Lone Tree

by O'Keefe, Bobbie

  Jackie sighed heavily, and then went on in a monotone. “We eloped the day after my eighteenth birthday. It seemed so romantic then, but it didn’t take long for me to see how selfish it was to do that. I wanted our first night to be in a fancy hotel, in a room with a window overlooking the city and the lights.”

  She was silent for so long then that Lainie prompted her. “What happened?”

  “Well, I got my fancy room and a window with a view.” Jackie’s expression hardened, but in a brittle way, as if it could shatter.

  “What happened?” Lainie repeated, voice gentle.

  “It wasn’t lovemaking,” she whispered. “Not by any definition. It was rape.”

  “Oh, hell.” Lainie closed her eyes.

  “It wasn’t that I wasn’t willing, at least not at first. I think he was so mean and rough because he wanted me to try to stop it, try to stop him. That was the way he wanted it.” Her hand trembled when she reached for her glass. “I’ve wondered since, over and over again, why he married me. Why he led me on for so long, not showing his true self. Maybe because I was so easy to fool. I was so stupid. Stupid and naive.”

  She sipped wine, using both hands to hold the glass. “He has family, or at least he did. His dad died just before I met him, and then his mom moved away. I felt so sorry for him. Seemed like he’d lost both his parents at the same time.”

  She grew quiet, shuddered, then said, “I’m scared of him, Lainie. He won’t pay attention to divorce; it’d only make him madder. He’s in prison, will be for a couple more years, but he’ll get out eventually and...and I’m afraid of him.”

  “He didn’t break you, Jackie. What some people can do to others staggers the mind, but you got past what he did. You’ve got gumption and heart. He didn’t take that away.”

  “It was just three weeks—and he was away a lot of that time, I thank my lucky stars—before he was arrested and convicted and was gone from my life.” Again she shuddered. “For a while.”

  Lainie drained her wine glass and set it down with a snap. She feared that pain and fear such as what Jackie had lived through could follow one throughout one’s life. “I surely hope he’s not the only sexual partner you’ll ever know,” she said under her breath.

  Jackie’s gaze skittered away, then her head turned away as well. Lainie leaned to her side to see her friend’s expression. She could swear her face had changed color. “Jackie?”

  “I do declare, girl. I’m blushing and you’re not. How’d that happen?”

  Lainie’s heart lifted. She settled back. “Well, good. Willis? I couldn’t be happier for you. And as far as the blush goes, you’re doing that to yourself.”

  “Reckon so. Same as you always do.”

  Jackie’s glass was empty. She filled it halfway and looked questioningly at Lainie, who shook her head. She was going to have a headache tomorrow as it was.

  “Yes, Willis.” Jackie’s sigh held shy and gentle reminiscence. “Almost a year ago now.”

  Lainie had seen the man through Miles’s eyes, who’d had no respect for his professionalism. But seeing him through Jackie’s eyes warmed her heart.

  “We saw each other off and on,” Jackie went on. “But not really steady like, for a long time. We didn’t mean for it to happen. It wasn’t supposed to happen.” She looked around the room, seemingly at every object in the room. “I liked being with him...he didn’t push...I felt safe...then, when, well...you know.”

  Lainie smiled at this embarrassed, little-girl side of Jackie Lyn.

  “I learned...” As her voice again trailed away, Jackie’s eyes found Lainie’s. “He was gentle. He was kind. He cared about me and I found out that there is a beautiful side to it. I was scared to death to let him touch me, but, when, well...it was good.”

  “But you broke it off,” Lainie said softly.

  “I had to.” Jackie sat up straighter. “Even if I wasn’t married to Carl Henry, I know what he’s capable of. And it wasn’t fair to Willis. I had to break it off.” Her gaze rested on the walnut nightstand between the beds. Silence fell between them, and then when Jackie next looked up, her expression was clearer. And when she said, “Enough about me,” her voice was lighter, as if she’d shoved the past back behind her again where it belonged. “You got any special dreams? Little girl dreams or grown up ones?”

