by Anna Jeffrey
want to know who Drake took to Hawaii with him.”
“How the hell would I know?” He laughed wickedly. “You know our Drake. That boy’s got broads coming out of the woodwork. You’ll have to ask Pic.”
Betty rolled her eyes. Bill Junior was in rare form today. No doubt he was drinking. “Then let me speak to Pic.”
“He’s not here. Went to town. That’s where I’m going pretty soon.”
“Have you heard any talk about Drake dating a woman from Camden?”
“Nope. But I don’t pay attention. I’m a whole lot more interested in who you’re dating.”
“My God, Bill. I’m over fifty years old. I do not date.”
He gave a heh-heh-heh, the varmint. “I’m coming up to Fort Worth to the bull sale on Thursday. I’m planning on dropping by. So clear any stragglers out of your bedroom.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There are no stragglers in my home.”
“That’s our home, darlin’. I believe the accountant will tell you the Double-Barrel owns it.”
“Oh, really? Well I’m planning on playing golf on Thursday. You try to come into my house without my permission and you can deal with the Fort Worth Police Department.”
“Cancel the goddamn golf. It’s too fuckin’ cold and it’s a silly game anyway. I’ll be there early. And get out that hot slick shit you got off the Internet. I’ll be loaded for bear.”
Betty closed her eyes and let out a breath, recalling his pre-Christmas visit when she had introduced him to a pleasure enhancing product she had bought online. After the pathetic experiences she’d had with Barron Wilkes’ shortcomings in their state room, the lure of Bill Junior “dropping by” was far stronger than her will power, but she told him, “Don’t tell me what to do. I might or might not cancel my golf date.”
Knowing she had just consented, Betty clenched her jaw and drew a measured breath through her nose. She had no pride. She was a fool, a sex-starved fool. Wasn’t menopause supposed to kill your desire for sex? What the hell had gone wrong with her?
“And change the damn sheets,” he ordered. “I don’t want to lay down where that old man’s been. I might catch something.”
“You are such an ass, Bill Junior. I don’t have to change the sheets. You come to my house, you take your chances.” She slammed the receiver back into its cradle with a fierce clack!
She drew a deep breath, reining in her anger. Well, that conversation hadn’t gleaned much—except a date for sex with her husband on Thursday. She checked her calendar, making sure she—they—would be undisturbed that whole day.
Next she speed-dialed Pic’s cell phone, but got only his voice mail.
Even without more clues, she was convinced she knew who had accompanied her son to Hawaii. Now she was even more frustrated. Once she had been acquainted with people in Camden she could call and ask questions. But no more. She did a search online, but learned little more about Shannon Piper than she already knew—top producer, professional organizations, a few awards. Betty wasn’t looking for any of that. She wanted dirt.
She had dismissed Donna’s phone call of a couple of weeks ago, but in the back of her mind, Betty hadn’t forgotten the heiress’s boasting about her resources. But to take advantage of them, Betty would have to pass Shannon Piper’s name to her. Betty’s yen to know everything about Drake’s girlfriend overrode her reluctance to give Donna the name. Before she had left on the cruise, she and Donna had talked about lunch. Betty scrolled through her contacts on her cell and called her.
****
Shannon arrived back home on Monday afternoon. Grammy Evelyn was eager to hear about her trip. Shannon didn’t get to bed until after ten.
She settled into bed, instantly missing Drake’s warm body against hers, his arms around her. They had slept spoon-like only four nights, but it seemed much longer.
Her thoughts and emotions roiled. Something had happened between her and Drake. They had made love with a passion Shannon had known only with him. She had never had sex with so much deep emotion attached. She had never had a relationship with anyone where the very air around them teemed with awareness and anticipation of the next time and she wondered if other people could see it. They had made love morning and night and during the night for four days and nights and every time without a condom. That wasn’t worrisome, as she felt safe, but she couldn’t stop thinking of all that had happened and all that had been said between them. Dozens of tender words, even words of endearment. Except for the L word. But it was there, hovering in the ether.
She was in terrible trouble.
She flashed back to her departure from his condo. As she had bundled up for the trip home, he had handed her a gold American Express credit card.
“Use this to defray the cost of driving up here,” he said.
Surprised, she looked at him. “To buy gas?”
“Anything you need.”
She handed it back to him. “You keep it. If I need it, I’ll let you know.”
He thrust the card into her hand again. “But Shannon—”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s credit card, especially yours. If I find I can’t afford gas, I’ll tell you.”
At that point, he had wrapped her in his arms and kissed her thoroughly. “In the future, if I’m not allowed to come get you myself, I’m going to start sending a car for you all the time. I worry about you driving up here and back.”
“I don’t want a car. I’d rather drive. I drive up here and back all the time.”
His head shook, an indication of his frustration. “You’ve got my number. If you have any problems, don’t hesitate to call me. No matter what I’m doing, I’ll stop. I’ll take care of you.”
In his words she had heard genuine caring. She had found the white knight she had always dreamed of. He cared. No one ever had. Perhaps her parents had at some point, but it was so long ago, she no longer could remember it. Her grandmother cared these days, but where had she been when Shannon was growing up alone with no father and at the mercy of a crazy woman?
