Chapter Thirteen

Carrie stood staring at the last person she wished to ever meet. “You mean, his ex-wife,” she repeated so there could be no mistake.

Leigh Anne Ryder blew more smoke directly at her in a short puff of hatred. “I know what I mean Miss Carrie Bennett. He tell you we were divorced?” When she received no reply, the woman continued. “That’s typical. A little stretching of the truth, huh? Nothing’s settled. I just might want to come back.”

Mabel threw up her hands and headed back to the safety of the kitchen.

“You think Ray will want you back?” Carrie tried to keep malice out of her voice, but it proved exceedingly difficult.

“I don’t give a shit what he wants. We’re still married. This is my home. I can do what I damn well please. He can’t throw me out.” Her gaze ran over Carrie as if memorizing details once more. “Beats me what a woman like you sees in a broken down old drunk like Ray Ryder.”

“He doesn’t drink anymore.” She took a sharp intake of breath as she recalled Ray’s recent evening after Alamo’s murder, but she didn’t bother to elaborate. “He stopped months ago.”

“Well,” said Leigh Anne coming farther into the room and dropping her cheap handbag on a sofa as if to challenge her rights here. “He’s stopped before, sweetheart, and he always starts again. Can’t help himself.” She searched around for an ashtray, but they were gone. The length of ash on her cigarette dropped to the floor. “Mabel,” she called, “You best be getting me an ashtray if you don’t want to be cleaning up after me.”

The housekeeper stomped in and plunked one down on a side table by Leigh Anne. She stood staring at her former mistress with hands on hips before turning on her heel and heading out.

“I’ve known the man for thirty odd years—odd being the word here, mind you—and he’s always been a drinker. He’s not gonna stop now just for some fancy woman he’s tied up with, believe me.”

For a moment, Carrie wondered if Leigh Anne meant “fancy woman” as a euphemism for whore or mistress. “Well, he’s stopped now,” she said quietly.

Ray’s wife sat herself down in the armchair next to her ashtray and leaned back, squinting up at her. There was a self-satisfied smile on her worn face, a face that dared Carrie to ask her to leave.

That did it. She’d had enough.

Carrie marched down the hallway to the bedroom she shared with Ray—which he had once shared with Leigh Anne—and slammed the door shut, hearing the woman’s throaty laughter taunting her.

Several phone calls later, and with a quick shove into suitcases of everything she possessed in that room, she marched back out to retrieve her laptop from the sunroom and headed to the door.

Leigh Anne was gone, but Mabel rushed out to stop Carrie.

“She’s gone now, Miz Carrie. What you going off for like that? She ain’t never been no good. I worked for this fam’ly for more years than I can remember, and the things I seen that woman done don’t bear thinking about. You gonna up and leave Mr. Ray now?”

“I have to, Mabel. I’m sorry.” She made a grab for the door.

“You were the best thing that ever happened to that man.”

Carrie stood for a moment, her gaze running over the living room in this house where she had spent so many happy hours. She was sickened by the betrayal she now faced, the loss of all she had set her heart on, the future she had thought was hers.

“I’m sorry, Mabel. I have to go.” She started to tug the door open.

“But why, Miz Carrie?”

Carrie stopped in her tracks, wondering why this housekeeper was suddenly all friendly after several weeks of a sullen, though tentatively softening, approach.

She put down the bags for a moment and gave her a quick, hug-like grasp. “He lied to me, Mabel. That’s why. He lied.”

Outside, her hands trembled as she shoved the key in the ignition and set off.

The scene with Leigh Anne replayed in her mind, the times Ray could have admitted the true situation, the times he could have said something. But no, nothing had been said. Ever. He had let the weeks pass never ever mentioning that he was still a married man, that the divorce had never gone through—that there was the possibility Leigh Anne might march back in.

Carrie gripped the wheel as the angry red glare of a low, mid-October sun confronted her, forcing her to snap down the sun visor. Her mind wasn’t on her driving; her mind was running over, again and again, the exchange with Leigh Anne, fury driving her on so she almost missed her turn for the Austin airport through the rage that blinded her.

