| |
Jude awoke the next morning on a mission and Brady wasn’t in bed to distract her. His plan to prevent her confronting her father had only worked short-term. She dressed and put on her makeup, then went down to the kitchen, where she found Jolie and Irene working on the noon meal. Irene was flouring quail breasts. “We’re having quail? Are we having company for dinner again?”
“Mr. Strayhorn came in and said there would be three guests,” Jolie said.
“Ah. More horse owners.” Jude prepared a bowl of cold cereal, then leaned her bottom against the counter edge and munched. “Did Daddy say where he was going from here?”
“The vet barn,” Jolie said.
Jude gulped down her cereal and a glass of apple juice and headed for Doc Barrett’s clinic. She found her father and her husband in the office Brady now used at one end of the building. Before Brady came to work at the ranch as GM, the office had been Jude’s. Giving it up to him had been a bone of contention between her and her father, as well as her and Brady. Now all of those bitter emotions had disappeared as if they had never occurred.
Brady and Daddy stood when she entered. “Hey, sweetheart,” Brady said. “Got a couple horse owners in from Lubbock. They’re meeting with Doc now. They like the looks of Sandy Dandy.”
“Of course, they do,” Jude replied. “He’s so handsome and bossy. Typical male animal.” She went to Brady and slid her arms around his middle. “Did you have a good breakfast?”
“Sausage and eggs,” he said. “Can’t beat that.”
Jude turned her attention to her father. “Daddy, can I talk to you about something?”
She felt the pressure of Brady’s hand on her shoulder, knew he was warning her to back off. She ignored the message.
“Shoot,” her father said. “But make it quick.”
“You might prefer that we talk privately.”
Brady dropped his arm from around her, an indication he was not pleased with what she was determined to do. “I’m gonna go see what Doc’s doing,” he said, and headed for the door. He stopped in the doorway, caught her eyes and shook his head. She ignored him. This was between her and her father. She intended to find out once and for all if the man had a girlfriend and if the relationship was serious.
“What’s the big secret?” her father asked.
She walked over to him and straightened his collar. “You won’t believe the gossip I heard.”
He gave a humorless heh-heh-heh. She sensed that he had tensed and gone on alert. “This is Lockett, punkin. I’d believe just about anything. What is it?”
“I heard that you”—she pressed her finger into his chest—“have something going on with Maisie Thornton.”
He said nothing for several beats, then planted his hands on his hips. “Like what?”
“Daddy, please. I’m not a child.” She backed away from him and rounded the end of Brady’s desk. She began straightening things. “I’m not criticizing you. You know I’ve always thought you should have someone in your life.”
“I do have someone. I have you. And Brady. And soon I’ll have my grandson.”
She looked up and at her father. “And what if it’s a granddaughter?”
“You know what I meant.”
Now it was her turn for the humorless heh-heh-heh. “I’m afraid I do.” Her hand instinctively went to her stomach. “If my baby’s a girl, no way will I stand for her to be manipulated and treated the way I was treated growing up. For that matter, Brady won’t stand for it, either.”
“You think he doesn’t want a son?”
For a troublesome, fleeting moment, she thought of the fact that when Brady referred to their baby, he did not say “she” or “it”; he always said “he.” “I believe he doesn’t care. I believe he wants a healthy child. Of either sex.”
“You might not know Brady as well as you think.”
She gave an exaggerated gasp. “Thanks a lot!” The burn of tears rushed to her eyes, but she swallowed them back, something she had done for as long as she could remember in conversations with her father. “Daddy, how can you say something like that to me?”
“Now, now. I didn’t mean to sound so blunt. You know I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings.”
She believed that. Their relationship had been going so smoothly lately she had forgotten how tactless he could be. Then she realized he had keenly sidestepped her question. “I know, Daddy. You’d think I’d be used to those tacky remarks after all these years. So, what about Maisie?”
He raised his hands, palms out, and shook his head. “Jude...”
That was one of his favorite not-going-to-talk-about-it gestures, but she had no intention of letting him escape. She, too, showed him her palms. “So you’re having an affair. It’s no big deal. Lord knows, you’re old enough. I’m just trying to find out if what I heard is gossip or if it’s true. Have you been...well, going around with her long?”
He shook his head again, looking at the floor. He thumbed back his straw Stetson. “Jude...”
Now she was becoming annoyed. “You’ve already said that,” she said crossly.
“I’ve known Maisie since we were kids,” he said.
“But you haven’t been sleeping with her since you were kids....Or have you?”
He was ruddy complexioned from years of exposure to the relentless Texas Panhandle sun, but when he was embarrassed or angry, his face turned a red-brown color. Like now. “Jude...”
