| |
Jake Strayhorn stayed in Jolie’s mind daily and nightly from the moment she left the café. He was so strong and decisive, fearless even. She had never known anyone like him. All she could think about was the coming Monday when she would go to his apartment, cook a meal for him and just be around him for an hour or two. She loved his company.
And while Jake filled her mind, she had to summon her concentration to make edible meals for the Strayhorn family and keep order in the kitchen.
And she had to bake cupcakes for the school’s out party. The number required had grown to ten dozen. Somehow, in the initial tally, someone had forgotten the teachers and teachers’ assistants.
She had eight working days to get ready. Jolie made herself concentrate on the logistics of how to make so many cupcakes, frost them and keep them fresh until the day they were needed. She would be forced to use Buster’s ovens. She made a mental note to ask Susanne if the grocery store had deli trays in which she could transport dozens of cupcakes.
Meanwhile, while the Strayhorn family dined on Wednesday evening, they discussed that Jake had made an arrest in the laundry break-in. A local family’s nephew who had just been released from federal prison had been charged. Jolie’s ears perked up. Hearing that information should have been a relief, but all it did was remind her that Billy would get out of jail someday.
***
AS DAYLIGHT SNEAKED above the horizon, Pat Garner awoke alone. He missed Suzanne. They usually awoke together and started the day with slow and easy lovemaking. He hadn’t seen her since yesterday morning when she went to work.
Her dad had worked a short week and she had expected him to come in off the road yesterday, so she slept at home last night, as she always did when he was in town. Then, with her being off work today, she had gone to Abilene early this morning to run errands and do some shopping.
He lay in bed a few extra minutes enjoying the fact that he was happier than he had been in years. He and Suzanne had set the wedding day at July 10th. Two months from now he would be a married man and there would be no more mornings waking up alone.
He rose and dressed in his work clothes, downed a couple of cups of coffee along with two hot dogs for breakfast, then left his house for his barns and arena. He planned to work with four horses today.
On his mind as he worked was the fact that he still hadn’t done the one thing everyone wanted him to do. And that was to ask Jake Strayhorn to be present at the wedding reception at the Circle C Ranch. Pat didn’t know why he had agreed to do that. He knew Jake hadn’t been to the Circle C once since returning to Lockett six years ago. He didn’t know exactly what the reasons were, but being a live-and let-live kind of person, Pat was content to let Jake deal with his family in whatever way he chose.
He also knew that Jake had had no relationship with his uncle, J.D. Strayhorn, nor had he had one with his deceased grandfather, Jeff Strayhorn. Jake had been present at the old man’s funeral last year, but not as a family member. He had been there as a law enforcement officer managing traffic, along with two state cops. It had seemed as if everybody in Texas had come to Jeff Strayhorn’s funeral, but Pat suspected that if Jake hadn’t been a cop, he wouldn’t have been there at all.
Jake’s only communication with the hierarchy at the Circle C appeared to be with Jude, so why didn’t she ask him to come to the reception? After all, she was his cousin. Despite Pat’s reasoning, the dilemma with Jake had been on his mind every day since he and Suzanne declared they would get married and she had asked him to talk to Jake.
***
“I AM REALLY NERVOUS about this, J.D,” Maisie said.
Sitting on her blue frilly bed, J. D. watched her fold a frilly blouse and neatly place it in her suitcase. He thought of Maisie as a frilly woman. No matter when he saw her, she always looked feminine and pretty and well put together. Being a plain but meticulous man himself, he liked that. “Why? It’s a couple of days in Amarillo.”
“But we’ll see people who have no idea who I am. No telling what they’ll think.”
Digging into his jeans pocket for his pocket knife, J. D. couldn’t keep from grinning. “We don’t care what they think, do we?” He opened the knife and began to trim his fingernails. “My meeting at the quarterhorse association will be over by five o’clock this afternoon. We’ll have a nice steak dinner tonight, go to the horse show tomorrow and come back home Saturday. No big deal.”
“I feel like a school girl going out on a date,” she said. “In all the years we’ve been seeing each other, how many times have we gone somewhere together where there were people who know you?”
