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Pat awoke the next morning well after daylight with Suzanne’s tousled head resting on his chest under his chin. He was sore. He felt as if they had made love all night. And they had. He had come more times than he thought possible.
At one point in the night, she had told him she had come to his house to confess she had spent most of Thursday with Mitch, then returned home to Lockett confused and frustrated. She admitted Mitch had asked her to go back to Wyoming with him, had made her a promise that they would get married. His parents remembered her and adored her.
She revealed that she and Mitch had never been married. She told people in Lockett who asked they had been because she didn’t want to bring embarrassment to her dad. Pat wasn’t surprised they hadn’t been married. He had already concluded just from watching the cocksucker on TV that Mitch McCutcheon wasn’t the marrying kind.
Coming fully awake, he remembered he had horses to feed. He eased out of bed, dressed quietly in the bathroom, then went into the kitchen. His partial glass of whiskey still sat on the breakfast bar and hers still sat on the table. He picked up both glasses and poured the whiskey down the drain. Then he put coffee on to brew and trekked to the barn.
The mares were already heading toward the barn. Since it was breeding season, he kept them separated from his stud. He didn’t want to risk an unsupervised pasture breeding episode where one of his horses might get hurt or pick up a reproductive tract infection.
He put out flakes of hay and watched the horses approach, the younger mares following the older one because they instinctively knew she was wiser and more knowledgeable of survival, which was how it went in horse society. Simple. Every animal knew its place. His mind veered to human relationships, which were complex and nobody ever knew for sure what the hell was going on. His education in agri-business and animal husbandry had taught him nothing about that.
He believed he had figured out something though, by watching his own parents and his two older sisters. In every human coupling there seemed to be a giver and a taker, one who loved more and gave more. With his parents, his dad was the giver and his mother took and took, but it was his dad who was the stronger. The same appeared to be true in his sisters’ marriages. He believed he was the giver in his relationship with Suzanne, as he had been in his relationship with Becky. And he believed he was the stronger. Suzanne was the fun, vivacious one, but at the end of the day, she needed him.
For a flicker of an instant, he let himself wonder when she had been with McCutcheon, if he had been the strong one. Don’t go there, Pat told himself and started back to the house.
When he reached the kitchen, she was up, standing in front of his refrigerator, coffee mug in hand. His robe enveloped her, striking her at her ankles. Her long blond hair was tied back with one of his bandanas. She looked beautiful though her eyes were still swollen. She had cried half the night. Once when they had made love, she had wept all the way through it.
“You’ve got eggs and bacon,” she said. “Hungry?”
He went to her, enclosed her in an embrace and pulled her close. She smelled like soap and water and toothpaste. “Starved.”
She looked up at him, rose on her tiptoes and kissed him. “We didn’t get much nourishment last night.”
Indeed, they had bypassed supper altogether. He smiled down at her. “That’s a matter of opinion. You okay?”
She gave a low chuckle. “A little tender. It was a wild night, cowboy.”
He chuckled, too. “Tell me about it.”
“I’ll cook.” She left his embrace, rolled up the sleeves of his robe and started gathering things from the refrigerator—eggs, bacon, butter. While she fried eggs, he made toast. Sharing the morning with her felt right. He wanted to do it forever.
They took the food to the table and sat down. “Are you going to be mad if I go to Abilene today?” She wasn’t looking at him. Instead, her eyes were focused on cutting her eggs with the side of her fork.
His gut clenched, but he tried not to show a reaction. He could make himself deal civilly with this situation with her old lover. He could make himself talk about it casually. He could give her space. Besides, if she wanted to go meet the sonofabitch, how could he stop her? At least she wasn’t lying to him. He set down his mug. “No. I think you should go.”
She looked at him, her fork suspended between her mouth and her plate. “You do?”
“Yeah. I think you should go down there and settle it with him once and for all.”
She picked up her mug, sipped and set it down. “I can’t believe you said that. You don’t really feel that way.”
“It doesn’t matter how I feel. If you made a plan to meet him and you don’t do it, if you don’t clear the air, you’ll always wonder about him. And what’s worse, I’ll wonder about him, too. It’ll be like a loose end forever dangling.”
She lowered her eyes and fiddled with her mug handle. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Then I think you should come back,” he said “and we’ll get married and have the life we planned on. We’ll never talk about him again.”
