| |
On Monday, after sleeping like a rock on her brand-new bed, in the safety and silence of her new little cottage home, Jolie awoke early and showered. She stumbled through washing her hair and rinsing it with rainwater from plastic jugs. The task was unbelievably awkward and inconvenient, but she would learn to do this.
Putting extra effort into her appearance this morning, she dressed in newer jeans and a red sweater, then fluffed her blond hair and applied her makeup carefully. Today was a new beginning in a new place with new people. She wanted to meet it looking her best. She took a turn in front of the vanity mirror for one last look, drew in a breath and exhaled. Time to wake up Danni.
But first, she called Amanda and made an arrangement to meet her in town at the Dairy Queen for a burger at lunchtime. This could be her last day off for some unknown period. Jude had failed to mention what the family expected in regard to time off.
Having gone through the bathing and hair washing ritual with her daughter last night, Jolie woke Danni and helped her get ready for school. The ten-year-old had no dresses, so Jolie helped her into her best jeans, the ones with pink flowers embroidered on the legs. She slid a bright pink top with long sleeves over her daughter’s head. The weather was definitely cooler than what they had left behind in East Texas.
“What if they don’t like me?” Danni asked.
“They’ll love you, Danni.” Jolie sat down on the bed, guided her daughter onto her lap, wrapped her in a hug and began to pull socks onto her feet. Danni could put on her own socks, but Jolie just wanted to hug her. “You just be yourself and you’ll get along just fine.”
“Can I wear my jewelry?” Danni asked.
Danni had a cheap little ring for every finger and tiny gold studs for her pierced ears. Jolie had bought her the junk jewelry, but the tiny earrings she had gotten when her ears were pierced were made of real gold. Jolie tweaked her nose. “Sure you can.” Grateful her daughter no longer argued about enrolling in school, Jolie said, “Now. Put your shoes on while I find your sweater. We’ll go to the ranch house for breakfast, then we’ll go to the school.”
At the ranch house, Jolie found nowhere to park except in the big barn’s parking lot. Since it was full of pickup trucks, she assumed it was where the hands parked. The only other option was in front of the ranch house’s four-car garage or on the circular driveway in front of the house. She chose parking in front of the garage, which caused her to have to walk around the building to the back of the house. She knocked on the back door and was met by the aroma of pungent spices and a Mexican woman who introduced herself as Senora Irene Asaro.
Irene had to be one of the jolliest, friendliest people Jolie had ever met. While she fussed around the kitchen warming tortillas, frying some kind of sausage, scrambling eggs with peppers and cheese, Danni and she began speaking to each other in Spanish. Jolie was surprised. She knew Danni had learned some Spanish in school, but until this moment, she hadn’t known how much.
Knowing Jolie couldn’t interpret what they were saying, Danni turned to her. “Senora Asaro says she doesn’t have any kids and I can be her little girl. She’s going to teach me to make chorizo.”
Acceptance. Jolie laughed, feeling welcomed. In her mind’s eye she could see herself and Danni fitting in just fine. So far, this was turning into a very good day. “I’m the one she needs to teach to make chorizo.”
Irene nodded and said, “Sí, sí.”
The three of them were still laughing together when Jude came in, dressed in tan slacks and a green polo shirt. “Good morning,” she said. “Hope you had a restful night.”
Her long hair was pulled back and held at her nape with a barrette and she wore large gold hoop earrings. Jolie thought she looked very classy. “Yes, we slept good. It was wonderful. It’s so quiet.”
“Sure is,” Jude said. “About the only thing we hear around here at night are coyotes.”
“Will they come and get us?” Danni asked.
Jude smiled at Danni as she pulled a box of cereal from the cupboard. “They keep their distance. They’re afraid of people.” She poured cereal into a bowl, her attention still directed at Danni. “Want me to meet you at the school and help you enroll?”
“We don’t want to put you to any trouble,” Jolie said.
“No trouble. I’ll be there anyway.”
Irene handed Jolie and Danni plates of eggs and sausage and said something to her in Spanish. “She wants me to eat a good breakfast,” Danni interpreted for Jolie and Jude.
A laugh burst from Jude. “Your daughter speaks Spanish?”
“Why, I guess so,” Jolie said in amazement. “She must know more about it than I thought.”
Jude gestured for them to sit down at the glass-topped table in the breakfast room. Jude brought her cereal to the table and Irene served them milk and juice.
“Your father and Mr. Fallon have already eaten breakfast?” Jolie asked Jude.
“They eat with the hands at four forty-five. It’s something Daddy’s done his whole life. I can’t imagine him ever changing. And now Brady’s gotten into the habit, too. I might as well forget seeing him early in the morning unless I wake up at four a.m.”
While they ate, Jude told Danni about school. The fifth grade had ten students. Sixth grade had roughly an equal number. The same teacher taught both grades. Since the teacher taught the entire class at the sixth-grade level, most of the fifth graders learned as much as the sixth graders. If the fifth-grade students could pass the tests at the end of the year, they could skip sixth grade and move right into seventh.
