“Your kitchen is all cleaned up, Gran,” she said. “But I’ll come out tomorrow and see what else you need to have done around here.”
“It’s your vacation, honey. You don’t need to be working out here.” But she knew Kate would come out anyway. The girl loved to clean, always had, but Gert had other plans for her granddaughter. If you wanted to write a book and your only granddaughter was a television writer, well, how lucky could an old lady be?
“I want to,” she insisted. “You know I like to be out here. It’s a chance to get the city out of my system.”
“But your friends—”
“Will see plenty of me. I’m going to call Emily first thing tomorrow and see how she’s doing. Make a cleaning list, Grandma, and I’ll work my way through it.”
“Cleaning. Now that’s a good idea.” Martha plopped on the couch and patted her daughter’s knee. “Your grandmother has never been much for throwing things away and I’ll bet there are some closets upstairs that could use a good going through.”
“Closets,” Gert muttered. “I don’t care much about what’s in those old closets. Tell me about the show, Kate. Is that nasty redheaded nurse going to kill someone else this week?”
Kate laughed. “I guess you’ve been watching the show. Lillian is a pretty frightening villain, isn’t she?”
“You need a cowboy or two on that soap opera of yours, Katie.” Her granddaughter hadn’t fooled anyone with that I-hardly-know-Dustin-Jones attitude. Why, the young man could hardly take his eyes off her the entire time they were all in the kitchen eating cake. Gert watched Kate fidget with a crocheted pillow. “Have you ever thought of that? Loves of Our Lives could use some Texan men, to show those silly women in Apple Valley what real men are like.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Kate promised. “The head writer might be leaving, so there could be some changes. It’s going to be a nerve-wracking summer on the show.”
Changes. Gert wanted to tell her beloved Kate that changes were part of things, part of life. Of course, a woman could always dig in her heels and refuse to budge, or she could change right along with everything else. “How do you like my new ranch hands?”
“Hands?” Martha repeated. “You hired someone else?”
“The boy,” Gert sighed. Her daughter didn’t have much of a sense of humor, all things considered. Edwin sure had been funny, though, in his own way. She sure missed him, missed him teasing her about things. “Little Danny. Isn’t he something?”
“Where do you think his mother is?” Kate asked, and Gert suspected there was more to her question than she was willing to let on.
“Dustin didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I think Dustin said Danny was going into third grade here in the fall,” Gert mused, wishing she knew what was going on in that girl’s head. “Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“He sure likes cake.” Martha looked at her watch. “We should let you get to bed, Mother. You’ve had quite a day.”
“A good day,” Gert reminded her, but truth to tell, she was tired. But she had a few more things to discuss with the girls before they left. “Did I tell you I’m writing a book?”
“About what?” Kate asked, sounding interested. Almost as interested as she’d been in Dustin’s boy.
“About my life. Beauville. Texas. Everyone keeps telling me that I must have a lot of stories to tell.”
“Oh, Lord,” Martha moaned. “Whatever for?”
“I’d like to be rich before I die,” her mother said. “And I sure would like to meet Katie Couric.”
“What does Katie Couric have to do with the price of beans?”
“She’s the cute little gal on TV.”
“I know who she is, Mother. I want to know what she has to do with your writing a book.”
Kate began to laugh. “Gran, do you want to be on television?”
Gert nodded. “I sure do.”
“If you’d come to New York you could be an extra on the show.”
“I’m not fancy enough for that, Katie. I want to be like those old women who were on TV a few days—or was it weeks—ago. They’d made themselves a bunch of money, just talking about their lives and giving advice.”
“It’s a good idea,” her granddaughter declared. “I would think your stories would be very interesting.”
“You can’t even type.” Martha hesitated. “Can you?”
“Enough. Maybe I’ll get me a computer.”
“A computer.” Her lips pursed with disapproval.
“That’s what I said, Martha. A computer. One of them little ones like Kate carries around. So I could put it on the kitchen table.”
