Texas Redeemed (16 page)

Peyton figured he was pushing his luck, but he stood and
crossed the porch to her. She didn’t cringe or flip him the bird, which he
hoped was a good sign. Then he curled his hand into a fist and slowly brought
it forward until it was just his fist hanging in the air between them. “Badness
loves company.”

Lucy’s blue-gray eyes lit with laughter, though her mouth
tipped up only a hair at one corner. She balled up her green fist and bumped
his. “Okay.”

“Got a question for you.” He
indicated her costume. “What, exactly, are you supposed to be?”

“Princess Fiona from the movie
Shrek.
” Lucy politely left off
the “Duh!” at the end of the sentence, apparently deciding to give him a break.
“You don’t watch movies, do you?”

“Not often.”

Abruptly she asked, “Are you still mad about that guy
dying at the hospital?”

He couldn’t have hidden his anger if he’d tried. “Losing a patient screws with your head … It’s tough.”

“Are you mad that I saw?”

“Not mad,” he said, trying to fit what he felt into
words. “Regretful. Ashamed. Hell, Lucy, I just wish
you hadn’t seen that.”

“Death happens. I know that already.”

“Anna.” The word was out of his mouth before he even
realized it. And once he did, he also realized that whatever wall Lucy had been
hiding behind that had been momentarily lowered was back up again—stronger than
before.

The girl hopped off the rail and rushed to the bench to
gather her books. “Mom hates when I leave books outside. She gets all freaked
out about the cold air ruining the pages.” With the short stack braced in the
crook of one elbow, she rapped hard on the door with her free hand and jabbed
the doorbell twice for good measure.

“Where’re your keys?” Peyton asked.

“I forgot to bring them when I went to the Carews’ last night.” Three more jabs.

Peyton waited, prepared to see his daughter slip into the
house and hear Valerie politely thank him for bringing her home before shutting
the door firmly in his face.

This was his family being dangled in front of him like a
treat he’d never earn. Lucy, his flesh and blood. Valerie, who’d once been closer to him than even his own
grandfather. She was considered his family, too, though she didn’t know
it and probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

Valerie hauled open the door, the house’s
warmth and the foyer’s golden light spilling out onto the porch. “C’mon in, Luce. How’s Sarah feeling?”

Lucy got by with a lackluster “Okay” and scooted inside.

Wearing reading glasses, a too-large
sweatshirt and holey jeans, Valerie leaned against the doorframe with her arms
crossed over her chest. One of her hands was covered with an oven mitt. “Thanks
for bringing her home. I think the Carews will have
their hands full as it is tonight."

“It wasn’t a favor. Getting to
spend time with her doesn’t come easy.” He considered leaving on that note but
opted against it. “We didn’t have a chance to talk earlier at Peridot—about Lucy. What about visitation? Real visitation.”

“Peyton …”

“Don’t. Do not renege on me.” He found himself moving
forward, closing the distance. “Things changed the day we visited Anna
together. You know they did.” That day they’d cried in each other’s arms,
bonded in a way that neither of them had addressed or tried to describe. But
for two weeks Valerie had been careful to maintain her distance—and to keep
their surviving daughter just out of reach.

“Look, Valerie, we’ve hashed this out already. I’m not
backing down.”

She gazed at him with uncertainty, then stepped outside
in her bare feet and shut the door. “Is visitation going to be enough? How long
will it be before you ask for joint custody? Or full? How am I expected to deal
with first your grandfather, and now you, working overtime to take her away
from me?”

Peyton held up his palms. “How’d we go from a few visits
to me snatching her?”

“You’re getting close. Too
close. And it’s happening fast.”

“Not close enough, Valerie.” A second passed before he
stepped into her space and she automatically placed her oven-mitted hand
against his abdomen. Always boundaries getting in the way.
“I can’t be in this town and not see you.”

“See Lucy,” she corrected.

“Both of you.” It was gutting
him not to take hold of all that thick dark hair and have Valerie’s mouth open
under his. He wanted to act, to react—but not think or feel. “I can’t stand
here like this and not—”

“Now
you
stop,”
she warned, pushing with that damn oven mitt.

In a fast, hard movement he reached down and wrenched the
mitt off, sending it flying off the porch into the darkness.

Her hand remained right where it had been, as if he’d
removed the mitt magically. The heat from her palm seeped right through his
shirt to his flesh.

“I won’t touch you.” Still, lust flexed inside him,
reared up to battle his self-control.

“I don’t want you to.” But her eyes were locked on his,
her fingers twisting his shirttails and—oh, hell—scraping his abdomen. She
stroked his skin, causing his muscles to bunch, his blood to rush … and his
body to react.

