Texas Rebels: Falcon

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“Oh, it’s easy for you to disappear. Why don’t you try staying for a while and facing your responsibilities?”

“When can I see her?” she asked instead of answering.

“Not until we talk. Where are you staying?”

“At a hotel in Temple.” She gave him the name and room number.

“I’ll be there at ten in the morning,” he said, and clicked off. She wanted to bend him to her will, but that wasn’t happening. He’d allow the few minutes she so desperately needed with her daughter. Not for Leah, though. For his daughter. Eden deserved at least that much. But he would never give Leah a divorce to marry someone else. That would be his ultimate revenge.

Chapter Four (#ulink_00b1a324-0d92-5e6e-b41d-9124385c8c36)

A time for truth...

Falcon woke up at 5 a.m. and the morning seemed to drag. He had to call Eden three times before she got up. The late night had caught up with her. After all the craziness of the morning, one thought kept him focused: it was time to talk to Leah.

Rebel Ranch was getting ready for the fall roundup and he really needed to be home. His brothers gave him a funny look when he said he would catch them later. Of course, they had questions. Falcon was always on top of everything that happened at the ranch, but today he wasn’t in the mood to tell them about Leah. That would come later. His mother must’ve sensed his mood, because she didn’t ask questions. He was grateful for that.

At nine o’clock he was finally on his way to Temple. He called Leah to tell her he would be there early. She said she would order coffee and he started to tell her not to bother. But he might need something strong to get him through the morning.

The hotel was one of the nicer ones in Temple. He walked to the elevator and went up to the third floor. It didn’t take him long to find her room. He knocked and it opened almost immediately.

He paused at the sight of her in a slim-fitting black dress and a red belt circling her tiny waist. Her dark hair hung to her shoulders in a tousled style. On her feet were strappy high heels. This wasn’t the Leah he knew in jeans and sneakers. This woman was a stranger to him.

She held the door wider. “Come in.”

He followed her into what was obviously a suite with two rooms—a living area and a bedroom.

“Have a seat.” She motioned to the sofa.

The room was stylish with ornate furniture, and he’d guess it had cost a bundle to book. How could she afford this? Obviously her life had been good and for the first time, he realized that the young girl he had married had long been gone in more ways than one.

He sat down and placed his hat beside him. She stood a few feet away, looking as beautiful as he’d ever seen her. If he didn’t know her so well he would think she was as cool as a winter breeze, but he recognized the tension in her body and the nervousness in the way she kept glancing toward the door.

“Where have you been for over seventeen years?” He didn’t see any reason to postpone the inevitable. A knock at the door stalled her answer.

A waiter brought in a carafe of coffee and a teapot. That puzzled him, but not for long. She poured a cup of tea for herself.

“You drink tea now?”

“Chamomile. It helps me to relax.” She handed him a cup of coffee and then she stirred her tea.

He held the cup with both hands and forced himself to calm down so he wouldn’t break it into a million pieces. “Where have you been, Leah?”

Taking a seat in a wingback chair, she replied, “It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

She took a sip of tea and placed the cup back on the tray. “I...I don’t know where to start.”

“How about the day you left.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I was up all night with Eden. I couldn’t get her to stop crying and I was so frustrated and felt helpless as a mother. When you held her, or Kate, she would stop, so there had to be something wrong with me. I thought I was hurting her in some way.”

“That’s crazy.”

She glared at him. “Are you going to make snide comments or are you going to listen?”

“I’ll listen.”

“I never told you about my mother. It was difficult for me to tell anyone.”

“You said she died in an accident when you were twelve.”

“Yes. A terrible accident. See, my mom was bipolar and she would go into these violent rages that were hard to deal with.” Leah reached for her cup and took a swallow. “When she was in these rages, she always wanted to hurt someone, and I was always around so it was usually me. She broke my arm, my ribs, my collarbone and gave me more bruises than I can remember. I finally learned to hide from her and that was probably the only thing that saved my life. My dad just worked more and more. One day a guy cut her off on the highway and she followed him to a gas station ranting and raving. He pulled a handgun from the glove compartment and shot her. She died at the scene.”

Falcon was stunned and his heart ached for that little girl who grew up so afraid. He never knew she suffered like that. It was probably the reason she was so shy and quiet.

“Why couldn’t you tell me that?”

