living area and a kitchen. Cream-and-green Mexican tiles covered the floor. The walls were cream and the moldings were a delicately carved wood that set off the room. The beams on the ceiling were the same dark wood.

The furniture was hunter green and a large multicolored area rug enhanced the living area. On one wall was an entertainment center with a large TV. A picture of a little girl hung on another wall, and Abby walked over to study it. This had to be his sister. The only family he had.

Jonas returned in jeans and a T-shirt, no shoes and his wet hair slicked back. Clothes didn’t still the tin
gling in her stomach. Something in her reacted so strongly to him. It had happened the first time she’d met him, when he’d said “Howdy, ma’am” in that deep Texas drawl.

He strolled to the refrigerator and got a chilled bottle of water. “Want one?” he asked as he twisted off the cap.

“No, thanks,” she answered, and moved closer to the kitchen. The countertop was cream with a green border and the backsplash had fruit and vegetables painted on the tiles. Who had helped him decorate this apartment? she wondered. A woman? She couldn’t believe the jealousy that swirled through her. Jonas probably had more women than she could count, and his personal life had nothing to do with her. Not one little thing. Why couldn’t she believe that?

“I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I just finished for the day,” he was saying. “It was one of those days when if anything could go wrong, it did. One of the trucks wouldn’t start after we loaded it, and other trucks were waiting to pull in. I had to call Bernie to get it going. Tempers were getting a little heated. We had to work through lunch to make up the time.”

He was talking fast but he couldn’t stop. It was disconcerting having her in his home. He didn’t want her here.

“You haven’t had lunch or dinner?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

Without even thinking about it, she marched into the kitchen. “I’ll fix you dinner.”

“No, you don’t have—” He stopped when she opened the pantry as if she had known exactly where it was.

She pulled out spaghetti and sauce. “Do you have any hamburger meat?”

“It’s frozen.”

She noticed the built-in microwave over the cook-top. “No problem. I can defrost it in minutes.”

Jonas gave up and sat on the green leather bar stool, watching her move about his kitchen. Her blond hair was clipped behind her head and emphasized her beautiful green eyes. The jeans showed off her slim hips and legs. Her breasts were outlined by the white sleeveless top, and he remembered how they had felt last night against his chest.

As much as he didn’t want her here, having her in his home gave him a warm feeling. He liked the feeling a lot. Dammit all to hell, he liked it too much. With other women, he’d always been able to put the skids on when things got complicated. Why couldn’t he do that with Abby?

A
BBY PREPARED THE SPAGHETTI
in record time. There wasn’t anything to make a salad out of, but she found fresh broccoli. She steamed it and made a cheese sauce. When she finished, she placed the meal on the bar in front of him.

“Do you have any wine?” she asked.

“I don’t drink” came the response.

“Oh.” She was disconcerted for a second, then thought of something. “So why do you go to Mick’s?” The words came out before she could stop them, and when she saw the look on his face, she wished she could snatch them back.

“How do you know I go to Mick’s Tavern?” His voice was low and stiff.

She shrugged. “I guess I heard it somewhere.”

“Last night you said you hadn’t heard any rumors about me.”

She didn’t want to lie to him, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, either. Debating between the two, she decided Jonas could take whatever she said. “I haven’t heard any rumors, although my mom told me, so I guess that
is
a rumor.”

“What did she say?” he asked quietly.

She took a deep breath. “That you hang out at Mick’s and probably use the services he offers.”

“I see,” he said, and picked up his fork. “I hate
to disillusion your mom, but I don’t drink and I don’t pay for sex.” He seemed to be saying those words a lot these days.

And she’d bet he never had to, either.

“Well,” she said to hide her nervousness, “what would you like to drink?” She opened the refrigerator. “You have Coke and water.”

“Coke will be fine.”

Abby put ice in glasses and set a cola in front of him. She remembered seeing peanuts in the pantry, and she got a bag and sat beside him. She snacked on peanuts and drank Coke, while he ate his dinner.

A million questions were buzzing through Abby’s head, but she’d wait until after he’d had his meal. Later, they put the dishes in the dishwasher together, and Jonas picked up his Coke and peanuts and headed for the living room. She grabbed her drink and followed. He sat in the large oversize leather chair, while she sat on the sofa.

“Are you ready to go to Mexico tomorrow?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “I was hoping you’d change your mind.”

She met his look. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Not even after being locked in the file room?”

“No.” She twisted the glass in her hand. “Mr. Brewster thinks it was someone in his family, and he said he’d put a stop to it.”

“And you believe him?”

Her eyes shot to his. “You’re trying to talk me out of going, aren’t you?”

He didn’t say anything, and his silence angered her. “Fine.” She jumped to her feet. “I’ll go alone.” She moved toward the door.

He caught her before she reached it. “Good God, you’ve got a short fuse.”