She’d sat on a picnic table at the mercy of his hands.
Was it now her turn to explore?

Before he could question her, or even string together two
coherent thoughts, she backed him into the shelter of shadows on the porch.
Watching his face, she wiggled her lithe body up tight against him. Arousal,
hungry and insistent, thickened in his veins, and he felt himself harden
against her belly. She didn’t back away, but dropped her forehead to his chest
with a moan.

“What do you want, Valerie?” When she shrugged, he said,
“Here’s what I want, right now. I want to taste your mouth … take your bottom lip
between my teeth and find out for myself how soft it is.”

It wasn’t too late to turn back. In fact, common sense
told him that turning back was their only option, with their daughter inside
the house and nothing but complication standing between them despite their
physical closeness. “But I’m not going to do that.”
Not now.

Valerie withdrew, looking bewildered and heated. “I
didn’t plan this.”

“Every time we get together, with nobody else around, we
end up like this, Valerie.”

“I heard somewhere that the worst mistakes are the
hardest ones to learn from. Guess there’s some truth to that.”

Not one thing had been resolved. Visitation was still up
in the air. He’d let her effect on him steer him away from his purpose. Bad idea.

Peyton edged back, watched Valerie stuff her hands into
the pockets of her sweatshirt with a nervous fidget. “Was this a trick or a
treat?”

“Neither.” She opened the door and stepped inside. “Our
cattle drive’s coming up in two weeks. Dinah’ll have
the run of the house and will be keeping Lucy in line, but it’d be a good time
for you to stop by.”

“Where’ll you be?”

“Up in the mountains with all my tricks and treats.” Then the door closed and the pinecones on the wreath
shook harder than they should have.

S
O THERE
WAS
such a thing as too many cookies. An assortment of aluminum foil trays stuffed to the
brim cluttered Valerie’s kitchen to the point where one might think the
countertops and island weren’t made of granite and marble, but instead
chocolate chip goodness. The bear cookie jar was filled to the top and seemed
to boast a satisfied smirk, as if to say, “Bet you wish you’d stopped here.”

And she would’ve. Only, baking had that incredible way of
cutting through all the tension and troubles, and with each fresh batch of
gooey sugary sweetness she felt a little less wound up. The surplus of cookies
had already reached an out-of-hand quantity when Peyton had dropped off their
daughter last night. Then he’d pushed her buttons … and she’d gotten much too
familiar with his body. After that incident she’d gone inside, all hot and
coiled up again, and put the oven to work.

Valerie began stacking the trays, intent on unloading the
loot at the diner. The French doors opened and she heard Cordelia
say behind her, “Wow, a visit from the Keebler elves?”

“No.”

“Did you go a little crazy imagining what the inside of
Toll House looks like?”

“Again, no.” Valerie finished
arranging the trays in stacks of four. “These are going to the diner.”

Cordelia reached for a stack to
cart to the pickup. “Bud and Junie asked to you bake?
As if everyone didn’t get their fill of sugar at the
orchard.”

Valerie hadn’t considered that, but
hoped for the best anyway as she took her share and followed Cordelia to the driveway. “It wasn’t their idea.”

Her cousin halted, one arm gripping the trays
precariously and her free hand on the handle of the rear passenger-side door. “
Now
I get it. On her way out to Emilia
Webber’s place, Mama told me that Peyton dropped Lucy off here last night.”

“Afraid I don’t follow.” Valerie arranged her trays on
the back bench then took the stack from Cordelia.
“How’s Miz Webber anyway?” The former schoolteacher’s
memory was slipping away and she needed someone to look in on her. A while back
Dinah and several others had banded together and convinced Emilia’s son Axle to
let them take turns seeing after her while he worked his shifts at the fire
department.

“Alzheimer’s is Alzheimer’s, but the condition’s not
worsening, so that’s a blessing.” Cordelia frowned, then returned her full attention to Valerie. “But back to
you. Cookies will never compare to sex.”

“Really, Cordelia?
Really?
”

Without another peep, her cousin turned and trotted into
the house.

Of course Valerie knew that baked goods couldn’t
substitute for sex. Last night’s baking frenzy had been only about distraction.
And satisfaction. And … release. “Ugh,” she said,
embarrassed about what had been transparent to Cordelia
and probably Dinah, too, though her aunt had had enough mercy to not call
Valerie on it.

