Lone Star Dad

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Still no answer, so she tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. With a deep breath, she stepped into his bedroom. It was empty. His laptop was open and on but dark. His books had been dumped on his unmade bed. If he had homework, he’d likely not done it.

With an exasperated growl, she knew where he’d gone. Quinn’s. The kittens.

Wearily, she rubbed at her temples.

She’d been foolish to believe she could avoid anyone in a town this small. Derrick’s blatant disregard for her rules meant he was sure to do exactly what she forbade.

As she started out, some gut instinct stopped her. She stared at Derrick’s laptop.

She’d not checked his history in a while, and from his weariness this morning, she suspected he’d stayed up late last night trolling the internet. With him out of the house, it was a good time to have a look at his search history without starting another war.

She tapped the touch pad and the screen lit up.

Facebook. Dandy. He wasn’t old enough to have an account. But when had she been able to stop Derrick from doing something he wanted to do?

She stared at the selfies of the handsome young boy with the sullen mouth and that blasted black hoodie pulled low over his eyes.

With a tap, she refreshed the screen and scrolled, checking out his friends and messages.

The more she read, the colder she got. One “friend” flashed gang signs and puffed on something that looked suspiciously like a marijuana joint. One urged him to hitch his way back to Houston. Another bragged about a “piece” he’d stolen from his old man.

A piece? As in a gun?

“Oh no. Not guns and drugs.” She’d thought the shoplifting episode was scary. “He’s not even twelve!”

But the young and angry, she knew from her clinic experience in the inner city, were prime targets for gangs and trouble. Derrick was both.

Holding her stomach, she closed the laptop and left the room, reeling. What if he’d read the messages and run away? Houston was miles and miles from Gabriel’s Crossing.

Frightened now, Gena grabbed her keys and loped for the Xterra, praying he was at Quinn’s place with the kittens. Even there was better than on the road to Houston.

Chapter Five (#ulink_7a8b3c2d-82e3-5d9d-a958-958dc371a338)

Quinn stirred the stew pot and breathed in the warming beef-and-tomato scent. Though the calendar had turned a page, the weather remained lousy cold until he wondered if spring would ever come. A pot of stew would last him for days.

He clanged the lid on and went to his work table; the plans he was tweaking for Brady waited. Work and pain. That’s all his life amounted to these days.

He rubbed his arm, wishing for relief like always this time of day, when the last painkiller had long since worn off and the hours until the next one loomed long and horrible.

The kid was with the kittens, but Quinn saw no reason to join him. He wasn’t in the mood for company.

He’d spotted Derrick coming through the woods as he’d pulled in from work, grumpy as usual after a day of haggling with his workaholic father and brother. The Huckleberry Addition had been problematic since they’d turned the first shovel of dirt. Vandalism, delays, changes.

He focused on the blueprints. Adding an extra bathroom and closet meant an overhaul of the south side. He’d have to give it some thought and run some cost calculations.

The pain crept down his shoulder, flared like hot embers in his bent elbow and spread into his fingers. He opened and closed his hand. He used to do that after a touchdown pass. Flex his fingers, feel the strength that allowed him to throw a ball like a precision torpedo thirty or forty yards past the line of scrimmage. Long, medium or short—no matter the yardage, the Mighty Quinn had been deadly accurate.

These days he couldn’t hit a trash can with a paper wad.

Rotten day. Rotten weather. Stinkin’ rotten nagging pain.

He glanced at the clock.

Too long. He’d never make it. Why fight the inevitable?

Before he could think too much, he walked the short distance to the sink and opened the brown prescription bottle. One or two? He shook the pills into his hand. Two.

He was going down the tubes anyway. Might as well go without his arm screaming.

Quickly, he washed the pills back with a slug of water. The medication had no more than hit bottom when the shame rushed in.

Failure and shame. Once a month, he drove an hour to refill his prescriptions so no one in Gabriel’s Crossing would know their former gridiron hero might have a drug problem.

He was a Christian, or professed to be. Christians weren’t supposed to become dependent on painkillers. So where did that leave him?

Defeated, he made his way back to the computer, then to the stove, restless and waiting for relief.

