by Fran Baker
Their lovemaking was bittersweet, a spontaneous combustion that rivaled the storm raging at the windows. Cassie had tangled her fingers in Hoyt's hair, arching against him with a fiercely felt need to hold him as close as possible one last time. Dynamite blasts of thunder echoing through the tiny bedroom had drowned out her sobs. Passion was a bottomless pit that she plunged into with a wanton disregard for tomorrow's despair.
* * * *
The old tin sign banged against the building. Cassie ducked out of her memories and swerved sideways to avoid a blow to the head. Judge Foley's fin-tailed Cadillac was already parked in front of the drugstore when she pushed open the wooden screen door to keep her appointment with freedom.
The oak-planked floors were permeated with the aroma of freshly perked coffee mingling with the smell of yesterday's grilled onions. Dusty packages of pain relievers vied for shelf space with out-of-date greeting cards. Tanya Tucker's scorching desire to be laid to rest beneath Texas soil competed with the hissing static common to every radio station north of the Rio Grande.
“Morning.” Judge was hunched over a hand of cards and didn't look up to greet his client. Even though she was anxious to get down to business, Cassie knew better than to try to interrupt this daily ritual.
“I don't know how I'm going to get along without your famous chocolate shakes, Ray. Guess I'll just have to kidnap you and drag you with me to Nashville.” She hoisted herself onto one of the tall round stools covered with cracked brown vinyl and dangled her shapely legs as she rotated from side to side.
“Still bent on chasing that rainbow, are you?” Ray Fensom looked up from his hand of pitch and peered at her through the horn-rimmed bifocals perched near the tip of his bulbous nose.
“I'm going to give it my best shot,” she affirmed. “It's all I have left now.” Cassie knew his concern stemmed from the same paternal affection he'd showered on her since her father caught that stray bullet in a hunting accident two years ago. “It won't do any good for you to start lecturing me again, Ray, because I've made up my mind. It's something I've always wanted to do and I'm going to do it.”
The seeds of Cassie's aspiration had been planted in her childhood by her banjo-picking father and her hum-along mother, both of whom knew every rockabilly or western song played on the radio. Her parents had given her a secondhand, flattop guitar when she was sixteen, and she'd immediately devoted every spare minute to the music she loved. Church socials, square dances, and honky-tonks became the training grounds where she practiced projection and delivery. Like a butterfly emerging from its silky cocoon, Cassie's style developed with experience, and her honey-rich voice endeared her to the many small-town audiences who danced or clapped along with her.
“Well, you know my area code and phone number if you need anything.” Ray smiled as he shuffled the cards.
“Be with you in a minute, young lady,” Judge said without looking up from the cards fanned out in front of him. “I need just two more points to put this varmint in his place, and I'm the bidder.”
“Three.” Ray challenged Judge's bid and the game was on. Cassie watched as they slapped the cards onto the counter.
“High, low, jick, jack, and game.” Ray tallied his triumph and Judge grumbled as he threw the loser's thirty cents down to pay for the coffee that was cooling in thick china mugs.
“I haven't beaten him in a month of Sundays.” Judge winked. “Think I'll order me a new deck of cards out of the catalogue.” He smiled and pulled a sheaf of folded papers out of the chest pocket of his plaid flannel shirt. “Got the releases from the Temples yesterday, and the bank notarized the title to your daddy's car, so I think we've got everything in order here. Are you ready to wade through this pile of legal mumbo jumbo?”
“As ready as I'll ever be.” She reached for the documents that freed her from the hardscrabble life her family had led for two generations, and scribbled her name on the black lines without reading the contents. Judge knew the law as well as a Sunday-school teacher knew Bible verse, and she trusted him completely.
“I've gotta admit that I'm kind of looking forward to bragging to people that I knew you when.” Ray grinned and slid a freshly blended chocolate shake across the yellowed Formica counter.
“Don't count my chickens before they're hatched.” She handed the pen she'd used back to Judge. “I sure don't feel right about your waiving your fee.”
