Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars #2)(105)

“That’s what people say.”

“I hated his guts.”

“I don’t imagine he was too fond of you, either.”

“Hard to tell. If he disliked me, he never showed it, even though I sure gave him cause. He was so damned nice to everybody.”

“Then why did you hate him?” The question slipped out despite his intention to remain detached.

Sawyer ran his hand along the club’s grip. “My mother cleaned your grandmother’s house for a while, did you know that? This was before she gave up on life and found another way to make a living.” He paused, and Bobby Tom thought of the story he’d been telling women for years about his mother being a hooker. It had all been one big joke to him, but it hadn’t been a joke to Sawyer, and despite his dislike of the man, he felt a sense of shame.

Sawyer went on. “Your dad and I were the same age, but he was bigger, and when we were about in sixth, seventh grade, your grandmother used to give my mother all his old clothes. I had to go to school in your father’s hand-me-downs, and I was so jealous of him, sometimes I thought I was going to choke on it. Every day he saw me coming to school in his castoffs, and he never said a word about it. Not one word. Not to me, not to anybody. The other kids noticed, though, and they’d taunt me about it. ‘Hey, Sawyer, isn’t that Hoyt’s old plaid shirt you’ve got on.’ If your dad was around, he’d just shake his head and say, hell, no, that wasn’t his shirt; he’d never seen the damned thing before. Jesus, I hated him for that. If only he’d thrown my poverty in my face, I could have fought him. But he never did, and looking back on it, I don’t think it was in his nature. In a lot of ways, I believe he may have been the best man I ever knew.”

Bobby Tom felt a sense of pride as overwhelming as it was unexpected. And then, almost immediately, a devastating sense of loss. He steeled himself to show none of those emotions. “But you still hated him.”

“Envy’ll do that to you. In high school I once broke into his locker and stole his school jacket. I don’t think he ever figured out it was me. I couldn’t wear the damned thing, of course; didn’t even want to. But I took it over by the tracks and burned it, so he’d never be able to wear it again. Maybe I thought getting rid of it would erase all his accomplishments, or maybe I just couldn’t stand watching him drape it over your mother’s shoulders when they were walking home. Damned thing used to come almost to her knees.”

This vision of his parents as high school kids made Bobby Tom feel strangely disoriented. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? My mother.”

“I guess it always has been.” His eyes clouded, as if his thoughts were far away. “She was so pretty. She doesn’t think so because she had braces until the end of her sophomore year and that’s all she remembers, but take it from me, she was pretty as a picture, braces and all. And she was like your dad, nice to everybody.” He laughed with genuine amusement. “Everybody but me. One day she met up with me in the hallway when nobody was around. She was taking something to the office for a teacher, I guess, and I was cutting class. I flipped up my collar and slouched against one of the lockers like a no-good punk. I gave her my best badass squint and looked her up and down, probably scared her half to death. I remember her hands started to shake around the paper she was holding, but she stared at me dead-on. ‘Wayland Sawyer, if you don’t want to end up a bum on the streets, you’d better get yourself to class right this minute.’ A spunky lady, your mama.”

It was hard to hold on to his antipathy in the face of such relentless honesty, but Bobby Tom reminded himself that Sawyer wasn’t a teenage punk any longer and this time the threat he posed to his mother was real.

“It’s one thing for a kid to scare her,” he said quietly. “It’s another for a grown man. Tell me what you did to her.”

Bobby Tom didn’t really expect him to answer, and he wasn’t surprised when Sawyer turned away without responding and walked over to the wooden rack. When he’d put the golf club back in place, he leaned against the counter, but despite his casual posture, his body was tense. Bobby Tom felt himself growing more alert, as if he were about to take a hit.

Sawyer gazed up at the ceiling and swallowed hard. “I let her believe I’d close Rosatech unless she became my mistress.”

An explosion went off inside Bobby Tom. He shot across the room, arm drawn back, ready to kill the f*cking son of a bitch, only to stop before he reached him as a cold and lethal sense of purpose took the place of his rage. He grabbed the lapels of the older man’s jacket. “She’d better have told you to go to hell.”

Sawyer cleared his throat. “No. No, she didn’t.”

“I’m going to kill you.” Bobby Tom’s hands convulsed on the jacket, and he threw Sawyer against the counter.

Sawyer grabbed his wrists. “Just hear me out. You can do that much.”

Bobby Tom needed to know the rest, and he forced himself to let go, although he didn’t move back. His voice was low and deadly. “Start talking.”

“I never said that to her, but it’s what she thought I meant, and I waited too long to tell her the truth. Believe it or not, the world outside Telarosa thinks I’m a fairly decent guy, and I thought if we spent some time together, she’d see that. But things got out of hand.”