A Little Town in Texas

by Bethany Campbell

  “What do you mean ‘us’?” Mel shot back. “You’re not family anymore.”

  Nick gazed at him mildly. “Did Mom say that?”

  “I said it, and it goes.”

  “Mom would like my wife if she met her. She really would.”

  “If she met her. But she didn’t come to the wedding, did she?”

  “She was sick,” Nick answered.

  “She was sick, all right,” Mel said with vehemence. “Over you. Physically ill, Nick. She felt you dishonored us.”

  “Dishonored,” Nick said contemptuously.

  “Fabian saved us.” Mel’s voice shook with passion. “He made us. What would we have been without him?”

  Nick’s nostrils flared. “We weren’t stupid, any of us. We would have made something of ourselves.”

  “You, maybe,” Mel countered. “Me? I’m not so sure. Jack? Jack would have probably married that girl from Missouri if Fabian hadn’t—”

  “Jack loved that girl from Missouri,” Nick flung at him. “Fabian had no right to meddle in that. Neither did Ma.”

  “Jack was eighteen years old, for God’s sake. And what about when Ma needed a pacemaker when we were in college? Could we have taken care of her? No, it was Fabian. We owe him, Nicky. We owe him big. But you kicked him in the teeth.”

  Nick made a sound of disgust. “I didn’t want this to be personal.”

  “Tough,” Mel said. “It’s personal.”

  “You can come after me if you want,” Nick said. “You don’t scare me.”

  “I’m not coming after you unless you screw us again. You do, and you’re roadkill.”

  Nick raised his index finger and shoved it in Mel’s direction. “You try to hurt me—fine. I’ll take you on. But if you do one bit of harm to my wife, I’ll break your neck.”

  “I don’t care about your wife,” said Mel. “To me she’s nothing.”

  “Oh? She’s from Beaumont,” Nick said. “I knew her from years ago. When you were about fourteen.”

  Nick paused to let it sink in. Mel tensed, scowling.

  Nick said, almost lazily. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t remember you. You were in your Phantom of the Opera stage back then. I haven’t told her about you. But somebody back in Beaumont might. You never know, do you? Nope. You just never know.”

  Mel felt the blood drain from his face, and he was light-headed with rage. He clenched his fists again, wanting to hit.

  “I’m not talking to anybody about Fabian,” Nick said. “And I’m not talking to anybody about you. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Get out,” Mel said, his stomach churning. “Just get out, will you?”

  “Tell Mom I love her,” Nick said. “Someday I hope she’ll understand. Jack does. You—probably never.”

  “Never’s right. Go. Before I hurt you.”

  “Gladly. You look like hell by the way. What’s the matter? Out of practice? Was your little reporter tagging along? Looks like she gave you a run for your money.”

  “Out!” Mel shouted. “And stay away from me, dammit!”

  “So long, brother.”

  Nick turned, opened the door and was gone, pulling it smoothly shut behind him. Mel swore and kicked the wall as savagely as he could. He wanted to follow after Nick, grab him and break his face. Instead he jerked off his sweaty shirt and sat down on the settee to yank off his shoes.

  The phone rang. He swore again and snatched up the receiver. “What?”

  “Mr. Belyle,” said a woman with a soft Scottish burr, “this is Rose at the main desk. We have a package here that just arrived by courier.”

  The yearbook that DeJames sent. I forgot the fool thing.

  “I’ll be down in a few minutes,” he said. He forced himself to say “Thanks” and to set the receiver down easily.

  Still sitting on the edge of the settee, he put his elbows on his knees and cradled his pounding forehead in his hands. He was breathing too fast, and his heart hurt in a way that wasn’t physical.

  IN HER ROOM, Kitt had resisted the childlike desire to lay her ear against the wall to try to eavesdrop. From the hostile gleam in Mel’s eye, she didn’t expect the two men to be making peace.

  Mel’s shout startled her. The cry sounded as if it had been torn, raw, from his throat. And she heard him kick the wall so hard it must have knocked the plaster loose.

  She wanted to peek out the door to watch Nick Belyle leave. The minute she’d seen the two men together, she’d known they were brothers. They had the same foreheads and high cheekbones. Both were dark-haired and blue-eyed, though Mel’s eyes were darker and more intense than his brother’s.

