Learning to Love Again (16 page)

She laid the rose she had brought home with her down on the dresser before sitting down in the chair next to the window, her phone in her hand.  This had become her favorite spot since coming back to the ranch.  Since this bedroom was located in the back of the house, it was quiet, allowing her to think in peace.  She stared out at the rolling hills, the mountains in the distance.  Her father had loved this land, loved working the ranch.  He'd been so proud of her, encouraging her to do well in school so she could get into the University of Texas.  And he was so different from her mother.

She glanced down at her phone and hit the button to dial Jack's number.

“Hey.  I thought you had a date with Jason today,” he answered on the second ring.

“I did.  He just dropped me off a little while ago,” she cleared her throat.  “I need a favor.”

“Is it going to cost me any friends?”

“Just me, if you don't help me,” she threatened.  “I want to go through my stuff.”

“It's in the garage there.  All the boxes should be labeled.”

“No, I mean the stuff from before,” she clarified, “from my parents' house.”

“Oh.”  Jack was quiet.  “Why now?”

“Jason said something last week that's been bothering me, made me start thinking about everything.”  She took a deep breath.  “Mom didn't leave a note, she always left a note.  And who called Dad?  No one ever admitted to being the one to call him.”

“Are you saying you don't think he did it?”

“I'm saying I have questions that I'm ready to get answers to.  I need the closure, Jack.  Whether this thing with Jason goes anywhere or not, I need to move past this.”

He was silent for so long, she was afraid the phone had dropped the call.  “OK, I can come over in the morning.  You know Mitch and Carly will want to help.”

“They're going over to Carly's mom's house, spending the whole day.”

“I'll be there by ten o'clock.  What about Austin?"  Jack asked.

“I'll drive up tomorrow night, or Monday morning,” Nicole closed her eyes.  “I owe you one, Jack.”

“I'll come up with something good.  See you in the morning,” he hung up and Nicole slipped her phone into her pocket, staring out her window.

She was ready to face her past and move onto her future.  Her decision about the job was made, she knew what she was going to do, and she just had a few more details to work out.  The next few days were going to be long.

NICOLE WAS WAITING ON THE PORCH WHEN JACK ARRIVED the next morning.  Her foot tapped out an impatient beat and she held her arm up, pointing at her watch.  He shook his head but gave her a grin as he climbed the steps.

“Where are Ma and Pop?” he asked, using the names he'd given Helen and Steve a long time ago.  He reached for her coffee and she held it out of reach.

“Do it and die.”  She narrowed her eyes at him, “Go get your own.  Helen and Steve are in the kitchen, where the coffee is.”

Laughing, Jack headed inside.  Nicole shook her head and sighed, leaning against the porch railing.  Knowing Jack, he’d be in there for a couple of minutes, at least.  She just wanted to get this done and over with.  The possibility that her mother
had
left a note was driving her crazy.  If there was a note, would it answer any questions or just add to them?   And did she even want to know what her mother had been thinking?

Jack came back out a few minutes later with a thermos of coffee.  “Here, Ma fixed this for us,” he handed the thermos over to her.  “Walk or drive down to the storage barn?” he jerked his thumb at one of the off-road vehicles.

“I can handle the walk if you can,” she glanced at the scar showing below his basketball shorts.

“Want to race?”

“I said I could
walk
it.  I'm not running in this heat.”  Nicole frowned as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail.  “Let's go,” she headed down the steps.

Chuckling, he caught up with her and slung his arm around her shoulders.  “So, how are things going with Jason?”

“He took me out on his boat yesterday and we've talked.”  She looked at him from the corner of her eye.  “I've fallen in love with him again, Jack.”

“Yeah, I figured as much."  She felt his arm tighten around her.  “Are we celebrating this fact, or do I need to help you move somewhere out of state?”

“I’m not running away this time.”

“Good to know,” he grinned at her.  “I’d hate to have to kick your ass.”

“Better be nice, or I’ll start looking for a girlfriend for you,” she elbowed him in the ribs, but the smile died as they stepped up to the storage garage.  It used to have equipment in it, but Steve had built a bigger structure farther away from the house to keep noise levels down.