“Maybe,” she admitted tightly, and remembered Earl had told her almost the same thing. It used to take a lot to make her angry, but these days any little thing set her off. And there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. “I’m just getting tired of everyone trying to keep me from doing this.”

He could see that nothing was going to stop her…absolutely nothing. “Come back and let’s talk.”

She trailed behind him to the sofa and sat down.

“We have to be very careful,” he said.

“I realize that.”

“I’m not sure that you do,” he replied. “You said you’ve been to Mexico many times. Where did you go?”

“I once went with some friends to Matamoros for a weekend, and my friend Holly and I went to Cancún for a week. But my parents and I have shopped in Nuevo Hope ever since I can remember.”

“That was as a tourist, and Mexicans welcome tourists with open arms. That’s how they survive. This will be different. You’ll be asking questions, poking your nose into private affairs. Mexico is a poor country, but the people are proud and rugged individuals and they don’t take kindly to foreigners asking personal questions. We don’t want to step on any toes.”

“Sounds as if you know the people well.”

“I’ve worked Mexican laborers for years, some legal, some not, and I’ve been to Mexico to meet some of their families. They’re proud of the ones that come here and are able to get a Green Card and work
and make good money to send home. Others keep trying to come here and many lose their lives. But it doesn’t stop the illegal immigration because everyone wants a better way of life.”

“I’m aware of all that.” She could see that Jonas was very passionate about the Mexicans and their plight.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get carried away—but are you prepared for the heat, the dust, unpaved roads and the general poverty?”

“As much as I can be.”

“Good. We won’t need a tourist card to spend a day, and we’ll walk. It’s too much of a hassle to take a vehicle over there. The driving is horrendous, and there are basically no traffic rules.”

“Walk?”

“You got something against walking?”

“No,” she replied shortly. “I assumed we’d be driving.”

“We won’t,” he snapped. “From what I read in Delores’s file, her parents live just outside Nuevo Hope. Some streets are marked, some are not. With a little luck, her family shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“Then, we should be able to do this in the one day?”

“Yes.”

“By tomorrow night I could know why Mr. Brewster fired my father.”

He watched the bright anticipation in her eyes for a moment, then said, “I’ve always learned to expect the unexpected.”

She bit her lip. “You still think Mr. Brewster is up to something?”

“Yeah, I do. I know him, Abby, and he doesn’t do anything without a reason.”

“Then, why do you continue to work for him? He treats you terribly.” The words came out sharper than she had intended, but she wanted an answer to that question.

“That’s my business,” he said woodenly, and got up to carry his glass into the kitchen. The subject was clearly off-limits, but that had never deterred her before.

“I’d still like to know,” she said softly.

Her voice did crazy things to his resolve. He could feel himself wanting to tell her, and that unnerved him. He never talked about the past, but maybe if he told her, she’d see Brewster in a new light. Maybe she’d give up this crazy plan to avenge her father. He was afraid, though. Afraid that she’d see
him
in a new light, too. A light that would send her running away from him forever—which could only be a good thing, he told himself. There was no room for her in his life. Hell, he didn’t have a life, so why was he even worrying about what she might think of him.

He walked slowly back to the sofa and sat down again, propping his bare feet on the coffee table.

Abby kicked off her shoes and curled her feet beneath her. “How long have you worked for Mr. Brewster?”

Silence.

“Jonas?” she prompted.

Continued silence.

She bit her lip, wondering how to get past that ironclad control. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to say a word, he spoke.

“Twenty years, to be exact. I started when I was fifteen.”

Fifteen!
She remembered he’d said he lived on the street as a teenager. Could that mean…? “Did Mr. Brewster take you in?”

“Something like that.”

She wanted to shake him. Mr. Brewster was right. Getting anything out of Jonas was impossible. She inhaled deeply. “Well, did he take you in or not?”

He looked at her. “You aren’t going to stop, are you?”

“No,” she said. “You want me to believe that you’re a bad person, so tell me just how bad you are.”

“Too bad for you, Abby,” he said softly.

“I doubt that. I—”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know—”

“I killed Brewster’s son.”

Had she heard him correctly?
Yes, she had. There was no mistaking those words. They hung between them, and she wanted to slap them away—but first she had to understand what they meant.

“Mr. Brewster said his son was killed in an accident with drunk teenagers. Everyone died at the scene.”

“Not everyone.”

She swallowed. “What happened?”

Jonas didn’t look at her. But the fact that her voice wasn’t filled with disgust or shock—just a desire to know—made him long to share the trauma that had changed his life. The accident and the events that followed were buried deep within him, in a place no
one had ever touched…until now. Words surged to his throat, and he heard himself speaking.

“The Justice of the Peace pronounced everyone dead at the scene, and that’s the story that went into all the papers. But when they got my body to the morgue, they discovered I was breathing. They rushed me to the hospital.”

“So you were with the kids who crashed into Mr. Brewster’s son?”

“Yes.”

“Were you driving?”

