On the personal side, at last year’s event one of Bianca’s friends had announced her engagement. The year before, Pansy’s younger sister had chosen that particular arena for the same announcement. It was becoming the place to announce plans of a matrimonial nature. Hank couldn’t get rid of the feeling that the sharks were moving in for the kill.
Pansy waited for the waiter to open her napkin with a fine French flourish and spread it over her lap before launching onto a fresh topic. “Hanky, don’t you think it’s time to have that old place redecorated? I mean, all that heavy paneling and those ugly old animal heads. It’s depressing. Nobody has animal heads these days.”
Hanky? “Mounted trophies are traditional.”
“Oh, poo on tradition, what you need is something light and cheerful. I could give you a few suggestions,” she added coyly.
“I’m sure you could. Look, Pansy, I appreciate it, but the members—”
“They’d love it. You can’t tell me anyone wants a herd of gloomy old moose heads glaring down at them all the time. Didn’t you ever hear of animal rights? Give the poor things a decent burial.”
“What did you have in mind, mounted teddy bears? Or maybe some dried-flower wreaths?”
“Oh, God, you’re in one of your moods again, I can tell.”
One of his moods? Was he really that bad? He’d thought he was being pretty damn reasonable for a man who was starting to think seriously about marriage for the first time in his life.
The second time, actually, but his first marriage didn’t count. If he’d had a functioning brain back then, it had been below the belt.
All the same, Pansy was getting a little too territorial. When anyone, man or woman, moved in on him too fast, old military habits took over and he threw up a barricade.
Or in this case, a red herring. “Speaking of decorating, I’ve been considering doing something to the Pine Valley house, maybe putting it on the market.” It had been his father’s house, bought for his fourth wife only two years before they’d both been killed in an avalanche on a skiing trip. Hank had inherited it, along with everything else. He’d hung onto it, not for sentimental reasons, because his father had lived there, but because good real estate was a sound investment.
Pansy pounced like a hound on a ham bone. “Why don’t we run out there after we leave here and look it over? I know this perfectly marvelous decorator in Odessa—Mama had him last spring.”
Pansy’s mama had had half the men in Texas. That was no recommendation.
“Uh…I’ve got to fly up to Midland tonight—” He invented a business trip on the spur of the moment. “Maybe when I get back…” He checked his watch, and then checked it a few more times when she was slow in taking the hint. There was something about that avid look on her face that made him distinctly uneasy as he led her outside the restaurant and signaled for his car to be brought around.
Go ahead, pop the question. What are you waiting for, violins?
Hank told himself he was waiting for his gut to settle down. Even without all the fancy sauces, French food was too rich for his blood, but Pansy loved the place.
He drove her home, as she’d sent her own car home earlier, and walked her to the door. Declining her invitation for a nightcap and whatever else she had in mind, he left her on her doorstep, but not before she kissed him goodnight. Latched on to him like moss on a wet rock and let him have both barrels.
Hell, he was only human. He kissed her back, tasting buttery lipstick, inhaling her overpowering perfume, wishing he felt a spark of interest. Objectively speaking, she was a gorgeous piece of work, and it had been a long dry spell, seeing as how he was inclined to be particular where his sex life was concerned.
And besides, if he was going to marry the woman.
It wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Didn’t know exactly what it was he was holding out for, but he suspected that Pansy Ann Estrich didn’t even come close. So he managed to escape unmolested, then asked himself on the way home if he was being a damned fool to turn down what she was offering, with or without a commitment.
Nah…he wasn’t. He was finally facing up to the depressing fact that unless he married and had children of his own, Henry Harrison Langley, III, was a dead end, the last of three generations of spectacularly successful men. The trouble was, he was increasingly certain that Pansy wasn’t the answer. For one thing, she didn’t like children. For another, she lacked even a vestigial sense of humor.
And then there was the inescapable fact that odds were against any man of his age, and with his family history, making a successful marriage. His grandfather had been widowed twice and divorced once, back in the days when divorce was tantamount to disgrace. His father had run through three more wives after Hank’s mother had died giving birth to a stillborn daughter.
Aside from all that—or maybe because of it—he was pretty much of a loner. At the age of seventeen he’d eloped with a fifteen-year-old cheerleader who’d lied about her age. Hank’s idea of marriage had been nonstop sex. Tammy’s had been nonstop shopping. Major incompatibility. His father had paid her off and had the marriage annulled, which had broken Hank’s heart, but opened his eyes.
Inherited wealth had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth, despite the fact that he had managed to triple his inheritance by careful management and shrewd investments. He had a low tolerance for sycophants which, over the years had led to a growing sense of isolation. From youthful recklessness that had carried him through a few high-risk military actions, he’d gradually slipped into a dull sense of reserve that occasionally bordered on the paranoid. He put it down to being who he was: the richest kid in town, who’d done little to prove his own manhood.
Not that he hadn’t tried. But ever since his youthful fit of rebellion, his lawyers, both corporate and personal, tended to get antsy if he went out with the same woman more than three times in a row. Pansy and Bianca checked out because they were in his income bracket, give or take a few sets of zeros.