“I told you, I want us to be open. I’m tired of hiding.”
“You can rest assured that with you running willy-nilly up and down my stairs, we won’t be hidden much longer. When I think back on it, I have a hard time remembering why it was necessary for us to hide in the first place, especially after Jude got grown and went away to college.”
J.D. sighed, closed his pocket knife and stuffed it back into his pocket. He was in no frame of mind for this conversation. He had wanted to take her with him on this business trip and spend an extra couple of days enjoying each other’s company and checking out the performances of two of Sandy Dandy’s offspring. But she seemed hell-bent on digging up old arguments they’d had for years. He knew his shortcomings, didn’t need to be reminded. “It was my fault, Maisie. I guess I was a coward.”
She came to him and leaned down, flooding his space with her flowery fragrance that had become so familiar to him. She placed her cool palm on his cheek and kissed him. “You’re an emotional mess, Jasper, but I’ve never seen you as a coward. If I believed that, I wouldn’t have stayed here all these years.”
J.D.’s mouth quirked at her calling him Jasper. Only a few of his family members had ever called him by his given name and they had all passed on. “So then why are you picking on me?”
She straightened, heaving a great sigh, a bad sign. “I wasn’t going to bring this up until after this trip.” She returned to the suitcase and added a folded pair of pants and began sorting through other items lying on the bed. “Since I can’t put it out of my mind, I might as well tell you. Glenn’s decided not to re-enlist. He and his family are coming back to the States.”
J.D.’s stomach made a little dip. He knew this was leading to something he wouldn’t like. Maisie’s oldest son, in the army, and his family had lived in Germany for years. “What’s he going to do back here?”
“He’s gotten a job at Lockheed in Fort Worth.”
“Isn’t that the company that makes airplanes?”
“Yes, but he’s going to be doing something with security. He’s already bought a house west of Fort Worth not too far from his sister’s.” She paused, keeping her eyes trained on a necklace she was fiddling with. “He wants me to move over there so I can be closer to all of them,” she said without looking at him.
The last thing J.D. had expected was to hear at this late date was that Maisie would leave Lockett. This news was a surprise. Maisie had never had a close relationship with either of her children. They rarely brought their families to visit her in Lockett and stayed only a token amount of time when they did come. She had never visited her son in Germany, though a few times in the past J.D. had offered to pay for her trip. J.D. knew for a fact that Maisie and her daughter had never gotten along, which was one of the reasons Sarah had left home at eighteen and rarely returned to Lockett. He concentrated on keeping an even reaction. “What did you tell him?”
She closed her suitcase and straightened, giving him a look he could only call a glower.
“My children are my only family, J.D. Their kids are my grandchildren and I barely know them.”
She lifted the suitcase off the bed and set it on the floor, then stood there looking down him, her hands planted on her slim hips. “My God, Glenn and his family have lived overseas since before his babies were born. And I don’t see nearly enough of Sarah and her girls. Sarah’s been gone from here since she left to go to college and with the café to take care of, I’ve hardly had a chance to even go see her. She has a beautiful new home and I’ve been in it only once. At my age...”
Her words trailed off and she shook her head, still not looking at him.
J.D. found himself uncharacteristically nervous and his throat had grown thick. He had always let himself believe Maisie had stayed in Lockett to be near him. But he also knew she hadn’t had much choice. Until now, spending time with her kids had never been an option, really, nor had it been an issue.
He got to his feet and picked up her suitcase. “Let’s don’t talk about it now, sugar. We’ll be late. Ed will have the plane ready and he’s expecting us.”
She gave an even more exaggerated sigh. “This is how it’s always been, J.D. Every time something difficult arises, you didn’t want to talk about it.”
He walked over, and looped his arm around her shoulder and gave a little squeeze. “We’ll talk. I promise.”
***
BY NOON, WITHOUT A cloud in the sky and a temperature approaching ninety, Pat was hot and hungry. He hadn’t heard from Suzanne and wondered why. When she made a trip to Abilene, she usually called from her cell and chatted while she was on her way. He unhooked his own cell and speed dialed her number, but the call went to voice mail. “Hey, sugar, call me,” he said and disconnected.