****

Ray faced his wife across the expanse of his desk in the hunt office; the tension of confrontation mixed with his dislike of her being on his turf. There was a second’s pause before she snatched up a piece of paper from his desk and scribbled a figure on it.

“That’s what I want in final settlement. It’s fair, it’s a compromise, and I’m out of your life for good. And you can marry your fancy woman.” Leigh Anne went and slammed the door on Larry Gruhl tidying up papers in the main outer office.

“Was that necessary?” Ray asked calmly as she turned back to him. He glanced at the figure on the paper. “I have to think about this. It’s more than I’ve got, Leigh Anne, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“I’m aware of nothing, Ray. I have no idea what your bank balance is. Never have. Maybe that fancy woman of yours will help you out. She looked like she might have a few dollars to spare.”

Aware his wife was baiting him, he chose to ignore the remark. Then it struck him. “How did you know about Carrie?”

She didn’t answer, but rather asked, “She the Carrie Bennett who writes the romances?”

“I said,” his voice rising a notch, “how did you know about Carrie? Jake tell you?”

Leigh Anne scrabbled in her pocket again for a cigarette.

Ray covered his mouth to stop himself from breathing the smoky air. Or prevent angry words from escaping. He managed to maintain a semblance of patience as she got out her lighter, flipped out a flame and inhaled deeply.

“Where is Jake, by the way? I’d like to see him.”

That wasn’t an answer to his question. Ray felt his patience waning and giving way to anger, but he managed to hold on as fear sent his heart racing. “I sent him over to Bandera and then on to Austin on business. He’s probably hoping to visit you there.”

Leigh Anne shook her head at this bit of news. “Well. When you gonna decide, Ray?” she asked at last. “I can’t hang on forever. This goes to court, it’ll cost us both.”

“You have the money for that, Leigh Anne? You ought to think on that some. The longer this goes on, the more it costs. The only winners will be the damn lawyers. You think on that, and I’ll think on this.” He held out the paper with the sum on it.

She adjusted her handbag on her shoulder and put a hand on the door. “Miz Carrie Bennett was none too pleased to find out we were still married,” she threw at him as she jerked open the door. “I think you might find you’ll be sleeping alone tonight.”

As soon as he heard the retreating sound of Leigh Anne’s pickup, Ray grabbed his jacket and hat off a hook and, with a nod at Larry, dashed for his own vehicle. It screeched to a halt in front of the house, and he ran inside.

Mabel immediately slammed down her dustcloth and went to him. “Oh, Mr. Ray, I tried to tell her. I tried to get her to stay, but she’s gone now. Cleared out. Jus’ got in her car and went.”

Ray gasped at her in disbelief. “Where did she go? You know?”

“No, sir.” She shook her head. “She jus’ said she had to go, that you’d lied to her, and she was off.”

Panic slid through him pulling loss with it. His stomach churned with uncertainty. “You know anything, Mabel? Where she went? Which airport? Which hotel?”

“No, Mr. Ray. She didn’t tell me nothin’. Not a word. Jus’ packed her bags and hit out like the wind was blowing her. She spoke with Miz Ryder for a while, and then headed on in to your room, made a few phone calls and packed up.”

Ray strode into the bedroom, the bedroom he considered theirs, and explored around. Not a single item of Carrie’s was left, not a thing in the closet, not an item on the shelf of the bathroom. No note. Nothing. Nada.

He lifted the house phone and punched in her cell number without much hope. She didn’t answer. Of course not; it would display his number, and she wasn’t talking to him.

Come on, Carrie. Come on.

He sent a text from his cell phone: Please answer. I need to talk to you. Let me explain. Again, no response.

And then, written on the telephone pad, he spotted two numbers in Carrie’s scrawl. One-eight-hundred numbers. If one was the airline, he might be able to figure which flight she was on and from where she was flying—Austin or San Antonio. He could search the internet to check the flights, and he just might be able to beat her there. They sure as heck wouldn’t tell him her flight. Pick up, pick up, pick up, kept going through his mind.

