Melissa Cutler - Cowboy Justice

Vaughn grinned and dumped the contents onto the counter.

Dad motioned to the pile. “All right. Start talking.”

Good plan in theory, but Vaughn wasn’t sure where to start. He spread the nails out, considering. Things between him and Rachel had been so screwed up for so long that untangling the truth didn’t seem possible without starting at the beginning.

“I am . . .” He’d never said it aloud before, and it shocked him, how profound the statement felt, sitting there on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed and started again. “I am in love with Rachel Sorentino. I’ve been heading in that direction for quite a while, since my first year as a sheriff deputy, actually. But I didn’t think . . . Our lives weren’t compatible. I don’t know why I didn’t ask her out anyway, but it never seemed like the right time. Everything changed after her dad died.”

Leaving out the intimate details, he told the story, even the parts he was ashamed of. As he talked, he felt the weight of the secrets and lies lifting off his shoulders. Dad listened attentively, sorting nails right alongside Vaughn.

The hardest part of the story to tell—the part that had emotion squeezing his heart and gut, and his throat tickling with the need for a smoke—was that morning’s events. “She told me we were over for good, but I can’t lose her now. My gut’s telling me I should leave her alone until things calm down, but I don’t know if that’s the right move.”

With a huge sigh, Dad dumped the small pile of hopelessly irregular nails into the bucket. “The most important choice I ever made was to fight for your mother’s hand.”

That pulled Vaughn up short. “I thought you two fell in love right away.”

“Falling in love doesn’t necessarily make forging a life together easier.”

That was the damn truth. He laid two No. 5 nails side by side to compare the length, then tossed the short one in the bucket. His dad’s class had done a terrible job on the nails. Must be a beginner’s course.

“Your mother’s parents hated me. I was Irish, and from the wrong side of town, and your mother was an Italian girl from a wealthy family. Back then, those were impossible odds. I almost didn’t fight for her.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Dad shrugged. “I’m not a combative person. The Finocchiaros scared me to death. Your mother’s father and brothers are not small men, and they’ve got tempers that rival your nonna’s. It would’ve been easier to let her go, but I knew I’d never be as happy with someone else as I was with her. So I faced my fears, and I thank God every day I had the wherewithal to make that choice.”

“But I’m not the one who’s afraid. Rachel is.”

Dad scooped a handful of warped nails into the bucket. “That’s hogwash. Your whole life, you’ve been afraid of not measuring up. Measuring up to what, I don’t know. Some impossible standard you set for yourself. Even as a kid, in school or sports, you were always harder on yourself than anyone else was. Your mom and I didn’t need to get on you about homework, and we never had to give you a lecture on trying your best because you were born with this chip on your shoulder. We don’t know where it came from any more than we know where Gwen’s issues came from. Tell me that doesn’t come from a place of fear.”

Okay, no. His dad was the wisest person he knew, but he was way off. “That’s not true. I ran for sheriff. People who are afraid of not measuring up don’t stick their necks out like that.”

Dad picked a nail up and tapped the point on the counter. “They do if they’ve made it their life’s mission to prove that rich and well-connected people don’t deserve to hold all the power. You ran for sheriff because you wanted to prove you were a better man than Meyer.”

Vaughn’s hand stilled over the nails. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But what does that have to do with my situation with Rachel?”

“That’s easy. You’re terrified of not measuring up in her eyes, so you’re not even trying to prove yourself to her.”

Vaughn huffed. “I did try. I’ve been trying for a year and a half.”

“No, you haven’t. Not really. According to your story, whenever you had to choose between her or something else, you chose the something else. And when you’re around her, all you’re doing is haunting the corners of her life without really being a part of it. How’s Rachel supposed to think she can count on you when you don’t put her first and you’re never really there?”

“I am there.” He’d rescued her from a kidnapper and cleaned up so many crime scenes at her property he’d lost count.

“When her mom overdosed, did you stick around?”

“No, but she told me to leave her alone.”

“Last night, you said she was hurting over something about her dad and she wanted to stay at your house through morning, but you told her she had to go.”

Vaughn rolled his eyes to the ceiling and sucked his cheeks in to chew on them. He sounded like a real bastard when his dad summed it up like that. “Right.”

“What’re your instincts telling you to do about her now?”

He closed his eyes. Oh, God. Dad was right. Every time the going got tough, he dropped out of her life. “I was trying to do what she wanted. She’s a solitary person. Her whole life, she’s stood alone—strong and alone.”

“Why do you think that is—because she’s a natural hermit or because she’s never had anyone she could count on? Which scenario do you think is more likely, given what you know about her family?”

Vaughn rubbed a hand over his chin and mouth, processing. Her words that morning returned to him . . .

When I’m with you, my life falls apart. Bad things happen. Like when I leaned on my dad.

She was lumping Vaughn into the same category as her father—the man who’d let her down so miserably and completely that she’d decided she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself. Life had taught her through one hard lesson after another that if she let herself lean, she’d fall, and no one would be there to catch her. Sitting on his back porch with her, Vaughn had seconded that theory. Had told her straight up that he admired the way she took care of herself without anybody’s help.

And if his dad was right—if Vaughn really was afraid of not measuring up in her eyes—then the two of them had created the perfect storm. They were the living embodiments of each other’s worst fears. Holy shit.

No wonder he and Rachel were so fucked up.

