Chapter Twenty-Five

For the second night in a row, Nikki sat in Tag’s truck in front of a house. This one was a two-story frame house set back at the end of a lane lined with pecan trees. Half a dozen rocking chairs were lined up behind the railing of the wide front porch.

“I remember this house,” she said.

“You’ve been here before?” Tag asked.

“No, but I saw something like this in a magazine when I was a little girl. I told Daddy when I got big, I wanted a two-story house,” she said.

Lights poured out of several windows, both upstairs and down. A brown pickup truck was parked at the curve of a circular driveway. Tonight there was definitely someone at home, but there wasn’t a black car anywhere in sight. That meant Nikki’s stalker wasn’t her father.

“Whoa!” Nikki said. “I just assumed that whoever is driving that black Lincoln is tracking me. But what if they were following me because of you? What if you have some baby-mama out there somewhere and they want to know exactly what’s going on between us,” she said.

“Whoa there, darlin’,” Tag said with a laugh. “I think your nerves have made your imagination run wild. Relax and take a deep breath. Let’s just get through tonight, okay?”

“You didn’t answer my question.” She folded her arms over her chest.

“I would always do right by a child if it’s mine, but I wouldn’t marry for that reason,” he said. “Now let’s go talk to your dad. This isn’t something that we need to discuss tonight.”

She didn’t wait for him like she usually did, but got out of the truck and headed up the sidewalk. He’d answered honestly, but it made her think what percentage of the time the pill failed. There was a slim chance that she was pregnant.

Tag caught up to her just as she rang the doorbell. “Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not,” she said.

“And pigs can sprout wings and fly,” he said.

The door opened and her dad said, “Hello, Nikki.”

“Daddy, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Tag Baker.”

“Please come in.” Don stood to the side and motioned them inside. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tag. I’d shake your hand, but it looks like you’ve got both of them pretty tied up. This is Lucas, but then y’all met him last night. I’m so glad you’re here, Nikki.”

“He always talks too fast when he’s excited.” Lucas came out of a doorway. “But I really can’t say much, because I do too. Y’all come on in the living room. We aren’t totally unpacked yet, but this room is done, and we’ve laid out a little snack on the coffee table. Can I get you a glass of wine? A drink? Maybe some coffee?”

The look on her father’s face was like those times when she was a little girl and he didn’t quite know what to do—whether to say he was sorry for the words that had just spewed from her mother’s mouth or to give Nikki a hug. She wanted to comfort him, but the moment was awkward.

She took a deep breath and stepped forward. “It’s been a long time, Daddy.” She rose up on tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you so much.”

With tears rolling down his cheeks, Don hugged her tightly. “Oh, Nikki, I’ve waited for this moment for years. We’ve got so much catching up to do.”

“Yes, we do.” She took a step back and looped her arm in his.

Lucas led the way into the living room. Nikki looked around, and her head began to swirl. She thought for a minute that she would faint right there. A collection of framed photographs of her and Quint were lined up on the fireplace mantel. A collage of photographs above the sofa included one of her in her cap and gown at her high school graduation, one at her capping ceremony when she became an LPN, and another had been taken when she received her RN degree. Scattered among them were pictures of Lucas at various functions.

She turned toward her dad. “You were there?”

“At every single thing you ever did.” He sat down on the end of the sofa and patted the cushion next to him. “Sit beside me and tell me all about yourself.”

She eased down onto the buttery soft leather sofa. “I didn’t get any of your letters until last week. Mama kept them in a shoebox. I had no idea that you’d offered to let me live with you.”

“I’m so sorry. I came to the house several times, but I couldn’t make myself go inside.” He pulled a tissue from a nearby box and wiped away his tears. “So I wrote the letters and sent them to you. I had no idea that Wilma would keep my mail from you. Let’s have a drink to settle our nerves. Lucas, will you pour for us? And forgive me, Tag. I’m so excited to see y’all that I’m being a bad host. Please sit in the recliner and prop up your foot. What happened to your leg? You want a beer?”

“A mean bull stepped on my foot at a rodeo. Guess he wanted to show me he was still the boss. And a beer sounds great.” Tag eased down in the chair and nodded toward the pictures on the wall. “Quite a collection you’ve got there.”

“Thank you,” Don said.

Nikki slid long, sideways glances at her father. His hair was gray and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth testified that he was an older man now, but he could easily pass for much younger than the fifty-five or -six that he had to be.

“You’ve grown up.” Don handed her a glass of white wine.

“Not much taller but a lot older.” She smiled.

