by Anna Jeffrey
Troy picked up her right hand, a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Ma’am, I am mighty pleased to make your acquaintance.” He lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on the back of it.
Zochi responded with a smile and ducked her chin.
Pic had always been equally amazed and fascinated by how effective Troy’s phony country boy act was when applied to some women. Troy was anything but a corny country boy. Besides being a horse whisperer, he was a math wizard. Even had a degree from Tarleton in engineering. He could turn a computer inside out. Pic shook his head.
“Oh, you’re Pic’s brother?” Zochi said in that breathy little voice.
“Indeed I am, ma’am.”
“What do you do?”
“Not much, really. Train a few horses. Enter a few little horse contests. Stuff like that.”
Mandy looked up at Pic. He let out a sigh.
“Do you like horses?” Troy was saying.
“I like to look at them, but I’ve never been around them,” Zochi answered.
“Well then. Would you like to see a pretty blue roan mare?”
“Blue?”
“Yes, ma’am. Well, she’s not really blue. You see, a blue roan is a mix of dark gray and white, but unless you look close, the color you see is more a blue-gray. Let me show you.” He put a hand on the small of her bare back and steered her away from the barbecue grills toward the horse barn.
Mandy watched them go. “I hope he doesn’t…”
Her words trailed off. Pic knew what she was thinking. Troy’s ability to talk women out of their drawers was well-known. Mandy also knew a small apartment was located on the barn’s mezzanine. “Meee, too,” Pic replied.
Mandy looked up at him. He couldn’t even describe the expression on her face. It was somewhere between pain and rage. “Maybe Troy was the one who should have been showing her around the ranch in the first place.” Her tone would have made ice cubes, even in today’s hundred degrees.
“He didn’t have time.”
“And you did?”
Instantly, Pic thought of all the times he had told her he didn’t have the time to drive in to town to be with her. “Mandy, it’s done with and—”
“She’s very pretty. You fibbed to me. You said you didn’t notice.”
“Look, today is supposed to be a fun—”
Just then, the rumble of a powerful engine sounded in the distance and everybody looked toward it. Drake’s fancy sports car drove in and came to a stop in front of the garage. A black SUV followed closely behind. Pic grabbed Mandy’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go say hello to Drake and Shannon.”
They walked across the driveway to the garage entrance, but Pic felt as if he were dragging Mandy against her will. Still, a warm meeting followed. Mandy and Shannon started a bunch of female chatter at once.
“Good day for a picnic,” Drake said, grinning from ear to ear.
“Glad you didn’t change your mind about coming down,” Pic said.
“We’re calling this Shannon’s experiment,” he replied, looking down at his wife. “Aren’t we, sweetheart?”
He had no sooner made that declaration than another black SUV appeared in the distance. The only person not present was Mom. They all looked toward the arriving SUV.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Drake added.
Shannon placed her hand on his forearm. “Drake, you promised.”
“I know.” He looped an arm around her shoulder and drew her close to his side. Something was going on between them and Mom.
The new arrival came to a stop beside Drake’s sports car. Mom and two people alit and walked over to them. Zochi’s parents. Pic knew it instantly. Zochi was the spitting image of her mother. When Mom had told Dad she was bringing guests, had she also told him that the guests were Zochi’s parents? Had Zochi known they were coming? Pic didn’t trust Zochi and in truth, he didn’t trust either one of his parents one hundred percent.
Mom came to him, rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I’m so glad to see you, Son.” She turned to Amanda. “And how have you been Amanda?” She pointedly ignored Drake and his wife.
Pic hadn’t seen his mother since he, Mandy, Dad had attended her apology dinner at Cattlemen’s steak house in Fort Worth after she had tried to hose Mandy.
“I’m fine, Betty. Busy,” Mandy said.
“Hm, I’m sure you are,” Mom said to her, her tone chilly.
Drake and Shannon kept their distance. Neither said a word. Mom turned toward the people who had come with her and held out a hand. “Everyone, this is Annunciata and John McLaren.”
