The Sweet Spot

by Laura Drake

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  To Lady Beans

  Thank you. For everything.

  Acknowledgments

  This book wouldn’t have happened without many hands, reaching back. First, my critique partners, Fae Rowen, Jenny Hansen, and Sharla Rae (thanks for letting me borrow your name!) Thanks to everyone at OCCRWA, the best writer’s group on the planet.

  Thanks to the bull riding insiders, who helped a city girl get it right: Clint Wade, of Exclusive Genetics, for his time and knowledge of bull husbandry; Cindy Rosser, who gave me insight into the life of a stock contractor; and Joe Scully, for the arena announcer details.

  Once written, the book would never have made it out of the drawer but for Sue Grimshaw, who was supportive even after being stuck two hours in an L.A. traffic jam with an aspiring author (so sorry). Thanks to my agent, Nalini Akolekar, of Spencerhill Associates, for taking a chance on me, and to Latoya Smith, my Grand Central editor.

  To my mother-in-law, Edith, who is a shining example of how amazing a ranch wife and mother can be.

  And always, to my very own hero—my bleed-maroon Texas Aggie, who always believed.

  CHAPTER

  1

  The grief counselor told the group to be grateful for what they had left. After lots of considering, Charla Rae decided she was grateful for the bull semen.

  Charla Rae Denny wiped her hands with her apron and stepped back, surveying the shelves of her pantry. This month’s Good Housekeeping suggested using scraps of linoleum as shelf paper. It had been a bitch-kitty to cut but cost nothing, would be easy to clean, and continued the white-pebbled theme of her kitchen floor. And for a few hours, the project had rescued her weary mind from a hamster-wheel of regret.

  The homing beacon in the Valium bottle next to the sink tugged at her insides.

  She sipped a glass of water to avoid reaching for it and glanced out the window to the spring-skeletal trees of the backyard.

  Her gaze returned to the two-foot-wide stump the way a tongue wanders to a missing tooth. Tentative grass shoots had sprung up to obscure the obscene scar in the soil.

  She hadn’t thought that an innocent tree could kill a child.

  She hadn’t thought that an innocent coed could kill a marriage.

  And if those pills could kill the thinking, she’d take ten.

  At the familiar throaty growl of a Peterbilt turning off the road out front, Char jerked, realizing minutes had passed. She’d been listening for that deep throb for hours. She always did. As the cab and empty cattle hauler swept by the window, she wound her shaking hands in her apron, as if the sturdy cotton would hold her together.

  A ranch wife could stretch a pound of hamburger farther than anyone, but Daddy’s new medication cost the moon, and the bills in the basket beside the computer were piling up like snowdrifts in a blizzard. Hands still shaking, she untied the bibbed apron and pulled it over her head. She’d rather clean bathrooms at the airport than ask her ex for money, but, then, most of her choices these days were like that. Sighing, she walked to the mudroom, shrugged into her spring jacket, yanked open the back door, and stepped into the nippy air.

  Jimmy had backed the rig to the corral and left the engine running. He stepped down from the cab to stand, one foot on the running board, looking up into the dim interior, unaware of her approach. After all, the past four months she’d made sure that when he was here, she’d been purposely somewhere else.

  He looked different. Her Jimmy, but with an older man superimposed, blurring the strong, familiar lines of the body she knew like her own. The mean midday sun highlighted the deep furrows bracketing his mouth and the brown hair curling from under his cowboy hat glinted with silver. His legs were still long and lean, but a bit of spare tire sheltered his huge oval belt buckle. Jimmy wouldn’t go anywhere without his State Champion Bull Rider buckle.

  She halted ten feet from the truck, thrust her fists in the pockets of the jacket, and forced words past the ball wedged in her throat. “Jimmy, we need to talk.”

  His head jerked around, face frozen in guilty shock. He looked like Benje as a toddler, caught misbehaving. Yet another reason she’d avoided him was stamped in the features he’d passed to their son.

