The range cattle didn’t have names, as such, but Davis called all cows Bessie, and all bulls Ferdinand.
Conner cocked a grin at Brody as he stepped up onto the running board of the pickup, about to get behind the wheel. “You’re a pretty bad liar for somebody with a rascal’s history,” he joked. “Word is, Joleen went straight to your place and you threw her out with a hundred dollars and a speech about taking the moral high road.”
“Drive slow,” Davis advised, hoisting himself up onto the tail gate to ride with the calf. “Bessie here will be following after us, and I don’t want her worn out from trying to keep up.”
Conner nodded—he’d been through this process many times, and so had Brody and Davis—and Brody got in on the passenger side.
“Small-town gossip is one of the few things I didn’t miss while I was away from Lonesome Bend,” Brody said immediately.
Conner chuckled, checked the rearview mirror to make sure Davis was ready to roll and put the truck in gear. “Folks talk about you,” he said. “It means they care, that’s all.”
“It means, little brother, that they have small minds and too much free time.”
That made Conner laugh.
Bessie ambled behind them, still carrying on like a sinner on his first day in hell. Even over the roar of that old truck’s old engine, she was audible.
Back at the barn, they’d settle Bessie and the calf in a stall, keep an eye on the little one for a day or two, bring the vet if necessary. They’d found the calf lying with his head downhill, probably suffering from sunstroke and mild dehydration, but the worst danger—being vulnerable to predators—was over.
Usually in these cases, a little TLC did the trick.
Bessie and her baby boy would be back out on the range, with the rest of the herd, in no time.
All of a sudden, his jocular mood vanished, and Conner turned serious as all get-out. “Be careful, Brody,” he said. “Carolyn is a good woman, and she’s had a hard row to hoe almost since the day she was born. It wouldn’t be right to hurt her.” Again.
Conner hadn’t actually said the word, but it hung in the air between them.
“You think I want to hurt her?” Brody asked, nettled. He shifted around on the seat, which was cracked leather, with springs and stuffing showing in places. Davis believed in using equipment until it disintegrated back to the particle state.
“I didn’t say that,” Conner replied, shifting again. “Didn’t mean to imply it, either.”
Brody heaved a sigh. “I know,” he said. “Maybe I’m a little touchy when it comes to Joleen. She’s got some wild hair about my being involved with Carolyn, and I’m afraid she’s going to make trouble.”
“Did she say she would?”
“In so many words,” Brody answered wearily, “yes.”
Conner considered for a while before asking, “Are you, Brody? Involved with Carolyn, I mean?”
Brody glanced over at his brother, at the profile so remarkably like his own that he might have been looking into a mirror. “Let’s just say I’d like to be,” he finally said. “But she doesn’t trust me, and I can’t blame her for that.”
“Amen,” Conner agreed.
They were quiet for a while, except for the truck engine and old Bessie.
“What did you mean before,” Brody ventured, “when you said Carolyn has had a hard time from when she was little?”
Conner was silent for so long that Brody didn’t think he was going to answer. “She grew up in foster homes,” he said. “There are a lot of good ones out there, caring people trying to make a difference in kids’ lives, but there are also a few whose hearts just aren’t in it. From what Kim and Tricia have told me, Carolyn got more than her share of the second variety.”
Brody pictured Carolyn as a skinny, coltish little girl, tall for her age, with freckles and clothes either handed down or bought cheap, probably smarter by half than the other kids in her class, and the image bruised the underside of his heart. The secondary emotion, though, was anger.
“Was she abused?”
“More like neglected, from what I gather. And then there was the thing with that movie star, after you left.”
Something quickened inside Brody at the reminder. What had Joleen called Carolyn last night?
A movie star’s castoff.
“What happened?” Brody asked carefully. The barn was in sight now; soon, poor Bessie could relax, and the calf could start recovering from whatever ailed it.
And that god-awful caterwauling would stop.
