by Anna Jeffrey
“Well, it’s good for the economy. God knows Roundup businesses could use all the help they can get.” He sipped from his mug and toyed with a piece of paper in front of him. “Ben over at the café told me he’s sold a lot of food out there and the motel’s been full. First time that’s happened in a long time.”
She leaned forward, her forearms resting on the table. “Elmer, can I ask you something kind of private?”
“Sure. You know I’m your friend, Sarah”
“Have you ever heard of a company called B2B.”
“Sure have. They’ve been coming around here for a while looking at land. They’re nosing into these small ranching and farming operations that are having money troubles. Why do you ask? Have they been in touch with Jericho?”
“I think so. A guy came out yesterday and gave Jericho a calendar. But don’t say anything to anybody about it. Jericho doesn’t want people to know it.”
“Hm. Most people don’t.”
“I don’t know how I missed them. Have they bought anybody’s land?”
“Not yet. Nobody’s too keen on selling to ’em. Old Lady Sutton’s kids were talking to ’em a while back, but I heard they butted up against a wall over mineral rights. B2B won’t buy unless they get ’em.”
“Jericho thinks they don’t want to drill or graze cattle either one.”
“Doesn’t sound like it. I agree with Jericho. I ’magine they want to keep anybody else from drilling. Folks used to be glad for the oil business, but now a lot of ’em hate it.” His mouth tipped into a grin and he chuckled. “Course, once the money starts coming in from that new find, local folks will probably love it again.” He got to his feet and rinsed his coffee cup in the sink. “You cooking a Christmas dinner?”
The feasts Bonnie Hatch always prepared filled Sarah’s memory. She would dude up the whole house with Christmas crap and Sarah would help her. They would bake and fill the air with the aroma of cinnamon and spices. They would invite people in and everything was jolly and fun. Since her passing, Christmas in the Hatch house was sad. Sarah’s snake bite hadn’t helped the situation. She shook her head. “Nah.”
“Oh. Well, I was gonna tell you to get a turkey out of the case.” Elmer turned his mug upside down on the drainboard beside the sink.
“Oh, that’s okay, Elmer. Christmas dinner was Bonnie’s thing. If I tried to cook a turkey, I might set the house on fire. I’ll probably throw a chicken in the oven and add some ready-made stuff. It’s just me and Wyatt and Jericho, you know.”
“Then, take one of those roasters that are over there by the turkeys.”
“I thought about inviting Tiffany and her dad to eat with us, but she’s going up to Abilene to spend Christmas with her mom.”
“Harvey told me he’s going over to San Angelo. I think he’s leaving tomorrow if the roads ain’t slick. He’s got a ladyfriend over there.”
Oh, my God. Rudy had nothing left to eat in Fisher’s small pasture. “Mr. Fisher’s got a girlfriend? Tiffany told me he’s visiting some relatives.”
“Well ... that, too.” Elmer shrugged and walked away.
Sarah pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped in a text message to Tiffany: Where are you?
A text came back. At work.
When are you leaving town?
Tonight after work.
Elmer just said your dad’s leaving town too. Who will feed Rudy?
Another text came back: Can’t he just graze?
Sarah huffed a sigh and sent a message back: A mouse would starve on the grass left in your dad’s pasture. I’ll feed him.
Tiffany’s reply came back: K Thnx. You know where hay is.
Mumbling cuss words under her breath, Sarah tied on her butcher’s apron and walked to the front of the store, unable to stop thinking about Mr. Fisher and Tiffany going away for a few days and leaving Rudy with nothing to eat. Tiffany might be that dumb about livestock, but Mr. Fisher wasn’t. Asshole. Sarah thought even less of him than she had before.
She logged into the cash register on one of City Grocery’s two cash-outs, her thoughts settling on Tiffany’s dad with a girlfriend. Yuck! He was one of the un-sexiest guys Sarah had ever seen. Beyond that, he was an ass and a stuffed shirt.
