Brenda Minton - The Cowboy's Homecoming

“That’s a little drastic, don’t you think? This church hasn’t been a beacon in a dozen years.”

One shoulder lifted again. “I don’t know, maybe. But it’s my story, not yours.”

“This church meant so much to…” She wasn’t going to beg him. She breathed deep, willing herself not to cry.

“It meant a lot to your mother.”

His tone had changed again. The rough edges were gone. She looked up as he stood straight again and took a few steps in her direction. His steps were slow, calculated.

Had she really thought she could talk him out of this? A shared moment gave her no claim over him. Memories didn’t give her a right to assume he would listen. His story in this church mattered to him, not the memory of a kiss they shared a dozen years ago.

“Yes, it did mean a lot to her.” But Beth had only been inside the building a handful of times since her mother’s funeral. Eighteen years. After her mother’s death her father had caught her here once and dragged her home.

Jeremy watched her. His smile faded a little. His eyes narrowed as he stared hard. His Native American heritage was evident in the smooth planes of his face, tanned a deep brown from working outside. But almost everyone in Dawson shared that heritage, that ancestry. Redheads, blonds, brunettes; hair color and eye color didn’t dictate a lack of Native American ancestry. The people of Dawson were proud of that heritage, proud of their strength and resilience.

They were known for bouncing back, for not letting the past get them down.

The past was tied to everything, though. It was the shadow of pain in Jeremy Hightree’s eyes. It held her own heart captive. It was the fear that clawed at her chest and woke her up in the middle of the night.

“I’m not sure what to tell you, Beth. Your mom meant a lot to me. But this church is…”

“What? Tell me what this church ever did to you?” She pinned him with a stare, hoping to make him squirm. Instead his expression softened, as if he understood her pain, and was hiding his own behind anger.

She remembered the boy with the bouquet, the one she’d wanted to hug. She couldn’t allow herself to compare him to that boy. “Tell me, Jeremy, what will revenge do for you?”

Well, now, the kitten had grown some claws. She stood in front of him, pint-size with dark eyes that flashed fear and fire simultaneously. Her dark brown hair hung in pigtails. She picked that moment to lick lips that trembled. He smiled and for a few minutes he didn’t quite know what to say to her, because he was picturing her as a cornered kitten, shaking in her boots but ready to swipe at him. He had a lot of questions for her. He had questions about her life, about Chance Martin, about Dawson.

Instead of asking questions he shook his head and considered walking away. She’d mentioned revenge. He really didn’t like that word.

And when she’d said it, his decision didn’t feel as good as it had even an hour earlier when he’d stood outside picturing this hill without this church, without the memories that had been chasing him down, biting at his heels.

“It isn’t just about revenge.” He shrugged and smiled at Bethlehem Bradshaw. He’d always been a fan of her full name, not the shortened version. The full name had meant something to her mother. And her mother had meant a lot to him. She’d done more for him than people would ever know.

That loyalty struck a raw nerve with him right now. Because Bethlehem’s mamma was gone and here was her daughter begging for something that woman would have wanted. She would have wanted this church to remain standing.

But he thought she would have cried at its condition now, because it hadn’t been used in years and no one had cared to keep it maintained. She wouldn’t have wanted that either.

Of course she would have told him to forgive.

Forgive his mother for being the town drunk. Forgive Tim Cooper for a tiny indiscretion more than thirty years ago and not owning up to it. As far as Jeremy was concerned, Tim Cooper didn’t need his forgiveness. That was between Tim and Mrs. Cooper.

Jeremy had a truckload of bad memories. He’d learned early to fight for himself and his little sister. At eight he could make a mean box of mac and cheese. By the time he was ten he could sign his mother’s signature on school permission slips. He learned to braid his little sister’s hair and wash her clothes.

His sister, Elise, was married now. She and her husband owned a convenience store in Grove. They sold bait to fishermen and coffee mugs to tourists. Elise was big on forgiveness, too.

“It looks a lot like revenge.” Bethlehem’s soft voice intruded into his memories, shaking him up more than a green Oklahoma sky on a stormy afternoon.

“Bethlehem, I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“Say you won’t do this.”

“I can’t say that.” For the first time since he’d bought the church, he had the biggest urge to forget his plans. Because of Beth.

“Why not?”

Jeremy shook his head to clear the thoughts. “I have plans for this piece of property.”

He needed a bigger shop for the custom bikes he’d turned from a hobby into a business, an extension of the chain of motorcycle dealerships he owned.

“Do you have plans or are you just angry?”

He leaned in and then he regretted the move that put him a little too close to Bethlehem, close enough to see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, close enough to get tangled in the soft scent of her perfume.

Man, she was summer sunshine. She was sweet, the way she’d been sweet at sixteen. A guy couldn’t forget a kiss stolen along a creek bank on a summer night.

Time to think fast and get the kid he’d been back under the control of the man he now was. And she wasn’t making that an easy thing to do.

