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Chapter 26

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On Monday, after her school day ended, Jude stopped by Lucky’s. When she had passed through town this morning, the first thing that had caught her eye on Main Street was a big CLOSED sign on Maisie’s front door. Was that what Daddy had meant when he said it was all settled?

Looking for the latest gossip on the subject, she found Suzanne uncrating produce in the grocery store’s back room. “Hey, girlfriend,” Suzanne said, peeling big leaves off heads of cabbage and dropping them into a trash can.

“Hey, yourself. Listen, when I came through town this morning, I almost hit a car when I got sidetracked by the sign on Maisie’s door. Have you seen it?”

“Oh, yeah. Everybody in town’s talking about it. The word is she’s gonna go live in Fort Worth with one of her kids.”

“Holy cow,” Jude said, trying to reconcile this bit of information with what her father had told her on Saturday. “She’s already left town?”

“Not yet. I haven’t seen her myself, but people say they still see her lights in her apartment at night. They say she’s packing.”

“Wow. That happened fast. What about her café? She’s just going to leave it?”

“That’s the story.”

“What about her building? Is it still for sale?”

“Haven’t heard. I suppose so. If she moves away from here, she won’t need a building, right?”

Now Jude wondered, after the conversation she’d had with her father, whether he, in fact, owned Maisie’s building. “So, when you and your dad were looking into buying the café, did you also talk about buying the building?”

“No. We never got that far. Dad said if the café can’t make it on its own, what’s the point of owning the building? He didn’t need an apartment and I didn’t, either. I mean, let’s face it. Real estate in Lockett is not a gold-star investment.”

“Then you aren’t interested in buying it now. I mean, it’s already got a restaurant kitchen set up in it.”

Suzanne shook her head. “That whole idea is dead. This town won’t support a café. There just aren’t enough people here. And the people who do live here can’t afford to eat out. Lord, the county barely supports this grocery store. Why are you so interested?”

“Oh, no reason. Just nosy. You know how it is when something gets sprung all of a sudden.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. When something’s unexpected, it’s just that much more interesting. Now that Maisie’s leaving, I guess we’ll never find out who’s been keeping her going all these years, huh?”

Suzanne was Jude’s best friend and a long-term friend, but some things Jude couldn’t share with her. “No, I guess not.”

Jude was determined to again take up Maisie with her father. But, for the moment, feeling a need to change the subject with Suzanne, she said, “So. Have you heard any more from Mitch?”

“Nope. And I don’t think I will.”

“I’ll bet Pat’s thrilled about that.”

Suzanne snickered. “Yeah, he is. The Mitch episode was a serious roadblock, but we got past it. And now things couldn’t be better between us.”

“I’m glad.” She leaned forward and gave Suzanne a hug.” Well, I have to get home,” she said, straightening. “I just stopped by to see what you knew about the café. If we want to eat lunch out in the future, I suppose we’ll be stuck with hamburgers at the Dairy Queen.”

“Oh, shit. I hadn’t thought of that. Now Lockett has only one eating place.”

“As you say, it probably can’t support any more. Oh, by the way, while I was at school today, it occurred to me that we should wait until after the school year ends and have your wedding shower in the school’s community room. With the ranch being twenty-eight miles out of town, some people might not want to drive out there. I know the community room is kind of sterile-looking, but I can decorate it and make it look festive.”

“Fine with me,” Suzanne said.

“Since you’ve invited everyone in town and the surrounding counties to the wedding, I’m inviting all of them to the shower. So you’ll get lots of loot.” Jude laughed.

“Suits me. I don’t plan to do this ever again. Be sure to invite all of my relatives from down around Austin. They all know my mother was crazy. They’ll want to make it up to me by giving me good wedding presents.”

“You’re such a cynic,” Jude said.

“There’s nothing cynical about facts, girlfriend.”

Driving home, Jude sifted through what she knew about Suzanne and her relationship with her mother. She would never treat her child the way Lavelle Breedlove had treated Suzanne.

