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Only then did Jackson realize he’d used the past tense. And he couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah. He’s already doing better, since we got here.”
The police chief smiled back, and it was more genuine than just about any smile he saw back home. “Glad to hear it. Welcome to Last Stand, Mr. Thorpe. Call on us if you need us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have rounds to make.”
Jackson blinked again as he watched the man head toward Main Street. Rounds? The Last Stand Chief of Police what, walked a beat? Okay, that was different. Very different. And as he watched, he caught himself thinking he could do a lot worse than to model Austin Holt more on this man than the imaginary cowboy that lived in his head.
And as he stood there, watching the man go, he had the feeling yet again that coming here just might have been thesmartest thing he’d ever done. But that also reminded him he didn’t have to worry about how he portrayed the fictional rancher any longer.
He’d been ignoring Miles’s calls since that day at the beach in front of his house. And those from Felix Swiff, the show’s chief executive producer, even longer. The only person he’d talked to was Tucker, and that was because the man had backed him all the way, even though it could affect his own career, since most of his work was doubling Jackson.
You go soak up some Texas spirit. Both you and Jeremy. You’ll be the better for it.
Apparently, he was right. Because he was already feeling it. Feeling as if there was hope, as if Jeremy might also find that feeling here, or at the least be distracted enough to loosen his grip on the pain he kept clinging to. He was self-aware enough to realize that were it not for worrying about his son, he’d likely be in the same place. But he’d had to tamp down his own pain to a dull ache to deal with Jeremy’s ripping need.
Which had also meant Austin Holt had to die. Or whatever they were going to do to write him out of the show. He hoped, fiercely, that it would go on without him, not only because he knew millions of viewers loved it, but because everybody on the crew worked so damned hard to make it the success it had become. He didn’t want to be the one to put an end to that, to put them out of work in a cutthroat industry. Then again,Stonewallhad been such a success, it might be easier for them now.
He shook off the feelings of guilt and started walking. He looked at the statue again when he reached the corner, and that chance meeting unrolled in his mind’s eye all over again. He shook that off, too, and turned the opposite way.
There was a wine-tasting room on the corner, and he remembered Tris telling him the Hill Country was rapidly becoming wine country. He could see why—the terrain andweather seemed like it would suit. Next came a row of three connected buildings, and the first one made him smile just with the name. Yippee Ki Yay was the perfect tag for a western store. And at a glance in the front window, he saw several things he could picture Ms. Baylor wearing. He paused at the front door, looking at the sign that portrayed a cowboy on a wildly bucking horse, which made him think of Tucker and his aborted bull riding career. He’d asked him once if he missed it.
“The thrill, the competition? Yeah, sort of.” He’d grinned that Tucker grin. “The aches and pains, not so much.”
He kept walking, knowing without having to see any signage that he had reached the bakery. Those appetite-awakening smells were unmistakable. He seriously thought about going in now, but he wanted to continue his tour of Main Street, and if he went in there now, he’d probably only have an empty bag to take back to Tris’s place. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans to remind himself he didn’t want to lug around a full bag, anyway.
He smiled at the next shop, another bakery, but this one apparently for pets, offering an array of dog biscuits, cat treats, and birdseed delicacies that boggled him.
Across the next street was a large church, with enough people clustered in the courtyard even on this Saturday to make him want to steer clear. So he crossed Main Street there and found himself in front of a store called Last Stand Expeditions, which he gathered sold supplies and had information on local hiking and river trips. He made a note of that as well, thinking Jeremy might like that too. The last time they’d visited, the three of them alive and well, Tris had taken them down to New Braunfels to see Gruene Hall, the state’s oldest still-functioning dance hall, which had hosted many a major music star, and launched a few more. They’d taken a walk down by the Guadalupe River,and Jeremy had been especially intrigued by the people floating along on large inner tubes.
He added that to the list. If, of course, he could ever get him away from that pony. He continued walking, past a restaurant with a large outdoor patio, then crossed Hickory again and glanced in the window of another bakery of sorts, this one with apparently any kind of pie you could imagine. Tris loved lemon meringue, and there happened to be one in the case he could see from out here, so he added that to the list. The list that was surprising him with its length. He’d never really thought about spending a lot of time in a small town in Texas, but now that he was, he was finding a lot more he might like to do, and more importantly, that Jeremy might like to do, than he’d ever expected.
Next door to the pie shop was a place that stopped him dead. A newspaper? An actual small-town newspaper? Did they even exist anymore?The Defender. Interesting name. He wondered if it had something to do with that last stand the place was named for. He came up even with some clippings posted in the front window, one of which included the masthead of the paper, and he knew he was right, because the image above the name was a drawing of the saloon that was just a bit farther on across the street.
A movement inside caught his eye, and he looked through the window to see a lovely auburn-haired woman talking to an older, gray-haired man. They were both smiling, and then the man nodded and turned to go into the office behind him, with the wordsEditor In Chief,The Defenderpainted on the glass in the door. The woman turned and headed toward the outer door, just to his right. She smiled brightly at him as she came out. He thought he saw a glint of recognition in her expression, but she said only, “Nice day for a walk around town. Enjoy.”
He stared after her as she went. How had she known that was what he was doing?
He started to continue that walk when something posted in the window caught his eye, a story that looked as if it had been up there for a while, a story about a terrorist threat that had been averted by the sheer courage of a man who stopped a suicide bomber, fully believing he would die himself in the effort.
Then Police Lieutenant Shane Highwater.
He remembered the second plaque on the statue, commemorating more heroics from the man.No wonder he’s the chief now. And no wonder you picked up that rock-solid feel radiating from him.
That was the kind of genuine courage Hollywood could only imitate.
Chapter Twelve
“So he reallyjust up and walked away?”
Nic heard Tris’s sigh as she kept watching her nephew on the pinto pony. “So it seems.”
“What happens now? On the show, I mean?”
The star’s sister shrugged. “I gather they’re trying to decide what to do. To kill off the character, or leave a door open.” She grimaced. “He did kind of dump this on them without notice. I know he feels bad about that, but he was afraid for Jeremy.”
“And that trumped everything?”
“And anything,” Tris agreed. Then, in a tone of aggravation, she went on. “I just get so angry at all those bloggers and internet geniuses who think they know why, that it was some actor-y thing, some ‘clash of vision’ kind of thing. Because an actor couldn’t really walk away from the one thing they’re all obsessed about, a big hit, for the sake of someone else, even his own child.”
She gave Nic a sideways look, and there was a bit of color in her cheeks. And her tone was calmer when she said, “Sorry. It’s just that I know he’s been in such anguish over Jeremy, so much that he’s barely dealt with his own grief. He truly loved Leah, always said she was what kept him sane and balanced.”
