by Anna Jeffrey
From his perspective, perhaps she was no different than Shannon. This was what her association with one of the wealthiest families in Texas wrought. After a few seconds, she said, “You’re right, of course. I’m sorry for biting your head off.”
“That’s all right, ma’am. Not many people understand what we do.”
Rattled, she entered her house. Was she in some kind of danger? Seriously?
She didn’t clear out her gym bag and hang up her suit and towels to dry. She began to pace the house. The conversation with Gail, as unsettling as it had been, had not deterred her thoughts from what was going on with her and Pic. She had to come to terms with it, had to face reality.
The truth sat deeper than hatred from his mother. She believed him to be faithful, but that was a moral obligation, especially with him. And with the life he now led, more convenient than being out on the social scene dating and pursuing women. He sometimes showed possessiveness when some other guy flirted with her and paid attention to her, but that was a primal male thing, not love.
The deeper truth was, Pic might care about her a little, but he didn’t need her.
In fact, he didn’t need much, period. She had never met anyone so comfortable in his own skin. He paid little attention to trappings. He could afford to buy anything he wanted, but he bought most of his clothes at Walmart. The only things on which he spent extravagantly were boots, hats and guns. Male stuff. He didn’t lust after fancy cars like Drake always had. He was kind of into art, but then, all of the Lockharts were into investment art. Even Kate.
He doesn’t pay much attention to relationships either, a voice in her head told her.
She had to agree. For him, relationships were either there or they weren’t. And in most instances, either way was okay with him. For companionship, he had his old buddies in town—some from all the way back in high school—and his family, especially his older brother. He had Johnnie Sue to cook and keep the house and do his laundry.
And he had Amanda Jane Breckenridge for sex whenever he got around to it. Hot, raw, sometimes athletic, sometimes wild and crazy sex.
What was going on between them was a big fat nothing except mind-numbing hours in bed. Sex. And if he didn’t get that from her, he could easily get it from someone else. If he put himself back on the market, no doubt dozens of women would come out of the woodwork. The very thought of him sharing with another woman what he had shared with her made her crazy.
And that’s where her head was when her doorbell chimed.
Chapter 19
By late morning, Pic had returned to the kitchen. The earlier conflict between him and Johnnie Sue appeared to have melted away. She had baked two loaves of banana nut bread. He begged a warm slice to have with his coffee while he waited for Zochi. The temperature had already climbed into the high nineties. If she didn’t arrive soon, it would be time for lunch.
He no sooner had that thought than the front doorbell chimed. He went to the door and there she stood, wearing the white top that looked like a bathing suit top and cut-off jeans that hung low on her hips, showing plenty of belly and the shiny object in her navel. She had on the same big hat and sunglasses she had worn every day. Island princess half- naked.
Despite Pic’s determination to keep his libido in check, the sleeping dragon in his shorts perked up. He forced his eyes away from her. “Uh, come on in.” He led her to the kitchen, talking as they walked. “Johnnie Sue’s just getting a lunch together. She made some chicken salad sandwiches for lunch. That okay?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, if it’s all white meat. Does it have mayonnaise in it?”
Pic made a mental headshake.
When they reached the kitchen, the housekeeper, in the middle of putting some slices of chocolate cake into a plastic container, looked up. She stared a few beats at Zochi, but to Pic’s relief, said only, “I’m packing some slices of the chocolate cake we had last night.”
“I don’t eat sweets,” Zochi said.
“You ate cake last night,” Johnnie Sue said sharply.
Pic suppressed a groan. The last thing he wanted was another flap with Johnnie Sue. “That’s okay,” he said to Zochi. “I didn’t get any cake after supper. I’ll eat your share.”
Anything to reduce the disapproval bristling off the housekeeper.
