by Anna Jeffrey
“God, Mandy.” Involuntarily, Troy’s head shook. “I’d never be able to look at Pic again without thinking about it. I’d feel like you and I are in a conspiracy against him. I believe he’s been a faithful husband. I’d be amazed if somebody told me he’s fucked around behind your back.”
Her brow furrowed, her eyes closed. Seconds passed before she spoke again. “He might be faithful now, but he certainly wasn’t before we got married. My God, Troy, while I waited for him here in Drinkwell, believing he loved me, he went off to college in Stephenville and married another woman. You were here then. You know what that did to me. I was lucky my aunt lived in a town that had a college where at least I could get out of this sick swamp of gossip and go away to nurse my wounds and go to school.”
“That was a long time ago. You and he both were kids. And as I remember it, y’all weren’t engaged or anything like that.”
She angled an accusing glare up at him. “We weren’t kids last summer. As long as you’re remembering, maybe you’ll remember that hot chick Betty sent up here from Austin. That woman came after Pic, but she ended up with you. My God, for all I know, she screwed Pic and you both.”
Zochi McLaren.
Well, that cleared up what the family thought about him leaving last summer’s picnic with her. Troy had looked at it as taking her away and saving Pic’s ass because Mandy was right. That woman damn sure wanted Pic and Pic was taken with her. Hell, what straight, red-blooded dude wouldn’t be? She looked like a Playboy centerfold and the words “let’s fuck” might as well have been tattooed across her forehead. Fortunately, Troy had been sober enough to pass up what she offered. She had offered Pic the same thing. Pic had told him so and he, too, had passed.
“That didn’t happen, Mandy. Not with me and not with Pic.”
“Hah. I’ve seen how you and your brothers stick together. I’ll never know what really happened, will I? I’ll tell you this much. Moving past that took a long damn time.”
“What’s a long time? I remind you, Sister, you did move past it. As soon as round-up ended two months later, you and Pic got married.”
She gave a huff and looked away again. “Okay, fine. To quote your brother, why whip a dead horse? That’s where we are, Troy. Whipping a dead horse.” Her eyes brimmed with tears again. They finally spilled over. “I would be forever in your debt if you could forget you know this,” she sobbed. “My God, it was once. Just once. Why would you want to hurt him?”
“Why would you want to hurt him?”
“I told you what happened. I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I just...I just wanted someone to appreciate me for once. And Chris...Chris—”
“And ol’ Chris did that for you, huh?”
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose again.
“Trying to forget I know this leaves me in a bad spot, Mandy, and I don’t like it.”
She said nothing for a few beats. Then, she lifted her arms and let them fall to her sides. “We’re starting to repeat ourselves. Okay, fine. I understand. For you, it’s kind of a Gordian knot, isn’t it?” She turned her back and walked away, back toward the house.
Shit! His heart felt as if it weighed fifty pounds. What the hell was he supposed to do now? How could he tell his brother, a man he cared about, that his wife, a woman he had always cared about as a friend, had fucked another man? And should he tell him? If so, how? And when? “Wait a minute, Mandy.”
She stopped and Troy caught up with her. She looked up at him. “I’m finished with this conversation, Troy. You’ve made yourself clear. I have nothing else to say.”
“Look, I’ll make a deal with you. You tell Pic yourself and I won’t mention it again. And I won’t tell Pic another horse trainer saw you and Chris together.”
“I’ve already told you, Troy, I have no desire to hurt my husband. ... It’s up to you. If you think he really needs to know, I guess you’ll just have to do what you have to do.” She stalked back to the back door.
Troy stared after her. Fuck! He had never felt so helpless.
After the back door into the utility room slammed, he hesitated for a few more seconds, then started for his truck. For the whole conversation, Dixon Turley had been standing nearby, waiting and watching, hopefully unable to hear them. Did he know what had happened between Mandy and Chris? Maybe the whole damn security crew knew it. Maybe they all had a meeting and decided Chris should fall on his sword, so to speak. Troy wanted to ask Turley, but that would accomplish nothing. The bodyguard wouldn’t tell him a damn thing.
