Nick of Time [Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 4] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by JQ Jones

* * * *

  Two days disappeared with laughter and good food and wine. They talked about what they wanted for the future. Manny wanted to open her own restaurant and David wanted to take over his family’s land and implement different practices. He talked of land rotations and green local produce. They made love every night and talked into the mornings after they were sated.

  Early on Monday morning, 4:30 or so, Manny tiptoed out of David’s room. She repacked her clothes and drove to the airport with a smile on her face. Hansel, he would always be Hansel to her, slept through her departure and she knew that by the time he woke up and read her very nice note he would smile, go back to England and maybe do what he wanted without marrying the bitch queen of the world.

  She landed at the local airport to be met by Clint.

  “You have a good time?” Clint said.

  “Really did. Saw a few plays, bought some more clothes and decided that it’s time to move on,” Manny said. She climbed into the SUV.

  “Surprised it took you so long.”

  * * * *

  David stretched out across the bed feeling cool place where Magdalena had been lying. He considered it her side of the bed now because he felt strangely incomplete she wasn’t there. He rolled over to bury his face into the pillow, breathing deeply so that he could inhale the scent of soft perfume and the underlying smell that was all Magdalena.

  He glanced at the clock and saw that it was only 6:45. He was used to her leaving to go to her room to dress for their day outings. They had nothing special planned for today he just wanted to make sure they work together. He had very few days left before he would have to return to London and begin the official breakup with Barbara.

  These past days with the honest and bold Magdalena showed him that any life with Barbara would be a mere shell. He had no wish to live his remaining years in a quasi-marriage just to please the families’ misplaced since of proper behavior.

  He began to think of Magdalena’s thighs. She had gone to great lengths to explain to him what she disliked about them. They were less than muscular, soft where she thought they should be firm but with muscles that she thought were less than feminine. Everything she said was dead wrong as far as David was concerned.

  He loved to feel them wrapped around his waist. They were so strong and they held him tight as he plunged into her. When she rode him, he loved to lay his hands over them, able to feel every movement as she lost herself in their passion. But he mostly loved to kiss them on the way to her sex which had been wet and dripping for the last couple of days.

  He began to get hard. There was a soft knock on the door while at the same time the house phone began to ring. David decided to answer the door first get the phone second so he bounced out of bed and slipped into his pajama bottoms that he kept for just such emergencies. The tapping on the door was replaced by a loud knock that was incessant and growing in volume.

  “I’m coming,” David said.

  He jerked open the door ready to let whoever it was standing outside know that it was too damn early to be knocking on his door. The door bounced off the back wall and slammed into his shoulder as he stood in shock.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me in, darling?” Barbara said.

  “Oh fuck,” David said.

  * * * *

  “It’s like an unholy steam house outside already. I really can’t imagine why anyone would want to live in such conditions. Speaks to the minds of most Americans, I think,” Barbara said. She was a beautiful woman, with porcelain skin, dark blue eyes and a hair that was a rich chocolate brown shot through with golden highlights. Her lips, the bottom lip slightly plumper than the top, screamed kiss me. She was a perfect English rose. She was the epitome of English public school education with a lineage that went back to the Conqueror but she was mean, she wasn’t catty or bitchy or impolite, she was mean.

  David answered the still-ringing phone and assured the front desk that it was perfectly fine that to allow his fiancée to come upstairs to his room. He knew what type of fit Barbara had thrown in order to get his room number. David had seen Barbara browbeat front desk staff over most of Europe and the United States, she had it down to a science.

  “Why are you here?” he said. He escaped into the bathroom, shutting the door before she could answer his question. While he washed his face his thoughts were all on Magdalena. He knew that there would probably no way that she was going to ever see him again but he didn’t want to just not see her. He didn’t want to just not see her.

  Barbara went through the room critiquing every item in it as worthless, cheap, tawdry, and an embarrassment to decorating. David sat at the desk provided and wrote a very long, very detailed note to Magdalena. First he apologized for bringing her into such a indiscreet situation, he then went on to explain how much he enjoyed the time they had together and left his name, his real name, and directions so that she could contact him if she wanted. He slipped the note into a hotel envelope and put it into his back pocket.

  “You still haven’t explained to me why it is that you are in Houston at the same time I’m in Houston. You were adamant about not coming to this, and I quote, humid hellhole for any reason, unquote,” David said.

  “They’re having an off-season fashion show that I’ve been informed is one of those little gems that you sometimes find in these out-of-the-way primitive places. When Lindsey phoned to tell me you were in Houston, I rushed to be by my fiancé’s side. I know better than to leave you in the same vicinity as that bitch without someone to keep her in her place. ” Barbara said. She sat on the very edge of the futon with the look of disdain on her face that, as David looked at her, had become permanent.

  “I thought she would call. I’m a big boy now. I wouldn’t touch Lindsey with a ten-foot pole. I do have some business to attend to today so I won’t be able to follow you around to fashion shows, but I would like to take you to dinner so that we could talk,” he said. He didn’t run out of the room but it was important that he get to the front desk before Magdalena went back to his room.