“I brought my laptop with me,” Kate said. “I can teach you how to use it.”
“Don’t encourage her. The attic is already filled with scrapbooks and letters and heaven only knows what else. I suppose some things could be donated to the county historical society someday,” Martha said, still unenthusiastic about book writing and television appearances.
“Someday meaning after I’m dead and buried?” Gert didn’t like the idea of strangers looking through her personal letters, and there were a few secrets here and there that folks in town wouldn’t like made public. Come to think of it, though, things like that might spice up the book a little bit. Make it more interesting than dust storms and recipes.
“I’m not sure writing a book guarantees you’ll be on TV,” Kate said, but she looked like she was enjoying the conversation. Gert bet the girl didn’t do a lot of smiling in New York City. Too much stress, that’s what everyone said about living in the city. The girl needed more clean air and good hearty food. “We’ll have to go through those things upstairs. For ideas.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Martha said, rising from the couch. “What’s in the past should stay in the past.”
“Why, Martha, are you so goldarned upset?”
“Mom?”
“I’ve had enough of this talk. And I don’t think anyone should be writing anything about family secrets.” Martha didn’t look at either one of them. Instead she stalked out of the room.
“Gran didn’t say anything about family secrets,” Kate called after her. Gert could have told her that wouldn’t work. When Martha was in one of her fusses, there was no talking her out of it. Sure enough, Martha returned to the living room and kissed Gert goodbye, but she didn’t look happy.
“I wish you’d change your mind,” Martha said.
“About writing a book?”
“About coming home with us.”
“I’m staying here,” Gert declared, “until I sell the place or the hearse comes to take me away.”
“Gran,” Kate said, making a face at her. “I’ll be back in the morning, so have a list ready for me. That is, unless the hearse beats me out here.”
Gert chuckled. “Go on, both of you. Thank you again for a lovely day.” She took Kate’s hand and whispered, “You won’t forget to bring your computer tomorrow?”
“No. Go to bed.”
“I will,” she promised, wishing Martha wasn’t leaving in such a snit. What secrets would her daughter want to keep private, anyway? Martha Knepper McIntosh had never done anything wrong in her life.
Unlike a lot of other folks around here.
“SHE REALLY SHOULDN’T stay out here alone anymore, should she?” Kate turned the car around and headed away from the ranch house. She drove slowly, reluctant to leave her grandmother on her own.
“No.” Her mother sighed. “I’ve tried so hard to get her to move into town with me, but you know how stubborn she is. And she makes me feel ridiculous for worrying about her after we argue about it.”
“She loves that place.”
“Kate, honey, it hasn’t always been a bed of roses out there for Gran.”
“Because?”
“Gran’s first husband wasn’t anything to shake a stick at.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I don’t know how s
he did it. My father—Mother’s second husband—ran the grocery store. We lived in town until my father retired.”
“And that’s when they moved back to the ranch?”
“Yes. Your grandmother always ran the place, even when I was a little girl. We all spent weekends out there. She always was a really hard worker.”
“She’s a very strong person,” Kate said, wishing she had just one-tenth of that strength. Here she was, a twenty-seven-year-old woman in the prime of her life, and she felt ridiculously exhausted at the end of each day. “Why are you upset about her writing her memoirs, Mom? Do we really have family secrets?”
“I guess I don’t want everyone knowing our business,” she said, but Kate wondered if there was more to it than that.
“But Gran’s life is so unique, and she’s lived so long.”
“Long enough to know that you shouldn’t go stirring up the past and making folks remember things.”
“Remember things like what?”
Silence greeted that answer, so Kate tried again. “Was her first husband a criminal or something?”
“I am not going to discuss this with you, Kate.”
Bingo. The first husband, Hal Johnson, must have done something very wrong. And Martha didn’t want it rehashed, though he’d been dead long before Martha was born. Why would Martha be embarrassed by anything that Hal had done? It didn’t make sense, but maybe Gran would explain it all.
