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Jake watched Jolie drive away. She wasn’t wrong about meth users. Billy Jensen sounded like a head case all right. High on meth, perfectly sane people became head cases. It was entirely possible that Jolie really was in danger.
Hearing her say she was a free woman had affected him. He felt disturbed and unsettled and at the same time relieved. He didn’t understand it. Her marital status was none of his business.
He also felt uncharacteristically aggressive, even hostile, toward Billy Jensen. He didn’t understand that, either. He had confronted and arrested many of the Billy Jensens of the world. Most of the time he felt sorry for them. Yet he had a suspicion that if ever confronted by a man who could mistreat a woman and little girl as nice as Jolie and Danni, any sympathy Jake might feel would fly right out the window.
As soon as Jolie was out of sight, he walked from his apartment into his office, slid his glasses out of his pocket and wrote Jensen’s particulars on a piece of note paper. He carried the information to Amanda’s desk. “Where’s Chuck about now?” he asked her.
“Who knows?” Amanda answered. “You know Chuck. He probably got thrown off course helping somebody feed their chickens or something and forgot what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s due in here any minute.”
Jake glanced at his watch. Four o’clock. He handed Billy Dean Jensen’s information to Amanda. “Get this out to the towns around us.”
She glanced at the note, then looked up at him, frowning. “A BOLO? On Billy Jensen? That’s my cousin’s husband’s name.”
“Yeah. What do you know about him?”
“Only what I’ve already told you. He’s a badass. Drinks too much. Does dope. Has he found my cousin?”
“Not yet. He’s been in jail in Dallas, but he’s out now. Make sure Chuck gets this information. Just in case Badass Billy decides to put in an appearance around here.”
“But how did you—”
“I’ll be in the apartment if you need me before Chuck gets here.” He started back up the hallway toward his apartment. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Jolie’s problems with Amanda.
Except for a couple of warnings to speeders and paperwork earlier, his day had been uneventful. Well, not entirely uneventful. His afternoon with Jolie Jensen couldn’t be called ordinary.
She and the fact that she wasn’t married wouldn’t leave his head. He couldn’t think of the last time a woman had dominated his thoughts. He couldn’t even put his finger on what specific thing made her stick in his mind. It was mostly what he sensed. She was honest and loyal. He couldn’t keep from being amused that she worried about getting the Circle C’s cake plate back to where it belonged. Hell, out at that ranch, probably nobody even knew they owned a cake plate. Or cared.
And she was courageous. He knew that climbing out of the box life had built around her long before she had the ability to influence her destiny was hard, even impossible for some. Her circumstances reminded him of the box of crabs metaphor. When one tried to climb out, the others pulled it back.
He also sensed that she and her daughter needed him. He wanted to be needed. That was why he had been a cop for so many years.
But lately, something new had taken root within him and he didn’t know where it came from. He now realized he wanted more than to be needed, which had nothing to do with being a cop. He wanted a companion, a woman who would be thrilled to see him drive up in front of the house. He wanted to be thrilled himself about going inside and finding her there, waiting for only him.
He pictured Jolie in the kitchen preparing something delicious that they would share, pictured her daughter excited about her school day. Was he too old to have kids of his own? Not that he hadn’t known plenty of men his age who had infants, but was it responsible to bring a kid into the world when you would be nearly sixty years old when that kid hit twenty?
He made himself a sandwich, poured a glass of milk and sat down to watch the news, which usually depressed him. For years, he’d had a feeling that society wasn’t winning the war on crime and his confidence that it ever would had dissipated to nothing long ago. He was the first to admit he had become a cynic, even a curmudgeon, both characterizations of himself he didn’t especially like.
While he watched reports of war and mayhem overseas, corrupt politicians and murder and disaster in the U.S., his thoughts drifted to the place he had recently bought from old Glenn Petry out on the canyon rim. Petry’s wife had passed on a few months back. His kids who lived in Lubbock had talked him into selling the place and moving closer to them.
The house wasn’t great, but it was livable because Petry and his wife had lived in it. The land was good—six hundred acres of pasture that was leased for grazing and three hundred twenty acres in maize, also leased. A full section and a half of land. And the place had a good water well that supplied drinkable water, an important asset in West Texas.
