Barri Bryan - Return to Paradise.html

by Return to Paradise (NCP) (lit)

  "My Mother used to make watermelon rind preserves." Hank set the jar down. "How much?"

  "It's two dollars, just like everything else."

  Hank picked up the beet pickles and studied the contents as he turned the jar in his hand. "Would you take three dollars for two jars?"

  "Lord, you're just like your papa. How about three-fifty?" The woman pulled her glasses back down on her nose.

  "You drive a hard bargain." Hank put his hands in his pockets and smiled. "Is that your last word?"

  "Uh huh, just like your papa. I remember he could charm the birds right out of the trees with his smooth talk and sweet smile. That's my rock-bottom price."

  "Just how well did you know my papa?" Hank asked, as he pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket. "I'll take one jar of beet pickles, and one jar of watermelon rind preserves." He handed the woman the money.

  "Well enough to know he would bear watching." Mrs. Smith began to count change. "I don't know how I'm going to explain to Cousin Effie how she came up twenty-five cents shy."

  As she wrapped the jars in newspapers, the woman cast questioning glances in Kate's direction. She put the wrapped jars in a plastic bag. "You tell your Aunt Catherine that we remember her in our prayers."

  Hank hung the bag over one arm, and offered the other to Kate. "Yes Ma'am, I will."

  They had rounded a corner, and were nearing the huge auction barn when Kate glanced over her shoulder, then exploded in gales of laughter. "What a con artist you are! And I just signed a five-year contract with you."

  "I like the way you laugh." Hank pointed with his free hand. "There's a café behind the auction barn. I'm taking you to lunch."

  Kate asked, "Your treat?"

  "Of course it's my treat. And you won't believe the steaks they have in here."

  "After what I saw back there, I'm not sure I should believe you, period." Kate hooked her hand through Hank's arm. "Your treat? let's go."

  The restaurant swarmed with people. A steady stream of friends stopped at Hank's table to speak and exchange pleasantries. After introducing Kate to each passer by, Hank chatted amiably. The talk was of crops, and cows, the weather and federal subsidies. Nothing that Kate could discuss with any degree of authority, so she sat, silent and smiling, until the procession stopped.

  "You're a very popular person." Kate observed, as the last passerby wandered away, and the waitress neared their table.

  "It's because they want to meet you," Hank put his elbow on the table, and set his chin in his hand. "I'm beginning to understand why."

  "I feel like I'm on display."

  Hank lifted his head, and dropped his arm. "You are."

  A pert little waitress with pad in hand, and pencil poised, appeared and asked, "Are you ready to order?"

  Hank scanned the menu. "Mindy, this is Kate McClure my new neighbor. Kate, Mindy Morgan."

  "Hello, Mindy," Kate unfolded her napkin and laid it across her lap.

  Mindy examined the fine point of her pencil before blurting out, "Gosh, your hair is red. Is it natural?"

  Kate's hand flew to rake through her hair. "Yes it is."

  "Would you like a steak?" Hank struggled to keep the smile that pulled at his lips from blossoming into a full-blown laugh.

  "Why don't you order for me?" Kate bit her lip to keep from smiling.

  As Hank conversed with the waitress, Kate looked around the crowded room and realized many people in the restaurant were staring at her. She wondered how Hank could be so nonchalant.

  As Mindy moved away, Kate leaned across the table and whispered, "I feel like someone from another planet."

  Before Hank could reply, Mindy returned with two cups of coffee. "Are you related to the McClures over at Spring Branch?"

  "No. I don't think so." Kate stirred her coffee.

  Hank ordered steaks and salad.

  They ate in contented silence. Kate found herself enjoying the meal.

  Over a final cup of coffee, Hank asked, "Would you like some dessert?"

  "I think I would, a slice of pecan pie."

  As Mindy passed the table, Hank called out, "Hey Mindy, two pieces of pecan pie over here."

  Mindy nodded, "Coming right up."

  The woman who came to stand beside the table, seemed to have materialized from thin air. She said, in a breathy little voice. "Hello, Hank." Without waiting for an invitation, she pulled out a chair, and sat down.

