by Anna Jeffrey
Mary Claire, on the other hand, ignored Jimmy and said a few terse hellos. Then she wrapped her arms around numerous department store bags and sacks and strode into the house.
Annabeth jumped to her feet and slid a long, bony arm around her grandfather’s waist. “Did you give Chico oats while I was gone, Grandpa?”
“Now and then, sweetheart. He still has a lot of grass. We don’t want him to get too fat. What he needs most is somebody to ride him. Your dad and Shorty haven’t had time.”
Janet had emerged from the car on the passenger side. Luke stood by his truck and watched as she picked her way in fancy, high-heeled shoes across the gravel driveway.
At forty-one, she appeared a little weathered, but God and any number of high-falutin’ cosmetic companies had favored her—she still looked like a fancy doll. She should. When she had been his wife, slapping on grease from a drawer full of jars and bottles had been a continuous ritual. She spent hours on her long bleached hair—he couldn’t remember if he had ever known its real color—while tasks she should have done had been handled by his mother or Ethel. He guessed she would always be a good-looking woman, but she had never held up her end of any bargain she had ever made—including marriage and motherhood.
“Hi, Luke,” she said, angling a look up at him. Her blue eyes seemed faded, like old jeans. She reeked of Listerine, a poor attempt to disguise the odor of alcohol. Not even her strong perfume hid it. The familiar mix of smells hit Luke like a glove across the cheek. A red heat crawled up his spine, but he touched his bill cap with his finger. “Janet.”
“I must say, you’re looking well.” She gave his stomach a couple of proprietary pats and let her hand linger.
Luke stepped back as if a scorpion had landed on him. He hadn’t had carnal thoughts about her for years. When he saw her nowadays, all that went through his head were dollar signs with wings. Their last encounter had been a year ago in a judge’s office in Boise, settling the third blow-up over custody of the girls. It had cost him several thousand dollars.
Her nostrils flared, her chin hoisted. “Just so you’ll know, the girls hated coming back to this god-awful place. They wanted to start school in Boise.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll bet.”
“Well, they did! I promised them we’d discuss it.”
“You can consider that discussion held and closed.”
Janet’s companion came over and her act changed. “This is Tony,” she said, lowering her voice and giving him a sly smile. “Tony Scarpello.”
Luke detected a yeasty odor.
“He just moved up from San Francisco,” Janet said, keeping up the coy act. “His family’s in wine.”
Uh-huh, and wine’s in him, Luke thought. A thousand dollars said Janet had picked him up in a bar.
If the boyfriend knew no love was lost between Janet and her former family, he didn’t show it. He stuck out his hand.
Luke didn’t hesitate to admit his curiosity about his ex-wife’s boyfriends. Sooner or later her flings affected their daughters in some way. He shook hands with the latest one, eyeing him with narrow-lidded skepticism. The guy looked ten years younger than Janet. A black, frizzy pony tail was banded at his neck. He wore loose-fitting slacks and soft shoes and had on what Luke figured they called a designer shirt—somebody’s name was plastered over the front.
Janet’s voice burst into his assessment. “I bought the girls school clothes. I charged them to you.”
“Nothing new about that.” Luke put a lid on his anger and leaned against the Ford’s fender, studying his ex-wife’s attire—a storm of loud colors, a lot of straps on her shoes and a lot of bracelets clicking on both arms. That was how Janet had always dressed—with a lot of everything. Needless to say, in the nine years they were married, she had been inside the barn less than a dozen times.
“They were wearing absolute rags,” she continued. “They need nice clothes, even in a place as backward as Callister.”
She waited, poised to pounce. When he refused to take the bait, she turned her attention to her boyfriend. “Come on, Tony. I’ll introduce you to my son. And my daughters’ grandparents, if you can stand it.”
She led Pony Tail up to the deck like he was a pet horse and made the introductions, gushing with phony affection over Jimmy. Luke turned away. He couldn’t stand seeing her pretend to care about their son when he knew it to be a lie. Mom and Ethel showered Jimmy with attention, but the little guy had enough smarts to know neither one of them was his mother.