“Hilton Austin Airport, how may I direct your call?”

Ray tried to get the tension out of his voice. “Sorry, which Hilton is this?”

The girl hesitated, obviously confused by the question, suspicious. “It’s…the Austin airport location, sir. How may I help you?”

“You have a Carrie Bennett there at the moment? Can you put me through to her room please?”

“One moment, sir.” After a few minutes she said, “I’m sorry, sir. Miss Bennett has not checked in as yet. May I take a message?”

He put down the phone and grabbed his keys.

****

The smell of plastic and stale air hit Carrie as she sat for a moment on the edge of her motel room bed, still dressed in her jeans, the cheap bedspread rustling slightly as she lay back to stare blankly at the ceiling. Somewhere inside her, love tried to free itself like a perfumed scent from a sealed bottle. In this moment’s peace among the debris of her overnight things, scattered like rejected toys, she was jolted by the sudden bell of her room phone.

“Good afternoon, Miss Bennett.” The young woman’s voice came over in saccharin efficiency. “There’s a Jake Ryder here to see you. May I send him up?”

Carrie gulped in air with the surprise. In her present state of upset, she didn’t think through how Jake would know where she was, yet it made sense to her since he was supposedly already in Austin. She owed him a good-bye if nothing else.

A hesitant, “Yes, of course,” went barely audibly down the phone before she placed the handset back on the cradle.

At the knock, Carrie proceeded to open the door in a numb state of confusion, not looking through the peephole. She stood there dazed, her mixed emotions slowing her reaction as she tried to slam the door shut, but Ray was too fast. He managed to get his booted foot in and get through, backing her into the room.

He put up his hand to ward off any words, any vitriol she might spew.

“Listen to me, just listen to me,” he started.

“You must be joking! Why should I ever listen to you again? You lied! You blatantly lied to me—you said you were divorced.” The pain scratched at her heart. Seeing him there, wanting him still, yet knowing they were finished, bruised her insides.

Ray paced the narrow room, stopping to stare out at the grim concrete gray of the airport environment. In the distance, a plane lifted and tilted into the foam of cloud. When he spoke again, his voice was modulated to a less threatening, more reasonable tone. “No, Carrie—I never said right out I was divorced. Or maybe I did, but it was that first night—that night at the dancehall. And I never in a million years could’ve foreseen you and I would have any kind of relationship.”

“Oh! So lying to a perfect stranger is fine, but to someone with whom you have a relationship—” Her voice pitched uncontrollably.

“Oh, be reasonable. I was half-cut and wasn’t thinking one way or the other. It was an explanation as I recall. You’d asked me why I used the word, ‘was’ about Leigh Anne, and I explained it away. Carrie, what the hell difference does it make?”

His exasperation rose a notch as she quaked with her anger.

“What difference? What difference? It makes a world of difference. I had to stand there while that woman told me she might ‘come back,’ while she taunted me with smoking to let me know I had no rights in that house to ask her to stop, to ask her to leave. Do you know what that was like?” Her balled fists shook at him.

“Of course you have rights. It’s the way she is...”

“If you lied about that, what else did you lie about, Ray? When you said—”

“I didn’t lie about anything else. I didn’t lie about that. If anything, maybe a white lie. It was a conversation we were having, for goodness sake. You don’t go into your whole marital history with someone you just met.” He paced again, as if trying to recall the evening calmly. A growing sense of the futility of arguing with her, a premonition of an impasse, began to feed his ire. “You were angry with me for overhearing your phone conversation, the kids were inside dancing, and I was drunk. You think I was going to go into a whole explanation of Leigh Anne and I separating, and how I was trying to get her off my back?”

“How many times could you have corrected it?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Carrie,” he shouted back at her. “You don’t go complaining about an ex-wife, or, pardon me, soon to be ex-wife, to a woman you’ve just met. You—”

“You act as if the chance never presented itself after that, as if it were never mentioned. It was mentioned plenty, Ray. You could have said—somewhere along the line, you could have corrected it. But no, you left it. You let me believe you were free and clear.” Her voice receded into a hoarse rasp as she scrabbled in her handbag to bring out a tissue. She was stunned he didn’t understand what it had cost her just to form a relationship with him, and to now discover that relationship had been a total fraud, that she was suddenly ‘the other woman.’

