by Anna Jeffrey
“Believe it or not, I’m a good English teacher, too, but no one cares. The swim team’s two state championships are what’s important to the school. And to the town, for that matter. And I get that. Drinkwell has always been kind of a nothing place, so it needs something to brag about.”
She gave a bitter chuckle. “Pic’s never sat in one of my English classes where I’m trying to teach juniors and seniors how to read, either.”
“Seems like they should have learned that before they got to be juniors and seniors. But I know how it is in farming families. Sometimes the kids helping with the work at home is more important than education.”
“I’m sure that happens somewhere, but that really isn’t the issue in Drinkwell High School. To a lot of our kids, English is a second language. Though they’re classified as junior and seniors, a lot of them haven’t gone past eighth grade. But that’s a different conversation. How would you know about kids staying home from school to help with the farm? Does your family farm?”
“Yes, ma’am. Corn and soybeans. Been doing it for three generations.”
“Oh, really. They must miss having a strapping guy like you around to help.”
“Nah. My two younger brothers are still at home helping with the farm. After I finished college, I joined the army and never went back.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“Indiana U. Football scholarship.” He caught her eye in the rearview mirror and grinned. “Go Hoosiers.”
Of course. I should’ve known. “Ahh, you look like a football player. Well, I’m a Red Raider myself.”
“I know that. I don’t think we ever went up against the Red Raiders.”
Oh, wow. Had she ever told him she was a Texas Tech alumna? She couldn’t remember. She dredged up a laugh. “Good thing. We would’ve beat you.”
He laughed, too. “Don’t be too sure. We beat Notre Dame three times while I was playing.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Why didn’t some pretty farm girl capture a good guy like you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the right one never tried.”
That was one of those casual fibs that was supposed to make someone just shut his or her mouth and stop asking questions. Nevertheless, Amanda detected a kernel of something in that remark. Had there been a “right one” for him and had he lost her?
“I haven’t said anything about this before, but in case you haven’t figured it out, I’ll just tell you that the girls in my swim class all have a crush on you. They’re a little young for you though. How old are you anyway?”
“Thirty-five, ma’am.” He gave her another smile in the rearview mirror. “Old enough to keep plenty of distance between me and teenage girls. I like women, not girls.”
Exactly the same age as Pic. In some ways, he even looked like Pic—both blond and blue-eyed, both big and strong. “I’m surprised one of them hasn’t jumped you. Teenage girls these days aren’t necessarily paragons of virtue. Some of them behave way older than their years.”
“Well, I’m armed. I can defend myself.”
She smiled. She liked his sense of humor.
They reached the city limits and would soon be at the school. He caught her eye in the mirror again. “You didn’t swim the last couple of days. You and your class slacking off a little?”
“Just temporary. A break until we get through the holidays. When we go back after Christmas, distractions will be fewer. We’ll hit it hard. The state meet is the middle of February, so we have a lot of work to do to get ready. Those two state championships to defend, you know. The school’s counting on me.”
“A backwater place like Drinkwell is lucky to have someone as good as you are. I hope they appreciate that.”
Hah. A compliment Amanda never heard from her husband. She and Pic never had a positive discussion of her career as a coach and educator, which he viewed as being on a par with clerking in the grocery store. Never mind that she had won awards and a few times had been featured in major newspaper articles by sports writers. If a conversation related to her team or the school came up, he ended it with: “You know how I feel about it.”
“Thank you, Chris. You’re always pumping up my ego. I know Drinkwell is a long way behind the schools in bigger towns, but it’s my hometown. If not for that, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“You wouldn’t be Mr. Lockhart’s wife?”
The days when she thought all she wanted was to be Pic’s wife and companion for the rest of her life slammed into her thoughts and a stark reality punched her. If not for her father’s illness, she wouldn’t have returned to Drinkwell, even temporarily. Indeed, she probably wouldn’t be Pic’s wife.
“I don’t know,” she told Chris. “Actually, when my dad got sick, I came back to help him. I’m his only kid.”
Stuck here anyway and unemployed, she had accepted a temporary job as the swim coach and Junior English teacher. Eventually, her father’s death left her with a nice home that she owned outright but couldn’t sell in Drinkwell’s non-existent real estate market. Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have revived her relationship with her old high school boyfriend. “Pic and I had more or less gone steady as teenagers and he was still around when I came back,” she continued. “We kind of picked up where we left off.”
Looking back, Pic had never had an interest in the part of her life that was a large percentage of who she was. Other than high school football, he had never competed for anything in his life. He viewed swimming as a phony interscholastic sport, refused to learn to swim himself, was afraid of water above his knees—for good reason, she supposed, after the experience he and Drake had as boys. Yet he had built her that incredible swimming pool and he boasted to people outside the family about her teams’ championships.
“He told Marcus you weren’t going to coach this year,” Chris said. “He said you were going to be his partner running the ranch. You must’ve changed your mind, huh?”
The day Pic proposed to her, she had indeed made him a promise to give up her teaching and coaching job and be his partner. Reminded again that she had broken that promise, she grimaced. “Can I tell you a secret just between us?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She fiddled with the fingers of one of her gloves. “I’m serious when I say just between us.”
