Page 16 of My Cowboy Freedom
“Ishouldget a rainbow crow. My mother would throw a fit.”
“You’ll be sorry if you choose your ink because of what other people will think about it.” My ink was a road map of my life. I couldn’t imagine getting something just to make a point. Except Nando’s crow, my ink was all about me.
“Then maybe I’ll get something about music? Or the word ‘Maisy.’ I’ll probably hate it, though. Or I’ll want to change my mind the minute it’s finished.” He grabbed up his burrito and ate it, saying, “Because what if I pick a bad place and it’s awful?” with a full mouth.
Looks like I won’t have to worry too much about manners in front of Rock.
Good to know.
“That is a consideration. There are lots of folks walking around with bad tats out there.”
“My father says tattoos are a sin against God.”
I’d figured it was something like that. “Well. You’re old enough to make up your own mind, right?”
“Right.” He went back to his meal.
Deliberately, I put one hand in my lap and picked up my glass with the other. I drank. Put the glass down. Picked up my fork. Took a bite. I slowed myself to Rock’s pace, trying to reclaim the casual way people eat in the Real World, because I doubted Rock was a burrito-eating slob when Elena was watching.
I said, “There can be more than one lesson to any story.”
“In this case, there’s not. Crow is as much his beauty as his sacrifice. And that’s the way the Creator in the story wants it because Hedesignedthe crow to be beautiful in the first place. And if you knew my mother and father, you’d know they never look beyond a person’s exterior.”
“My mother would hate my tattoos. She’d probably faint if she saw them. I don’t know what my father would have said about the matter. I didn’t get them to please anyone but me.”
Or... maybe I should have said,I didn’t get them to make anyone angry.
“It’s my body,” I said.
“So your mother never saw any of them?” he asked.
“Not yet.” I didn’t suppose she ever would. She’d never visited me in prison, and I had no reason to believe she’d want to see me now that I was out.
“So”—he watched me carefully—“prison?”
Did I make him nervous? He could be an ally, but not if I made him nervous. “Do you want to ask me about it? I don’t mind.”
He sat quietly considering the offer. “I don’t know if I want to know.”
I nodded. “I’ve got a past and I can’t change it. But I won’t be dishonest about it. Not with you anyway.”
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I murdered my stepfather.” Taking a drink of milk right away was the only way to get that out and not wince.
I said it that way to shock him and get it all over with at once. There was more to the story but there always is, isn’t there? And it didn’t really matter. Bottom line: I killed my mother’s husband.
“That’s—that’s really bad.” He blinked those wide blue eyes at me, thoughts churning, working hard to decide if he dared trust a guy like me.
What surprised me is how much I cared about what he thought.
Finally, he asked, “Did you at least have a good reason?”
“I thought I did.” I piled my napkin, silverware, and glass back onto my empty plate. Rearranged them some.
He never took his eyes off me. “Was it self-defense?”
“No.” Iwantedhim dead. “I came home early from work one day and found my stepfather hurting my sister. I went crazy, I guess. I hit him so hard his head snapped back and hit the wall. I don’t think I meant for—” I had to drag air into my lungs to continue. “He fell down the stairs and died instantly.”
