Texas Homecoming (6 page)

Luke watched the woman go up the stairs and stood there for a long moment after she was out of sight. Hell. He felt as if he'd just been awakened by a hurricane that had only just blown itself out. Or maybe he was in the eye, because she would sure as hell be ripping and roaring in the morning.

The woman was a puzzle. Small and sexy as they made them. She had a centerfold's body and dressed to show it. Tight tiny domes. Too much makeup. Talons that would make a bald eagle jealous. Big,
big
hair. And she'd been packing so much heavy metal that she jingled and jangled with every move. Necklaces, bracelets, no less than a half-dozen pairs of little earrings to complement the big ones. No other piercings though. None visible, anyway. That didn't mean they weren't there.

He'd thought he had her pegged.

Then he'd heard that little voice calling her Mommy, and his theory got blown to hell. Oh, maybe it could have held its own if she'd reacted to that plea with a scowl, or by snapping at the kid. But no. Her face had gone all achy. Like that little voice calling her name was all it took to break her heart to bits. Her eyes even welled up. And then the way she picked the boy up and held him so protectively. She'd looked fierce then. Like she would claw Luke's eyes out if he so much as looked at the kid wrong.

That
look was the one that got to him. Because
that
look was one he knew too well to ever mistake it. He'd seen it far too often—in his own mother's eyes. That fierce, single-minded devotion, the protectiveness that warned outsiders to stay clear. Luke's mother had loved him like that. Because he was all she'd had. Hell, she had almost ruined him with that fiercely protective love.

Jenny Lee—if that was her real name—loved her son utterly. That had been obvious to Luke in the few moments he'd seen them together. And any woman capable of loving a child that much, well...she rose a notch in his book. Hooker or no, she couldn't be all bad. Whether she loved him too much—enough to damage the kid—well, that remained to be seen.

The little boy, now there was another puzzle. Because that kid had been scared. No two ways about it And who were these "bad men" he'd been afraid of?

Of course, no matter how devoted a mother Jasmine was or how frightened a child Baxter was, one truth remained that made them both Luke's enemies, in a manner of speaking. They had come to lay claim to the home he was in the process of making his own. They had come to derail his new start. They had come to take away the only thing he'd ever wanted badly enough to give up his rig for. He had sold his prize possession for this place. That couldn't be undone. There was no way he would give up without a hell of a fight

Luke sat down, drank his coffee and pondered on the two wanderers for a while, giving them plenty of time to fall asleep as he continued to peruse the legal papers on the table. Then he slipped outside to the car. It was a ten-year-old station wagon, with plenty of rust. She'd locked it, of course, and the key was more than likely tucked into that oversize shoulder bag she'd taken to bed with her. But it was a car that had no trunk, so he figured if there was any luggage to be seen, he'd see it. Only he didn't. Because there wasn't any. It seemed to him that the woman had come here with nothing more than the clothes on her back and whatever she'd managed to cram into that shoulder bag of hers, which couldn't be much.

Illinois plates. She'd come a long way, then. He made a note of the number. Garrett could easily check it out. Having a cousin who was a small-town sheriff could, he realized, come in handy. He peered through the glass of the driver's door. He saw empty pop bottles and fast-food wrappers. Every one of them from some kind of "kid's meal" They'd eaten on the road. Or Baxter had, at least. Hadn't the woman eaten at all?

Sighing, he went back inside, settled himself down at the dining room table and proceeded to read every remaining scrap of paper in the large envelope she'd brought with her. He read until his head ached and his eyes watered, but he still couldn't find the truth she was hiding. And it was obvious there was one.

Hell.

He waited till six o'clock to call Garrett, knowing his cousin's house would be bustling with life by then. Garrett liked to get up before his wife and make a pot of coffee. He would pour her a cup when he heard her coming down the stairs. Claimed it was best to do this silently, give the caffeine a chance to kick in and then attempt human conversation. Of course, that was just a cover. Chelsea was head over heels for the big guy. Garrett probably just liked to have those few quiet minutes in the morning with his wife all to himself before little Bubba had to get up for school and the real world came crashing in.

Hell, Luke hated to interrupt that intimate few minutes for his cousin, but he wanted to catch Garrett before he headed out to check on the cattle, then went off to work at the sheriffs office in town.

