Melissa Cutler - Cowboy Justice

Why wasn’t Jenna horrified?

Instead, Jenna pulled a whole clump of weedy grass up by the roots and let it sprinkle from her hands like grains of wheat. Tears fell over her cheeks and dripped onto her shirt. She wiped them with her sleeve.

“Talk to me, Jenna. I need to know what you’re thinking, even if you can’t forgive me.”

The glassiness disappeared from Jenna’s eyes as she met Rachel’s gaze. “It’s hard, thinking about that month. Worst month of our lives.”

Rachel nodded. “It was. And I made it worse. You and Tommy and Mom were counting on me, but I let the unimaginable happen.” A fresh cascade of tears fell from Jenna’s eyes. Rachel slid to the ground and knelt before her, covering Jenna’s hands with her own. “I am so sorry for the mistakes I made. I’m sorry I let you all down. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself, and I certainly don’t expect you to forgive me, but I need you to know I’ll live the rest of my life trying to make it up to you all.”

Jenna threw her arms around Rachel’s neck. Rachel hugged her middle.

They trembled and cried together.

“All this time, you’ve been holding that inside you?” Jenna whispered. “My God, how did you function, carrying that around?”

“I was scared to tell you. Scared of what you’d think of me.”

With her voice muffled against Rachel’s shirtsleeve, Jenna said, “No wonder you have ulcers, sis. You’ve been hurting worse than the rest of us, and we didn’t even know it.”

“I don’t understand why you aren’t furious.”

Jenna set her hands on Rachel’s shoulder. The look she gave her didn’t have a hint of anger to it, but was full of love. “When I got pregnant with Tommy, I cared more about your judgment than both Mom’s and Dad’s combined. I thought for sure you’d never forgive me.”

“I was spitting nails for weeks when you confessed why you were sick as a dog every morning.”

“True, but you didn’t send me packing, or insist I get an abortion or marry the baby’s father—all the things that had me terrified of telling you.”

“Of course I didn’t. It wasn’t my place to force you into making another hasty choice that would affect the rest of your life. Now, I’ll admit I would’ve killed whoever dared knock up my little sister, but seeing as how you never saw fit to tell me who I should aim my shotgun at, I was prevented from landing myself in jail for murder.”

Jenna chuckled. “Oh, the gossip that would’ve stirred up in town.”

“You know what, Jen? As hard as those first couple months of your pregnancy were, Tommy was a real miracle for this family. Especially for you.”

“He deserved a mom who had her act together. But I turned my life around for you too. I didn’t think it’d do to repay your support by sticking you with my baby while I went off partying like I didn’t have a care in the world.”

Rachel climbed up to sit on the rock. “Why are we talking about this now?”

Jenna slung her arm across Rachel’s shoulders. “Because you’re more of a mom to me than Mom was. You raised me more than anyone else did in this family. My whole life, I watched you work your butt off around this place, and I never helped you out. All I did was cause you grief, getting in trouble with the law, getting drunk and running with the wrong crowd. And when I topped my own list of screw-ups by getting pregnant right out of high school, you told me everything would be okay. And it was. Because you made sure it was. What kind of person would I be not to forgive you? Not the person you raised, that’s for sure.”

Jenna’s words wrapped around Rachel’s heart, numbing her to the crippling pain her confession had brought on. She dried her cheeks on her shirtsleeves and gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering.

Jenna pulled her close and dropped her cheek to Rachel’s shoulder. “Do you have any idea how much I love being your sister, Rachel?”

All Rachel could do was sit there and tremble and try not to lose it. She reached across Jenna and took her other hand in hers. This was why Rachel lived as she lived, toiled over her land as determinedly as she did—because she loved her sisters and nephew so much, she’d do anything for them. All these years, she wasn’t sure Jenna had noticed how Rachel tried to watch over her and provide for her, to make up for all the many shortcomings of their parents. But Jenna had noticed after all. That acknowledgment alone was a great and powerful gift.

Jenna stood and opened her arms. “Give me a proper hug, will you?”

Rachel embraced her tightly. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to keep Mom safe,” she whispered into Jenna’s hair.

“I know you need to hear me say it, so I forgive you.”

They pulled apart, sniffling. Jenna walked to her car and ducked inside, coming out with a box of tissues and offering one to Rachel.

She thanked her and blew her nose.

“I still have some questions,” Jenna said, dabbing at the streaks of mascara under her eyes. “What ever happened with you and Vaughn? Have you two been an item all this time?”

“No. I broke it off with him after Mom’s overdose.”

Setting the tissue box on the rock, Jenna let out a halfhearted laugh. “Your idea of breaking it off with a guy must be different from mine, if half the accounts of you two running around town are true.”

Rachel rubbed her neck, wondering how to explain the complicated back and forth she and Vaughn were locked in. “I don’t know what to do about him. I can’t let him go like I should. I think about him, about being with him, all the time. Every day. But then, when I snap and give in to temptation, as soon as it’s over, all that guilt about Mom and my farm responsibilities comes rushing back at me. It’s torture.”

“Sounds like it. What’s Vaughn’s side of the story?”

She reached for a second tissue and used it to dry her eyes. “He doesn’t want a relationship with me any more than I want one with him.”

“How do you know? Has he told you as much?”

“The affair started during Vaughn’s investigation into Dad’s car accident. There was no way he should’ve been messing around with me. The accident turned out to be just that—a freak malfunction of his truck’s steering mechanism during a rainy night that Dad should’ve never been out driving in. But at the time, when the sheriff’s department was still entertaining the possibility of foul play . . .”

