Something roared to life inside him when her eyes met his, and he wanted to protect her from whatever had happened and whoever had hurt her in the past. His fists clenched, and he had to work to calm his fight or flight reflexes back into submission.
There was no fight here.
And he literally could not leave the ranch by himself, so the flight option was out too, leaving Ted’s tension and adrenaline with nowhere to go but back into his body.
An hour later, Ted stood on the sidewalk outside the cell phone store, the line to his mother ringing.
“Teddy,” she said, her voice full of light though it had grown old in the last several years. “I wasn’t expecting you to call until three.”
“Ma,” he said, a laugh bubbling in the back of his throat. “I’m out of River Bay.”
“Out?”
He let his laughter out, and he met Nate’s eye, the other man smiling in return. “Yeah, Ma,” Ted said, still chuckling. “They approved my request for the Residential reentry Program, and I went to Hope Eternal Ranch yesterday.”
“Oh, Teddy.” His mother began to weep, and Ted sobered a little bit.
“I want you to come visit,” he said. “It’s not nearly as far to Sweet Water Falls as it is to River Bay. A couple of hours.” He cut a glance to Emma, who sat on the fountain wall, her attention seemingly only on her phone. Her fingers flew across the screen while Ted waited for his mother to confirm or deny.
“I’ll call Britta,” his mother said. “We’ll come.”
“Thanks, Ma,” Ted said, his chest expanding in a whole new way now. It felt like he’d broken through an invisible band that had prevented him from taking a full breath. “I don’t have her number memorized like I do yours. I can call her too,” he said. “Or could you give her my number and have her text me everyone’s numbers?”
“Yes,” his mother said. “Yes. Let’s see…let me get a pencil….” A moment later, she told him to go ahead, and Ted rattled off his phone number from the cell phone contract he held in his hand.
He felt…powerful standing there on the sidewalk, talking to his mother at whatever time he wanted. They could talk for as long as they wanted too, and Ted barely knew what to do with himself. He was so used to having conversations in code or in under fifteen minutes.
Nate did tap his wrist a few minutes later, because getting a cell phone wasn’t the only task they needed to accomplish that day.
“All right, Ma,” Ted said. “My friend says we have to go. I have to go buy a bunch of clothes and stuff too.”
“Teddy, do you need some money?”
“No, Ma,” Ted said. He would not take her money. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” she said. “I have a little extra.”
“It’s not necessary, Ma.” Ted told her he loved her and couldn’t wait to see her, and then he ended the call.
“How is she?” Nate asked.
“You called it, brother,” Ted said, holding out his fist for Nate to bump. He did, and they chuckled. “She cried.”
“Are you going to call your dad?” Nate asked.
“I will tonight,” Ted said. “He’ll be in the back, and he doesn’t answer the phone when he’s in the racks.” His father still ran the dry cleaning shop, despite the amicable divorce that had happened a year before Ted had gone to prison.
He’d barely adjusted to his parents not being together, and with the long separation between all of them, he barely knew how to have two halves of a family that had once been whole. “Do you think I should invite him to come alone?”
“Maybe ask Britta?” Nate asked. “Emma, do you want us to run you back to the ranch? Ted has a ton of shopping to do.”
“No,” she said, looking up from her phone. “I’m fine to wait here. Jess is on her way to get me.” She looked at Ted on the last few words.
“We can wait with you,” Ted said. He wouldn’t just walk away from her and hope she made it back to the ranch okay.
“Yeah, we’ll wait,” Nate said, and he sat down on the fountain wall too.
Ted sat next to him and slipped a glance in Nate’s direction, who said, “Let’s go to the bank first. I have a guy who’ll set you up nice.”
Ted couldn’t argue, and he had very little money. He wasn’t sure how he’d be able to pay for the items he needed, and he’d already let Nate buy his phone.
The noise of the water splashing from the fountain to the pool was the only conversation, and Jess pulled up in a ranch truck several minutes later. “Thanks for bringing me to get a new phone,” Emma said as she reached for the door handle. “And thanks for waiting with me.” She glanced at Nate, because the rest of her words had been directed at Ted.
He couldn’t say anything, so he just tipped his hat at her again, and he really knew why Nate liked this cowboy hat. It was growing on Ted too.
Emma got in the truck, closed the door, and Jess eased away from the curb.
“What was that?” Nate asked.
“What?” Ted stood up, glad to be off the hard cement.
“She barely looked at me.” Nate watched him as they started back to his truck. “I think she has a crush on you.”
Ted scoffed. “You’re delusional.”
No one had ever had a crush on Ted before. Of course, he wouldn’t have known if they had. His focus before prison had been work, work, and more work. He hadn’t dated in years before he’d taken the fall at his firm, and he didn’t even know what flirting looked like or sounded like.
But he was pretty sure Emma hadn’t been doing it.
“Listen, I’m going to put some money in your account, Teddy,” he said. “And I don’t want you to argue with me about it.”
“I’ll pay you back,” Ted said. “Honestly.”
“I don’t care if you do or don’t,” Nate said. “I have plenty of money.”
Ted nodded, because Nate had told him that he had a lot in his bank account while they were in prison together, and Ted suspected Nate had gotten more from his brother. When Ward died, he’d left everything to Nate, and Ted knew he had a house in White Lake, a small town only twenty minutes from here.
Ted got set up at the bank, and he didn’t ask Nate how much money he’d put in his account. Nate went upstairs with a white-haired man for several minutes, and when he came down, he had a debit card with Ted’s name on it. The man really could work miracles, and Ted shook his head and clapped Nate on the back in a quick hug.
“Okay, clothes,” Nate said. “Groceries. Household stuff. We can get it all at Wal-Mart.”
“Deal,” Ted said, because he didn’t care what he wore to work. The only thing he didn’t want to get at Wal-Mart was shoes, because he’d already worked six hours on his feet that morning, and he now knew he needed decent footwear.
Hours later, Ted finally had everything he needed—except dinner.
“I know what you want,” Nate said, and he aimed the truck down the street away from the shoe store where they’d just bought a nice, sturdy pair of work boots, and a pair of running shoes, and a pair of cowboy boots. The last one was at Nate’s insistence, because he claimed if Ted would wear them every day, they’d become the most comfortable shoes he’d ever worn.