She left her chair, came behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, placed her mouth near his ear. “We can have the reception at the church,” she said softly. “Jude won’t mind. I know how much your friendship with Jake means to you.”
A lump flew to his throat. He clasped her forearm and gently squeezed.
“I was afraid I’d lose you,” she said. “I thought you’d send me packing.”
He brought her around to his side, scooted his chair back and pulled her onto his lap. “When you said you didn’t know how you felt about him, I came close to doing that very thing. But I must not have been ready to give up on us.” He clasped her jaw and kissed her fiercely. “Lady, I’m yours. There ain’t no way you’re ever gonna lose me.”
But later, as she drove away, headed for home to get ready to go to Abilene, he still wondered if she would decide on a life with Mitch McCutcheon.
***
THE AIR IN THE CIRCLE C kitchen was thick with mouth-watering aromas. Jolie and Irene had prepared a huge breakfast of fried eggs, sausage and bacon both, biscuits with cream gravy and fresh melon.
Now they were putting the finishing touches on dinner for the Strayhorns and their guests. A pork loin Buster had cut for her was almost done. She worked at making a brown gravy while Irene mashed potatoes. With Danni home from school, even she helped in the kitchen.
After dinner, Jude and one of the guests came into the kitchen and heaped compliments on her and Irene. As soon as the guest followed the others back to the barn, Jude lingered behind and said, “After two huge meals today, we won’t need supper. Y’all take the evening off and rest. Daddy and Brady and I can fend for ourselves for supper.”
Once the kitchen was clean and sparkling again, Irene and Reuben left for home, but Jolie stayed and used the food processor to grate a block of cheese for tomorrow’s enchiladas. She had few kitchen tools to work with in the cottage. She put the grated cheese into a plastic storage bag and took it home with her.
At home, she still couldn’t rest. While Danni watched and kibitzed, Jolie stirred up a devil’s food cake from a gourmet recipe she had learned from the baker who supplied the Cactus Café with desserts. Waiting for the cake to bake, she put ground meat and onions and spices on to cook for the enchilada filling.
“Whatcha making, Mama?” Danni asked.
“It’s enchiladas for the sheriff’s thank-you dinner,” she said. “Remember I told you about it.”
“Can I help?”
“Um, this is all I’m doing today. Soon as I finish, we’ll watch a movie.” She had rented Bolt for Danni at the grocery store. Lucky’s seemed to have a little of everything.
By the time the meat concoction was done, so was the cake. While the layers cooled, she and Danni sat down on the sofa and watched the movie. Then all of a sudden, the day was gone. Danni bathed and Jolie tucked her into bed, reminded her that the meal for the sheriff was a secret. Then she set out to frost the cake.
Using a hand mixer she had borrowed from the ranch house’s kitchen, she whirred a chocolate buttercream frosting together and slathered it on the two-layer cake. She even added some little frosting swirls and curls as decoration. It looked delicious. She had done a fine job, even if she did say so herself.
And she was exhausted. She was also so excited she probably wouldn’t sleep a wink. But she had to. She had to look her best tomorrow.
***
THE NEXT MORNING JUDE was in her office studying bull statistics when Suzanne called. “Hey, girlfriend, whatcha doing?” Suzanne asked.
“The usual,” Jude answered, relieved at hearing from Suzanne. She hadn’t seen her since Friday when they’d had lunch at Maisie’s. With Suzanne’s old lover in the area, anything could have happened over the weekend.
“Got the coffee pot on?”
“I don’t know. But if it isn’t, we’ll put it on. You’re coming out?”
“Yep, I’m on my way.”
“Obviously you aren’t working.”
“I’m not going in until after lunch. I just wasn’t up to being my old jolly self this morning. Sometimes that façade is hard to maintain. Especially after a long, hard weekend.”
Uh-oh. Now what’s happened?
Suzanne soon arrived and entered the ranch house through the back door, as did everyone except strangers. Jude met her and they went into the kitchen where the coffee pot was tucked into its spot on the counter and clean as a whistle.
“Where is everybody?” Suzanne asked.
“Lola and I are the only ones here on Mondays now. We’ve finally got a routine going. Jolie and Irene and Reuben take off on Mondays. Daddy and Brady are eating breakfast almost every day in the cookhouse with the hands and on Mondays they eat dinner out there, too. And I sort of graze here in the kitchen. Then Brady and I usually throw something light together on Monday night. Now that I’m pregnant, heavy spicy food like Windy used to make doesn’t set well.”
