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

by Juliette Harper

  Just two days earlier when the whole family gathered for a cookout around the pool, Jenny found herself watching Joe Mason. His eyes followed his wife’s every move with equal parts love, concern, and sadness.

  At the first opportunity, Jenny drew him aside and asked point blank. “Joe, you’re watching Mandy like a hawk. Is there something I need to know? Is she okay?”

  Worry openly flooded his face. “I don’t know, Jenny,” he said. “She eats. She takes care of the girls. She goes through the motions, but she’s just not herself. She won’t talk to me. She says everything’s okay, but I just don’t think it is. I don’t know what to do.”

  Jenny laid a comforting hand on his arm. “There may not be anything any of us can do right now, Joe,” she said soothingly. “It’s only been six weeks. Losing the baby and Jolene at the same time was a huge blow. How about you? How are you doing?”

  Joe swallowed hard, looked away, and then said, with forced optimism, “Oh, I’m okay. Keeping busy. I love having the girls with us. You know Rick was a really good dad. I want to do right by his daughters.”

  “That’s a big responsibility,” Jenny said.

  “It is,” he agreed somberly. “But I think they like me, don’t you?”

  That night Jenny told Josh, “You boys need to take Joe Bob fishing or something. He’s wound up tighter than an eight-day clock, worried sick about Mandy, and scared to death Sissy and Missy aren’t going to like him.”

  “We’ve tried,” Josh said. “When he’s not working in town, he doesn’t want to let Mandy out of his sight. And he’s determined to be there pretty much every minute for those little girls.”

  “He’s not going to be any good to any of them if he keeps putting this much pressure on himself,” Jenny said. “Can’t you and Jake get him to talk or throw things or do whatever the hell it is you men do to make each other feel better?”

  “Joe Bob isn’t exactly the type to start throwing things,” Josh observed mildly.

  “Whatever,” Jenny said. “You and Jake figure something out to help him. He lost that baby, too. He’s hurting.”

  Josh sighed. “I know,” he said. “Joe Bob called me to come down the day before yesterday and get those tomatoes from his garden. He was in his workshop out behind the garage. Did you know he’d already started building a crib?”

  Tears came to Jenny’s eyes. “God, no,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  “He was putting the pieces in a box when I came in,” Josh said.

  “Did you say anything?” Jenny asked.

  “No,” Josh said. “He was trying awful hard not to cry, so we just went out to the garden and I helped him pick tomatoes. That did him more good.”

  Jenny blew out a frustrated sigh. “For the life of me, I do not understand how men communicate,” she said.

  “You’re not supposed to, honey,” he said. “You think the three of us understand you girls? I swear to God you and Katie can tell each other more with a look across the room than I can get out of you flapping my lips for an hour.”

  “That’s different,” Jenny said. “Katie and I, well, we just know each other. We know when to talk . . .”

  “And when not to talk,” Josh said, finishing her thought. “Joe’s not ready to talk to anybody yet and he’s not gonna be ready as long as he’s afraid Mandy will fall apart at any second. When she was in the hospital and wouldn’t respond to anyone, I’ve never seen a man more lost and helpless.

  “I don’t want Joe to get pushed aside in all this concern about Mandy,” Jenny said. “We need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Josh put his arms around her and pulled her into a hug, kissing the top of her head.

  “Did I do something hug worthy?” Jenny asked, laying her head against his shoulder.

  “You’re a lot sweeter than you want people to think you are,” he said.

  Jenny made a low grumbling noise in her throat. “Don’t let anybody hear you talk like that, Josh Baxter,” she groused.

  He laughed, tightening his arms around her. “You and Katie concentrate on helping Mandy,” he said. “That’s gonna do more for Joe than anything else, but I’ll talk to Jake and see if he has any ideas.”

  Now, sitting with Mandy and looking at the heavy circles ringing her eyes, Jenny thought privately that Joe Mason had good reason to be concerned about his wife. “Are you sleeping at all, honey?” Jenny asked.

  Mandy squeezed Jenny’s fingers. “Don’t start,” she scolded gently. “You’re as bad as Joe.”