“Yes, ma’am, I understand.”
“I have no interest in ranching. I know the Lockhart family is in a leadership position in ranching and agriculture in Treadway County and for that matter, the whole state of Texas. Ranching has always been most of the economy here, but...” She hesitated, remembering that Pic used to call her “city girl” or “sissy.”
“I don’t hate it. Let’s just say I have no interest in it. And horses? I don’t understand this ... this passion for these four-legged divas. It’s more than a passion with this family. It’s almost an obsession. I swear, it’s in the Lockhart DNA.”
Chris grinned at her in the mirror. “Could be. An Irishman’s love for horses is legendary.”
“Hah. I suppose that’s true. All I know about horses is they come in different colors. I’ve gone to the horse shows with Pic and heard all of the talk. I’ve tried to generate some enthusiasm, but I just don’t get it. I can’t ride and don’t even want to learn how.”
His gaze caught hers in the mirror again. “I understand they’re worth a lot of money, some of them more than Thoroughbreds.”
“I think that’s true. Of course, most of the horses the ranch owns are plain old working horses, but the performance horses are a whole different story. You know Troy’s mare that just won that big contest up in Fort Worth?”
“Yes, ma’am. Sal DiAmato told me the prize was close to half a million dollars.”
“If Troy wanted to sell her, Pic says he might get that much for her, but eventually, she’ll earn more than that having babies. And she can still compete. She’s really just a baby herself. As long as she doesn’t get crippled or get sick, she’ll probably win
some more shows.”
“That’s good, huh?”
“According to my husband, it’s almost a miracle. He says the odds against getting a horse with the ability in the first place, then having it grow to the right age to compete without some kind of disabling injury are huge.”
“How would they get injured?”
“Oh, just like any other animal. Or human. They can catch something that disables them, they can get injured training. That’s why Dandy Lady and others like her are so pampered. It’s strange, I’ll tell you, living surrounded by animals that are more important than people.”
Suddenly, all of Amanda’s swirling thoughts and emotions crashed into each other and she thought about her life, the life she had longed for before she had it. Why couldn’t she quit the school and be content with her role as the wife of one of the richest men in Texas? Most women would jump on that opportunity. Everyone she knew envied her, but she seemed to have tunnel vision. All she could think was she had become Rapunzel, a princess trapped in a castle.
Worse yet, she had become more like Betty Lockhart than she wanted to think about and had even started to be empathetic toward that vile woman.
“Given all of the years I’ve known my husband and his family, I wish someone could tell me why I didn’t figure all of this out before now. And especially before Pic and I got married. Sometimes I wonder if I’m cut out to be a rich man’s wife. I have to admit, I feel guilty.”
“For what, ma’am?”
“Oh, a lot of things. My colleagues at school, for instance. Drinkwell pay for teachers is sub-par. Money problems are the number one topic in the teachers’ lounge. I relate, but I’m so far removed from that now, I don’t even attempt to take part in the talk. What could I contribute? I don’t want to be called a hypocrite.”
“I know the Lockharts are rich people all right,” Chris said. “If they weren’t, they couldn’t afford to hire my company.”
“I don’t know much about their money. Pic and I don’t discuss it. Since we got married, I’ve sat in on only one of the family meetings. A lot of what they talk about goes over my head. I just know that Pic and his dad deal with the ranch’s operation and his older brother is the real manager of the family money. Drake and some nebulous accounting firm up in Fort Worth oversee the family members’ discretionary spending. I’m not sure why they bother. All of us spend without thought to what things cost. The accountants never even raise a question.”
She thought back to the past summer and a trip she had made with Pic to Fort Worth. They stopped in at the ultimate retail store for western style clothing where Pic bought expensive hats and boots. She admired a plain pair of silver earrings, but lost interest the minute she saw the $499 price tag. She could buy the same thing at some discount jewelry store, she was sure. Pic bought the earrings for her. Just like that. He had taken $500 out of his wallet and handed it to the clerk as if it were a dollar.
“The only money the accountants don’t have their eyes on is my meager salary,” she said. “They never see it. It’s all mine to spend entirely on myself if I want to. But you know what? I’m never going to shop in stores where a pair of silver earrings costs five-hundred dollars or a blouse costs a thousand. I’m fine with my inexpensive shoes. I was fine driving my little Toyota, but now I’ve got a Cadillac I don’t want.”
“Mr. Lockhart told me they totaled your RAV.”
“It doesn’t matter. Now, I don’t need a car of any kind. Since that Fort Worth parking lot mess, I’m not allowed to drive anything. You want to know what I do with my pay?”
“What’s that, ma’am?”
“I give most of it to local charities. Drinkwell is a poor place. Probably half the population and my students’ families fall below the poverty level. The Angel Tree in the grocery store in town? This year, I took every name. I spent all of my December paycheck at Amazon and had stuff delivered to their homes. Those kids probably think Amazon is Santa Clause.”
“Because you felt guilty about having money?”