“Don’t know,” Conner said, turning his head long enough to give Brody the kind of level look that always meant he was telling the truth. “There were lots of rumors flying around at the time, of course. Carolyn was the live-in nanny, and some people said she was having an affair with Gifford Welsh while his wife was away on some movie set.”
Brody’s back molars clamped together, unclamped again. As the lifelong resident of a glass house, he couldn’t go around throwing stones, but it galled him, just the same, to think of another man—any other man— touching Carolyn in all the intimate ways he once had.
And wanted to again.
“If you had to hazard a guess as to whether or not the gossips had it right,” he began, watching Conner, who was watching the bumpy range trail by then, “what would you say?”
Again, Conner was thoughtful. He liked to take his time when he answered a question, especially one he considered important. “I’d say,” he finally replied, “that Carolyn wouldn’t take up with a married man, and not just because she’d figure it to be wrong. She’s got too much pride for that.”
Brody laughed, out of relief and not because anything was funny, and reached over to clasp his brother briefly by the nape and give him a good, squeezing shake.
“Bull’s-eye,” he said. “Give the man a Kewpie doll.”
“A what?” Conner asked, with a frown that made Brody laugh again. And this time, it was funny.
“Figure of speech, little brother,” he said, when his amusement had ebbed away a bit. “Back in the day, when somebody won a prize at a carnival booth, they’d get a Kewpie doll.”
“Whatever,” Conner said, comically indignant.
By then, they were home, with the task of unloading the sick calf before them, and poor Bessie panting and huffing from the exercise.
“Everything will be all right now, girl,” Brody heard his uncle tell the cow. “Your baby is safe, and so are you.”
LEGS SHAVEN, hair clean, Carolyn stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel.
Winston sat on the lid of the toilet, waiting for her to emerge from what probably seemed, to him, to be a chamber of horrors.
“See?” Carolyn said, patting his head. “It is possible to get wet and survive.”
“Reow,” Winston objected, and leaped down off the commode, tail fluffed out in annoyance. The top of his head was damp where she’d touched him.
Carolyn laughed. “Okay,” she said, waiting for the fogged-up mirror over the sink to clear up so she could apply moisturizer. The makeup—she didn’t plan on wearing much—could wait. “That’s two things off the predate checklist. Legs shaved, hair washed. Now, for the facial.”
She opened the medicine cabinet and peered in side.
A box of stick-on bandages. A bottle of mouthwash, nearly empty. Toothpaste, a brush, a box of cotton swabs and three tampons trying to escape from their paper wrappers.
Not one single component of a facial.
Oh, well.
That left the nap.
Carolyn left the mirror to defog on its own and went into her bedroom. Flung herself down on the bed and lay there, spread-eagle.
Nope.
Sleep was not going to happen.
She was too keyed up to get any shut-eye and, anyway, it was the middle of the day.
And it was too early to take the pink dress from the clothesline, give it a quick spritz of spray starch and a few licks with a hot
iron.
She arose, with a sigh, and put on her bathrobe, but that was too warm, so she replaced it with an oversize T-shirt.
For now, that would have to do.
Carolyn took the gypsy skirt down from its hook on her bedroom door and held it out for inspection. She’d expected to be over wanting to keep it by now, but she definitely was not over it.
She could fit it to her own dimensions in a trice, but that was beside the point. The skirt definitely would not work at a backyard barbecue—or when Brody took her out on Saturday night, either.
There was only one movie theater in that part of the county, and it was in the next town, Wiley Springs. The nearest fancy restaurant, where one might presumably wear a magical concoction of ribbons and beads, was just outside of Denver.
Carolyn put the skirt back on its hook, suddenly dispirited. She’d planned to fuss with it a little, but now the prospect had zero appeal.
There were always the aprons. They could barely keep up with the demand.
Yee-haw, she thought sourly. Aprons.
Carolyn decided to give the nap another shot.
This time, it worked.
When she woke up to the cold, nuzzling nose of a cat wanting his supper, it was after five o’clock.
Hurriedly, Carolyn doled out Winston’s sardine ration, then rushed downstairs, still in the T-shirt, to collect the pink dress from the clothesline.