“Let me ask you a question. How many times have you been to church in the last dozen years or so?”

She turned pink and glanced away from him. “We’re not talking about me. And I do go to church.”

He smiled at that. “Yeah, we weren’t talking about you. But now we are.”

Because there was a scar across her brow. It ran into her hairline. A matching scar ran jagged down her arm. She shifted, uneasy, and crossed her arms in front of herself. This church wasn’t the only thing he’d like to tear down. If he ever got hold of Chance Martin, he’d probably do the same to him.

But he doubted Chance would ever show his face in Dawson, not if he wanted to live. Because Jeremy figured he probably wasn’t the only man in town that wanted to get hold of that coward.

Beth’s arms dropped to her sides and she took a few steps toward the door, her eyes shifting from him to the exit. He got that she needed to breathe, and he let her have the space.

At the door she turned to face him again.

“Don’t do this. Please.” A tear streaked down her cheek.

He let out a sigh and shook his head. “Bethlehem, I’m sorry. I know why this church means something to you. It means something different to me.”

“I know and I’m sorry.”

“Right.”

“I’ll buy it from you.” She spoke with renewed determination, her dark eyes flashing. “You don’t need this land. Do you even plan on staying here?”

“No, I’m not staying here, not full time. I have a home in Tulsa.”

“Then don’t do it. What will it accomplish? Who do you want to hurt?”

He brushed a hand over the top of his head, over hair cut short, and moved it down to rub the back of his neck.

“I’m done with this conversation, Bethlehem.”

“It’s a building. It didn’t do anything to you.”

He looked around, remembering. She was wrong about that. This building tied into a lot of anger. That anger had pushed him to battle it out on the backs of bulls. It had put him on a motorcycle, racing through the desert at speeds that would make most guys wet themselves like little girls.

When he looked at this building, there wasn’t a good memory to hang on to. He glanced away from her, away from the second pew where her mother had sat, and he called himself a liar.

Good memories included potluck dinners when he got to sit with Bethlehem and her mother. He had other good memories, like the smile she gave him when she was fifteen and he’d just won a local bull-riding event. She’d smiled and then hurried away with her friends, giggling and shooting glances back at him. Hers had lingered longest and when he’d winked, she’d turned pink and nearly tripped.

“Bethlehem, I am going to tear this church down.”

“I feel sorry for you.”

“Yeah, lots of people do.” But he didn’t want her to be one of them.

“I’ll do what I can to stop you. I won’t let you tear it down.”

“What would you do with it, Beth? Open it back up, sing songs on Sundays, serve potluck once a month? It’s an old building. It should probably be condemned.”

She shrugged and smiled a soft smile. He knew he was in serious trouble then. He got a feeling she was about to pull a one-two punch on him.

She stepped close, her smile pulling him closer.

“Don’t you feel it, Jeremy? After all these years, don’t you feel it?”

Yeah, he’d seen it coming. No other woman had ever set him on his heels the way she could. Because he knew exactly what she meant and, yeah, he felt it. He felt the past. He felt God. He felt faith. All the things he’d been ignoring and it hit him every single time he walked into this building. He felt hundreds of prayers that had been said, probably most of them for him, his little sister, and his mother.

He remembered Sunday school teachers who had brought him cookies. The pastor back then, Pastor Adkins, and his wife had bought Jeremy and his sister school clothes and Christmas presents.

But all of those good memories got lost, tied up with the bad, when he remembered Tim Cooper on the front pew with his family. Each Sunday they’d showed up in their van, wearing new clothes and happy smiles. When he’d been about six years old there were only a few Cooper kids. As the years went by, the clan grew. The Coopers had about a half dozen kids of their own. They added about a half dozen adopted children.

Jeremy had sat two pews back across the aisle, without a family to have Sunday lunch with, without a dad.

“Sorry, Bethlehem.”

He turned and walked away, knowing there would be tears streaking down her cheeks, knowing she’d nearly collapse with sadness and frustration over his stubbornness.

As he walked out the back door his phone rang. He shielded the display and shook his head. He really didn’t want to deal with this today. Bethlehem had just about done him in.

But if he didn’t answer she’d call again. And again. There was always a crisis in his mother’s life.

“Hi, Mom, what do you need?” He held the phone to his ear and walked across the overgrown lawn to the RV that he’d been living in.

Horse hooves on pavement caught his attention. He turned to watch Bethlehem ride down the road at an easy trot. Her hand came up and he knew she was wiping tears from her eyes.

That made him not much better than Chance Martin.

“Jeremy, this is Carl Duncan.” A county deputy on his mom’s phone. Great.

“What can I do for you, Carl?”

“I’m sorry to bother you but we’ve got your mamma down here at the jail. Someone called her in for a disturbance.”

“Did she have clothes on this time?” He brushed a hand across his head and looked down at the ground, at his scuffed work boots and at a little black snake slithering a short distance away.