At the ranch, Jude saw Brady’s pickup in front of the vet barn. She parked beside it and went inside, found him in his office. He rose when she entered, rounded his desk and drew her into his arms, kissed her soundly, his end-of-day stubble rasping her chin and sending a new surge of desire down her spine. “Busy day?” he asked softly.

“Hmm. You?” She traced one of his thick brown brows with a fingertip.

“Nice to have all the visitors gone, though we did have good meetings.”

Jude nodded. And as much as she enjoyed being in his arms, she stepped back from his embrace. “Brady, did you know Maisie has closed the café?”

He hitched a hip up onto the corner of his desk and rested an elbow on his thigh, his fingers still clinging to hers. “I haven’t heard that. Haven’t been keeping up.”

“Do you think Daddy knows?”

“Uh-oh. If he doesn’t, something tells me he’s about to find out.”

She frowned. “Don’t scold me. I have to tell him, don’t you think? Especially after our conversation this morning.”

His brow rose. “Oh, yeah. How’d that little daughter-father talk turn out?”

Jude’s mouth twisted into a horseshoe scowl. “Now you’re being sarcastic. It wasn’t bad. Or good. You know how closemouthed Daddy is. I know you think I shouldn’t have brought it up. He did tell me, more or less, that Grandpa paid my mother to never darken the doorway again.”

Brady’s eyes narrowed. “How does that relate to J.D. and Maisie?”

Jude laughed. “It doesn’t. But it came up while Daddy and I were talking. I had a scary thought during that conversation. If my mother took a check from Grandpa and walked out, her female nurturing instinct must have been absent. What if that’s a genetic thing? What if I’ve inherited it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look at how I grew up. I don’t exactly have striking examples of perfect parenting to mimic. No mother’s influence at all and Daddy was like a prison warden for a lot of years.”

Brady stood, reached for her and drew her close. “You’ve got plenty of nurturing instinct. I’ve seen you with my son and with Jolie’s daughter. And those kids at school. I’ve never seen anybody better with foals than you are.”

“But horses aren’t the same as people. You love them and take care of them, but you only bond with them up to a point. What if it’s like that with the baby? What if I don’t connect with it? It’s something to think about, don’t you think.”

“No, I do not. And I don’t want you worrying about things like that. Tell me what else your dad said.”

“Nothing of earth-shaking importance. We can talk about it tonight. Right now, I have a lot of other things on my mind. Where is Daddy anyway?”

“He went to his office. Said he had to make some calls.”

“In his lair, huh? I’m going to the house and trap him.”

Ignoring her husband’s groan, Jude rose on her tiptoes, gave him a quick kiss and an “I love you.” She stopped in the doorway and looked back at him. “It’s time for Daddy’s cocktail hour. Want to come with me?”

“Not if you’re gonna try to make J.D. do something he doesn’t want to.”

She left the vet barn, keeping close the image of her husband standing there scowling, with his hands propped on his hips and his elbows sticking out like batwings. The men who surrounded her were such alpha chauvinists, but she had to admit that Brady supported her in all things, even when he didn’t agree with her. Time and circumstances had proved she wanted nothing less from the males in her life. In the past, she’d had choices of softer, gentler men and they had revolted her.

Inside the house, she stopped by the kitchen and poured herself a glass of apple juice, said hello to Jolie and Irene, then headed for her father’s office, which was the office Grandpa had used for all of his life. As she made her way up the hallway, she thought of how few times she had been in this part of the house until her father had moved into this space. At a dark brown oak door, she tapped with her knuckle and stepped inside the sanctum that smelled of leather, Aramis cologne and Daddy’s cigars.

Her father had transferred most of his favorite things from his former office on the opposite end of the house—his oversize furniture upholstered in buttery tan and burgundy leather, some wild game heads and horns, a huge stuffed wild turkey, some cowhides— so his office still looked like a wolf’s lair. “Hi, Daddy. Came to have a drink with you.”

He placed the phone receiver in its cradle, a cigar stub resting between his thumb and finger. He looked at her with an expression of alarm, “Jude, you’re not drinking—”

“Don’t get excited. It’s apple juice. But the color’s right.” She dropped into a cushy wingback chair.