“Okay,” Kate said, then changed the subject. “Gran seems to be getting around pretty well, don’t you think? And her mind is just as sharp as it ever was.”
“I go out there every morning and every evening,” Martha said, her voice breaking as if she was trying not to cry. “Or sometimes I come out and spend the afternoon. It would be so much easier if she would move into town. I worry so.”
“What can I do to help? I know a week isn’t much but—”
“Would you stay with your grandmother out at the ranch for a few days?
“Of course,” Kate replied, glancing toward her mother. “Is that all?”
“It’s a lot,” she said. “Not that I don’t want you at the house with me, but if you were there I wouldn’t worry so much. And your grandmother listens to you. If you tell her she needs to move off of the ranch, she might just do it.”
“I don’t want to force her to leave the Lazy K, Mom.” In fact, she couldn’t picture her grandmother anywhere else but puttering around the old ranch house and wearing one of her faded print cotton dresses.
“None of us may have a choice much longer, Kate,” her mother warned. “One fall, one false step…it scares me to think of all the things that could happen to her and no one would be there to help her.”
“Dustin told me he doesn’t live in the foreman’s house because it’s too far away from Gran. The bunkhouse is only a short walk from the main house.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I think he looks out for her,” she said, picturing him hovering over her at the party. He was just as handsome as he ever was, she thought. More so, even. And the boy looked just like him. Each time she looked at him she remembered the pain she’d felt when she’d heard about Lisa Gallagher and her pregnancy. She shook off the memory. “Grandma loves having that little boy around.”
“He seems nice enough. I imagine he reminds her of your uncle Hank at that age.”
“No one ever really talks about Hank. What was he like?” Her mother’s half brother had died several years before Martha married Ian McIntosh.
“Hank liked a good time,” was all Martha would say. Before much longer they were driving past the crowded Steak Barn, then through town and onto Knight Street. Two blocks took them to “A Street,” toward the two-story Victorian that had been Kate’s home from the day she was born. Pale yellow with black shutters, it sat with other grand homes in the section of town referred to as “The Park,” since its four blocks were a dead end, a self-contained area within the city.
The McIntosh house faced the park, with a view of grass, benches and a small play area for the local toddlers in the far northeast corner, across the street from what used to be the town’s elementary school and now housed the Good Day Preschool.
“It’s still so quiet here,” Kate said, pulling the car into the driveway and parking in front of the garage. “Not like New York at all.”
“Even Saturday nights aren’t too wild in Beauville,” Martha said, opening the car door. “My bed is sure going to feel good tonight.”
“You must have worked so hard on the party. It was great.”
“Thanks, honey. I’m lucky. How many people get to give their mother a ninetieth birthday party?” She smiled at Kate before stepping out of the car. “If you’ll open the trunk I’ll get the food out that needs to be refrigerated.”
“I’ll do it,” Kate said. “Go on in and get the lights on.” Her mother didn’t argue, and instead went up the steps to the front porch. Soon the lights came on both inside and out, illuminating the tall windows and their lace curtains. A storybook house, Kate had always thought, filled with lovely polished silver and velvet-covered couches and gleaming cherry furniture. Her home had always smelled of furniture polish, not an unpleasant scent, but Kate had preferred the smell of hay and horses on her grandmother’s ranch.
She didn’t go inside right away. Instead she listened to the silence and became accustomed to a street devoid of taxis and traffic. Peaceful, Kate knew, unlike her life in the city. Loves of Our Lives was in turmoil, with a new director and executive producer. The writers had been told to come up with something spectacular for the November sweeps.
She thought of Gran’s suggestion to bring in some Texas cowboys. Yes, the show needed a new hero.
Who didn’t?
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I’D BE GLAD TO come with you.” Kate watched her mother fuss over her hair in the hall mirror. They’d spent a hurried breakfast together and now her mother was rushing off to church.