  Because Jackie needed a lighter subject, Lainie just smiled at the question. But then, as a thought struck her, she said, feeling a little wistful, “Well, yeah. Maybe I do. In California, at least where I grew up, all you can see are utility poles, electrical wires, phone wires and cable and what have you. So much so it seemed like there was no sky left. Out here, on the ranch and in the country, all there is, is sky. And, since Reed and I...well...I can’t help thinking about camping out, sleeping under the stars, looking up at that gorgeous sky and making love in the moonlight. I can’t think of anything more beautiful and romantic.”

  “If you’d told Reed about this wish of yours, I kinda think your dream would’ve done been fulfilled,” Jackie said dryly. “I tell you, girl, sometimes I worry about your smarts.”

  “But I’ve never gone camping.” Lainie felt disconcerted, as if she’d been presented with a jackhammer and told to build a bridge. “I don’t know how.”

  “Don’t you think maybe he does?”

  “Oh. Well, yes, of course he does.” Lainie laughed at herself—well, of course he did. If she wanted to spend the night in a sleeping bag, camping out under the Texas moon, all she had to do was ask Reed. And it would happen.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The day after she returned from Farber, Lainie sat at her desk, hand guiding the cursor across the monitor screen, thinking she was alone until someone planted a kiss on the back of her neck. She almost jumped off the chair.

  “Oh, for...Reed Smith, you scared me out of a year!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to go camping?”

  She thought about the particulars of this piece of information for about three seconds—and how many people it must have gone through before getting to Reed—and then she cradled her head in her arms atop the desk.

  “I’ll kill her.” Her voice was muffled. “So help me, I will.”

  He laughed and smoothed her hair.

  “I hope she went straight to you,” she mumbled, and then looked up. “Or maybe you shouldn’t tell me. Maybe I don’t really want to know.”

  He chuckled, but didn’t elaborate.

  Her head went back onto her arms. “I don’t need a gun. I’ll use my bare hands.”

  “I saw Jackie in town this morning, and she asked me why I hadn’t taken you camping yet.”

  That didn’t sound too bad. Lainie looked up. “That’s it?”

  He grinned. “That’s it. Sounded kind of simple and straightforward the way she put it. But I think now I can guess what else you’ve got on your mind.”

  She gave him a slow nod. “Yeah, I guess you can.” Then she shook her head. “A poker player, I’m not.” She glanced down at his jeans and the tell-tale bulge. “And neither are you.”

  “Lainie Sue, so help me...” His fingers gripped her chin, tilted her head up. “If I wasn’t expecting Miles to walk in here any minute—”

  “Promises, promises.”

  He let out a deep chuckle and leaned his hip against her desk, taking care with his position. “Pay attention for a minute, will you? If we’re going camping, we’ve got to do it soon while the weather holds. We need to decide when and where.”

  “Seems I’ve heard that before. This time, it’s your choice.”

  “Then it’s the day after tomorrow. Already got a place in mind.”

  “Truck or horses? If we take the truck, I can wear comfortable shoes.”

  His brow wrinkled. “You’ll need boots even if we take the truck.”

  “Why? I won’t be sleeping in them.” Doubt made her screw up her face. “Will I?”

  He chuckled. “Of course not.”

&nb
sp; “Then, like I said, take the truck and I can wear my sneakers.”

  He shook his head. “No boots, no camping trip.”

  She stared at him.

  He straightened and shrugged. “Your choice. Let me know.” He waited a beat. “I’ve got to go back into town and thought I’d pick up some prawns for supper if I can find them. I like the way you do them in garlic. Sound all right?”

  When she made no response, he said, “You look like you want to tell me no camping trip, no prawns. Am I right?”

  “No,” she said. Though she’d been close, very close, to saying exactly that. “Prawns will be fine.”

  All afternoon Lainie berated herself for being so bullheaded about the boots. Reed had more than his share of highhandedness, and it rubbed her the wrong way every time he used it, but in this instance he was right. They were going into the outdoors. Snakes lived in the outdoors. It would be unforgivably stupid not to wear boots.