Her father left his big leather arm chair behind his desk, walked over to the bar and opened the bifold doors that kept it hidden. Grandpa hadn’t been a drinker, so originally, a bar hadn’t existed in his office. Daddy had had one built when he took over the space. He liked his cocktail hour.

He lifted a heavy crystal glass off a glass shelf and filled it with ice cubes from the under-counter refrigerator. In his previous office the bar hadn’t had its own refrigerator. Lola had had to bring in ice cubes from the kitchen every day. In redoing Grandpa’s office, Daddy had remedied that inconvenience.

He poured a splash of Crown Royal over the ice cubes. “You haven’t come to have a drink with me for a long time,” he said.

He was right. For a time, they had been on the outs; then she had married Brady. Now it was Brady who shared the cocktail hour with her father more often than not.

He returned to his chair. “This visit makes me think you’ve got something on your mind.”

With an opening like that, Jude saw no point in waltzing around the issue. “Daddy, did you know Maisie’s Cafe is closed?”

He gave her a look she could only describe as wary. “What do you mean?”

“What I said. There’s a big Closed sign on her front door. Suzanne said everyone in town is talking about it. They’re saying she’s going to Fort Worth to live with her kids. Is that true?”

He didn’t answer right away, just sipped his whiskey. Then, clearing his throat, he said, “That’s what she said. But I didn’t know she was going so soon.”

Jude knew she was nosing into something that, as Brady had said, was none of her business, but she couldn’t stop herself. If her father had hung out with Maisie for years, he must surely have deep feelings for her. “Did you ask her to stay?”

“If I’m not willing to get married, Jude, I can’t very well ask her to stay.”

“Then you don’t care if she leaves?”

“I didn’t say that.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on a tan desk blotter. His circumspect gaze leveled on her. Daddy had never had any problem looking someone in the eye. He knew he was powerful and his word was usually the last one with most of the people he dealt with. But she wasn’t most of the people. “Look,” he said, “if it will end the talk about this, I’ll tell you this much. I offered to put her up in a house in town.”

Like a mistress! Jude thought, still unable to quell the feeling that this thing, whatever it was, between her father and Maisie Thornton was unbelievable. “She wouldn’t go for that. All or nothing, huh?”

“I offered that before you told me about Suzanne and Truett negotiating on the café. Hearing she had been trying to sell it without telling me, I changed my mind. Sometimes the price of a thing is just too high. And not just in dollars and cents. She broke the trust. And you and I have already talked about this as much as I’m willing to.” He threw back the remaining whiskey in his glass.

Jude felt dizzy. She would never understand her father. She knew he wasn’t an unfeeling man, but this wasn’t the first time she had seen him shut off his emotions as if he were shutting off a faucet.

Her thoughts headed off in a new direction, one that had little to do with emotion, but a lot to do with business sense, an area where he would definitely be more comfortable. “So, if you’re ending the relationship and she’s leaving town, what about the money you’ve put into the café? What will happen to that?”

“It’s a gift.”

“You don’t own that building where the café was and where she lived, then?”

“I do not own a square inch of it.” He stood and walked to the bar again, replenished his drink.

Confounded, Jude only stared at him. He must have spent a ton of money on this woman. “Lord, this is baffling, Daddy. It just looks to me like if you’ve been spending time with someone for twenty-something years and supporting her financially, it’s almost like being married. I don’t understand how you can let it—and the money—go so easily.”

“Who said I’m letting it go easily? But the operative phrase, daughter, is I am letting it go. And I do not want to keep talking about it. I’ve got what I want. What I’ve always wanted. And it’s right here. This ranch. My family. And now you’re blessing me with a grandchild. And I’m grateful. Only a greedy man could ask for more.”

Family. Jude thought of Jake and him being Pat Garner’s best man, a fact that was restraining Suzanne and Pat’s wedding reception from occurring at the Circle C. Frowning, Jude touched an ice cube floating on top of the liquid in her glass, carefully forming her next comment. “Oh, yeah. Family. Tell me something, Daddy. Do you consider Jake family?”

