Читать книгу: «Soul Mates»

Chapter One

One year later

“Nate Channing is back in town.” John Jessup plunked down in the front booth at the Coyote Café and stared grimly at the man across from him.

Lester Brown slumped against the red vinyl headrest, his jaw scraping his chest. “The hell you say!”

“The hell I do say. Saw him with my own eyes, Lester. He climbed out of a shiny black Lincoln, wearing one of them expensive Army suits, or whatever you call ’em. He swaggered into the post office. I was still in the barber shop when he walked out and headed for the bank.”

Lester scratched his hairy chest and muttered under his breath. “Can’t believe that hoodlum has the gumption to show his face in Coyote Flats after all these years. But he won’t hang around here long, I guaran-damn-tee, not if I have anything to say about it.”

“You might not have a say, Les.” John stared grimly at the leathery-faced rancher. “According to the gossip at the barber shop, Channing is the one who bought the property and built that fancy palace on the farm where he used to live.”

Lester snorted sardonically. “Yeah, right. Like that no-account could afford that sprawling mansion that’s been under construction for nine months. Pull my other leg, why don’tcha, John.”

“No kiddin’,” John insisted. “The news broke today, right there in the barber shop. Old Sheriff Havern is the one who made the announcement that the house and land belonged to Nate Channing.”

“What!” Lester crowed as he bolted upright in his seat. “You swear?”

John bobbed his bushy gray head.

Lester swiveled his barrel-shaped body on the seat to address the other patrons in the café. “Y’all hear that? The terror of Coyote Flats is back in town. Nobody around here has to guess where he got the cash to build that ritzy house. Drug money. You can bet your bottom dollar on it. But no matter how fancy No-Account Nate dresses these days, you can’t make silk from a sow’s ear. That bad boy is bad news. Always was. Always will be.”

While the pillars of Coyote Flats society—such as they were—speculated on Nate Channing’s reasons for setting up a base of operation in his hometown, Katy Bates-Butler sat frozen in the corner booth of the café, listening to a half-dozen conversations taking place simultaneously. Memories she hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on for more than a dozen years spiraled around her, smothering her with their intensity.

Nate Channing was back in town….

Apparently, Nate had returned to Coyote Flats the same way he’d left—in an uproar.

Forbidden and doomed were the first two words that popped into Katy’s head. Lord, she thought she had adequately buried all those feelings and sensations attached to Nate Channing’s name. Yet, emotions stirred and shifted inside her. Heartache, outrage, despair…and love. Those poignant feelings were still there, churning, threatening to crumble her carefully controlled composure.

Katy clasped her trembling hands around her coffee cup, as if it was her salvation, then squeezed her eyes shut. “Nate…” she whispered shakily.

To Katy, thoughts of Nate were synonymous with a time in her life that bubbled with dreams, promise, adventure, innocence—and torment. She could almost see Nate Channing leaning leisurely against his rattletrap car, wearing a dingy white T-shirt and faded jeans. She remembered how his shaggy hair shone like a raven’s wing, how his midnight-black eyes twinkled down at her with that endearing hint of deviltry….

That boy has a heart as black as the devil’s, and he has a soul to match. That’s what Katy’s father had said—repeatedly. Stay away from that cocky juvenile delinquent. He’s bad news, nothing but trouble.

But Nate Channing hadn’t looked like trouble to Katy. He had been her forbidden first love. In some ways he represented all those defiant, rebellious feelings that Katy had experienced when dealing with a domineering father who picked her dates and friends and demanded that she live up to his lofty expectations.

No one in this dried-up, windblown West Texas town had realized Katy and Nate were kindred spirits, even if they had been raised on opposite sides of the tracks. But Katy knew, remembered with vivid clarity, the kind of connection she’d felt to Nate. While he struggled to overcome his bad reputation and bad breeding, Katy had struggled for her independence. Nate fought back the way she’d wanted to when her father handed down his unreasonable dictates.

The night Nate was hauled off in the sheriff’s squad car, ridiculed and scorned by the citizens of this rural town, Katy had stopped believing that standing up for herself and battling her father’s high-handed decrees were worth the effort and frustration.

When Nate Channing left town he took the sunshine from Katy’s life, and she plunged into endless nightmares. Those nightmares still ruled and dictated her life.

Willfully, Katy battled for composure as she polished off her coffee, then left a tip for her lunch. She felt the desperate need to scurry from the café and take refuge in her private sanctuary before Nate Channing showed up. She couldn’t bear to have him see what had become of her after all these years. She was a shriveled mass of emotional and physical scars. Discovering what her father had done to Nate had been her unending torment. The life the dictatorial, judgmental Judge Dave Bates had imposed on Katy was nearly unbearable, but what he did to Nate was unforgivable!

