Lone Star Woman

by CALLAHAN, SADIE

  “I didn’t know it until I saw him at her funeral. He told me then that he’d be heading out here.”

  Margie Wallace’s funeral had taken place two weeks back. Jude, her father and her grandfather had been present, too. Now she knew why Brady Fallon looked familiar. He had been a pallbearer. “You know him?”

  “He’s an old friend, though I haven’t seen much of him lately. He’s been living in Stephenville. You know him, too, if you think about it.”

  She racked her memory but came up with zero. “Why should I know him?”

  “He used to spend summers with Margie and Harry when he was a kid. He ran around some with Cable and me.” Jake picked up a pen and began turning it with his fingers, his eyes leveled on her face. “What were you doing at the 6-0?”

  A glimmer of recollection started to glow in Jude’s brain, but she refocused on answering Jake’s question. No way did she intend for him to find out about her plans that had just been smashed. She ducked his gaze. “I just happened to be driving up the road on my way to town and saw a strange pickup parked at Mrs. Wallace’s house. I thought it might be a thief.”

  His brow arched, Jake stopped playing with the pen. “And you confronted him? Jude, how many times have I—”

  “So he inherited that place, lock, stock and barrel, huh?” she asked quickly, sensing a lecture coming. “He told me he’s going to live there.”

  Jake leaned on an elbow on his chair arm. “Maybe. But I wonder. I think he’s taking on a handful. That house is so run-down, I don’t know if it can be brought back. And I don’t know what shape the other buildings are in. And the pasture . . .” He shook his head. “I just don’t know.”

  Jude had given only a fleeting thought to the possible cost of restoring the buildings at the 6-0, though she had looked closely at the pasture. It called for some work, for sure. But she couldn’t let Jake know she had afforded it so much as a glance. “I guess I haven’t looked that closely.”

  “It’s too bad what’s happened to that place. It was pretty once. But it’s reached the point of no return, in my opinion.”

  “From what I knew of Margie Wallace,” Jude said, “the appearance of the place would have been the last thing to concern her. I still can’t figure out how I missed hearing someone had inherited it. Holy cow, gossip’s more prevalent than air around here.”

  Jake’s mouth tipped into a grin. “Sometimes there’s a dead branch in the grapevine.”

  Jude leaned forward and braced her palms on her thighs. “So this Brady guy has got some money, huh? To fix it up, I mean?”

  “I don’t know. He made good in Fort Worth in the construction business, but he got a divorce a couple of years ago. From the way he talks, I’m guessing he got skinned.”

  New hope flickered in Jude’s heart. “You think he might sell the 6-0, then?”

  “He says not. At least, not at this point.” Jake leaned forward again, his eyes intently on her face. “Why are you so interested?”

  For an instant, Jude wondered how it would feel to be a criminal guilty of something and to be interrogated by Jake Strayhorn. “Oh, just being nosy. You know how I am. When you’re a native, you just like to know what’s going on.”

  If she’d had any doubt about the legitimacy of the inheritance and the new heir’s intentions, this brief conversation with Jake had erased it. Time to change the subject. “And speaking of what’s going on, Jake, I heard Chuck picked up Jimmy Wilson for DUI the other night.” Chuck Jones was Jake’s only deputy.

  “Lemme guess. Jimmy was one of your students.”

  Jude had been teaching biology and science and helping coach the girls’ sports at Willard County High School since returning from A&M five years ago. With the total high school population at fewer than a hundred kids, she knew most of the teenagers as well as the young adults who had chosen to stay in Willard County rather than move elsewhere to make a living. She had a protective attitude about her students and former students. After all, she had graduated from Willard County High School herself. “Last year. I heard this wasn’t the first time for him. Is he in a lot of trouble?”

  “Not for me to say. It’s up to the judge.”

  Jude knew she would get nowhere questioning Jake, but she felt a need to stand up for someone she believed to be a good person, someone who deserved a chance. “He was one of my best students. He’s a real smart kid. He has a real interest in science.”

  “Hangs out with the wrong people,” Jake said. “If he’s gonna have a future, he needs to get his act together. He probably should get out of Lockett.”

