by Anna Jeffrey
Drake felt a flush of embarrassment on his cheeks. This was more information than he wanted to know about his parents. “Mom, c’mon, I don’t—”
“Be quiet, Son. I’m trying to tell you something you need to know if you haven’t already figured it out. Only in recent years did I face that it isn’t sex that drives Bill Junior to cheat on his wife. What motivates him, Drake, is arrogance and selfishness. The belief that because of who he is, he can have whatever he wants, whenever he wants it no matter who he hurts and he can clean up the mess later with charm or money or connections. That attitude was instilled in him by his own father who was an overbearing ass who rolled over people like a thrashing machine plows through wheat.”
Drake memories of his grandfather included a lot of liquor, loud talk and him constantly telling Grandma to shut up. He didn’t want to sit in his mother’s drive way talking about it on Christmas Day. “Mom, I don’t feel like—
“And I’m going to tell you about Christmas. It isn’t pretty. I had every intention of going to Santa Fe with Barron. I decided to go to the Double-Barrel instead because your father came up here last week and seduced me into it.”
Her head turned and she stared out the windshield “He made me believe we could have things back like they used to be,” she said bitterly. “I succumbed. He knows how sentimental I am. Where he’s concerned, I’m weak in all areas. And those are the cold hard facts. As I said, he can talk me into almost anything.”
From out of the blue, an understanding came to Drake. Or maybe it wasn’t so unexpected. Maybe it had been present all along and he had ignored it. He sighed. “Damn, Mom. I don’t know where all of this leads.”
She looked at him again, a plea in her eyes. “Please, Drake. Come inside and let me make us supper.”
He was starved, he had to admit. Breakfast had been early and he hadn’t had anything since except eggnog and bourbon. Breakfast at the ranch this morning now seemed like last week. “I’m just going to go home and kick back, Mom. Let’s take your stuff inside.”
On a huge sigh, he pulled on the door latch.
Chapter 26
Daylight. Drake fumbled around his kitchen brewing coffee. He threw in an extra scoop, needing the caffeine jolt. He had left his mother’s house yesterday, come home and gone straight to the refrigerator, only to remember that he had taken most of the food that had been in it to the ranch. He had found some cheese and made a sandwich with stale bread and mayonnaise. After that, mind-numbed, he had watched TV until late, followed by fitful sleep.
He thought he had consigned the memories of his parents’ past battles to a locked emotional closet, but last night, all night, they had escaped and come full frontal. He had been through many a storm between them, but until yesterday afternoon, he had never heard anything like what his mother had said in her driveway. He suspected that brief conversation hadn’t even scratched the surface of their problems. Some psychologist could spend the rest of his career trying to straighten them out.
He wondered how his attitude toward marriage—and that of his siblings—might be different if his parents had been different. Observing his parents, it was hard to have positive thoughts about settling down with one woman.
He rummaged through the refrigerator again looking for food. Today being Monday, usually his housekeeper would come and do the grocery shopping, among other things, but with today also being the day after Christmas Day, he had given her the day off.
He had no desire to dress and trip off to some restaurant for breakfast and this morning, he was in no mood for stumbling through culinary endeavors. If he had the right woman in his life, she would know how to deal with this situation. She would simply cook something edible.
In the freezer, he found a box with a picture of sausage and scrambled eggs on it. While it turned in the microwave, a visual of his mother from years back came to him. When he, Pic, Kate and Troy were kids, she had been on their asses constantly…. Just because you’re a Lockhart doesn’t mean you can do this or do that…Being a Lockhart doesn’t make you immune from common courtesy….Just because your father said you can do it doesn’t make it right…. blah, blah, blah…
She’d had a different mindset from dad who was of the if-it-feels-good-do-it crowd. According to Silas, Mom’s parents hadn’t wanted her to marry Bill Lockhart, even though she was pregnant. Drake didn’t know why the Picketts felt that way and might never know, but he suspected that they, like most of the citizens of Treadway County, believed everything Bill Lockhart Senior did was crooked, so they believed the same about his son. And they were intimidated by the Lockhart wealth and influence.
Even now, after all these years, his mother’s family had little to do with her. Drake had admired and respected from afar his only uncle who had been a fighter pilot.
He couldn’t remember his mom ever having many friends. He had sometimes thought of her as floating in a moat, with the castle on one side and a barren field on the other. He now could see that back when he and his siblings were kids, though she appeared to be wrapped up in Dad and the family, a part of her must have been lonely. He related. He didn’t have a long roster of friends himself. His company and the family’s business consumed most of his waking hours.
Bottom line, Mom had worshipped Dad, but never felt quite good enough to be his wife, even after giving birth to his three children. Drake believed that until Barron Wilkes, she had never slept with another man.
The coffeemaker pinged and he poured a mug, his thoughts switching to his dad. Drake adored him. The man had always had an aura. Always had more energy, more stamina, more
charisma about him than anyone else Drake knew. He filled a room. Until recent years, Drake himself had been intimidated by the sheer size of his dad’s personality. As far as he was concerned, though his dad had might have failed as a husband, he couldn’t have been a better father. With a steady, but gentle hand, he had raised his children to be good citizens.
