The Lawman Lassoes A Family (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 24) (Contemporary Romance) Read online

  “Probably not,” Dan agreed, holding half a sandwich in his hand. “Just let me know when you want help and how much you need. But take your time.” He glanced toward the front room with a humorous twinkle in his eyes. “That’s a lot of boxes, never mind furniture.”

  “I probably overdid it,” Vicki said. “Maybe I just gave up. Sorting, selling things, giving them away...” She looked down. “I guess I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

  Lena reached out and patted her hand. “You did just fine. I wasn’t kidding, Vicki. I didn’t want either of you to give up a single thing that you want. It’s not necessary. As for some of the old stuff around here, I’ll be glad to have a reason to see the last of it.” She laughed and reached for her bowl of salad. “You know, more than once I’ve had a fantasy about bringing in a decorator to do the whole place over. Beyond my means, I know, but I’m not going to mind the changes.” Then she leaned over and looked at Krystal. “And you, my dear Krys, have a whole room for a playroom. Or you will once we move a few things out.”

  “Goodie,” said Krystal, her mouth full of hamburger. Vicki let it go.

  “Should I groan now?” Dan asked. Lena laughed.

  Vicki kept her eyes down, even as she tried to smile. It was impossible not to look at Dan and see the spark of male interest in his gaze. She wasn’t ready for that, didn’t know if she would ever be, but she was absolutely determined never again to care for a cop. One trip through that hell had been enough for a lifetime.

  Right now she had only one concern, helping Krys through another major upheaval. Vicki hoped it would be the last one, but she wasn’t going to throw anything else into the pot for the girl. Now her daughter had not only lost her father, but she’d lost everything familiar except what they could carry with them. All her friends, her preschool, the places they’d frequented. Ripped away from her.

  Vicki barely heard the rest of the conversation as she once again debated with herself the wisdom of her decision. She knew she needed to move on, both for her own sake and her daughter’s. She had to build them a life of some sort away from the haunting memories. She had to set an example of strength, find some joy in life again.

  So yes, she’d had good reasons for this move. But gazing at Krystal, who was beginning to look as if dinner had made her sleepy, she wondered whose interests had driven her more.

  “Honey? Are you getting sleepy?”

  Krys lifted her head, trying to look alert, but failing. “I guess. Read me a story?”

  “You bet.”

  “Just take her up,” Lena said. “I’ll clean up. We can reheat her burger for her lunch tomorrow.”

  Upstairs, Vicki found the box with Krys’s sheets and pillows, and soon the bed looked familiar again, with brightly colored balloons on the linens and comforter. Krys climbed in after allowing her mother to wash her face and hands at the bathroom sink, then waited expectantly for her story.

  She wasn’t going to last long, Vicki thought as she dug out one of her daughter’s favorite Dr. Seuss stories. The Boston rocker had made it up here, so she pulled it over to the bed and held Krys’s hand while she read the silly, hypnotic words.

  Krys’s eyes started to close, but Vicki kept reading so that the happy rhymes would follow her into sleep. Soon, though, the girl seemed fast asleep, her breathing deep and regular. Vicki eased her hand away and stood, placing the book on the chair.

  The floor creaked a little as she crossed tiptoe to the door, and Krys’s voice stopped her.

  “Mommy? Don’t go away like Daddy did.”

  The words froze Vicki like an electric shock. Anguish she had believed was lessening seized her in a painful grip, twisting her heart until she wanted to cry out from it. She squeezed her eyes shut briefly, then turned, knowing she had to answer her daughter.

  But Krys had already fallen back asleep. A little murmur escaped her and she rolled on her side, hugging her pillow.

  Vicki crept out. At the top of the stairs she sagged until she sat on a riser, and let hot, silent tears fall.

  *

  “Your grandniece is cute as a button,” Dan said as he helped clear the table. Lena put on some coffee and invited him to stay.

  “She certainly is,” Lena agreed. “Now stay for a few minutes, Dan. I know how you love your coffee, and it’s the least I can do after all your help.”