Janet pointedly ignored Ethel. That rankled, too. Janet, who had come out of a Seattle sewer herself, had always practiced her own caste system.
He couldn’t hear what passed between her and his parents, but he didn’t need to. He could well imagine what his mother had to say to her. Soon, obviously pissed off, Janet clonked back down the steps, nearly losing her balance, but Pony Tail caught her.
The boyfriend went back the El Dorado’s trunk where he began to dig out some more sacks and shoe boxes. Janet stalked to where Luke stood and jammed her fists against her waist. “I see everything’s the same as it always was. Your mother’s still a mean bitch. I don’t know how poor Mary and Annabeth stand it.”
She wheeled around, stamped to her car and reached for the door latch.
Enough was enough. In one giant step, Luke leaned on the El Dorado’s door with the heel of his palm, making it impossible for her to open it. “Janet,” he said, keeping his voice too low for the family to hear, “if I ever again see those girls in the car with you or anybody else who’s been drinking, they’ll never spend another day with you. And there’s not a judge in Idaho that’ll make a difference. Got that?”
Pony Tail bristled. “Now, wait just a minute—”
Luke stopped him with a rigid finger pointed at his nose. “Drop it, mister. You’re poking in something you don’t know anything about. And don’t you ever forget, those are my kids you’re hauling around. If a hair on their heads gets out of place while they’re in your company, you’ll have me to answer to and you won’t like it.”
Janet gasped and sprang up, in his face, blowing Listerine and gin. “You don’t tell me what to do any more, Luke McRae!” She pointed a crimson-tipped finger up at his mother. “And neither does that hateful old bag. I hope she falls off her goddamn high-horse and breaks a leg.”
She flipped her loose, blond curls. “You self-righteous asshole. Someday I’ll get something on you. And when I do, I’ll get my kids again. And you’ll wish you’d never met me.”
“I already do, Janet, I already do.” He lifted his hand from the car door.
She jerked it open and plopped into the passenger seat. “Get in, Tony,” she commanded.
Pony Tail moved around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel without comment.
She reached for the door latch, but Luke hung onto the door, not allowing her to shut it. He bent down and looked at her, eye-to-eye. “Janet, you have a nice trip back to Boise. And one more thing, if we ever do this kid exchange again, it’ll be on your turf. I don’t want you coming to the ranch anymore.”
“Fuck you!”
Luke released his hold on the door, she slammed it with a crash!
Pony Tail cranked the engine and eased backward. As they pulled away, Janet stuck her upper body out the window, smiling and waving both arms. “Bye, kids. Be good girls now. I’ll see you Thanksgiving.”
Luke looked around. Who was she trying to impress? Mary Claire already had taken her loot into the house and Jimmy was wrapped up in his newly-acquired, plastic animals.
Annabeth lifted a limp hand in a half wave. “Bye, Mom.”
Only when the Cadillac passed through the stanchions at the front gate did Luke feel his blood pressure lower a few notches. He gathered what was left of the shopping plunder and carried it up onto the deck.
Chapter 17
“I don’t understand why he hasn’t called.” Dahlia was disgusted with herself the minute the words left her mout
h.
She and Piggy had stopped to eat lunch and rest under a canopy of amber-leafed oaks on a mountainside.
Piggy gathered their lunch trash and stuffed it into her backpack. “Maybe his mother killed him.”
“That isn’t funny. You know I hate jokes about death.”
“Sorry, Dal. It slipped.”
“The stuff we’ve heard about his out-of-town girlfriends—do you think he’s been seeing somebody else while we—”
“Get real. I know he’s a stud, but holy cow.”
“I can’t believe he hasn’t been able to find five minutes to call me.” She picked up a dried twig and snapped it in half. “God, I don’t know how I got into this.”
“Chemistry? Or maybe you were just plain horny.”
Dahlia slowly shook her head. “At first, I thought his having so much family was neat. His loyalty to them and that ranch seemed so noble. Now, here I am again, pushed behind everything else in someone’s life. Just like with Kenneth.”
“Phooey. There’s no comparison between Luke and Kenneth. And you can’t say Luke’s doing that. You’ve been with him every weekend. He’s come to town during the week to see you. That couldn’t have been easy. The trip alone is a killer.”
