Still flustered after having been caught off guard, she couldn't decide how much to tell him. She didn't answer.
His head shook again as if he were still working his way through his shock. "My God. That's what all of this horse riding and training has been about, isn't it?"
Jude winced. "I was trying to help him. I thought he needed help."
More silence. Then, "Are you sleeping with him?"
She almost shouted none of your business, but she faced the fact that her lies had finally caught up with her. More silence passed. She inhaled deeply, shoring herself up to deliver the final blow. "Yes," she admitted softly.
Her father sat back in his chair and turned his face away. After another even louder silence, he heaved a sigh and leaned forward, placed his forearms on his desk and laced his fingers. "How do you think I should deal with this? What do you think I should do about him?"
"What do you mean? He's a grown man. There's nothing you can do about him." She, too, shook her head. "I mean, you can fire him, but..." A frown tugged at her brow. "Why—why do you have to do anything? Why can't you just let things be?"
"Because things, Jude, are not that simple. He needs to have the respect of the hands and their families to do the job we've given him, not to mention the people who live in Lockett and Willard County and even the whole fu…the whole cattle industry. The man we put in charge of all this"—he made a sweeping gesture with his arm—"needs to have enough self-discipline to keep his nose clean and his pants zipped. Do you think people won't have fun at our expense behind our backs? Especially yours, Jude."
"I don't know what they'll do," she snapped.
But she did know. They would do exactly what Daddy said. Gossip was a pastime in Willard County and the Strayhorns had always been prime targets. How did she think her father should deal with this? She had no idea. She stood, turning her back to him, clasping her hands tightly in front of herself.
“I don't know how I can keep him in the job I've given him," Daddy said matter-of-factly. "I don't have to tell you that this ranch is one of the most important agribusinesses in West Texas. It's crucial to the economy of this whole area. To be perfectly blunt, Jude, the hands, their families, the county, the whole state will assume I've turned management of it over to a man whose only qualification is he's...he's having sex with my daughter. I don't know if I can even keep him on as a hand. Is he prepared for that? Are you?"
She flinched inside. He was right. If his reasons, other than love for her, for trying to run her life had been in doubt, they now became painfully clear. As for Brady, he hadn't said he had considered the consequences and she didn't want him to have to. Tears rushed to her eyes. She turned back with a direct look into her father's troubled eyes. "Daddy, please don't fire him. He needs this job. If it means so much to you, I won't see him anymore. Just don't fire him."
Her father shook his head again. "I swear I don't understand you, Jude. You were engaged to two fine young men from good families. You found something wrong with both of them and went off half-cocked and broke those alliances."
"Alliances? Maybe that was the problem, Daddy. They were alliances arranged by—"
"Then you take up with a—a damn saddle tramp who works for the ranch," he went on as if he hadn't heard her.
"Don't say that about Brady. If you thought he was a saddle tramp, why did you hire him to run the place? Especially when you knew I wanted to?"
His head cocked and his eyes narrowed. "Is that what this is about? Are you trying to come in through the back door with this guy? Is this a mutiny?"
"A mutiny?" she cried. "Forgodsake, please spare me the melodrama." She willed herself to stay calm and stop crying. She slashed away her tears with her fingertips. "Why can't you just accept that he's someone I like? Someone I picked out?"
"So how serious is this?” he asked more calmly. “You're not pregnant, are you?"
"No! I'm not pregnant. But what if I were? You and Grandpa are always yammering about me having kids."
"Kids with fathers, Jude. Kids with legitimate fathers. Do I have to say it again? This family sets an example in this county."
"Oh, really? We should talk about that. What kind of example, Daddy? The whole state of Texas gossips about this family's scandals. They even write books about them. My uncle Ike and my stepmother. My uncle Ben and—"
“Shut your mouth, Jude.” Her father sprang to his feet and stabbed the desktop with his finger. "Ben Strayhorn died a hero. Don't you dare disrespect him."
"I was going to say my uncle Ben's wife, Daddy," Jude said as calmly as she could, though her stomach was shaking. "She could hardly be called a hero, could she?"