In no mood to go back to the house, clean up and fix a lunch, he decided to go to town and grab a burger at the air-conditioned Dairy Queen. After he ate, if Jake was in his office, maybe he would drop by and talk to him.
At the Dairy Queen, he visited with a couple of small ranchers like himself who were also having burgers. They talked about the usual subjects: cattle prices, high taxes, government telling them what to do with what was theirs. After lunch, he drove to the sheriff’s office.
He met Amanda Mason headed out the door on her way to lunch. He found Jake looking in a file cabinet behind the receptionist’s desk. “Hey,” Jake said when he walked in. “What’s going on?”
“Wedding planning,” Pat said sheepishly, almost embarrassed to talk about something so frou-frou with another man.
Jake grinned and closed the file drawer. “You’ll survive it”
“I wonder,” Pat grumbled and at the same time he recalled hearing that Jake had once been married. Somewhere in his former life an ex-wife existed. “How long since you were married?”
“Um, fifteen years or so.” He started back toward his office. “Come on back and sit down.”
“You never had any kids?” Pat asked, following him.
“Nope.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your marriage?”
“Nothing much. Got married too young. Both going in different directions mostly.” Jake rounded the end of his desk and sat down in his desk chair. “Sit down.” He gestured toward one of two guest chairs across from his desk.
Pat sat, tipped his hat back and crossed his ankle over his thigh. “That could apply to a lot of people,” he said.
“I suppose. She had ideas about a career. About the time things started getting really rocky, I got sent overseas. That finished it off. I was in Kuwait when I got the divorce papers.”
That was more than Pat had ever heard Jake say about his past, but he still didn’t know much more than he had known in the first place about what had happened to the man’s marriage. “And you’ve really never wanted to try it again?”
“Haven’t had time.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever get married again,” Pat said, shaking his head, “but I’m looking forward to starting over with Suzanne.”
“She’s a good gal. Y’all will be happy. Her dad’s a good guy, too.”
Pat nodded, trying to find an opening to bring up the reason he had come here. He fixed a look at Jake and blurted. “Jude wants to have the reception out at the Circle C.”
He saw absolutely no discernible body language coming from Jake. Nor did he get a reply or comment from him. Jake had a reputation for being almost clairvoyant, so Pat suspected he already knew what Pat was going to say next. Still, he said it. “We’d, uh...we’re wondering if you’d be willing to go to the reception.”
“No,” Jake answered. He sat forward, his forearms resting on the desk. “You don’t need me at the reception.”
“Yeah, we do,” Pat said. “Suzanne wants you there and I’d like to see you there, too. You’re supposed to make a toast.”
Jake shook his head and Pat felt like a fool. “Okay. If you feel you can’t do it, we’ll find another place to have the reception. The church basement is where most people have wedding receptions anyway.”
“I don’t want to be the one to throw a monkey-wrench in your plans, Pat,” Jake said. “It won’t hurt my feelings if you want to get somebody else to stand up with you. The Circle C’s a nice place and if Jude puts on a big party, it’ll be first class.”
“There’s no one else I want to ask to be best man. And personally, I don’t give a shit if we even have a reception, period. I guess I’m asking you for Suzanne’s sake, with her and Jude being best friends and all.”
“I just don’t want to do it, Pat. I can’t. I’ve stayed away from there and cut out my own little piece of turf in Willard County. I don’t want to rock that boat. My name might be Strayhorn, but I’m the people’s man and I believe most of the Willard County citizens see me that way. That’s why they elected me.”
Pat snorted. “Well you did win by a landslide.”
“But that might change if I started showing up at the Circle C. It would be too easy for folks to start looking at me as the Circle C’s man. The Strayhorns control enough already. I don’t want the public to think they also control the sheriff.”
Pat didn’t claim to have Jake’s ability to read minds, but he had seen a rodeo or two. And what Jake had just told him was an excuse, not a reason. Jake’s reasons for having nothing to do with the Circle C went far deeper than negative public opinion. If Jake Strayhorn wanted to be social buds with his family, he wouldn’t care about public opinion.
