Crazy Little Thing Called Love (22 page)

Peggy Sutton had been the prettiest girl in
school. She was head cheerleader and a full grade ahead of him. She
was also easy which he’d really liked about her and he hadn’t
intended to waste his parents being out of town by babysitting. He
put the little brats to bed, hopped in his truck and went for a
drive down by the river with the pretty brunette.

He hadn’t meant to stay gone as long as he
had but they fell asleep and hours passed before he woke up and
looked at the clock. Peggy had been pissed when he threw her
clothes at her and told her to get dressed. He didn’t even kiss her
goodnight or take her up to her house. He dropped her at the road
and made her walk the last quarter mile home so her daddy wouldn’t
see his headlights. She’d never spoken to him again but that had
been the least of his worries by the time the night was over.

When he got home the house had been dark and
he’d grinned that he’d gotten away with it. He hung his keys on the
hook and had the balls to grab one of his dad’s beers out of the
fridge. Heading upstairs to his bedroom he peeked his head in and
found Devin fast asleep. Everything was just as it should have been
so he continued down the hallway.

The light coming out from Riley’s bedroom had
been the first sign that something wasn’t right. His youngest
brother hadn’t quite turned eight yet but he hadn’t slept with a
light on in years. He twisted the doorknob, stuck his head in and
immediately looked around in confusion.

Riley’s room was a mess of clothes and toys.
He wasn’t the cleanliest of children, what boy was, but it looked
like a tornado had hit the room. Drawers stuck out at odd angles
from the dresser. The closet was open and empty hangers glinted
inside. The bed was unmade and Riley was nowhere to be found.

“Riley?” He’d immediately assumed the little
brat was hiding.

As the minutes passed and Riley didn’t come
out he’d turned angry. He smashed a few of Riley’s toys under his
feet. He yelled and threatened to beat him to a pulp if he didn’t
stop hiding. When that didn’t work he’d promised he wasn’t mad and
that he wouldn’t tell their parents. Still nothing.

His angry yelling had woken Devin and
sleepy-eyed he’d wandered in only to face the full brunt of Zach’s
wrath. He shoved his brother into a wall. He got in his face and
yelled at him for not looking after Riley. He blamed him until
Devin wrestled free and glared at him.

“You were the one supposed to look out for
him. You’re the big brother.” He’d said.

That had been the minute the anger got buried
under the worry. He and Devin had searched the house high and low.
They got flashlights and searched the yard. Devin went to check the
bunkhouse and Zach had gone to check the barn.

Hours passed before he finally found Riley in
the loft of the barn. The little boy had been curled into a ball in
his batman pajamas. He had his suitcase loaded beside him and when
Zach woke him up he’d insisted he was running away.

“Oh no you’re not.” Zach argued.

“Yes I am. I hate you. I hate you. You’re the
worst brother in the world and I don’t want to live with you
anymore.”

“Shut up and go inside.”

“No.”

“I said go inside.”

The argument had escalated and Riley tried to
run from him. He reached for him but only caught a flailing leg as
the little boy rounded a corner. It wasn’t enough to stop him but
it had been enough to send him tumbling to the floor. In slow
motion, he watched his little brother roll off the ledge of that
loft, his eyes wide, his scream of terror deafening, and despite
racing towards him, trying to reach him in time. He hadn’t gotten
there soon enough.

That was the moment in the dream that Zach
always woke up in a cold sweat with his heart pounding in his chest
and disoriented. He sat straight up, trying to remember where he
was and it slowly came back. He was in the house. He was in bed. He
wasn’t sixteen and Riley was okay but the memories didn’t end
there.

He didn’t need to still be dreaming to
remember the sound of bones breaking as Riley’s little body hit the
floor of the barn in a hard thud. He could still remember every cry
and whimper and every accusation that it was all his fault. He
could remember the pain of knowing he’d failed and his little
brother had been hurt. He hadn’t been able to protect him.