“You want to know what’s wrong with the whole thing, Piggy? It’s not his mother—who obviously would hate anyone except Lee Ann Flagg—or the ranch or his kids. He doesn’t need me. That’s what’s wrong with it. It’s like, if I’m there, fine, and if I’m not, that’s okay, too.”
“Luke’s like my oldest brother,” Piggy said. “He’s a warrior and a survivor. His perspective is different. You won’t see him diving off a cliff for the sake of any woman. His causes are bigger than his own desires.”
“Humph. And I guess you won’t see him making a commitment to someone in town for the summer.” Dahlia felt tears welling in her throat and swallowed to gain control. “Men like him take what they want and go on to the next hot body, don’t they?”
“I think there’s more to Luke than that.”
“You’ve always been on his side. You’re the one who should have been sleeping with him. You would’ve been able to do it and forget it.”
Piggy sat up, spread her hands and laughed. “Hey, you know I would have. But you, girlfriend, were the one he wanted.”
Dahlia huffed, recalling how ardently he had pursued her. And seduced her. “Yeah, right.”
“Here’s a riddle,” Piggy said. “If he showed up today and said, ‘Dahlia, marry me and live with me forever at my ranch at the edge of nowhere, spend more than half the year in freezing temperatures, help me raise my kids, one of who’s handicapped,’ would you?”
Dahlia stared at the ground between her feet. What would she do? The possibility seemed so far-fetched she hadn’t let her thoughts venture into that territory. Now that she thought about it, the responsibility any woman who married Luke would face was almost overwhelming. “I don’t think I’m going to have to answer that.”
“He’s got love in his eyes when he looks at you, Dal.”
“Well, it’s not on his tongue. He’s never said it. In fact, lately, he makes me feel like spoiled fish.”
“As always, you’re beating yourself up for no reason.”
“Even if he did ask me, and even if I weren’t so damn mad at him, I don’t see how it could work out. Dad will be seventy-eight this year. He’s grown to depend on me in the grocery store, you know.”
“So you’re saying it’s okay for you to have family loyalty, but not Luke?”
Dahlia gave her a narrow-lidded look. “Okay, smart-aleck—”
“He-e-e-y!” Jerry’s yell from up the hill ended their discussion. He made a windmill arc with his arm, motioning for them to follow him.
“Jeez,” Piggy grumbled, forcing herself to her feet. “We’ve still got to hike all the way back down to the Suburban after we climb to the top of that hill.”
They arrived back at the Forest Service offices late in the afternoon, collapsed into the steel armchairs in the employee break room and joined in the end-of-the-day camaraderie. “This is the hardest work I’ve ever done in my life,” Piggy whined, bringing laughs and jokes about the shortcomings of Texans.
“Hey!” Gretchen shouted from the reception desk. “Dahlia Montgomery! Phone!”
Luke. Dahlia’s weariness fled. Her feet scarcely touched the floor on her way to the lobby.
“It’s long distance,” Gretchen said, handing over the receiver. “They said it’s important.”
“Oh?” Stopped by a sudden shot of anxiety, Dahlia hesitated, then took the receiver. “Dahlia speaking,” she said in a tight voice.
“This is Chuck Moore, Dahlia. You’ve got to come home. It’s your dad. He’s . . . well, I don’t know any other way to say it, hon. He had a stroke.”
A few seconds passed before her brain gears engaged. “Is—is he okay?”
“He’s in the hospital. You can come home, can’t you? I can look after the store, but I can’t sign checks. Payday’s tomorrow and vendors are waiting—”
“I just have to get a flight,” she broke in, her mind scrambling. Her father’s absence from the Handy Pantry was an urgent situation. Most of the employees lived from payday to payday and the wholesalers required either check on delivery of goods or payment within ten days. “He can’t sign checks?”
“No, hon. He can’t.”
The words dropped like stones in her stomach. Chuck told her a few more bits of information: can’t talk, can’t move right side, don’t know what’s gonna happen. She repeated she was on her way home and hung up.
On rubbery knees, she returned to the break room where all held questioning looks. She motioned Piggy outside, leaving them to wonder. “Dad had a stroke.”