As for Miss Manie, she turned into a fire-breathing dragon whenever she thought he was about to be trapped by one of the women she called scheming hussies and shameless gold diggers. And while he depended on her judgment on most things, the truth was, he was getting pretty damned tired of playing dodge-the-wedding-ring, and the only way he could figure to end the game was to pick out the best of the lot and do the deed.
The red light on his message machine was blinking rapidly when he let himself back into his rooms over the club. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep unless he cleared the decks, he switched on the playback. Greg’s voice erupted into the quiet room.
“Greg here. Listen, Hank, I think I’ve got a situation brewing and I’m going to need your help. Probably Forrest and Sterling, too, before it’s over. I won’t lay it out over the phone, but I need to see you as soon as you can spare some time. It’s urgent.”
A situation? What the hell was that all about? Methodically, Hank unbuttoned his shirt, eased it off his shoulders, stretched his arms over his head and yawned. God knows, he could do with a distraction. This business of getting himself engaged was the pits.
Romania Riley eased her bunions into a basin of hot Epsom salts, breathed out a sigh and took a swig of her homemade blackberry wine. She’d learned to make it at the age of fourteen, when a jar of improperly sealed, homecanned blackberries had fermented and blown the lid off, spattering everything in the kitchen, Manie included.
For months she’d been fretting over what to do about all the women who were making nuisances of themselves over her boy. Not a single one of them wanted him for the kind, sensitive man he was. All they were interested in was the wealth and position he represented. As if money was the answer to life’s problems.
Money hadn’t made Hank’s father a happy man. As for that old goat, Tex Langley, he’d been the worst scalawag that ever walked on two legs, not that you’d ever hear a word of criticism from the folks of Royal, Texas. He might’ve fooled most of ‘em into thinking
he was some kind of saint, but Manie had known the man behind the legend.
She’d been eight and a half years old when her mama had run off and her father, Alaska Riley, had picked up and moved to Louisiana, following the oil company that had been drilling off the coast of North Carolina. They’d lived there for a few months, camping out like gypsies, just the two of them and Pa’s old dog, Dog. Dog ran off one night in a thunderstorm. He never did come back, and it broke her father’s heart because Dog was family. He’d been even older than Manie at the time.
Manie didn’t know how old she’d been before she understood about her father’s drinking. She’d always been aware that his moods swung from high good humor to the mean miseries. Following the miseries he’d lay out for a few days, sick as a dog, and then he’d swear off drinking. Manie always got her hopes up, but it never lasted long.
From Louisiana they migrated to Texas. Pa swore off the bottle for nearly six months, and they moved into a tworoom house and Manie got to go to school. For a little while, everything was nice as pie. But then, her father fell into bad company. Before long he’d gone back to his old ways. Manie fussed at him because she was scared, but fussing only shoved him into the mean miseries.
There came a time when he took real drunk two days before payday, and Manie without so much as a bean or a biscuit in the house. She couldn’t even scrape up ten cents for a loaf of bread, so she hitched a ride into town in a feed truck—back in those days, Royal had been nothing at all like it was now.
Everybody knew where old Tex lived. The man owned practically all of West Texas. She’d hopped off the back of the truck, marched right up the front walk, banged on the door of the Langley mansion, and when the housekeeper had opened the door, she’d demanded the money owed her father for three days’ work.
The housekeeper had tried to shoo her away, but Manie refused to budge. Pa would skin her alive if he ever found out what she’d done, but she was desperate and hungry, and she couldn’t think of anywhere else to turn.
“You go ‘round to the back door, I’ll see if Mist’ Tex’s home.”
Manie went. Back door, front door—what difference did it make as long as she got what she came for?
Only she hadn’t. The housekeeper had come back and told her that Mr. Tex said to go by the field office Monday morning, and then the woman had slammed the door in her face.
She’d felt like throwing a flower pot through the window, but they’d only sic the dog or call the law, and Pa would find out and get really, really mad.
But she couldn’t wait, she was too hungry. She didn’t want a check from the field office, either, she wanted real cash money that she could take to the grocery store and buy food before her father got his hands on it and spent it all on whiskey.
So she banged on the door again, reminding herself that she was a Riley, and Rileys were Good People. She could still remember hearing her father say so, back before her mama had picked up and left. In Pa’s case, the stock might have run to seed, but Manie knew better than to act like trash. She might be hungry, but she had her pride.
Her knocks went unanswered, and she was too short to reach the big brass knocker. Finally, blinded by tears of sheer frustration, ten-year-old Manie had slammed out the front gate and run head-on into young Henry, who had heard her out, tears, sobs, runny nose and all. Then he’d kindly explained that her father couldn’t work out at the field any more because he was too unreliable, and on a drilling rig, that could be dangerous, but that he’d see that she got any back pay coming to him.
Then he’d taken her home to his wife—his first wife—who had given her a glass of buttermilk and offered her a job after school and on weekends helping out in the kitchen.
Mercy, had it really been almost sixty years since then? It had been a wild ride, keeping up with the Langleys, but she wouldn’t trade a speck of it for any amount of money. Child to woman, she’d been there through good times and bad, first when old Tex died, then when her father had passed away with the liver trouble, and a year later when Hank was born and a few years after that when Mr. Henry lost his wife and his newborn daughter.