“Well, what possible difference does it make?” He waited for a reply. “Come back, Carrie. Let’s discuss this and sort it out at home.”

“It’s your home, Ray, not mine. It’s yours and Leigh Anne’s. Please go.” She dabbed at her face as their gaze met briefly before she turned away. Love gnawed at her insides as it fought with her distrust.

“I’m not going, Carrie. I love you.” He paced the room again, slaloming around the maze of furniture as he ran a hand through his hair before he stopped in front of her. “You know that, and I wouldn’t do anything to harm you. And I think you love me.”

The words lay there between them with a heat that would scorch if touched. She said nothing as the television in the next room sounded through the wall, grabbing his attention for a moment.

“Please come back.”

“No!”

He stood in front of her finally, pleading with his eyes, exasperated, defeated. “You know what your problem is, Carrie?”

“No,” she said, hands on hips. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“You write all that romance, you create all those perfect worlds for yourself, all those happy endings. The heroes who are all so perfect—”

“How would you know anything about my books? Did you ever read one?”

“’Course I did. I spent all those hours flying from Texas and traveling to the almighty Hamptons to see you, reading your damn books. Stewardess or flight attendant or whatever the hell you call them nowadays thought I was a pansy.” He paced some more and ran his hand over his face before turning back to her. “You create all those beautiful, perfect people. You escape to those perfect worlds you create and you can’t cope with the real world. You can’t cope with your own aging, for goodness sake, because you think your body isn’t desirable any longer. You can’t cope with your daughter’s mourning because death and loss aren’t in your world. And you can’t relax, you’re a workaholic because the world you create in your books is so much better than the world you see around you. I feel sorry for you.” He went on pacing. “I do. Because no one and nothing is ever going to live up to your expectations, to your fictional world. That’s why you run from every relationship you have. That’s why, after twenty-four years, you’re still alone, Carrie. We had a chance for happiness here and you just had to find some way, whatever way you could, to destroy it.”

“And you, Ray, how do you cope?” His words had seared her. Tears of frustration tracked down her cheeks, but the tissue was useless now, worn thin in the friction of her palm. “You go running for the Jack Daniels at the first sign of trouble, anything you can’t face, anything you can’t deal with, you go straight to the drink,” she tallied him, the tears washing her face. “What’s your excuse? And you stayed married to a woman you say you never loved for—what?—nearly thirty years. If you’re so brilliant, if you have so many answers, what’s your answer for that?”

He took in a deep breath, meeting her piercing gaze. “You know damn well what my answer is. Like most people, I had kids first, and I didn’t want them hurting. I had a sense of duty, of doing the right thing by staying by Leigh Anne—”

“Oh, that is such a good excuse!”

Ray ignored her. “And you sleepwalk. You sleepwalk through bad times. You go through the motions, day in, day out. You find a routine. You manage. You get involved with one thing and another that distracts you from the fact you’re so damn miserable. And then one day something happens, a crisis, and you might get your wake-up call.”

He waited, and she knew he was hoping to somehow get through to her, somehow make her understand, but she shuffled once more in her bag to escape the truth of his words. It would be so easy to say, yes, she’d been wrong, what did it matter, yet deep inside, as much as she yearned for him, hungered for his touch, the betrayal had been too great.

“But you, Carrie, in your perfect world, you’ll never get that call, will you? You’ll just write it out, won’t you?”

“Is that it? Are you finished? Because I really would like to be alone now.” A sense of loss snaked through her body, an emptiness, a knowledge this love she had found was over.

She held the sight of him for a moment, the creases and lines of his face, the black velvet eyes, the way his hair fell over his brow. She tucked it in the pocket of her memory for some future time she might be able to review it, to think of him.