  "Hi, Gina. Why don't you join us?" A touch of irony edged Hank's soft words.

  Hank made introductions. "Gina, Kate McClure. Kate, Gina Morton."

  Kate dropped her eyes, as realized that she was the one who was staring now. Gina, a striking woman in her early thirties, was wearing designer jeans and a western shirt that was unbuttoned to reveal the beginning of an enormous amount of cleavage. Her jet black hair hung in waves down her back. The woman was gorgeous. "Hello, Gina."

  Immense brown eyes surveyed Kate critically. "You must be new around here."

  Hank cleared his throat. "Kate and I were about to have dessert. Would you care to join us?" He seemed obvious to Gina's hostile stare.

  "Coffee, black," Gina snapped.

  "I didn't expect to see you today," Hank told Gina, as Mindy appeared with coffee and pie.

  Gina raised a well-defined eyebrow. "I can believe that."

  "Coffee for Gina," Hank ordered.

  Gina grasped the sides of the table. "I tried to call you. Billy Jack said you were gone." She laid a possessive hand on Hank's arm.

  Did she think Kate was designs on Hank? Kate could disabuse her of that idea in short order. "Hank and I are business associates. We signed a lease agreement this morning."

  "Kate and her mother own Paradise." Hank didn't look too happy at Kate's revelation about their business deal.

  Gina's fingers pleated the checkered table cloth. "The spread between you and York Taylor? I thought that was a part of Circle S."

  "My mother leased the land to Marcus Sinclair for many years." Kate hurried to explain.

  Gina's dropped her hand to her lap and looked at Hank, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "I see." She patted Hank's arm. "I have to go now. Call me soon, Hank, please."

  "How about your coffee?"

  "I've changed my mind. Don't forget to call." Gina pushed her chair back and stood to her feet.

  Hank agreed, almost too readily. "Sure, soon."

  Kate watched Gina disappear through a rear door of the restaurant before she took a sip of her coffee. She didn't want to pry, and Hank didn't seem inclined to offer an explanation. Let it go, she told herself. Hank Sinclair's personal life was no concern of yours. "The pie was delicious."

  "Would you like another piece?"

  "Goodness, no." Kate heaved a heavy sigh. "I couldn't eat another bite."

  Hank pushed his chair back. "Are you ready to go home?"

  "First I want to get Mamma a bouquet of daisies." The fun of her excursion was gone. She must be dull company for Hank after he had been with the glamorous Gina.

  The man who sold her the flowers wrapped them in a wet newspaper. "That way they stay fresh longer."

  Kate dreaded the ride home. She wanted away from Hank as soon as possible. She put the flowers in the back of the pickup, and covered them with a paper bag, then got into the truck, and fastened her seat belt.

  Hank shifted the pickup into reverse. "You look a little weary. Are you tired?"

  "A little, but it was fun." Had she actually used the word fun? But it had been. "I want to bring Mamma and Cody here next First Monday."

  "Maybe we could make it a foursome." Hank braked his pickup at a stop sign, and looked both ways. "We'd have to come in a car."

  "I don't think so." Kate watched the stream of cars pass by.

  "Why not?" With experienced ease, Hank pulled into the flow of traffic. "I thought you had fun."

  The man was her neighbor, He was going to be her business partner. She corrected herself, according to the terms of the contrac
t she had just signed, he was going to be her boss. How could she tell him she wasn't interested in a personal relationship without making him angry or wounding his pride? "I don't date."

  Laughter rumbled in Hank's chest. "Date? You make us sound like a couple of teenagers."

  Maybe she should tell him she had been a teenager when she went on her last date. "I don't want to become involved."

  "I guess I'm dense," Hank protested. "I don't understand what you mean by involved."

  He was doing it again, twisting her words, and making her uncomfortable. "I'm not good at personal relationships."

  "You seem to have a wonderful relationship with your mother."

  Kate snapped, "Oh, for heaven's sake. Mamma's the glue that holds that relationship together. I'm a good daughter, thanks to Mamma, but it ends there."

  He asked, almost impudently, "Who says?"