She had watched young Hank grow up, loved him as if he were her own, and done her best to look after him when his father had taken up with one woman after another and gone chasing off to all those fancy places in Europe.
She’d done a fair job of raising the boy, too, if she did say so herself. She knew his shortcomings and his longcomings and would be the first to admit he had his share of both.
But right now, he was going through another dangerous stage, and it was up to her to see him through it. Temptation was a hard thing to resist when it came all dolled up in tight dresses and blue eye shadow, reeking of fancy perfume and using language no lady ever used in front of a gentleman. That kind of temptation spelled trouble, sure as the world.
But Manie had a plan.
Two
Early on a Saturday morning, shoulders squared, head held high, Callie locked the front door, took one last walk around the house to be sure she’d remembered to close all the windows and fill all the feeders and headed for Texas.
“Grace, I’m on my way. Feed my birds about Wednesday, will you?” she called to her neighbor at the foot of the road.
“I’ll check every couple of days. See you in a week or so. Drive safe, have a good time, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Callie promised, her mind already miles ahead. This was a mission, not a vacation. Never given to impulsive acts, she had thought it through carefully, made her lists, pro and con, and checked one against the other. And now here she was, finally on her way.
By Tuesday, second thoughts were rapidly piling up. Back home in North Carolina, it had all sounded so logical. Now that she was actually in Texas, she was beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t have talked her plan over with Aunt Manie first instead of springing it on her out of the blue.
Quit fretting, Caledonia, it’s too late now. You’ve done all that work on the house and shut off the mail and paper delivery. You buttered your bread, now lie in it.
She was tired, that’s all it was. Besides, everything out west was so blessed big. This was the first time she’d ever even crossed to the other side of the Blue Ridge mountains. What in the world had she been thinking?
Back when the idea had first come to her, it seemed like the most logical thing in the world. She’d never even met Great-Aunt Manie until Grandpop Riley’s funeral last September, but the two of them had hit it off right away. Aunt Manie was so much like Grandpop, which was perfectly logical. They’d been brother and sister, after all. They shared the same common sense approach to life, the same dry sense of humor. They even looked alike, both being spare of frame and stern of face until you caught the twinkling eyes and the little twitch at the corner of the mouth.
And besides, Aunt Manie used to live in Grandpop’s house. It was Callie’s now. Nobody else wanted it, at least not to live in. Her father, who had grown up there, called it an old relic, which it was, which was why Grandpop had left it to Callie and not his own son.
It had taken practically all her savings, but she’d fixed the old place up so that Aunt Manie wouldn’t give it that sad-eyed look, the way she had after the funeral. A new roof, at least on the south side, where the sun baked the shingles so that they curled up and leaked. A fresh coat of paint in a lovely shade of gray, with contrasting trim. Next she was going to tackle the plumbing and wiring, but first she’d have to find another job and build up her savings again.
But the yard was in fine shape. Surrounded by rhododendrons and weeping cherry trees, flame azalea and the day lilies that Grandpop had called backhouse lilies, it sat plank in the middle of seven acres of woodland a few miles from Brooks Cross Roads. For someone who preferred life in the slow lane, it was ideal.
And Callie was definitely slow-lane material. Driving to Yadkinville five days a week to work was fast enough for her. And at Aunt Manie’s age, she was going to fit right in.
Callie’s father, Bainbridge, had expected her to sell out as soon as the will had been probated. Ever since he’d given up his position with the insurance company and gone to being a full-time potter and part-time fiddler, he’d been looking for ways to make money. Unlike Callie, he hadn’t inherited his father’s philosophy of work hard, live cheap and lay by for a rainy day.
He should have thought of that before he’d quit. Her mother was just as bad, but then, Sally Cutler was only a Riley by marriage. Riley tradition didn’t mean doodleysquat to her, never had. After working her way up to assistant manager at Big Joe Arther’s Motors and playing the organ at the Brushy Creek Church for as long as Callie could remember, Sally had hit menopause. She’d dealt with it by bleaching her hair, eating a lot of soybeans and playing keyboard with a homegrown country rock band who called themselves The Rockin’ Possum.
For the past few years Bain and Sally had taken in every fiddler’s convention and craft show between Galax and Nashville, leaving Callie and Grandpop to take care of each other. Which suited Callie just fine. She’d had her job, and Grandpop had had his garden.
But then last fall Grandpop had passed over. Died in his sleep, peaceful as a dove. And Callie had finally met his sister Romania, and one thing led to another, and now here she was in Texas, of all places.
Manie had told her back when she’d come east to the funeral that her own roots were in Texas, but Callie hadn’t believed it, not for a minute. Her leaves and branches might be in Texas, but Manie’s roots were back in the thick red clay of Yadkin County, North Carolina.
Callie hadn’t mentioned it at the time, but the plan had already started to simmer in her mind when they’d driven around to see all the new development and the old familiar places. Callie was a good planner. So far as she knew, she was the only truly reliable member of her immediate family, because even Grandpop had run off and joined the Merchant Marine when he was barely old enough to shave.
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