With her watching him and Zochi both with an eagle eye, he made a deliberate effort not to look at Zochi and busied himself with filling a thermos jug with ice and water. “Did you get some breakfast?” he asked her.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Let’s hit the road then.” He grabbed the lunch box and water jug. He could hardly wait to get out of the kitchen and away from the housekeeper’s scrutiny.
Earlier, he had brought his gun belt holding his .22 pistol out of the gun safe and hung it on the steer horns by the back door. He set the lunch box and water jug on the counter, picked the gun belt off the steer horns and strapped it on. He never went to the old homeplace without a weapon. If any place existed on the whole ranch where he would be most likely to run into a snake or other varmints, an area near the river would be it. Every living thing needed water. He would like to take his BAR and maybe get a shot at a hog, but a rifle would be pushing things.
Zochi gave the gun belt a pointed look, but to his relief, said nothing.
They took a dirt road starting behind the big hay barn. After a long bumpy ride, they reached a barbed wire fence and a cowboy gate. He got out of the jeep, opened the gate, drove through, then got out again and closed it.
“Why do you have a fence in the middle of nothing?” she asked.
“Range management,” he answered shortly, hoping she didn’t ask any more questions. He was in no mood for a longwinded conversation trying to make her understand the necessity for conserving grazing by separating locations of cattle.
He turned right and followed a rough two-track road downhill toward the river.
Nearly an hour and a rough ride later, the original Double-Barrel ranch house came into view. Nestled among a mixed copse of giant old live oaks, cedar and huge draping mesquite trees, the structure consisted of two parallel rectangles made of thick limestone with a wide stone breezeway lying between them. A peaked metal roof connected them and created shade for the breezeway.
“What a weird house,” Zochi said. “It looks like two boxcars.”
“It’s a dog-run house,” Pic replied. “You know what that is, don’t you?”
“Not really.”
She was being contrary again. Pictures and writing about dog-run houses cropped up frequently in Texas history. Surely anybody who had gone to college and studied history, even political history, had some knowledge of them. Pic gave her a look. “Sure, you do. This kind of house was built not just in Texas, but all over the South. The breezeway faces the direction of the prevailing summer winds. It’s supposed to help keep the place cool.”
“How can it be cool? It has no windows.”
“There’s windows. They and the doors to the rooms open out onto the breeze way and catch the draft.”
“Oh. Well…I was expecting a log cabin.”
Was she yanking his chain? He couldn’t tell. “Not enough trees for logs around here. And I doubt if there was back when this was built either. But there’s lots of rock, which is probably the reason why any part of this structure is still here.”
He brought the Jeep to a stop at the gate of a rusting wrought-iron fence made of vertical bars shoulder-high. When Mom had decided to fix the place up for use, the fence had been built to protect it from wandering cattle and marauding varmints.
From what he could see, things looked no different from the last time he was here. A few more weeds maybe, wild grasses and grassburrs, a few more baby mesquite trees. Evidence hogs had rooted around the outside of the fence, but the old thing was hell-for-stout, the supporting posts deeply buried and set into the rock in concrete. The hogs hadn’t been able to breach it.
He made a mental no
te to get a couple of hands down to police the place up. When Mom lived at the ranch, she herself had come here and cleaned and worked on the yard. She had even planted flowers. They were now long gone except for a thicket of bright orange lantana that refused to give up at one corner of the house. As far as Pic could recall, Mom hadn’t been here for any reason since she left the ranch more than seven years ago. The old place showed her lack of attention.
As they scooted out, a hot breeze from the south brushed his face. As it always did, the silence that surrounded them left him awestruck. Not a sound could be heard except the chattering of birds. Every time he came here, he tried to visualize a man or a couple or a family living out their lives in this much solitude—eating, sleeping, working, giving birth, surviving, all without the sound of other human beings.
“This is eerie,” Zochi said. “Are there wild animals?”
“If they’re here, you probably won’t see ’em.”
Her head jerked in his direction. “What do you mean?”
“No,” Pic said quickly. “There’s no wild animals.” He unlocked the gate, swung it open on screeking hinges and stepped back for her to pass through.