Believing that hunky, virile Drake Lockhart cared about her safety and well-being sent a small but profound joy all the way to the farthest walls of her heart and the poor helpless organ had been in a state all the way home.
She went to her real estate office early on Tuesday morning before anyone else arrived and found a message waiting from the Dallas agent. Bang! Just that fast, she was back in the real world.
When she returned the agent’s call, he told her she had been outbid again and asked her if she wanted to up her price. A wave of nausea passed through her stomach. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll have to think about it and call you back.”
She sat there a few minutes mulling over her bad luck and toying with the expensive pen Drake had given her for Christmas. What were the odds that in one of the slowest winters she could remember since she had been in the real estate business that she would get into a bidding war over a five-acre parcel in a small town like Camden? She pulled out her file on the five-acres and studied her finances. Her bank had already told her how far they would go in backing her. She had no other place to get money.
She didn’t even own anything she could mortgage except the thirty acres she already owned, part of which already had a mortgage on it, and her real estate office, which also was already mortgaged. Even if the bank had been willing to lend her money on some part of the thirty acres, there were the payments to consider. She couldn’t take on debt that would bite into her living expenses or her operating expenses and cripple her. She couldn’t bid much higher than she already had.
She looked down at the pen. Drake. He might make her a loan. But if he did, their relationship would change forever. She immediately dismissed that idea. They might have connected on a deep emotional level, but that didn’t mean she would try to borrow money from him. She didn’t even want to discuss the property with him.
She stewed for h
alf an hour, put together another bid that was twenty thousand dollars higher and faxed it to the agent. With that, she was maxed out. Twenty thousand dollars was nothing more than a blip in the commercial real estate world. It probably wouldn’t even make the competing buyer blink. In her mind, she began the process of giving up on the five acres.
Everyone in her office knew her anguish. They knew the stress associated with waiting for a buyer or seller to make a decision. Terry offered to buy her lunch. Dana, the quieter member of her team, gave her a cute desk ornament with a happy face. All of them joined her in hand wringing.
And while she sat there fraught with disappointment, her cell phone warbled. She checked Caller ID and saw Unknown Number and her spirits picked up. Drake told her he still had the two tickets he had bought at the TCCRA auction for premium seats at the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo. “I miss you,” he said. “Come up Saturday. We’ll do the rodeo, then you spend the night with me.”
Shannon hadn’t been to the Fort Worth rodeo in years, but she would be more at home at the Stock Show than on a golf course. She didn’t consider saying no. The Hawaii trip had sealed a bond between them. And anticipating the weekend went a long way to quashing her pain over the five acres.
****
The next day, Betty waited for Donna at LeFleur, a cozy sandwich shop near Betty’s neighborhood. She had chosen a partially hidden table in the back corner of the small dining room. Donna showed up at one o’clock wearing high-heeled boots, beaded and sequined denim that could only be Brazil Roxx and a casual fur jacket. The jeans fit her trim body as if they had been glued on. Her long hair was held in an up-do by a jeweled clip. Her diamond rings and earrings glinted. She looked every inch the heiress she was. Betty would never understand why Drake hadn’t hung on to her.
They talked about the cruise, talked about what Donna had been doing. Then Betty did the dirty deed—over a cup of coffee and a steaming bowl of delicious French onion soup topped with baked cheese, she betrayed her son’s trust. She gave Shannon Piper’s name to Donna, with the agreement that Donna would let her know anything she discovered. Drake might hate her if he ever found out, but in the end, she believed he would understand that she had done it for his own good.
Donna had her own motives, Betty knew. But Betty had news for her. Nothing she could do would rekindle Drake’s interest in her. Once Drake made up his mind about anything, wild
horses couldn’t change it.
Betty had a motive, too. After having supper with Tammy McMillan the night before leaving on the cruise, Betty knew Tammy had recently gotten a divorce from her golf pro husband. She believed it was possible to restore the former bond between Tammy and Drake. Tammy had said in code words that Drake was why she had returned to Texas. And Betty believed her. Otherwise, why would she have contacted Drake’s mother?
Despite the friction that sometimes existed between Betty and her son, she knew him. She had long thought that the reason he had never settled down and married was because he had never gotten over Tammy McMillan.
****
Shannon’s period started on Thursday. Now, all she and Drake would be doing on Saturday night was sleeping.
A good test of his character, her ornery alter ego said.
As if he needed one, the persona she feared had fallen in love with him snapped back.
After what had happened in Hawaii, and the week before, she was relieved to see her menses. They hadn’t used protection at all in Hawaii. She was sure she had been past ovulation and the whole trip had been such an out-of-this-world experience and the passion between them had been so hot, a little thing like safe sex had seemed too ordinary deal with.
If this was going to continue, she had to get to a doctor and get birth control pills. Condoms were too unreliable and the rhythm method was too risky.
She drove up to Fort Worth early on Saturday morning, met Drake at his condo and he drove them to the coliseum where the annual rodeo and stock show was held. When she teased him about driving them in his truck, he said, “You’ve got to have the right vehicle for the right job, Miss Smarty Pants.”