  He entered the kitchen that evening while she was stirring the prawns. She turned the flame down, went to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. His eyes narrowed a fraction.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you’ll take Glory and me camping the day after tomorrow, I’ll wear my boots and leave my tennies at home.”

  He kissed her. His relief was so evident that she was struck by how much he’d disliked disappointing her, and a sudden surge of tenderness threatened to overwhelm her. He drew back, their gazes held and warmed, then they both looked at the stove and the sizzling skillet of prawns.

  She sighed. “We gotta eat.”

  *

  Her excitement about the camping trip built hourly, it seemed, but kept running into a brick wall. She wasn’t allowed to share in the planning, packing, not anything. Reed asked her opinion occasionally, but that was it. The man took care of everything. He was so detailed, he bordered on obsessive.

  They left at daybreak on a brisk morning, and at noon stopped at the foot of a hill near a trickling stream to eat cheese sandwiches and Fritos. Fritos were a staple for Reed, as important as hot sauce.

  As he reclined under a tree, resting his head on the saddle he’d removed from Irish and munching from the bag of chips on his stomach, he looked so laid back Lainie was having difficulty resisting the urge to sprinkle canteen water on him. But the small stream was nearby, its bubbling adding to the day’s laziness, and she suspected she might get worse than a sprinkle of water in return.

  “No fence,” he said.

  Sitting next to him, using Glory’s saddle as a backrest instead of a pillow, she glanced around at the brush and trees and then back at him, curious.

  “Place reminds me of when I used to ride fence,” he explained. “It was my favorite job because it wasn’t a job. More like a working vacation.”

  She lifted her shoulders in a quizzical attitude. “So what do you do when you ride fence? Just go along the side of it?”

  “Exactly. You ride until you find a section that needs fixing. You repair it, then mount up and ride on. When it’s time to eat, you stop and eat. When it gets dark, you make camp.”

  “Sounds simple enough.”

  “Hard work some days. Hard and hot. But I liked it. Depending on the problems you run into and the size of the spread, it can take a couple days to a week to complete. Can’t be gone that long anymore, and I miss it.”

  He stared at the sky through the tree’s leafy shade, a musing look on his face. “I was fourteen the first time I went out. I’d hired on summers at a spread over in New Mexico and was with another kid, not much older than I was. When that place folded, I came this way looking for work. Had some experience, but I was still just a gawky kid. Miles hired me anyway. No idea then I’d be around so long. He encouraged me to get my GED, studying nights, and I was still able to support my grandmother. She was really up in years by then.” He paused, then added, “And then there was college. Talk about surprises.”

  Reed had grown up a lot faster than she had, Lainie realized, and he’d grown up strong.

  He looked sideways at her. “Got some Indian blood in me through her. She was a quarter Navajo. Pretty much dwindled down by the time it reached me, but some people say they can see it. Can you?”

  She nodded.

  “Reckon I must be a throwback.” His gaze returned to the sky and his hand returned to the bag of chips. “She was a wise one, loving and wise. Nelly reminds me of her. Could’ve been cut from the same cloth.”

  His fingers groped within the bag and he frowned. He sat up, crumpled it and gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry about that. None left.”

  “You packed two bags. Next one’s mine.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  She reconsidered various uses of the water canteen. She uncapped it, but he must’ve seen her intent and caught her hand. He took the canteen, sipped from it, then handed it back. His eyes dared her.

  “Uh-uh.” She screwed the top back on. “I’ll get you when you’re not looking for it.”

  Once they arrived at a spot he deemed suitable for a campsite, she gratefully dismounted and rubbed her rump with both hands while she checked out the place. Level, shady, pebbly stream maybe an inch or two deep. She thought about going wading, suspected he might not like that, didn’t want to start an argument so forgot about it. When she saw he was unpacking, she turned back and lifted the flap of a saddlebag to help.

  He stopped and gave her a look that reminded her of a child guarding his new bike. “Thanks. I got it,” he said.