  “Answer my question,” Jenny said, stroking her sister’s hand with her thumb.

  “Not much,” Mandy admitted. “I can usually fall asleep, but I wake up in the middle of the night and then I can’t stay still. I have to get up and do something. Joe sleeps like the dead, so I check on the girls, work on things for the revitalization committee. Sometimes I just come out here and look at the stars.”

  “I do that, too,” Jenny said. “After all those years in New York, I can’t get enough of that big ole Texas sky. But honey, you need your rest. Do you use those pills the doctor gave you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I agree with Katie. It’s too easy to get hooked on those things. I’m okay, Jenny. Really.”

  Jenny kept her mouth shut, but thought to herself that dropping 25 lbs. and hiding your fatigue behind a huge pair of sunglasses didn’t qualify as “okay.”

  Mandy read the expression on her sister’s face and said brightly, “Did I tell you I’m taking the girls to Houston this Friday?”

  “No, you didn’t,” Jenny said. “Just the three of you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Joe isn’t happy about it, but I explained to him that I need to give Sissy and Missy some girl time. I’m going to introduce them to the gals I worked with at Neiman’s, and then we’re going shopping for their school clothes. I got us a room at the Galleria, so all we have to do is go right downstairs and spend money.”

  Jenny grinned, “That you’ve always known how to do.”

  For just a second Mandy’s sunny smile flashed across her face, but then she faltered. “Will you and Josh look out for Joe?” she asked. “I feel bad about leaving him, but I really think the girls need the attention.”

  “Of course we will,” Jenny said. “I’m sure we can come up with something to keep him occupied.”

  “Actually,” Mandy said, “I think Phil may get here just as we’re pulling out.”

  Jenny frowned. “You’re not going to miss him completely are you?”

  “Oh, no,” Mandy said smiling. “He’s coming to pick a place to build his cabin. He and Katie had a long talk and he explained how he still wants to live off the grid and do his organic gardening and stuff. He’s really smart, Jenny.”

  The look of shy pride on her sister’s face when she talked about her newly discovered father was heartwarming to Jenny. Even if Mandy had fared better at Langston Lockwood’s hands than her older sisters, none of them had really ever had the chance to bask in a father’s love. It was too late for Kate and for herself, but Jenny wanted that experience for Mandy with Phil Baxter.

  “Does he have a spot on the ranch in mind?” Jenny asked.

  “I think he’d like to be closer down toward the river,” Mandy said. “He’s lived out there in the Big Bend country by himself for a long time. I know he’s used to being alone a lot of the time, and I think sometimes too many people kind of overwhelms him. He had a real hard time in Vietnam.”

  “Sissy and Missy sure have taken to him,” Jenny said.

  “Oh, they love him to pieces,” Mandy said. “He’s so gentle and quiet. And I love the way he explains things to them. I think it’s going to be good for the twins that he’s going to be here with all of us. They need as much family as we can give them.”

  Jenny listened as Mandy described Phil’s plans to give his land to the University of Texas at El Paso where academics would use his current compound as an experimental station for research in sustainable living.


  Apparently his blog, Marfa Off the Map, had generated more interest than he realized. “He might even write a book,” Mandy said, her eyes shining. “Some of the things he’s rigged up out there are really innovative and the researchers are interested in his ideas.”

  “Can he recreate all that here in the Hill Country?” Jenny asked.

  “No,” Mandy said. “We don’t get the same kind of sun for solar power they get out there, but that’s just got him all excited about combining wind and solar and all this stuff about deep storage batteries and, oh, I don’t know — it just makes my head spin. But I love to listen to him talk.”

  Jenny laughed. “I think that’s all that matters. I’m sure Josh would really enjoy helping Phil look for good spots to build his new place. You know Josh, he sees a gadget, all he wants to do is take it apart and figure out how it works. Of course, half the time he can’t get it back together again. He’s forbidden to touch anything in my studio.”

  Mandy snickered. “You’re just still upset about how he tried to fix your coffee machine.”