Ben Strayhorn's wife, Cynthia, had passed from a cocaine overdose soon after Ben's death in combat in Vietnam, leaving their infant son, Cable, an orphan. More of the Campbell Curse, Grammy Pen had said. Daddy and Grandpa had raised Cable, too.
Her father came around the desk and draped an arm around her shoulder. "Look, let's calm down. Let's not fight, Daughter. Listen to me, now. Let's think through this and make the right decision. I'll speak to Brady. I'll—"
"Daddy, no!" Jude shook her head fiercely. "I don't want you to speak to him. Can't you understand? I'm not a kid. And I care about him. And I think...no, I know he cares about me. Not the money, not the ranch." She stabbed her breastbone with her thumb. "Me."
"All right, Jude." He closed his eyes and raised his palms. "We'll let this rest for now. We'll talk again when I'm less upset. After I've had some time to think."
She studied him. As surely as she knew her name, she knew he would confront Brady. Because that was the way he was. Nothing she could say would change that. The only thing she didn't know was when.
But she no longer believed he would arbitrarily fire him, either. "Can I ask you something, Daddy?"
"What?"
"Was it Windy who told you?"
"Windy's a friend of mind. Has been since I was sixteen years old."
Jude had no one to blame but herself. She had known better than to sit on the terrace and let Brady kiss her. And she had known better than to get involved with a ranch employee in the first place. "I intended to tell you myself. It would have been nice if I'd had that chance."
With nothing left to say, she started to leave. As she put her hand on the doorknob, he said, "Jude."
She looked back at him. He adjusted his glasses and gave her a long, solemn look. "Here's something for you to consider while you're caring about Brady Fallon. Your grandfather still wants that 6-0 land. And I'll tell you right now, he intends to get it. When he finds out about this, I don't know what he'll do."
She couldn't resist a sardonic smile. "Looks like the easiest way for him to get what he wants would be for you two to figure out a way to marry me off to Brady. Why not? You've tried to marry me off to everyone else."
Jude found Suzanne at home. Barefoot, red faced and sweating, she was standing a dingy string mop to dry against the wall on the back porch. "Thank God you showed up," she said. "Now I can sit down and have a glass of tea."
"What're you doing?" Jude asked, taking in the oversize chambray shirt that hung mid-thigh on her best friend.
"Mopping the kitchen. Dad's due in tomorrow night. He's on the road so much, I want the house to look like a home when he gets here."
Suzanne worried about her father while he trucked across the country—the places he slept, the food he ate. One of the bonds she and Suzanne had was that they both only had fathers. Suzanne's mother hadn't been absent in body in her daughter's youth, but she might as well have been.
Suzanne washed her hands in the utility room sink, then walked into the kitchen and picked two glasses from the cupboard and a pitcher of tea from the refrigerator. Jude seated herself at the phony-wood table in the small eating area off the kitchen, watching and listening as Suzanne dropped ice cubes into the glasses. She didn't know where to start. She leaned an elbow on the table and propped her chin on her palm. "What's new
with you and Pat?"
"Aww. He's the sweetest man. Treats me like a queen." Suzanne came to the table and placed a tall glass of tea in front of Jude. "But he doesn't say much about himself. I still don't understand why he's divorced. The people I work with at the grocery store said his ex took up with some dude from Lubbock."
Jude remembered well when Pat Garner and his wife had split. It had been the talk of Lockett for a couple of weeks. "She did. Before you came back. She wanted to live in the city."
She stared out the large window at the end of the room, trying to divert her attention to anything besides what had happened at her own house. "Daddy found out about me and Brady," she said. The words just came out.
"Oops," Suzanne said. "And then what happened?"
Jude shook her head, continuing to stare out the window. "I haven't seen him so mad since I broke up with Webb Henderson. I won’t be surprised if he fires Brady altogether. Then again, he might not."
Her heart heavy, Jude turned her attention back to her friend, her only friend. "I've made the biggest mess. It started out as something so simple. I was just going to help someone who I thought needed it. Somehow everything got out of my control."