“No. I want to ask you one other thing, and I’d like you to think on this real hard. When you saw Leigh Anne, when you saw what kind of a woman she was, did you wonder, did you ask yourself how the two of you could have a relationship with the same man? Did you feel so damn superior to her, the mere thought she had been my wife just disgusted you? Is that not the real reason you fled? I mean, if she had been some upper class beauty, you wouldn’t have minded that little white lie, would you? But it really bothered you to see some worn out, rough looking gal—”

“Oh, you are such a frigging psychologist, aren’t you, Ray? You have a frigging answer for everything.” She threw her tissue into a bin as the anger came out like an abscess releasing its pus. “You’re such a great psychiatrist and mind-reader—oh, and father—you don’t even see what’s going on in front of your own eyes.”

Confusion crossed his face. “What’s going on in front of my eyes? What’s that supposed to mean? What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Jake, and I’m talking about Robbie, Ray. Jake came to me because he couldn’t go to you, couldn’t hurt you with what he had to say, what he wanted to get off his chest for so long. He wanted to be able to tell you it wasn’t because of you Robbie joined the army, it was because of him…only he couldn’t tell you the truth behind it because he knew it would hurt you so.”

“What truth? What are you talking about?”

Carrie hesitated, knowing the pain it would cause him, even now reluctant to let him hurt like that. Indecision twisted her insides, yet Jake’s secret could no longer be kept—for all their sakes. She lowered her voice. “Robbie was in trouble, Ray. He’d been running drugs up from Mexico—”

“You’re lying!” he shouted.

“You think so? Well,” she said backing away from him, escaping the anger and pain etched on his face. “Ask Jake. You think you have two perfect sons, don’t you? You think serving in the army makes every man absolutely honest and true. Well, Jake’s been protecting you from knowing this for…what? Five years now? Jake loves you so much, Ray. To protect you from knowing about Robbie, he’s got himself into trouble with that Ty. But, oh, yes,” she said gathering a cutting edge to her voice, “what do I know? I only create perfect worlds. I can only deal with those.” She waited as he stared at her, stared uncomprehending, not wanting to believe anything she said. “Are you going to leave now or shall I call security?”

Ray opened the door and stood with his hand still on the handle. His gaze met hers before he glanced around the hotel room, suddenly aware of the contrast between Carrie’s expensive luggage standing on the cheap carpet, her cashmere sweater flung over the regulation hotel chair, her expensive cosmetics strewn over the nylon bedspread.

“What was it, Carrie, that possessed you to stay here for a night?” The sense of loss that had been evident had given in to spite. “Airlines didn’t have any first class tickets left? Only economy until tomorrow?”

“Get out!”

****

Arriving home in the late evening from Austin, Jake thought nothing of the fact the house was dark. His father and Carrie occasionally went out to eat, or for an evening ride, leaving him to eat whatever Mabel had left for them. But there was something eerie this time about the quiet, something almost too black about the dark. He strolled down to the stables to just check the horses.

Creaking open the stable door, his gaze traveled down the row of stalls and found all the horses accounted for, but he couldn’t shake himself of the feeling something was wrong.

He sauntered back to the house, wondering whether his dad was going to be sitting there in the dark again, Carrie asleep, but there was no Dad, no Carrie. The pickup wasn’t out front. A good sign. But then neither was Carrie’s rental car. He flicked on the lights, headed into the kitchen to start getting the grub together, but was hit by the odor of cigarette smoke hanging in the air like an uninvited guest. A washed ashtray sat there on the drying rack. Jake stared at it several seconds while his brain churned around and he tried to make sense of it. Could be a number of people who come to the house. But most wouldn’t smoke inside. He lifted it, turning it around in his hands as if there might be evidence of the user of this object, then placed it back down and strode down the hall.

The lights in his father’s bedroom made a showcase of the emptiness of it, as if a tide had rolled in taking out debris scattered along a shore. A quick glance in the bathroom confirmed what he feared.

And then his phone rang.

“Jake?” came the voice. “It’s Mike Mulligan. I think you better come and collect your dad. He’s flat out on the floor and there’s no way I want him driving home.”