"Positively paranoid," Julie repeated, giving her hair one last pat. But her suspicions had been reinforced by the greeting Max received when he entered the room a few minutes later.
Carl quickly laid Bridget in Mrs. O'Brien's arms and extended his hand in Max's direction. "Max! Good to see you again."
Nancy's irregular features took on the symmetry of a smile. "We've been looking forward to coming to Half Moon for the holidays."
After a round of handshakes, greetings and smiles, Mrs. O'Brien said, "I've been telling Carl about your new bull, Mr. Max." Turning to Julie, she added, "Carl is in the cattle business, you know. He and his dad run the cattle auction barn over in Pleasanton."
The next half hour was spent discussing things Julie neither understood nor cared about. She didn't believe Mrs. O'Brien and her family, or Max for that matter, had conspired to shut her out but she had felt as isolated and alone as if they had made a master plan. Finally, with the admonition that someone should call her when Shannon arrived Julie excused herself and retired to her room.
That call never came; after awhile Julie became apprehensive. Maybe Shannon had changed her mind and wasn't coming after all. By the time the evening meal was served that apprehension had grown to foreboding.
Julie was relieved when after dinner, Nancy and Carl decided to drive to Burke's Crossing to visit friends and Mrs. O'Brien went with them. As the last echo of the retreating car motor died away she turned to Max, "Do you think Shannon has changed her mind about coming to Half Moon for Thanksgiving?"
Max stirred in his easy chair. "Would you be disappointed if she did?"
"Yes I would." She was only beginning to realize how much. "I miss her. Don't you?"
"I've been missing her for most of her life. You'd think I would have adjusted by now but I haven't."
Julie felt a sudden and definite need to clarify an obvious fact. "You could have come to visit her any time. The choice was yours."
"No, the choice was yours." Max's eyes hardened. "You chose to leave me and make a new life for you and Shannon elsewhere. After that, I was nothing more than an intruder."
Guilt made Julie defensive. "Maybe if you'd intruded more often things would have been different," A need to justify her actions made her say, "Did you really expect me to hang around and let you flaunt Lucie Traywick in my face?"
Max asked softly, "Did you expect me to sanction your living with another man by coming back for a friendly visit every few months?"
She had made so many mistakes. This was neither the time nor the place to mourn that sudden insight. "It was never my intention to separate you from your daughter."
"Maybe with time we can erase all those old memories."
Some of those memories were too dear to relegate to oblivion. Julie asked quietly, "What happened to us? We began with so many wonderful dreams."
"Time and experience have a way of dissipating illusions." An air of quiet resignation weighted Max's words. "And that's all we had, just the shadow and never the substance."
A montage of images flashed through Julie's mind, the chaos of thought and passion merging and intermingling. "And like a summer's day it was gone with the first cold blast of reality." Her heart numbed with regret.
Max half rose from his chair. "Do you think…?" He was interrupted by the sound of a car coming up the drive. "That must be Shannon." Max was on his feet and hurrying toward the door.
The joy of seeing her daughter again was tempered by the remembrance of their past differences. Julie steeled herself for what lay ahead.
Max pulled the door open. Shannon stood on the other side with a suitcase in one hand. "Daddy!" She dropped the suitcase and flew into her father's arms. "I'm so glad to see you."
Max grabbed his daughter in a bear hug. "Shannon, baby! Welcome to Half Moon."
As Shannon pulled herself from Max's embrace Julie began the slow process of standing. Shannon looked over her shoulder and called into the darkness. "They're here. Get out everyone."
Julie pasted a smile on her face and waddled toward the door.
By the time she reached Max's side Brett was helping his grandmother up the steps. His grandfather followed a few paces behind; how fragile they both looked and how old. The last time Julie was in their presence she had said some harsh things about their grandson. She was sorry for that now. Ah, but that could be the story of her life, discovering and repenting when it was too late.
"Mamma," Shannon was hugging Julie. "I can't get my arms all the way around you." She stepped back and stared into Julie's pale face. "How have you been?"
