Just Down the Road (21 page)

Not to his surprise, Liz had told her mother, who’d told her sister, who told her daughter, who told whoever.

Apparently every Matheson in town knew what was going on. Which translated to almost half the town knowing he was hiding the boy from the drug dealers who might have killed his mother. The upside to every Matheson relative knowing was that they’d be watching for strangers. The downside was that they were in his business.

He remembered his dad complaining once that marrying into the Matheson clan was like having fleas. There are too many to count, and if you don’t watch they’re always moving around in your life. Tinch saw that firsthand now.

One second cousin brought by a box of toys and games. Another brought a box of clothes containing a pair of boots that fit Jamie as if they’d been made for him. Two of his third cousins brought by casseroles and a pie that lasted two days.

One mentioned that she sure liked the doctor. She’d
even made Tinch laugh when she said, “You get some sun on that girl and she’d be a real beauty.”

Tinch didn’t dare make a comment. He didn’t think they knew about the doc spending the night, and he wasn’t about to tell or one of his cousins would start planning a wedding reception. He thought about mentioning that any drug dealer in town would simply have to follow the parade to his place, but much as he hated the interruptions, he appreciated the caring.

He’d turned them all away after Lori Anne died, but cold as he’d been, they seemed more than willing to give him another shot.

After lunch, Jamie crawled up on the long couch in Tinch’s study. The boy always seemed to want to be within sight of him. Tinch flipped on the computer, after he’d tossed the boy a pillow and blanket and told him and the cat to rest. Both were asleep before Tinch’s programs uploaded.

Fifteen minutes later he heard the chimes sounding for the fourth time since Addison left at dawn. Tinch walked to the door and watched his lawyer cousin drive up. Liz had gained a little weight with the recent pregnancy, and he thought she looked almost too pretty to be real.

“Afternoon,” he said, trying not to let the worry over possible bad news show in his face.

“Afternoon.” She climbed from the car. “How you holding up at being an uncle?”

“I’m surviving.” He smiled. “It’s not so bad.”

She pulled her briefcase and a plastic cake box from the backseat. “You got time to visit for a few minutes?”

“I got time. Jamie’s asleep.”

Liz handed him the plastic cake box. “Cookies from Aunt Pat. She said growing kids need them.”

Tinch thanked her and set them inside the screen door.

They moved to the chairs on the porch. While she spread out notes, he grabbed a couple of root beers and Moon Pies from the kitchen. When they’d been kids and gone to the family reunions at the lake at Twisted Creek, they’d always come back from swimming and sneaked into the big
kitchen off the main hall where all the old relatives played dominoes. Tinch and a dozen cousins would hide beneath the long tables and down the creamy pies and root beers until they made themselves sick.

When he held them out to her, Liz laughed and took the snack and the memories. Tinch spent a few minutes asking about family and talking of nothing important, as if laying down the framework that would hold steady no matter what problems needed discussing today. Finally, he relaxed back in the old rocker and waited for the reason she’d driven out from town.

She’d dug up some facts that didn’t surprise him. Sadie Noble had dropped out of high school. She had several nothing jobs, none of which she kept more than six months. She’d been arrested for a half dozen small crimes; none ended with jail time. She’d listed the father of her child as unknown on the birth certificate and still kept her mother’s house as her only known address. The trailer she’d died in had been rented for a month and all of her belongings, including the food found there, wouldn’t fill the trunk of a car.

Liz guessed that Sadie must have already been into drugs when her mother died because the mother’s house was left to Jamie. Sadie could live in it if she paid the taxes. If the taxes went unpaid for a year, the house was to be sold, with the money put in trust for Jamie. No other relatives were named in the will.

“I talked to the lawyer charged with setting up the trust, and he said he’d get it done as soon as the house sells. Jamie will have the money waiting for him when he turns twenty-one. It won’t be much, but it’ll give him a start.”

“Are you sure there are no other relatives?”

“The lawyer didn’t think so.”

“He’ll stay with me.” Tinch realized he’d worried that someone would come to take Jamie away.