Suzanne leaned forward, her hand clasping Jude's forearm. "Did J.D. say he was gonna fire Brady?"
"At first. Then he backed off a little. I still don't know exactly what he'll do."
Jude told Suzanne about making the offer on Brady's land, the crisis with the bulls in the storm and the unbridled sex at Brady's house. She even talked about her grandfather's interest in acquiring the 6-0.
"What was Brady's reaction to your dad having a fit?"
"He doesn't know yet. He's in Abilene meeting with his ex-wife. He thinks he might get custody of his son."
“No kidding? He comes with a ready-made family?”
Jude nodded. “A stepson, too.”
“Oh, my God,” Suzanne said. “Are you ready for that?”
Jude shrugged and sipped her tea. “Why not? I spend a good part of my life around kids. Not quite that young, but still…I don’t mind.”
Suzanne shook her head. “I can’t believe this. This is better than a soap opera.”
"Brady doesn't like sneaking around,” Jude said. “He wanted us to tell Daddy. He thinks my father's a reasonable man. But Windy ratted us out before I got a chance to talk to Daddy, which only made things worse."
Suddenly overwhelmed by all that had happened in such a short time, she dropped her face into her hands. "Oh, God, Suzanne, sometimes I feel like I'm in jail."
"Well, it's a damn nice jail," Suzanne said. "I'd share a cell with you just to get to wear your jewelry." She sat back and sipped her tea.
"I used to think Daddy and Grandpa would eventually tire of trying to run my life. But I just realized driving over here, I'm never going to have a life as long as I live at the ranch. I couldn't even move into town and get away from them." She sat back in her chair and sighed. "I think I'll go to Fort Worth. I should be able to do something there. Teach, maybe. I could teach in one of the colleges. Or maybe I should go back to school and get my doctorate. Then I could teach in a university."
"You're going to just up and abandon Brady? After he took a risk for you?"
"His life is here in Lockett now. He might not be working for the Circle C in the future, but he still has the 6-0. Even if he wanted me to be with him, with Grandpa so greedy for that 6-0 land, how could I? Even Daddy doesn't know what Grandpa might try. He’s a shrewd old guy. Ruthless, too. And he knows everyone in Texas."
"I can't believe your dad and your granddad would do something to hurt you, Jude."
"They've already done things to hurt me."
"But not deliberately. Not maliciously."
"What difference does it make? The result is still the same. Do you know what my life would’ve been like if I had married Webb Henderson? Or Jason Weatherby? Miserable, that's what. And I don't think either Daddy or Grandpa has ever considered that. Webb's a horrible human being and Jason isn't much better. I don’t think he even likes girls. But now, in the irony of ironies, Daddy has no compunction about damaging someone who's a good person—someone I care about."
"Does Brady know you're the one who offered to buy his land?"
"No. And God willing, he never will. Brady's proud. He would be so pissed off. I've withdrawn the offer and sworn Fred Whitmore to secrecy."
"I suppose the bottom line, here, girlfriend, is how do you really feel about Brady? Are you in love with him?"
Jude looked into her eyes, her throat tight. "I don't know. I just know I think about him all the time. No matter what I'm doing, he's in the back of my mind. I turn to jelly when I'm close to him. But no better than I know myself these days, it might be just the sex I like. It's so incredible with him, like nothing I've ever known."
"See?" Suzanne said softly. "Now you know why I stayed with Mitch about five years longer than I should have."
They continued to talk, moving on from discussing Jude's unsolvable problems to more talk about Pat Garner. Soon the suppertime hour at the Circle C had passed. Suzanne put a pizza in the oven and they ate it and drank beer on the back porch. When Jude mentioned going home, Suzanne said, "Stay here tonight, girlfriend. You know we've got an extra bed."
Jude stayed. For the first time in her life, she stayed away from home in anger.
When Brady showed up at the Circle C cookhouse for breakfast the next morning, J.D. was already there. Breakfast talk concerned the coming fall sale and a new stud J.D. had negotiated for in Amarillo. After breakfast, J.D. caught up with him outside and they strolled toward the corral attached to the big barn where Clary Harper was working with a one-year-old.