  “Any neighbor would have helped,” he said dismissively. “Glad to do it.”

  “Stay anyway. What are you going to do? Head home and sprawl in front of the TV with some soccer game?”

  Dan laughed. “You have me pegged.”

  Lena arched a brow at him. “Yeah. As a man who works hard and wants to relax when he gets home. Instead you moved half a house.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t make too much of it, Lena. I had an easy day and the workout felt good. As for sprawling in front of the TV, I do less of that than you think.”

  She laughed. “Maybe so. I don’t exactly keep an eye on you.”

  “Thank goodness. My reputation probably wouldn’t survive it.”

  They carried their coffee into the front room. “That’s a really nice couch,” he remarked. He’d like one himself, a dual recliner such as that. But he didn’t sit on it. He wasn’t a dullard, and he was willing to bet one end or the other had been Vicki’s husband’s seat. Dan didn’t want her to see him on it when she came back down.

  He picked his way to Lena’s old sofa and took his usual place on it. She often invited him over for dinner or dessert, especially when he did some little thing for her around the place that she couldn’t do herself. And Lena could do quite a lot herself, so it wasn’t as if she imposed.

  Boxes, shoved to the side, made the room feel tiny, which it never had before.

  “How much are you planning to get rid of?” he asked. This house had been the same the whole time he’d known Lena, and even in its current jumbled state he could see the place he knew. He wondered if she was going to find it more difficult than she was letting on.

  Lena waved a hand. “As much as I need to. Probably won’t be as much as it looks like right now. Everything I have are hand-me-downs. I never got a chance to do this place the way I wanted, except for some curtains and small things. I feel like the caretaker of a museum sometimes. The Winston Family Museum. There are a number of things I’m attached to, but most of it is just here. No history, no old memories, no meaning.”

  “I don’t know whether to say that’s good or that’s sad.”

  “Both,” she said wryly. “Vicki gets it next. It might as well be more to her liking.”

  Dan leaned forward, holding his mug between both hands as he rested his elbows on his knees. “Hey, you’ve got a lot of good years left. Don’t be talking like that.”

  “Like what? I’m almost fifty-five, young by the reckoning of most. I might have another thirty years. Then again, I could slip on ice this next winter and be done. You never know, Dan.”

  “No.” This conversation was taking a maudlin turn, and he wondered if it had to do with Vicki. Not that she had started it, but maybe what had happened to her niece had caused Lena to start thinking about these things. He sought another avenue.

  “So Vicki is your sister’s daughter? I know you told me, but I’ve never had the instincts of a genealogist.”

  Lena barked a laugh. “That’s right. She took off out of here when she was eighteen, and never came back. I used to go visit her, the way I went to visit Vicki.”

  He began to remember stories from over the years. Shortly after Vicki had graduated from college, Lena’s sister had died. Vicki’s father had apparently vanished from the scene before she was born. “Lou, wasn’t it? Your sister? Skydiving accident?”

  Lena smiled faintly. “Live it while you have it, that’s my motto. I just chose a less risky way of life. Lou, on the other hand, had a whole bucket list of wild things she wanted to do once Vicki was old enough.”

  Dan hesitated, but for some reason he wanted a clea
r picture of the situation. Maybe it was just the cop in him. “And no family on Vicki’s husband’s side?”

  “Hal grew up in foster care. Near as I could tell, he felt closer to the Police Athletic League than any of his foster families, and there were a lot of them.”

  “So that leaves you.”

  “It sure does. And since I was never blessed with a family of my own, I’m considering myself blessed right now.”

  Dan grinned. “I don’t get why you weren’t snapped up.”

  Lena arched a brow. “Oh, there were snappers. I just kept throwing them back in the river.”

  He unleashed a belly laugh. “I love you, Lena.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Just not like that. I get it.” Then she joined his laughter.

  *

  Upstairs, Vicki heard the laughter and decided that she needed to go down. After all, she’d made this move, wrenching her daughter away from the only home she’d ever known, so they could start fresh. That meant she had to rejoin the world again.