  “I hope that there was no unpleasantness because I was unable to stop your finance,” Chris said. He was the same young man who had checked him and Magdalena in three days ago. He had a wan smile on his face, knowing that he had violated the first rule of the hotel business, he’d divulged guest information.

  “Don’t worry about it. I know you can’t give me information on my friend I’ve been spending time with but could you give her this note as soon as she comes down,” David said.

  “I’m sorry, sir, she checked out almost an hour ago. But she did leave a note for you,” Chris said. He handed David a note in a hotel envelope and stationery. David smiled.

  In her note, she said much the same things that he had. She enjoyed their time together, she thought he was a great person who should do what he wanted and, here their notes were different, she signed it Magdalena with no forwarding information or personal contact. She’d not left her real name.

  David had a real problem, he was engaged to a woman he didn’t like and half in love with a woman whose name he didn’t know.

  * * * *

  Barbara came in from the fashion show in a foul mood. Evidently the reports of talent had been exaggerated and the entire trip was a bust and it ended up being David’s fault.

  “I wouldn’t be in this backwater hellhole you hadn’t decided to leave London. We could be somewhere in Switzerland or somewhere cool but you decide to come to Texas in the middle of summer,” Barber said.

  “You weren’t invited, Barbara. I came down here so that I could have time to think about the way our life is going and my future. I didn’t ask for your input or your time,” David said.

  He made reservations at a small restaurant called Jared’s that CJ had highly recommended. It is a very exclusive restaurant and according to CJ the food was simply and extremely good.

  “I suppose there might be at least one restaurant in this city that could make a decent salad,” Barber said
.

  On the way to the restaurant David listened to Barbara with half an ear. He spent the time in the thick Houston traffic wondering where Magdalena was and if she missed him as much as he missed her. He would have to make an effort after he got back to the hotel to see if he could try her contact information out of the front desk, and failing that at least get her real name.

  The small restaurant was very nondescript on the outside. There were of course huge cars pulling up and dropping off couples and families who looked extremely well-to-do. The interior was richly done and softly lit to the point of being almost dark. The small maître d’ was a friendly man who, upon learning that David was a cousin to CJ Davis, was more than friendly.

  He was escorting them to their booth when David spotted Clint Davis, CJ’s cousin by blood. The large man was with a distinguished-looking Hispanic gentleman and a small black woman who spoke animatedly to the older man. Clint watched the woman very closely and by the time David got level to him he could tell that Clint was clenching his fists at something the woman was saying.

  Much like CJ’s woman, Iona Davis, this young woman who looked barely in her twenties, was stunning in a new and refreshing way. She had very close-cropped hair and an animated smile that lit up her huge brown eyes. She was speaking almost exclusively to the older man but from time to time she would lay a hand on Clint’s clenched fist and pet him as if she were soothing a baby.

  David tapped Clint on the shoulder, only now noticing that the table directly across from the booth held a group of men who rose up as one as David and Barbara approached the table. They sat back down with a small flick of the older man’s finger. Barbara and Clint had met in London but that didn’t stop her from pasting on an artificial smile and a sneer for the young woman beside him.

  Clint introduced the young lady as Nora, no last name and the older man as Mr. Vargas, no first name. David had known Clint and his cousin CJ long enough to not question their more questionable activities.

  “David, I didn’t know you were in the States,” Clint said.

  “It’s so nice to see someone that I know here. I was here on business then Barbara flew in so that she could do some shopping and visit a fashion show,” David said.

  “How long will you be here?” Clint said. He had quickly introduced everyone at the table to his cousin and his fiancée. Mr. Vargas graciously offered to include them at the table and have at least a drink with them but the frown on Barbara’s face stopped all attempts at pleasantries.

  “We’re going to be here for a few more days I expect,” David said. “Barbara is keen on the fashion here.”

  “Actually, they bored me after three hours. I had heard that this was the place to go to, for something new and inventive but actually all they are doing is sort of a backwoods idea of what haute couture should be,” Barbara said. “At first glance I thought this was Iona. But she seems to lack even that spark that makes that woman an interesting mess,” Barbara said.

  “Initial reactions are interesting, aren’t they? At first glance, I assumed you had manners but then you spoke and dissuaded me of that illusion,” Nora said, not very loud but loud enough for Mr. Vargas to laugh. David bit his cheek because he knew that his dinner would be another harangue on his lack of defense of her bad manners.

  “Oh my, another ill-mannered woman for the Davis family,” Barbara said.

  “Civility is usually reserved for people who actually understand the concept,” Nora said. “It is nice to meet you, David. I hope to see you sometime in the future without the lipstick pit bull. She pulls down your charm level.”

  “I won’t stand here and be insulted.”

  “I can slide over and you can sit down while I do it.”

  “That’s okay,” David said. “We were just going anyway. Clint, I will see you at some later time. Nora, I enjoyed meeting you more than I can say.” David escorted his fiancée to their booth.

  David lost sight of Clint and his party as he sat listening to Barbara order a salad. She ordered a salad with equal amounts of lettuce, spinach and arugula, half a peeled and seeded tomato, a seeded cucumber, half only, and vinaigrette on the side. She sent it back three times before she was almost satisfied and pushed it away after three bites.