“I don’t know.” She placed the cup back on the tray. “I just wanted to forget it and start a new life in Horseshoe. You see, I didn’t want to remember I had that kind of mother. But when Eden wouldn’t stop crying I thought I was hurting my child like my mother had hurt me. That day when she cried and cried, I had this urge to put my hand over her mouth to stop the crying. As soon as the thought entered my head, I knew I had to get away. I just had to get out of the house for a couple of days to prove to myself that I wasn’t a terrible person.”

“Leah...”

“Eden finally went to sleep. I went downstairs and told your mother I was going out for a while and for her to listen for Eden. I got in my car and drove away.”

“Where did you go?”

Leah looked down at her clasped hands in her lap. “I was going to my cousin’s in Houston. I thought I could stay there until I got my head straight.”

“I called Nancy and she said she hadn’t heard from you, in case you’re planning to lie. I called her for six solid months and every time she said the same thing—she didn’t know where you were.”

“I never made it to her house.”

“What happened?” A sense of dread came over him. He had the same feeling the day he’d heard his dad screaming for their mother. Falcon had been feeding the horses when his dad had raced toward the barn with a bloody Jude and Phoenix in his arms. Whatever Leah had to say, he knew it was as bad as what had happened that day. Instinctively, he tensed as he prepared himself to listen to the rest of her story.

“I drove to Austin, to the bus station. I left my car about a block away. I’m not sure why I did that. It’s not clear in my head why I didn’t just drive to Nancy’s. But I think I was afraid you would come after me and make me go back when I wasn’t ready. I really needed some time.”

“The police called the next week and I picked up the car. There was no trace of you and the police concluded that you just wanted to get out of an unhappy marriage.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like?”

“I loved you with all my heart, but I couldn’t deal with the baby and the crying and the fear that I was going to hurt her. Living with your family didn’t help, either. It was overwhelming.”

He swallowed, knowing part of her problem was his fault. “What happened next?”

“I took the bus to Houston fully intending to go to Nancy’s. The pay phone was broken at the bus station and the guy said there was one at the convenience store across the street. It was raining and I waited for it to let up before I ran down the street, but it started pouring again and I could hardly see. The light was yellow and cars were stopping so I darted across the intersection. One car didn’t stop and it hit me. I woke up a year later.”

“What?” The dread in his stomach became a burning ache and permeated his body. He felt as if he was on fire.

“Most of that time is a blur, but Miss Hattie...”

“Who’s Hattie?”

“Hattience Thornwall, but everyone calls her Hattie. She’s the lady who hit me. She was seventy-five years old and felt guilty over what had happened. Her car hit me and knocked me into the intersection, where another car ran over me. I had two broken legs, my chest was crushed and I had severe head injuries—the side of my face slid on the pavement, ripping away the skin and part of my ear, and one eye bulged out. Once in the ER they worked on my chest and my head, the most life-threatening injuries.”

Falcon stood up, needing to move as his emotions swamped him. “Why didn’t someone call me? I’m your next of kin.”

“Someone stole my purse at the scene and no one knew who I was. I had no identity. I was Jane Doe number seventy-two.”

“In this day and age there had to have been some way to identify you! What about your wedding ring? Our names were engraved on the inside.”

“I was told they cut it off my swollen hand and it must have gotten thrown away by mistake. The authorities ran my picture in the paper, but no one came forward. The picture was after the accident and Miss Hattie said I probably didn’t look like myself.”

“You talk of this woman with fondness and she caused you all this misery.”

“Yes, it’s a little confusing, but it was part my fault, too. Please listen to the whole story.”

He sat down again, unable to do anything else.

“They didn’t expect me to live, and the hospital had to get a court order to take me off the ventilator. Miss Hattie fought this, but she lost. They removed it and were shocked when I could breathe on my own. Since they didn’t know who I was and I had no insurance, they moved me to an indigent hospital. After many weeks, I was still unconscious, so they prepared to put me in a state institution. Once again Miss Hattie objected to this. She had me moved to a private facility and she paid the bills.”

“That was generous.”

“Yes, the nurses said she visited at least three times a week and always brought fresh flowers for my room. One year and two days later I opened my eyes and the first word I said was Eden. I had no idea who she was or where I was and I quickly drifted into a deep sleep again. I kept waking up, confused and disoriented. The nurses said I kept calling for Falcon and asked who he was. I had no idea, but I knew he was important to me.”

A catch in his throat kept him from responding.

“Little by little my memory started to come back, but my muscles had atrophied and I couldn’t even feed myself. I was totally helpless.”

“If you knew your name, why didn’t someone call me then?”