  She stopped in the bathroom, wiped away the tears and applied cold water to her eyes. After a couple minutes, she realized that she couldn’t erase the puffiness. They were going to know she had been weeping.

  Oh, well. She’d do it again countless times. Grief was nothing to be ashamed of, and if it made Dan uneasy...well, he didn’t have to stay. She took a brush to her hair, smoothing it back into a neat ponytail, then stiffened herself to face the world.

  She entered the living room and found Lena sitting on a rocker and Dan sitting on the old couch. Habit led her to take her usual end of the recliner sofa, where she curled her legs under her.

  “Want some coffee?” Vicki asked. “Just made a pot.”

  “I’ll get it. Thanks, Lena.”

  Her aunt stood. “Stay right there. I’m not the one who spent weeks moving. Be right back.”

  Which left her alone with Dan. He sat with his legs splayed, the mug cradled in both hands, his elbows resting on his thighs.

  “How long did you drive today?” he asked. “Austin’s quite a piece.”

  “We broke it up. There’s just so long you can keep a four-year-old cooped up in a vehicle. We left Laramie this morning.”

  “Not too bad, then.”

  “No.” Which kind of ended the conversation. She wanted to sigh as she realized that she’d lost the basic skill of making small talk. Over the past year, her friends and Hal’s had taken up all the slack on that front, leaving her to join in when she felt like it. She hadn’t filled any gaps or silences.

  “Your daughter is cute,” Dan said after a pause. “Adorable. Is she really attached to that teddy bear?”

  “Off and on. Not like when she was a baby and she needed a particular blanket or stuffed animal. During the trip, the bear was handy.” At least Vicki had managed more than a single word.

  God, she felt so out of place and out of sync. All the weeks of preparation, the long drive, and now she had arrived, and felt as if she’d been cast adrift.

  “You ever been here before?” he asked. “I don’t remember seeing you, but I only moved in next door three years ago.”

  Lena returned with a mug for Vicki, and the coffeepot to pour fresh for everyone. “Never visited me,” she remarked. “No, I had to fly to Austin to see her.” She placed the pot on an old table and returned to her rocker.

  Vicki wondered if she should apologize. Her head was swimming, trying to order things, make sense of everything, and she had no idea what she should say.

  “Not that I wanted it any other way,” Lena said, her eyes twinkling. “I got to travel the world. Well, Texas, anyway. I even got to meet the oversize Texas ego.”

  Helplessly, Vicki felt a small laugh escape her. “It’s a state of mind, you know.”

  “I noticed,” Lena said tartly. “Now, I’m not saying they don’t have a lot to be proud of, but if you ask me, it was really something back there for a while when Texans who’d moved away sent for bags of Texas dirt to put under delivery tables so their babies could be born on Texas soil. And the state issued honorary birth certificates.”

  Dan appeared astonished. “For real?”

  “Unless I misread the story.” Lena looked at Vicki. “Are they still doing that?”

  “I have no idea, honestly. I thought it was just a brief fad when it occurred, and I’m positive the state isn’t in the business of giving honorary birth certificates.”

  Lena chuckled. “Well, of course it would turn out to be a Texas-sized story.”

  “It’s a good one, though.” Dan smiled. “It probably even grew legs for a while.”

  “It grew legs for me,” Lena said. “Now I’m wondering how many times I told that story. I may have a lot of apologizing to do.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Dan. “It’s a good yarn, and apparently at least a few people must have sent for Texas dirt.”

  “That much was true,” Vicki said. “A few people. Maybe occasionally someone still does it, but only for their own amusement. It doesn’t make a real difference as far as I know.”

  Silence fell for a few minutes. Vicki felt uneasy. Surely she ought to have something else to contribute?

  Then Dan spoke again. “I think you’ll like living here. It’s a pretty good town, as small towns go. People are friendly. We can’t keep up with a place like Austin for excitement and entertainment, but we have other advantages.”