  He spun back to the cab and mumbled. She followed his line of vision to catch a quick flash of sun on bleached blond hair. Charla stopped, stunned to stillness. She’d doubt her vision if that flash of blond hadn’t burned in her mind like a smoking brand.

  “You brought her here, Jimmy?” she whispered. “To our—to my home?” Oh, sure, she’d known about the Cupcake. The whole town knew. The girl was the straw that had finished off their marriage.

  Jimmy slammed the truck door and stood before it like a challenging bull. “That’s not Jess, Charla. Jess and I broke up months ago. That’s Mitzi, Jess’s roommate. And before you get any wrong ideas, I’m taking her to the event to watch her boyfriend ride. That’s it.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? Lies like that only work once, Jimmy.”

  He ducked his head, strode the length of the trailer, and busied himself letting down the tailgate. She stalked him, anger advancing with every step.

  “Do you have that little respect for me?” The pleading in her voice only made her madder. “James Benton Denny. You look at me.”

  Hands busy, he shot her his I-may-be-wrong-but-I’m-not-admitting-anything look.

  Words piled into her throat, and she swallowed. “Aren’t you even embarrassed? She could be your daughter, for cripes’ sake. People are laughing their heads off—at you—at me.” Her traitorous voice cracked.

  “Look, I’m telling you the truth, okay?” Jimmy’s voice echoed as he climbed into the cattle trailer. “The morning has been a disaster. First, that useless Emilio didn’t show, and I had to fire him.” The empty metal box amplified his sigh. “I needed to let him go anyway. We’re making good money, but now the business has to support two households—” He hesitated, apparently recalling his audience.

  “Then we had a flat on that danged retread. I knew better than to buy tires from Baynard’s.” Eyes down, he scanned the metal floor of the truck bed for anything that could hurt the stock. “I’m seriously late here, Little Bit, can we—”

  “Don’t you dare call me that!” She charged up the tailgate, her face blazing. “You lost that right two months, two weeks, four days ago.”

  He trotted by without a word, to the corral. The bulls, who had been watching the proceedings with interest, sauntered to the trailer. Realizing she stood between them and their destination, Char jumped from the tailgate.

  Jimmy circled the pen, keeping a wary eye on the bulls, urging them gently toward the gate. “What did you want to talk to me about, Char?”

  Slivers of pain shot up her palms. Realizing what she was doing, she relaxed her fingers until her nails popped out of the skin. God, I’m a fool. “Never mind.”

  “I’ll be at the event in Abilene for the week.”

  Char stepped to the side of the corral to hear over the clatter of hooves on the metal tailgate.

  “I’ve deposited the money from the last semen sale into your account, and I’m dropping the bulls off at the vet to have mor
e collected on the return trip. I should be back with them sometime on the twenty-fifth.”

  After the last bull, Kid Charlemagne, trotted up the ramp, Jimmy hoisted the tailgate and shot the pins into place. His nonchalance stung more than his hubris. Just another day dealing with the unreasonable ex. Her odd, out-of-body objectivity kicked in again as Jimmy closed the corral gate. Why shouldn’t he brush her off? What was she but an old coffee stain on his Important Life?

  He still had a job, two of them, in fact. One, working as an arena announcer for the pro bull riding circuit and the other as a stock contractor, supplying bucking bulls for the events.

  Her only job ended the day Benje died.

  Jimmy halted in front of her, his gaze sharpening on her face. “You still taking those pills, Little Bit?” His brow creased like it did when he was considering, and the look in his eye softened to… pity? “You’ve gotta get off those things, Hon. Medicating your life won’t make it better.”

  She wanted to slap the solicitous look off his face. She wanted to run.

  Instead, she held her ground, stabbing a finger at the trailer. “Those bulls have nothing on you in the balls department. You’ve got no talking room, Jimmy. Your old life fell apart, so you just threw it away and started a new one. Your medication just leans toward blonde and brainless.”