  Well, that was more than Jake usually said about people his office dealt with. “Easier said than done, coming from the family he does,” Jude replied. “You should talk him into joining the army or something.” In a worse mood than ever, and not wanting to discuss the influence Jimmy’s alcoholic parents had on him, she got to her feet on a big sigh. “Well, I’m on my way to Suzanne’s.”

  Jake, too, rose. She started for the exit but stopped in the doorway and turned back to reassure herself of the answer to one of the questions that had brought her here. “So we aren’t kin to this Brady, then?”

  She could barely keep all the members of the Campbell-Strayhorn clan straight. Grandpa talked about the dead ones as if they were still alive, which only added to her confusion. And she sometimes ran into distant cousins she didn’t know she had.

  “No. He’s just an old friend from back when we were kids. Before the . . .”

  Jake ducked his chin and a long pause followed. Jude knew he had almost said something about the scandalous incident no one discussed, the tragedy that had separated Jake and his mother from the Strayhorn family. Jude personally hadn’t been so affected by what had happened between Jake’s father and her own stepmother or their deaths. She had been too young to be greatly emotionally impacted, but Jake had been fourteen when the accident occurred, and he had been closer to the whole affair. No doubt he still remembered much of it.

  “Well, when we were kids,” he said, raising his head and hooking his thumbs into his belt, obviously recovered.

  Jude had been a kid, too—a seven-year-old to be exact—when Brady Fallon would have been hanging out with Jake and Cable. Her memory of those days was spotty.

  Since Jake chose to avoid the subject by not even naming it, Jude did, too. She was still distracted by the encounter with Brady Fallon. On one level, she felt relief. For some reason, she didn’t want him to be a relative. She laughed, attempting to lighten the mood and slide past Jake’s uncomfortable moment. “What I remember is y’all used to shut me out. You never let me go anywhere with you.”

  Jake laughed, too. “You were a pip-squeak back then. And a mouthy one at that. The mouthy part still applies.”

  Half an hour later, Jude found her best friend, Suzanne, in her barn lot currying her horse. That woman had a regular romance going on with a buckskin gelding she called Buck.

  Though Jude and Suzanne Breedlove had been friends since kindergarten, their lives had gone in two starkly different directions. Suzanne had participated in small-time rodeos forever, riding barrels, but not often winning and never owning a horse good enough to take her to championships.

  She hadn’t had wealthy parents to help pay her way through college. Having at best a strained relationship with her mother, she had left home right after high school and struggled to both work and go to college in Lubbock. The summer after her second year, at a rodeo, she met a Pro-Rodeo bull rider from Wyoming and hit the rodeo trail. Jude knew a few professional rodeoers, including her cousin Cable. Chasing rodeos was a hard life. Being adrenaline junkies, bull riders in particular had a reputation for fast and hard living.

  Suzanne had returned to Lockett two years ago after having been so out of touch with her family, she hadn’t even come home for her mother’s funeral. She showed up at her dad’s house in the middle of the night with a black eye, a dislocated shoulder and numerous scars. To this day, she hadn�
�t said specifically what had happened between her and her Wyoming bull rider. Now she lived with her widowed dad, Truett, a long-haul trucker. In her father’s almost constant absence, Suzanne kept the Breedlove hearth and home and worked in town at Lucky’s Grocery. Other than the Circle C’s supply house, Lucky’s was the only grocery store in Lockett and one of the few employers besides the Circle C.

  Suzanne was something of a free spirit and claimed to be content with her present life. If that was true, Jude envied her. Jude couldn’t recall the last time, if there had ever been one, when she had felt content. She walked over to Buck and ran a palm down his smooth neck. He was damp with sweat. “So what’s going on with Buck?”

  “We did some exercise this morning over at Pat Garner’s. He told me I could use his arena anytime I want to. Can’t let my horse get out of shape.”

  Pat Garner was a local small rancher who worked with cutting horses, his interest so high he had built his own arena. He was an excellent horse trainer who sometimes did work for the Circle C, but he was a shy man who had been divorced for several years. Jude believed he harbored a crush on the flamboyant Suzanne. Evidently unable to find the nerve to actually ask her out, he would use any excuse to see her.

