The Lockwood Legacy - Books 1-6: Plus Bonus Short Stories

by Juliette Harper

  What was the story about Pandora and her box? Once opened, you can’t close it? Jenny had to know the truth, even if she never revealed the details to another living soul. The shadowy half-lies and stories told to preserve the family reputation were just too much for her now.

  For years she’d listened to her father bellow about what being a Lockwood meant; admonitions she’d internalized no matter how much she scorned it all at the time. Had there not been a shred of the truth in any of it?

  Jenny was not a religious woman, but she did believe there had to be something larger than mere mortals. Good Lord, the sunset right in front of her eyes was surely proof enough of a divine intelligence at work.

  As she gazed out over the Rocking L, land Jenny never thought she would call her own, she said softly, “I know I don’t talk to You much, God, but please let me be wrong about Mandy. And if I’m right? Please help me to be wise enough to never let it hurt her.”

  51

  The next day Jenny waited until everyone was either busy or off the Rocking L to drive to town. The Hotel Los Rios was exactly the way she remembered it. A rambling building in the Spanish colonial style set one block off Main Street.

  The hotel must have been a gracious and swank accommodation in its day. Now it sat in a well-tended but largely anonymous state. What Kate has optimistically referred to as “assisted living,” was actually a few converted rooms for rent and someone on call to run errands. The main selling point on the hotel’s mostly horrible website seemed to be “central location,” which meant a block from the local ambulance service and across the street from the post office.

  When Jenny stepped in the lobby, she was greeted with an expanse of vintage blue and gold Spanish tile, dusty 1930s furniture, and a fake ficus tree in an enormous terra cotta planter. Otherwise, the place was completely empty. She spotted a framed resident directory on the wall to her left by the staircase. Running her finger down the mostly alphabetical list, she found Clara Wyler’s name, apartment 114. The first floor was no doubt a bid to both the woman’s bad back and her breathing problems.

  Jenny looked around, frowning. She had no idea where to go. When she was growing up a Mexican restaurant occupied the hotel’s lower floor. She knew there was a dining room on the far side of the lobby from where she was standing. The only other option seemed to be a dim hallway that took a right-angle turn past the staircase.

  Jenny followed the numbers to the rear of the building and found herself standing in front of 114. There was no buzzer, so she knocked. Inside, a series of rattles and bangs interspersed with curses approached the door, which was thrown open by a tall old woman with jet-black hair elaborately combed atop her head in a classic Texas beehive. Reading glasses hung on a rhinestone chain around her neck and she was leaning on a bright red walker, the kind with baskets on the side and a fold-down seat on the rear.

  Before Jenny could say a word, Clara Wyler said, “I wondered when one of you girls was gonna show up. Come on in. Close the door behind you.”

  Jenny did as she was told and entered a tiny, but well-ordered apartment. Paperback romance novels covered every available surface, along with stacks of crossword puzzle books.

  Clara made her way to a throne-like recliner with a lift mechanism. She sat down, wheezing a little, and looked at her guest. “Don’t just stand there, have a seat,” Clara said, pointing at the end of the couch nearest to her chair.

  Jenny obediently complied. When she was seated, she said, “So, Mrs. Wyler, I guess you remember me?”

  “Call me Clara,” the woman said. “Mrs. Wyler was my mother-in-law, and a meaner old bitch never walked the face of the earth.”

  Trying not to laugh, Jenny said, “Okay, Clara. I’m Jenny Lockwood.”

  “I know who you are,” Clara said curtly, but not unkindly. “You were Irene’s favorite. God, I miss your Mama,” she added sadly.

  “So do I,” Jenny said softly.

  They sat quietly for a minute and then Clara said, “Well, enough of that. Irene had good manners for a Yankee, but I don’t think you’re just paying a call on an old family friend because you were raised right. From what I hear, you girls are finding out all kinds of things about your dear old Daddy. I imagine you have questions.”

  Jenny snorted derisively, “Questions? That’s an understatement.”

