Page 50 of Old Flame

Nina barely flickered a glance at Pepper. “And this will get her mind off the bad shit from yesterday.”

“We were friends,” I told her.

She gave me a look that said she knew that was a lie.

I added, “At first.”

A grin spread across her face. “I knew it.”

Goldie hurried over to stand beside her. “I wasn’t gonna push, but if you’re telling it, I am here for it.” The giddiness in her tone was met with a groan from Pepper.

I liked these women. I didn’t know how long I would be stuck in this place, and I wanted them to like me. But there was a lot I would never share.

“I was fifteen when his mother took me in. My dad was an alcoholic and abusive. His temper was volatile, and he exploded one night at a bar, then bashed a man’s head into the wall, killing him. He was sentenced to fifteen years, but was killed five years in by another inmate in a fight.” I didn’t like to talk about my father, but I’d rather share that part of my past than the part that had come after.

Nina winced. “That abusive-dad thing I can sympathize with. Mine was meaner ’n hell. Just about killed my momma, and if he wasn’t slapping me around, he was doing things he shouldn’t to his daughter—or any little girl for that matter. Jars just about went to prison for killing him once I told him about it.”

Goldie sighed. “Yeah, but the bastard deserved it.”

Nina nodded in agreement. “Okay, so how did Tex’s mom find you?”

“Vanna was my art teacher in high school. She’d noticed the bruising and marks I’d tried to cover up my freshman year and asked me about them. I didn’t know her at first and didn’t trusther with the truth. My dad was bad, but if I was taken away from him and thrown into the foster system, it could be worse. Then there was his brother, who hadn’t…” I paused. I didn’t like talking about this, and I knew I wouldn’t have the courage to if Nina hadn’t been so open and honest about her father’s abuse. “He hadn’t broken my hymen, but he’d touched me. My dad had known and let him. I’d rather be hit than be sent to live with him.”

Nina reached over and squeezed my hands that I had clasped together. “They’re both bad.”

I nodded. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat, then took a drink of water before continuing, “My sophomore year, when he was arrested, Vanna found out about it from my counselor at school. She was friends with the judge and was able to get custody of me within days. I don’t…” I took a deep breath. When I thought about her, my nose burned, and my throat constricted. “I don’t know what I did to deserve her, but fate gave me a gift that I will always cherish. I miss her every day.”

“I didn’t know Tex’s momma was dead,” Nina said softly.

Goldie nodded. “Yeah. Brick said he was real close to his momma, and when she passed, it did a number on him. He was young too, wasn’t he? It was before Brick and I met.”

I stared at Goldie for a minute as a memory came back to me. Brick…I’d heard that name before.

“Is Brick…did he own a bike repair shop in Ocala twenty years ago?”

Goldie smiled and nodded. “He did. That’s how he and Tex met.”

“He was Rome, uh, Tex’s boss,” I replied.

I hadn’t recognized him. He’d changed with age.

“Rome? Is that Tex’s real name?” Nina asked, wide-eyed.

I likely wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that. I didn’t know why he had changed it to Tex of all things.

Goldie chuckled. “It’s not a secret,” she told me, reading my expression. “Yes, his real name is Rome. After he had gone missing for a year, he finally called Brick to see if he could have his job back. Brick brought him here, and he ended up becoming a prospect. Anyway, during his disappearing act, he’d started bull riding in Texas. Brick had thought that was hilarious and began calling him Texas.

It got shortened to Tex.”

He’d ridden bulls in Texas? Hearing about his life that had happened after he cut me out of it was odd. It made our past feel even more like a small mark in his life. Something that had been so big back then had become insignificant.

Yet, while he had lived this wild ride of a life without me, just a girl he used to know, I’d been unable to forget him. He had snuck into my dreams, appeared in my thoughts at times I wished he hadn’t.

When I had walked down the aisle at my wedding, he’d been there in my head. It should have only been Eamon I was thinking about, but Rome had been there too. I had once believed that when I married, it would be to Rome. He’d be the groom at the altar. I’d lived with guilt for years over that thought during a moment when I should have had only one man in my heart.

“Back on track,” Nina said. “So, Vanna took you in, and you met Tex?”

I smiled, unable to help myself from remembering the first time I had seen him. “He had moved out and lived with a friend between McIntosh and Ocala. He was working for Brick. But he came to eat dinner with his mom a couple of times a week. He told her he did it to check on her. She always said he did it because he wanted her cooking. Anyway, I was almost sixteen, and he was nineteen. But I thought he was the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen. He dated girls his age and older while I longed for him silently.” I let out a small laugh. “I guess you could say Ihad a crush on him.”

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