Liz finally closed the file. “We can tell the investigator to continue digging, but it will be expensive and I doubt we’ll learn much more. He said it appears Sadie had only
one half sister, Lori Anne Turner of Harmony, Texas. She may have been on drugs and probably running from something, but she took the time to draw up a will, which shows her love for the boy.”

Tinch nodded. “So I shouldn’t hate her for being so messed up that she left her kid in a dirty place with nothing but cereal that he had to shoot a rat to protect.”

Liz stared out over Tinch’s place. “Maybe she was doing the best she could. I’d like to think she was trying to get the kid to you and her sister. Otherwise, why would she have been in Harmony?”

“Maybe she just figured hiding here was as good a place as any. Maybe she wanted to hit Lori Anne and me up for some money. Who knows, maybe Sadie was opening a new drug business in the area.” Tinch realized that the more he’d grown to care about the boy, the madder he’d gotten at Sadie for not taking care of the kid.

Liz was right, he didn’t know what Sadie Noble had been through. Maybe he should cut her a little slack. Jamie was a good kid.

“I don’t think it will be much more than paperwork to get you legal custody of the boy, but, Tinch, you got to ask yourself if you really want this kind of responsibility.”

He smiled at her. “You mean I’ll have to give up my wild ways and settle down.”

“To be honest, you’ll have to pretty much give up your life. You’ll have to be there for him twenty-four hours a day. He’ll be sick and get hurt. He’ll outgrow clothes as fast as you buy them. He’ll take all your time and then some. Tinch, I love kids. I wanted kids, but you had him dumped on you. Make very sure you’re up for it before you sign on for the job.”

“What if I say no?”

“He’ll become a ward of the state. Who knows, he might get adopted by a great family.”

“And he might not,” Tinch said, making up his mind.

Liz waited, giving him time.

“I don’t think I had a life before he dropped in.” The
realization of just how true his words were shook his insides. “You know what he told me last night? He said I was his only uncle and that made me his forever uncle. Then he hugged my neck so tightly I couldn’t breathe and said he’d been trying to get to me ever since his mom told him about me. He said he ran that first night when the sheriff brought him out because he was so afraid I wouldn’t want him.”

Tinch glanced through the window to where Jamie slept, looking so small curled on the couch in his study. “I guess I’ve been waiting around for him too, only I didn’t have anyone to tell me he was coming. When I saw him that first night, his back all striped with bruises, I took on the job of making sure that would never happen again, whether I was his legal guardian or not.”

“You’re sure, then?”

He nodded.

Liz finished up the paperwork and left. Tinch walked inside and stared down at Jamie for a long time before he moved to his computer and began work. Ready or not, it was time to make some changes, and he might as well start with buying the Rogers place next door. The Rogerses’ daughter had told him she’d give him a good deal and let him pay it off over a few years. It would mean a lot of hard work, but that didn’t matter. He’d been sitting around for three years alternating between trying to drink himself to death and dying from grief. He might as well try working himself to death.

In a few years the Rogers place would start paying for itself, and by the time Jamie was grown, they’d have double the land.

While he waited for the Rogers daughter to answer, Tinch moved a few of the stocks he owned into safer investments and accepted a few more horses people wanted him to turn into gentle riding mounts. That didn’t pay much, but it would cover the cost of keeping Jamie in boots for a few years.

Finally, he wrote a note to the lady who cleaned his house. Lori Anne’s closet needed cleaning out. She’d always
be with him in his heart whether the clothes were there or not. Maybe someone down on her luck like Sadie could make use of them.

Tinch felt solid for the first time in three years. He was looking ahead and not back. He cared about someone. Jamie was going to need him, and Tinch planned to be there for the boy. There would be no more bar fights. No more late nights drinking. No more time for wishing he were dead. Tinch had a boy to raise, and he planned to make Lori Anne proud.

Jamie woke and they moved upstairs. There were two smaller bedrooms Lori Anne had called the someday rooms. She’d always said maybe someday they’d have kids or someday she’d start quilting. Only the somedays never came.