An enormous lump rose in Julie's throat. "I've been pregnant." She pulled Shannon back into her arms, secure in the knowledge that she was holding her little girl. That's what Shannon was to her, what she would always be, her little girl. "But I feel great now that you're here."
Max ushered the Morrison's into the living room and invited them to sit down. "We're so glad you could come for the holidays."
"We were pleased you invited us." Mr. Morrison sat on the couch beside his wife and put his arm around her shoulders. "Shannon said you insisted that we come."
Mrs. Morrison cut her eyes in Julie's direction. "We kept expecting Mrs. Anderson to call and confirm our invitation but she never did." Her voice was bland but her look was accusing.
There was no way Julie could explain that her tenuous position at Half Moon had made her reluctant to issue such an invitation. "That was remiss of me. I...."
Max came to her aid and her defense. "Julie feels as I do that you are members of our family now. You're always welcome here. Then, too, my wife hasn't been well."
Julie was jerked from her reverie of remembering last night and back to the insistent present with a jolt by the sound of voices coming from the hallway outside her bedroom. It should have been a welcome sound after the silence that had haunted the house for the past few weeks. Instead it only served to remind her that there would be at least twenty-five guests for Thanksgiving dinner today and most of them were strangers. Julie waddled to her sitting room and eased down on the couch. Usually by this time each morning, Max had come from his room and was waiting to escort her to breakfast. Today he was nowhere in sight. She wasn't even sure he had slept in his room last night. Maybe that was just as well.
Since their wedding night, Max had been polite and considerate. He had also been distant and reserved. Any attempt Julie made to move conversation to a personal level was immediately met with a kind but firm rebuff. Even attending their first childbirth class together hadn't broken the invisible barrier that Max had erected and seemed determined to keep firmly in place.
That indifference was not all Max's fault. On their wedding night Max had been anxious to sweep away all barriers and to acknowledge, even celebrate the passion that had blazed between them. It was she who hadn't been able to drop that final restraint and allow her body to follow the dictates of her heart.
Julie had a strong and sudden urge to call Royce. Would he call later? His calls were becoming fewer and farther between. She hadn't realized until she came to live at Half Moon how much she had depended on Royce for emotional support. Their forced separation was teaching her that such dependency, even if it was mutual, was not always in the best interest of either party involved. Maybe she should learn to stand on her own two feet. The irony of that thought made her smile. That was getting harder to do as the days went by.
Julie braced one hand against the arm of the couch, pushed herself to her feet and began to move toward the door. Three months from today was her due date. She should be making long term plans for the future.
Julie made her way down the hall and into a living room filled with people, most of them strangers. She paused just inside the door and let her eyes wander around the room as anxiety tightened in her stomach.
In a far corner Mr. and Mrs. Morrison were seated near another elderly couple. Julie decided they must be Lupe's parents. Not wanting to be thought remiss as a hostess agai
n, she began to move toward the foursome.
As she came nearer she hard Mr. Morrison say a little too loudly, "You're wrong, dead wrong. The conservative republicans in Washington would put our country back on the right track again if they weren't opposed on every hand by a band of bleeding heart liberal democrats."
Two bright spots of color burned on Mr. Reyes's cheeks. "Those liberal democrats are the social conscience of this country. The republicans in Washington want to go backward, not forward."
Lupe came from behind and caught Julie's arm. "I've been looking everywhere for you." Pulling Julie aside, she whispered, "Help me separate Mr. Morrison and my father before their disagreement erupts into a heated argument." She pulled Julie along, calling as she went, "Mom. Dad, I want you to meet Mrs. Anderson." She deftly inserted herself between her father and Mr. Morrison.
Following her lead, Julie smiled and extended her hand. "Mr. and Mrs. Reyes, I'm glad you could be with us today."
"And we're glad we could come." Mr. Reyes stood and with a gesture offered Julie his chair. "Why don't you sit down, Mrs. Anderson?"
As Julie eased into the chair, Lupe explained to her parents that their grandchildren were waiting for them in the den. She took her father's arm and ushered the couple toward the door.