Although Katy wanted to bolt to her feet and counter each one of Lester’s snide insults, to defend Nate’s honor, she had been taught the importance of not calling attention to herself, not arguing or debating, for fear of the painful consequences. A riptide of emotion bombarded Katy as she came to her feet.

With head downcast, Katy skulked toward the exit, trying to ignore the hidebound old fools who were verbally crucifying Nate Channing. She just wanted to scurry back to her office at the library and shut herself off from the world the way she usually did….

“Katy…? Kat?”

Oh, God, no! Kate froze in her tracks when his voice, like rich velvet, rolled over her. Katy reflexively shrank deeper into herself, feeling the spotlight of attention beam down on her. All conversation in the café died a quick death. Heads turned in synchronized rhythm to gape at the tall, darkly handsome man who blocked Katy’s escape route.

“Katy Bates?” he murmured. “It is you, isn’t it?”

Katy Bates was dead. Katy Bates-Butler merely existed, a fuzzy shadow of herself, one so thoroughly crushed by her nightmarish past that she had become an unperson. Lord, she would have given anything for Nate not to see her like this. Ah, if only he could have remembered her as she had once been, not as she was now!

“Remember me, Katy?”

As if she could ever forget!

It was only that gentle, caressing tone of voice that whispered from the distant past that gave her the will to look up, meet those cocoa-brown eyes and drink in the sight of olive skin and high cheekbones that denoted a mixture of Native American, Spanish and white heritage.

Mercy, he was breathtakingly attractive. He had matured magnificently, and he looked better than any man had the right to look. The tall, thin boy she remembered from the past now possessed a well-defined, athletic build. There was a dynamic aura of power and strength radiating around him. He had traded his hand-me-down clothes for an expensive three-piece suit, Italian loafers and gold Rolex watch. His lustrous black hair boasted a stylish cut that accentuated his rugged features. Everything about Nate Channing shouted wealth, prestige and success.

Wow! Could he possibly look any better?

Damn, could she possibly look any worse?

Katy stood there like a tongue-tied doofus, wearing her drab green feed-sack dress that drooped past her knees and effectively downplayed her femininity. Her mousy blond hair was shoved back in a severe knot at the nape of her neck, and several flyaway strands fell around her face. She only wore enough makeup to conceal the half-moon scar under her chin. In comparison, she resembled a lowly peasant eclipsed by a magnificent Roman god.

With all her heart—or rather what was left of it—Katy wished a hole would open beneath her feet so she could drop out of sight.

“Katy…”

She died a thousand times when his gaze flooded over her, taking in her flagpole figure and unflattering clothes. She knew what he was thinking, could almost hear him thinking it. He was thinking the same thing her deceased husband had voiced a trillion times, right to her face.

You’re an unperson with no brains and no body. You’re just a scrawny, homely nothing who takes up breathing space.

The hateful words tumbled over her, and Katy’s shoulders slumped another notch as her gaze plunged to the floor. Her husband and father had humiliated her countless times, and she had endured, but having Nate see her like this cut all the way to her shattered soul.

Nate stood in the doorway, stunned clean to the bone, watching in astonishment as Katy zipped around him and limped away. Seeing her had been no small shock, because she was a startling contrast to the mental picture he had carried around with him for years.

My God, what in the hell had happened to Katy? He remembered her as the essence of spirit and beauty. He had lived for her dimpled smiles and ringing laughter. Now she refused to meet his gaze for more than five seconds before scuttling out the door, as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. He had expected a rude reception from everyone else in Coyote Flats.

But not from Katy Bates.

“Well, well,” Lester Brown mocked sarcastically. “Who are you supposed to be? The new drug lord in town, what with all your fancy duds and expensive car? You think that will impress us? Think again, No-Account Nate.”

Very slowly, very deliberately, Nate pivoted on well-shod heels to confront the unsympathetic jury of citizens who had condemned him years earlier—and still condemned him now. A dozen disparaging glares horned in on him like laser beams, not the least insulting of which was Lester Brown’s.

Nate made quick note of Lester’s rotund physique, doughy face, full jowls and that protruding lower lip that gave the man the appearance that he was perpetually pouting. Lester looked just as Nate remembered him, though age and additional weight had not been particularly kind to him.

Nate could understand why Lester held a grudge. His son had been one of Nate’s running buddies in the old days. When Nate had been arrested, Sonny Brown had been in the car with him. Lester had no intention whatsoever of forgiving Nate for soiling his son’s reputation, refused to believe that it wasn’t Nate’s influence that had been Sonny’s downfall.

Sonny hadn’t needed an ounce of help to stray from the straight and narrow. All by himself, he had dreamed up the trouble that Nate hadn’t even contemplated when he was a teenager. The kid had been every bit as worthless as his old man, as Nate recalled. And a weasely coward to boot.