Garrett answered on the second ring. And his greeting was, "This had better be good."

"Sorry, Garrett," Luke said. "But it is. Damn good. Or maybe damn bad would be more accurate."

"What's wrong, Luke?"

Luke could hear the concern in Garrett's tone, and he could also hear Chelsea in the background, asking if Luke was all right and what was going on. He smiled at the sweetness of having this big family suddenly all over every little problem.

"Tell your wife I'm fine. I just had an unexpected visitor drop by last night."

"He's fine, Chelsea. Give me a minute." Then Garrett sighed. "Ah, she's rushed upstairs to pick up the extension," he told Luke.

A second later the soft click told Luke that Chelsea was on the other phone.

"Go ahead, Luke," she said. "Tell us what's up."

He liked Chelsea. She was one of those rare, special women a man was lucky to stumble upon once in a lifetime. Garrett must have done something awfully good to have found her and made her his own.

"Okay," he said at last. "Last night a woman showed up here with a little boy. She says this place is hers, and that she's here to claim it."

Garrett said, "What's her name? Where's she from?"

Chelsea said, "What does she look like? Is she married?"

Luke withstood the bombardment of questions fairly well, he thought. "Her name, she says, is Jenny Lee Walker, but she goes by Jasmine. The car she's driving has Illinois plates on it."

"Number?" Garrett asked.

"DX7-381," Luke replied, rattling off the number he'd committed to memory. "She showed up with nothing at all, as far as I can see, besides her son and the clothes they're wearing, and this packet of papers from the law offices of Buzz Montana giving her ownership of this property. As for what she looks like, Chelsea, she looks like a high-priced lot lizard, and no, I don't think she's married. I didn't see a ring, anyway."

"So that means you looked," Chelsea said. "But what's a lot lizard?"

"It's trucker slang for a truck-stop prostitute," Garrett said, his tone decidedly darker. "And it's not the kind of observation a Brand man makes about a lady."

"She's no lady, Garrett. She broke in here, and when I came downstairs to see what was going on, she pulled a knife on me."

Garrett waited, but Luke said no more. Garrett said, "Why did she pull the knife, Luke?"

Luke thought on that. "I don't know. I guess I scared her."

"And?"

He shrugged. "Well, she had her son with her. I suppose she thought I might be a threat to him."

"Well damn, Luke," Chelsea said. "Seems to me that shows courage, character and devotion. I mean, you're a pretty big fella for a woman to try to take on all alone, just to protect her son." Then her voice brightened. "How old is the boy? Bubba's age?"

Luke sighed. "Whose side are you guys on here, anyway?"

He could almost hear Garrett smile. "Don't you worry, Luke. Family comes first with the Brands. Always has. But honor is right up there with it, and the Cowboy Code is our way of life."

Luke made a face. "Oh, come on. There's a code? Why is this the first I'm hearing of it?"

"It's the first time you've broken it, cousin," Garrett said. "Being kind to women and children is at the top of the list."

Luke groaned. "I
was
kind."

"Not if she heard that ‘lot lizard' comment, you weren't."

Luke thought about his comment last night about her clothes and her violent reaction. He still had the claw marks on his face. His cheek still stung. "Well, the fact that she's still here—sleeping in my bed, I might add—ought to indicate my extreme kindness." He swallowed. "So what's the penalty for breaking this code of yours, anyway?"

Garrett sighed. "Well, when Ben, Wes and Elliot were kids, I'd just kick their backsides. But I suppose you're a bit too old for that. Then again..."

"Come on, Garrett!"

Garrett laughed softly, a deep rumbling sound. "Relax, will you? We'll be over after breakfast, okay? We'll get this all sorted out."

Breakfast. The mention of it made Luke's stomach growl. He was starved. It also made him think of the junk-food boxes and bags he'd seen in the woman's car last night He bet the kid hadn't had an honest meal in at least a couple of days. And his mother might not have eaten much at all.

"Luke?"

"What? Oh, yeah, after breakfast. I'll see you then. And thanks, Garrett, Chelsea."

"That's what family's for, Luke," Chelsea said.