“It’s almost like it’s haunted,” Zochi said, looking around. “Who built it? And why would they build it here?”
Pic re-locked the gate. “The founding Lockhart built it. He was a Scots-Irish immigrant. He probably put it here because it’s close to the river.”
As they walked up the stone pathway toward the breezeway, Pic glanced left and right, looking for scorpions, or God forbid, a snake. The last thing he wanted to contend with was Zochi running into a scorpion or something wild.
“My father’s Irish,” Zochi said. “He and my mother have been to Ireland a few times.”
Surprised they had common ancestry, Pic grinned. “Half-Irish, huh? What’s the other half?”
“Italian. My mother’s parents and her brothers and sisters live in New York, but some cousins still live in Italy.” She looked up at the steep metal roof. “That’s a steep roof. How did someone build it all alone?”
Pic studied the roof, too. It had almost a 12/12 pitch. “I don’t know, but my grandpa said that was what happened. It would’ve been a big job. No one knows if Lockhart lived here alone or with a wife and kids, but Grandpa believed he started his family here.”
She continued to look all around her. “Hunh. How old is it?”
“Don’t know exactly. The original Lockhart came to Texas in 1850, but there’s a concrete slab at the base of the cistern that says 1888. We assume someone lived here then. Since the river is the only other source of water, they probably would have dug the cistern as soon as they got the roof on the house or even before. That, too, would have been a big job. The topsoil here is shallow and underneath it are layers and layers of slab limestone.”
“What’s a cistern?”
Was she serious? He gave her a look and opened his palms. “Water? Where you catch and store rainwater to drink?” Her face held a blank expression. “C’mon and I’ll show you.”
On the southwest side of the house, the fence dead-ended against the cistern that was a solid concrete cylinder, over five feet high and four feet across. A heavy slab made of two-by-fours and plywood covered the opening. He walked over and slid the wooden cover to the side. Together they looked down into the deep hole. They could see the glister of the sunlight reflecting from the water.
“Oh. There’s water in it,” she said.
“It’s always had water in it,” he replied. “We maintain the gutters around the eaves so that rainwater—”
“Oh, my God. You mean this water drains off the roof?”
Pic straightened and gestured around them. “Where else would it get water?”
“People drank this? It must be filthy.”
“No, it’s not.” He plucked a bucket, a roped tied to its bail, off a spike embedded in the side of the concrete cistern. “I’ll show you.” He dropped the bucket into the water, using the rope to tilt the bail and let the bucket fill with water, then drew it back to the concrete edge of the cistern. He reached behind them again and plucked a metal mug off the wall, dipped it into the water and offered it to her. “Here, try it.”
She put up both hands, scrunched up her nose and turned her head. “Eww. No. I don’t want to be sick.”
“Darlin’, our cowhands drink this water every time they pass by here and they don’t get sick. When they’re out on the range in the hot sun, a drink of cool water tastes mighty good to them. I don’t know of anybody ever dying from drinking cistern water. Some of the old farms in this county still have cisterns.”
“Well, I’m not going to drink it.”
“Right,” he said, unable to hide his disgust. He poured the water back into the cistern and slid the wooden cover back over the opening. “Let’s go inside.”
Inside the breezeway, small trails of sand lay where the smooth stone floor joined the walls. Pic found a different key on his key ring, held the screen door open with his body and unlocked the solid door opening into the living room side of the house. The instant they stepped inside, he felt cooler.
Zochi rubbed her bare arms up and down. Gooseflesh covered her arms and shoulders, even the slope of her breasts. Nipple impressions suddenly appeared on her thin top. She looked up at him. “It’s, um, chilly in here.”
“Uh, these walls are solid rock,” he said, looking away from her. “About six inches thick. Plus, there’s the shade from the trees outside. And when Mom had the place re-roofed, she had the contractor add insulated board under the metal. She and Dad used this place.”