“Oh, I forgot. You’re not drinking coffee, either. I don’t have to have coffee. It’s too hot anyway. Just give me something cold.”
“Tea? Dr Pepper?”
“Dr Pepper sounds great. I’ll help.” She dragged a tumbler from the cupboard. “Are you drinking?”
“Apple juice.”
Suzanne dragged down another tumbler and proceeded to fill both with ice cubes. She carried the glasses to the breakfast room’s round glass-topped table. “Okay to sit here?”
“Sure. So what happened over the weekend?” Jude pulled a jug of apple juice and a can of Dr Pepper from the refrigerator.
Suzanne pointed upward. “Somebody was looking out for me, that’s what happened.”
Jude followed her to the breakfast room, handed her the Dr Pepper and poured apple juice for herself. “Are you and Pat still engaged?”
“We sure are.” Suzanne popped the aluminum can top and filled her glass with the fizzing drink.
“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Jude said, screwing the lid back onto the apple juice bottle.
“Somebody or some thing kept me from making the biggest mistake of my life,” Suzanne said. “Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it. The trials and tribulations of Suzanne Breedlove’s love life.”
Jude sank to a chair and for the next fifteen minutes, Suzanne kept her mesmerized with the tale of her emotional meeting with Mitch on Thursday, her emotional episode with Pat on Saturday night, then going to Abilene yesterday and meeting Mitch for yet another emotional encounter of a different kind.
“I’m drained,” Suzanne said in conclusion, gathering her long blond locks onto the top of her head, then letting them fall.
“I don’t wonder,” Jude said. “I’m surprised Pat stood still for you to go back to Abilene and meet with Mitch a second time.”
“I was, too, at first. But the more I thought about it, that’s the way Pat is. He likes things clear. No gray areas.”
What Jude knew of Pat was mostly what Suzanne had told her. Though he had worked with some of the Circle C horses, his relationship was with Clary Harper, not Jude. “All I know, Suzanne, is he’s been good for you. I don’t know how you could find a better guy.”
“Me, neither.” She sipped her Dr Pepper, then grinned mischievously. “The sex ain’t too bad, either. Now, instead of Mitch, it’s Pat who sends me over the moon.”
“Oh, you,” Jude said. “This is about more than sex. This is about the rest of your life.”
Suzanne chuckled. “I know. But you can’t discount good sex. You know it’s important to me.”
“Did you tell him you were planning on getting married?”
She gazed out the window wall onto the sun-drenched patio, a faraway look in her eyes. “We talked for a long time. Talked about stuff we never discussed before.”
Jude couldn’t hold back a gasp. “You didn’t tell him?”
“I didn’t want to hurt him. He begged me to go back to Wyoming with him. Made me a lot of promises.” She turned back to face Jude. “Can you believe it?”
Jude lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know him. But I believe anything you tell me. What I can’t believe is that you didn’t tell him about your relationship with Pat.”
“After all was said and done, I asked him not to ever be in touch with me again. Hell, Jude, I don’t even want him to send me a Christmas card.”
“Wow,” Jude said softly, amazed after hearing all she had previously heard Suzanne say about Mitch. “You told him that?”
“Not the part about the Christmas card.”
“Was it hard?”
Suzanne nodded, her eyes showing a glimmer of tears. “Yeah, it was, Jude. He’s changed. It was upsetting. He and I shared a lot. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that at this point, he and I don’t share much more history than Pat and I do. And what I’ve got with Pat is a helluva lot better and more promising for the long haul.”
“What have you told Pat?”
“Everything. I told him everything. Even the stuff I didn’t want to tell and he didn’t want to hear. Nothing hidden between us.” Suzanne blinked back tears. “And he still wants me.”
Jude already had a good opinion of Pat Garner, but it lifted another notch. She felt for Suzanne. At one point, before Jude and Brady had confronted their feelings for each other, Jude thought she had lost Brady. She leaned forward and covered Suzanne’s hand with her own. “I am so glad, Suzanne. I was so afraid you were going to do something stupid.”
Suzanne sniffed and managed a damp smile. “It was tempting when Mitch first called. But I’ve learned something about myself in this whole thing. You know what was wrong with him and me?”