“Your folks did me plenty of favors, little lady. I'm just glad I finally got a chance to repay a few of them.”
“I hope you know what a hard row you've picked to hoe.” Ray polished a soda glass with a white cotton rag.
“No harder than what I've been doing all my life,” Cassie replied. Another family would move into the tired old farmhouse, sorely in need of a fresh paint job. Other women would work their fingers to the bone scrubbing faded linoleum, working the fields, and preparing the endless meals to feed a gnawing hunger that was never quite satisfied.
“When do you plan on leaving?” Judge struck a match on the sole of his shoe and lit his briarwood pipe.
“I'm going tomorrow morning.” Cassie folded the precious paper transferring title to the twenty-year-old sedan to her. “I thought that I'd try to get an early start. Maybe I'll miss the rush-hour traffic in Dallas.”
Actually, she planned to drive straight through to Texarkana, but she didn't admit it out loud. Judge and Ray would only caution her about the danger of pushing herself on the highway. But she didn't have the cash to spend too many nights in motels, even cheap ones.
“Have you got enough money to tide you over until you're settled in Nashville?” Judge scrutinized her with squinted eyes that had borne witness to the paltry sum she'd withdrawn when she closed her mother's bank account.
A hot flush warmed Cassie's cheeks. She'd sworn she wouldn't accept a penny from anyone.
“I'll make it all right,” she asserted. Her lips curved in silent thanks that Judge hadn't divulged the sorry state of her finances. “I'll probably have to get a job while I'm pounding the pavement and making the rounds of producers’ offices, but I'm sure I'll be able to find something.”
It was time to leave. She still had to pack and straighten the house for the new family. Cassie slid off the stool and walked around the counter to say good-bye to Ray.
“Let us hear from you once in a while.” He wiped his eyes with his polishing rag. “Speck of dust,” he muttered.
When Judge stood and shook her hand, Cassie swallowed hard to keep the tears at bay. Crying wouldn't help or change a thing. Whether she failed or succeeded, all of them knew that she would never return to Coyote Bend.
“Thanks for everything.” Her trembling voice affirmed her gratitude for favors large and small through the years. She turned and ran out of the drugstore before she burst into tears.
The oppressive heat hit her with full force when she stepped outside. Hoyt Temple's Jeep still occupied the space in front of the feedstore— a good omen. She'd never told him she was leaving.
She drove home without seeing the ramshackle buildings that punctuated the parched countryside or the brittle tumbleweeds that the wind blew across the road.
Cassie was tempted to stop and sit for a while in the small cemetery where her mother and father rested, but her foot remained glued to the accelerator and she sped on past. She'd said good-bye once, and she didn't think she could bear to see their graves again, or those of the babies born before herself that her mother had grieved over when she'd stooped to weed the trio of tiny tombstones every Sunday.
Chapter 2
As Cassie swept up the last dustpan of grit, her thoughts were hundreds of miles away. Willie Nelson and Ray Price harmonized over the radio, and she was so engrossed in completing her mundane chores that she didn't hear the front door opening or the boot-heeled steps that crossed her living room in familiar strides.
“What the hell is going on around here?” Hoyt grabbed her arm and spun her away from the chipped porcelain sink she
was scouring. His level blue gaze said he'd learned about her plans.
“Hoyt, you scared me!” She'd never witnessed his anger and wasn't sure what form it would take. This was the good-bye she thought she'd successfully avoided. “I— I wasn't expecting company.” Her voice was brittle, as if it would splinter into a thousand pieces under the stress. She drew a steadying breath and forged ahead. “What do you want?”
“For openers, you can stop looking at me like a rabbit trapped on the wrong end of a shotgun muzzle,” he rebuked. “Then you can start explaining why I had to find out from strangers that you're skipping town.” His fingers dug cruelly into the tender flesh of her upper arm.
“I was only trying to spare us an ugly scene— like this one.” Cassie pulled out of his grasp and rubbed the bruised area his fingers had punished. She picked up a piece of lined paper that she'd laid on the kitchen table and handed it to him. “This is the note you were supposed to find.” She kept the tone of her voice casual, careful to betray none of the regret that dogged her.