“You sure about this?” Jack kept his eyes on her as she bit her lip and took a couple of deep breaths.  She nodded, pulling the key out of her pocket.

“I'm sure.  I have no idea what we'll find, or even what the hell we're looking for, but I want to do this.”  She unlocked the barn style doors and together, they pushed them open.

“Ma needs to have a garage sale,” he muttered, sneezing at all the dust that was disturbed by the slight breeze.  Frowning, he looked around the large structure.  Every piece of furniture that had ever been replaced in the house was in here.  Along with old toys, textbooks from their college days, and anything else none of them wanted in the house, but didn't want to get rid of.

“Don't even suggest it to her.  She'll rope all of us into dragging this stuff out of here and going through it!”  Nicole flipped a couple of switches, turning lights on throughout the building.

“Ok, where do we start?” Jack opened the thermos and refilled their cups.

“Aunt Helen said most of the stuff from my parents is in that back corner,” she pointed to one of the corners of the building and they made their way to it.  “Thank God she's made sure there are pathways between things.”

“At least she knows where she's put stuff,” Jack grumbled, taking in all the boxes.  “How do you want to do this?"

"Just start going through the boxes, I guess," she grimaced as she looked at the number of containers stacked around them.  Grabbing one of the boxes, she pulled out a box cutter, exposing the blade.  She sliced through the tape and opened the one closest to her.  “These are just books,” she closed it and started to shift it out of her way.

“Hold up,” Jack laid his hand on her arm, stopping her.  “Think this through with me.  Your mom is trying to leave; she's in a hurry to get packed and out the door.  We're not sure who called your dad, right?”  Nicole nodded her head in answer and he continued.  “So, we're not sure she even knows that her time is limited.”

“I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary that day when I got back from the lake,” she shared, watching as he dusted off an old chair and sat down.  “I mean, nothing was out of place, and until the police said she was trying to leave, I didn’t notice anything missing.  Even then, it was just the suitcase and some clothes.  Other than that, everything was like it should be.  Except for the lack of a note.  Mom was a stickler for leaving notes.”

“What if she just didn't leave it where she would on a normal day, because she didn't want your father to find it?”

Nicole looked around at the boxes.  “
If
that's what happened she would have left a note in my room.  But I was in my room when I got home that day; there wasn't a note.”

“Well, not out where you saw it, anyway,” he agreed, standing back up.  “So, let's find the stuff from your room.”

“Most of my stuff came with me when I moved over.  It was just the furniture that got moved out here,” Nicole stopped him.  She turned back to study the area, considering the options that he'd just laid out.  “My desk!”

“What?”

“I didn't bring my desk to the house with me.  My room here already had one and I didn't see the point in moving it out to bring in mine.”  Her eyes swept around the area, looking for it.  “I had Aunt Helen give away most of the furniture in the house, but that desk was one of the few things I wanted to keep.”

“Is that it?” he pointed to the far wall, where a desk was pushed into the corner with boxes were piled around it.  Nicole nodded and they made their way to it.  “Wouldn't the desk have been emptied out before it was moved over here?”

“Yes, but it had a secret bottom in the top drawer.  I found it by accident.  When she was in one of her fun moods, Mom would hide little trinkets in there for me,” she stood with her hands on her hips looking at the desk.  “She wasn’t always such a bitch.”

Jack stepped up beside her, mimicking her stance.  “I know.  I remember a couple of times, when we were much younger, she’d bake cookies with us,” he turned his head to look at her.  “It’s hard to remember those times when she was a shrew most of the time.”

Nicole nodded and indicated the boxes on the floor in front of the desk.  “We need to get this stack out of the way so we can get into that drawer,” she tapped the bottom one with her foot.

“Alright, I think we can just slide them across the floor,” Jack told her, testing the weight of the stack.  “They’re not too heavy.”  Together, they knelt on the floor and shoved them out of their way.  Nicole stood up and moved over to the desk, staring at it, her hand clenching and unclenching at her side.