Jake had no great aspiration to have cattle or horses other than pleasure horses as he had told Jolie. He knew little about farming. What he desired was space and a change from the overdose of reality that had been a part of his life since he was fourteen years old. Running from his life was one of the reasons he had left Dallas and the homicide division of Dallas PD, where he could have named his own future in law enforcement if he had chosen to. He had left Dallas behind and come back to Willard County.
The Petry house was twenty miles from town, perched on a canyon rim ten full miles from the front gate. What could give a man a greater feeling of space than ten empty miles stretched out in front of him and a deep canyon behind him? Jake figured he could live out his days right there.
He had all the money he needed. He could afford to do anything he wanted to. He had spent some time in Colorado while in the army. He wanted to return to the mountains to fish and hunt, wanted to buy an RV and travel the country. He had seen more of foreign countries than he had seen in the good ol’ U.S.A. As a lover of history, he knew there was plenty to be seen. For the first time in a long time, it occurred to him that it would be nice to have someone to share it with him. And his next thought was of Jolie Jensen. It was amazing that just as he was thinking of giving up law enforcement, he should run into a woman who awoke something inside him.
He sighed, turned off the TV and pulled a book from his bookcase—Historic Sites Along the Oregon Trail. He loved the Old West. As much as he enjoyed the book, he couldn’t concentrate on it. His concentration was focused on Jolie and her daughter and the confrontation with her former husband that was bound to come.
***
JUDE STAYED BEHIND after the school’s out party broke up to help tidy and straighten the community room and visit with other teachers. She left late in the day, intending to catch Suzanne at the grocery store.
Sure enough, she found her friend in Lucky’s back room sitting at the computer. Suzanne looked up. “Hey, girlfriend. Looks like you survived the party with those little crumb-crunchers. It’s late. Is it just now over?”
Suzanne seemed to be in much better spirits than when Jude had seen her on Monday and she looked better in general. “I stayed behind to talk to some old friends. It’s kind of bittersweet since I won’t be going back to teach in the fall.”
“Yeah,” Suzanne said, smiling. “Just think how your life’s going to be changed by this time next year.”
Jude gave a huff. “I just hope I can handle it.”
“Sure you can. You’ve raised baby horses. Taking care of baby people can’t be much harder.”
Jude felt her brow crease in a frown. “Actually, baby horses are smarter than baby people. Odd, isn’t it?”
“You could hire a nanny, you know.”
“Brady and I talked about it, but we decided we wouldn’t. Why have a baby if you aren’t going to take care of her? I don’t want her to grow up without me.”
“Just a thought,” Suzanne said.
“I might consult with Lola or someone who has raised kids, but mostly I want to do it myself.” She placed her hands on her hips and looked over Suzanne’s shoulder at the computer screen, but didn’t recognize the program. “Whatcha doing?”
“Entering bar codes into the POS system. Gotta keep up with inventory, you know.”
“I’m thinking of going by Jake’s office and trying to arm-twist him into coming to the reception. What do you think?”
“Honestly, Jude, it isn’t that big a deal to Pat and me.” She turned her swivel desk chair and looked up at Jude. “Sit down,” she said.
Jude sank to the armchair beside Suzanne’s desk. “I know, but it would be fun and I’d like to do that for you.”
“I know you would and Pat and I appreciate it. But I’ve already told the pastor we’ll probably want to have the reception at the church. The only big difference will be that we won’t be able to have booze. But it’s a wedding reception. Nobody needs to get snockered. Pat and I can celebrate with champagne later.” She grinned wickedly. “We might come up with an innovative way to enjoy it even more, given a little privacy.”
“No doubt,” Jude said. “You’ve made a sex maniac out of Pat.”
“I have not,” Suzanne said indignantly. “He always liked sex. But before me, he never had a good opportunity to express himself.”
Jude laughed and Suzanne laughed with her. One of the traits Jude enjoyed about Suzanne was that whatever popped into her head fell out of her mouth without inhibition.
