his heart, sitting with Cammi at Georgia’s. She looked awfully familiar, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember where, or if, they’d ever met. Something he’d have to think about long and hard before he saw her again.
“Whose fault was it?”
Reid heard the caution in Billy’s question; his friend didn’t want to wake any sleeping ghosts, and Reid appreciated that. “Hers.”
Nodding, Billy headed down the hall toward the kitchen. “Put on a pot of decaf couple minutes ago. Martina made apple pie for dessert tonight. Join me?”
Though he’d wolfed down his burger and fries before downing two cups of coffee at Georgia’s Diner, Reid said, “Hard to say no to anything Martina whips up.”
While Billy sliced pie, Reid filled a mug for each of them. “Li’l gal ran a red light,” he explained, grabbing two forks from the silverware drawer, “and I broadsided her.”
Wincing, Billy whistled. He didn’t say more. Didn’t have to. He’d been there that night, too.
“Really, son, you okay?”
Reid nodded. “Yeah.” Okay as the likes of him deserved to be, anyway.
“Just remember, this one wasn’t your fault, either.”
Billy had talked “fault” after meeting then fourteen-year-old Reid at the E.R. “I talked to the cops,” he’d said on the drive back to the Rockin’ C, “and they told me three eyewitnesses stated for the record that Rose London ran the red light.” Then he’d reached across the front seat and grabbed Reid’s sleeve. “Quit fiddlin’ with the bandage, son, or you’ll wear a scar on your forehead the rest of your days.”
Reid half smiled at the memory, because ironically, the scar he wore now, in almost exactly the same spot, had been inflicted by a raging Brahma bull, not a car accident.
“Stop lookin’ so glum,” Billy was saying. “Just remember, the accident wasn’t your fault.”
He’d said pretty much the same thing all those years ago: “You’re not to blame for what happened to the London woman.”
True enough—Mrs. Lamont London had run a red light, same as Cammi Carlisle, and he’d plowed into the side of her car, too. However, assigning fault did nothing to ease Reid’s guilt. Not then, not now. And Billy had bigger problems to worry about than traffic accidents, present or past, since his doctor’s prognosis.
“Georgia says ‘hey,”’ Reid said, changing the subject. “Said she misses seeing you and Martina.”
The fork hung loose in Billy’s big hand. Absent-mindedly, he shoved an apple slice around on his plate. “Gettin’ harder and harder to drag my weary bones into town,” he said on a heavy sigh. “Gettin’ hard to drag ’em anywhere.”
Reid knew Billy had never been one to wallow in self-pity, so it didn’t surprise him when his longtime friend sat up straighter, as if regretting the admission, and cleared his throat.
“That list I gave you this morning was longer’n my forearm,” Billy said. “When did you have time to stop at Georgia’s?”
So much for changing the subject, Reid thought. “Accident happened in front of her diner.” Cammi’s pretty, smiling face flashed in Reid’s mind. “We, uh, the other driver and I got all the particulars out of the way over burgers and fries.”
Billy chuckled. “Ain’t that just like you, to buy the kid a meal after she cracks up your only means of transportation.”
Kid? He nearly laughed out loud, because Cammi Carlisle was more woman than any he’d seen since returning to Amarillo. More woman, in fact, than the dozens who routinely followed him around the rodeo circuit. Right now, she was the one sunny spot in his otherwise gloomy life. He was about to admit she’d insisted on paying for the food when Billy spoke.
“Amanda called.” Using his chin as a pointer, he added, “I wrote her number over there, on the pad beside the phone.”
Reid groaned inwardly at being forced to recall his last day with the tall willowy blonde who, despite his arm’s-length interest in her, seemed determined to change his mind about “the two of them.”
He thought of the afternoon, more than six months ago, when the surgeon gave Reid permission to leave the Albuquerque hospital. Amanda had been there…again. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, so he blamed his sour mood on the months of physical therapy that lay ahead of him. “Isn’t fair to string you along while I recuperate,” he’d said. “I need time, to make some hard choices about the future.”
He realized now that his evasiveness had given her hope that, at the end of his “alone time,” she’d be part of that future.
Reid strode across the room, saw from the area code that Amanda had been near Amarillo when she’d called. Shaking his head, he groaned again, this time aloud. First thing in the morning, he’d call her, invite her to breakfast, and set things straight.
“Well,” Billy interrupted, getting to his feet with obvious difficulty. “Guess I’ll drag my ol’ bones up to bed.” He started clearing the table.
“I’ll take care of these.”
Chuckling, Billy winked. “I was hopin’ you’d say that.” He limped toward the door, stopping in the hallway. “Don’t be up all night, now, frettin’ about that accident, y’hear? I know it roused some ugly memories, but thinkin’ it to death won’t change anything.”
True enough. Still… “I’ll turn in soon.”
The look on Billy’s face said he knew a fib when he heard one. “Don’t forget, the new ranch hands start at first light.”
Reid only nodded.
“G’night, son.”
Billy had been the closest thing to a father Reid would ever know. Watching him suffer, watching him die, as he was now doing, was about the hardest thing Reid had ever done in his life. A tight knot of regret formed in Reid’s throat, all but choking off his gruff “’Night.”
He listened as Billy shuffled slowly up the steps. If he could trade his own robust health to get Billy’s back, he’d do it in a heartbeat, because what did he have to live for, to look forward to? Sadly, life wasn’t like that. Reid would have to be satisfied with doing everything humanly possible to make Billy as comfortable as possible during the time he had left.
Standing woodenly, Reid gathered up the dishes and added them to the already full dishwasher. The fact that Martina hadn’t turned it on told him that she’d known her husband and “adopted” son would share a late-night snack. The thought made him smile a bit, despite the dark thoughts pricking at his memory.
The drone of the dishwasher’s motor harmonized with the ticking clock and the pinging of water in the baseboard heaters. It wasn’t really furnace weather just yet, but because of Billy’s steadily declining condition, Martina had set the thermostat at seventy degrees and left it there. The mere thought made Reid wince. When his hot-tempered stepfather was diagnosed with cancer, it hadn’t hurt like this—hearing the news about Billy’s condition had been painful and terrifying. It didn’t take