He and Mandy had used it, too, back when he’d had more time. They had stayed here for two and three days at a time and used the cistern water. Mandy didn’t think it looked haunted. She was fascinated by it. Sometimes, they had spent weekends here. They’d had fun roughing it—heating the place with wood and cooking simple meals on the old cookstove. Once, Mandy had studied how to make an apple pie in a wood cookstove oven, which had turned out to be no easy task. They had bathed each other in the round galvanized wash tub that hung on the wall in the kitchen area. His six-feet-three-inch body barely squeezed into it. His memory zoomed back to one day when Mandy had used her phone to take a picture of him in the tub with his legs hanging over the side.
“Mrs. Lockhart is really smart,” Zochi said, reminding him that Zochi had been sent by his mother and why.
The inside of the living half of the house was one big, long room with a high ceiling of exposed wooden beams. A primitive stone fireplace had been constructed in the center of the back wall. A living room area took up one end of the room. A modern sofa, its cushions protected by clear plastic covers, a couple of chairs and some tables filled the space. A veil of sand and dust covered everything.
Zochi pulled off her sunglasses and hat. “It doesn’t look like mice have been in here. There are no holes in anything.”
“Poison,” Pic said, pointing to a nearly empty container of d-CON.
She glanced at the small cardboard box, made an exaggerated gasp, then turned toward him and gave him a sharp look.
He shrugged. “Hey, there’s lots of mice.”
She gave a little huff of disgust and strolled toward the kitchen end of the room where the wood cookstove stood alone against the wall. A long counter, a short row of rustic cupboards and a sink ran along an adjacent wall. She trailed her fingers along the varnished Masonite counter top. “There’s no plumbing.”
“Nope. No bathroom either.”
“So what did these people do?”
“The same thing all settlers did. They got water out of the cistern to drink and probably out of the river for other uses, though it’s a pretty steep trip to and from the river. As far as a bathroom goes, there’s a wooden privy out back.”
“Hunh,” Zochi said, continuing to look around. “I guess I should get my camera out of the Jeep.”
“I’ll get it,” Pic volunteered, not
wanting to take a chance on her seeing something outside that would make her hysterical.
She looked up at him with those dark inviting dark eyes, her full lips parted and wet. About a million things could be read in her expression. His libido must not have gotten the message his brain had sent because suddenly, time stood still. Tension stretched so tightly between them that for a few seconds, Pic could hear his own heartbeat. Fortunately, she killed the moment by shrugging and looking away. “Thanks,” she said.
“I’ll go get it,” he repeated, letting out a held breath as he quick-stepped out the door. At the Jeep, he planted his hand on the fender, drew in a gulp of fresh air. Jesus Christ! A few years ago, if he had been physically attracted to a woman this powerfully and in this isolated location, he would have already had her in bed.
But he was a different man now….Wasn’t he?
After taking a few seconds to compose himself, he snagged the camera bag and carried it back into the living room.
While she snapped pictures from several angles—the cookstove, the cupboards, the fireplace—Pic hung around, trying to stay out of her way. Apparently what he had taught her about the camera had stuck. After she had taken multiple shots, she moved back to the living room end of the rectangle and eased down on the sofa.
“A few minutes ago, it was cold. Now it’s so hot,” she said, bending forward and revealing sexy pendulous breasts. They would more than fill his hands. His imagination went off on a tangent of how it would feel to touch and stroke so much cushiony female flesh.
She untied her sport shoes, removed them and her socks, then lazed back against the sofa back and lifted her feet to the coffee table. “Much better.” Wiggling her bare toes, she grinned up at him and patted the seat beside herself. She knew she had him on edge.
Not wanting to appear juvenile, he sank to one end of the sofa and leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs.
She lifted a foot, cocked her head and studied it. “Do you like my red toenails? I like the color, but I’m not sure about the daisies. What do you think?”