“I see the wheels turning in your head, son.”

Vaughn shook himself back to the present and looked his dad in the eye. “You’re right. About everything.” With a strangled sound, he pushed up from the stool to pace the room, scrubbing his hand over his throat, letting it all sink in. “But it can’t be too late for us. I can’t let it be. What can I do to get her over her fears? It seems impossible.”

“Everyone talks about steel like it’s unmalleable. But you and I know that’s not true. So let me ask you: how do you bend steel?”

What the hell did that have to do with anything? “Are you comparing the woman I love to a piece of metal?”

Dad chuckled. “No. Rachel’s not the steel; her fears are. How do you bend steel?”

“You heat it up.”

Dad waved off his answer. “Before that.”

Vaughn scratched his eyebrow, then gestured to the forge. “You have to build a fire and wait for the ideal temperature before you put the steel in.”

“Once the metal’s hot enough, what do you do?”

Vaughn shrugged. “You bend it.”

“Yes, but you have to use the right tools. Is it easy?”

Grinning with burgeoning awareness, Vaughn shook his head. “No. It takes a lot of muscle and know-how and patience.”

“Does it happen fast?”

“No.” His grin broadened. Dad was a genius. The Dear Abby of the blacksmith world. “You have to coax it a little at a time. Sometimes, you have to keep tapping on it until it decides to give in to the direction you want it to go.”

“That’s right. You have to keep tapping on Rachel’s fears until they give way, but you’ve got to go about it the proper way, and you’ve got to be patient. That means you need to be a consistent presence in her life, prove to her over time that she can count on you to put her first. Instead of rushing into something, court her. I know you think I’m a fuddy-duddy, but there is nothing wrong with an old-fashioned courtship.”

Vaughn dropped onto the stool. “Okay, I like that plan. But you’re forgetting—she doesn’t want me around.”

Dad folded his arms over his chest. “Your best friend is marrying her sister. I think you can work out some excuse to be near her.”

Then he remembered. Their weekly barbecue was taking place the next day at Rachel’s house. Chris Binderman had called to let him know it was still on, despite everything the Sorentinos had gone through because Amy and Jenna wanted to be surrounded by their family and friends. Bingo.

Chuckling, dad tapped his temple. “The wheels are turning again.”

“Big time.” He looked at his watch. Six o’clock. He leapt from the stool. “I’ve got to run if I’m going to make this work. Catcher Creek rolls its carpets up early on Saturday nights. Will you tell Ma I’ll check in with you guys before church tomorrow?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Sure I do.” He offered his hand and they shook. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Anytime. You know that.”

Vaughn looked at the piles of nails sitting in disarray on the counter. Dad waved it off. “Don’t worry about this mess. You have a woman to win over. Out of curiosity, what does this plan of yours involve?”

Vaughn grinned and hustled toward the door. “You know the expression, ‘easy as pie’? I think that’s my ticket back in to Rachel’s life.” 

Sunday afternoon, on the drive to Catcher Creek after accompanying his parents to their church for morning worship, Vaughn’s cell phone rang. One look at the caller ID had him jerking the truck to the shoulder of the road and scrambling to answer, his heart beating like mad.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Everybody’s fine,” Jenna Sorentino said with a chuckle. “But I can understand the panic in your voice. My family’s had more than its fair share of problems lately.”

“I’ll say.” He let out a slow, steady exhale to combat his pounding pulse. “Plus, I don’t think you and I have ever had a conversation outside of official police business.”

“Aw, that’s not true. I say hello to you every Sunday at church.”

He supposed she was right, but everybody said hello to him at church because he was the sheriff. His Sunday mornings passed in a blur of handshaking, cheek kissing, and listening to people’s grievances against their neighbors. “Good point. What can I do for you?”

“You weren’t at church today, and Kellan told us you’re not coming to the barbecue, but you have to come.” Before he’d sought his dad’s advice, he’d asked Chris to let Kellan know he wasn’t attending. “There’s only two and a half months until Kellan and Amy’s wedding. You might have heard I’m planning it for them. Today we’re gathering the whole wedding party at the barbecue to have the cake tasting, everybody except Kellan’s brother because he’s out of town. You need to be there. You don’t want Kellan to think his best friend can’t be bothered.”

Vaughn felt a grin spreading on his lips. “You play dirty, Jenna. Only a mom could lay a guilt trip on that thick.”

“And you don’t want to disappoint the bride, either. If ever there was a woman who’d turn into a bridezilla, it’d be Amy.”

“You can’t talk about her that way. It’s unsisterly.”

Jenna tsked into the phone. “It’s true, and you know it.”

Amy did seem to fall on the high-strung end of the emotional spectrum, but he hoped it’d take more than him missing a meal for her bridezilla switch to flip, otherwise Kellan was in for a long and taxing life. “Okay, but—”

“Think of all the cakes we’ll be tasting. If you won’t do it for Amy and Kellan, do it for the cake.”

“Jenna, time out. I’d already decided to come. But I’m glad you called because I could use your help with a couple things.”

“Oh. Sure.”

He braced himself for the inevitable questions that would follow, then asked, “Would you make sure Rachel’s there this afternoon? If someone doesn’t trick her into attending, I’m not sure she’ll show up.”

Jenna didn’t miss a beat. “I’m way ahead of you in that department.”

“Did you lay the cake testing/bridezilla guilt trip on her too?”