  "Me!" Kate jammed her forefinger into her chest. "I'm a failure as a mother, and I was a rotten wife." Those bitter words flew from her mouth before she could brake her runaway tongue. She sounded like she was wallowing in self pity. "How did we get on this subject?"

  "I asked you to come to the next First Monday sale with me, and you were making up some excuse for saying no. Have I done something to offend you?"

  "Of course not. Why would you think that?" He was too near the truth for comfort.

  "I thought maybe you got the wrong idea about Gina and me."

  Kate didn't want to have this conversation. "Why don't we just forget it?"

  "Because I don't want to forget it." Hank's hand slapped the steering wheel. "That's it. You're peeved about Gina."

  If she explained, very carefully, maybe he would let go. "I am not peeved. I hardly know you. Why should anything in your personal life peeve me? And I don't have the wrong idea."

  "You sound peeved, and how do you know you don't have the wrong idea?" His knuckles were white from his tight grip on the steering wheel.

  "Will you stop with the cross examination?" Irritation was wiping away her resolve to remain aloof.

  "No. You've got something stuck in your craw. Why don't you spit it out?"

  You asked for it, Kate thought, so here goes. "How old are you, Hank?"

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "Now who doesn't want to talk? It has everything to do with everything. Are you going to tell me how old you are?"

  "I'm fifty-two," His eyebrows met in a fierce frown. "Why?"

  "And Gina is thirty, thirty-one?"

  "She's thirty-four. What the hell are you getting at?"

  She was making him angry, but she didn't care anymore. "I know about younger women and older men."

  "I don't think you know anything about men, and very little about women."

  "I know Gina was shocked when she saw us together today. Then she was angry, and hurt. Why, Hank?"

  "Ah, now we get down to specifics," That infuriating smile had returned to worry his lips. "and you are peeved."

  "I'm trying to tell you why I don't want to get involved. I am no competition for a woman like Gina." He had goaded her into saying too much. She turned to stare out the window.

  After a long pause, Hank asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

  "About what?"

  "About your ex-husband and the other, much younger woman?"

  "I didn't say... Maybe you are psychic."

  They sped down the narrow road. The silence in the pickup sizzled.

  Finally Kate could take no more. She surprised herself by saying, "I've kept my sanity by not thinking about it." She dug her teeth into her lower lip. "I can't talk about it."

  Hank shrugged. "Subject closed. But I want to explain about Gina, if you are willing to listen."

  "I can do that."

  "I'm not the first man to sleep with Gina, and I won't be the last."

  His blunt words shocked Kate into gulping silence.

  A brief smile in her direction told her that was what he intended to do. "We enjoy each other's company. I don't take anything she doesn't offer, willingly."

  Kate didn't know what she had expected, but it certainly wasn't Hank's frank admission that he occasionally slept with Gina Morton.

  "I hadn't thought of you as competition." The smile he sent her was nothing short of seductive. "Do you want to be?"

  "That's not what I meant when I said competition." How had she gotten into this mess?

  "What did you mean?"

  "Do you always go for the jugular?"

  Hank pulled the pickup to the side of the road, and set the emergency brake. "You are one uptight, perplexing lady. I don't know if you are coming on to me or telling me to get lost."

  "I'm not doing either." Surprise tilted Kate's voice. She decided to be honest. "Look, Hank, I don't know how to play this man-woman game. And even if I did I'm not sure I want to. I was eighteen years old when I married Jim. I dated..." she smiled, "yes, dated two other men -- no they were boys -- before I met Jim. We were married for twenty-five years. During that time I never looked at another man. Since Jim left me I've been too wounded to think about being with anyone else." Kate took a deep breath. "So if I'm sending conflicting signals, it's because I am as confused as I sound."

  Some emotion she couldn't classify crept into his eyes, but he kept a straight, almost somber face. "How long ago did your husband walk out on you?"

  "Three years ago. And he didn't walk out, he threw me out."

  "So I was right, he's a bastard."

  "I used to think so. I'm not so sure anymore." Kate couldn't believe she was defending Jim. "The breakup wasn't all his fault. I should have seen it coming, all the signs were there, but I didn't."