"You have such a lovely home," Mrs. Morrison commented as Lupe and her parents walked away. "Brett says Max went to great lengths to have the place restored rather than just remodeled."
Julie didn't think of Half Moon as her home. She couldn't say that. "Max says the original house was built in the eighteen sixties."
Mr. Morrison chimed in: "What we've seen is so interesting."
"You're welcome to wander through the entire house, if you'd like," Julie said, with a wave of her hand.
"Could we?" Mr. Morrison's face brightened.
"I'd love that." Mrs. Morrison took her husband's arm and smiled up at him. "Let's go, Daddy."
As they walked away, Julie leaned back in her chair and let her eyes drift around the room. Slim was standing near the front door, talking to Jose and Brett. By Slim's side was a chubby little woman wearing oversized glasses and a baggy plaid pants suit. Her long brown hair was fastened in a knot at the nape of her neck. That had to be Miss Emma, the schoolteacher that Mrs. O'Brien had talked about. Julie decided she should go over and introduce herself.
Before she could find the energy to act on her decision a woman's shrill laugh made her turn and stare. The laughing woman was seated on the couch beside Hank. Carl was perched on the couch arm beside her with his head tilted to one side, listening with rapt attention to what she was saying. That, Julie told herself, has to be the bar maid Mrs. O'Brien had hoped wouldn't put in an appearance. With a figure like hers she could have been a model for Playboy rather than a bar maid at Perkie's Saloon. She wore a low-cut fire engine red dress that exposed a wide expanse of white breasts and seemed to be molded to the remainder of her curvaceous body.
"Howdy Mrs. Anderson, nice of you to have us over." Julie turned back to see Joe coming toward her with Fred following close behind.
She decided against trying to get to her feet again. "I'm pleased you chose to spend your holiday with us."
"Shucks, we didn't have no place else to go," Fred replied as the two men stopped beside Julie's chair.
"Have you met everyone here?" Julie asked.
"Yes ma'am." Joe nodded in the direction of the couch. "I'm hoping to get to know Fifi even better."
"Fifi?" A fugitive grin pulled at Julie's lips.
Fred elbowed Joe in the ribs. "That ain't fittin' here, pardner."
Joe's weather-beaten brow wrinkled. "Sorry, ma'am."
Julie suspected Joe was echoing the sentiment of most of the men in the room. "Fifi is a striking woman."
A sudden hand on her shoulder made Julie look around. Max stood behind her. Nodding to the other two men, he asked, "Could I borrow my wife for a few minutes?"
Before either of them could answer, Max had urged Julie to her feet and was steering her toward the kitchen. "We have a problem." He followed her inside and kicked the door shut. "Sit down."
Julie obeyed, asking as she lowered herself into a straight chair, "Has Brett done something to Shannon?"
"Shannon's fine. She decided to sleep in this morning. Why don't you give Brett a break?" Max seated himself in the chair across the table from her. "I need your help."
Julie couldn't imagine Max having a problem that called for her assistance. "What do you want me to do?"
Max swore. "Damn! This is all so stupid."
Julie rubbed a weary hand across her brow. "Stupid I can probably handle."
Max smiled, "I hope so," and then sobered. "Did Mrs. O'Brien mention to you that Hank and Slim and were bringing dates with them today?"
Julie smiled as she remembered. "Oh, yes. She approves of the school teacher but not the bar maid." It occurred to Julie that she hadn't been formally introduced to either woman. "I think the teacher's name is Emma something-or-other, the barmaid, from what second-hand information I can gather, is called Fifi."
"Her name is Fifi Trent." Once again a sardonic smile creased Max's face. "I doubt that Fifi is her real name, but that's the one she claims."
"So Slim and Hank brought dates? Julie concluded. "So what?
"Mrs. O'Brien doesn't approve of the way Fifi is dressed."
"And she told Fifi that?" Julie couldn't believe Mrs. O'Brien would be that rude.
"She hasn't gone that far yet," Max answered. "But Mrs. O'Brien doesn't hide her feelings too well. She's been giving Fifi the cold shoulder since the moment she came through the door."
"And you want me to make Fifi feel welcome? Is that it?"