“Honey, I would rather you spent the time with Gran. She’ll be expecting you, you know. And aren’t you supposed to stop in and see Emily?”
“Yes. But I could wait an hour or so.”
“I’m off,” her mother said, ignoring the offer. She picked up her purse and tucked a tissue inside.
“I’ll pick something up for dinner,” Kate offered. Her mother wore a fashionable navy linen dress that disguised her plump figure and made her seem younger than sixty-four years old. “I’ve never seen you wear that color before. You look nice.”
“Well, thank you,” she said, smiling. “I try. And don’t worry about dinner. I’ll meet you out at the ranch later on.”
“Do you want me to pick you up?”
“I’ll get a ride,” she said, sounding more mysterious than a retired town clerk should sound.
“Okay.” She watched her mother hurry out the front door as if she couldn’t wait to get away. Usually when Kate was home she followed her everywhere. Kate would bet a week’s salary that this had something to do with Carl Jackson, the romancing land developer. She couldn’t picture her mother involved with any man, but the pudgy businessman who’d shaken her hand yesterday didn’t look like someone her mother would fall for. And she couldn’t envision her mother with anyone other than her sweet-tempered father, the quiet store owner with the patience of a saint. What on earth was the matter with the woman?
“SO, WHAT DID I MISS at the birthday party?” Emily, her round face puffy from pregnancy, gave Kate a wicked grin. “Any romantic reunions? Unrequited longing? Lust? What?”
“Your hormone levels must be a mess,” Kate told her, laughing as she sat across from Emily in her friend’s tiny kitchen. George had taken the children to visit his mother for a while so Emily could get some rest. “Your imagination is just getting worse.”
“Ha,” she said, shifting in her chair so she could rest her legs on the seat of the chair next to hers. “You saw Dustin, right? And it’s been eight—nine—years. And he
’s still as handsome as sin, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“As handsome as those New York actors you boss around?”
“Those New York actors are either married or gay,” Kate said. “Maybe Dustin’s married. He has a boy.”
“Not married,” Emily said. “George said.” And if George said it, then it was fact. The man knew everything that went on in three counties. “So he’s all yours for the taking.”
“Oh, Em. I don’t want him.” She was no longer stupid, she hoped. Or gullible. She now knew that when a man said, “No commitments, no strings,” he meant exactly what he said.
“I don’t know about that. Some things don’t change that much,” Emily said, patting her belly. “Except for my stomach, which keeps getting bigger.”
“How are you feeling?” she asked, grateful for the change in subject.
“Fine, unfortunately. I had false labor pains yesterday, which is why we missed the party. I knew it wasn’t the real thing, but George made me go to bed and rest.”
“You didn’t miss much. A cake with candles blazing, my mother making eyes at Carl Jackson, Dustin’s little boy getting his picture taken with my grandmother, Elizabeth and Jake looking happy and ready to be parents, Lorna Sheridan with a cute little baby.” She took a sip of coffee. “I understand you all know each other.”
“Lorna and Elizabeth are great,” Emily said. “And eager recipients of all of my maternal advice. And I have a lot of advice.”
“Do you have any for me?”
“Yes. Come home and make babies, too. Think of the fun we could have.”
“Any other advice?”
“Make those teenagers on the show behave. That little blond gal—Becky?—needs to be grounded, or locked in her room.” Emily looked over at the shopping bag Kate had brought with her. “Did you bring food?”
“Better than food,” Kate declared, bending down to lift a gift-wrapped box out of the bag. “Saks.”
“Be still my heart. And tell me it’s something that doesn’t have a waist.”
“Would I do that to you? Open it.” Every summer she brought her best friend something outrageously New York and chic, something meant to make Emily laugh. But this time Kate had opted for something less flamboyant. She watched as her friend ripped off the paper and lifted the lid of the dress box to reveal a buttercup yellow linen sundress.
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