CHAPTER 29
Mary Dell turned the key in the ignition, laid her arm over the back of the seat, looked out the rearview mirror, and shifted the car into reverse.
“Well, Howard, I guess we’ll try Lubbock next. Graydon gave me a list of Donny’s old friends and hangouts. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
She backed the car up to turn it around and was getting ready to pull out when somebody started banging on the trunk.
“Mary Dell! Wait a minute!”
Mary Dell let out a little yelp and clasped her hand to her chest.
“Graydon! You about scared me out of my skin!”
Graydon opened the back passenger-side door and tossed an army-green duffel bag into the backseat, next to Howard.
“Sorry. I was afraid you’d drive off. Hang on a minute, will you? There’s something I’ve got to do. I’ll be right back.”
Without waiting for her response, Graydon ran toward the back door of the Spreewells’ house, letting the screen bang closed behind him. True to his word, he was back about a minute later. He jumped into the front seat and slammed the car door.
“All right. Let’s go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“To Too Much.”
Mary Dell stared at him. “You want to go to Too Much? With us? Why?”
“Because you need some help and I need a job,” he replied. “I just quit mine.”
It was near noon when they left the farm, so they stopped at a diner in Liberal to eat and discuss the possibility of Graydon’s employment at the F-Bar-T in greater detail. The waitress showed them to a booth in the back that was big enough to hold Howard’s car seat and then took their order: a bowl of chili with a side of cornbread for Graydon and a chef’s salad with extra Thousand Island dressing for Mary Dell.
“Four hundred dollars a month!” Mary Dell exclaimed after hearing his proposal. “I can’t pay you four hundred dollars a month.”
Graydon took another bite of chili and shrugged. “All right, two hundred. You sure drive a hard bargain.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant,” he said. “But I’m not doing this for the money. Donny left you in a lurch, and I want to help you out. Howard’s the only nephew I’ve got.”
“You’re sweet, Graydon. You really are. But none of this is your fault. I can’t let you leave a perfectly good job and turn your whole life upside down just on my account.”
Graydon leaned across the table and looked her in the eye. “First off, that job was a long way from good, and we both know it. Second, maybe it’s time my life was turned upside down.
“Do you know that you’re the first person, aside from the Spreewells, who’d been in my room since I’ve started working there? When you came through the door, I suddenly saw my life the way it must look to you—bitter bachelor cowboy, living in one dirty room, no friends, no future, nothing to look forward to. Just counting off the days, wasting my life, waiting for it all to be over.”
Mary Dell gave him a pitying look and started to say something, but Graydon lifted his hand to stop her.
“Don’t, Mary Dell. It’s nobody’s fault but mine. When things got too hard, I ran off and hid in a hole. Just like Donny’s doing now. Just like our daddy did when we were kids. When I was little, I always swore I wouldn’t turn out like him, but . . .”
He picked up the cream pitcher, poured a little into his coffee cup, and stirred it thoughtfully.
“Funny that I never saw it until now. Maybe that’s what Bebee men do,” he mused.
“The Fatal Flaw,” Mary Dell said quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing. Listen, Graydon, I can’t deny we could use your help, but . . . are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’ve got no love for Too Much, you know that. Once your lambs are born, your cattle go to market, and we can find somebody reliable to take over, then I’ll head on down the road. But I’d like to help you get through this rough patch, help you get off to a fresh start now that you’re on your own. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be a fresh start for me too.”
Mary Dell thought about this. She couldn’t deny that their meeting seemed to be timed by Providence and that his proposal was an answer to her prayers. And he would doubtless be better off working at the F-Bar-T than he was living in that nasty shed and working for that cranky Mr. Spreewell. But she didn’t think it was fair that Graydon should be trying to make up for Donny’s mistake. Especially at a price of four hundred a month. That might be reasonable pay, or close to it, for a regular old hired man, but what Graydon was proposing was to really manage the ranch. Mary Dell had no doubt that he was up to the job.
“I’ve got to pay you more than you’re asking for,” Mary Dell said as she cut a chunk of tomato into bite-sized pieces. “I won’t let you do it for four hundred.”
“How about this?” Graydon countered. “You pay me the four hundred. If you have a good year, if the lambing goes good and the beef sells at a decent price, you give me three percent of the profits.”
“Eight,” Mary Dell countered.
“Five,” Graydon said.
“Done.”
“Done.”
Graydon nodded and resumed eating.
“Just one thing,” Mary Dell said. “Where are we going to put you? I’d let you stay with us, but we just have the two bedrooms. You could sleep up at the big house, it’s closer to the barns anyway, but since Lydia Dale moved in with the children, they’re pretty short on beds too.”
“I don’t want to stay in the house.”
The way he said it made Mary Dell think what he really meant was he didn’t want to stay anywhere Lydia Dale was. She understood his feelings, but they were bound to run into each other. And, anyway, that was all ancient history now. It was time he got over it. Time Lydia Dale got over it too.
Too bad there weren’t any extra bedrooms at the big house. Now that Lydia Dale was finally free from Jack Benny and with Graydon still single . . . well, she could think of worse ideas than throwing the two of them together. Damn, but he was handsome! But those Bebee brothers always had been.
“You got a tack room?”
Mary Dell jerked a bit, startled by the sound of his voice. “Beg pardon?”
“Do you have a tack room in the barn? If you’ve got a cot and some blankets, maybe a chair and table, I can bed down there.”
“In the barn?” Mary Dell frowned. “That wouldn’t be very comfortable. There’s no bathroom out there. No kitchen either.”
“I’ve been sleeping in a converted shed with no facilities for years. A tack room won’t be much different. And I can’t cook anyway. Well, I can scramble an egg and heat up soup, but that’s about it. If your folks wouldn’t mind me coming in the big house to use the facilities and if your momma would make me a plate of whatever she’s cooking, that’d be fine with me. I hope Taffy’s a better cook than Grace Spreewell.” He winked and scooped up another bite of chili.
“Momma’s a very good cook. One of the best in the county,” Mary Dell said truthfully. “And Grandma Silky can bake a pie that’ll bring tears to your eyes. But you’d better be careful about giving either of them too many compliments on their food. They’ll have you fattened up like a Christmas turkey if you’re not careful.”
Graydon smiled, but barely. “Well, I plan to be on my way before Christmas, so I ought to be safe. That work for you?”
“It does. I feel lucky to have you for as long as you want to stay. Thank you.”
Graydon touched his forefinger to his brow in a silent salute and then extended his hand. “So, we’ve got a deal, then?”
“We do,” Mary Dell replied as she shook his hand to seal the bargain. “We sure do.”