Zach pushed himself out of the bed and
stripped the damp sheets. It had been a long time since he had that
dream. It came a lot in the first months after it happened. It had
faded away until his father’s death but he’d suffered through the
nightmares for nearly three years after the fact. Only as he got
older had it faded away again. But now it was back because he’d had
that stupid fight with Riley, he knew it.

He went to the kitchen, poured a glass of ice
water and downed it before returning to the bedroom. He’d done some
research over the years. He knew that a lot of times nightmares
were related to stressful events in life and feelings of
helplessness. He knew why the dream had come back now.

He hadn’t protected his little brother once
and he’d almost gotten him killed. He’d been overprotective of
Riley ever since. Sure he’d let him get away with more because of
it over the years because of the guilt. He’d tried to keep him a
kid but Riley hadn’t been a kid for a long time.

He and Devin were adults and they didn’t want
to be overprotected anymore. They wanted responsibility. They were
insisting on it actually which meant for the first time since all
those years ago he had to think about letting them make their own
mistakes and not being there to catch them if they fell.

He didn’t like change. He didn’t like added
stress. So he had dreams that kept him up half the night to add to
the stress his brothers were already putting on him. Fantastic.

He was just a regular old guy. He didn’t like
to think about his issues with his dead father or his brothers or
the land that was divided up between them. He didn’t have some deep
well of fears of abandonment and failure. No, he didn’t. He just
needed a new distraction because remodeling the house was not
taking up nearly enough time or helping with his restlessness.

That thought immediately turned hard against
the memory of Bluebell in his bed. She’d been a fantastic
distraction and she’d seemed to need one as badly as he did. It
wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to him since he woke
up without her there less than twenty-four hours ago but he’d told
himself it was just because the sex was so good and he’d had
nothing better to do all day than either get lost in the memories
of last night or his fight with Riley.

He wasn’t the type of guy to go chasing after
a skirt though, distraction or not. And she had enough issues to
deal with right now, like he didn’t remember that forlorn look in
her eye when he asked about Montgomery Oaks? No, that’d been a
mistake he was happy she’d distracted them both from but he’d
lucked out there. He’d be crazy to go back for seconds so instead
he got back into bed and fought to get some decent sleep and put
thoughts of Bluebell Carter, Riley and the question of exactly what
he wanted out of life out of his head.

“Damn it Bluebell, what do you think you’re
doing?”

She took a deep breath before she turned to
face her father. He’d been working really hard on ruining the good
mood that had permeated her body the past forty-eight hours. Now
that he was awake again, he seemed determined to break her.

When she snuck back into the house before
morning light after her romp with Zach she’d thought for sure
nobody had noticed she was gone. Arlene hadn’t commented at
breakfast. Everything had been as normal as they’d ever been.
Normal continued right on through Lyle Carter waking up and
becoming his usual overbearing, demanding, grouchy self.

She’d had a great night just one great night
and the lightness it had left her with had been practically
blissful. When she’d watched Zach fall asleep and then grabbed her
clothes and high-tailed it away it wasn’t because she couldn’t wait
to get out of there. It’s because she’d wanted to stay.

Not forever, lord no, just long enough so she
wouldn’t have to face her problems for a little while longer. But
their night had been over so she’d kissed the top of his head,
murmured a quick thank you in his ear and gone back to the real
world. The real world that royally sucked.

“I’m just putting some flowers in the room to
brighten things up.” She arranged the vase on his dresser.

“I’m dying girl. There ain’t no bright
side.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him and bit
her lip to stifle the flood of emotions at those words. He’d rarely
muttered the truth in the past few weeks. He refused to talk about
it. She had no idea if he’d accepted it or was in denial because he
wouldn’t talk to her about it. He was stubborn and proud and about
as open about what was happening as Fort Knox.

“What can I do to help Daddy?” She tried to
swallow but found it too difficult.

“Not a thing sweet girl, not a thing.”

“I could help with the ranch. There has to be
something I could do to help Bobby or Arlene.”

“They’ve been doing their jobs for longer
than you’ve been alive. They don’t need your help.”

“Okay, then something else, something that
you’ve been doing that’s fallen to them? Payroll? Accounting? I’m
good with numbers. I always have been.”