“But I have a selfish motive, too,” Jude said. “Besides wanting to have a big party, it’s such a good opportunity to try to get Jake to come to the ranch. I have to believe Daddy would be receptive.”
“Well, good luck,” Suzanne replied, and laughed again. “But don’t pester Jake on our behalf.”
“Speaking of Jake, I have to tell you what I saw at the school’s out party. He met Jolie out in front of the school. They were standing—”
“Jolie Jensen? The gal you hired as a cook?”
“I saw her give him a box of cupcakes and they were standing really close and looking at each other plumb cow-eyed. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
“You are shitting me,” Suzanne said. “Do you think she has something going on with him?”
“I don’t know how she could. Or when. She works all the time. I am giving her Mondays off, but I haven’t kept up with what she does with her free time. Besides, you know Jake. Ever since that business with that schoolteacher, he’d never have something going on in Lockett.”
“This is too delicious,” Suzanne said with a mischievous giggle. “Wouldn’t it be something if the elusive Jake Strayhorn got flanked and hog-tied by your ranch cook?”
“Stranger things have happened. She’s a really sweet person. And she’s so pretty.”
“Be sure to keep up with that and keep me informed,” Suzanne said.
At home, Jude learned from Jolie that Daddy wouldn’t be home for supper and Brady had volunteered to grill steaks for everyone, including Jolie, Irene and Reuben, on the red limestone fireplace grill out on the patio.
Jude hurried upstairs to dress. Dressing for supper had always been her custom. Appearing at the table clean and neat had been demanded by her grandfather.
Soon after she stepped into the shower, Brady opened the door and stepped in, too.
“Hmm. Where’d you come from, cowboy?”
“Just passing through, ma’am,” he answered between languid, luscious kisses. “Slaughtered a couple steers....Got meat for the table.”
They soaped each other sensuously. She loved the feel of his smooth skin and perfect sinewy body covered with silky bubbly suds. “Is that so?”
“Hmm.” He kissed her.
His large capable hands glided over her, his fingers finding all of her most sensitive places. “You’re a devil,” she said. “If you’re cooking for everyone, we don’t have time for this.”
“I know.”
“If we’re late, everyone will know what we’ve been doing.”
“Sweetheart, you’re pregnant. I think they know what we’ve been doing.”
“Okay, but we still don’t have time.”
They gave up on sex and left the shower. As they dried each other, he held her away and looked at her stomach.
“It’s too soon. You can’t tell,” Jude said. But she could tell. Her tight jeans felt extra tight. She dropped her towel and turned toward the mirror.
“Yes, I can,” he said. “See?” He grasped her waist with both hands. “I used to be able to almost put my fingers together around your waist. Now look.”
“You could not,” she said, though she could see his fingers were inches apart. She turned in his arms, ran her hands over his hard, powerful shoulders.
“Could, too,” he said softly, and again enveloped her with his brawny arms for a long kiss.
“We’ve got to stop. We’ll never get to the barbecue,” she told him.
“Shit. I’m so horny now I won’t be able to cook.”
“Don’t think about it. But eat hearty. You’re going to need your strength.”
They parted and he left for his own dressing area. Jude put on a loose-fitting black gauze dress, fancied it up with turquoise jewelry and tied back her hair with a rawhide string. Brady came back into her dressing room smelling marvelous and kissed her silly one more time. When he lifted his mouth from hers, he said, “Later, Mabel. We’ve got a date. I’m gonna make you come ’til you scream.”
“Uh-uh,” she agreed. “Can’t wait.”
Downstairs in the kitchen, Jolie had put together some tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms and onions, even some peaches, for the grill and made a salad that included everything but the kitchen sink. She had also made a homemade dressing in the blender. Jolie was a wonderful cook and she and her daughter were starting to become like members of the family. Not seeing Jolie’s daughter, she asked, “Where’s Danni?”
Jolie explained that Danni was spending the night with Madison Wilder.
“Oh, that’ll be fun,” Jude said. “I know the Wilders very well. Danni will have a great time. Mike Wilder can do voice imitations of animals and he tells the funniest stories. I’ve had his two oldest boys in my classes. They’re good kids.”