  “His idea of fixing had the coffee spewing out and flying halfway across the room,” Jenny observed drily. “I’m still trying to get the coffee stains off the ceiling on that side of the room.”

  “Well, I’ll bet Phil can keep him occupied and out of trouble,” Mandy said. “I want Phil to get to know Katie better, too. Where is she today, anyway?”

  Jenny shifted in her chair and said, “Well, actually, that’s part of the reason I came down this morning. To tell you that Katie is in town having lunch with Dusty Jackson.”

  Mandy’s eyes widened. “The Dusty Jackson?” she asked. “The one who used to ride bulls and start bar fights and stuff?”

  “That would be the one,” Jenny said. “And she didn’t actually start that bar fight.”

  “She didn’t?”

  “No,” Jenny grinned, “but she sure as hell finished it.”

  “Is Dusty just passing through or something?” Mandy asked.

  “She came back because Katie asked her to,” Jenny said.

  “Why would Katie do that?”

  “Because she’s got it in her head this place needs a manager,” Jenny said. “And she’s offering Dusty the job.”

  94

  When Dusty stepped into the café, she paused at the door and scanned the room. Kate Lockwood caught sight of her old friend and waved a greeting, standing up as the woman approached the table. "Damn, Dusty," Kate said in lieu of a hello. "Would it hurt you to look our age?"

  The two women hugged and Dusty slipped off her sunglasses as she sat down at the table. "It's not the years, darling," she said, "it's the miles. How the hell are you?"

  "A mile or two farther down the road than the last time you saw me," Kate said.

  The waitress walked up at just that moment, pad in hand. "You all ready to order?" she asked.

  "I'll take the lunch special," Kate said.

  Dusty thought for a minute and said, "Is meatloaf still the Wednesday special?"

  "Yes, ma'am," the waitress said, smiling cheerfully. "No sense fixing what ain't broke."

  "Same for me," Dusty said, "and ice tea, please, ma'am."

  "You got it, honey," the woman said, bustling off toward the counter.

  "How many thousands of pounds of meatloaf do you reckon they've dished up in this place in the last 50 years?" Dusty asked, pushed back her chair and crossing her legs.

  "More than we can count," Kate said. "Damn, how long has it been since we've seen each other?"

  "Must be 10 or 15 years," Dusty said. "It was right after you told Langston to go to hell and bought your own land. I was sorry to hear about your daddy."

  "No, you weren't," Kate grinned. "You hated the old bastard and you know it."

  "Well, hell," Dusty said. "I was trying to be polite."

  "Don't bother," Kate said. "It's just me."

  The two women regarded each other with the familiarity of friends who had known each other their entire lives. "How you doing with that?" Dusty asked, gesturing to Kate's left arm, secured in place against her waist in a padded cup attached to an intricately tooled leather belt.

  "Not much choice,” Kate said. “This is stud, not draw. You gotta play the cards you’re dealt.”

  “No ace in the hole?” Dusty asked. “It's not gonna get any better?"

  Kate shook her head. "Bullet tore the shoulder all to hell and back. The doc says I'm lucky they didn't have to take the arm off. No one-eyed jacks in this game.”

  “Well,” Dusty said, "I'll bet you know when a blue norther's about to blow up."

  “I wouldn’t recommend you bet on the weather with me,” Kate agreed ruefully. “But to tell you the truth, the damn thing pretty much hurts all the time, not just when it’s cold outside.”

  “That’s rough. Did you decide to quit ranching because of the arm?”

  “Beat around the bush, why don’t you?” Kate said drily.

  “Why?” Dusty asked amiably. “Like you said, it’s just me.”

  Kate smiled. “I’ve missed you, Dusty,” she said. “And to answer your question, yes and no. Being one handed is annoying as hell, I’m not gonna lie to you about that, but like I said on the phone, there’s a lot we need to catch up on."

  "Talk away," Dusty said. "Not like I've got anything else to do."

  Recounting the events on the Rocking L over the past two years always made Kate feel like she was narrating the plot of some B-grade action movie.

