Sherryl Woods - After Tex

“Let her go,” Mrs. Gomez said.

“I should have been more sensitive, I suppose,” he said, but without much real regret.

“No. She needed a good cry, but she won’t like you seeing it. You being the cause gives her an excuse she can handle right now. Thinking of Tex being dead and buried is still too much for her.”

“Is she going to be all right?” he asked, still staring worriedly after her.

“Oh, I imagine she’ll be just fine in time. Megan’s a strong, resilient woman. She’s had to be all her life. Her world’s a little topsy-turvy right now, but she’ll set it straight soon enough.”

It sounded kinder when Mrs. Gomez said it than it had when he’d sarcastically accused Megan of being adaptable. “Will she be okay with Tess?”

“As I said, she is resilient. She is also good-hearted. She will do what is right for the child.”

Still staring after Meggie, Jake sighed. “There have been a lot of times these last few months when I’ve regretted letting Tex talk me into drawing up that will of his. This is one of them.”

“If you hadn’t done it, someone else would have. Better that it was someone who knows Meggie, someone who cares about her and can see her through this.”

His gaze shot to hers. “I never said…”

She patted his cheek. “You didn’t have to. It is in your eyes. It always has been.” She gestured toward the table. “Now pile a plate up with some of this food and eat. You will need your strength for what’s to come, Sí?”

Jake had a feeling he could eat every last scrap on the buffet and still not be strong enough to deal with Meggie when she found out about Tex’s final devious scheme to get her back to Wyoming for good.

Tears streaming down her cheeks and, no doubt, destroying her carefully applied makeup, Megan retreated to the back steps, where she was pretty sure no one would find her. The fight with Jake had been absurd. She knew that. But it had set off a whole slew of insecurities and stirred up anger and resentment that she’d kept pretty well tucked away inside for the past couple of days.

The anger had been misdirected, of course. It was Tex she was furious with, not Jake. She was mad at him for being sneaky and conniving and, most of all, for being dead.

Now she’d never have the chance to tell him that she loved him, that she owed him or that she was sorry they’d fought. It was too late to take back what she’d said—not that she would have—about belonging in New York, not Wyoming, no matter how much it hurt him to hear it.

The cold air was drying the tears on her cheeks and setting up goose bumps when she heard a soft, shuffling sound and noticed Tess creeping up beside her. The girl’s face was streaked with dried tears and dirt, and her hair was a tangle of mussed curls and straw. Obviously she’d paid another visit to the barn. As pitiful as she appeared, she still shot a defiant look at Megan.

“Why are you crying?” Tess demanded, as if Megan had no right to shed tears over Tex.

“Same reason as you, I imagine.”

“You didn’t care about Tex,” Tess accused.

“Yes, I did,” Megan corrected mildly.

“Sure didn’t show it. I been here six months and this is the first I’ve seen of you.”

“Because I work in New York.”

“So? You make a lot of money, least that’s what Tex said. You could have come home, if you’d wanted to.”

Megan sighed. “Yes, I suppose I could have.”

Tess seemed startled by the quick admission. “How come you didn’t, then?”

“It’s complicated,” Megan said, for lack of a better explanation.

“Complicated how?” Tess asked, refusing to be put off.

Was this what life was going to be like from now on? Was she going to be asked tough questions by a kid, rather than a reporter? Megan struggled to find a plausible answer that would satisfy an eight-year-old. “Tex and I didn’t always see eye to eye about the choices I made.”

“Like what?”

“Like me living in New York.”

“You liked it better than here?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t get it,” Tess said. “This place is the best. There’s stuff to do and it’s real pretty. Why would you rather be in some big, ugly city, all crowded in?”

The characterization of New York had Tex’s stamp all over it. Megan had heard it often enough over the years. She supposed now was as good a time as any to contradict it, to get Tess excited about the prospect of moving east.

“Because my work is there,” she explained. “And because it’s filled with people from all over the world. It’s amazing, like no place else I’ve ever been. It’s bright and glitzy and energetic. There’s something going on every minute. There are museums and plays and wonderful restaurants. You’ll see.”

Tess regarded her suspiciously. “What do you mean, I’ll see?”

“When you come there to live with me.”

Tess backed up, her expression as horrified as if Megan had suggested taking her on a spaceship to an alien world. “I’m not coming there. No way. You can’t make me, either.”

Megan reached out a hand, but Tess moved farther away.

“This is where I live. It’s where I belong,” the girl all but shouted. “Tex said. He promised!”

Tess turned then and ran, leaving Megan shaken. She hadn’t expected such a violent reaction. Why hadn’t Tex prepared Tess? Foolish question. Because he hadn’t believed he was going to die. Then again, there was the will, naming her as Tess’s guardian. That proved he had known. He’d just chosen not to stir things up. He’d left that to Jake.

As if just thinking about him had conjured him up, Jake appeared at the doorway behind her, his expression filled with concern.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Just peachy,” she said without looking up.

“I’m sorry for upsetting you earlier.”

Megan started to lie, to protest that he wasn’t even capable of upsetting her, but she didn’t have the energy for the debate that would have inevitably followed. Instead, she just shrugged, as if it were of no consequence.

“People are beginning to leave,” he said. “They’d like to say goodbye, if you’re up to it.”

Because it was expected, she stood and brushed herself off, patted her cheeks to smooth out her makeup, and offered Jake a bright smile.

“Of course I’m up to it. The O’Rourkes don’t indulge in self-pity.”

“No one would think any less of you today if you did,” Jake noted.

“I would,” she muttered, and swept past him. In her business world, appearances mattered. In Wyoming, they mattered, too, though for very different reasons. Here it was important not to seem standoffish, to be the good neighbor that Tex had been, to show what O’Rourkes were made of.

Megan kept that smile plastered on her face for the next hour as she accepted condolences from dozens of people she’d never met before and dozens more she hadn’t seen in years.

When the last of them had left, she sank into a chair and breathed a sigh of relief. But she realized she’d done it a bit too soon when Jake settled into a chair opposite her. He’d shed the jacket of his black suit and loosened his tie, which gave him a rumpled, sexy look that would have been hard to resist if she hadn’t been so utterly exhausted.

“I thought you’d gone,” she said.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said wryly. “But we have business to take care of, unless you’d rather come into town tomorrow.”

She was sorely tempted to take him up on the delay, but that would be cowardly. “No,” she said finally. “Let’s just get it over with. I can see you won’t be happy until you’ve spilled whatever deep, dark secrets have been nagging at you ever since I got here.”