Lone Star Woman

by CALLAHAN, SADIE

  8

  Brady still couldn’t believe J. D. Strayhorn’s daughter was riding to Stephenville with him to help do grunge work. When it came to women, he had done some dumb things, but what he was doing now just might be the dumbest yet. Why hadn’t he made himself say “no, thanks” when she volunteered to help? Was it because of who she was?

  He glanced across the cab at the passenger seat. Jude’s head leaned against the headrest as she slept. Her scent, something soft and flowery, drifted to him. He had noticed it yesterday morning, too.

  Thank God she had dropped off to sleep. He needed to escape her questions and think. But he wasn’t thinking very well because he kept sneaking glances at her from the corner of his eye—at the shape of her breasts in a body-hugging top, peeking from behind a denim jacket and gently rising and falling with deep breathing. With her hair pulled back in a braid, he could see her delicate profile and skin so smooth it didn’t have as much as a freckle, though it was a tinge pink from yesterday’s sun.

  Her dark, thick eyelashes lay against her cheek like little brushes, and he thought about how, a long time ago, before everything went sour, he used to kiss Marvalee awake, starting with her eyelids.

  But it was Judith Ann Strayhorn’s lips, now slightly parted and vulnerable in sleep, that got to him. The color of ripe berries. And probably taste just as sweet.

  Yesterday, even with his shirt covering a tight little top with skinny straps and tight jeans fitting her firm bottom like a coat of paint, she had distracted him. Then his agreeing to let her accompany him today had kept him awake half the night. What had he been thinking?

  Of all of the obvious lures, he had to acknowledge, none of them were what had persuaded him to allow her to come along with him. What had kept him from saying “no, thanks” was more mysterious. She had touched an instinct buried so deep within him, he couldn’t even identify it. It was something he couldn’t define and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  Hands off, dumb-ass, he told himself.

  And he intended to heed that warning, though she was a damned tempting woman.

  The next question, then, was what the hell would he do with her tonight? At his trailer, unless he gave her his bed, there was no place for her to sleep.

  Oh, he knew what he would like to do, what any normal, red-blooded male would like to do with a woman who looked like her. But that was neither possible nor sane.

  He had never been more baffled about a woman. What did she want from him? And what was she up to? She had to want something and had to be up to something. But what could somebody like him ever have that somebody like her would want or need? He hoped to hell she wasn’t looking for some damn boy toy.

  Nah. Don’t be any dumber than you already have been. Hell, with her looks and connections, she probably had a string of rich dudes chasing her.

  He was still blown away by the fact that he had known her when she was a little girl, younger than his son’s age now. Other than a thick mop of sun-bleached reddish hair that had always been a tangle, he recalled no resemblance to the woman she had become.

  His thoughts turned to the work she had done yesterday, stacking boards. Busywork. Any average twelve-year-old could have done it, but she had tackled the chore as if the survival of civilization depended on the job she did.

  She had shown herself to be a good hand, had kept up with him all day without complaint. In his judgment, that made her a helluva fine sport. An image of her at the end of yesterday filtered through his anxiety. When he had said, Let’s wrap it up, she had looked up at him with straggly hair, a dirty face and a wide, white-toothed smile. We got a lot done, didn’t we? she had said, as if she were bursting with pride.

  Her face had been red and sweaty, her eye makeup smeared and her lipstick gone, but he had thought in that moment she might be the most beautiful woman he had ever been close to. And he had known some fine-looking women, too, had been married to one. Weird to be thinking thoughts like that about a woman he feared being seen with.

  He couldn’t figure any of it out.

  For all of his confusion, one thing was for sure. He had to take damn good care of her. If something happened to her, he suspected J. D. Strayhorn could and would have him horsewhipped, tarred and feathered, then lynched.

  “Oh, my gosh,” she said, her voice startling him. He swung a glance her way in time to see her yawn and squint against the morning sun. “I fell asleep. This looks like the interstate.”

  He forced a smile that probably looked as pitiful as it felt. “Good nap?”