"Good trip?" Brady asked, chewing on a toothpick. He wondered if Jude had talked to him. They reached the corral fence and hooked their arms over the top rail, watching Clary work the colt. "I sure like the looks of that colt," J.D. said. "He's one of Sandy Dandy's."
Brady nodded. "He's a catty little thing. I like that in a horse."
"I need to talk to you about something, Brady."
Yep, Jude had told him. Brady angled a look at J.D., but the man stared straight ahead, showing only his profile.
"To tell you the truth, Brady, I don't know where to begin," J.D. said.
"Try the beginning," Brady replied.
"My, uh, daughter, um, mentioned that..." He cleared his throat. "Uh, mentioned that, uh—"
"Want me to make this easier, J.D.? Jude and I want to see each other. And we don't want to do it behind your back."
"Right. And I'm grateful for that. And Jude is what I want to talk to you about. She didn't come home last night. I, uh, thought...well, I thought—"
"You thought she was with me? Well, she wasn't.” Apparently Jude's meeting with her dad hadn't gone well. Brady wished he had been the one to tell J.D. “I didn't get home from Abilene until late," he added.
J.D. turned and gave him a blank look. "Well, then, where is she?"
Good question, Brady thought, now concerned. His heartbeat kicked up. "Beats me."
"She and I had a, um, disagreement yesterday afternoon. She left here upset. She's probably at Suzanne's house."
He plucked his cell phone from his belt and punched in a number. Brady watched and listened as J.D. confirmed that Jude was at her girlfriend's house. J.D. asked her about coming home, as if she were a teenager. He soon disconnected and hooked his phone back on his belt. Brady hadn't seen a grown man so flustered in a long time.
"She spent the night at Suzanne Breedlove's house," he said, obviously relieved.
Now Clary was trotting the colt in a circle. "I guess I'd like to, uh, know your intentions toward my daughter," J.D. said, his eyes on the yearling.
What did a thirty-four-year-old man say to a father who asked that questions about his twenty-nine-year-old daughter? "I intend for us to spend time together. Get to know each other. I hope something comes of it. Jude's a wonderful person."
&
nbsp; J.D. turned and faced him, resting his elbow on the fence rail. "That's all?"
What the hell did J.D. expect? Brady looked at the colt, not knowing what to say.
"Look, let me be candid, Brady,” J.D. said. “For you and Jude to be, uh, to be—well, this presents a helluva dilemma for me and for this ranch. I've put you in a position of trust. You can see how it looks, you taking up with Jude and, uh, the two of you—"
Sex was the word J.D. was having a hard time wrapping his mouth around. But he surely must have known she'd had some kind of sexual relationship with the two men she had been engaged to. Perhaps those affairs occurring outside Willard County made a difference.
Embarrassed, Brady would allow this conversation to go only so far. "I won't insult your intelligence, J.D., by telling you Jude and I haven't been…close."
"I know. I know. She told me. Look, I don't know how much you know about her past. She's immature where men are concerned. She's been engaged twice. To men my dad and I thought would make good husbands, but—"
"J.D., your daughter's not a little kid. She's a smart, accomplished woman. She’s able to do her own thinking. And she’s old enough to decide what she wants."
The man gave a great sigh, then faced Brady with a wide, insincere grin. "She certainly is and you seem to be what she wants."
J.D.'s behavior gave little indication of how he felt about that. Brady waited for further comment, but J.D. turned his attention back to Clary, who was leading the colt into the barn.
He reset his hat and adjusted his glasses. "I've been thinking on this, Brady. I thought about it all night, in fact. The easiest solution for all of us would be for you and Jude to just get married. As you say, she's smart and she's attractive. I'm sure she'll make a good wife. She certainly comes with a dowry."
Brady's brow shot up. "Did you say dowry?"
"Cows. I know you want a cattle herd of your own. I'd be willing to set you up with breeding stock, no strings attached. Margie Wallace's place ought to easily feed a couple hundred head. You can take your pick. I'm sure my dad would go along with that. We'd just call it a wedding present."
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