At the diner she transferred the first armload of trays
to the counter, and Bud, who was on a smoke break, helped her bring in the
rest. Though he greeted her in that clipped, but not unfriendly, way that was
so uniquely Bud, he avoided looking at her the entire time, and once he’d
plopped the last of the trays onto the counter, he was out the door again to
light up another cigarette.

“Free cookies!” said Junie,
uncovering the trays to reveal the offerings. Some were plain chocolate chip;
others were spruced up with walnuts and others macadamia nuts. “These’ll bring
in a nice after-school crowd. I owe you, Valerie.”

She hustled toward the back to find enough containers to
store the treats, and Valerie was on her way out the door when a waitress in a
Fork Diner apron sauntered up to the opposite side of the counter. “Oh, stay a
while. Business is slow and I could use the tips.”

Valerie felt her temperature drop several degrees as the waitress’s
dark eyes pinned her the way a spider would a fly. “You didn’t waste a minute
coming back for Peyton, did you, Marin?”

“Let’s put it this way. My son’s here. So I should be
here,” Marin Beck said, as if it all made perfect sense. Though of average
height, and leaning on the too-thin side, with brown hair and eyes, she wasn’t
nondescript to Valerie. The last time she’d seen her was the night Marin rode
out of town and set loose the firestorm Peyton still hadn’t extinguished, even
though she knew that he’d tried his damnedest.

“Don’t hurt him. Not again.” Valerie didn’t care that her
quietly spoken words were on the borderline between a warning and a plea.

“What about the way
you
hurt him, Valerie? Does he—or anyone else—know about that?”

Valerie had to be stronger than this, stronger than that
desperate eighteen-year-old on the verge of a mistake. But the validity behind
the woman’s words was sapping her strength. “I wish I hadn’t—”

Marin snorted softly. “Wishes don’t get you shit.” Rag in
hand, she feigned wiping down the counter, the
movement bringing her face closer to Valerie’s. “Just try to edge me out of
Peyton’s life. It won’t happen. Know why? Because he’ll let
me in. Always has, always will. I’m his
mother.”

“But I’m his—” What? His friend?
No.
His lover?
No.

“You’re the woman he got pregnant—unintentionally.” The
woman’s mouth curved into a smile so heartbreakingly similar to Lucy’s. “I
can’t wait to get to know my granddaughter.”

“Your granddaughter?” Valerie’s
voice sharpened, and she didn’t care that several
patrons whipped their heads around in her direction. “Stay away from Lucy.”

Junie hurried to the counter.
“Bud won’t have any catfights in here.”

Valerie whirled on the head waitress. “Is
this—” she pointed to Marin, whose face had taken on an innocent, almost
angelic look “—why you ‘owe’ me, Junie? And
why Bud can’t look me in the eye? You called her back to Night Sky, didn’t
you?”

The waitress ducked her coppery red head. “America’s a
free country. That’s what you told me. That lowdown ex of mine got my boy, and
I’m just not for keeping a mother from her kid. Nathaniel Turner’s been
treating Marin like a second-class citizen, and that’s just not fair. What she
needs is a second chance.”

“All I want is to show my son that I’ve changed,” Marin insisted
gently. “I’m in A.A. now. And, thanks to Junie and
Bud, I have a job. Everything I’m doing is to be in Peyton’s life, right where
I belong.”

If she belonged in his life, how could Valerie let him
belong in hers? Or their daughter’s? Allowing Marin to
feast on Lucy’s vulnerabilities would cross a line that was never to be
crossed.

Problem was, Peyton’s effect on
Valerie had already begun to scratch the surface of something that went deeper
than attraction. And if he took another chance on Marin, he’d need to let
Valerie and their daughter go—which was a painful possibility since his love
for his mother was unconditional … even though he’d swear otherwise.

That was how Valerie knew he’d never fully loved her. If
he had, he wouldn’t have stopped loving her and wouldn’t have given up on their
friendship.

“Stay away from my daughter,” Valerie said again to
Marin. Then she turned to Junie. “As long as Marin’s on
Bud’s payroll Lucy won’t be coming here.”

Junie tossed up her hands and
walked off to tend to a customer. As Valerie marched to the diner’s exit, she
glanced at the counter to see Marin uncover one of the trays and say, “Mmm. Walnut chocolate chip,” and snap into the cookie with
a hard glare that was meant for Valerie’s eyes only.

“M
IERDA
!”

Peyton held the patient’s arm still as the on-call nurse
injected a dose of morphine while she stifled a giggle at the man’s choice of
Spanish obscenities. “The next painkiller you get will be in pill form, Mister Aturro.”