“I haven’t done payroll since 1985 Bluebell.”
He looked at her as if she was crazy, “Oran handles all the
finances. You going to take his job away from him just so you can
feel needed?”

Son of a bitch she wanted to scream. She had
no idea who Oran was. She’d never heard him mentioned by anyone on
the ranch. But yeah, if it’d give her some sense of responsibility
and duty she’d take his job if she could. She needed to be needed
but she sucked it up and tilted her chin up like her father
expected.

“Of course not. I just want to help out on
the ranch.”

“The best thing you could do for the ranch is
stay out of the way. You don’t know a thing about ranching.”

True. It was all true. It didn’t make it hurt
any less though because he couldn’t even be brought to spare her
feelings on his deathbed. He was Lyle Carter and he didn’t know how
to be sensitive.

“And whose fault is that?” She muttered and
righted the flowers and her tear-filled eyes before turning back to
him, “Bluebell’s Daddy. Mama’s favorites.”

“Your mama loved those flowers. Prettiest I
ever saw her was when she was standing in a field of bluebell’s
though she was always the prettiest girl in any room too. Never a
hair out of place, never anything less than a smile for a neighbor
or friend. She loved this place. She’d never have left it.”

“Guess I didn’t turn out much like her.”

“No. You didn’t.” He sighed heavily, “Even
when you were a little girl and she tried so hard to dress you up
in those frilly dresses and put you in those beauty pageants you
weren’t a thing like her. You were wild and independent, even
then.”

If she thought she’d ever had her feelings
hurt by her father before she’d been sorely mistaken. He just
couldn’t help but keep cutting away at her. He wouldn’t know how to
talk to her, to show a lick of emotion if his life depended on it.
Not even now.

“I didn’t mean to be different.”

“I know. You couldn’t help it. It’s just who
you are.” He flipped on the television like they’d just been
discussing the weather and not all of her faults.

She stared at him in bewilderment. How was
this man her father? How could she love him so much and not
understand anything about him? She didn’t look like him. She didn’t
act like him and yet he was the only parent she had. It wasn’t fair
and she felt some of the fissures inside her heart break open.

“You know what Daddy, I may not have won
beauty pageants or sang in the church choir but I’m not a failure.
There are people out there who would be proud of what I’ve done,
who don’t look at me and see nothing but faults.”

“I never said I wasn’t proud of you.” He
growled, “Don’t be dramatic Bluebell.”

“You never said you were proud either
though.” She shook her head, “I finished school. I got my degree
and a good job. I have a good life.”

“Then go back to it! If you’ve got somewhere
better to be then just go. You weren’t supposed to be here anyway.
Just go back to your wonderful life Bluebell.”

Oh how she wanted to. She wanted to rush down
the stairs and get in her completely impractical sports car and
leave. She wanted to leave Fate in her rearview mirror. She wanted
to leave Montgomery Oaks and her father and all of her misery and
memories behind.

But she didn’t. She simply finished folding
her father’s laundry and put it away and then she went downstairs
and sat at the too big dining room table all by herself and
wondered how her life had spiraled so far out of control. Her
father didn’t want her here. She didn’t want to be here but she
knew she had to.

She looked around the empty dining room and
felt the urge to be anywhere else but here. The problem was that
she didn’t want to be just anywhere though. She wanted to be in
Zach’s house where things weren’t stuck in the past, where there
was a table you could actually eat at, where she was just a good
time girl who knew how to smile and laugh.

But she couldn’t do that either. As much as
she’d prefer to get naked and forget her problems that wasn’t an
option. They’d just had sex. He’d probably already moved along to
another of the smiling masses that didn’t want anything from
him.

It just sucked that despite growing up in
Fate the number of people she considered friends was measly at
best. She could call Jenny Sue but she’d have her kids at this time
of the week. She could call Molly but she was a newlywed fresh back
from her honeymoon and it didn’t seem fair to bring her down so
soon. She might be able to reach Maddie but she didn’t really know
the younger girl well enough to put her bad mood on her either.