Troy veered toward the house, eased through the back door, saw the kitchen empty. He grabbed the bag of birds he had put aside for Sergio and Tania out of the refrigerator that then started for home. Turley dutifully followed him. Once at home, Troy checked his phone for messages, saw one from Sarah: Jericho said OK. See you tomorrow.
His mood elevated. He spent what was left of the day working with his horses, trying not to think of the Double-Barrel’s bullshit melodrama.
This was why had hadn’t wanted to live in the ranch house ever. Living under a separate roof, the ranch house hysteria rarely touched him.
He didn’t really want to go back there for the quail feed tonight, but he had to.
THE NEXT MORNING, AS Troy floated in a pool of semi-consciousness, Sarah Karol drifted in and out of his thoughts. Today, she would be here with a new challenge for him. He blinked himself to full consciousness. Mandy and Pic and Chris and reality hung in his mind, but he shoved all of it aside. It would wait until after Christmas. Given enough time, some problems solved themselves.
Chapter 29
Noon came and went with no sign of Sarah and her little family at Troy’s house. No messages either. Would she stand him up after he had volunteered to make sure her boy ended up with a good, trained horse and knew how to take care of him? Had she abandoned the idea of saving Rudy?
Seated at the cooking island in his kitchen, he pressed in her number. When his call went to voice mail, he typed a message.
An hour later, he had received no reply. An odd anxiety niggled at him. He had a driving urge to know where she was and what she was doing. He could think of no one in Roundup he could call to check on her except for Lou Beckman who had a houseful of company for Christmas. Nevertheless, Lou was who he called.
“Troy. I’m glad you called,” Lou said, a mournful tone in her voice. “Jericho Hatch passed away this morning. Heart attack.”
Troy’s stomach dropped. All he could think of was that Sarah and her boy were alone. “Where is she?”
“We’re all just numb,” Lou went on, now in tears. “And poor Sarah, bless her heart, is—”
“Lou. Where is she?” Troy asked again.
“She was at the clinic in town earlier. Her boss at the grocery store and his wife were gonna take her back to Jericho’s house. Something like this couldn’t happen at a worse time. Everybody’s got obligations for Christmas. I got my own family here. I just couldn’t stay in town with her any longer, but I couldn’t get her to come to my house. She wanted to go back to Jericho’s. At least she’s got something to eat. People have been taking food over there all-day.”
In small rural communities, friends always took food to the deceased’s home. Troy’s head was spinning. Again, he found himself mired in helplessness. “Where’s her boy?”
“I did talk her into letting me bring him back to my house. Poor kid hadn’t had anything to eat since early this morning.”
“She’s at home? Why isn’t she answering her phone.”
“I doubt she wants to talk to anybody. She’s kind of a loner, you know. It’s the way she grew up.”
“Look, I’m gonna drive over there. It’ll take me three hours at most. If you talk to her, tell her I’m on my way if you don’t mind.”
“That’s good, Troy. I’ll get the message to her. She needs some help whether she wants to admit it or not. She a smart little gal and she’s independent, but Jericho had some problems I don’t think she
can fix. I don’t know if anybody can fix ’em.”
Troy disconnected. He could be in Roundup before dark. He walked outside and ordered Sergio to hook his one-horse trailer onto his pickup bumper. When he called Kate to tell her he was driving over to Roundup and why, she insisted on going with him. “Then get your ass over here. I’m leaving now,” he said.
Sal stood by. “Where we off to?”
“Back to Round-up. If you and Turley are following, you’d better get a move on.”
Kate arrived and they were off.
At the Hatch Ranch, he saw no sign of life. The old house was dark and looked to be buttoned up. He strode up the wooden porch steps to the front door. He saw no doorbell, so he banged on the screen door. The sound of light footsteps came from inside, then the door opened. Through a veil of screenwire, Sarah looked up at him with a woeful expression and swollen eyes. She was wearing a thick blue coat.