He took the letter and scanned it with a puzzled frown. Pain clawed at Cassie's heart as she watched him, but her face wore a mask of quiet pride. She'd already invested more emotion in their affair than she could rightfully afford. Hoyt might not realize it, but she wore his brand as surely as if he'd used a hot iron on her.
“Isn't this decision a little sudden?” His slate-blue eyes stripped her naked, and Cassie's trim waistline was the focal point of that saber stare. “Don't tell me you're pregnant.”
“You needn't worry, Hoyt. I'm fully aware of what sort of scandal it would cause if the Temple bloodline ever became tainted by the likes of me.” There, she'd finally said it. The poor-white-trash shame had stalked her silently, constantly, for months. Twilight shadows of angry purple deepened in her eyes and her heartbeat quickened when Hoyt failed to reassure her.
“I guess you'll have to get used to the idea that you don't own anything around here but your precious land,” she added flippantly.
“Who put the burr under your saddle?” he demanded. His rumbling voice reminded her of the thunder that had orchestrated their last night of lovemaking.
“I'm positive that you won't have a bit of trouble replacing me, if that's what prompted your visit.” Cassie kissed caution good-bye. Her adrenaline surged as she let him have it with both barrels. “Why, I'd lay odds that there are at least another half-dozen poor young tramps on the Diamond T payroll. Surely you can convince one of them that she'd be saving the old homestead if she hopped into bed with you.”
“Blackmail isn't my game, baby.” Hoyt's brows drew together in a dark scowl. “I didn't drive all the way out here to fight a range war with you, either. But if I remember correctly, nobody dragged you kicking and screaming into that bedroom.”
“I'm sorry, Hoyt.” Her voice softened to a whisper as the fight drained out of her. She knew she wasn't playing fair, but she didn't know how else to handle these crazy feelings. “I know that I should have told you sooner, but I— I didn't— I've got a lot to do before I leave.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Maybe you'd better go.” She turned her back on him and went through the motions of cleaning the countertops.
“You've been under quite a bit of strain lately, what with the funeral and the legal mess.” He reached around her, removed the sponge from her hand, and laid it aside. His warm breath caressed the nape of her neck as he fit his lean length against her curves. “Why don't we relax and try to calm down? Then we'll talk this out. I'm sure we'll find a solution that suits both of our needs.”
“I won't sleep with you, Hoyt.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Every nerve in her body was attuned to that hard male shape. “And there's nothing to discuss, either. My mind's made up and I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning. You're wasting your time, and your charm.” There was a harsh note in her flat statement.
“What do you want that I can't give you?” Impatience edged his question. She turned in his arms and he waved the letter she'd written under her nose.
“A chance to make it on my own.” Cassie lowered her eyes. She'd never dreamed she could hurt like this.
“Hell, you're as independent now as a hog on ice.”
“I knew you wouldn't understand. And that's exactly why I didn't tell you what my plans were.”
“A lot of people have accused me of having a hard head, but you're the first one who's ever assumed my skull was so thick that it couldn't absorb simple facts.” He tipped her chin up and forced her to look into those twin blue pools. A clean cattleman's crease shaped the summer Stetson shoved back on his wavy brown hair. The late afternoon sun outlined his masculine features, playing grooves and hollows against prominent cheekbones. “Come on, ‘fess up,” he cajoled. “What's behind this Nashville nonsense?”
“It isn't nonsense,” she protested. “If you'd ever really listened when we talked, you'd have known how much this means to me.” She waved her arms in frustration. “Can't you see the differences between us?”
“Well, I can't say that I've had the pleasure of seeing them lately.” His gaze slid possessively over her body and Cassie tingled in spite of herself at the remembrance of his touch. “If I'm not mistaken, though, it's been those very differences between us that have kept me coming around.”