  Delicious flames licked the inside of her skin, urging her on. “Well, then, you go on and lie in that bed, Jimmy Denny. I don’t want to see your face on this property again. Do you hear me?”

  Jimmy’s mouth dropped. She’d gotten his attention now, all right.

  “You can’t do that, Char. You may own the semen, but I own the bulls. The land—”

  “Is my daddy’s. His Alzheimer’s hasn’t changed that, and I have his power of attorney.” The freed flames roared in her ears, and her body shook with righteous crackling heat. “You know very well I can do this, and by God, if you show up here again, I’ll call Sheriff Sloan and have you arrested for trespassing.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and wished looks really could kill. “Just leave the rig at the vet. I’ll pick up the bulls.”

  “But Char—”

  She tipped her chin to the truck cab. “You’d better hurry, Jimmy. Your girlfriend is waiting.” Spinning on her heel, Charla stomped stiff-legged to the house, mortification, anger, and fear roiling in her gut.

  Giving the door a satisfying slam, she strode to the kitchen, to the fire extinguisher disguised as a prescription bottle.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it.

  —Jane Wagner

  A blast of warm air hit JB as he hauled himself into the cab and slammed the door. “I apologize for that.” Vibration from the idling engine throbbed through the seat as he raised his fingers to the heating vents. Just my luck. The day I do a favor for someone, Little Bit decides she wants to talk.

  Mitzi flipped a curl of bleached hair over her shoulder. “No apology needed. I’m sorry I brought you trouble. Sam and I owe you a couple of drinks.”

  The sympathy in her look granted him absolution. For the moment, anyway. “After today, I’ll need them. Let’s get on the road.” He double-clutched and rammed the truck into gear.

  The look of betrayal on Char’s face had sent a shard of guilt slicing through his gut. He shouldn’t have chanced bringing Mitzi. He knew what it would look like to Char. But they were two hours late already, and if he’d had to drive back across town to pick her up… God, he was a shit.

  As he goosed the accelerator, the whine of the engine and his thoughts crowded out Mitzi’s chatter. Aware that the truck’s passenger side would face the kitchen window on the trip out, he considered asking Mitzi to duck, but that horse had already left the barn. Besides, it was a long drive to Abilene, and he couldn’t take four hours of cab time with an indignant woman.

  Char’s words stung like sweat in an open cut. Jess had not been young enough to be their daughter. He checked traffic and eased onto the highway, taking it easy on the bulls. Shifting through the gears, he remembered the first time he and Char had made love, the spring of their senior year.

  Telling their parents they were going to the baseball game, they’d driven out to the Pedernales River for a picnic. He’d spread a blanket on the bank, and that afternoon, his world shifted. He’d never been inside someone’s skin before, in more ways than physically. Char’s sharing of her deepest self had loosened his defenses, and that day she’d settled in, next to his heart.

  They’d been what, seventeen? Subtracting that from forty? Twenty-three. Crap. That hurt, but not because she’d been right about Jess being young. How long had Char been chewing on this? Long enough to do the math and, he was sure, remember that day at the river.

  His thoughts shifted gears again. How does she think she’s going to run things by herself? Since he’d fired Emilio this morning, she wouldn’t even have a hand to help out. He was sure the ramifications still hadn’t occurred to her. When Charla got mad, she didn’t think.

  A traditional ranch wife, she considered her home and family her career, and everything outside the house his responsibility. Not a popular career for a girl in the late 1980s, but it fit him down to the ground. They’d made a good team. He hadn’t known a partnership so strong could break so fast.

  Benje’s earnest, seven-year-old face swam into his vision. I shouldn’t be surprised. When you cut the center out of something, the rest falls in on itself.

  Imagining Char, trying to handle the day-to-day labor of their bucking bull operation, he relaxed. He’d be getting a call from Little Bit by tomorrow.