  So the punctilious streak continues. She stepped back and let him at it. Anyone that fussy needed and deserved to do it all by himself.

  Gear was separated into three piles: cooking ware and foodstuffs, sleeping paraphernalia, and tools. He cleared a section of ground with a short hand rake, stamped over it, then spread out sleeping bags and zippered them together. Flashlights got a place of honor at the head. Watching him, admiring his economy of movement and amused by his meticulousness, she halfway expected him to produce throw rugs to complete the setting.

  Next he scraped a depression in the dirt and layered it with charcoal. While the coals grew hot, he placed a hand shovel and a plastic bag that contained a roll of toilet paper at the base of a cottonwood. He glanced at Lainie, then pointed at a cluster of nearby bushes that she assumed was downwind. “Latrine.”

  Okay. That was part of camping out, right?

  Reed was an adequate cook, but Lainie was a better one and generally did the cooking. Tonight, however, he was the chef. She wasn’t even allowed to slice the cucumber. They’d packed—or rather, he’d packed—frozen steaks that were now thawed. He fried them in a skillet while foil-wrapped potatoes baked in the embers. He chopped a fresh jalapeño pepper, took one steak out for her, sprinkled the pepper over his and let it cook for another minute, then put it on his plate.

  This particular quirk of his had a nice side. Being catered to was something to which she could easily become accustomed. She suspected she wasn’t going to be allowed to clean up either, and she was proved correct. Everything was cleaned and packed away in the same exacting manner he’d exhibited all day.

  She’d given the horses extra attention while he’d set up camp. While he worked now, she wandered around the site.

  “Sight and hearing,” he said.

  She stopped. “What?”

  He didn’t look up. “Stay where I can see you and hear you.”

  She stared at a tree trunk that had split to produce two trees. “You couldn’t rephrase that so it doesn’t sound so much like an order, could you?”

  “Lainie,” he started, sounding long-suffering.

  “Don’t worry about it. No way city girl is straying far from country boy.” She climbed up into the cleft between the trees.

  “And don’t get out of bed for any reason tonight without waking me up first.”

  She jumped down and gave him a snappy, two-fingered salute. “Yessir!”

  She thought he’d caught the ge
sture, but he ignored it.

  Daylight still lingered after everything had been washed and put away. His gaze roamed the site. Apparently satisfied that everything was in its place, he glanced at her. She sat on the ground, grasping her knees and leaning her back against a sapling.

  She’d been comfortable watching him work, but now that he was looking at her, she felt—what was it? Disconcerted, in some way. Her breath quickened, her puzzlement grew, and his gaze softened.

  He went to her, giving her his hand to pull her up. When she stood, he was so close she had to tilt her head to look into his eyes. Neither said a word. He kissed her forehead, her nose, her mouth. Then he stepped back, raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. She didn’t have a thought in her head.

  “Let’s go for a walk.”

  She blinked. “Walk?”

  He grinned, then laughed. “Yes, we’re going for a walk. We need to savor this. We’ve waited a long time to make love in the wide open spaces. Almost as long as I had to wait for you to show up on my doorstep in the first place.”

  Again he raised her hand and kissed it. “You remember that day at the oasis, when you left me on my lonesome?”

  With a smile, she lowered her gaze and centered it on the top button of his shirt, and he tilted her head up with his fist beneath her chin.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, eyes dancing. “You got the best of me that time, and you liked doing it.”

  “Well, if you remember, I had no choice. If I’d gotten down off that horse—”

  “Uh-huh. No matter who won that race, if you’d gotten off that horse that would’ve been it, right then and there.” He waited a beat, then said, “But let’s not put it all on me. You wouldn’t have been able to resist either, and that’s why you took off in such a hurry.”

  With another smile, she nodded.

  “But since we’ve waited this long,” he continued, and she caught a touch of breathlessness in his voice, “we can wait a little longer. I love this country and want to share it with you while we’ve got daylight left.”

  He kissed her forehead, nose and mouth, taking his time. Then he damped the fire, grabbed his rifle and led the way out of the clearing.