Drawing a deep breath, Luke hung up the phone. Family. He was willing to bet that if the woman upstairs had any family at all besides her son, she wouldn't be here.

Hell. Looking at the poor little kid was like looking at a dim reflection of his own past.

Sighing, Luke went to the kitchen and opened the fridge to see what he could find for breakfast.

SHE
SMELLED SOMETHING THAT TICKLED
her senses and crept into her dreams. She was young again—eight or nine years old, at the most—and she was at her best friend Mary's house for a sleepover. First thing in the morning, Mary's mom made this huge breakfast. It was the smell of bacon cooking that woke young Jasmine that morning. And she lay there for a minute and thought how cool it must be to have a mom like Mary's. To wake up every morning to the smell of bacon cooking, or the sound of her humming softly in the kitchen.

At home, Jasmine woke to the smell of stale cigarette smoke and beer. Her own mom greeted her most mornings by groaning in hangover misery and telling her to get the hell out of her room. There was usually a strange man in her bed on those mornings. She didn't want to go home again after a sleepover with Mary. Or with Jeannette or with Valerie. She didn't want to wake up to overflowing ashtrays and half-filled beer glasses and spilled food and whatever man her mother had decided would be more important than her daughter this week. She didn't ever want to go home again. She lay there, at Mary's house, and she told herself that when she was a mom someday, she would be the kind of mom who made bacon in the mornings. She would never let anything ever be more important to her than her child. Especially not some strange man.

"Mommy?"

Jasmine opened her eyes slowly. She was lying on her back in a strange bed, and her little boy's smiling face hovered an inch above her own. "Smell that, Mommy? It smells just like home on Sundays!"

Jasmine blinked the haze from her brain, lifted her head and kissed Baxter's nose. "It does, doesn't it?" she asked, sniffing the air and smelling bacon and coffee and something sweet.

Baxter nodded hard, grinning, eyes wide. "Is it Sunday, Mom?"

"Nope. It's only Saturday."

He shrugged. "You think Mr. Brand is cooking us breakfast?"

"I don't know, honey."

"Can I go find out?"

"No, not just yet." She got out of the bed and looked down at herself. She'd slept in her clothes, minus the nylons and shoes, and they were wrinkled and messy. A glance in the mirror across the room almost made her jump. Her hair was wild and her makeup smeared. She looked like hell. She didn't want to face anyone like this.

The bedroom was nice, though. She'd come in here in the dark last night, and frankly, she'd been too tired to care to look around. She'd crawled into bed to snuggle with Bax until he fell asleep. The plan had been to get up and find a shower afterward, but she'd been out cold before she got around to it. She saw the bathroom now, as she looked around. It was just through a small door to the right, and a peek inside told her there was a tub and shower, towels and washcloths. Thank goodness.

She turned back to finish her inspection of the bedroom. The outmost wall was lined in tall narrow windows with sheer white curtains that let the sun beam through them like a golden spotlight. The bed was an old-looking four-poster, made of some dark, lustrous hardwood, and the large dresser matched. The bedside stand didn't. It was newer, and cheap looking, wood veneer, not the real stuff. And there was a small portable television set on top of the trunk at the foot of the bed. Not a picture on the wall. Not a rug on the floor. No trinkets or knick-knacks in sight. How long did that Luke character say he'd been living here? Three months? He sure didn't settle into a place fast, did he?

A tap on the bedroom door made her jump. "Who is it?" she asked, staring at the door, which had no lock, and praying it wouldn't open on her. And then she realized what an inane question she'd just asked and rolled her eyes.

"It's Luke. Breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes, if you're hungry. And, um, if you need something to wear, you can snag a pair of sweats and a T-shirt out of my bottom drawer."

"What makes you think I don't have anything to wear?"

"You going to tell me you do?" he asked her. Or was he daring her?

"I'll be a half hour," she said, choosing to ignore his challenge. No human being could possibly get ready for anything in fifteen minutes.

Baxter tugged on her skirt "Mom, can't I go down now? I'm starved. And I already washed up."

She glanced at her son, saw that he had indeed washed his face and tugged a comb through his hair. He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but that couldn't be helped. Still, she didn't want to let him out of her sight.