“Well, that and I didn’t need the money for anything for myself. The ranch furnishes everything I need. I’m really not criticizing the Lockharts. They’re charitable people. They give a huge financial gift to the Drinkwell school every year and a huge amount of food to the food bank. They give whole steers, all butchered, cut and wrapped. Probably better-quality meat than you can buy in a grocery store. And they give money everywhere for this and for that. I just wanted to do something personally.”
She stopped herself. Dear God. She was babbling. Why was she telling all of this private information to the bodyguard? Pic would have a fit if he knew.
Her dark mood deepened. She must be doing it because she no longer had confidantes or even girlfriends. Her best friend Gail had married Mike Norton and moved to Stephenville where Mike had enrolled at Tarleton, working toward an engineering degree. Gail still taught an elementary grade, but in Stephenville now, where she made more money than she ever would have made in Drinkwell. She and Mike also had a new daughter born a few months ago.
Tears rushed to Amanda’s eyes and she couldn’t stop them. A sob blurted from her throat.
Chris slowed and looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Ma’am, are you all right?”
She grabbed her purse and dug out a Kleenex. “Yes, yes. ... I’m—I’m just having a bad morning. Feeling sorry for myself. Could we stop in that little park up the road for a minute?”
In a matter of minutes, they reached a small grassy area smaller than a city block. The state maintained it and called it a park. Chris pulled off the pavement and came to a stop near a concrete picnic table. He turned in his seat, braced an elbow on the console between the two front seats and faced her. With the engine off, the windows began to fog over, enclosing them in an artificial privacy. “This is none of my business, ma’am, and I don’t usually say anything, but—”
“Please. Say what you’re thinking. I’m interested to know how we look from where you sit.”
“The way I see it, the Double-Barrel Ranch is an isolated place and I’m not talking just geographically. It’s kind of like being in a velvet cage. There probably aren’t many people nearby that the Lockharts have anything in common with and they’re subjected to a lot of criticism and gossip. They kind of pull together and live with siege mentality. On top of that, they’re so wealthy most of the rules that apply to the rest of us don’t apply to them.
Amanda hated admitting it, but since she had married Pic, people around her—even people she had known for years—treated her differently. “There are neighbors. Other ranchers.”
“I’m required to I know what surrounds the ranch. From what I can tell, no other ranching operation comes close to the Double-Barrel’s size or wealth. For you, I suspect it’s like getting caught in a vacuum. You used to be a normal person with a normal life. If you weren’t born to their kind of wealth, if you came to it late, you can lose sight of who you are now compared to who you thought you were. If you don’t intend to walk out of it, you have to not fight it. Just go with the flow and guard against letting it get you down.”
Walk out of it? Shock ricocheted through her. She had never considered leaving Pic. She loved him, had loved him since she was five years old. Even while she was married to Sam Larson, she had loved Pic. She was trying to love his family. She simply hadn’t realized before they began to share life daily just how deeply he was a part of and a reflection of his family and its unique mythos. “Wise words, Chris. Sometimes that’s easier said than done. I have to admit I sometimes do fantasize about just running away. Do you ever think about that? Just running away?”
“Me? There was a time when...well, these days, my life’s pretty simple.”
She studied him a few seconds. What had he not said? Well, why wonder? She would never know. She blew her nose and stuffed her Kleenex back into her purse. “You know what? Let’s go somewhere. I’m not in the right frame of mind for being cooped up in a building with a bun
ch of restless teenagers. I have a light day anyway. I’m going to call and take the day off.”
She pulled her cell phone out of her coat pocket, called the high school principal and informed him she had to be off for the day for personal reasons. After she disconnected, she laughed. “He probably thinks I want to go Christmas shopping.”
Chris started the engine. “Where do you want to go, ma’am?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just drive in some direction. ... Wait, I know. Let’s go up to Fort Worth and hang out. We can eat lunch at Del Frisco’s. It’s a five-star restaurant. I’ll buy you a steak dinner for Christmas. ... And do me a favor. Please don’t call me ma’am. Call me Amanda like you used to before Pic and I got married. Today, I’m in the mood to be just ... just Amanda who definitely wasn’t born rich.”
Chapter 17
At 9:00 a.m., Sarah arrived at City Grocery where she would work until 3:00 p.m. if she could bear it. Six-hour days were her limit under the best of circumstances.
On her feet too much the last few days, her leg and hip were sore. Days like today made her have a hard time believing those doctors who said she would return to normal.
“How was the horse show,” Elmer asked as they shared a cup of coffee in the storeroom.
A break room or an office was missing at City Grocery. What did exist was a long folding table and two chairs. A dated computer and stacks of papers and file folders occupied one end of the table. An old and chipped porcelain sink-drainboard combination was mounted on the wall beside the table.
Sarah seated herself opposite Elmer at the table and sipped her coffee. “Good, but it isn’t a show. It’s a clinic. This guy’s teaching people how to treat their horses. It’s mostly local people. A few came from out of town, though.”
Elmer gave her an indulgent look. Sarah recognized it. This was ranching country. Everybody had a horse.
“Do the folks around here really need something like that?” Elmer asked.
“Well, yeah, Elmer. People everywhere, if they’ve got horses, need to be smarter about them.”