  “Bastard was tight as bark on a tree and he was hiding a fortune in Aztec gold up that damned draw. If he wasn’t dead, I’d dig him up and shoot him myself,” Clara muttered.

  “I take it there was no love lost between you and Daddy?” Jenny said.

  “Not in about 50 years,” Clara said darkly. “Did you know I went to school with Langston?”

  “No, ma’am, I didn’t.”

  “I don’t know if it will help or make it worse,” the old woman said, “but go over to that shelf there under the window and find my annuals. All four years are there, 1955 through 1958.”

  Jenny retrieved the books, all bearing some version of the school’s mascot, an eagle, on the cover. Curious, she opened the one for 1955 as Clara watched her.

  “We were freshmen that year,” Clara said. “Flip over to the favorite’s section.”

  Jenny riffled through the pages until she came upon a full-page photograph of Langston Lockwood. He must have been 15 or 16, just coming out of that gawky phase all boys endure. The baby fat was starting to melt away from his features, the line of his jaw betraying the handsome man he would become. He wore his hair oiled and slicked back and he’d jauntily flipped up the collar of his FFA jacket.

  Across from him, Alice Browning gazed out of the past at Jenny. She had been a beautiful girl, her hair a deep honey blonde. For the photo, she’d tied it up in a perky ponytail that went with the cheerleading uniform she was wearing. Her eyes sparkled with life and she was dazzling the photographer with a bright, happy smile.

  Jenny looked up from the yearbook, “My Daddy was freshman class favorite?”

  “He and Alice were class favorites every year. Now look at 1958.”

  When Jenny found the two-page spread in the second book, she gasped at the sight of her father, then a boy of 18. The bones of his angular face stood out in painful relief, his gauntness made worse by heavy black circles under flat, lifeless eyes. He was attempting a grim smile that barely quirked the corners of his mouth.

  On the opposite page, a black line meant to mimic a mourning ribbon crossed the upper right corner emblazoned with the words “In Memoriam” in gold. The girl from 1955 had blossomed into a stunningly gorgeous young woman with finely defined features. Alice wore her hair piled high on her head and she was dressed in an old-fashioned gown.

  “That was from the junior play the year before,” Clara explained. “Alice died before our senior pictures were taken. They did The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman. Alice played Regina, and cried after every performance because her character let her husband die of a heart attack right in front of her.”

  “I saw the movie,” Jenny murmured, staring at the pictures.

  “Bette Davis sure could play a bitch with style,” Clara observed mildly.

  “So Daddy wasn’t always . . .,” Jenny hesitated.

  “A miserable bastard? No. I went all through school with him. He was a thinker, always had his head in a book, but Alice brought out all the fun in him. When she died, he died, too. Problem was, he was still breathing. I felt sorry for him, until he took your Mama away from George Fisk and then treated her like dirt right up to the day she died.”

  Jenny sat back on the sofa and shook her head, “Clara, there is so much about all of this that I don’t understand.” She brought the Polaroid out of her pocket and handed it to the older woman. “This is why I came to see you. I found that yesterday. I don’t remember us staying with you all that summer at all, but Katie told me about it. She doesn’t really know why we were there either. Will you tell me the truth?”

  Clara reached over the arm of her chair and clipped an oxygen line on
her nose. As she turned on the machine, she saw Jenny’s worried expression. “Stop that frowning. I’m fine, but if I’m gonna tell you this story, I need some extra wind. There’s more to what happened than just that summer.”

  Clara Wyler maneuvered her pick-up through the front gate of the Rocking L and pulled up outside the yard fence. Before she even cut the engine, Langston Lockwood stalked out to meet her.

  “What the hell do you want Clara Geistweidt?” he demanded.

  “For God’s sake, Langston. I’ve been married to Clint for 20 years. You know damned good and well my name is Wyler. And don’t you say a goddamned word about my husband.”

  She slammed the pick-up door and stood glaring at Langston. Almost 6’ herself, she wasn’t cowed by his height or his bluster. “I’m here to be your wife’s friend, and I dog dare you to try and stop me.”