The grocery store was busy. People had done all of their big Christmas shopping up in Abilene. Now they were shopping locally for last minute items. Charlene Dyer checked out a basket full of groceries and at the same time reminded Sarah of the bake sale the Baptist church had slated to take place in front of the grocery store over the weekend. They hoped to raise five-hundred dollars.
Being objectified by do-gooders had been part of Sarah’s life all of her life as a ward of the State of Texas. In Roundup especially, she was grateful, though embarrassed by it. Jericho hated it. “Thanks, Mrs. Dyer. Jericho and I both appreciate it.”
“It’s the least we can do, dear. Wish we could help more.” She leaned and patted Sarah’s hand. “You and your boy and Jericho have a Merry Christmas. We’re all praying for you.”
Sarah would forever wonder if prayers from Roundup’s citizens were responsible for keeping her alive. She smiled. “Thanks, Mrs. Dyer.”
Mid-morning, she bought a Coke and walked back to the storeroom to get off her feet for a few minutes. She had just taken a seat when her phone pinged and she saw a text message from Troy. Where R U? Where is Rudy?
A thrill shot through her. She stifled a giggle. Where did he get her phone number? The only place he could have was from Louise. So that meant he’d had to ask her for it.
All nerves and a little breathless, she tapped in an answer: Working today.
Right away, a text came back from him: At what?
She quickly tapped in another answer: Grocery store in town.
A minute or two passed and she thought that was the end of the text exchange. Then: That can’t be good for your leg.
She frowned and tapped in an answer. No choice in Roundup. She added a smiling Emoticon.
Another message pinged: R U coming tomorrow? Is Rudy?
Oh, my God! She typed in another answer hurriedly so he wouldn’t think she had abandoned the exchange: No.
His reply came back almost instantly: I miss you.
What? Holy hell, what did that mean? Her heartbeat stepped up, her head spun. What should she say? She started to type, but saw her fingers shaking. She drew a breath, getting control of herself and tapped in an answer: I miss you 2.
She disconnected, grinning so hard her cheeks hurt. Jesus H. Christ! A man like Troy Rattigan missed her? She couldn’t believe it. She had to tell Tiffany about this. She started to tap in a message to her best girlfriend, but stopped before she pressed the “send” key. She shouldn’t share this with Tiffany. Or anybody. This was private, hers alone. She would save this text exchange forever.
She floated on air until 3:00 p.m., barely noticed the ache in her leg from standing all day. Jericho waited for her in front of the store. She carried out a box of carrots and apples Elmer had deemed unfit to sell and placed them in the bed of Jericho’s pickup.
“What’s all that?” Jericho asked as she climbed into the pickup’s cab.
“Carrots and apples. Elmer was gonna throw them away, but I asked him to give them to me. I want to feed them to Rudy. Can we go by Fisher’s place before we go to the school?”
Jericho replied with a huge sigh, but he didn’t say no.
As they turned into Fisher’s driveway, Rudy lifted his head and spotted them. He trotted toward the barn. “See there? He’s never done that before. He’s glad to see us.”
She chose a couple of the better-looking carrots and an apple and walked over to the fence. Rudy came to where she stood and offered her his nose. She put out her hand and rubbed his nose and head the way Troy did it. Rudy had always jerked his head and pulled away in the past, but today he snorted against her hand.
“Hey, boy. You’re looking handsome today,” she told him in a soft voice and offered the pieces of
carrot. Without hesitation, he scarfed them up as if he were starved. She followed with the apple, then turned back to Jericho, who waited in the pickup. “See, Jericho? He can be a good horse.”
“Come and get in the truck, Sarah. ... Please. Just get in the truck.”
With the weather so cold, she doubted Tiffany’s dad or Tiffany had ventured outdoors to feed him in the last couple of days. “Just a minute. I’m gonna feed him some hay.” She pulled some flakes of hay out of a stack inside the barn and left them on the ground. Rudy buried his nose in it.
Watching Rudy eat, anger crawled up her backbone. She stamped to the pickup, yanked the door open and climbed inside, rubbed her hands together to warm them. “I’m gonna call Tiffany and ask her where a blanket for Rudy is. And he should have some oats in his belly to get through these cold nights.”