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” She yawned again and lifted her arms in a stretch, shoulders back, breasts thrust forward, nipples raised, their shape showing through her clingy shirt.

  And just like that, something caught in his gut. The intimacy of seeing her wake up curled low in his belly, and a hundred carnal images sprang into his mind.

  “Where are we?” she asked, rubbing her eyes with her fingertips.

  He cleared his throat, striving for a normal voice. “Not too far from the exit.”

  “Gosh, we’re almost there? I slept a long time.” She leaned forward and shrugged out of her jacket, a movement that emphasized her flat stomach and the graceful arc of her hip. He cleared his throat again and willed the devil in his pants to cool it. “Wanna get something to eat?” he asked. “I didn’t have breakfast and I’ll bet you didn’t, either.”

  “That’d be great. You’re right. I missed breakfast.”

  “There’s a McDonald’s at this next exit. We’ll stop.” He slowed, made the exit and pulled into the lane leading to the drive-through window.

  “We aren’t going to get out?” she asked. “To stretch our legs?”

  Going inside to eat would take at least thirty minutes. If she weren’t with him, he would grab something and eat it on the road. “Don’t have time.”

  “But they probably have a restroom inside.”

  He did a mental eye roll. Women must have bladders the size of a robin’s. “I’ll park over there,” he said, nodding toward a row of parking places. “You can run inside.”

  At the order intercom, he gave her a questioning look, waiting for her to make a selection. She peered past him at the menu on the electronic board. “Uh . . . hmm, let me see. . . . Well . . . okay, I’ll have an egg, sausage and cheese biscuit.”

  He stared at her a few seconds. There just weren’t that many choices. Maybe she didn’t eat at fast-food places much. He placed an order for three of the same and added a cup of milk.

  He gave her the questioning look again.

  “Yes, milk will be fine. You drink a lot of milk, don’t you?”

  “It’s good for you.” He added another cup of milk to the order and asked for extra napkins. He didn’t want grease on his truck’s upholstery.

  “I don’t eat at McDonald’s very often,” she said. “It’s cheap, isn’t it?” She reached down and lifted her purse from the floorboard.

  Did she think he expected her to pay for their breakfast? He put a hand out and stopped her. “I know you’re rich, but if I ask if you wanna eat, I’ll pay.”

  She shook her head and opened her purse. “It’s no big deal.”

  He might be damn near broke, but no way was he going to let her buy him food. “It is to me.”

  “But I always pay. In fact, I do it without even thinking about it.”

  “Maybe you ought to start thinking about it,” he told her. “Put your purse away.”

  She shrugged, her lips twisting into a scowl, but she returned her purse to the floorboard.

  After they received their order, he pulled into a parking spot. She grabbed her purse and scooted out. As soon as she closed the door, he straightened his legs and adjusted himself in his jeans, hoping no one could see him. Damn.

  She was soon back, and he pawed through the bag and distributed the food and napkins. As they ate, he asked, “What’d you tell J.D.?”

  “That I was going to Fort Worth with my
girlfriend Suzanne.”

  He couldn’t keep from laughing at the absurdity of what they were doing.

  “Don’t make fun of me,” she said.

  “I’m laughing at myself, too. You have to admit it’s pretty dumb sneaking around like we’re kids doing something wrong. You must be thirty or so and I’m well past. It hasn’t been necessary for me to lie to a man about my activities in a helluva long time.”

  She looked down, intently studying the layers of her sandwich as if she might find enlightenment among them. “I’m sure. It’s unusual for me, too, and it bothers me to do it. I can’t explain it. I’ve never had to lie to Daddy about anything I’ve done, even when I was a kid. I probably would have told him about this trip if you hadn’t asked me not to.”

  “So?” Her big whiskey-colored eyes met his, and he fixed a truth-demanding look directly into them. “I know why I wanted you not to tell him. But I still don’t know why you didn’t.”