“He’s my brother’s son. I’ve always considered him to be family. As did your grandpa.”

“But you don’t even talk to him. Haven’t you ever wanted to just, you know, talk to him? Maybe discuss what’s going on in his life? Good Lord, what happened, whatever it was, wasn’t his fault.”

“I’ve left it up to him. He knows where the ranch is.”

“His mother was your brother’s wife. She lived here one day, then the next day she didn’t. She went away as if she was never here. Haven’t you ever wondered what happened to her?”

“I know what happened to her. She passed away a few years ago.”

Jude felt her eyes widen. “You kept up with her?”

“I did not. The truth is, Jude, for years I didn’t want to know anything about her.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. What happened wasn’t her fault, either.”

“No one will ever know if that’s true. I don’t know what was whose fault. I don’t know what her and my brother’s marriage was really like, but in his defense, where Faye was concerned, he did the right thing.”

“Which was?”

“She was already several months pregnant when they married. Remembering my brother as I do, I doubt if he was happy about that. You can’t know what goes on between a man and a woman in private, but being a married man hardly changed Ike’s lifestyle. I suppose he resented being a shotgun bridegroom.”

“Does Jake know about all of that?”

“Of course he does. My God, he can add.”

Jude tried to recall whether she had ever seen a picture of Jake’s mother. Hell. Come to think of it, she had never seen a picture of Jake as a baby. “Guess Jake and his mother haven’t earned a place in the gallery on the credenza behind your desk,” she said.

Her father expelled a great sigh, as she had seen him do many times in their conversations. “His mother was a beautiful woman, as I recall, but she had her own problems. I don’t believe she was ever happy living here. All of her family was somewhere around Dallas and that’s where she went when she left here. When she left, I wasn’t terribly interested in where she went or what she did.

“I’ve told you how it was in those days. Ike and my mother passed away within months of each other. When that car wreck happened, we were in the middle of one of the worst droughts we’d seen in many years. My God, we were buying and hauling water by truck to keep the stock alive. We were forced to sell some of our best mother cows and even our broodmares. Range fires followed the drought.

“Dad lost it. Checked out to the point where he couldn’t even be consulted. Penny Ann and I were the only ones left to try to save this ranch....And I had you, Jude. You were a little girl, seven years old. I’m not making excuses, but at that time, I had all I could handle. If Penny Ann hadn’t been here, I don’t know what would have happened. After it all settled down, I wanted to absolutely erase that phase of my life. Keeping pictures of my brother’s widow and son and maintaining a relationship with them was no way to do it.”

Jude felt chastened. She also felt a slew of conflicting emotions, including a reluctant pride in her father’s strength and an intense gratitude that she was his daughter. She had never known great personal grief, but she knew what drought did to the ranching industry, had seen with her own eyes the hand-wringing worry over parched pastures and the desperate, almost superhuman effort to provide thousands of cattle with a simple drink of water.

And range fires. She knew the horror of thousands of acres of pastureland consumed in a matter of minutes and cattle and horses with no escape, suffocated by smoke or burned to death in the path of the fires. All of the money in the world couldn’t remedy either of those catastrophes. She had almost been a victim herself of a range fire. Brady had rescued her.

“Penny Ann kept up with Faye and supported her,” Daddy went on quietly. “I didn’t know it at the time, but after Dad died, I found the evidence in Penny Ann’s personal accounts that Dad kept in his office.”

A sudden flash of anger at the whole tacky situation overtook Jude—at her deceased uncle who apparently had been an irresponsible fool, at her grandfather and father’s stoicism, even at Jake and his stubbornness. “You know something, Daddy? That’s all history and we’re living in the present. It’s ridiculous that we have family floating around outside the perimeters of this ranch and the only time anyone ever sets foot in this house is when someone dies. Jake didn’t even do that much. He didn’t come when Grandpa died. Maybe now would be a good time for you and him to talk. Because I’d really like to give my best friend a wedding reception and I can’t unless Jake agrees to show up.”