  A call he’d be waiting for.

  Charla rolled over, pulling the covers up to block the light, but it was no use. Consciousness was as relentless as the dawn that inched across the ceiling, highlighting the crack above her bed. It had been painted over many times, but the lightning-shaped fissure had been there, even when this had been her parent’s room.

  She felt around the edges of her mind. She’d forgotten something. Something important. It barreled from a tunnel and slammed her to reality. The hollowness in her chest made her gasp and she hugged herself, afraid she would implode.

  Benje is gone.

  She pulled the covers up and curled into a ball. Another day to face, when her reason for facing it was gone. Why bother?

  She heard the answer in the shush of slippered feet passing her door. Daddy. The grief counselor pointed out that they still had responsibilities. She had to go on for those. Dashing the tears from her cheeks, she threw back the covers and shouldered the sunrise.

  After a quick shower, she donned an old sweatshirt and buttoned jeans that hung loose, gapping at the waist. She made the mistake of glancing in the mirror on her way out of the bathroom. The haggard scarecrow staring back frightened her. I’m cutting back on the pills today. She stared down the hag in the mirror. I am.

  After making her bed, Char walked the hall to the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. Her father, dressed for the day in slippers, jeans, and a blue Western-cut shirt, sat at the table, staring out the window. His red hair had blanched gray over the years, and his beard stubble shone silver in the morning light.

  Smiling, she walked around the table, rested her hands on his shoulders, and dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Mornin’, Daddy.”

  He looked up, his brow furrowed, worry in his washed blue eyes. “When’s Benje coming home?”

  The hope she’d garnered in the mirror blew away. Another bad day. She had to quit kidding herself; he was getting worse. Trying to convince Daddy of facts he didn’t remember only upset him. “Benje’s gone off with his dad. They’ll be back by dinnertime.” She hugged his neck, resting her head against his as his shaky hand patted her hair. Eyes closed, she took comfort from his touch for a moment, then sniffed and straightened. “Coffee’s coming up.”

  As she filled the carafe at the tap, the sound of an indignant baw
l from outside jerked her head up.

  The heifers crowded the fence, gazing toward the house. “Now where’s that darned Emil—” It all came crashing back. She’d been so mad yesterday that Jimmy telling her he’d fired Emilio hadn’t even registered. She fetched two of her mother’s Vintage Rose teacups while the coffeemaker burbled and her mind whirled. Their eighty acres was a decent-size spread for Fredericksburg. But between the bucking bulls and the mama cows, they were overgrazed, so JB had to supplement feed. Her shoulders slumped. Scratch that. She needed to feed.

  Dang him. She’d been naive enough to believe, the first time, that the little buckle bunny perched on his truck seat belonged to a friend. Did he really think she was stupid enough to swallow the same story a second time?

  The heifers at the fence bellowed for breakfast.

  Focus, Charla. You have bigger problems today.

  After yanking out the loaf of bread she’d made the day before, she popped two slices in the toaster, then glanced at her father’s profile, his long face slack as he stared out the window. I can’t leave Daddy alone today. She needed at least part-time help with him, but after Jimmy’s comments on their finances yesterday, she was glad she hadn’t asked him for more money.

  A half hour later, Char stood in front of the open barn door. Only two sacks of feed? What the heck were you thinking, Jimmy? The bawl of hungry cattle got her moving. She would have to make do.

  “I’ll get this, Little Bit.” Her father rounded the bed of the pickup. Growing up, she’d worshiped this big bear of a man who’d constructed the world to fit her mother and her. She glanced at his bent shoulders and spindly bowed legs. When had he gotten so fragile?

  “We’ll do it together, Daddy.” They wrestled the sacks onto the battered truck bed. Her father walked to the fence and opened the gate, and she drove through it. After closing the gate, her dad got in the truck, and she drove to the center of the pasture. Jimmy always fed there, not wanting the cows at the front fence, leaning on it, breaking it down.