Braxton's Run: Cattle, Whiskey and Women

Chapter Eight

"I remember daddy saying keep your eye on the ball, run like hell, play to win, get up when ya fall. I'm tryin. Don't say nothin that you can't take back, Never do anything you might regret. No don't do that. Daddy I'm trying. Know the difference between heaven and hell, go easy on the bottle, be hard on yourself. And I know he meant well but all I can do is all I can do and I keep on trying. And all I can be is all I can be but I keep on trying. There's always a mountain in front of me, it seems I'm always climbing and falling and climbing... But I keep on trying." Trace Adkins 'I'm tryin'

Braxton's backside was dragging a mile behind his legs when he finally stepped onto the diner steps that evening. He was dog tired. Mentally and physically exhausted. He had said he was leaving to take dinner in town at the diner and for the first time no one had tried to stop him. Not even his mama, who kept sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief whenever she caught him looking at her. He hated knowing his behavior had made his mother cry but what did those people expect from him? He was almost thirty years old, he didn't take things that didn't belong to him, he did what he could to help anyone he could and he had never gone out of his way to hurt anyone. So why couldn't his family leave him alone?

He looked through the window and into the crowded lamp lit diner for that familiar flash of golden hair but Laura was not there. It was then that he remembered the words he had said this morning and the way she had run away and he found another reason to hate Brandon. He turned away from the diner. He was in no mood to eat alone. He had some jerked beef still in his pocket and he pulled out a piece and began to chew on it as he walked.

His feet led him to Laura's doorstep and he looked up at the large yellow, three story home with wraparound porches and green shutters. Hanging plants of all different colors and aromas hung from the eaves. Should he knock and see if she would talk to him? If Maynard Greene answered he would NOT be happy to see Braxton. Maynard Greene and Edmund McAvery hated one another with a passion and therefore Maynard hated Braxton.

He decided that he had to talk to Laura. He had to let her know that his words this morning had been caused purely by the anger he felt toward his brother and didn't reflect how he really felt. Sure he was ready to leave this town but he wasn't really ready to leave her. He stuck the remaining jerky back in his pocket and then knocked before shoving his hands deep in his pants pockets. He heard footsteps and when the door opened their maid, a little Mexican woman named Juanita, smiled at him.

"May I help you, senor?' she asked in a voice barely accented with her Mexican heritage.

"Yes'm. I was hoping to speak with Laura." Braxton replied politely. She frowned and looked him up and down. Braxton looked down at his white shirt and realized just how dirty he was. It and his pants was covered in dust, dirt, sweat and blood. He was sure his face was just as nasty and he suddenly wished that he would have bathed and changed before coming here.

"I will go tell her. Perhaps you should wait outside." Juanita replied, after all she had just gotten done scrubbing the floors and his boots looked like they had enough mud and dirt caked in them to make every hour of hard work she had done be in vain.

"Yes'm." Braxton replied with a nod. She walked into the house and he walked over to a porch swing and sat down. As he rocked back and forth he felt his fatigued, sore and tired body and mind beginning to relax and before he knew it he drifted off to sleep.

888

"Senorita, there is a man here to see you." Juanita said and Laura looked up from the dress she was sewing.

"Lucas?" she asked with annoyance and Juanita shook her head.

"No, I would have told him to leave. This man is tall, dark, gray eyes and quite handsome but he is very dirty and tired looking. He said he needed to speak with you." Laura only knew one man that fit that description and she didn't want to speak to him right now…