“Hey,” Troy said softly.
“What are you doing here?” Her sidelong look of suspicion landed on Kate.
“Lou told me about Jericho,” Troy said. “This is my sister with me. Can you unlock the door and let us in?”
Without a word, she fumbled with the old lock until the door opened. Troy stepped through the doorway, followed by Kate. The large sparsely furnished living room felt like a deep-freeze. “What can I do?”
Sarah’s head shook. “Nothing.” A sob broke from her and she started out of the room.
Troy nearly broke into tears himself. For some reason, something that hurt her heart hurt his. He stepped behind her and caught up with her in the kitchen. He turned her, drew her into his arms and held her close to his chest. “Sh—sh. I know it’s hard. I know you’re alone, but don’t worry. You’ve got me. Don’t worry, understand? You and Wyatt both have got me. And you’ve got my sister. Let her be your friend.”
She pushed away and looked at him, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Did you come to get Rudy? He’s still over at Tiffany’s.”
“I came for all of you,” Troy said. He had questions about Rudy, but now wasn’t the time to ask them. She broke into tears again and fell against his shoulder. “Oh, Jericho. ... What will we do without him?”
Troy rubbed her back. “I know, baby. I know. ... Where’s your heat? Why are you keeping it so cold in here?”
She stepped away from him, fished a ragged tissue out of her coat pocket and wiped her nose. “We turned it off. We were about to leave for your place. We had just walked out of the house when Jericho—” A new spate of tears spilled over her eyelids and she looked up at Troy. “He collapsed on the porch. ... We had to wait for nine-one-one.”
Surprised a place like Roundup even had nine-one-one service, Troy pulled her into his arms again. “Where’s your thermostat? Let’s get some heat going and I’ll make us a pot of coffee.” He looked over the large round table that was covered with various dishes of food. None of it looked as if it had been touched. “Look at all this food, sweetheart. Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.”
He guided her to a chair at an old round table. “Here, sit down. You need to eat, hon.”
She stared out at the huge pasture stretching away from the dining room windows into the setting sun and a vast gold and mauve sky. “Jericho must be with his wife now. That’s where he wanted to be. He was just killing time here until he got up there. It’s been hard for him ever since she passed away.”
Troy vaguely remembered Lou saying Jericho was a widower.
Kate sat down beside Sarah and began filling a plate from the assortment of dishes on the table. “Let me to fix you something to eat.”
Sarah’s head shook.
Troy set about making coffee in the antiquated kitchen then took a seat at the table. He and Kate ate, but Sarah stared at the food on her plate. “I understand Wyatt’s over at Lou Beckman’s place,” he said.
Sarah nodded. “Yeah. It’s nearly dark. I need to go get him. I know he’s scared. How’d you know he was over there?”
Troy forced a smile. “When you didn’t answer your phone or answer my message, I called her. Look, I know everything’s up in the air for you right now, but here’s what I think we should do. I brought my horse trailer. I’ll load up Rudy and my sister can take him and Wyatt back to the Double-Barrel, that is if you trust us enough for him to go with us. I’ll stay here and help you sort things out. We can go to the Double-Barrel together later or even tomorrow.”
Her head shook. “I can’t leave here. I have to put together Jericho’s funeral. A lot of people will come. The church in town wouldn’t hold everybody who came to Bonnie’s service. Look at all this food. People have been bringing it all-day.”
Troy had little familiarity with funerals. He had been to only two in his whole life—his grandfather’s and Carl Beckman’s—and he’d had nothing to do with the planning of either one of them. “I understand.”
They sat in silence for a few beats before Sarah spoke. “People are after this ranch, you know. I think the bank in town is in cahoots with one of them. That banker’s already called today. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t. They might put a lock on the door. I have to think about what Jericho would want me to do. I have to be here to take care of the place.”
“What people?”
