“No, if you’re so anxious to open all the closet doors and expose the skeletons, here it is. But brace yourself, baby, this one’s a dilly.
“My daddy was the town drunk, a laughingstock, a worthless, pathetic, sorry excuse for a human being. I didn’t even cry when I heard he’d died. I was glad. He was a miserable, scummy son of a bitch who never did a single goddamn thing for me except make me ashamed that he was my father. And he wasn’t any happier about that than I was. Dickweed—that’s what he called me, usually right before he clouted me alongside the head. I was a liability to him.
“But, like a fool, I kept pretending, wishing, that we were a family. I was always after him to come watch me play ball. One night he showed up at a game. He created such a scene stumbling up the bleachers, tearing down one of the banners when he fell, that I wanted to die of embarrassment. I told him never to come again. I hated him. Hated,” he repeated, rasping the word.
“I couldn’t invite friends to my house because it was such a pigsty. We ate out of tin cans. I didn’t know there were things like dishes on the table and clean towels in the bathroom until I was invited to other kids’ houses. I made myself as presentable as possible when I went to school.”
Alex regretted having lanced this festering wound, but she was glad he was talking freely. His childhood explained a lot about the man. But he was describing an outcast, and that didn’t mesh with what she knew about him.
“I’ve been told that you were a ringleader, that the other kids gravitated to you. You made the rules and set the mood.”
“I bullied myself into that position,” he told her. “In grade school, the other kids made fun of me, everybody except Celina. Then I got taller and stronger and learned to fight. I fought dirty. They stopped laughing. It became much safer for a kid to be my friend than my enemy.”
His lip curled with scorn. “This’ll knock your socks off, Miss Prosecutor. I was a thief. I stole anything that we could eat or that might come in useful. You see, my old man couldn’t keep a job for more than a few days without going on a binge. He’d take what he’d earned, buy himself a bottle or two, and drink himself unconscious. Eventually, he gave up trying to work. I supported us on what I could earn after school doing odd jobs, and on what I could get away with stealing.”
There was nothing she could say. He had known there wouldn’t be. That’s why he’d told her. He wanted her to feel rotten and small-minded. Little did he know that their childhoods hadn’t been that dissimilar, although she’d never gone without food. Merle Graham had provided for her physical needs, but she’d neglected her emotional ones. Alex had grown up feeling inferior and unloved. Empathetically she said, “I’m sorry, Reede.”
“I don’t want your goddamn pity,” he sneered. “I don’t want anybody’s. That life made me hard and mean, and I like it that way. I learned early on to stand up for myself because it was for damn sure nobody else was going to go to bat for me. I don’t depend on anybody but myself. I don’t take anything for granted, especially people. And I’m damned and determined never to sink to the level of my old man.”
“You’re making too much out of this, Reede. You’re too sensitive.”
“Uh-huh. I want people to forget that Everett Lambert ever lived. I don’t want people to associate me with him. Ever.”
He clenched his teeth and hauled her up to just beneath his angry face by the lapels of her coat. “I’ve lived down the unfortunate fact that I was his son for forty-three years. Now, just when folks are about to forget it, you come along and start asking nosy questions, raising dead issues, reminding everybody that I crawled up out of the gutter to get where I am.”
He sent her backward with a hard push. She caught herself against the gate of a stall. “I’m sure that no one holds your father’s failures against you.”
“You don’t think so? That’s the nature of a small town, baby. You’ll find out how it is soon enough, because they’ll start comparing you to Celina.”
“That won’t bother me. I’ll welcome the comparisons.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Yes.”
“Careful. When you round a blind corner, you’d better know what’s waiting for you.”
“Care to be less oblique?”
“It could go one of two ways. Either you won’t measure up to her, or you’ll find out that being like her isn’t all that terrific.”
“Well, which is it?”
His eyes swept over her. “Like her, looking at you reminds a man that he is one. And like her, you use that to your advantage.”
“Meaning?”
“She was no saint.”
“I didn’t expect her to be.”
“Didn’t you?” he asked silkily. “I believe you did. I think you’ve created this fantasy mother in your head and you expect Celina to fulfill it for you.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Her strenuous denial sounded juvenile and obstinate. More calmly, she said, “It’s true that Grandma Graham thought the sun rose and set on Celina. I was brought up to believe she was everything a young woman should be. But I’m a woman myself now, and mature enough to realize that my mother was made of flesh and blood, with flaws, just like everybody else.”
He studied her face for a moment. “Just remember that I warned you,” he said softly. “You should go back
to the Westerner, pack up your designer clothes and your legal briefs, and head for Austin. Leave the past alone. Nobody around here wants to remember that blight on Purcell’s history—particularly with that license hanging in the balance. They’d much rather leave Celina lying dead in this stable than—”