“That's not what I mean, and you know it.” She hated it when he humored her. “Take a good look around you, Hoyt,” she ordered. He glanced lazily at the knife-nicked counters, the rickety table, the peeling wallpaper, and dismissed them as unimportant. “Don't you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder how you got mixed up with— with a dirt farmer's daughter?” The pain of what she had to say was etched in her eyes. “It's your turn to face facts, Hoyt. I'm nothing but a common sodbuster who's never going to amount— ”
“Stop it!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled. “Who's feeding you these crazy notions?”
“Nobody has said a word, I swear it.” Cassie blinked away the tears. Why did he insist on making this so damned difficult for her? “You're the finest man I've ever known, and I'll go to my grave cherishing the memory of what we had here. But I'm smart enough to know a bottle of champagne from a jug of home brew when I see it. There's only one place we're equal, Hoyt, and that's just not enough for me.”
“Just when you think you've heard them all... ” Hoyt shook his head. “What in hell does that have to do with us?”
“Plenty. Ask yourself what kind of a future is in store for us, Hoyt. Think about it honestly. I have.” Cassie knew what she was talking about. The grim vision had tormented her day and night, nicking away at the remnants of her pride.
“This hasn't been an easy decision for me to make. I... ” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat to regain control. “Money isn't the only thing that makes you a wealthy person, Hoyt. Your life is rich with experiences and freedoms and opportunities that I've only read about in books or heard about secondhand. I'm just a tenant-farmer's daughter who's lived in the shadows of life. Why, I've never even been fifty miles from home!”
“So I wear the blame for an accident of birth?” His gaze narrowed, accusing her in return.
“Of course not!” She met his cynical stare. “Before I ever met you, I had a goal, a dream. And that dream was all I had to cling to when my father died, or when the plow broke down for the umpteenth time, or when the doctor said my mother wouldn't recover.”
She felt the color flood into her cheeks as she realized how inane all of this must seem to him. “I'm going to be a singer, Hoyt. I can finally see that there might be a little sunshine in my future, the freedom to earn my own rewards or make my own mistakes.”
“I suppose the next thing you're going to say is that I'm your first mistake.” His sarcasm was meant to sting, and it did.
“In some ways, yes— and in some ways, no. I shouldn't have slept with you— I know that now. This wouldn't be such a miserable chore if I hadn't.” She'd come this far already
and she was going to finish. “But when you turned this farm around, you proved to me there's no such word as ‘impossible.’ You made me believe in myself, in my abilities.”
“Let me continue helping you, then. You'll have everything you think you've missed, and then some.” His voice grew husky with desire. “More important, we'll be together.”
The battering-ram truth of his proposition shattered the composure she'd struggled to maintain.
“We wouldn't be together, Hoyt. I'd be stuck in Coyote Bend, waiting for you to decide when and whether we'd sleep together.” Stubborn pride propelled her on. The canyon-sized crack in her heart threatened to spread to her voice. “For the last time, I won't be your mistress. I won't let you tuck me away all safe and sound in this— this dirt pile, while you come and go as you please. I want more than that out of life— I'm entitled to more than that.”
She wanted to reach out and stroke that rigid jawline, to touch him one more time. But she kept her hands balled into tight fists and pressed them to her sides.
“Whether you're willing to admit it or not, the Diamond T empire is your first love, and I respect the fact that you have obligations to it. But I have obligations, too. And if I don't use my voice and whatever talent I have, something inside me will wither and die. I can't have it all, and that breaks my heart. But I have to go after what's best for me.”
“It's been a long time since a woman has led me around by the nose.” He flashed his white teeth but the smile was humorless.
“I wasn't stringing you along, Hoyt. But if it makes you feel better to believe that, go right ahead and believe it.” Cassie smiled at the idea. If anything, she'd been fooling herself. “We don't have enough in common to sustain the kind of relationship we both deserve. When the fire started dying, we'd be strangers, hating and blaming each other for a dead-end affair, when neither of us was really at fault.” The tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks.
“Well, I guess you won't be using this to put a deposit on a place in town.” His mouth settled into a grim line and he pulled a yellow piece of paper out of the chest pocket of his chamois shirt. “Your severance pay.”