“Nicole…we don’t have to do this,” Jack reminded her, and even though his voice was low, in the quiet of the old barn, it seemed to bellow.

“Yeah, Jack, I do,” she reached out and pulled the drawer open, running her fingers along the edge.  There was a soft ‘snick’ as the mechanism released and the false bottom sprung open.  “There’s something here,” Nicole looked over at Jack, her eyes wide with surprise.

The envelope she withdrew from the drawer had started to turn yellow with age, but the writing on the outside was still legible.  Turning the envelope over in her hands, she stared at the writing.  “It’s from Mom,” she whispered.

“Do you want to open it here, or take it up to the house?” Jack stepped up beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“The house,” she answered without hesitation.  “I’m not sure what I want to do with it now.”  Her eyes roamed around the old barn.  “I’m a little afraid to read it, to be honest.”

“I know, kiddo.” Jack squeezed her shoulder and then indicated the doors behind them.  “Do you want to head back up there, or go through some of these boxes?  What’s in them, anyway?”

“Books, for the most part.  A few of the boxes have Dad’s rodeo stuff and Mom’s knick-knacks,” she looked around.  “Anything I didn’t want right away, or that Aunt Helen thought I might want in the future.”

“We could go through a few of them,” he offered.

“Not today.  I think I just want to go back up to the house,” she shook her head.  “You’re welcome to stay and go through them.”

Jack looked at the stacks of boxes.  “No, I’ll walk back up with you.  I wanted to talk to Pop about some stuff.”  They both moved towards the doors.  Making sure the lights were off, Jack closed and locked the doors.

“How soon are you going to head to Austin?” he asked as they turned to walk back up to the house.

“I was thinking later this afternoon.  Jason is on call so I’m just going to hang around, get a few things figured out,” she tapped the envelope with a finger.

“You know how to find me if you need me,” he nudged her arm with his elbow as they climbed the steps to the front porch.

“That I do,” she agreed with a grateful smile.  “I’m going to go stare at this thing for a while.”

Shutting her bedroom behind her, Nicole set the envelope down on her dresser and then sat on the end of her bed.  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 
What am I so afraid of?  Maybe I’ll get the answers I’ve wanted, once and for all.
  She stood back up and snatched the envelope off the bed, walking over to her window and staring out at the ranch.  Folding the envelope in half, she shoved it into her back pocket and turned to the closet, grabbing her riding boots.  She knew where she needed to go to read this.

Forty-five minutes later, she tethered her horse to a bush near the pond and climbed up onto one of the rocks, its surface warm from the sun.  Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back, absorbing the sun, enjoying the quiet of nature for a moment.  With a sigh, she pulled the envelope out of her back pocket and tore it open, pulling out two sheets of paper.  It was dated the day before her parents had died.  With one last deep breath to calm her nerves, she started reading.

Dear Nicole,

By the time you read this, I will be gone.  I’m planning to hide it in your desk, so who knows how long it will be before you find it.  It will be up to you what you want to do with it…read it, burn it, show it to everyone.  But it’s time for you to know the truth.

“Hell if that line didn’t just say it all,” Nicole muttered out loud, before returning to the words on the page.

First, let’s get this out in the open.  I know I was a lousy mother.  You deserved so much more from me, but I want you to know it was never you.  It was me.  Sounds like a cop-out, doesn’t it?  But it’s true, and I hope you’ve realized that.

I know Helen has told you about our childhood.  It wasn’t easy.  She was lucky to find your Uncle Steve.  He’s the total opposite of the asshole who fathered us.  I know everyone thinks I’m jealous of the money they have.  But it wasn’t the money, it was the love between them I was jealous of.  Steve and Helen took me in, gave me a home.

Don’t get me wrong.  I did—and part of me always will—love your dad.  He saved me, and you, but I wasn’t ‘in love’ with him.  I had nothing against him being a rancher or the foreman for Steve.  He worked hard, made an honest living, provided everything we needed.  I chose to make it about the money because to admit it was anything else after everything he did for me would have destroyed him.  And you.  I never wanted that.