“Good.” Diego Aturro, who’d
come to Memorial with a dislocated wrist and boxing gloves still on both hands,
had let himself get distracted—breaking what he called a cardinal rule of
boxing—and had missed the heavy bag. The encounter with a concrete wall
could’ve been worse, but Peyton was able to realign the bones without surgical
intervention. The boxer-turned-restaurateur could take a hit, but not the
pinprick of an injection. “Not all right with the needles, eh, you know.”

“Now I know.” Peyton figured the nanosecond-long pinch of
a needle would be nothing compared to how agitated the man would be about the
limitations of an immobilized hand. Well into his fifties with strands of
silver threaded through his shoe-polish-black hair, Diego was active and still as
devoted to boxing as he’d probably been during his days as a prizefighter in
Mexico. “Ice and rest will be your best friends.”

“And tequila,” Diego added. “Don’t forget tequila.”

Peyton grinned. “Got someone to take you home?”

“
Mi
hijo,
William.
Ah … I can hear Fatima saying it now. ‘I told you, silly man. One day you’ll
knock your own block off!’” The man waited as the nurse wrapped his hand
securely. “Wives,” he said to Peyton, but there had been plain fondness in his
voice when he’d said Fatima’s name. “They always tell you so.”

Treatment finished, the nurse left to find Will. Diego
hopped off the gurney with the bounce of a twenty-year-old in his step. “Medicine. God’s gift. But it can’t
heal everything.” He studied Peyton critically. “People in
town talk to my wife. My wife talks to me. Training might get your mind
right. Give it a try,
sí
?
”

“You want me to box.” He held up his hands. “Sparring
would be the fastest way to find myself out of a job. And baseball’s my sport
of choice.”

“Listen, I want to help. You’ll jog, jump rope, use the
speed bag, shadowbox. I can’t fight—not like this—but
I can train.” He pulled a business card from his wallet with admirable
one-handed dexterity. The front advertised Bueno
Eats, and printed on the back was the contact information for Diego’s gym. “So
come to the gym, and visit the restaurant once in a while, eh? While it’s still there anyway.”

Peyton had absorbed snatches of conversation about
Memorial’s plans to develop a neuroscience center in town despite Meridien’s offer of a partnership that would require the
facility to be built in the city. Expanding Night Sky’s hospital would mean
expanding right onto the land of local business owners.

It was a bad spot to be in for a man like Diego, but what
could Peyton say that wouldn’t sound empty and inane? What voice had he in a
town where he wasn’t planning to stay more than temporarily?

After Will had collected his father, and thanked Peyton
with a respectful touch to his cowboy hat, Peyton stayed behind to prep the
treatment cubicle for the next patient. He heard the curtain’s rings slide
across the metal bar and turned, expecting to see the ER nurse claim the
supplies cart.

But Marin stood there instead, looking uncertain, and
only slightly resembling the mother he remembered.

Hard liquor and hard living had stripped her beauty,
leaving her with a bony frame, pale skin and sunken-in eyes. “Yell at me later.
First let me talk.”

Where was it? The fury, the hurt, the
cruel words he’d sworn he’d have ready for her if she ever tracked him down
again? Instead of resilient and unshakable, he felt stunned and drained. “Talk,
Marin.”

“I can’t stay long. Got to finish my
hours.” She opened her long jacket to reveal a Fork Diner apron over her
tee shirt. “I’m working. In Night Sky. Did anyone tell
you?”

“No.” In bits and pieces, his memories of trusting this
woman and letting her shred his spirit and sanity were refueling his will to be
in control—to win—this time. “Just because someone gave you a job doesn’t mean
you’re different. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t hate you.”

I don’t think you
can
change.

Those had been Valerie’s words, aimed at him. Now he
could see his own wounded pride reflected in the drop of Marin’s shoulders.

“If saying that makes you feel better, then okay, Peyton.
But I love you. Can’t help it. I’m so proud of the man
you’ve become.” With purpose, Marin stepped forward until he could see into her
clear, hopeful eyes. “See it? The sobriety?”

All of her booze-free fresh starts had ended with her
falling back to her old ways, leaving his heart shattered like a busted liquor
bottle. “It never lasts.”

“Watch me prove you wrong. I’m going to A.A. at the
church. The pastor’s wife signed me up.” She hugged him, not giving him the
choice to accept it or not, and apparently not caring
that he didn’t reciprocate the embrace. “I only want to be your mother again.”

“Mom, you need to leave.”

Marin finally released him, nodding and blinking away
unshed tears. She smiled that same magnetic smile, the one that swayed people
to have faith in her when they knew they shouldn’t. “You said ‘Mom.’ No booze,
no money—none of what I thought was important before—can compare to that.”