Lucas removed the cap from a bottle of beer and waited until Tag was comfortable in one of two recliners before he put it in his hand.

“I understand y’all met Lucas last night,” Don said. “I should tell you about him before we get into catching up. Lucas is my son and your half brother. He’s about seven years older than you, Nikki.”

She almost shot wine out her nose. “You were married before?”

“No, ma’am. Your mama was my one and only wife. I swore I’d never make that mistake again, and I haven’t. His mother was my high school sweetheart. We started college together, and we both dropped out after a year. She moved to California with her parents, and I got a job driving trucks. She died about a year after Quint’s death, but she told Lucas all about me before she passed away.”

Lucas sat down in a rocking chair. “Mother married my stepfather before I was born, so I just figured he was my father. He died when I was sixteen and Mama died after a short fight with cancer when I was twenty-one. It was my last year of university up in Weatherford, Oklahoma. Academic scholarship,” he answered her unasked question. “I finished up the year and got a job in Dallas. Figured I might as well see if I could locate Don Grady, who Mama said was my biological father. I found him in McKinney and we hit it off. I lived with him a couple of years before I ‘fell in love.’” He put air quotes around the last three words. “I got married. It lasted about four years. And I moved back in with Dad. Last year I sold my company and retired. Now I’m writing books on running a business and retiring early in life. I’m probably making more with them than I did with a computer software company. So that’s my story. I’m your half brother. I’ve always wanted to know you beyond those pictures up there.”

“Why didn’t your mama tell my dad she was pregnant?” Nikki asked.

“Mother told me that she wasn’t sure she ever loved him, that what they had was a high school fling,” Lucas answered.

Nikki glanced over at Tag. Would they grow apart like that?

He raised his beer bottle to her. “Can you believe you’ve got a brother?”

Have a brother? she wanted to scream. I had a brother. His name was Quint. His pictures are on the mantel. I don’t know this man.

“I’m in shock.” Nikki drank the rest of her wine and refilled the glass. “Are you retired, Dad?”

“Yes, as of six months ago. After your mother and I divorced, I worked hard, bought the trucking company I was driving for, built it up to be a fairly prosperous business, and then sold it last year. I stayed on for six months to help the new owners with the transition. I bought this place because it’s secluded and quiet. I don’t want to hear the noise of the city. You’ll have to come sometime in the morning and see the deer. There’s a big deck we can sit on and watch all kinds of wildlife. Remember when you used to sit still by Canyon Creek and watch for rabbits?”

“I remember.” She smiled. “Over on Longhorn Canyon Ranch, there’s a bunny that comes up all the time. His name is Hopalong, and he lets us pet him.” This was all surreal. A father and a brother, all at once, and they both acted like they wanted her in their lives.

“Are you going to get bored here?” Tag looked over at Don.

“Haven’t so far, but then we’ve had the move to think about,” Don said. “I understand you own a ranch near Sunset.”

“How…” Nikki started and remembered the black car. “You’re the one who’s been spying on me.”

“Yes, I am.” Lucas nodded. “I couldn’t figure out why you didn’t send him at least one letter all these years, so I’m the one in the black Lincoln that’s been watching you. Besides, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a sister, so…” He shrugged.

Tag raised both eyebrows at her. “Never thought it would be a brother, did you?”

“Not in my wildest dreams,” Nikki answered.

“I kept thinking that you might show up at my door after I sent that first letter to you, but months went by and then years. I thought maybe you blamed me for Quint’s death and never wanted to see me again. I had no idea that Lucas was spying on you until about a month ago. That’s when he found out the Baker boys had bought old man Johnson’s ranch. And that they were your best friend, Emily’s brothers. I was at the retirement home where you worked last year the night of your Valentine’s party.”

“No!” Nikki gasped. “I would have known you.”

“I stayed in the shadows and I wore a baseball cap and glasses. Have to have them now when I read,” he said. “You wore a pretty red dress and the residents there loved you. Especially five who sat together at a table with Emily’s boyfriend.”

“The Fab Five,” she whispered. “Did you know that I moved out into my own place when I graduated from high school?”

“I did,” Don said. “I wanted to help you, but I was afraid you’d spit in my face since you didn’t acknowledge my letters and cards. But I couldn’t stop sending them.”

“We’ve sure wasted a lot of time, haven’t we?” she said.

“Yes, we have,” Lucas answered for him. “And to make up for it, we’d like for you and Tag to come down tomorrow night for a real meal with us. Dad is a fantastic cook.”