  He rose, putting aside his mug. “I’m going to go now, Lena. Vicki looks exhausted, and we all have a lot to do tomorrow.” He paused in front of Vicki. “I’m glad I finally got to meet you.”

  Then he was gone, leaving the two women sitting in silence.

  “Did Krys go to sleep okay?” Lena eventually asked.

  “Out like a light.”

  “Then I suggest you do the same, my girl. You’re starting to look pale. Need help making up your bed?”

  “Only if I can’t find the sheets.”

  Lena laughed. “I got spares if you need them. Let’s go and settle you.”

  Vicki wondered if she’d ever feel settled again, then made up her mind that she would. Compared to the past year, this was a small challenge. Feeling better, she followed her aunt upstairs.

  Chapter Two

  Lena was the bookkeeper for Freitag’s Mercantile. She often joked that there was little as boring in the world as a bookkeeper, unless it was a CPA. Vicki, who found her aunt anything but dull, always smiled or laughed, but she didn’t believe it. Besides, boring jobs sounded awfully good these days. For her part, until Hal’s death, she’d taught kindergarten, but there wasn’t a job available here yet.

  Which was fine, she told herself as she fed Krys her breakfast, after Lena departed for a half day. Vicki wanted to spend as much time as possible with Krys, until the girl was truly settled here. In the meantime, Vicki had plenty in savings from insurance and death benefits, plus the money she and Hal had been saving toward a house. She could get by for years if necessary.

  She had to deal with the present. Sitting at the table with Krys, who looked a lot perkier today, she said, “How about we set up your bedroom and playroom this morning?”

  Krys tilted her head, her blue eyes bright. “Okay. I can tell you where to put everything?”

  “Most of it, anyway. We’ll have to see how things fit.”

  “Aunt Lena has lots of stuff.”

  Vicki nodded guiltily. Lena had assured her there was ample room, and in terms of space, there was. The problem was that this house had accumulated so much over the years that the space was pretty full. With her additions, it was packed.

  “We may not be able to get everything just right,” she told her daughter. “We’ll have to see where there’s room.”

  Krys nodded and emptied her bowl by drinking the last of the milk from it. Vicki reached over with her napkin to wipe away a milky mustache and a few dribbles.

  “Are there kids here?” her daughter asked as they headed upstairs.

  “Ple
nty, I’m sure. Once we get some unpacking done, we’ll go look for some.”

  “’Kay. I liked that man. He’s coming back, right?”

  “Yes, to help with moving.” Dan Casey, another cop. Didn’t it just figure? And even in her dulled state, Vicki had noticed how attractive he was. Well, that was best buried immediately. No more cops ever, and moving on didn’t mean she was ready to dive into some relationship, anyway.

  Time. She needed more time. Whoever had decided that a year was enough time for mourning evidently had never really mourned.

  She pushed aside her mood and focused on enjoying Krys’s excitement. For the little girl, opening boxes and rediscovering treasures that had been steadily packed away over the past few weeks seemed to be almost like Christmas morning. Every rediscovered belonging, no matter how old or familiar, was greeted as if it were brand-new.

  The child’s excitement was contagious, and Vicki joined in wholeheartedly. The bedroom was relatively easy. Lena had gotten rid of everything except a decent chest of drawers, and with Krys’s bed and the Boston rocker, all they needed to do was unpack clothes and books, and some of the stuffed animals Krys wanted in the room with her.

  The playroom turned into a bigger challenge. It already contained a narrow bed, a chest and a bureau. Vicki moved the bed over against the wall, thinking that she could probably cover it with pillows and a spread, and turn it into a daybed. Krys slowed down a little, having to decide where each and every toy should go.

  Vicki didn’t rush her. They weren’t going anywhere soon, and the child might as well enjoy whatever control she could over a life that had changed so drastically.

  It amazed Vicki anew the number of toys Krys had, even though she herself had packed them. She and Hal had tried never to overindulge their daughter, but during the past year that had gone out the window. So often one of Hal’s colleagues would stop by bearing a gift. It was well-meant, but now Krys had way too many toys.