  She turned her head and faced the windshield. “I guess it’s because . . .” She appeared to be searching for the right words. Maybe she was weighing her loyalties. “Never mind,” she said and took another bite of her sandwich.

  He hated that. Why did women do it—start something, then say “never mind”? “Say what you were going to.”

  She hesitated a few more beats. “Okay, then, I will. Were you aware that after your uncle died, my grandfather tried to buy the 6-0 from your aunt?”

  Well, that was a gear-grinding switch, but he assumed she was headed somewhere with the remark. His whole family had been aware of Old Man Strayhorn’s offer to buy the 6-0 after his uncle Harry’s death. He knew his mother had tried to talk her sister into selling it, which had resulted in another big, loud argument between the two women, who had never gotten along well. “Yep.”

  “But your aunt wouldn’t sell to him. Why wouldn’t she? I know Grandpa would have paid her a fair price. Did she not need the money?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t in that loop. I’m sure she could’ve used the money. But you see, Aunt Margie was always an ornery ol’ gal with her own ideas, especially when somebody pushed her. Guess your granddad must have pushed her a little too hard.”

  “But if she needed the money . . .”

  “There was more to it than money, darlin’. Aunt Margie had ideals. She said it wasn’t right that Strayhorns get to own all the land. She believed they already had enough.”

  Brady had let slip more words about his family than he intended to. “But all of that was years ago,” he added, hoping to kill the discussion. “What’s it got to do with you and your being here with me today? Are you trying to tell me your granddad’s about to make me an offer I can’t refuse?”

  “No. I told you yesterday. I just think you need help. And I don’t know why I brought up Grandpa. I just wondered if you knew he had once tried to buy your land.”

  As stories went, that one was leakier than a rusted bucket. If somebody were holding a gun to his head, Brady couldn’t have stopped himself from busting out laughing. “Not only are you fibbing to your daddy, darlin’. Now I think you’re lying to me.”

  “Look, can you stop trying to attach motives to me that aren’t there? It’s starting to be annoying. If you didn’t want to put up with me, you shouldn’t have said I could come with you.”

  “You’re right.” He wadded his breakfast trash into a ball and stuffed it into the McDonald’s bag. “I’ll keep my mouth shut ’til you’re ready to tell me what your granddad’s really up to.”

  He laid the sack of trash on the console for later disposal and reached for the ignition, but before he cranked the engine, she said, “Wait. I have an orange. Would you like half?”

  “Sure. You can peel it while we’re on the road.”

  “By the way,” she said. “I’m not thirty. I’m still twenty-nine. You must be the same age as Jake.”

  “Nope. Younger than Jake. Just turned thirty-four.”

  Jude was happy he cleared up that question. She had wondered about his age. He backed out of the parking space, and they were on the move again. As they merged onto the interstate, she peeled the orange and handed him slices. She hadn’t intended to eat it driving up the road, but she didn’t complain.

  Only a few miles past the McDonald’s, they veered onto another exit ramp off the interstate and sped down a state highway, passing through a different landscape—open green pastures dotted with large old oak trees and cedar brakes, all indicative of a moister climate. “I’ve never been on this road,” she said. “This is pretty country, but the bluestem grass in West Texas is better feed than the coastal. It has more nutrients.”

  “Who said?” Brady asked.

  “I say,” she answered. “More nutritious grass is why West Texas, even with all its challenges, is better cattle country.”

  “That sounds like a direct quote from your granddad.”

  “Actually, it’s a direct quote from a textbook and a professor at A&M.”

  His eyes fixed on her.

  “Watch the road,” she said, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

  “Just exactly what is it you studied at A&M anyway?”

  She didn’t miss the you-mean-you’ve-got-a-brain? tone of the question. “For what it’s worth at this particular moment, I have a masters in biology, with an emphasis on genetics. And a bachelors in business ag. In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m the future of the Circle C ranch.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  Didn’t he believe her? “Yes,” she said flatly.

  “Your dad and granddad are just going to turn the whole place over to you.”