Jenna nodded, getting the picture. “Vaughn could’ve gotten in a whole heap of hot water for having an affair with you.”

“We had to keep it a secret for the sake of his job and the investigation. Not that I wanted anybody to know, either. Not after what happened to Mom. And now, with the shooting in Parillas Valley, if anyone found out about our history, he’d have to recuse himself from the case. So you can see why our relationship can never amount to more than a dirty little secret. We’ve been doomed from the start.” She heard the sneer in her words as certainly as she felt it tugging on her lips.

“Problem is, people in town are starting to figure it out on their own.”

“I thought we’d been more careful than that, but I was in town this morning, and I had it out with Kate Parrish when she brought Vaughn up.”

Jenna’s mouth opened on the word No and stayed there.

“Oh, yeah. She asked me to let her know when I was done with him so she could have a crack.”

Jenna gasped, wrinkling her nose. “What a slut! How’d you answer?”

Rachel wrung the tissue between her hands. “That’s the problem. Instead of denying it, I added fuel to the fire.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad. What did you say?”

Despite her remorse over her reaction to Kate, she felt the hint of a smile in her cringe. It had felt pretty dang satisfying to knock Kate down a notch, even if it was the wrong course of action. “I told her if she had a thing for sloppy seconds, she could go ahead and get in line.”

Clapping her hands, Jenna let out a whoop of laughter that echoed off the foothill. “That’s cool, Rach. I love this new side of you.”

“I don’t. Now I’m screwed. Kate’s probably spread the news to every corner of the county by now.”

Jenna patted her knee. “Sweetie, there’s no such thing as secrets in Catcher Creek to begin with, so there’s no sense wasting your energy worrying about discovery. What’s done is done. Next time you go into town, keep your chin up and act like you know what you’re doing.”

Rachel bit her tongue to keep from bringing up the irony of Jenna’s words. There was no such thing as secrets in their town. At least one big one, anyway. As far as Rachel and Amy could tell, not a soul in the town had any proof of the identity of Tommy’s father. Everybody had a theory, including Rachel. But it didn’t do any good to press Jenna on it because she was as tight-lipped as a kid confronted with a plate of spinach.

“He might need to recuse himself after all, in that case,” Rachel said. “I know he wants to put Wallace Meyer Jr. and the others behind bars, but it’s not worth jeopardizing his career over.”

“Do you love him?”

There it was—the fifty-million-dollar question. She rubbed her hands together, choosing her words carefully. “I always thought if I settled down, it would be with a farmer. I’ve been doing this job alone for a long time. A partner would be a welcome change.”

“True. That would be nice. Too bad life doesn’t work that way. It’s funny how often we get what we need instead of what we think we want.”

She raised her brows, huffing. “That’s the damnedest thing about it all—I don’t needVaughn. No one in their right mind needs that kind of hurt, where you can’t live with someone, but you can’t live without them either. Vaughn’s brought nothing but pain and upheaval into my life. He’s the last thing I need.”

“Okay, but do you love him?”

Rachel puffed her cheeks full of air. She’d answered that question for herself the last time she and Vaughn had slept together the month before. But knowing the answer and feeling good about sharing it with her sister were two entirely different animals. She walked to the side of the house and picked at the chipping paint. The cottage needed a new coat. Maybe she and Jenna could tackle the project together now that Ben was here to manage the daily chores.

Jenna’s searching gaze felt heavy on Rachel’s back.

When she’d built up the nerve to speak, the power of confessing her deepest secret hushed her voice to a whisper. “Yeah. I do. Makes no difference because nothing will ever come of it, but yeah, I’m crazy in love with him.”

Jenna joined her at the siding. Rachel watched her gaze travel past the house and up the hill that split her valley with the main house. “Speak of the devil.”

Rachel whipped around. Sure enough, Vaughn’s squad car, followed by a sheriff’s department patrol truck, then another squad car, paraded down the road in the distance. At the fork, they turned toward the main house.

Rachel dusted her jeans, praying her eyes weren’t as red and puffy as Jenna’s. At least she didn’t wear makeup so she didn’t have to worry about having the same raccoon eyes Jenna was sporting.

Rachel handed her a tissue. “Here. Your makeup’s running.”

Jenna wiped the smears. “Thanks. You should know I’m not going to tell Amy any of this. It’s your story to tell when you’re ready.” She set her hands on Rachel’s shoulders. “Remember, you didn’t owe me an apology, and you don’t owe Amy one either. What you need to do is figure out what you want with Vaughn.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jenna. What I want is for things to be the way they were in simpler times. Before Dad died and Mom’s depression took a turn for the worse. Before we had to peddle our way of life for a tourist dollar. The way things were before Vaughn.”

Jenna tossed the tissue box in her car. “Despite the way you’ve got it pictured in your head, our lives were never simple. They were predictable, and that’s a big difference, but you’re only fooling yourself if you think we ever had it easy.” She draped an arm across Rachel’s shoulders. “C’mon, sweetie. Let’s go see what’s brought your sheriff out to the farm today.”

The first thing Vaughn noticed when Rachel stepped out of her truck was that her eyes were rimmed in red. Her cheeks and nose were red too. So were Jenna’s, he saw after she walked around from the passenger side of the truck.

It threw him off something fierce to know Rachel had been crying. He was dying to know what would push her to such an openly emotional state, though he didn’t dare ask. The ways of women when they got together weren’t meant to be understood by mankind, his dad used to say when the two of them retreated to the workshop on Bunco night or during his sisters’ innumerable sleepovers.