Page 28 of Daybreak

He started smiling and headed toward his youngest son with arms wide open.

“You made it!” he said and gave Gunner a big hug and a pat on the back.

“Yes, I did. I can see how busy you are, and Pearl is about to feed me. We’ll talk later, okay?”

“Absolutely okay,” Jacob said and beamed with pride as his customers began shouting out greetings of their own to his son.

Gunner waved. “Don’t be giving my dad any grief now. I’m too tired to have to whip someone’s ass.”

A roar of laughter followed him as he left the bar. He was smiling when he sat down at the kitchen table to the food awaiting him. “Sit with me,” Gunner said as Pearl poured herself a cup of coffee. “I want to hear all about what’s going on, and what’s already happening. Is Davey your fry cook still living in the apartment above the Rose?”

It was all the invitation Pearl needed to unload, and the first thing she started with was the tragedy of Helen Dillon and Lee Peters’s wreck.

Gunner let her talk without mentioning he already knew that, because he didn’t want anyone to know that he and Holly had been communicating. He cleaned his plate and downed a big piece of pie before Pearl finally ran down and began asking him about work and any plans he had for his big windfall.

“Work’s been a headache, but that’s mostly a cop’s life,” he said as he got up and carried his dirty dishes to the sink. “Can I put these in the dishwasher?”

“Yes, but I—”

“No, ma’am. You’re not at the Rose. You’re at home, and you already fed me. I can at least clean up after myself. I do it at my house all the time.” He rinsed the dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher, then dried off the counter. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Pearl hugged him. “No, baby. Just kick your boots off and watch some TV or stretch out on the bed. If you fall asleep, Jacob will wake you up to say good night.”

Pearl’s head barely reached the middle of his chest, but he hugged her anyway. “I’m happy you and Dad are together,” he said.

Pearl sighed. “So am I. You look like you haven’t slept for days. Go lie down.”

“Yes, ma’am. On the way,” Gunner said and walked out of the kitchen.

Pearl watched him leaving and could tell by the way he was moving that, for whatever reason, he was carrying the weight of the world on his back.

Gunner heard the TV come on in the living room and guessed Pearl was settling in to watch some shows. All he wanted was to get off his feet. Even if his feet did hang off the end of the mattress now, it was still where he felt the most relaxed. He sat down on the bed, took off his belt and shirt, leaned down to take off his boots, and then rolled over on his belly and closed his eyes.

Muffled voices from the bar on the other side of his bedroom wall were as familiar as the faint sound of the country music—the lullaby of his childhood. He knew the song he could hear playing—an old Lee Brice song that was an anthem of what he’d become.

“I’m hard to love, hard to love… Oh, I don’t make it easy…”

There was an ache in his heart as he fell asleep.

Chapter 6

Jacob locked up the bar, left all the nightlights on, and went into the family quarters. He knew Pearl would be asleep because she had to be up and gone by 5:00 a.m. But tonight, his youngest son was back under his roof, too.

He opened the door just enough to see him sprawled belly down on top of the bed, still wearing his jeans and socks. He shook his head and smiled at the sight of Gunner’s broad back and his long legs, with his feet hanging off the end of the bed. All of his sons had his height and thick black hair, only now, Jacob’s hair was a thatch of silver gray, and he didn’t stand as tall as he used to. He picked up a blanket and spread it over him, like he’d done when he was a boy.

He’d known the moment he’d seen his son’s face that there was something off. But he’d find out tomorrow. Tonight, Gunner needed to sleep.

* * *

Holly woke up with a gasp, her heart pounding. The sound of her mother’s scream was already fading from memory, but there was no way she could go back to sleep. From the moment she’d learned of her mother’s accident, her greatest horror had been believing Helen had seen death coming too late to escape. Learning that she had passed before impact was an odd relief. Now she just had to reset her emotions to a new reality and hope for no more nightmares.

Her bedroom window was up enough to hear coyotes howling nearby, and to hear a horse nicker disapproval. They had new foals in the area. She didn’t know if her dad was awake or not, but it wouldn’t be the first time she had shot at coyotes to run them off.

She traded her pajamas for jeans and a T-shirt, stepped into a pair of sneakers, and headed down the hall when a door opened behind her. Travis had come out of his bedroom in a pair of ratty green gym shorts—the same shorts he’d been wearing to bed for the last four years.

“What are you doing up?”

“Bad dream, then I heard coyotes. I just wanted to make sure the foals were all okay,” she said.