The smell of the fabric was delicious.
Back upstairs, she wielded the iron, keeping one eye on the kitchen clock the whole time, and then went into the bathroom to put on mascara, minimal foundation and lip gloss to match the dress.
Since she’d gone to sleep with her hair still damp from the shower, it stood out around her head like the mane of a lion named Frizzy, and bringing it under control practically called for a whip and a chair.
Pinned into a loose knot at the back of her head, it looked passably good, Carolyn decided. Although there might well be wide-spread injuries if it escaped its pins at an inopportune moment.
“Now you’re just being silly,” Carolyn told her reflection, in the fog-free mirror. “Get a grip, okay?”
Carolyn’s reflection looked indignant.
“Well,” Carolyn told the familiar image, “it’s your own fault for not blow drying before you took your nap.”
“Reow,” said Winston, now sitting in the bathroom doorway, licking his chops.
Nothing like a good sardine.
Carolyn laughed, at the cat and at herself.
She was going to a barbecue in Bill Venable’s backyard. His late wife’s parents would be there, along with his nine-year-old daughter.
What was there to be nervous about?
Plenty, as it turned out.
When Carolyn pulled up in front of Bill’s very nice house, in her very old car, a child who had to be Ellie was waiting on the sidewalk.
With a big sign, hand-lettered in colorful markers and stapled to a stick.
It read “Go Away. We Don’t Want You Here Unless You’re Angela.”
The greeting gave Carolyn pause, of course, and so did the glower on the child’s face. She was as pretty, this kid, as a Victorian rendering of Alice in Wonderland.
And if looks could kill, Carolyn would have been incinerated on the spot.
She was debating—go or stay—when Bill suddenly appeared, bursting through the front gate and gently but firmly taking the sign from Ellie’s hands before pointing a stern index finger toward the house.
Ellie obeyed, shuffling her feet, her head lowered.
Bill tossed the sign into the yard, summoned up a sporting smile and approached Carolyn, opening the car door for her.
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Carolyn fretted. Despite the child’s behavior, she’d taken an instant liking to Ellie. The munchkin definitely had spirit.
“Nonsense,” Bill said. “It’s a great idea. Come along—the steaks are on the grill, and I want to introduce you to Ellie’s grandparents, Charlie and Stella. They’re excited to meet you.”
Privately, Carolyn doubted that. Most likely, Charlie and Stella were Angela supporters, like Ellie. They, being grown-ups, would just be a bit more subtle about it, that was all.
“I don’t know—”
“Carolyn,” Bill said, smiling, “it’s supper, not the coronation of King William.”
Carolyn laughed, reminded of how much she liked this man.
If only she could muster up something more.
Bill offered his hand. “Let’s go,” he said quietly. “I promise you, Ellie isn’t a monster. She just acts like one sometimes.”
“Don’t we all,” Carolyn responded, her smile genuine now, comfortable on her face.
Bill led her around the side of the big house and into a wonderful, shady backyard, with flowers and an arbor and a swinging bench.
Charlie and Stella were both attractive, a wellmatched couple in their sixties. As Bill and Carolyn approached, Charlie, a big man with a full head of snowwhite hair, rose from his seat on the bench at the picnic table. Stella, also white-haired, looked like a slender pixie, and her smile was warm.
Bill made the introductions and, once Carolyn was settled at the picnic table, with a glass of fresh lemonade, excused himself to duck into the house, presumably to deal with Ellie.
Stella, seated beside her handsome husband, watched Bill disappear through the back door, a wistful smile lingering on her lips but not quite reaching her eyes. “I take it our granddaughter has been acting up again,” she remarked.
Carolyn chuckled, took a sip of the tasty lemonade and set her glass down on the red-and-white checked oilcloth covering the top of the picnic table. “She certainly doesn’t lack for imagination,” she replied.
Charlie raised bristly white eyebrows. “What happened?”
Carolyn hesitated, then described the sign inci dent.