“Annunciata Mancini-McLaren,” Mrs. McLaren said too enthusiastically, pumping Pic’s hand up and down. “I’m so glad to know you, Pic. But please call me Anna. Annunciata is such a mouthful to say.”
She was right about that. What was up with these women and these friggin’ complicated names? Pic’s immediate assessment was that Mrs. McLaren was an even more high maintenance woman than her daughter. Mr. McLaren might as well have been invisible.
“Betty speaks of you all the time,” Mrs. McLaren said, continuing to hold his hand as if she wanted to prevent him from running away. “I feel as if I already know you.”
Mandy gave her a wan smile.
Anger stirred inside Pic. Mom’s attempt to engineer something between him and Zochi was too blatant and he felt for Mandy.
Mrs. McLaren walked over to Drake, took one of his hands in both of hers. “You must be Drake,” she gushed. “I’m so happy to meet you. I’ve read about you. You’re a constant topic of conversation in Austin. Many people down there are hoping you’ll run for office.”
Political office? Drake? Was that a joke? Pic reached for Mandy’s hand and pulled her close to him. “You okay?”
She looked down and shook her head. “How can I be okay when your mother brings an entire family around to try to capture you?”
“Do I look captured?”
“Where is everyone?” Mom asked. She was acting as if she had never been present at one of these annual picnics.
“Yes, I can’t wait to see my little girl,” Mrs. McLaren said.
Pic pointed a thumb toward the horse barn. “She went to the barn with our little brother.”
An unreadable expression crossed Mrs. McLaren’s perfectly made-up face. “The barn?”
“The barn?” Mr. McLaren said and looked nervously toward the huge red barn.
Mom looked up at Pic, her eyes round. “Troy?”
Pic wanted to laugh. Everyone was thinking the same thing. “Last I knew, he’s still our little brother.”
“Damn,” Mom muttered, then turned to her guests with a huge toothy smile. “Let’s walk over to the barbecue tent and I’ll introduce you to my husband.” She followed up with a silly laugh. Evidently, she, too, was nervous over Troy taking Zochi to the barn. Unlike Zochi’s parents, Mom knew about the apartment in the barn. She had put it together.
As the three of them strolled away, Drake jammed his fists against his hips. “What the hell was that about?”
“Don’t ask,” Pic said. “More of Mom’s BS.”
“I’ll say,” Mandy said sarcastically.
Drake placed a hand on his wife’s back. “C’mon, darlin’. Let’s go see what’s cooking.”
Inside, Pic felt ashamed of his mother’s blatant machinations in front of the whole family without regard to what she was doing to Mandy’s feelings. He grasped Mandy’s hand and led her back across the driveway to the cooking tent, but he had the impression he was dragging her against her will.
At the same time, he was thinking about Troy and Zochi in the barn. They had been gone long enough for two tours of it. What the hell was Troy doing? Pic wouldn’t put it past him to be getting it on with Zochi in the barn apartment at this very moment or even the guesthouse. And for a reason Pic would never be able to explain aloud, that irritated the hell out of him.
By the time he and Mandy reached the picnic tables, Mom and her gu
ests had taken seats with plates of food, but all of them glanced often toward the barn.
So far, Drake had made no attempt to make up with Mom and his wife had remained silent. Who wouldn’t? Mom and her guests had created a frenzy of attention and tension and the air was ripe for an explosion. Dad had a scowl on his face, Mandy was pissed off and Pic was nervous again about what might happen next. Two out-of-town guests who were perfect strangers wouldn’t necessarily prevent a family brawl from erupting. His instincts about that had rarely been wrong.
The band broke into a tune. Pic reached for Mandy’s hand and led her onto the dance floor. A few steps into the dance, they saw Troy and Zochi approach the food tents. Spying her parents, Zochi stopped in her tracks, then stalked over to the table where they sat with Mom. Hands on her hips, Zochi bent at the waist and thrust her face forward toward her mother, her mouth moving at high speed. Pic couldn’t hear what was being said, but he knew angry body language when he saw it. But what was she pissed about? Her parents’ arrival? Had she not known they were coming?