"It's a little more complicated than that." Max rubbed his hand along his smooth-shaven jaw. "It's not Mrs. O'Brien who's the problem now, it's Fifi. She must have decided that its payback time and she knows just where to aim her arrows. She's been coming onto Carl like crazy. Carl is embarrassed."
Julie remembered the smitten look on Carl's face as she watched him conversing with Fifi earlier. "He didn't look embarrassed to me."
Max gave her a narrow, disapproving look. "Well, he is, and Nancy is in tears, Hank is acting like a bear with a sore head and Mrs. O'Brien is fit to be tied."
"What do you want me to do?" This sounded like a scenario from a TV sit-com.
"I don't know." Max lifted his hands and then let them fall to his sides. "Something."
Julie asked incredulously. "Do you want me to go out there and tell Fifi to stop flirting with Carl? Or maybe I could suggest to Mrs. O'Brien that she mind her manners."
Max raised an ironic eyebrow. "Would you?"
"No." Julie shook her head. "That's not the solution."
"Then what is the solution?"
"How the hell do I know?" Julie returned testily.
"You'd better help me think of something and soon if you don't want to see this Thanksgiving Day turned into at best a brawl, and at worst..." His voice trailed away, then revived, "A disaster."
"While we're thinking of ways to resolve disagreements maybe we can come up with some means to reconcile the political differences between Mr. Morrison and Mr. Reyes."
Max's expression was tight with strain. "Have they been disagreeing?"
"They've been at each other's throats all morning. What must we have been thinking to gather this many strangers under one roof for what's supposed to be a family holiday?"
"I guess we weren't." Max's eyes caught hers and he smiled. "Thinking, I mean. The question now is how do we get through this day without an explosion?"
"Maybe we can divide and conquer. Can you find some excuse to get Mr. Reyes and Carl outside? Ask then to look at a horse or a cow or something."
"El Toro!" Max's snapping fingers cracked the still atmosphere. "I can ask them to come with me to see El Toro."
"Keep them outside until it's time for dinner." Julie glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. "That's an hou
r from now. Can you detain them that long?"
"I'll manage," Max said and then asked "And after dinner? What do we do then?"
An idea was beginning to take shape inside Julie's brain. "We'll sing. We'll make so much noise no one will have a chance to talk."
"This is no time to make pointless jokes."
"I'm not joking." Julie leaned across the table. "Mrs. O'Brien says your cowhands are musicians. Hank plays the violin, Slim plays the guitar, and Joe the harmonica. Pete's a singer. She says also that Fred is a fabulous storyteller. If we can keep a lid on things until dinner time then after dinner we can insist that they entertain us." Julie pushed her chair back. "Of course we have to get through dinner. I'll make sure that Mr. Morrison and Mr. Reyes are at opposite ends of the table and that Fifi is no where near Carl." She leaned on the table and pushed herself to her feet. "After the music, we can ask Fred to tell a tall tale or two. If we can keep him talking until the Cowboys start to play football, we have it made." Julie was almost to the door when she turned and frowned at Max who was still sitting in his chair with a flabbergasted expression on his face. "Get going. We don't have any time to waste."
Julie's plan was much easier to conceive than it was to carry out. Mr. Reyes was delighted at the prospect of visiting the barn and El Toro but Carl hung back. Finally Julie cornered him in the vestibule. "Carl, get your coat on and go to the barn." She was amazed at her own audacity.
"Thank you, Mrs. Anderson," Carl intoned politely, "but I prefer to stay inside."
Leaning nearer, Julie gritted her teeth and hissed, "Carl, go to the barn, now!"
Drawing himself up, Carl said, "I don't know why...."
Exasperated, Julie ground out, "Yes you do. Go!"
To her total surprise he went.
Mrs. O'Brien was not happy about changing her seating arrangement. "Things seem perfect the way they are."
It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon. Dinner was scheduled to be served at one. Julie was already physically and mentally exhausted. A little ache was beginning to pound in her temples. "Nothing is ever perfect. Don't argue just rearrange the place cards the way I asked you."
You Belong to Me Page 21