  “I’m surprised you aren’t sleeping with Pat by now.”

  “He’s willing, but I’m still thinking about it. I’m still sizing him up.”

  “He’s a nice guy. I like him. He’s good with horses. What are you doing in his arena with Buck? Why does he need to be in shape?”

  “You never know when I might take up barrel racing again.”

  That was empty talk. Jude knew horses. Buck might be pretty and have a sweet personality, but he was no champion barrel horse. Nor was Suzanne a champion rider. She was thirty years old, twenty pounds overweight, out of shape and out of practice for years. Her barrel-racing days were as far gone as yesterday’s passing tumbleweeds. At different times here and there, Jude had heard Suzanne say all of that herself.

  When Jude didn’t reply, Suzanne asked, “What’s on your mind?”

  Though she didn’t feel like laughing, Jude managed a chuckle. “I must be as transparent as cellophane. You’re the second person who’s asked me that today.”

  Suzanne laughed. She had a lusty, infectious laugh. She gripped her horse’s halter and started him toward the gate. “Who was the first?”

  “Jake.” Jude walked alongside Buck on the opposite side, her palm on his shoulder.

  “Naturally,” Suzanne said. “That pretty man’s got eyes like a hawk. Just one time I wish he’d train them on me. Honey, I’d give him a ride for his money.” She opened the gate and Buck clumped through into the sunny pasture.

  “Good luck with that,” Jude said, stuffing her hands into her back pockets and watching the horse lower his head and start munching. “If I didn’t hear about him taking someone out on a date every once in a while, I’d think he doesn’t even like women.”

  Suzanne closed the gate and latched it, then pulled off the blue scarf that held back her hair. Layered bleached-blond curls fell past her shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. I’m just mouthing. You know I’m through with men.”

  They began walking back toward the barn. “Yeah, yeah,” Jude said. “Until the next one comes along. You love men. And sex. It’s just a matter of time before you’re in bed with Pat.”

  Suzanne grinned impishly. “What can I say, girlfriend? Sometimes a girl just needs to get laid. Without getting involved, know what I mean?”

  Jude’s brow tugged into a frown. “You know, I can’t recall a time when I’ve ever felt an urge to just get laid.”

  “Oops,” Suzanne said, laughing. “I should have said except for you. I forgot you’re not human.”

  Jude was more human than Suzanne, or anyone, would ever know. She simply had more control over her urges than most people. But more importantly, she had different priorities. She had a legacy to consider, a fact that lurked in the farthest recesses of her mind without letup.

  Though no one had ever told her so, she believed with all her heart that the day would come when she would take Daddy’s position as manager of the Circle C or even Grandpa’s seat as the president of Strayhorn Corp. The conviction influenced and shaped every facet of her life. Meanwhile, she had no desire to create an environment where former sex partners and even scandal would come out of the woodwork to embarrass the family.

  But beyond all that, she didn’t categorize sex as recreation. As a biologist, she knew of too many possible negative consequences. “Yes, I am,” Jude said, irked because she felt as if she had to justify not sleeping around.

  “It can be just for fun, you know.”

  “Not for me.”

  They had reached Suzanne’s small tack room. Jude leaned on the steel-pipe corral fence while Suzanne went inside. “You know what your problem is?” Suzanne said from inside the tack room. “You’ve never had it when it was really, really good. If you ever did, you’d be just like the rest of us poor deprived souls. You couldn’t leave it alone.”

  Suzanne’s favorite topic was sex. She could talk about it all day. “You don’t know what I’ve had,” Jude said, now even more annoyed. This wasn’t the conversation she had come to her friend’s house to have.

  “Yes, I do. You’ve told me about the two losers you were engaged to.”

  Jude had never called Webb Henderson and Jason Weatherby “losers.” That was Suzanne’s word. Jude might not admire or respect either of her former fiancés, but she had always been guarded in what she said about them. Their families were still friends of Daddy’s and Grandpa’s. “They aren’t losers. Webb’s a partner in his daddy’s law firm now. And Jason’s an officer in his daddy’s bank.”