“Oh, no. He’s not—it wasn’t a bad one, was it?”
“I don’t know. It sounds bad. I have to go home.” Her words came out in spurts, keeping time with her thundering heartbeat.
“Shithouse mouse,” Piggy muttered, her eyes turning shiny. “I’ll go, too.”
“You can’t. You have to help Jerry finish up and you’ve got the Blazer. You’ll have to get our things back to Loretta. I hate leaving you to make that drive alone, but I don’t know anything else to do.”
In her mind, Dahlia was already organizing. For all her floundering over the mundane, her cool head prevailed in a crisis.
Piggy frowned and sniffed away what had almost been a tear. Though Dahlia’s wise-cracking pal tried to appear jaded and tough, Dahlia knew her heart was a cotton ball, especially where Dad was concerned. He had always treated her like a second daughter.
“He’ll be okay,” Piggy said. “I know he will. Look at the shape Ol’ Man Clark was in. They gave him physical therapy and now he’s out square-dancing.”
Just then, Pete Hand swung out the door behind them and hooked an arm around Piggy’s neck. “Sweet lips. Let’s go.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Dahlia’s dad—”
“You go on,” Dahlia told her, knowing Piggy wanted to spend the free time she had left in Callister with Pete. The two of them probably had planned to join the Forest Service crowd at Carlton’s for happy hour. Beyond that, the last thing Dahlia needed while packing and recapturing her wits was Piggy hovering and gushing false confidence. “There’s nothing you can do. Just leave the Blazer with me. I’ll have to wash some clothes.”
“What’s going on?” Pete asked.
Before either of them could explain, the beep of a horn drew their attention. They looked across the two-aisled parking lot and saw Luke’s white pickup near the back corner, almost hidden by employee and government vehicles.
“Well, whaddaya know,” Piggy said, casting a sly glance in the Ford’s direction. She dug the Blazer’s keys out of her jeans pocket and handed them to Dahlia.
Relief swept through Dahlia. Luke would put his thick, strong arms around her and tell her in his deep, soft voice everything would be all right. God, how
she needed that. The anger she had felt at him since Saturday night vanished.
Yet, as joyful as she felt, she didn’t know what to expect. He had never appeared like this at the end of her workday.
Piggy gave her a see-how-smart-I-am look. “You stewed three days for nothing. I told you he’d get his head straight.”
With a quivery laugh, Dahlia glanced down at herself. A day of chasing a surveyor up and down mountainsides always left her filthy and disheveled. She hadn’t let Luke see her in that state. “I look awful.”
“You look great,” Pete said. “Go get ’im.” He tugged at Piggy’s hand.
“Listen, Piggy, when I get back to the cottage, I’ll try to book a flight early tomorrow. You can take me to the airport, can’t you?”
“No problem,” Piggy said. “I’ll run Jerry down, tell him we can’t work. But when tall, freckle-faced and handsome over there finds out you have to leave, I’ll bet he’ll want to take you.”
Dahlia stared across the parking lot at Luke. She had never asked him to do anything for her. Taking a calming breath and stuffing the car keys into her pocket, she hurried toward him.
By the time she reached his pickup, he was outside, holding the passenger door open. He, too, had on work clothes—a blue chambray, snap-button shirt, his wavy, cinnamon hair turning up at the collar, and faded Wranglers that fit him like paint. The awareness that always turned her into a fumbling fool when she saw him slithered through her. If it weren’t for the circumstances, she might strip off her clothes, crawl into his pickup bed and wait for him.
“Looking for me, stranger?” She hoped she sounded upbeat.
“Hi,” he said. No kiss, no enthusiasm. He usually chuckled when she made goofy remarks and he always kissed her hello.
Questioning with a glance, she planted her foot on the pickup’s floorboard. He put his hand under her elbow, boosted her up into the cab and closed her in with the smells ever-present around him—hay, leather and Polo.
She watched his grim expression as he rounded the front of the vehicle. Her mind raced. She knew his kids had returned over the weekend. Had something happened to one of them? Or to some other family member? The notion that he would be a comforting element for her began to dissipate.