  A flash of insight made Kate wonder, was that what she had been so afraid to admit all this time? That some of blame for the break up of her marriage rested with her?

  "You were faithful to one man for twenty-five years?" Hank's features softened. "That must be some kind of record."

  Bitterness gave Kate's reply an edge. "For all the good it did me."

  "I owe you an apology. I thought you were playing hard to get, trying to arouse my interest."

  Kate snorted in an effort to stifle a laugh.

  Hank reached for the ignition, and gave the key a twist. The motor coughed and began to purr. "You think that's funny?"

  "No." Kate began, then recanted. "Yes, I do."

  "So now you're laughing at me?" The question was not an angry one.

  "No -- yes, in a way."

  Hank eased the pickup into gear, and pulled back onto the road. "Can't you make up your mind about anything?"

  "It's funny that someone like me could fool a man like you."

  "What do you mean, a man like me?"

  "A man who knows about women. Most of that knowledge gained, I would guess, through experience." Kate snickered. "To me that's funny."

  "You have a weird sense of humor, Kate."

  She liked the way he said her name. "Hank, I do have one confession to make."

  "Some deep dark secret from your dirty past?" He was laughing at her admission of faithfulness, but she didn't mind.

  "Yes, and it's almost too terrible to admit. I lied to you."

  Hank's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "About what?"

  They had stopped at the gate to Paradise. "I don't know how to ride a horse." Kate hopped from the car and raced for the gate. Hank's amused laughter followed her.

  As she got back into the pickup, Kate hastened to say, "Cody has promised to teach me to ride, so I will keep my end of the bargain."

  "Have you ever been on a horse?"

  "No, but I've been close to several horses. I know I can ride one, if he's gentle." Kate sounded more confident than she felt.

  "How close were you to those horses?"

  "From the sidelines of a parade? But I'm a fast learner."

  Hank pulled off the road and drove toward the barn. "I have to load my cow and calf. While I'm here, I'll introduce you to Ringo
."

  "Who is Ringo?"

  "The gelding I brought you to ride." Hank stopped his pickup. "Come on, let's go."

  Kate had to ask. "What's a gelding?"

  "A gelding's a steer," Hank slammed his pickup door. "only he's a horse."

  Kate trotted to stay up with Hank. "That would explain everything if I knew what a steer is."

  "I can see why you aren't good at playing this man-woman game. A steer is a neutered bull. A gelding is a neutered horse." Hank pulled the barn door open.

  Kate stared at the slim legged horse that stood in a stall at the far end of the barn. "Why would you neuter a horse? Wouldn't that render him useless?"

  Hank opened the stall. "That depends. A stallion is mean as hell and hard to manage, but you put up with that because you need his services. If you want a gentle animal that you can control, you neuter him."

  "Now I know what I should have done with Jim the day Suzie was born." It was the first flip thing Kate had ever uttered about Jim. She couldn't believe her own words. "I didn't mean that." She reached over the top rail and patted Ringo.

  "Be careful," Hank warned, then asked, "Who is Suzie?"

  "My daughter."

  The full impact of her remark made Hank wince. "Ouch! That would have been getting even."

  Forgetting seemed more sensible. "Did you bring a saddle?"

  "Sure did."

  "Cody can start my lessons tomorrow." Kate looked around the barn. "I've never been here before. It's a nice place, and big."

  Hank agreed. "Sure is. Dad had this built. Can you understand why I thought he had bought the place?"

  Kate could, and she told Hank so. "Maybe someday I can pay you for some of the improvements your dad made on Paradise."

  "That's not necessary. Dad paid a pittance for leasing this spread. I think he felt he could afford to improve it, and still come out ahead. He used the improvements, and under the terms of our agreement, I will continue to use them. Forget it."

  "Under the terms of our agreement, I am supposed to ride the range every day. I don't know where that is. After Cody teaches me to ride, I'll be ready for someone to show me around."

  Hank smiled into her eyes, and moved a little closer. "Why don't we kill two birds with one stone? "I'll come over tomorrow, and teach you to ride, then It will be my pleasure to show you around."