  A snort came from inside the tack room. “I rest my case.” Suzanne came back outside and closed the tack room door. “What would they be without their daddies?”

  Jude had wondered the same thing but never said it.

  “I thought you were going to Abilene to meet with the banker today,” Suzanne said.

  “That fell through. I came by to let you talk me into a good mood, but so far, you aren’t doing a very good job.”

  Suzanne gave a thumbs-up. “But I can do it. I’m the queen of good cheer. They expecting you home for lunch?”

  “No. They think I’m in Abilene.”

  “Wanna go up to the house? I’ll find something in the fridge. Believe it or not, they started stocking Boar’s Head in the meat department at Lucky’s. I brought home some great ham. I’ll feed you and you can tell me what’s bugging you.”

  Jude shrugged. “Okay.” They began the trek toward the Breedlove house, a redbrick sixties-vintage ranch. “Suzanne, when we were kids, did you ever know a guy named Brady Fallon?”

  “Nope. Who is he?”

  “The new owner of the 6-0.”

  Suzanne made a little gasp. “You are shitting me. He bought it? Or what?”

  “Inherited it.”

  Suzanne clasped Jude’s arm, halting their progress. “You are shitting me. I thought Margie Wallace had no heirs.”

  Jude shrugged. “Yeah, well, she had one apparently.”

  Suzanne removed her hand and they resumed walking. “Damn, girlfriend. That screws up your plans. We knew the guy as kids?”

  Jude shoved her hands into her back pockets. “Yes and no. You might not have run across him, and I was too young to remember him. He didn’t go to school here. Jake says he ran around with him and Cable for a few summers.”

  “Huh,” Suzanne grunted.

  “Looks like I’d better tell the school I won’t be quitting my job after all,” Jude said sourly.

  “Oh, my gosh, Jude. I didn’t know you’d told them you were quitting. I thought you liked teaching those kids.”

  “I thought I would get the 6-0. If I had, I was afraid I wouldn’t have time to do a good job teaching. So I said I might not be back next year. We left it sort of open. They’re waiting to hear from me.”


  Suzanne flicked her hand. “Oh, well, school won’t start ’til the middle of August. That’s more than two months away. You’ve got a little time to think about it.”

  “Not really. I can’t just leave them hanging. Angela’s waiting for me to tell her if I’ll help her with girls’ sports next year. If I don’t, they need to have time to find someone else. If I do, I’ll have to start planning before mid-August.”

  “You don’t have to do it, you know. It’s not like you need a job.”

  To Jude’s dismay, everyone—Daddy, Grandpa, even her friends—trivialized her accomplishments and efforts to be a responsible citizen. Her family’s wealth and position trumped everything else in people’s minds. “I do have to, Suzanne. I have to be productive. I couldn’t look myself in the mirror if I weren’t.”

  Suzanne sighed. “I know, Jude. You’re such a hardhead.”

  “Maybe so, but I couldn’t stand living my life on a free ride. Where’s the satisfaction in that? And as you say, I kind of like teaching those kids. They look up to me.”

  “And I admire you for wanting to be something more than the idle rich. How’s this? Since you can’t get the 6-0 land, why don’t you forget about the whole thing? If you’ve just got to have a job experimenting with something, move someplace where you can do what you’ve educated yourself to do. I’d hate to see you leave, but if you’d be happier . . .”

  Jude shook her head. “The only people left to bring in some new ideas and keep the Circle C alive are me, Jake and Cable. Jake’s a career cop. He couldn’t care less about ranching. And Cable . . . Hell, who knows what Cable cares about. He never even comes around.”

  “Earth to Jude,” Suzanne said, making a twirling motion at her temples with her fingers. “It doesn’t make any difference what those cousins do. Your grandpa and your daddy have already proved they aren’t about to let you and your ideas loose on that ranch. You’re your daddy’s little girl. And that’s what him and your grandpa want you to be.”

  “What they want is for me to find a husband and become a birthing machine. Like one of the cows.”