They ate junk food and viewed most of the animals on exhibits. He used his phone to take a picture of her with a giant Brahma bull named Tabasco. When she admired a beautiful bear claw necklace made of silver and green turquoise, Drake pulled out his credit card and bought it for her.
“I just said I liked it,” she said. “I didn’t mean for you to buy it.”
“Turn around and let me put it on you.” He turned her around. “It goes with your eyes.”
“But just because I said I liked it didn’t mean I wanted you to buy it,” she repeated, still trying to make a point.
He hooked the necklace, then turned her back to face him and gave her a quick kiss. “Shh. Don’t talk. I’m a control freak, remember.”
She looked down and touched the large center stone. Against her black turtleneck, the silver and turquoise piece was truly beautiful. She had nothing like it and would have never spent the money to buy it for herself. She looked up at him. “Can I just say thank you?”
He rested his finger on her lips. “Yes. But that’s all.”
When evening came and the rodeo began, they did indeed have good seats, right near the action. Just as at the golf tournament, Drake knew many of the performers and stockowners and he introduced her to all of them. She saw yet another world she had never seen before.
When they returned to his condo, he grumbled about no sex, but not seriously. “It’s not all about that,” he said. “I just want you with me.” As they settled into his king size bed, he caged her with his long arms and legs. “Next weekend we’ll go down to the Gulf and I’ll get even with you.”
“Promises, promises,” she mumbled as she drifted off to sleep in total contentment. The five acres in Camden seemed a million miles away.
Chapter 33
The following Monday, Drake’s day went to hell early. A weeping phone call came from his construction foreman’s wife reporting that he had been severely injured in a grinding collision with an eighteen-wheeler on I-35. Drake dropped everything and rushed to the hospital in Denton to check on Buzz Grayson’s condition and offer support to his family. Once there, he learned that Buzz would be out of commission for a long while.
Like it or not, Drake was now the foreman on the construction of his five-hundred unit apartment complex. He had a multimillion dollar construction loan with interest accruing daily and the deadline for the Phase II inspection had already been missed by weeks. He could afford no more idle time.
The project consisted of multiple buildings, all still in the framing stage due to inclement weather. Long hours and unknown overtime would be needed to catch up. Bringing a new Class A foreman onto the job would take several days or even a week or two.
Now it was Wednesday and he could see that even with doing it himself, he was still losing money. He knew of only one man who could get the job going again and bring it back on schedule. He called an old friend who now lived in West Texas, Terry Ledger.
Terry had bought a West Texas ghost town on eBay and replaced it with a senior citizen community. Everyone had thought he had gone off his rocker, but he had turned the project into a roaring success. The foreman who had handled that construction job for him was a wizard named Chick Featherston. Terry told him how to get in touch with Chick.
Pic had left a message on his voice mail, but his next call was to Shannon. He explained the situation and postponed the upcoming trip to the coast. She understood his dilemma, which was something few, if any, of the women he had known would have. His mother didn’t even understand.
After he disconnected, his thoughts lingered on Shannon and how much he enjoyed her. Hell, he liked just hearing her voice. He could barely wait to see her again. He had to do something about her. But what?
Back in his office, he asked Debra to pick up some lunch for him at the deli downstairs. While he ate, he ran through the list of messages and c
alls he had put off or ignored all morning. As soon as he finished his sandwich, he keyed in his brother’s cell number.
“Hey, Bro,” Pic said. “Where you been?”
“Up in Southlake. I’ve got a construction job falling apart up and I lost my foreman.”
“What happened?”
“Truck wreck. A bad one. Looks like I’m it until I can find somebody else.”
“Ouch,” Pic said. “Hope he’s gonna be okay.”
“Touch and go, but the guy’s tough. We’re all saying a prayer. How’s Dad? Is he behaving himself?
“He hasn’t been lost anywhere, if that’s what you mean. Wish you could come down here. Blake and his partner came over and Dad and I had a long talk with them. They’ve got a new theory about Kate’s barn. They think the motive could be revenge.”
Nonplussed, Drake left his chair, walked to the window overlooking downtown and watched the bundled up pedestrians on the sidewalks below. “Revenge? What the hell has Kate done that would trigger revenge?”
“It’s not just Kate. He thinks somebody’s got it in for the whole family.”
“The hell,” Drake said, astonished.
“Remember that little bunch of calves that got shot last year? We thought it was teenage vandals, you know? Blake says maybe not. And you know all the rustling that’s been going on.”
Drake’s memory spun backward to when a dozen six-month old calves had been shot and left to bloat in an outpost pasture. As for the cattle rustling, those statistics were up all over the state, so that could be coincidental.
“And remember when the brake line on my truck got cut when I went up to Fort Worth to the cattle sale that time?” Pic said. “They never did figure out who did that and it just sort of went away, but I’ve always worried about it. And there’s been other stuff. Anyway, Blake thinks he sees a pattern.”
“The hell,” Drake said again, shaking his head. A cut brake line couldn’t be a coincidence.