“Well, have you?”
More hesitation. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he finally said, his shoulders discernibly sagging. “But I’m not going to discuss it with you, either.”
Jude stared at him, blinking. “How long?”
“Jude, I said I wasn’t going—”
“You haven’t hesitated to pry into my private life. How long?”
“Twenty years,” he snapped. “That’s all I’m going to say.”
“Twenty years?” Jude said, stunned. “As in two-oh? Are you kidding me?”
“Jude, please...”
“How have you kept it a secret for so long? And why? It isn’t like you had a reason to hide it.”
“I did have reasons. My own reasons.”
“What? What are they?”
He dropped to the armchair in front of the desk, sitting on the edge of the seat as if he might get up and walk out at any minute.
“Was Grandpa one of the reasons?” she asked.
On a frown, he removed his silver-rimmed glasses, ducked his chin and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and finger. She had seen him do that often when he was or upset or frustrated.
Jude, too, sank to Brady’s desk chair, hoping she and her father were going to have a meaningful talk.
He slid his glasses back on and leveled a serious look at her. “I’ve never allowed anything to come before the ranch,” he said. “You know that. And that includes women and any other personal indulgences I might have had. You don’t know the details, I realize, and I don’t intend to go into them. Suffice to say that in the past, I made two major mistakes with women by putting my own desires first. In terms of both money and pain, my bad judgment has cost this ranch and this family enough.”
Instinctively Jude knew he was speaking of her mother, who had left Lockett when Jude was an infant. Jude had rarely had conversations with anyone about Vanessa O’Reilly, including Daddy, and no one had ever said to her point-blank that her mother’s abandonment included money. She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the desktop. “You gave my mother money?”
“I didn’t....But I’ve always believed Dad did.”
“That’s why she never came back here. Never called, never wrote. Grandpa paid her off.”
Her father didn’t reply, just continued to look at her.
It was a perfectly logical conclusion. Why Jude hadn’t thought of it before, she didn’t know. “Surprise, surprise. My manipulative grandfather never gave any consideration to the fact that I might like to know my own mother.”
“Jude, it just wasn’t that simple. Your grandfather did know your mother. He was better at detecting her motives than I was. He thought everyone would be better off if she simply stepped out of the picture and went back to where she came from. And he knew I wouldn’t have confronted her on my own.”
Jude knew her father’s reputation for ruthlessness. She couldn’t imagine him being unable to confront anyone about anything. He leaned forward, his palm braced on his knee, his face thrust closer. “Strayhorns take care of their own, daughter, and always have. Dad didn’t want her taking you back East and neither did I. We might have never seen you again.” He punctuated the words with taps of his finger on the desktop.
“I assure you, she didn’t put up much of an argument,” he added. “Money was why she married me. But in those days, I was too naive to know it. Or maybe I was too proud to admit it.”
Jude didn’t even have a snapshot of her mother. Her issues over the woman’s abandonment had been settled in her mind and heart long ago. She had to wonder about her own child. After it was born, would she be able to abandon it and never see it again? She knew that in the animal kingdom sometimes females rejected their young. She shook her head to clear it, determined not to be distracted from the subject. “We’re getting off track. What happens now? With Maisie?”
“She wants to get married.”
Instinctively Jude’s mind flew to the ranch and its stability, the conversations she had heard, ad infinitum, about the ranch’s future; the intricate prenuptial document that had been presented to Brady before she married him. Her father’s affair took on a new dimension. “Married? You’re going to get married?”
“No. I told her no.”
Jude stared at Brady’s desktop, which was now neatly organized. Unconsciously she had put it in perfect order. “My God. I can’t believe this.” She looked up at her father. “Why did you tell her no?”
“Marriage is a contract that opens closed doors unexpectedly. No one can know what lies behind them. I don’t intend to do anything that might cause problems for you and Brady and your children on down the line. The Circle C and Strayhorn Corp has always been a family enterprise and must be kept that way. Maisie has two kids of her own and I don’t intend for them, or any uninvited outsider, to ever think he has so much as a remote claim on the Circle C or any part of it.”
“But that’s ridiculous thinking. My God, we have a flock of lawyers. Don’t you think they can defend the Circle C’s ownership? They certainly managed to tightly truss up Brady. And his son. Against my wishes, I might add.”
“I just know that the whole damn country is sue-happy and once lawyers get involved in a thing, it goes on forever and costs somebody a bunch of money that could be better spent on something else. I can’t help but think of the Double Diamond that’s been in litigation for eighty years because its founder couldn’t keep his pants zipped. And during that time, attorneys and the courts have scalped three generations of heirs.
Besides that, there’s a movement out there that believes that grazing cattle are a blight on the earth and wants big and old ranches like the Circle C broken up.”