“This is bullshit, Sarah,” Jericho groused, turning his pickup around. “I’m telling you again, he ain’t your horse.”
“I don’t care. He wants to be loved. He deserves to be taken care of.” Tears burned behind her eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like, Jericho, when not one damn soul loves you or cares if you live or die. It’s cold as hell out here and until I called her, Tiffany hadn’t gotten anybody to feed him while they’re gone or even put a blanket on him.”
“Not every horse needs a blanket. Apparently, he’s used to not having one.” Jericho braked and looked at her. “Sarah, there ain’t never been a day when you weren’t loved in the Hatch house. Bonnie loved you as if you were her own daughter.”
Tears rushed to Sarah’s eyes again and she couldn’t stop them. “I know that, Jericho. I wasn’t talking about you and Bonnie.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Can’t we find a way to take him? Troy Rattigan says he can fix him—”
“I don’t know, Sarah. I got other things on my mind right now. Don’t cry. We gotta go pick up Wyatt and you don’t want him to see his mama crying.”
They motored along without talking. Then, just before they reached the school, Jericho said, “I’ve got a couple of blankets in the tack room at home. After we pick up Wyatt, we’ll go get one and take it back over there. There’s oats in the barn. We’ll take a bucket over there to feed Rudy.”
AT 8:00 P.M., AMANDA and Chris were on their way back to the Double-Barrel. They rode in silence, her in the backseat as usual, which left her alone to ponder on exactly how she had ended up in bed in a Fort Worth hotel room with her bodyguard. Had she lost her mind?
The conversation in the hallway outside the hotel room door scrolled through her memory:
Amanda, are you sure about this? You’ve been drinking...
I’m sure and I’m not drunk....
She tried again to swallow a bubble that had been lodged in her throat ever since they left the hotel. Did she feel remorse? ... No, but she should. She had never been an immoral person. Maybe she would be sorry tomorrow.
Still, she felt something. A sadness akin to grief hung inside her rib cage like a dark veil. If it wasn’t remorse exactly, was it guilt?
She should feel guilty. She was relatively sure Pic hadn’t cheated on her since they had renewed their relationship three years ago. Of course, he had cheated big time before that. Did his marrying someone else when she thought he was her boyfriend count as cheating?
Had some kind of deep-seated resentment of that event lurked within her and carried over from those teenage years? She still remembered those years vividly. At the time, learning about it had devastated her to the point where she left Drinkwell, intending never to return. She’d had to delay enrolling in college for a year because she was so depressed and scattered. Was that why she was not now smothered by remorse, why she couldn’t make herself feel sorry for having sex with another extremely attractive man?
The Double-Barrel’s iron gate loomed ahead. Chris skillfully turned the SUV off the highway and waited for the gate to glide open. She glanced at the digital clock on the dash. 9:20 p.m. Mental shrug. Not so late.
Chris eased the SUV along the driveway toward the ranch house. As she always did, she looked for Pic’s pickup parked in front of the office. It wasn’t there, but then, it most likely was in the garage at this time of night.
He was home now, she knew. She had called the ranch house from the ladies’ room in Del Frisco’s. Johnnie Sue had told her Pic and Bill Junior were back and Pic was in the office, which had a separate phone not connected to the house phone. For only seconds, she had debated if she should call him on the office phone number, but rejected doing it.
Chris’s voice interrupted her mental dithering. “Do you want to go to the front door or the side door?”
“The side door will be fine,” she answered. He turned into the driveway and brought the SUV to a stop. He scooted out and opened the back door for her. She looked up into his face. “Chris, I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s no need to say anything, Amanda.”
She nodded and looked down. Dammit, that lump was still stuck in her throat. It was almost painful. With a sigh, she gathered her purse and gloves and scarf, scooted out of the back seat and stood just inside the SUV’s doorway. He looked into her eyes. “You’ll let me know if—”
“What? ... I mean, if—if that’s what you want.”
Hell. Damn. Shit! Who would believe that the first—the one and only—time she had ever cheated in her life, she would be faced with a torn condom? After that catastrophe, she had opened up and told Chris she believed she was ovulating. Still, later, they had done it again without a condom at all. By then, what was the point of prevention?