Although Lester wouldn’t admit it, not in a million years, he was responsible for the way his son had turned out. But that admission would force Lester to accept blame for all his shortcomings as a man, as a father. It was never going to happen because Lester couldn’t see over, around or through his inflated ego.

Squelching his bitterness and resentment, Nate nodded at the burly farmer who was sprawled carelessly in the front booth. “Hello, Lester, nice to see you again.” Head held high, Nate ambled toward the counter to order a Coke.

“Better get that drink to go,” Lester sneered. “Folks around here don’t take to fraternizing with pond scum. And that’s all you are, no matter how fancy you wrap the package.”

The self-esteem Nate had spent years cultivating wobbled on its foundations. He had convinced himself, promised himself, that he would stand firm against the anticipated ridicule. Unfortunately, his pride was taking a beating on the first official day of his return to his hometown.

“You hear what I said, boy?” Lester taunted unmercifully. “Get it to go, and don’t come back. You aren’t wanted here.”

The teenage waitress glanced uneasily at Nate as she set the soft drink on the counter. “That’ll be seventy-five cents, sir.”

“Don’t waste your breath calling him sir,” John Jessup said. “Channing doesn’t deserve consideration or respect. Just treat him like the mongrel he is.”

Nate endured the insults without flinching. He tossed two dollar bills on the counter for an extra tip, then turned to face Lester and John’s condescending glowers. He was not going to stoop to anybody’s low expectations of him ever again, he promised himself resolutely.

Although he had been in and out of enough hot water as a teenager to pass as a load of laundry and had been picked up for assault, battery and destruction of personal property, Nate had spent his adult life working toward acceptance and respectability. He had surrounded himself with symbols of power and wealth to insulate himself against inferior feelings planted by men like Lester Brown and John Jessup. But damn, standing here, confronting the unwelcoming faces from his misguided youth resurrected all those unproductive feelings he thought he’d overcome.

Nate knew the folks in Coyote Flats were still seeing and judging him by his parentage and his past mistakes. They were not prepared to accept him for the solid citizen he had become, for the dramatic attitude adjustments he’d made. To these people, he was the same as he had been sixteen years ago, the same wayward youth who’d gone bad.

You can’t go home again…

The negative thought skittered through his mind, but Nate rejected it, even while he was being judged and rejected. Somehow, he would earn the trust and respect of these dogmatic folks in this dying Texas town. He would not let them get the better of him, and he would give them no reason whatsoever to compare him to the troubled, hurt, neglected kid he had once been.

Clinging to his battered pride, Nate exited the café, feeling the condescending gazes stabbing him in the back. The minute he stepped outside, he realized he had been holding his breath. He exhaled slowly, congratulating himself for passing the first of what he predicted would be many tests of self-control and character. He hadn’t lowered himself to Lester Brown and John Jessup’s rude, disrespectful level. He had been polite, not belligerent. He had treated the men with courtesy, even though it hadn’t been reciprocated.

Nate’s tension ebbed and an amused smile pursed his lips when he noticed that Millie Kendrick was waddling toward him. Leaning on a grocery cart for support, Millie toddled across the town square, which was surrounded by shade trees. She circled around the fountain where a statue of a coyote sat on a rock, its concrete head thrown back in an eternal howl.

Millie and her shopping cart had logged many a mile on these streets, he recalled. The old woman looked exactly as Nate remembered her. Millie was dressed in her usual attire of a flowery cotton smock and tattered straw hat that was adorned with plastic bluebirds, cardinals and sunflowers she had glued to the floppy brim. Folks in Coyote Flats claimed Millie was touched in the head, that she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. But nonetheless, folks tolerated her presence in town.

Unfortunately, the citizens of Coyote Flats had zero tolerance for Nate Channing—the hoodlum who had bad blood pumping through his veins. Nate, they had concluded, would never overcome his lowly raising. He was destined for trouble.

Millie halted ten feet away from Nate, propped her elbows on her shopping cart, then angled her head to look him up and down—twice.

“Nate Channing, ain’t it?” she panted, out of breath from her long hike.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said politely.

“Didja come back to kick some butt?”

Nate met the spry old woman’s mischievous grin and felt himself relax for the first time all day. Millie was one of the few people in his hometown who had ever bothered to give him the time of day.

“No, ma’am,” Nate replied. “I gave up on kicking butt and taking names years ago. It just never seemed to do much good.”

She appraised his appearance carefully, then said, “Pretty fancy duds for a kid from the poor side of town. Didja steal ’em?”

“No, ma’am. Paid in cash,” he assured her, smiling in response to her gruff, no-nonsense interrogation.