Pic, Kate and Troy felt the same. None of them, including himself, had ever given much thought to the disconnect between their love for him and the way he had abused their mother’s affection and disrespected her as his wife.
It had taken some time, but Drake had eventually come to see that her leaving him was the only thing she could figure out to do. He was sure he was the only one of her children who came close to understanding that.
The microwave chimed, halting his musing. He took out his breakfast and carried it and a fork to the table. He sat in the same chair he had sat when he and Shannon had had dinner on Tuesday night and an image of her sitting to his right came to him. She was different from any of the women he knew. She was down-to-earth. So far, he had seen no evidence that she wanted to manipulate him or use him.
He wondered what her Christmas had been like. Not like his, for sure, though it might have been unpleasant if she shared it with her sister and brother-in-law, whom she seemed not to like very much. Fucked-up family was something they had in common. They should have spent Christmas together, just the two of them.
Not enjoying either breakfast or his thoughts, Drake picked up his mug and left the table. He ambled over to the window wall and looked out. The streets were deserted, but the sun was shining and the daytime temperature still hovered in the sixties. With such good weather and the holiday continuing through today, no doubt activity would pick up later. Off-work people would drift into downtown to go to the movies or eat in the restaurants. The downtown merchants would have a good day.
As Drake sipped at his coffee, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from swerving back to his parents. He believed Dad when he said he was miserable without Mom and wanted her to return to the ranch. But if he ever persuaded her to do it, would he consider the war won and go back to carousing, staying away from home days at a time and having strange women show up unexpectedly on his doorstep? Mona Luck wasn’t the first.
Feeling a profound surge of sympathy and warmth toward his mother, Drake returned to the bedroom,
picked up his phone and called her. “Hey, Mom, whatcha doing?”
“Just getting up and around. How are you this morning?”
“I’m good, Mom”
“I’m so glad the holiday is over. Next year will be different. I will not be at the Double-Barrel. Have you spoken to your brothers? Or Kate?”
Drake heard anxiety in her voice. After Pic had thrown the Christmas tree into the yard, the whole family except for his grandmother and Dad had roared away from the ranch like a parade on steroids. Knowing his siblings, they might not call Mom for weeks. “Not yet. I’ll call them today though. Don’t worry. I’ll smooth things over. Listen, Mom, we didn’t get around to eating yesterday. Why don’t I pick you up and we’ll go somewhere for Christmas dinner.”
****
For Shannon, Christmas had come and gone uneventfully, with the traditional turkey and trimmings at Colleen and Gavin’s house and cousins from Austin seen only on holidays. Colleen showed no hint of the cattiness that had underscored most of their conversations for years. Shannon suspected the explanation was as simple as her wanting their grandmother and cousins to see her as a gracious hostess.
From her collection of jewelry, Grammy Evelyn had given Colleen an aquamarine pendant for Christmas. Colleen had gushed over it. Shannon had felt no envy. Colleen’s craving for things, and not just from their grandmother, had a malevolence to it Shannon had never understood.
With most businesses in town closed, Shannon didn’t open Piper Real Estate either. Yesterday, when leaving Colleen and Gavin’s house, she and Grammy Evelyn had invited their Austin cousins to visit and have lunch before they returned home. Today, Shannon planned on spending the morning helping Grammy Evelyn bake fancy chicken potpies in little individual dishes.
And underlying all of it was her anticipation of tomorrow. After today, Christmas was over. Perhaps the owner of her five-acre corner would return from his vacation. By tomorrow night, she would know if the was the new owner of the five-acre parcel that would change her life.
The cousins’ visit turned out to be an exercise in patience. They were from Grammy Evelyn’s side of the family and Shannon scarcely knew them. They were closer to Grammy Evelyn’s age than hers and she had little in common with them. She thought they would never leave. The whole time they sat at the table talking, she had to force herself not to leave her chair and pace.
Tuesday morning, she was in her office early and waiting for a phone call from the Dallas Realtor. By lunch, she still hadn’t heard from him. By mid-afternoon, she could stand it no longer. She called.
“Sorry, honey,” he told her, “but another offer came in late last Friday.”
Mental snarl. She hated being called “honey” in a business conversation. She was as much a professional as he was. “And you didn’t call me and let me know you received it?”
“Come on. I’m not obligated to call you. It was hectic last week.
“Can you tell me what the offer is?”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Can you tell me who’s trying to buy it, besides me, that is?”
“Hey, I thought you were a professional. You ought to know I can’t do that either.”
Shannon had known the answer to both questions before she asked them, but she had hoped the agent might be as unethical as some of the other high-roller types she had met. She made a loud sigh, venting her frustration into the receiver. “This is really important to me.”
“Honey, all real estate deals are important to somebody. But okay, I’ll tell you this. You’ve been outbid. That’s it. That’s all I’m sharing.”
“Okay, thanks,” she told him. “I’m going to put in another bid.”
“It had better be today,” he said in a warning tone.