His eyes held hers, his expression grim. “It is.”
She nodded and started to step up on the porch.
“Amanda,” he said. She stopped and turned toward him “Don’t beat yourself up over this. It was my fault. I could’ve stopped it, but I didn’t want to.”
“I won’t let you think it was all your fault, Chris. I’m not a witless twit.”
He smiled. “Indeed, you’re not.” He stepped ahead of her and opened the ranch house’s back door. “Will you be going to school at the same time tomorrow?”
“School lets out at noon. If the roads are icy, they might cancel classes since it’s only half a day anyway.”
“I’ll follow up on it. If they have school, I’ll be here at the usual time.”
She nodded and moved into the warm entry, then stepped back outside and looked into his eyes that seemed to be less blue than usual. “You’re ... you’re a wonderful man, Chris. I—I—”
“You’d better go in now.”
She nodded and he urged her through the doorway. She stood just inside the doorway watching him drive out of sight. Then she closed the door and leaned back against it, drawing a deep breath. Dear God, he had told her he had loved her for more than a year. She cared about him, too—how could she not? His duty was to give his life for her. ... But no way was she in love with him.
He was nothing like her husband. He was the most intense man she had ever spent time with, yet sex with him had been nowhere nearly as raw and primal as it was with Pic. With Chris, it had almost been ... well, mystical. He had made love to her as if he truly was in love, as if she were something precious, which only intensified the guilt that had her mind churning.
Voices came from the den. The TV? Or Pic and Bill Junior talking? Johnnie Sue would have already gone home. Clenching her jaw, she straightened and slipped out of her coat, hung it in the utility room closet. She straightened her clothes again, then made her way to the den and found Pic sitting on the sofa, the newspaper spread out on the coffee table in front of him.
He looked up when she entered the room. “Heeey. How was Del Frisco’s?”
She steeled herself and dredged up a smile. “It was good. Good place for steak, as you know. It was a Christmas present for Chris. I’ve spent so much time with him lately and he’s done so much for me, I just wanted to show him I appreciate him. We had the best bottle
of wine. I think I might’ve overindulged a little.”
Indeed, in a moment of insanity, she had ordered a bottle of wine that cost over $100. “Where have you been.”
“God, if you only knew.” His eyes closed and his head shook. “Sometimes I think—” He paused. “I just don’t know. ... I told you Dad ran his truck into a ditch. Broke the front axle. Also tore up a guy’s fence and his cows got out on the highway. Without any hired help, he had to hunt down a couple of people he knew to help him get the cows back in and fix the fence. I felt obligated to help him. Wasn’t easy with the weather like it is. And Dad wasn’t any help. We’ll be lucky if the guy doesn’t sue us.”
“Good grief ... Where’s your dad now?”
“He went to bed. Hell, he might not wake up for a week. We might have to have Christmas dinner without him.”
“Was he drunk?” Then her brow arched involuntarily. “Well, that was a dumb question.”
“By the time we got the cows back in, got the fence fixed and I got everything else taken care of, it was late. I had to deal with the pickup this morning anyway, so I just checked us into a Ramada Inn. You won’t believe this, but Dad lost that fancy belt buckle Mom gave him. Or hell, I don’t know. From the talk I heard in the bar, he might’ve given it away.”
Years back, Betty had a belt buckle custom made for one of her and Bill Junior’s anniversaries. It was an ostentatious thing, a sterling silver oval on which a solid gold bull’s head was encircled by emeralds almost as large as peas. No one knew its value, but the whole family knew how Bill Junior cherished it.
Unable to care about its loss, Amanda shrugged. “I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.”
Pic nodded. “I guess.”
“Your dad is something else. He’s almost sixty years old. How long can he keep doing this?”
Big sigh from Pic. “I know. While Drake’s down here, I’m gonna see if we can have a talk with him. Crap like this is bound to affect his health. Besides that, his binges affect us all.”
Big brother again. Pic couldn’t do a damn thing without his big brother. Without looking up, Amanda nodded.