As they ate, Jude said to her husband, “These steaks are perfect. All this time you’ve been telling me you couldn’t cook anything but baloney and cheese sandwiches.”
Brady chuckled. “I’ve moved up a notch.”
After the meal, while Irene and Jolie fussed about cleaning off the table, Jude and Brady sat talking. “I love this patio,” she said. “I was so looking forward to putting together Suzanne and Pat’s reception here. We haven’t had a party since before I finished college. I’d even found a band from Lubbock to play.”
“Uh-oh. Jake must have decided not to come here,” Brady said, picking up her hand and enclosing it inside his own.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Jolie said, the empty salad bowl under her arm, “but why won’t he come here?”
A visual of Jolie and Jake on the sidewalk in front of the school came to Jude, but she pushed it aside. Of course, Jolie knew nothing of the enigmatic Strayhorn family. “Waaay too much family history,” she said. Then she turned to Brady. “Have you said anything to him about the reception?”
“Haven’t seen him,” Brady said. “But I don’t think we should push it. Jake has his reasons. They’re deep and personal. If he makes up with the Strayhorns, it’ll have to be in his own good time.”
“But it just seems so sad. I always felt like Grandpa could’ve said something or done something that would have fixed the problem with Jake, but he refused to. He wouldn’t even talk about it. So much time has passed now. I don’t think Daddy would get upset if Jake came here, do you?”
“Don’t know. J.D.’s not a man who wears his feelings on his sleeve.”
“It’s too bad Mr. Strayhorn missed supper,” Jolie said. “The steaks were so good. Did he have supper with his girlfriend?”
“Oh, Lord, no,” Jude said, laughing. “Daddy doesn’t have a girlfriend. I can’t remember a time when he’s ever had a girlfriend. There used to be a widow in Abilene he went to see occasionally, but he hasn’t even done that in recent years.”
“Oh,” Jolie said. “I thought his girlfriend was the lady who owns the café.”
“Maisie?” Brady asked.
“Why would you think that, Jolie?” Jude asked.
Jolie’s expressive brown eyes grew even larger and she didn’t answer right away. “I just assumed it. I’ve seen him a couple of times coming and going from the apartment where she lives.”
Jude blinked several times, mulling that statement over, then turned to Brady. “Why would Daddy be coming and going from Maisie’s apartment?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” Brady said, then turned his attention to Jolie. “When did you see him?”
“Uh, last week....And the week before that.”
Now Jolie was obviously nervous. Jude hadn’t meant to make her feel as if she were being interrogated.
“You’re sure it was him?” Brady asked.
“Well....yes, I’m sure.” She shrugged again. “Or at least I was when I saw him.”
Jude felt oddly blank. She had known Maisie Thornton since childhood. Never, not once, had she heard an inkling of any kind of relationship between her and Daddy. Jude felt her brow knit. “I cannot imagine. Now curiosity is killing me. I’m going to have to ask Daddy what he’s doing at Maisie’s.”
At ten o’clock, Jolie came back to the patio. “We’re all finished. Irene and Reuben have left and I’m going home, too.”
“Good night, Jolie,” Jude and Brady said in unison. “Wonderful salad,” Jude added, and watched Jolie and Danni climb into the Circle C pickup.
“Have you noticed Jolie’s car has no license plates?” Jude asked.
“Haven’t paid attention,” Brady said.
“Why do you suppose that is? She and I had the briefest conversation about it once, but if she told me, I don’t remember why.”
“Beats me. Is that why she’s been driving the ranch’s truck on her days off?”
Like her husband, Jude hadn’t paid attention, either, to what vehicle Jolie drove. She had to admit she wasn’t a tough-minded supervisor. “She’s doing that?”
“Every time she goes to town,” Brady said. “I haven’t seen her in her own car in quite a while.”
Jude didn’t want to jump to conclusions or entertain negative thoughts about Jolie, but she hesitated. “Well, she can’t really drive a car with no plates, can she? I did give her the keys and tell her to feel free to use the pickup.”
“Good idea,” Brady said. “Let’s go to bed. Four o’clock comes early.”
Since he rose at four every morning, Brady usually went to bed before now. They moved into the house, locked the doors and started upstairs.