“He wasn’t when we were kids,” Nikki said.

“I learned.” Don grinned. “Try one of my homemade taquitos.”

She picked one up from the plate on the coffee table and bit off half the tiny tortilla wrapped chicken and cheese mixture. “This is great. You’ve got to share your recipe.”

“Gladly.”

“And one of those little sugar cookies,” Lucas said. “If he made those all the time, I’d weigh five hundred pounds.”

Nikki ate one of the cookies and then put three of the spicy tidbits and an equal number of cookies on a napkin and passed them across the coffee table to Tag. “You’ve got to have these. They’re fantastic.”

Tag ate one and told her, “If you ever make this at the ranch, the guys will take you away from me. And Maverick has a terrible sweet tooth, so he’d love these cookies, but not as much as I do.”

“You’ll come tomorrow night?” Don asked. “I’ve got more pictures you might want to see. I couldn’t put them all on the walls or the mantel.”

“I have to work tomorrow night,” Nikki told him. “Monday night I talk to Mama. So how about Tuesday night? You got anything planned, Tag?”

He shook his head. “Not until these toes heal and then I’m making a date with a skydiving company.”

She shivered. “That comes from ‘Live Like You Were Dying,’ a song he’s lived by since he was a teenager.”

“Did you stay two point seven seconds on a bull named Fumanchu?” Lucas asked.

“Six point seven seconds,” Tag answered.

“Been fishin’?”

“Yep, couple of times a year at least.” Tag nodded.

“Then all that’s left is skydiving. Sounds like fun. Want some company?” Lucas asked. “I’ve loved that song ever since it came out.”

“Nikki is going with me, but you can tag along if you want,” Tag said.

“The hell I am!” she said. “I’m not on a guilt ship with that song as my sails.”

Don guffawed so hard that they all laughed with him. “I worried about you living with your mother for nothing, girl,” he said between hiccups. Finally, he opened a bottle of beer and took several swallows. “You speak your mind like my mother did.”

“Do I have any other family? Cousins? Grandparents still living?”

Don shook his head. “No, darlin’, what you’ve got is right here in this room. You said you talk to your mother on Mondays. So she’s still alive?”

“You should know. You send her money every month,” Nikki said.

“I put that in my lawyer’s hands when I bought the company. I told them when she died, not to even tell me. Other than having you and Quint, like I said, that marriage was a mistake. I mistook her neediness for love. But why do you talk to her on Monday? Don’t you keep up with her all week?”

“Nope,” Nikki said. “Mama only wants to talk on the phone on Mondays. When I was kidnapped, if she worried about anything, it was that I wouldn’t be there on Monday so her schedule wouldn’t be interrupted.”

“Kidnapped?” Lucas asked.

Tag spoke up and told the shortest form of the story that he could, taking all the credit for the trouble.

“So that’s why you were gone those days. I thought maybe you and Tag slipped off for a little midweek getaway,” Lucas said. “I was afraid to ask too many questions in town for fear I’d get caught.”

Don’s face registered pure shock. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. If I had known, I’d have helped in some way. I know people all over the country from my truck driving days.”

“It’s okay. It’s all over now. Billy Tom is locked up,” Nikki said. “And we should be going.”

“So soon?” Don asked.

“Dad, it’s after ten.” She pointed at the clock on the far wall.

“We’ll be back Tuesday.” Tag put the footrest down, popped another cookie into his mouth, and picked up his crutches. “What can we bring?”

“Not a thing but a healthy appetite.” Don and Lucas both stood up and walked them to the door. “Nikki, this has been great. I just knew when I found this house that someday you’d visit me in it.”

“That’s not what he told me,” Lucas laughed. “He said that someday he’d sit on the front porch in one of those rocking chairs and watch his grandchildren play on the lawn. I told him he’d better get in touch with you because I have the Grady curse. That means I don’t do well with women.”

“You sound like my friend Maverick, who works with me and my twin brother on the ranch. He says he has the Callahan curse,” Tag said.

After hugs and handshakes, Nikki’s father and brother waved at them from the porch until they were out of sight. She wrapped her arms around herself and wondered if it had all been a dream.

“Well, that went well,” Tag said.

“Yes, but I’m mentally exhausted,” she sighed.

“Then let’s go home and fall into the bed.”

“Tag, I need some time alone to process this. I think it’s best if I go to my apartment tonight,” she told him.

Tag was more than a little disappointed. “Whatever you want, darlin’, but I’m here for you whenever you need me for anything.”