Soon she stamped off toward the guesthouse. Troy stood there with his hands hanging loosely by his sides, looking bewildered. Finally, he walked off toward the guesthouse, too.
“Wonder what all of that is about? Mandy said.
Pic was weary of Zochi McLaren, her parents, his mother and the whole damn thing. Why didn’t they all just go home, let the ranch throw a picnic for its hands and let him get on with his life? “I wonder if I oughtta go over to the guesthouse and see what’s going on.”
“Why is that up to you?” Mandy asked sharply.
Uh-oh. Bad idea. “It’s not up to me. Look, we’re dancing, okay.”
He grasped her hand again, but she wrenched it away. “No. I’m going home.” She marched away from the dance floor.
He called out behind her, “Mandy, wait just a damn minute.” He started after her, but at the driveway, she broke into a run toward her car. He loped across the driveway and caught up with her at her car door.
She was in tears. “I’m leaving, Pic,” she blurted between sobs. “I got a job offer from a bigger school. And I’m taking it. I’m leaving you and I’m leaving this town.”
Her words came at him like a slap. His eyes bugged. He grabbed her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
And that was where he was when one of the ranch’s rattletrap work trucks roared in from the driveway and came to a gravel-spewing stop in front of the barbecue tent. The driver—Pic recognized him as ranch hand Andy Hargrove—stumbled from behind the wheel and without even closing the truck door, dashed down to the cooking tent and to Dad, talking with animated hand and arm gestures.
Pic recognized trouble when he saw it. His heart leaped to his throat. He straightened, releasing Mandy’s shoulders. “Mandy, don’t go. I’ve gotta go see what’s going on.”
“By all means,” she snapped, peeling his hands away from her.
He backed away, putting out his hands and pleading. “Please. Stay put for a few minutes, okay?”
Pic loped back across the driveway to the grill area. Dad and Smoky were staring at Andy as if they had been struck by lightning. As Pic reached them, Dad was saying, “That’s okay, Andy. We’ll take care of it.”
He looked up and caught Pic’s gaze. “Pic. Get your brothers. We need to get down to the homeplace. It’s been vandalized. Andy here says it’s a big mess.”
Vandalized? Fuck!
Chapter 24
Pic’s heart beat a tattoo, both from running back and forth across the driveway and from hearing that the homeplace had been damaged.
How could someone get to it? It wasn’t the easiest place to find. Furthermore, a person needed four-wheel drive rig. At the same time he tried to wrap his mind around that occurrence, Mandy’s words kept coming back:…I got a job offer from a bigger school. And I’m taking it. I’m leaving you and I’m leaving this town….
What the hell? She had been job-shopping without him knowing it? This hadn’t happened overnight.
He had to find Troy and Drake. He looked around, saw none of his siblings. He suspected Kate had gone home as soon as she had said hello to most of the hands and their wives and kids. Troy as well as Drake and his wife seemed to have vanished. Pic strode to the salad table. “Johnnie Sue, have you seen Troy and Drake?”
“Drake’s wife was feeling sick” the housekeeper answered, busy covering a bowl of salad with plastic wrap. “He took her up to the ranch house to lay down. As for Troy, he and that Zoshi came out of the guesthouse and they left in her car.”
A cramp zigzagged across Pic’s stomach. No dearth of trouble could come from that, but he had no desire to share those thoughts with Johnnie Sue. “Where’d they go?”
Johnnie Sue stopped her task and gave him a flat look.
He couldn’t worry about it now. If he needed something more to worry about, he had to try to figure out what was going on with Mandy. He started back across the driveway toward Mandy’s car. At the same time, he yanked his cell phone off his belt and speed-dialed Drake’s cell. Just as he reached Mandy, Drake picked up. “Hey, Bro. Where are you?” Pic asked.
“What’s happened?” Mandy asked.
“In the ranch house,” Drake said. “Shannon felt faint. I think the heat got to her. This pregnancy thing has turned out not to be so easy. She’s asleep in my bedroom for now.”