  Mel was taller, leaner, and his features were more even. Nick’s nose was broader and slightly crooked, as if it had been broken. His mouth was wider and not nearly as well-shaped.

  She’d taken in these details in a few seconds’ observation, as a good reporter should. She’d also sensed that the trouble between the brothers went deeper than their rift over Bluebonnet Meadows. Far deeper.

  Her stomach growled, an inelegant reminder that she was hungry. She would hit the shower, dress and march over to the Longhorn. Nora had promised her breakfast.

  Kitt had a list of people set up to interview today. That was her outline for procedure, the formal one. But she would also check out things informally. The Longhorn was the live, throbbing pulse of Crystal Creek. She was eager to take its measure.

  AT THE LONGHORN, Kitt suffered being hugged by the gossipy Shirley Jean Ditmars, who asked her why she wasn’t married yet.

  She enjoyed an embrace from old Dr. Purdy—until he reminded her that he’d brought her into the world and slapped her naked backside. “I never heard a child howl so loud,” he laughed. “You had a redhead’s temper clear back then.”

  Kitt extricated herself from her welcomers as gracefully as she could. “I have to talk to Nora,” she said. She moved to the counter and took the stool on the end farthest from the crowd.

  “Hi,” Nora said, setting a mug of coffee before her. “Do you see Martin this morning?”

  Kitt nodded. Martin Avery was a lawyer and the town’s former mayor.

  “And J.T. tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Right,” said Kitt. She worried about the McKinney interview. J.T. would grudge her only half an hour’s time. He’d seemed singularly unenthusiastic about talking to the press.

  “Don’t worry about J.T.,” Nora said in encouragement. “He’s passionate on the subject. Once he gets going, he’ll probably talk your ear off.”

  Kitt held up crossed fingers. “I hope. Let me ask you something—”

  But the door burst open and Bubba Gibson swaggered through. “Looky who’s back in town,” he crowed. He made for Kitt with widespread arms. “That little redheaded cousin of Nora’s.”

  He enveloped her in a bear hug. “Niece,” Kitt managed to say. “I’m her niece.”

  “Hell,” he said, sitting down beside her, “there was so many of you in that little house, I never could keep you straight. But you done all right for yourself, huh?”

  “I’ve done all right,” she said. “You know, Bubba, I was going to—”

  “How many brothers did you have, darlin’?” Bubba asked.

  “Three,” Kitt said.

  “Whoo,” he said. “Seems like more. Kids crawlin’ like cooties all over the place. You stay in touch with ’em?”

  “Christmas cards, mostly,” she said. Her brothers were all younger than she was and spread across Texas. One was a ranch foreman, one a bartender, and the youngest, Toby, her favorite, was a track coach.

  Bubba squinted at her, frowning. “Wasn’t there a bunch of step-brothers, too?”

  Kitt tensed. “Just two,” she said. “Not a bunch.”

  He snapped his fingers impotently, trying to jar his memory. “Johnson? Jameson? Was that their name?”

  “Jasper,” Kitt said tightly. Her father and mother had divorced when she was thirteen. Her father had drifted off, and her moth
er remarried almost immediately to Bull Jasper, another of the McKinney ranch hands.

  Before Bubba could ask more, she said, “That marriage didn’t last, either. They broke up after they moved to San Antonio. I didn’t stay in touch with any of the Jaspers.”

  Bubba’s face softened. “I was sorry to hear about your mama. She got the blood ailment?”

  “Hodgkin’s Disease,” Kitt said, growing more tense by the moment. She felt a desperate need to take charge of the conversation. “So, Bubba,” she said, “when can I schedule an interview with you? I hear you’re quite the prosperous ostrich rancher now.”

  His big face went somber. “I’m an ostrich rancher. I ain’t so sure about the ‘prosperous’ part.”

  “I’ve never seen an ostrich operation,” she persisted. “Will you and Mary give me a tour?”

  “Sure thing,” he said. “Come anytime. How ’bout Saturday night? Come for supper. Bring your appetite. You ain’t got no more meat on you than a sparrow bird. Mary serves supper ’round seven o’clock. Come at five and I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  “It’s a date,” Kitt promised. Bubba’s role in the land wars interested her. He could turn out to be the wild card, and she very much wanted to hear what he had to say.