Danni’s eyes grew wide with interest. “Really?”
Jolie could see that the idea of skipping a grade had hit a hot spot in her daughter. Some of her typical little-girl enthusiasm was coming back and Jolie had Irene and her new employer to thank.
She felt encouraged about registering Danni under a different name. Surely a school that had so few students that two grades were taught as one would be more amenable to bending the rules a little.
After breakfast, as they left the house, Jolie sent Danni to the car so she could speak to Jude privately. “I’m wondering if it’s possible to enroll Danni with a different last name.”
Jude didn’t reply at once and she had a skeptical look on her face. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I’m sure there are a lot of rules about that. It would be up to the principal. Do you mind if I ask why you want to?”
Jolie saw she had to tell her new boss some smattering of the truth. “Amanda must have told you my husband has alcohol and drug problems. If he found Danni at school, he might...well, I don’t know what he might do. I don’t want her life to be disrupted any more than it already has been.”
“If you’re worried about him harming her or taking her, Jolie, you should be talking to the sheriff. In this county, we’re lucky. Our sheriff isn’t just a country sheriff. He’s been a hard-nosed cop his whole life. He’s very capable of protecting you and your daughter. He’s my cousin. If you like, I can speak to him for you.”
Jolie felt a pinch in her stomach as she thought of her stolen license plates. The last thing she wanted was a hard-nosed cop snooping into her life for any reason. What she wanted was to fade into the woodwork and be left alone. She shook her head. “No, no, I don’t want to call attention. It seems like things never turn out very well when cops get involved. There might be no reason to go that far.”
Still, she knew Billy. If he was drunk or stoned, he was irrational. His temper was volatile. Even sober, he might be out for revenge. “Look, I don’t want to make waves. If I can just get Danni into school with a different name, that’s all I want.”
Jolie could tell by the expression in Jude’s eyes she was reluctant to be an accomplice. But after a few seconds’ pause, she said, “Okay, I’ll see what I can do to help you.”
Jolie gave a mental sigh of relief. Her positive opinion of her new boss rose a few more notches. Having help from someone who was rich and who owned this big ranch had to be a benefit.
It was close to noon by the time she was able to get away from the school. She left Danni in good spirits and already melding into the environment and chatting with other girls her age. She had seen the Dairy Queen when she arrived in town yesterday, knew it was on the main street, which was a highway passing through town. The highway appeared to be the only paved street in the whole town.
The DQ building was one of those round structures painted red and white, with windows all around it. From the looks of it, Jolie figured it had probably been built thirty years before her birth. It reminded her of drive-in restaurants she had seen in old movies. She recognized her cousin’s pickup truck and parked a few slots away. She could hardly wait to tell Amanda how well the morning had gone and that, with Jude’s support, she had succeeded in enrolling Danni as “Danni Kramer.”
***
TO JAKE, A COLD HAM sandwich for lunch in his kitchen held little appeal. He headed to the Dairy Queen. He parked in the DQ parking lot and immediately noticed an unfamiliar car. The older Ford Taurus in need of a paint job—faded brown color with one gray-primer-coated back door—was not an entirely unnoticeable vehicle. He spent a few seconds studying it.
Something about the car bothered him, but if someone asked him what, he couldn’t immediately explain. The concern came from that intuition that a thing wasn’t always as it appeared, the arcane instinct that most good cops had.
He knew most of the cars that belonged to residents of Willard County. In a population of fewer than two thousand souls, such knowledge was easy for a man with his training and experience. Beyond that, when some Lockett citizen was fortunate enough to acquire a new or different car or truck, it was the subject of gossip for days.
He ran through a mental list of people to whom such a car as the faded brown Taurus might belong, but no one came to mind. A few newcomers were in Willard County temporarily. An uptick in the oil and gas business had brought some new jobs, thus new citizens. Most were following the work and would move on. Not even one would stay in a place like Lockett. He pulled a small spiral notebook from his pocket and, just for the hell of it, jotted down the license plate number.
***
“LOOK,” AMANDA SAID, her face brightening as she gazed out into the parking lot. “There’s my boss. He eats lunch here sometimes.”
Where else would he eat? Jolie wondered. She had always thought of Grandee as a tiny town, but compared to Lockett, Grandee was a metropolis. That was fine. She had no complaint about the town.
She glanced up and out the windows, just as a tall, lanky man emerged from a white SUV with a bar of red and blue lights perched on top and a black and gold Willard County Sheriff logo on the door. He looked like many of the rural Texas sheriffs and deputies she had sometimes seen on TV news—pressed and creased jeans, long-sleeve dress shirt no matter the temperature, boots and a cowboy hat. He had a big gun strapped onto his belt. A squiggly feeling passed through her stomach.
“He looks like a movie star, doesn’t he?” Amanda said, a dreamy glow in her eyes. “If I wasn’t a happily married woman... ” She sighed and let the sentence go unfinished.