“I’ll get back to you. Just wait for my new bid.”
She hung up, leaving him to fret. He would wait. He might not be obligated to pass information on to her, but he was obligated to get the best deal he could for his seller.
This was a revolting development to say the least. Whoever it was who wanted that piece of property, he or she couldn’t possibly want it or need it as much as she did. She called her loan officer. He agreed to back her up to a point. She wrote a new offer, upping her bid, and faxed it to the Dallas Realtor. To her dismay, she was now engaged in a bidding war.
She could still find something to be upbeat about. She’d had a good, quiet Christmas with no drama and she had New Year weekend with Drake to look forward to. All she had to do now
was endure asking her sister to look in on Grammy Evelyn.
****
On Wednesday, Shannon began to expect Drake’s call. Hadn’t he said he would return to Fort Worth on Wednesday? The call from Unknown Number came late in the day.
“Run into any problems getting away for the weekend?” he asked.
“All taken care of,” she answered.
“I was thinking of ordering something good for dinner and watching a movie or two.”
“Hm, dinner and a movie, huh?”
He chuckled. “I’ll choose the food. You can choose the movies.”
“Great,” she said brightly.
He told her he would drive to Camden and pick her up on Friday afternoon. Or he would send a car or even an airplane. In the end, she laughingly told him none of that was necessary. She hung up happy and not because she cared so much about celebrating New Year’s Eve. Joy danced all through her because he hadn’t forgotten. And he hadn’t found someone else he would rather spend the holiday with. She was forced to acknowledge just how much she wanted to hear from him and see him again and it had nothing to do with just sex.
You’re such a sissy fool, her cranky alter-ego hissed.
Still, she picked up the phone and called her sister.
****
She left for Fort Worth mid-afternoon on Friday. Only Christa knew her true destination. In her bag, she had several movies. Two westerns she thought he might like and two chick flicks for her, although she doubted they would spend much time in front of the TV set. After all, ten days had passed since they had seen each other sexual tension teemed even in her SUV.
On the outskirts of town, she passed her corner and a note of anxiety tweaked her. She would know in a matter of days, maybe even hours.
When she reached Lockhart Tower’s marble lobby, she found him waiting for her. In the elevator, they made out all the way up to the twenty-eighth floor. “Ten days is too long,” he mumbled between tongue-dueling kisses.
“Mmm,” she agreed.
Minutes after closing his condo door, they were in his bed for a blistering episode. Afterward, she lay in his arms, her cheek pressed against his firm, warm shoulder and her smooth legs tangled with his hairy ones. “I had a feeling this was going to happen, so I shaved my legs.”
He ran his arch up and down her calf. “Feels good.” He smoothed a hand over her bottom and pulled her closer. “All of you feels good.” His hand came out from beneath the covers and he rubbed his nose hard and quick.
“Is my hair tickling your nose?”
He wrapped one of her russet curls around his finger. “I like your hair. It suits you. It can tickle my nose all it wants.”
“Thank you. And my hair thanks you.” She placed a kiss on his shoulder. “After you said we were staying in, I let it dry naturally and gave it its freedom. No hair products, no flat iron. What you’ve got tonight, cowboy, is the real me.”
“Works for me,” he said. “I like things that are natural. And people.”
People couldn’t get more natural than me, she thought. “When I was a little girl, my hair was so curly, my dad called me Orphan Annie.”
“I’ll bet you were a cute little kid.”
She snuggled closer, rested a hand on his chest and heaved a huge sigh of contentment.
“What was that about?” he asked, rubbing the back of her hand with his fingers.
“Nothing. I just feel good. The holidays are over. Eve
rything will settle down and I can get my team back to thinking about work.”
“Since it’s a new year, I want to say something,” he said.
Uh-oh. A tiny tremble zipped across her mid-section. A serious statement after boiling sex was never good thing. “Oh? Do I need a stiff drink to hear it?”
He replied with a little laugh.
Her quip about a stiff drink had been a joke. She never tried to drown her setbacks in alcohol, but now she wondered if she might need it. She paused for a few beats, steeling herself for what might come next. “Then go ahead and say it.”
He pushed the strand of hair he had been playing with behind her ear. “How do you think this just sex idea is working out?”
“It hasn’t had much of a chance.”
“Is it still what you want?”
She angled a narrow-lidded look at him. “Is this a trap?”
“We don’t want feelings to get in the way, right?”
She back-pedaled, her own words slapping her in the face. Of course, she wanted him to feel something. And if she said she felt nothing, she would be lying. “We don’t have to take it to extremes. We can feel something.”
“That’s my contention. A few emotions make the sex better, don’t you think?”
“You’re confusing me. You picked me up and brought me home with you when you had no idea who I was. And it was for sex. No emotions. I thought you did that all the time. What are you trying to tell me?”
He, too, propped himself on his elbow and faced her.
“That I don’t like wasting time on superfluous bullshit. Thinking about how I want this weekend to turn out has been giving me hell since before Christmas. So here’s where I am. We got off to a bad start. I don’t like this just sex idea. I think it’s a façade anyway.”