  Then she heard the tinkle of the bell that signaled the door being opened. She turned automatically and without thinking. The man who had entered was Cal McKinney.

  Her heart cartwheeled through her chest; she had the sensation of falling. You knew this moment would come, she told herself. You knew it all along.

  But she had not expected the sight of him to hit her so hard. He’s a husband and father now, Kitt told herself. But it didn’t seem possible.

  He was still lean, broad-shouldered and as handsome as she’d remembered. A wedding ring gleamed golden on his left hand. For a split second, the glint of that ring seemed almost blinding.

  “Cal!” Bubba called, waving him over. “Come here. See who I got!”

  Kitt sucked in her breath in panic. Don’t be stupid, she ordered herself. It was years ago. What happened between us was nothing. Not anything—not really. Not anything lasting.

  Cal nodded at Bubba. He made his way toward the counter, his step as jaunty as ever. “Howdy, Bubba. How’s Mary?”

  “Fine as frog hair,” Bubba said, throwing arm around Kitt’s tensed shoulders. “Looky who’s home. You heard she was comin’, didn’t you? Kitt Mitchell. She’s a reporter now. You recollect her, don’t you?”

  Cal gave her a calm, cursory glance. He touched his hat brim and smiled. It was a careless smile, the kind that meant nothing. “I heard you were coming,” he said. “But I can’t say I remember you. Sorry.”

  Kitt’s chest tightened. Did he mean that? Could he mean it? She had feared he’d be embarrassed to see her. But he didn’t even seem to recognize her. Stunned, she tried to smile back.

  Bubba squeezed her shoulders even more affably. “Kitt, you ’member Cal McKinney? When he was a young rascal on the rodeo circuit? Believe it or not, these days he’s almost respectable.”

  Kitt looked for a flash of recognition in Cal’s hazel eyes. But she saw nothing. He acted as if he was meeting her for the first time. Her mouth had gone desert dry and her heart banged.

  But she managed to shrug. “I—can just barely remember you,” she lied. “It’s been a long time.”

  Bubba’s eyes narrowed in mirth and he chuckled. To Cal he said, “See? This one was too sensible to pay mind to your sort. She had a brain in her head. She was immune to the no ’count likes of you.”

  No, thought Kitt. I wasn’t. Oh, I wasn’t immune at all. For me, he was the only one. Cal. Always and only—Cal.

  MEL STRETCHED OUT on the couch in the suite’s sitting room. It was a comfortable, old-fashioned room, but he didn’t feel comfortable.

  He had a few minutes until he needed to leave for his first appointment. It was a secret appointment, far too sensitive to keep in Crystal Creek. It was set up in Fredericksburg, a forty-minute drive away.

  To while away the time he opened the book that DeJames had sent him. It was the Stobbart yearbook, a dark blue volume stamped in fake silver. He went straight to the book’s index and looked up Kitt’s name. It appeared over a dozen times. A popular girl, he thought, unimpressed. He had no affectionate memories of popular high school girls.

  He turned to the first picture: student council. There was a teenage Katherine Mitchell, junior representative. She looked impossibly young and impossibly perky.

  Her hairdo seemed dated and a bit untidy. Her clothes looked cheap. She wore no makeup. But she was all smiles and sparkle—Miss Personality.

  And yet, he thought, and yet…didn’t the smile seem forced? Just a trifle? Didn’t the sparkle seem almost aggressive? As if she was using it as a disguise?

  He flipped to the next page. Katherine “Kitt” Mitchell on the track team. Exactly the same smile, as if she’d rehearsed it and could produce it on demand.

  Still, the same air of scintillation seemed to radiate from her. It made the other girls seem like dim background figures. She was a little thing, but vitality showed in every line of her body.

  Mel came finally to her class picture. Other girls on the page might be more beautiful, but he didn’t notice them once he saw her. Under her portrait was the legend DeJames had read him: “Some girls break records, some break hearts. Kitt Mitchell does both.”

  “Hey, kid,” he muttered to her photograph, “what’s your story?”

  KITT WAS SPARED any further conversation with Cal by the entrance of old Horace Westerhaus.

