Page 106 of Protected By West
"And I'm going to have a few... colorful words when I talk to him next."
Tracy dropped her chin and almost hid a smile. "I'm not expecting..."
"I don't know what my bone-headed brother thought he was doing not telling you about your dad, but I'm going to have morethan a few words with him. And when my mom finds out, he might not be able to sit down for the next few days after that."
Tracy almost laughed out loud. "Does your mom use a switch or something?"
Estes' eyebrows raised at her question and her eyes brightened with a smile. "Nope. Nothing so impersonal as that. She has a good windup for a spanking. Just the thought of one makes all of us straighten right up."
They both laughed softly at that.
"Your mom sounds like a force of nature."
Estes nodded at that. "She's a great lady and she kept us all in line. She had to because like your dad, our dad was a Texas Ranger. She had her hands full with us."
Tracy tried to absorb the information as it came to her. Weston had mentioned that his family was a legacy in the Rangers, serving for several generations. It was hard to reconcile how two families both had husbands/dads in the Rangers and while one family was still together and with four kids and her family with just her mother and herself had lost their husband/father.
"I'm not saying that our family had it any easier than yours." Estes' soft voice was full of warmth. "Really, we can't compare the Cooper family with yours like we're talking about apples and oranges. There are just too many variables."
Tracy agreed. "But it doesn't make it any easier to look back and see that we failed so spectacularly. I just want to figure out how to have a relationship- A long term relationship with a lawman, because my only model for this is flawed to say the least."
"Well," Estes shrugged a little, "no one is perfect. No family. No lawman. No one person. Mom and dad had their share of fights while we were growing up." Estes took a sip of her water, and an impish smile touched her lips. "They still have theirmoments now, but they've made it through raising us, so I guess they're bound to stick together. Goodness knows the four of us were enough to turn my dad's hair white."
Tracy relaxed more. Hearing Estes talk about her family was reassuring.
Tracy's only experience dealt with an utter failure, but Estes and Weston's family were making it work.
Did it mean that her relationship with Weston would pass the test of time and the pressures of his job?
There was no way to tell, but at some point her mother and her father had decided to give up on the idea of remaining a family.
Maybe...
And this was a big MAYBE.
Maybe if the two of them kept deciding that a life with each other was worth making the effort then it just might work.
Tracy took a long sip of water from the can and as she lowered the can at the end of her sip she saw something on the small TV that they had in the break room.
There was a car chase happening on the screen.
BREAKING NEWS was splashed across the screen and the newscaster said something quickly before disappearing from the screen.
"Is that a car chase?"
Tracy nodded and then turned her head to see that Estes wasn't looking at her.
"Looks like."
The helicopter providing the aerial shots zoomed in on the cars chasing the beat-up neon green Impala cruising along the highway nearest to the credit union.
Estes leaned closer. "Looks like Highway Patrol."
Tracy understood the relief in Estes' voice. She felt a measure of it, too.
Her first instinct was to look for any of the vehicles that the Texas Rangers used on the street.
She turned and looked at Estes who let out a soft sigh of relief. "Well, I should head out."