Jude blurted a laugh. “Well I could think of several things, but what are you thinking?”
“When we were together, I loved him more than he loved me. I was like a blind woman. That’s why he treated me bad. I allowed it. I always felt like he was more than I was.” She splayed the fingers of both hands for emphasis. “I mean, he was this famous, good-looking, all-macho bull rider who, drunk or sober, was on his way to becoming a world champion. I was afraid that if I stood up for myself, he wouldn’t love me. Or wouldn’t love me as much. I mean, a lot of women wanted him, like a trophy or something.”
“You should have thought better of yourself,” Jude said, but as she said it, she remembered what Suzanne had left behind in Lockett. Back when they were younger and still in high school, Jude had heard Suzanne’s mother berate her for the smallest of things and criticize most of what she did. Leaving Texas, with Mitch, was Suzanne’s form of rebellion.
“Yeah,” Suzanne said. “I’ve always been the person who loved the most. It was that way even between Mom and me.” She shook her head, dabbed under one eye with her finger, then drew in a deep sniff. “Is it that way between you and Brady?”
“You mean which one of us loves the most? It’s me, of course. Brady would get along just fine without me. He did get along without me. I was the one spinning like a top and going nowhere. That doesn’t mean he didn’t want me or love me or that I wasn’t important to him. It just meant he isn’t the kind of person who would commit suicide over losing me or any woman.”
“And what about you? If you lost Brady, would you be suicidal?”
“Of course not. I’d somehow go on just as he would. But honestly, I can’t stand to think of what it would be like without him. He’s everything to me. And I believe that I’m everything to him.”
“Pat and I had this very conversation last night—”
“You stayed at Pat’s with your dad in town?”
“Oh, hell, Dad knows Pat and I sleep together when he’s out of town. We aren’t teenagers, you know. In fact, I’ve already told Dad I’m going to go ahead and move into Pat’s house. Hopefully, I’ll get everything moved and unpacked and straightened up before the wedding. Then we can go on our honeymoon and come back to our home.”
“I’ll help you,” Jude said. “Go on with what you and Pat talked about.”
“Well, he has this belief that it isn’t possible for two people to love each other equally. He thinks that between him and me, he’s the one who loves the most.”
Suspicious, Jude asked, “Is he?”
“He thinks he is, but I don’t think so. He’s the strong one. I’m just the loud one. Pat’s like Brady. I think if I disappeared, he would go on with his horses and keeping his place up and doing what he was doing when I met him. Oh, he’d miss me and maybe think about me, but his life would go on.”
“All life goes on, Suzanne,” Jude said, donning her teaching hat. She hadn’t studied six years of biology for nothing. “It’s what Nature intended.”
“For that whole trip to Abilene yesterday,” Suzanne said, “I tried to bring up a mental picture of how things might be with Mitch if I went to Wyoming with him, but it just wouldn’t come to me. I couldn’t imagine it. All I could think of was what if I lost Pat. What would I do? Being with him is like being with a rock and I’ve gotten used to that security. He’s not mercurial and exciting like Mitch, but he’s strong as iron and I know he’ll always be there.”
“There’s something to be said for strength and reliability,” Jude said.
“You remember what I said to you when we went to lunch the other day?”
“You said a lot. Refresh my memory.”
“I said the bottom line is Pat ain’t Mitch. Well, the true bottom line is Mitch ain’t Pat.”
Jude laughed with delight and the belief that Suzanne had made the right decision.
“Oh, and I should tell you, Jude. Pat mentioned the reception to Jake. Jake just won’t attend a party at the Circle C.” She stared out at the large limestone barbecue pit. “Too bad. I know it would be great, and I appreciate your offering to do it, but I think we have to have it at the Methodist church. Jake’s the only person Pat wants to be his best man. He would be fine with skipping the reception altogether, but if we’re going to have it, he wants his best man to be there.”
Jude couldn’t keep from being a teeny bit hurt. Not at not hosting the reception, but because one of her only two cousins refused to set foot on the place where he was born, even at the request of a friend. “Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “It was just an idea. I’m not surprised Jake won’t come to the ranch. Lord, he’s been back in Lockett six years and he hasn’t been here yet, so why would he come to a wedding reception?”
Suzanne nodded. “Right. I wonder if he’ll ever get past that.”
