I couldn’t talk about him. It hurt too much.
“Reese Ellis?” a female voice asked. I put down the beers I was loading into the drink cart’s icebox and turned around.
An attractive older lady with dark hair that curled under in a shoulder-length bob stood looking at me as if she was studying me. I knew she wasn’t a member here. The worn-out jeans and boots she was wearing didn’t look like anything the ladies here wore. Then there was the cowboy hat that sat back on her head. That was a dead giveaway that she was out of place.
“Yes?” I replied.
She didn’t smile or say anything right away. She continued to take me in. Although she wasn’t glaring at me, she looked as if she wanted to shake me.
I glanced around to see if there was anyone else around or just us.
“I imagined you’d be beautiful, but just like always, when my boy does something, he does it big,” she said, and a sad smile touched her lips.
I didn’t know what she was talking about or who she thought she was talking to. Saying thank you didn’t seem like the right thing to do.
“Those dark circles and the empty look in your eyes tell me all I need to know. So let me tell you what you need to know,” she said, taking a few steps toward me. “I’ve watched my son fight battles for everyone he’s ever loved and win. When he was seven, his cousin got picked on at school by a bully. My baby found out. The next thing I know, I have to go get my boy from school because he was suspended for wrapping another kid around the flagpole with duct tape. I was horrified. Until I found out the kid was the one who had been beating on his cousin. Calling him names and knocking him down in the halls. That particular day, the bully had stuck his cousin’s head in the toilet, with urine in it, and flushed. After the duct tape, no one messed with his cousin again.
“When he was ten, the librarian at his school, who brought him cookies every day and always saved him the best books, was being let go because the school board said they didn’t have the budget to keep a full-time librarian. Mrs. Hawks was in her seventies, but she loved those kids, and my boy was her favorite. So my baby got a petition together and then got different businesses in town to pledge funds and donate to the cause. Mrs. Hawks didn’t lose her job. In fact, he collected so much money she got a raise.
“When he was nineteen, he found out his little sister had gotten her heart broken at school by a boy who only cared about who her daddy was. He asked me if he could go visit her, and I let him go. That boy who broke his little sister’s heart found his truck just out of town, completely immersed in water.”
She stopped and chuckled. “Mase Colt Manning fights for those he loves. It’s what he does. And I know he tried to fight for you. He wanted to conquer your battles. And from the little research I’ve done, I found out he sends a monthly check to a Dr. Astor Munroe that costs more than I care to share. He gets weekly reports from this professor on a Reese Ellis’s progress. He’s fighting your battles. Which means he loves you, too. Problem is, my baby goes big when he does anything. And when he decided to fall in love, he did it in a massive way.”
She stopped and pointed her finger at me. I could see her son now in the determined gaze she leveled on me. How had I not seen it before?
“He needs someone to fight for him now. Because he’s lost himself. He’s a shell of the man I raised. He’s walking through life with no joy, because he tells me he left it with his heart. He left it with you. So if you love him even a tiny smidgen as much as he loves you, then fight for him. He deserves it more than anyone. It’s time someone fought his battle.”
A drop fell on my arm, and I reached up to feel my face wet with tears. My heart was back, and it was twisting in pain listening to Mase’s mother tell me how he needed me. He was hurt because of me.
I didn’t care anymore about the text. Or the other woman. If Mase needed me to fight for him, I would. I’d fight whoever the hell Cordelia was, too. I would fight until I couldn’t fight anymore.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He’s at home. He thinks I’ve gone to visit my sister in San Antonio.”
“How do I get to him? Where is his home?”
A smile spread across the other woman’s face. “I can take you right to him.”
I closed the lid on the cooler. “Let me go tell my boss I’m leaving. Then I’ll be ready to go.”
“I’m Maryann Colt, by the way,” she said, holding out her hand for me to shake. “And it is a pleasure to meet the woman my son loves. I was worried, but I can see he chose well.”
Her approval sent the first warmth through me that I’d felt in ten weeks, two days, and five hours.
Mase