“Listen, something’s happened down at the old house. Andy Hoffman said it’s a big mess. We gotta get down there, but Troy’s disappeared. I don’t suppose there’s any way you can go with us?”
“Damn. No one’s in the house. I’m not comfortable leaving Shannon alone here.”
“She’ll be safe,” Pic said.
“It’s not her safety I’m concerned about. Steve Logan can stay around here and keep an eye on things. But she’s unfamiliar with the ranch house.”
Mandy spoke up behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“Hold on, Drake.” Pic lowered the phone from his ear. “If Drake leaves, Shannon will be alone in the house.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Mandy said. Then added, “But I’m doing it for Shannon. I consider her a friend.”
Pic returned to his conversation with his brother. “What if Mandy stays with her? She knows her way around the house.”
“Hm. Yeah, that ought to work.”
Yes! Not only would Mandy be able to keep an eye on Shannon, she would not be able to leave before they got back. He and Dad and Drake would get whatever problem existed at the homeplace resolved and then he could sit down with Mandy and talk to her. “Okay, we’re on our way to the house.”
He leaned down and kissed Mandy’s cheek. “Thank you, baby.”
She jerked her face away from him. “Don’t baby me.” She slashed the air with both hands. “I told you I’m done with all this and I meant it.” She stalked toward the house.
How had she gone from loving him to breaking up their relationship in the space of an afternoon? What had he done? What could he do to fix it? He walked beside her, double-timing to keep up with her, but making sure he stayed out of her way. “I know you said that, but thank you anyway. We’ll get back as soon as we can.”
On the way to the house, he speed-dialed Kate’s cell. She didn’t even say hello. “I left because I needed to get home. I’m tired and I’ve got things to do here. I said hello to every living, breathing human there and even a few dogs—”
“Kate, hush. Something’s happened at the homeplace. Don’t know the details yet. Be sure you stay at home, okay? Which one of our security guys is with you?”
“I think his name is Ryan.”
“Hang close to him, okay? And make sure your horses are secure.”
“Okay, but—”
“Gotta go. More later.”
Inside the house, Pic tapped on Drake’s bedroom door. When Drake opened it, Pic said, “Mandy’s here.”
“Great,” Drake said. “Thanks, M
andy.” He stepped back to allow her into the room.
“No problem,” Mandy said grimly.
****
Left alone, Amanda heaved a great breath. She was worn out. The combination of having no sleep the night before and the bizarre events of the day had left her both logy and antsy at the same time. Maybe it was adrenaline. Someone had vandalized the old homeplace? What did that mean? Though it was located on private property and was marked with NO TRESPASSING signs, she supposed everyone in Treadway County knew where it was.
She thought about that, but for only a few seconds. She was so hot and tired, her brain wasn’t fully functioning and she was sweaty. At least the house was cool The circulation from the air conditioner felt good against her sweat-dampened clothing.
She had never been in Drake’s suite, but she had been in Pic’s. They were similar—a small sitting room separated from the sleeping area and bathroom by honey-colored wood sliding doors.
The blistering sun had already headed west, so Drake’s sitting room, being on the shaded side of the house like Pic’s, was dimly lit from the outside. A pair of matching love seats flanked a corner table. A lamp cast a low amber light. A big leather recliner hunkered squarely in front of a large flat-screen TV. Everything in the room was big and comfortable-looking, a place for relaxation. Drake’s condo in Fort Worth had had the same look and feel. The scent of his cologne filled the room, subtle but unmistakable. Pic cared not a whit for cologne, but Drake had always worn the expensive stuff.
Amanda crossed the sitting room, slid the doors open a few inches and saw Shannon in the king-size bed sound asleep.
So she was stuck here for the rest of the afternoon. What would she do for the next three or four hours? Think about Pic? And that woman named Zoshi who resembled images of fertility goddesses Amanda had seen in books? And she had looked up at Pic as if he were a god. Sex waiting to happen. And she had been in close quarters with him for at least two days. Pic was a highly-sexed man and he was far from a saint. He expected her to believe nothing had happened between him and that…that beautiful sexy woman?