The conversation from just minutes before about Daddy and Maisie preoccupied Jude all the way up the stairs. The information, if true, was strangely disturbing. Jude thought she knew her father, and the father she knew was a stoic individual whom, in her wildest imaginings, she couldn’t picture as a lover. If he was secretly seeing some woman, a side of him she had been totally unaware of had suddenly manifested itself.
They reached their suite and went inside. Jude moved directly to her dressing room and changed into a thin, short gown, tied her long hair back with a ribbon, washed off her makeup and brushed her teeth. When she returned to the bedroom, Brady was already in bed. “You’re clothed,” he said, deadpan.
Her gown wasn’t see-through, but it was revealing enough. “Hardly.”
“I like you better naked.”
Jude walked over to the side of the king-size bed. She placed a hand on her hip and studied a nail on the opposite hand. “Listen, Brady, I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh-oh. That statement has an ominous ring to it.”
Now she planted both hands on her hips and gave Brady a direct look. “I’ve been thinking about Daddy and Maisie. Do you really think she could be his...well, his convenient woman?”
Brady rose on his elbow. “Something tells me we’re gonna talk about this.”
“We have to.”
“I can’t imagine your dad with a convenient woman. There’s probably a logical explanation for him to be walking up the stairs to Maisie’s apartment.”
“What could it be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Jolie was mistaken about who she saw.”
Jude gave a little gasp of exasperation. “Oh, you men. You have no appreciation for nuance.”
“Right on,” he said.
She sank to the edge of the mattress. “I’m trying to decide if I should approach Daddy and ask if he’s seeing Maisie....Or should I approach Maisie and ask her?”
“Why not think about it tomorrow? You might decide you want to leave the lid on that box.”
That could be good advice, Jude thought. Still, once an idea entered her head, she was loath to step back from it. She had heard more than once that when she got something on her mind, she was worse than a dog with a bone. That component of her personality had proved to be both blessing and curse at different times. She didn’t try to deny it. Could she help it if she was curious? She was a scientist. Surely all scientists had curious minds.
Indeed, her track record for weaseling personal information out of her father was sorely lacking. In their relationship over the years, he had always been eager to give her his opinion and try to direct her life, but had rarely mentioned his own personal activities.
“I just can’t imagine Daddy with a girlfriend. I always thought if he had a female companion, he wouldn’t be so eager to pry into my life. But whenever I’ve so much as hinted at the idea, he’s always cut me off and changed the subject.”
“Uh-huh,” Brady said, now lying on his back, his arms cocked behind his head.
“I mean, look at him. He’s a virile, handsome man. He’s at home anywhere, whether he’s riding herd with the hands or dining with Austin politicians. I think he would be attractive to women, don’t you?”
“I have no idea,” Brady said.
Jude heard the dismissive tone in his voice, but she refused to be deterred. “Maisie is an open, friendly person. Approaching her might be easier and more productive. I’ve known her forever.”
Yet all Jude really knew about the woman was that her two kids, both older than Jude by a few years, had gone to Lockett school and Maisie had owned the café for more years than Jude could calculate. “Lord, when I was little,” she said, “I used to go into the café and Maisie would make me ice-cream cones.”
“Hmm,” Brady said.
“I’ve taken Maisie for granted.” Frowning, she looked across the room at the crocheted lace curtains. “I mean, she is an attractive woman and she’s been a widow for years. I’ve never given much thought to her and Daddy going to school together. They must be about the same age. They might have been in the same grade.”
“I think you should let sleeping dogs lie.”
Jude turned to him. “Brady, why do I feel like I’m having this conversation all by myself? You’ve thrown two clichés at me, but haven’t said diddly-squat about a thing I’ve said.”
He rose to his elbow again and opened the covers, inviting her to come inside. “I just think you ought to stay out of your dad’s personal business.”
She gave a little huff. “After all the years he’s meddled in mine? Not a chance.”
He reached for her hand and urged her into bed. “I know you,” she said, stretching alongside him and snuggling close to him. “You’re going to try to throw me off track with sex.”
“Good plan, huh? Will it work?”
She grinned up at him. “It might.”
“We did have a date, remember?”