  From the moment her father, Langston Lockwood, committed suicide in the barn wearing a $1000 Stetson, nothing had fallen into the realm of normal for his daughters, Kate, Jenny, and Mandy.

  A Texas rancher going to the barn with his pistol wasn’t all that unusual. But a man like Langston Lockwood would never put a bullet through his best hat. That was the first thing the girls questioned about their father’s actions, but it was far from the last.

  As their plates arrived and the two women began to eat their meatloaf, Kate told the whole story, from hidden Aztec treasure in Baxter’s Draw to Langston’s obsession with a dead woman who wasn’t dead at all. In fact, Alice Browning, now Elizabeth Jones, was not only alive but full of even more revelations about the Lockwood family.

  At the news that Langston was not Mandy’s father, Dusty stopped, fork in mid-air, “Holy shit,” she said. “Is Mandy okay?”

  “Oh, there’s more,” Kate said, explaining about Mandy’s miscarriage, the deaths of Jolene and Rick Wilson, and the fact that Mandy and her husband, Joe Mason, were now raising the Wilson twins, Sissy and Missy.

  By this time, the waitress had cleared away their dinner plates and brought coffee and pecan pie. “So,” Dusty said, “let me see if I’ve got all this right. You’re keeping company with the archaeologist who runs this institute honoring Langston, Jenny’s engaged to a Baxter, and Mandy married the mayor and they’re raising two little orphan eight year olds.”

  “Yes,” Kate nodded.

  “And Langston was a closet artist mooning over a dead woman up in a draw full of gold, which is why you all are millionaires now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And some son of a bitch mobster type from Jenny’s past tried to take the gold, was the cause of you getting shot, and you finally plugged his sorry ass?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you quit ranching because you can’t stand not being able to do things the way you always have, but you want to start a vineyard?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s how you found me?” Dusty asked. “Researching vineyards?”

  “For somebody who slept through most of our high school years,” Kate laughed, “you keep up in class real well. I was looking at websites and saw your picture. I wouldn’t have pegged you to be managing an outfit like that. A horse ranch, maybe. I really didn’t think you’d be interested in coming back here, and frankly, I didn’t expect you to show up on the bus. Now it’s your turn to talk.”

 
; Dusty cut off a fork full of pie, chewing rhythmically before washing the bite down with black coffee. “Well, Katie,” she said, “I’ve always been damned good at complicating my life, so about five years ago, I decided to see if I could simplify it.”

  “What happened five years ago?” Kate asked.

  “Well, one night up in Cheyenne after I knocked over all three barrels and had an . . . encounter . . . with a bull rider,” Dusty said, “I took a real good look at myself in the mirror and asked myself if I wanted to wind up being just one more old hide following the rodeo circuit.”

  “And the answer was no?” Kate asked.

  “The answer was that I was too young to feel as old as I did right at that moment,” Dusty said. “I drove out of Cheyenne that very night and headed to California. Wound up in Napa Valley and answered an ad for a hand at the Farber’s place.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Whatever they told me to do at first,” Dusty said, playing with her pie. “But the old man, Antoine, took a liking to me.”

  Kate raised an eyebrow.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter,” Dusty said. “He’s older than my grandpa.”

  “Your grandpa is dead,” Kate said.

  “My point exactly,” Dusty agreed. “Anyway, Antoine kinda made me his protégé, teaching me about the grapes and how to care for them. When I told him that you called and what you had in mind, he said I should come talk to you.”

  “Did he say why?” Kate asked.

  Dusty smiled. “He’s almost a hundred, Katie,” she said. “It’s like listening to that little wrinkled dude from Star Wars talk. He said, ‘Lauren, you must find the vines that will grow to the sound of your voice.’”

  “I think I’d like him,” Kate said.

  “You would,” Dusty agreed. “He’s the best man I’ve known since I lost Daddy. Anyway, I’ve been making my life as simple as possible. Got rid of my truck a couple of years ago, lived in a little 300 sq. ft. place at the vineyard. Antoine offered to fly me out here, but I wanted the time on the bus to look at the countryside and just think about what coming back to this town would mean for me.”