“My memory didn’t come back all at once. Bits and pieces came to me and it was five years before I could put all those pieces together. In the meantime they had to concentrate on my legs because they didn’t operate on them at the time of the accident. They were more concerned about my chest and my head and they didn’t think I would make it anyway. Nor did they think I could live through the surgery. Anyway, I had several operations on my legs. It was a long road to recovery. Miss Hattie hired therapists and they worked diligently with me to teach me to use my muscles and legs again. And David repaired my face.”

“David?” By the tone of her voice he knew this man was special to her.

“He’s Miss Hattie’s son and a plastic surgeon. It took numerous skin grafts but he did an amazing job. He even repaired my ear.”

Falcon looked closely at her face and saw the beautiful woman she’d always been. There was no way to tell she’d been through such a horrific tragedy. There were so many questions in his head that he didn’t even know where to start. The anger that he carried through the years wasn’t there anymore. All he felt was empathy for what she’d been through.

“When did you realize you had a husband and a child in Horseshoe?”

She glanced down at her hands in her lap. “It was probably about six years before I had the full picture.”

“And yet, you didn’t call home or ask anyone else to. You let us believe the worst.”

She kept staring down at her hands. “I know it’s hard to understand. But I woke up a completely different person from the shy, timid Leah that you knew. I always had this feeling that no one loved me until you filled that empty place in me. But then I met Miss Hattie and David and they loved me unconditionally. After two and a half years in the facility, Miss Hattie took me home to her house and hired a nurse and a therapist for me. I was on a walker and I couldn’t believe that she cared that much about me. We became the best of friends.”

“You had a family in Horseshoe who loved you.”

“I know,” she murmured, still looking at her hands. “After my memory came back, a day didn’t go by that I didn’t think of you and Eden, but I had so many health problems and I didn’t want to be a burden to you. I kept thinking once I got better I could go home. The surgeries to my face took a long time and it took forever for me to regain my strength. Each day was a struggle and I didn’t want to put the responsibility on you and your family.”

He stood up again as emotions hit him like a slap in the face. Why couldn’t she come home? He didn’t understand that. “When we got married, the vows said in sickness and in health. Did you forget that?”

She looked at him for the first time. “I caused all this misery to myself because I didn’t have the courage to care for my child. I ran away instead. That’s all on me and it was hard to live with. I didn’t want to come home until I was fully well. But then things happened.”

“Like what?”

“Miss Hattie had a stroke and I couldn’t leave then. She’d been so good to me and I had to stay to help her. She took care of me and I had to take care of her. She was the loving mother I never had. And David and I grew closer. He was just as nice and loving as his mother. I never had that kind of love in my life.”

It finally dawned on Falcon. “Oh, this David is who you want to marry. This David is why you want a divorce. This David is why you have finally come home, only to leave again. That’s not fair to Eden and it’s not fair to me.”

“I know, that makes me a really bad person. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m not asking to be a part of your life again. I’m only asking for a few minutes with my daughter.”

“What will that help, Leah? She’s seventeen and dealing with all kinds of conflicting emotions. I can tell you she will not understand, so why put her through this?”

She stood, her eyes a wave of frosty green. “I’m prepared for that. I can’t go forward with my life until I talk to her.”

Looking at her expensive clothes and artfully made-up face, he had to ask, “Your life is good, I take it.”

“Yes. I took some business courses and I work in David’s office.”

“How nice. Doesn’t Miss Hattie need you?” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice because the anger was starting to come back like a tidal wave and he couldn’t stop it. He had to wonder if she thought he had nerves of steel and he could take all this with a smiling face and have-a-good-life attitude. He was far from feeling that.

“Miss Hattie died a few months ago and she left me her house and many good memories.”

His gut clenched. Didn’t they have good memories? Was that what she was implying? He drew a heavy breath. Almost eighteen years and he remembered everything, even things that hurt. But it was clear that she didn’t. The thought caused an unsettling emotion—green-eyed jealousy.

“I guess you share this house with David?”

“No. He has his own place. David and Miss Hattie saved my life and we became a family. They spent so many hours helping me to get well and to live a full life. I never knew anyone could be so loving and giving. I know you don’t like to hear that, but it’s the truth. I didn’t mean for this to happen. It just did and we both have to move on now.”

He wasn’t going to go gently into this divorce. No way. He wasn’t built that way. “Do you think it was easy for me, Leah, raising a baby? And then my father died and I had to take over the running of the ranch while taking care of a four-year-old. There weren’t enough hours in the day, but Eden was always my top priority.”

She gasped. “John died?”

“Yes, four years after you left the ranch. It was hard on all of us, but especially for Eden because she loved her Papa.”