  “My wife doesn’t need any friends,” he growled.

  “And you’ve set out to make sure she doesn’t have any,” Clara shot back. “Shaming that girl in front of the whole town by stealing her from George Fisk and running off to Mexico to marry her. She was gonna have a hard enough time in this town being a Yankee and all, and now there’s this scandal. You don’t fool me, Langston. I’ve known you since we were kids. You just did this to ruin George. Well, you’re not ruining that poor Yankee girl at the same time. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  “You don’t,” Langston barked, his facing turning beet red.

  “But I do,” a voice said from the walkway. Irene Lockwood stood just inside the yard fence, her hand resting on the top of the gate. “How kind of you to call, Mrs. Wyler. Won’t you please come in?”

  Langston turned to glare at his wife. Clara was impressed. Irene did not blink or flinch under his furious gaze. She met his eyes with quiet determination and then said, “Please, Langston.”

  A brief instant of confusion passed over his features before the dark glower returned. “Fine. You want to take up with the gossiping hens in this town, go right ahead.” With that, he turned on his heel and headed for the barn.

  “I am so sorry . . .,” Irene started.

  “Don’t you worry, honey,” Clara said, opening the passenger side door of the pick-up and taking out a Tupperware pie carrier. “I have known Langston Lockwood since we were in diapers. He does not impress me one damn bit. Like I told him, you need a friend in this town. I’m appointing myself.”

  Irene opened the yard gate and stood aside as Clara marched through it and headed up the walk. She paused about halfway to the door and turned back to Irene, “You coming, honey? We’re gonna need some coffee with this pecan pie.”

  Irene closed the gate and, with a bemused smile on her face, started up the walk behind Clara, who had launched into an explanation of the town’s attitude toward “Carpetbagging Yankees.”

  Clara laughed until she coughed. Jenny half rose off the couch to help, but Clara waved her away, turning up the oxygen instead. “I always have been just strong as mare’s milk, honey,” Clara said when she caught her breath. “Your Mama liked that about me. I’m no lady, but she was.”

  As Jenny listened, Clara described teaching Irene to be a ranch wife, storming the bastion that was the local Methodist Church Women’s Circle, and the even more daunting ranks of the leading “study club.”

  At that point Jenny stopped her. “Clara, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly did you all ‘study’ all those years?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I don’t know,” Clara said. “It was an excuse to get dressed up once a month. Don’t interrupt.”

  Maybe because they were more alike than they realized, or maybe because they enjoyed taking on the local snobs, Irene and Clara became fast friends with a deep bond. “I loved your mother,” Clara said. “I think about her every day.”

  “Why did she put up with the way Daddy treated her?” Jenny asked.

  “She genuinely cared about him,” Clara said.

  “You cannot be serious,” Jenny said. “How could she love a verbally abusive tyrant like my father?”

  “Well, honey, she had three children with him, didn’t she?” Clara asked. “And she knew how much he suffered about what happened to Alice. As much as I hate to say one good word about Langston Lockwood, there were times when he did try to make it work with your Mama.”

  “He certainly didn’t show any effort with his daughters,” Jenny said, anger tingeing her voice.

  “Langston was proud of Katie when she was born, but he couldn’t get past the devils in his own mind. He just could not tame that anger,” Clara said. “Irene said you inherited his temper. Don’t you ever let it rule you, girl. Learn that one lesson from your Daddy at least.”

  Jenny colored, but said nothing, and Clara went on. “I always felt so bad for Katie. Never wanted a damned thing but for her Daddy to love her and approve of her, so that was the last thing Langston was going to do. Then you came along; carbon copy of your Mama, right down to you being able to draw and all. I don’t know why, but you drawing all the time just seemed to drive Langston crazy. Well, crazier. I’m sorry, honey, but I always did think your Daddy was a brick shy of a load after the car wreck.”

  “No disagreement here,” Jenny said. “Why did Mama stay with Daddy after he had an affair with Pauline Fisk?”