Tinch opened the first room, half full of scattered boxes and books. After glancing at the wall of books from his childhood, he moved across the hall and noticed that the second room had extra furniture that needed to be moved to the attic. Lori Anne never wanted to get rid of anything. He used to kid her and say that she must believe furniture had feelings. She’d always look at him and say, “You don’t?” like it was strange that he didn’t know old rockers hold generations of memories and little school desks trap the laughter of children.

Jamie walked from one room to the other as if looking for hidden treasure among the dust.

“Which one do you want?” Tinch asked, trying to push the memories away.

“It doesn’t matter.” Jamie hiccupped a cry as he backed toward the hallway. “Put me in either one and I’ll stay. I promise. You don’t have to lock the door.”

There it went again, Tinch thought; that heart he’d given up using was pounding so hard it might break his ribs from the inside. Shoving his grief aside, he knelt down so he could see the boy’s face. “I thought you’d like a room of your own.”

Jamie shook his head and began to cry.

Tinch lifted him up and walked back downstairs. They were on the porch before he sat the boy down and knelt to
Jamie’s level. “We’ll talk about it later, but you need to know one thing, boy. There is never going to be a door in this house that locks you in or out.” Jamie held on tightly to Tinch’s sleeve as Tinch added, “And no one is ever going to hit you. If they even think about it, they’ll be answering to me. No matter what you do or don’t do, I’ll never raise my hand to you.”

They moved to a rocker on the porch and Tinch sat down with the boy in his arms. Reason told him this would probably be one of the few times he got to hold Jamie like this. Too fast boys grow too big for this kind of holding, but right now he knew the kid needed to believe someone cared about him.

Jamie stopped crying, but he didn’t let go for a long while. Finally, he asked in a low voice, “You going to die too, Uncle Tinch?”

“No. Not anytime soon.”

Jamie didn’t make a sound, and Tinch knew the boy didn’t believe him. “You know that book I was reading you last night about the Knights of the Round Table?”

Jamie nodded.

“Well, I’ll tell you a secret. I’m like one of those knights sent to protect King Arthur. You don’t know it, Jamie, but you’re like a prince, and my job from now on is to watch over you until you’re grown. We’re going to have time to read that entire wall of books, Jamie. Me and you.”

“Promise?”

When Jamie finally pulled away and wiped his nose on his sleeve, Tinch said, “We’d better get our coats on and go check on the horses. I didn’t like the way Stormy was favoring her front right leg.”

The kid reached for his coat. “I didn’t either. Got to watch things like that.”

Tinch smiled as they headed off the porch with the two worthless pups following. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had happened in the boy’s life to make him act so afraid of being locked in, but Tinch planned to make sure it never happened again. If Jamie didn’t like locks, he’d
take every one off, and if the boy needed to believe that someone in his life would stay around and not die, Tinch would do his best to make sure that happened.

“How about, when we’re finished, we ride over to the Rogers place and I show you where I used to catch tadpoles?”

“Sure,” Jamie said. “What’s a tadpole?”

H
OURS LATER
T
INCH STOOD ALONE ON THE PORCH LISTENING
to the wind storm in with cold air from the north. Fall was slowly shifting into winter. It had almost been too cold to ride over to the pond, but Jamie hadn’t complained. They’d sat on the bank and made plans for the summer when the water was warm enough to swim in. Memories of his childhood filled Tinch with a peace he hadn’t felt in a long time.

As darkness moved in, Tinch turned his collar up against the wind and relived his day. He watched Addison’s car turn into his drive. She’d called and checked on Jamie twice, and he’d promised to have supper ready. But she hadn’t been able to leave the hospital, so he’d fed the boy and let him watch another western because he didn’t want to go to sleep before his angel the doctor came home.

She climbed out of her little car and made a run for the house. The scrubs that seemed to make up her entire wardrobe except for the thin T-shirts she wore as PJs did little to keep the wind away. She was shivering by the time she hit the porch.

He held the door, then watched her dancing around acting as if it were below freezing even in the house.

Without much thought, he pulled off his heavy work coat and put it around her shoulders.

“Thanks,” she said, already moving to the boy.

By the time Tinch warmed her soup, she was back in the kitchen.