Quinn wondered if Gena had learned about her nephew’s trudge through the woods last night.

He should probably tell her, but she didn’t seem too eager to communicate, and the kid needed those cats to soften him up.

Or maybe Quinn enjoyed getting under Nurse Gena’s skin.

She didn’t like him. Even Derrick said so. No big surprise. He wasn’t a superstar any longer. After the accident, women had run away from him like cockroaches from a spotlight. Derrick’s mother had been one of those fair-weather women. Renae. They’d had something good going—or he’d thought they had—until she learned he was damaged, disabled, a has-been.

“Come on, oxy, do your job.”

He flopped on the couch and aimed the remote, scrolling through the satellite until he found elevator music. Tipping his head back, he let his body relax. The pain began to ease and the stress of the day floated away on a river of relief. He knew the relief wouldn’t last, but for now it was enough.

As he drifted a bit, waiting for his stew to cook and listening to easy music, enjoying a few minutes of peace, the sound of a car penetrated his comfortable place.

With a low growl, he opened his eyes.

Someone from his family or Gena.

He remained where he was. If his intruder was family, he’d have to force himself off the couch and make up excuses. Gena could get the kid and go.

An urgent knock rattled the wooden door. “Quinn! I know you’re in there. Please open the door. I need to talk to you.”

Gena. So much for solitude.

With an irritated huff, he stomped to the door and yanked it open. “What do you want?”

“Derrick.”

He jerked a thumb toward the shed. “The usual.”

She sagged a little, and he noticed then what he hadn’t before.

“You’re shaking.”

“Can I come in for a minute?”

Alarmed and wishing he wasn’t, he stepped aside to allow her entrance. She wore the same blue coat with rubbery Crocs, but the jaunty knit hat was missing and her blond hair was mussed.

“I was so scared.”

“That I’d strangled the little twerp?”

She managed a shaky laugh. “When you aren’t scowling, you’re pretty funny.”

He used to be Mr. Charm-and-Wit. Now he was Mr. Scowl-and-Growl.

“I’m a laugh a minute. Sit down before you collapse.”

“Thank you.” She slid the coat off her shoulders and folded it over the arm of his saggy couch. “Something smells amazing.”

He ignored the compliment. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought Derrick had run away, back to Houston.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me, either, but why today?”

“I found some very disturbing information on his Facebook profile.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead as if needing a minute to catch her breath. “Derrick can freak me out worse than a ruptured artery.”

He didn’t want to know this. “So what did you find?”

“Most of his friends on there are a lot older, and they’re doing things he shouldn’t even know about.”

He settled on the equally-saggy armchair at her elbow. “Such as?”

“Gang stuff. Guns. Drugs. I’ve worked in the ER enough to understand gang stuff.”

TMI, his brain screamed. Too much information. He didn’t want to think that the tenderhearted, hurting kid in his shed could be heading for the gutter.

“But he didn’t run away. He’s out there feeding kittens. Problem solved.” Now go away.

“I wish. As long as he’s communicating with those kids, he’s in danger.”

An inward sigh. She was like a tenacious linebacker. She wouldn’t quit coming at him. “So what are you going to do?”

“Ground him.”

Quinn’s eyes rolled up in his head. “How’s that been working for you?”

“Not at all.” Her lips twisted in defeat. He didn’t focus there. In fact, he wasn’t focusing that well at all.

“When the defense reads the play before the ball is even snapped, the quarterback better call an audible. The kid is getting away with murder, and you’re sacked before you leave the pocket.”

“Football analogies?” She jacked an eyebrow. “Really?”

“It’s what I know. Look.” He dangled his clasped hands between his knees and leaned toward her. “What you’re doing doesn’t work. Change strategies.”

“I don’t know any other strategies.”

He didn’t, either. Didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to get involved. “Let the kid come over here. Give him some responsibility. I’ll see if I can talk to him.”

She thought about it way too long. Her sorry opinion of him rankled.

Quinn huffed out an irritated sigh. “I promise not to hurt him.”

She gave him the strangest look, like when a deer spots a human. “You have a point. He’s besotted with those kittens, the first sign of caring about anything he’s shown since we moved here.”