  “He just did that to hurt George more,” Clara said. “Irene knew that, and I will just be damned if she didn’t forgive him. I’d have shot the son of a bitch, but your Mama wasn’t like me.”

  “Did she know about Baxter’s Draw?”

  “Langston didn’t hide where he was going when he’d ride off and stay gone for days. He told her he was up at the draw, but she sure as hell didn’t know he was sitting on a cave full of Aztec gold.”

  Clara described how Langston’s verbal abuses, surly behavior, and long absences got worse after the birth of his second daughter. “There was all that to make her unhappy,” Clara said, “and your Mama missed her people back East. She tried to write to them, but the letters always came back. It tore her up something awful.”

  “Do you know what that was all about?”

  “She told me that George Fisk worked for her father’s law firm before he decided to run for the Senate. Her family’s a pack of Boston blue bloods. They cut her off when she ran off and married your Daddy.”

  “So when she was gone that summer, she wasn’t in Boston seeing them?” Jenny asked.

  Clara was silent for a minute and then she said. “It happened on a day when your Daddy was taking cows to market.”

  Irene Lockwood watched her husband drive out the front gate of the Rocking L pulling a cattle trailer. She had just returned from Clara Wyler’s house where she left her daughters for the day, telling Clara she was going to take advantage of having Langston out of the house to do major housework. Clara, ever the efficient ranch wife, wholeheartedly approved the plan and was stirring up a batch of cookies for the girls when Irene left.

  Once she was certain Langston would not return, Irene went to the barn and saddled the mare her husband gave her as a wedding present. Dixie was a fine spirited sorrel, small and compact, easily the match for any of the mounts at the Myopia Hunt Club, though her well-bred Boston relatives would be aghast at the western saddle she’d just cinched in place.

  Irene was an accomplished horsewoman and wasn’t at all daunted by riding up to Baxter’s Draw on her own. She had watched her husband through binoculars, and even followed him to the mouth of the canyon before without being detected. By the end of this day, she’d find out why Langston went there for days on end.

  It was a beautiful spring morning and a rare chance for Irene to be alone. No thundering disapproval from her controlling husband or stony silences when he was in a mood to punish her. No walking on eggshells and trying to make things all right for the girls. She found herself drinking in the fresh air and sunlight like a starving woman craves food. For just the space of a breath, she remembered what it felt like to be fre
e, and then it was gone again. She had children who counted on her.

  Pangs of guilt shot through her as she thought of Kate and Jenny. Should she take them away from this place? But if she did, where would they go? Langston gave her a pittance to run the household. She managed to save a little to put aside, but it wasn’t enough for the three of them to live. Every letter she sent to her family came back marked, “Return to Sender.” She was dead to the Boston Northrups. They didn’t even know about Kate and Jenny.

  Irene shook off the growing desperation of her thoughts, concentrating on the taste of the crisp morning air and the vibrancy of the greening countryside. She loved her adopted land, had loved it from the moment George Fisk brought her here. Then she had been an elegant trophy on the arm of an aspiring Congressman.

  Now he practiced family law on the town square; his ambitions shattered by the same man who all but held her captive on this ranch. And yet, she had seen another side of Langston Lockwood. When he was busy stealing her away from George, he was a different man entirely. Charming, intellectual, well read, passionate. He had literally taken her breath away. On their wedding night he was the tenderest of lovers. But then, the sun came up and that man was gone.

  Langston’s transformation left her shaken to her core. How could she have made such a terrible mistake? How could she have been so blind? Unsure of what to do, left with few choices, Irene simply followed his rules. To Langston’s credit, he never hit her. He didn’t have to. His coldness and the sharp edge of his tongue delivered deeper wounds.

  There were days when Irene almost wished he would hit her. That was a pain she thought perhaps she could better understand. Especially after those nights when he would appear at her bedroom door. When he would look at her with longing in his eyes and she could not deny him. He was always gone by morning, both from her bed and from their brief connection.