She chattered about the day, and how everyone who came into the Rose kept asking about him, and how determined his sons had been to find the men who tried to kill him, and then working so hard to clear the Kingston name.
“You made the right decision when you stayed. You are their touchstone to what a man of honor is supposed to be.” And then she smiled. “Lord knows you cannot deny them. There are visible pieces of you in all of them, right down tothe black-haired, blue-eyed giants they are.”
“I am proud of them, that’s for sure,” he said.
“They are men to be proud of,” Pearl said, and then glanced at the clock. “It’s late. I’ll just put these things in the dishwasher for you. Do you need to take medicine before you go to bed?”
“No. Benny made sure of all that before he left. I get around good enough to get myself in bed. I’m getting stronger by the day. And I feel about a thousand pounds lighter now that I am no longer the devil from your past.”
Pearl’s eyes welled. “You were never that, and it’s my fault as much as yours that Brenda was able to trick the both of us.”
Jacob reached out and laid his hand over hers. “Water under the bridge, honey. Water under the bridge. She’s gone, and we’re still here.”
“Except there is no ‘we’, just me and you, and the gas station between us.”
Jacob shook his head. “Only if you choose to keep it that way. The decision will always be yours.”
Pearl blinked. “Right now, you need to get well. Put your world back together. Open the Tumbleweed so I can get your mopey domino players out of my café, and we’ll see what we shall see.”
He grinned. “Maybe I’ll build a dam under that bridge and put a stop to all that wasted water.”
She smiled back. “We shall see what we shall see,” she repeated, then cleared the table and retrieved her things. She was putting on her coat as Jacob stood, then followed her to the back door. The empty basket was over her arm as she looked back to make sure he was steady on his feet. “Lock up behind me,” she said.
Instead, Jacob reached for her with his good arm, tilted her chin, and kissed her soundly.
“Take care of you,” he said, and then opened the doorfor her.
Pearl’s mouth was still tingling. It hadn’t been used for kissing a man in a really long time, and she didn’t remember what to do. What to say. He was still standing in the doorway watching as she got into her car, and didn’t close the door until she was leaving.
She didn’t remember the drive home, or climbing the stairs to her apartment, and when she finally got to bed, she couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts were jumbled. Her priorities were in peril. Jacob Kingston had just turned her world upside down, and she wasn’t all that upset about it.
And down the road, in the back of the Tumbleweed Bar, Jacob had taken himself to bed with hopes and dreams he’d thought had already passed him by.
* * *
Asher’s first day back on the job was over. He was driving toward his local Whole Foods to pick up a grocery order, thinking his house was going to feel empty until Nora was there to come home to, when a red Audi in the lane to his left suddenly shot across Asher’s lane, sideswiping the car in front of him, and then gunning it into the far-right lane in an attempt to exit the off ramp.
Asher slammed on the brakes, and at the same time, tried not to get rear-ended by the car behind him. He hit the red and blue lights on his car, and managed to get into the exit lane. Even as he was calling in the wreck, he saw the red Audi miss the ramp and go airborne, sailing out into the space between the off ramp and the elevated highway he’d just exited, before landing in the middle of traffic on the street below, causing another multicar pileup.
Ash shot down the ramp the Audi driver missed, with lights still flashing, and pulled off the highway into theparking lot of a service station, popped the trunk to grab a fire extinguisher, and started running toward the nearest smoking car.
Traffic had finally come to a standstill. The hood of the smoking car had popped up during the wreck, and the windshield was shattered. He could see a man and two kids inside, and victims all around crawling out of their wrecked cars, dazed and stumbling, blood dripping from their wounds. People from neighboring businesses were running out of their shops, some of whom were also carrying fire extinguishers.
Asher emptied the fire extinguisher on the smoking car, and then ran to the driver. The man was unconscious, and the little boys in the back seat were crying and in shock.
“Hey, guys, we need to get you out of the car, okay? My name is Officer Kingston. I’m a special investigator for the state of Texas,” he said, and showed them his badge, hoping it would lend a measure of trust. He leaned in to unfasten their seat belts, then began checking them for injuries before attempting to move them. “I know you must be scared, but can you tell me your names?”
The little blond with curly hair wiped the snot off his upper lip with the back of his coat sleeve. “I’m Mike Abram. This is my brother, Ray.”
“Who’s oldest?” Asher asked as he began checking their pulses, and checking their heads for wounds.
“I am. I’m nine,” Mike said. “Ray is seven.”
Asher’s heart skipped. The same ages Dylan and Gunner were when Brenda committed suicide.
“Do you hurt anywhere?” he asked.
“Kind of all over,” Mike said.