  She heard mockery in his statement. “They’ve never said so. But Daddy and Grandpa refuse to face the facts. I’m the only choice. There simply is no one else. I know it’s going to happen someday. So I’m grooming myself every day.”

  “Trying to replace two ranching legends, darlin’, now that’s a tall order.”

  He didn’t say “for a woman,” but she heard the implication. He reeked of chauvinism, in both looks and attitude. “Jake and Cable are the only other heirs, and they have no interest in the place. I’m the only one who cares about the fact that it’s been here for a hundred and forty years. It’s a legacy to be preserved. And it’s part of Texas history. I refuse to see it go up for sale and get cut up into subdivisions.”

  “So you’re telling me if I cowboy for the Circle C long enough, one of these days you’ll be my boss?”

  “Yes,” she said again.

  He made no obvious response, but she sensed that the balance between them had shifted, and she regretted it. She never discussed ownership of the ranch and wished she hadn’t talked about her role in its future. Before that, she had believed Brady felt no inferiority to her.

  They turned off the highway onto a caliche county road. “It’s another fifteen miles to my trailer,” he said.

  Soon they made another turn and bumped along a rugged two-track passage that was little more than a path. A few head of cattle grazed in the distance. At last they came to a gray, single-wide mobile home perched atop a treeless bald knob of a hill. A silver, late-model, four-horse trailer was parked beside it. The mobile home wasn’t much bigger than the horse trailer and had probably cost less.

  “Is that your horse trailer?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “It looks like it has bunk room in it.”

  “Yep. I figure if Aunt Margie’s old house falls down around me, I can always sleep in the horse trailer.” He laughed, so she did, too.

  The mobile home had no skirting, but it still looked neat and well kept. She saw no trash around it, nothing stored under it or against it. A hundred feet down the hill behind it stood a silver steel barn with an attached iron-pipe corral so white and clean, it almost sparkled.

  Jude knew about the outpost dwellings ranches furnished for their hands. The Circle C had a number of houses and mobile homes similar to this one. Except for major repairs, the
employee using it was expected to keep the place up. “I’ll bet the owner of this place hates to see you go,” she said. “Most ranch hands wouldn’t keep it this neat.”

  “I don’t like being a slob. I grew up with three sisters and a brother. Everything we had was either worn-out, torn up or not working. At some point, I decided not to live that way.”

  He scooted out of the truck and reached into the backseat for his hat, then yanked the tarp off the pickup bed. Jude hurried to help him lift out the empty boxes. In the late morning heat and heavy humidity, she began to sweat immediately.

  Together they carried the empty boxes up four wrought-iron steps to a four-foot-square wrought-iron porch and on into the mobile. The narrow mobile home was so stuffy and hot, she could scarcely draw a breath. Plastic shades on the windows offered a scant barrier against the relentless sun. And if the place was like most single-wide mobiles, it probably lacked good insulation. It was as neat and clean inside as it was outside, but it smelled like plastic and chemicals. Jude recognized the odor as typical of mobile homes that had been manufactured as cheaply as possible. She had been in all of the Circle C’s mobiles at one time or other, either when they were new or when they had been vacated by an employee.

  “There’s an air conditioner in the bedroom,” Brady said and left the living room. She heard the start of a soft roar and he returned. “Everything in here except the furniture belongs to me. I’ll pack up the computer and that stuff in the second bedroom, and you can get the living room. That cool air will make its way in here pretty soon.”

  Jude picked up an empty box. The closest she had ever come to packing to move was when she had traveled back and forth between the Circle C and her condo in Bryan during her college days. Even then, she hadn’t had to do the whole chore herself. Daddy had hired a moving company to help her. Turning in a circle, she couldn’t see much in the living room to pack: a small TV, a CD player and CDs, a cactus plant and a few other odds and ends. She began to place things in the box.

  Soon Brady passed through the living room on his way outside carrying a monitor and a computer, and she wondered what he did with a computer. After that, he carried out two huge boxes of books. He made several trips with books, and she wondered what kind of books they were. He hadn’t impressed her as being a reader.