Good grief, does Amanda have something going on with her boss? Surely he must have a wife. “Isn’t he married, too?”
“No. He doesn’t even go out with anybody in this town. Of course, I don’t blame him there. Most of the single girls in Lockett are losers. He dated a schoolteacher who was here for a while. Everybody thought they were serious, but nothing came of it. She moved to Amarillo. I’ve heard he’s dated some women in Abilene.”
Jolie couldn’t imagine the man crossing the parking lot “dating.” It seemed like a silly word when applied to him. He paused in his step and gave her car a long look. Jude’s words flew into her mind. Our sheriff isn’t just a country sheriff. He’s been a hard-nosed cop his whole life. A sudden surge of weakness made Jolie glad she was sitting down.
A minute later, he sauntered toward the Dairy Queen’s front door. Then before Jolie could get her breath, he was standing just inside the doorway, his hands resting on his hips as he perused the room. She had to agree with her cousin. The sheriff was indeed a good-looking man.
He spotted them and touched the brim of his hat, then walked over to the order counter. After placing an order, he made a beeline for Jolie and Amanda’s table. Jolie’s eyes homed in on the gold badge on his shirt pocket. She thought her heart might leap out of her chest, but something less easily defined than alarm slithered through her system. What was wrong with her? She must still be suffering from the stress of leaving Grandee.
Amanda looked up at him with a look Jolie had never seen on her cousin’s face. Jolie was nervous herself, but Amanda was behaving like a cheerleader with a crush on the quarterback. “Hey, you didn’t say you were coming here for lunch today,” she said to him.
Dragging a chair back from the table, he flashed a grin that showed bright white against his tanned and slightly freckled face. As he sat down, Amanda tossed back her long brown hair as if she were a schoolgirl. He set his hat on an adjacent empty chair, revealing reddish brown hair. Like Jude’s, Jolie thought, but the sheriff’s was shot with a few gray strands at his temples.
He rested his crossed forearms on the tabletop, the long sleeves of his shirt failing to hide well-defined muscles in his arms. Jolie didn’t know if her own case of nerves came from being at the same table with a cop or because he was one of the best-looking men she had ever seen in person.
“Wasn’t in the mood for my own cooking,” he said to Amanda, He had a low voice that seemed to rumble up from somewhere deep in his wide chest. “You’ve ordered?”
“Yeah,” Amanda said. “Diet food. Bacon cheeseburger with fries. We might top it off with a soft-serve cone for dessert.”
He chuckled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Me, too.”
“You’d better be careful, bossman. You’ll have to run ten miles tomorrow morning instead of your usual five.”
“You’re right about that,” he said.
Good grief! Jolie couldn’t imagine someone running five miles, much less ten. She doubted Billy could walk five miles. Of course, she knew she couldn’t judge most other men by Billy.
“Slow day today,” Amanda said to him.
“Yep. But that’s okay. In our business, slow’s the best kind of day.”
“Oh, Jolie,” Amanda said, as if she had just noticed Jolie’s presence. “This is Jake Strayhorn, my boss. Jake, this is my cousin, Jolie Jensen.”
The sheriff did a half stand and offered his right hand. “Ma’am.”
In Jolie’s ordinary world, few men had manners. Thrown off balance by the show of chivalry on top of everything else, Jolie put out her own hand and stammered, “Uh, how-do-you-do?”
As he took her hand, his eyes caught her. They were green—not partially, not sometimes-green-and-sometimes-brown, but a true pale sage green color outlined by a dark blue circle. And they seemed to be looking into her. She couldn’t keep from looking back at him, even as she fought the urge to fidget in her chair. Her mind scrambled everywhere and landed on the fact that the sheriff and Jude were related. So why wasn’t he working at the ranch?
Just then the counter clerk delivered their burgers in red plastic baskets lined with parchment, along with three red plastic glasses of Coke.
“This place makes the best burgers in Texas,” Amanda said around a huge bite, but Jolie was almost too nervous to eat.
“You’re the new cook out at the Circle C?” the sheriff asked, laying his cheeseburger in its basket and dabbing at his mouth with a paper napkin.
“Yessir, I am. Starting tomorrow.” Jolie took a tiny bite and chewed self-consciously.
“Amanda said you came from over by Dallas?”
“Yessir—” She stopped herself. Calling him “sir” made her sound silly and childish. “I mean, yes, I did. A little town called Grandee.”
He nodded. “I’ve heard of it. I lived in Dallas for a time.”
Jolie’s heart took off on another crazy tangent at the possibility, however remote, that he might have run into Billy. “It’s a small town.”
He nodded again. Now his attention was back on his cheeseburger. “Get your daughter enrolled in school okay?”
“Yes, she seemed to be having a good time when I left her. She’s outgoing and friendly.”
He stopped eating and gave her a direct look. “That’s good. If you or she have any problems, you let me know.”
Jolie held a french fry suspended and swallowed a gulp. From a man like him, that simple statement was surely a promise.
Just how much did he already know about her?