  Horace hobbled into the Longhorn fuming and brandishing one of the new Bluebonnet Meadows brochures. “Has anybody else seen this?” bellowed Horace. “Or am I the only lucky one?”

  Horace owned Crystal Creek’s radio station and weekly newspaper. He said he’d come to the radio station this morning, and the mailman had handed him the envelope containing this goddamn brochure.

  People crowded around him, including Bubba and Cal. Kitt was momentarily forgotten—and grateful for it.

  “That brochure, what is it?” Nora asked Kitt. “Do you know?”

  Kitt told her what she knew. “Mel Belyle said it would come in the mail today. Why did Horace get it first? Because he runs the media here?”

  “No. It’s just his place is first on the town mail route,” Nora said, looking worried. “Did you bring your copy?”

  “No,” Kitt said. “My job’s to report the news, not stir it up. I didn’t want to be the first to flash it around.”

  “I understand,” Nora said. “But it actually says ‘Phase One’? As if Fabian plans to expand even more?”

  “Well…that’s what it sounds like,” Kitt said, careful not to exaggerate.

  Then Cody Hendricks, the bank president, burst into the café with an identical copy of the brochure, and the hubbub in the Longhorn grew.

  “What I don’t understand,” Kitt whispered to Nora, “is where does Fabian think he’ll get more land? There are patches here and there. But the McKinneys own the most, and they’ll never sell—never.”

  “Neither will Carolyn Trent,” Nora said softly. Carolyn was the sister of J.T.’s first wife, Pauline. She owned the Circle T ranch, and her land was precious as heart’s blood to her.

  J.T. and Carolyn, the two most powerful landowners in Claro County, would fight against Fabian to the end. The other ranchers and farmers had pledged solidarity with them. Nobody would sell out, they had all declared.

  “If somebody does break ranks, who would it be?” Kitt asked.

  Nora bit her lip. “I couldn’t say. I wouldn’t say.”

  But her uneasy gaze went to Bubba and rested there. Kitt’s eyes followed and she thought, Yes. If there’s a weak link in the chain, it could be Bubba. It wouldn’t be the first time he scandalized the town. But would his wife let him sell? She’s the steady, strong one.

  People crowded around two tables, staring at the brochur
es, their voices merging into babble. Unhappy emotions stamped their faces: anger, bewilderment, alarm, indignation, fear.

  Cal McKinney stood taller than all the others, and his expression was uncharacteristically somber. He shook his head at the brochure and seemed lost in deep thought. Then he raised his eyes so that, briefly, they met Kitt’s. His glance was impersonal, a man barely noticing a stranger.

  He’s forgotten me. He really has. But how could he? How? The thought cut through her like a blade slicing open an old wound.

  But he had already turned his gaze away, his face still solemn. He murmured something to Dr. Purdy, pulled his hat brim lower over his eyes, turned on his heel and left the restaurant.

  Shaken, Kitt forced herself not to stare after him. She knew what she’d once felt for him had been only a girl’s crush, silly and desperate. But seeing him had been a greater shock than she could have imagined. And all the old pain had come flooding back.

  A FEW MOMENTS LATER, Bubba cried out, “Jehoshaphat! My damn watch is stopped.” He shook his wrist as if to punish the offending wristwatch. He glared at the big clock on the wall, which said it was nine-thirty.

  “I thought it was near an hour earlier,” he grumbled. “I got an appointment!”

  Kitt’s interest prickled. Bubba and Nate Purdy were close enough to her that she could hear them clearly. “Where?” Nate asked with frank curiosity.

  “A business appointment,” Bubba muttered. “In Burnet County. Hell, now I don’t got time for breakfast.”

  “Console yourself that greater tragedies have befallen the lot of man,” Dr. Purdy said out of the corner of his mouth.

  Bubba, not amused, hitched up his belt and made for the door. Nobody paid much attention to him. Shirley Ditmars was clearly thinking of something else altogether. “I wonder why Cal didn’t stay. He acted peculiar. He’s usually so friendly.”

  Shirley stole a sly glance at Kitt. Shirley was Gloria Wall’s biggest rival for the crown of the town’s gossip queen. Who knew what old rumors or new speculations were stirring in her fertile mind?

  Calm again, Kitt stared her down.