“Turned out all right then, did you?” She pushed herself upright and gripped the handle of her grocery cart. “Glad to see it. Figured you would, though. What he did to you wasn’t fair, not fair at all.” When she shook her frizzy gray head, the plastic birds wobbled on the brim of her hat. “Tried to tell him so, I did. But the old fool wouldn’t listen to me. Nobody ever listens to me.”

Befuddled, Nate watched Millie shove off to the mom-andpop grocery store. She was still mumbling to herself when she crossed the street.

Nate had no idea what Millie meant by her parting remarks, and he didn’t have time to stand around woolgathering. The heartbreaking sight of Katy Bates compelled him down the street. Nate damn well intended to confront Katy again, away from the prying eyes of his local hate club—of which Brown and Jessup had elected themselves president and vice president.

Nate made a beeline for the library. Katy Bates was one of the three reasons he had returned to Coyote Flats. After encountering her at the café, she had been elevated to the top of Nate’s priority list. If Katy thought she could duck and run away from him, she thought wrong. Their brief reunion had prompted a hundred questions, and Nate wanted answers—now.

Coyote Library sat a block north of Main Street. As Nate recalled, the small hole-in-the-wall structure had once housed a sleazy bar. The establishment was crying out for a coat of paint, and Nate suspected the town hadn’t allocated much in the way of funds to keep the library up-to-date.

The instant Nate stepped inside the building, his speculations were confirmed. Unstained plywood shelves lined the main room. The floor was covered with vintage, gray-speckled linoleum left over from the days when tavern-goers boot-scooted to the strains of country music. Stains on the ceiling tile indicated there were a half-dozen leaks in the roof. The scarred wooden bar now served as the library counter. An outdated copy machine sat in the corner, and picnic tables and benches lined the walls.

Although the public library was neat and clean, the atmosphere was gloomy. Faulty fluorescent lights—that would drive Nate nuts if he had to spend the day working beneath them—flickered down on him.

This was Katy’s world, Nate realized with a sense of shock and dismay. He took another assessing appraisal of the place and found it sorely lacking. This library was nothing compared to his ultramodern office in Odessa.

“May I help you?”

Nate glanced at the teenage girl who had her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiled at him, displaying the braces on her teeth. Something about her reminded him of the visual image of Katy that he had carried around in his head. There was a noticeable family resemblance….

My God…was this Katy’s daughter? Could this girl have been Nate’s daughter…?

The startling possibility made his knees wobble.

“Were you looking for a particular kind of book, sir?” Tammy Bates asked helpfully.

Nate flashed his best smile. “No, I would like to speak with Katy, please.”

The girl hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “Katy is in her office. You can go on back if you like.”

Nate zigzagged around the picnic tables—for God’s sake!—that accommodated patrons who wanted to sit down and thumb through the limited supply of books on the shelves.

Nate was granted the opportunity to observe Katy unaware while she sat in profound concentration at her outdated computer, which looked exactly like the one Nate had pitched from his office eight years earlier so he could upgrade his equipment. Katy’s shoulders were hunched the same way they had been when he encountered her at the café.

What the sweet loving hell had happened to that bubbly teenager he had fallen head over heels in love with all those years ago? Katy had been spirited and enthusiastic. A vivacious cheerleader. A snappy dresser with a dazzling smile. Katy had been the heartthrob of every male in town—Nate included.

Pity and disappointment slammed through Nate as he stared at this new and dramatically different Katy. While he had scratched and clawed to make something of himself, desperate and determined to rise above his miserable raising, hell-bent on making a triumphant return to this crummy little spot-on-the-road town, Katy had been backsliding.

What life-altering incident had broken her spirit, made her coil in on herself, as if she had all but given up on life?

God, seeing the hunch-shouldered woman with her downcast head and unsmiling face was agonizing for Nate. He had wanted to return to find Katy exactly as she had been—full of life, the picture of innocence and hope.

Ah, how many times had she delivered pep talks to him, assuring him that he could become anything he wanted, that he shouldn’t let the stigma attached to his name get him down? She had believed in him when no one else saw the slightest potential. She had encouraged him when everyone else wrote him off as No-Account Nate who was destined for welfare checks and stints in prison.

“Katy?” he murmured, trying not to startle her as badly as he had at the restaurant.

She instantly flinched, then swiveled her head around to stare at him. Her huge blue eyes—eyes that he’d drowned in a thousand times as a kid—widened in surprise. She sat rigidly at the computer, her fingers frozen on the keyboard. Two lines of Ks bleeped across the monitor.

Nate tossed her a grin. “You might want to ease your finger off the letter K, unless you plan to print out an entire page of them.”

“Oh.” She snatched her hand off the keyboard, as if she’d been snake-bitten, then stared at her lap, not him.