Jude couldn’t argue with any of that. She could think of a number of times Strayhorn Corp had been sued for the most frivolous reasons and she was confronted with evidence of her father’s last statement every day.
“There’s an old saying, Jude,” her father continued. “‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ I’ve learned the truth of that the hard way. At one point in my past life, though I tried to be a good and fair man, I was not a cautious one. But thanks to my dad’s tutelage, I eventually came to be one. I don’t see myself changing at this late date.”
Jude didn’t need to be reminded of her grandfather’s tutelage. She had lived with it for more than thirty years herself. “Grandpa wasn’t like you, Daddy. He preferred living as a hermit.”
“No, Jude. That’s not true. You don’t know all that he faced in his life. He was the heir to an empire and a dynasty, to which he eventually dedicated all of himself. In his mind, he had no other choice. He was the only living child, the only son. Fate also handed me that mantle and I’ve worn it gladly. I’ll continue to wear it until the day I turn this operation over to you entirely. And I expect, though you don’t believe it now, in the end, you’ll do the same thing.”
“I won’t be chained to provincialism like you and Grandpa,” she said fiercely. “I will not.”
“This ranch is a part of your soul, daughter. If and when the time comes, you’ll do what you have to.”
Jude could see the conversation was veering into battle-worn territory. She softened her tone. “We’re not talking about me right now, Daddy. I want you to be happy. I know you must be lonely. If a life with Maisie would make you happy, I don’t see why—”
“It’s already settled, Jude. Too much has happened. You might say I’m a victim of the Campbell Curse as much as my brothers.”
“That’s superstitious nonsense. I loved Grammy Pen, but even when I was a little kid, when she talked about that Campbell Curse stuff, I thought it was malarkey. I don’t believe our family is cursed.”
“Jude. Let it be. It’s settled.”
“You’re the one who’s kept Maisie’s Café going, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Daddy. Nobody believes Maisie’s Café is a moneymaking business. In fact, everyone in town wonders how she’s managed to keep it open for so many years when she has no more customers than she does.”
“She’s a good cook. She’s—”
“That doesn’t matter. There are only so many people in Lockett who can or will go out and eat in a café of any kind, whether the food’s good or not.”
He looked away and gave her no answer.
Memories had been worming their way to the front of Jude’s mind—stories she had heard in town over the years, conversations she’d had, something she knew that involved her best friend. “I know something,” she said. “If I’d been aware you were...involved with Maisie, I would’ve already told you.”
Her father looked at her warily. “What?”
“When Suzanne first came back from Wyoming, and didn’t have a job, she talked to Maisie about buying the cafe. Truett was going to help her with the money. They got far enough along in negotiating that Maisie let them look at her financial records, but she was adamant that Suzanne and her dad had to keep their talks confidential. She told Suzanne and Truett she was afraid she would lose business if people knew she wanted to sell the café. Suzanne took me into her confidence and told me about it.
“After Truett saw Maisie’s records and her tax returns, he speculated that Maisie was keeping the place afloat with outside help. Suzanne and I came to the conclusion that she must have a sugar daddy. We figured it had to be someone from out of town. Neither of us ever thought once that it was you.”
“Suzanne came back here two years ago,” her father said. “Are you telling me that Maisie, that long ago, talked to Suzanne and her dad about selling the café?”
“She’s still talking to her. Maisie approached her again maybe six months back. But Suzanne was already with Pat by then. She told Maisie she was no longer interested. Truett and Pat both are businessmen. Neither of them would sit still for Suzanne to buy into such a money-losing proposition.”
Her father’s face took on an expression Jude had never seen. “What exactly was Maisie talking about selling?” he asked. “Besides that old building, all she owns are the fixtures and the kitchen equipment. And those aren’t worth that much.”
“She’d like some blue-sky money. Because the café’s been in business for so long and has an established customer base.”
“How much is she asking?”
“I don’t know what the latest number is. But it doesn’t matter. Suzanne finally told her the price she was asking made no sense. If Suzanne wanted to own a café, she could start one from scratch a lot cheaper.”
“Well, as I said, my, uh...relationship with Maisie is a settled matter. Looking back on it, I wish I’d never started it.”
He rose from the chair and walked out. Jude could see he was upset, but not because his secret had been discovered. Jude believe what had upset him was learning that Maisie was trying to sell out without telling him. She wondered just how much money he had invested in Maisie’s Café, which most of the local people considered to be nothing but a hole in the wall.
Jude’s opinion of Maisie Thornton, which had already been colored by what had happened between her and Suzanne, took on yet another shade. Who knew a femme fatale lived in Lockett, Texas?
