Part 15 (1/2)
After shaking the snow off his coat, he shucked out of it and hung it on a peg by the door. ”What did she have to say?”
Lisa flitted over and straightened the collar of his police uniform. He had to bend to receive her kiss on the lips. ”She just wondered how we were. Asked if we were coming home for Thanksgiving. Apparently, she's planning some s.h.i.+ndig. The whole family will be there. I think it would be good to go to Texas this year. I don't see enough of your family. She also said your dad is thinking about retiring and wants to discuss your taking over the ranch with you. I really think you should consider it. I'd love to move there. My parents will have a fit, but”
He moved past her and tossed his keys on the kitchen counter, but instead of sitting down to eat the supper his wife had prepared, he headed into the small bedroom they'd converted into an office. For his bottle of whiskey.
”Zack?” She followed him. ”Supper's ready. Where're you going?”
He pulled the bottle from a bottom drawer of the desk and poured a tumbler three fingers full. ”I'll never live in Texas. Logan can have the ranch. I don't want it.”
”Why not?” Lisa demanded and moved into the dark room.
The only lighting came from the streetlight through the window and the rectangle of the open door. She switched on the desk lamp. The harsh light made him squint, and he turned away.
”You hate living here,” she said to his back. ”I worry about you. The nightmares are getting worse. I think it's your being a cop. It's too much like being an MP and reminds you of the war. I can get a nursing job anywhere, and Mandy would be better off in that little town than here.”
He downed the whiskey and poured another, then stared out at the snow falling in the small front yard. He didn't need more liquor and was already halfway drunk from stopping at the beer joint on the way home, but he had to have it. These days the whiskey was all that got him through the day and night.
”Zack?”
”Leave me the h.e.l.l alone, Lisa.” He turned on her. ”I'm not moving to Texas. So, forget it. I don't care what happens to the ranch. After what happened with her”
He realized what he'd said a second too late. Lisa flinched as if he'd slapped her. At last, she put her hands on her hips. ”Fine. Are you going to eat tonight or are you going to drink all night?”
Zack slammed down the gla.s.s so hard on the desk, whiskey sloshed all over the sides. He was as irritated with himself as he was with her. Tracy never kept poking and prodding like Lisa did. Tracy had known when to leave him alone and when he needed to talk. Tracy. She was coming to mind more and more these days, especially after he'd heard from his brother she'd been divorced from Jake for almost two years. ”Dammit! Can't a man come home from a c.r.a.ppy day at work and have some peace and quiet?”
”No!” she'd yelled back. ”Zack, I can't go on like this. I know something's changed in you.”
”Yes, something changed. I watched my friend get killed as he saved my life. I should be the one dead!”
”It's been six months and you're still blaming yourself for something you couldn't have prevented.” She'd moved around the desk to stand before him. Her voice softened. ”Maybe you shouldn't have taken the job with the police force.”
”You're the one who talked me into it!”
”I know, but maybe it was too soon...Maybe moving back to Texas”
”What the h.e.l.l do you want? I told you I will never go back there. I can't. Not while she's”
Lisa stepped back and stared up at him. ”What kind of hold does she have over you? I forgave you for calling out her name when you woke up in Germany...” Her eyes widened and her voice shook. ”You're still in love with her, aren't you? Have you ever loved me at all? I believed when you didn't say the words first that was just who you are. You'd only say them back to appease me. But you've never said them first because you never really felt them.”
The stricken expression and the tears she was trying to hold back twisted his gut. But he didn't deny the accusation, because he knew she was right. He'd never stopped loving Tracy Quinn.
She stepped away and straightened her shoulders. ”I love you, Zack, but I can't compete with a memory anymore. I've been doing it for too long. Mandy is afraid of you. That's why she stays with Mom so much. You come home and sulk in here, drinking whiskey until you pa.s.s out. I'm leaving until you decide what you wantme and your daughter...or her.”
Lisa packed a suitcase, got into her car and headed for her parents' ranch sixty miles north of Cheyenne.
All Zack remembered thinking, as he'd watched her taillights disappear in the gloom outside the office window, was how relieved he was their marriage was finally over.
Banging at the door jolted him out of the agonizing memory. He put the frame back and went out to the entry. Expecting one of his ranch hands, he was surprised to find Lance when he opened the door.
His cousin gave him a solemn look. ”We've got trouble.”
”What kind of trouble?”
”I think it's better if I show you.”
”Okay, but I can't leave Mandy alone.” Zack headed into the big, open kitchen.
”Aunt Jackie's on her way, along with Uncle Luke.” Lance followed Zack.
That got Zack's attention. His parents lived about a mile down the road in a house one of his other ancestors had built. They never came to his place in the morning. He didn't press Lance on the matter. He didn't want to know what other disaster had befallen the ranch. ”You want some coffee?”
”Sure.” Lance helped himself and looked Zack over from head to toe. He lowered his mug after sipping from it. ”Have a rough night?”
Zack sharpened his gaze on him. ”What makes you think that?”
Lance raised a brow. ”Well, for one thing, you didn't shave, Sheriff. Second, you're wound too tight to look this bad from a night of wild s.e.x.”
”I think you need to mind your own d.a.m.ned business.” Zack crossed the kitchen to return to the living room where he'd left his mug. His family didn't know much about his marriage to Lisa, and he wanted to keep it that way. Lance's footsteps echoed across the stone floor and through the archway onto the wood floor of the living room.
”She was a beautiful woman.”
Zack hadn't even realized he was staring at the picture of his dead wife until Lance's comment pulled him back. He glanced over his shoulder to find Lance standing behind him. ”Yes, she was.”
A comforting hand landed on his shoulder. ”You miss her.”
Zack wanted to shake off his cousin and tell him he didn't need his comfort or his sympathy.
”Zack, if you have a chance at happiness again, take it. Tracy's a good woman.”
Tracy. She was the reason everything had happened.
”Lance.” He shook off his cousin. ”Let it alone.”
”No, I can't.” Lance set his mug on the coffee table and stepped in front of Zack. ”You loved that girl. She ripped you up one side and down the other when she cheated on you, but you bounced back eventually. You found another woman who loved you, and who you would've given up everything for. But she's gone. You've grieved for two years. It's time to move on.”
Zack's back teeth clenched tight enough his jaw hurt. He gritted out, ”Whatever happens between Tracy Parker and me is my d.a.m.ned business, understand? I'm not in the market for another wife. So, drop it.”
He walked away from Lance, heading for his office.
”I can't.”
Zack turned at the archway and glared at his cousin.
Lance tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his designer suit pants. He'd obviously been on his way to his Dallas office. The lawyer never rested. ”Because for almost a year, you've been doing everything you can to avoid the fact you're lonely. You have no life outside of Mandy, the ranch, and playing lawman. You're a workaholic, but the stress is starting to show. Mandy's with your mom more than she's with you. You're over your head with the mess Leon Ferguson made, and now we have a rash of cattle rustling. I'm not going to mention the half-a.s.sed attempt you're making at running this ranch. You aren't happy. We all see it. And we have all seen the flames. You want Tracy. Go after her before it's too late.”
Zack turned to walk away. He'd heard enough.
”Twelve years ago, I almost threw away a chance at having a wonderful life. I was playing one sister against the other. I knew they both were in love with me, and I was living it up. It took Audrey getting pregnant to make me see what I almost lost.”