  David then listen for the next forty-five minutes as Barbara went on and on and on about the terrible manners of Clint’s young lady. He only had to use half an ear because he knew the trajectory of a Barbara tirade. It would pepper out if he allowed her to speak for another hour that he was tired of listening to her.

  “I will not marry you,” David said.

  Chapter Three:

  It’s Not So Bad

  Manny pulled her head out of the toilet long enough to wipe her mouth before she was forced back into her kneeling position. After she wiped the rim, she rinsed her mouth out and looked at her haggard face in the mirror.

  “You are too old to be this careless.” She gave a sickening smile to herself in the mirror. Manny knew the truth but still needed confirmation that would come with the appointment she made with the doctor in Oklahoma City to confirm.

  The next day dressed out in a paper gown on a cold table she waited until her OBGYN came back into the room. Dr. Mendelson, a short redhead with glasses that slipped off the end of her very big nose every few seconds. Dr. Mendelson came in the door shaking her head in exasperation.

  “Manny, how did you manage to get to forty-three and get pregnant? I didn’t know you were dating much less serious enough to be in an exclusive relationship where you could go without protection,” Dr. Mendelson said. She sighed heavily at the sheepish grin that Manny gave her.

  “Passion happens sometimes, you know. I was incredibly stupid to trust a fling but at the time, I have to say, my emotions got the better of me,” Manny said.

  “Now you’re left holding the bag. My position as a doctor is to give you options. You can bring the pregnancy to completion and give the baby up for adoption. You know you can have an abortion. I don’t personally perform them but I have the name of a very good man who does. And finally you can have your baby. But I have to say what were you thinking? I’ve never had this kind of problem with you. You are too old to get caught in this old-fashioned kind of problem.”

  “It’s not a problem. I’m forty-two, I know what I want to do in life. I’m mature enough to bring up a child and I want to have my baby. The only thing I have to decide is where we are going to live. I had already decided to move from the ranch. And before you say anything I know that what I want to do is hard but it’s not impossible. I have contacts from New York to San Francisco. I don’t know what I will do but it’s going to be an adventure,” Manny said.

  “Adventure, adventure, you’re not Sinbad so I don’t suggest an adventure,” Dr. Mendelson said.

  “I’m not Sinbad but I am a pregnant woman of forty-two so adventure is all I have to look forward to.”

  * * * *

  David stared out of yet another airplane window. This time he watched as the small Oklahoma airstrip got bigger and bigger. He could see Clint standing beside the SUV waiting for the plane to land.

  “I have to say, I like coming home a lot more when I know that Lil Bit is waiting at the house.” CJ sat across from David with his long legs stretched out into the aisle. He looked up to catch the smirk on his friend’s face.

  “You sound like a lovesick sixteen-year-old,” David said.

  “I am lovesick, I’m just not sixteen anymore. I want to get married but that woman is obstinate, wants to get another client. Hell, she makes a pot load of money just off of the first deal we did together. It’s working well and it ain’t doing too bad. But she’s working with some kind of hydro growers out east trying to get them funding. Hell, I offered to fund them just so she stays home but she doesn’t want that. Wants somebody who knows what they’re doing to fund so that they can go all the way to market,” CJ said.

  “I like her more and more every time I see her. You don’t know how
refreshing it is to see a couple who’s in love.”

  “Barbara still being Barbara?”

  “There’s not much else she can do, is there? She’s decided we’re to marry and I’m dodging both families and Barbara. She’s not that into me but, I have what she wants.”

  “Which is?”

  “Land and an opportunity to be lady of the manor.”

  “Her family has the land next to yours, she’s not happy with that,” CJ said. He gathered up his papers, stuffing them into a leather saddlebag and slapped his hat on his head. The attendant opened the door and the heat from the tarmac and the day hit them like a fist.

  CJ’s first cousin, Clint Davis, leaned out of the driver’s door. He had on dark glasses a work shirt, jeans, boots and a sweat stained cowboy hat. A towering ripcord muscled man when he leaned it was over the roof of the SUV and with a mean tight smile on his lips. His smiles were always like that he didn’t have the gene for nice and cuddly.

  “How are you, David?” Clint said. He popped the back door open so that the two men could easily throw their luggage in, a small bag for CJ and a larger one for David.

  “I’m doing well. I expect you are doing well also. Looking dangerous as usual,” David said.

  “I don’t look dangerous. People don’t have an idea of what dangerous is, I just look resolute,” Clint said.

  “Resolved to do what, cuz?” CJ asked. He jumped into the passenger seat while Clint made sure the doors were closed. The engine was already on and kicking out as much cool air as it could with all the doors and the trunk open. They rolled off the tarmac and onto the dirt and stone road which would lead them to the ranch.

  “Get the Hell out of this heat, for one, cuz. The other is to get you back to the ranch to your woman. She’s up to something. You know how she gets when she’s doing something she shouldn’t. Manuela is acting weird too but I think that’s just because she ready to leave and go back out into the world,” Clint said. He maneuvered the SUV onto the road and took off at a speed that had David clutching the handle more than once. They barreled down the hard-packed track as if they were on the autobahn, without the benefit of a six-inch-thick paved road.