“Jericho owed big money. Every year he kept borrowing more and spending more. He spent a lot of money on me and his wife’s doctor bills. Capital Farm Credit was threatening him. That banker in town probably knew it.”
Troy had never borrowed money from a credit union or bank, but he knew Capital Farm Credit was a federal credit union that lent money to farmers and ranchers. “Threatening him with what, foreclosure?”
Sarah nodded.
Troy stood and walked over to the window and looked outside. The place looked like many of the small ranches around rural Texas—buildings run down, in need of paint or repairs of some kind, fences needing attention, old mechanical equipment, some obviously parked where it quit working. “How much land is here?”
“I think it’s eighteen sections.”
Troy didn’t know West Texas range land values, but he did some quick arithmetic in his head. The place had to be worth a few million dollars. The Double-Bar-L Cattle Company already owned two ranches of approximately the same size in the general area. “Water?”
“There’s plenty of water. Jericho always bragged on the water.”
“How many cattle?”
“Three hundred head or so. Mostly black baldies. A few Herefords.”
“How much is owed on the place?”
“I don’t know. He never told me exactly. All he ever said to me was the place wasn’t worth having any more.”
“You said “people” are after it. Besides the credit union, who else?”
“That B2B company wants it bad, I think. That guy, his name’s Barton, he’s been here five or six times. He’s been downtown to the bank, too. He’s made a big pest out of himself. Jericho always suspected that the banker was helping him somehow. Jericho says this place is located right in the middle of something they’re trying to do.”
An alarm clanged in Troy’s head as the memory of Drake’s lengthy battle with them came front and center. The B2B organization might claim a noble intention, but they used dubious tactics. “I’m familiar with them. Anybody else?”
“The neighbor. Marshall McDowell is his name,” Sarah continued in a dull voice. “He knows about Jericho’s money troubles. He’s been trying to buy it for a really cheap price ever since Bonnie died. He thought that Bonnie being gone, Jericho would want to get rid of the place. He was just over here again last week.”
“What’s his story?”
Sarah shrugged. “It’s for his boy. He was wounded in the army. He’s getting money in some veteran’s deal, but Jericho never paid much attention to it because he said it’s only about half what the place is worth. Marshall wants Jericho to give his boy a big discount because he f
ought in the army.”
Another alarm. When a property owner passed on, the vultures settled around what he left behind. In rural Texas, Troy had seen it more than once.
Troy glanced at his sister. “We should pick up that horse before it gets dark. Do you want to do that, then haul him back to the Double-Barrel?”
“Sure.”
“Turley can go back with you. When you get there, turn him over to Sergio. He’ll know what to do with him. We’ve already talked about him.” He looked at Sarah. “Is it okay if my sister picks up Wyatt and takes him to the Double-Barrel? They’ll take real good care of him.”
Her head shook. “He won’t want to leave me. He thinks he has to protect me.”
“Should we ask him?”
Her head shook again. “He needs to stay with me. He loved Jericho. He’s just a little boy. I know he’s scared. I don’t want him to be without me.’
“Well, that settles that.” Kate picked up her coat and strode toward the front door.
Troy followed her on outside onto the porch and closed the door behind himself. “What’s with the snark?”
“Can’t you see?” she snapped. “She doesn’t want your help. You drove all the way over here, away from your own family at Christmas and you’re just wasting your time. You think she’s special? I don’t see it.”
“I don’t want to argue with you, Kate. If she doesn’t want to turn her kid over to strangers, I understand that. I’ll stay here tonight and take her and her boy back to the Double-Barrel tomorrow after we get some things ironed out. I’m gonna get a hold of Drake. He and Pic could easily handle this situation with this ranch.”
“What makes you think they even want to? Besides, Drake and Shannon are gone today. They went down to that winery.”
“They’ll be back. All I need you to do is pick up Rudy. Then go to Lou Beckman’s place and pick up Sarah’s boy and bring him back here. Dixon’s been to the pasture where Rudy is and he’s been to Lou Beckman’s. He’ll be able to direct you to both of them.”