“I think I know what you mean,” Pat said. “Come to think of it,” he added, “I don’t have much of a relationship with the Strayhorns, either. Since I didn’t grow up in this county, I don’t feel the connection. I’m one of the few people around here who’s never worked out there as a ranch hand. I’ve done a little training with a few of their horses, but I’ve never gone past that big round corral attached to the big barn.”
“Hm,” Jake said. “I’ve never thought about your not growing up here. You’ve never told me what you’re doing in Willard County anyway.”
Pat chuckled. “When I decided to go into the horse business, I was mostly looking for good and cheap pasture. And Willard County’s where I found it.”
“Well you’ve got a good place.”
“It is now, after I’ve spent every dime I’ve made on it. If I wanted to sell it, I probably never would get my money back. So I guess I’m stuck with getting married and raising a family on it.”
“Family usually follows weddings,” Jake said, grinning.
Having done what he came to do, Pat placed his hands on the chair arms and sat forward. “Well I’ve got two horses waiting on me, so guess I’ll run along.” He got to his feet and started toward the door. Jake followed him and they stepped outside together. “I’m gonna tell Suzanne we’ll just plan the reception at the Methodist church. That’s a lot easier anyway.”
Just then a roar and grinding gears from an eighteen-wheeler caught their attention. With the sheriff’s office being only a block off the square, they could see the main highway that ran through town. They both looked toward the sound. A dark blue Peterbilt truck tractor growled its way through town, headed north. Painted in an arc of white letters on the door was TRUETT BREEDLOVE.
Pat’s mind suddenly became a jumble as facts crashed into each other. If Truett hadn’t been at home last night, where the hell had Suzanne been? Pat still hadn’t heard a word from her.
The truck driver lifted his fingers in a gesture of hello and Pat and Jake both waved. “Looks like Truett Breedlove’s back,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” Pat said. Not wanting Jake to see his consternation, he turned toward his truck. “Well, I gotta get going.”
“See ya,” Jake said.
Back in his truck and driving through town, Pat jerked his cell phone from his belt and started to punch in Suzanne’s number. “Wait a minute,” he mumbled and snapped the phone shut. Something he had tried not to do since he had been with Suzanne was hang on too hard. He had already left a message for her. Something had held her up. She would call him when she started home from Abilene.
By seven, he had finished out the two horses he had planned on working in the afternoon. He checked his cell for messages from Suzanne, but saw none. He went to the house, showered and put on old jeans. He usually went to Truett’s house for supper when Truett was in town, but tonight it looked like a frozen dinner was on the menu at Pat Garner’s house. He shoved one in the microwave, then watched the news on TV while he ate. After the meal, he checked his cell again.
At nine, he was worried. Had she had a wreck? Or car trouble? She had a fairly new truck, but anything could happen. He punched in her number, but the call went to voice mail. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m getting worried about you. Call me.”
He called Truett, but didn’t get an answer. Had he and Suzanne gone somewhere together? He returned to the TV and surfed for a movie. Usually, he was getting ready for bed by this time, but he knew damned well he wouldn’t be able to go to sleep. At ten o’clock, he was dishing up ice cream when his cell warbled. Caller ID showed Suzanne’s name. “Hey,” he said. “You got my message?”
“Yes, I got it. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Where are you?”
“I just got home. I didn’t get to the mall until late. I wanted to finish my shopping, so I just grabbed something for supper in the food court.”
Her words seemed to come in a breathy rush and in an unfamiliar tone of voice. Was she lying to him? “Well at least you’re home safe. I tried to call your dad and didn’t get an answer.”
“Oh, he was probably in the shower or something. Listen, I’m working tomorrow, but I’m putting a roast in the Crockpot and making a pie. You’re coming for supper, right?”
He managed a chuckle he didn’t feel. “Like I’ve got something else to do. Sure, I’ll be there.”
“Miss you,” she said.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, tomorrow.”
They disconnected and he laid his phone on the kitchen counter, bewildered. That whole conversation had sounded wrong and felt worse. What in the hell was going on?