“Oh, dear,” Stella breathed.
“It might have been an imaginative thing to do,” Charlie began, “but it was also rude. Bill needs to stop fooling around and get married again, give that child a mother to guide her before she turns into a complete mess.”
Stella elbowed him in the ribs. “Charlie!” she scolded, but there was so much love in her voice that Carolyn choked up a little, just hearing it. What a beautiful thing it was, the two of them growing older together, and still frisky.
Charlie ignored his wife, but his love for Stella, like hers for him, was clearly visible to Carolyn, who was feeling oddly detached from the scene now, an observer, not really part of things.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Charlie went on, quietly earnest. “We love our granddaughter. Ellie’s a force of nature—the spitting image of her mother, our daughter, Connie—and we wouldn’t want to see her change too much.” He paused, sighed. “However, it will be a relief when the brat phase passes.”
“Ellie,” Stella said firmly, “is not a brat.”
At that, the screen door swung open, and the little sign-bearer stepped out onto the back porch, looking like a recalcitrant angel in her pink cotton shorts, matching top and purple flip-flops.
Bill, standing behind her, gave her a little nudge to the shoulder. “March,” Carolyn heard him say.
Ellie sucked in a dramatic breath and let it out as a huge and wobbly sigh. She looked back at Bill.
Bill gave a brief nod, part encouragement, part impatience.
Carolyn, looking on, felt another sweet stab of affection for little Ellie Venable.
Stalwartly, Ellie faced forward again, high-stepped it down the porch stairs and walked over to stand near the picnic table, next to Carolyn.
Putting out one small and probably sticky hand, the child said, with an utter lack of conviction, “I’m sorry for being impolite. After all, you can’t help it if you’re not Angela.”
Muted groans from the other adults greeted this pronouncement.
But Carolyn merely smiled and took the small hand, shook it. Sure enough, it was sticky.
“You’re right,” she replied, after a moment, “I have my hands pretty full just being Carolyn these days.”
Ellie narrowed crystalline blue eyes, studying Carolyn. “Are you willing to start over?” she asked.
Carolyn was struck by the wisdom of that question, especially coming from a nine-year-old. “I’d like that,” she said.
The little girl indicated that she wanted to sit down, and Carolyn scooted over to make room.
“My dad says when I grow up, I’m either going to be the first woman president or the head of my cell block,” Ellie said, quite seriously. The tiniest smile peeked out from the clouds of caution veiling that lovely little face, and she dropped her voice. “My dad kids a lot. He doesn’t really expect me to wind up in prison.”
“I don’t know, kiddo,” Charlie teased, grinning at his grandchild from the opposite side of the picnic table. “It seems to me that you’re developing criminal tendencies.”
“My grandpa makes jokes, too,” Ellie confided to Carolyn.
“I am a retired cop,” Charlie insisted, with a twinkle, picking up the lemonade pitcher and pouring a glassful for Ellie. “I know a troublemaker when I see one.”
“All you have to do is look in the mirror,” Stella supplied, singsonging the words and, at the same time, beaming at Ellie like a golden sunrise. “You’ll be president,” she told the child, without a hint of doubt.
“I’m not sure I’d want the job,” Ellie replied, with the solemnity of a very intelligent and precocious child. “No matter what the president does, somebody pitches a fit about it. I’d rather fly airplanes and put out big fires that cover whole states, like Dad does.”
Bill, who had been turning steaks on the grill until then, joined the others at the table, sitting at Carolyn’s right, not too close, but not too far away, either.
Yet again, Carolyn silently lamented her lack of passion where he was concerned. Why couldn’t she have these brotherly feelings toward Brody, and want Bill with an intensity that was getting harder and harder to deny with every breath she drew?
It was perverse, that was what it was.
She did enjoy the remainder of the evening, though. The steaks were delicious, Bill was attentive without coming on too strong, Charlie and Stella were chatty and cordial, without asking any questions more intrusive than, “Did you grow up in Lonesome Bend, Carolyn?”
The Creed Legacy Page 18