“No, I was only fifteen, but I hung out with guys who were older. Eddie, the driver, had souped up his 1975 Mustang, and he and his friends were cruising. They saw me and asked if I wanted to have some fun. They’d stolen some beer in McAllen and they were already pretty high. We drove to Alamo Creek and finished off the beer. Eddie decided to show us how fast the Mustang would go. We hit speeds over a hundred on Alamo Road. Then this white Jaguar came up behind us and tried to pass. Eddie wouldn’t let him. Finally Eddie allowed him to pull alongside us. It was Brewster’s son. Everyone knew who he was. He was cursing Eddie, and Eddie rammed his car. They did that back and forth for at least a mile, each cursing the other. The farther we went, the faster we went. Then a truck appeared from the opposite direction, and all I remember is the screech of tires, the crashing of metal and the screams…nightmarish screams.”

Abby didn’t say anything. She was locked in that young boy’s world of terror.

“I woke up in a hospital in pain and shock. No one expected me to live, and at times I didn’t want
to live. I was so scared.” He stopped for a second. “I guess I was in the hospital about two weeks when Brewster came to see me. He didn’t say a word. He just stared at me and walked out. The sheriff had been to see me, too, and asked a lot of questions. I answered everything truthfully, and the sheriff said I was in a lot of trouble because Brewster wanted someone to pay.” He paused again. “Brewster came every day after that. He never spoke. He would just look at me and leave. Then one day he asked how I was feeling, and I told him better. He said that was good because I had to pay for his son’s death.”

He drew a deep breath. “You asked me why I go to Mick’s Tavern. He was the only real friend I had back then. He gave me a place to sleep and food to eat when I was on the streets, and he and his wife came to visit me several times in the hospital. Mick told me that the sheriff and Brewster were after my hide, but there wasn’t a whole lot they could convict me of. I tried to believe that, but Brewster scared the hell out of me. When I was able to walk again, I kept waiting for the sheriff to take me away. Then one day Brewster came into my room and started talking about his son. He said he had been thirty-one years old and planning to get married. He was ready to settle down and manage Brewster Farms. Brewster added that I had taken everything away, everything that mattered to him, and he would make sure I’d never have a day’s peace. He’d already fired the families of the other boys who’d been in the car, so I knew he wasn’t bluffing.”

Abby held her breath as she waited for his next words.

“On his next visit, he told me I’d be leaving the
hospital in a few days and I could either go to jail or work for him. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I didn’t have to wait long for him to explain. I had taken his son and now I would replace him. I would work for Brewster with no privileges until the day he died. That way he could keep an eye on me and make my life a living hell. Still, working at Brewster Farms seemed a whole lot better than being locked up. But in the days, weeks and months that followed, it became very clear that I’d sold my soul to the devil to stay out of jail.”

Abby held a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping out loud. Finally, she understood why Jonas Parker stayed at Brewster Farm’s, why he took so much crap from Mr. Brewster. He was paying off a debt that wasn’t even his.

“You could have left years ago, and Mr. Brewster couldn’t have done a thing,” she said into the stillness.

“Yeah.” He leaned his head against the back of the sofa. “I realized that in my early twenties—probably the same time I realized I was an adult. But I didn’t go. I stayed. I just kept thinking about how much he’d lost. His wife died soon after the accident, and I felt I owed him. Besides, I’d given my word that I’d stay until he died.”

So much more about Jonas became clear. Why he worked from sunup to sundown. Why he drove himself so hard. Why he was quiet and brooding at times. He’d survived through sheer grit and character. All the feelings she had for him culminated in that moment. Was this love? she wondered. No! It couldn’t be. She had only known him a few weeks. She was
just feeling sympathetic—his story had touched her heart. As it would any woman’s.

“Oh, Jonas,” she whispered.

He turned his head to look at her. “It wasn’t so bad—well, the first year was, but after that things got better.”

“What happened?”

It was so easy to talk to her, and his words flowed freely. “Brewster had a storeroom cleaned out and a bed and dresser put in it. That was my home for the next few years. I worked in the fields from daybreak to dark, and Brewster didn’t pay me a dime. I didn’t complain. I felt I deserved it. Then Brewster made me go to night school and get my high-school diploma. I worked all day and went to school at night. When I graduated, he started to pay me a salary. I guess it was a test to see if I could stick it out. Later he sent me to college at night to take crop management and business courses. I’d always hated school, but I found myself wanting to learn more. Finally Brewster brought me in from the fields to the warehouse and then to the office.”

“Did you ever think of running away?”

“Lots of times, but I learned early that you can’t outrun the pain and that there’s a price to pay for the wrongs you do in this world.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” She had to say it. “Oh yes, I did,” he answered quickly. “I’ve got bad blood in my veins. Liquor is what drove me back then. I stole it from Mick and anywhere else I could find it. When Eddie offered me free beer, I jumped at the chance and went along with whatever they
wanted to do. That’s the type of person I was, and I have to fight every day not to become him again.”