CHAPTER EIGHT
KAREN MADE SURE Lee Parker was safely out of the way before she ventured outside. A part of her wanted to continue to hole up, the rest knew her mission couldn’t wait.
She crossed the different backyards, then turned on an angle after the hotel and soon was on the path that led to Pete’s place. As she drew near, the dog started to bark, but he made no real effort to intervene.
Pete stood unblinking in the doorway. “I thought you was leavin’,” he said gruffly.
“I changed my mind.”
The dog risked a speculative sniff of Karen’s leg but scooted away when she reached to pet him. He was as leery of strangers as his owner.
“Why?” Pete demanded.
“For personal reasons,” she answered.
He screwed up his face and squinted at her. “I know. I heard. It’s about that TV man. You was plannin’ on marryin’ him once before and he left you standin’ at the altar.”
Strangely, the way Pete put it, it didn’t hurt as much as it once had. She even managed a grim little grin and corrected, “It wasn’t him, it was his brother.”
Pete waved dismissal. “One’s as good as the other.”
Not exactly a sentiment Karen wanted to grapple with right then. “I’m not here because of my problems, Pete. May I come in? Or do we have to say everything we need like this?”
“I don’t have nothin’ to say.”
“Do you realize the town is this close to calling the sheriff?” She measured a minute amount between her forefinger and thumb. “Is that what you want, Pete? To be arrested? To be put in jail?”
“Hell, no!”
“Then why are you sabotaging everything they try to do? Do you expect them to overlook it? They only have a short time left until the preview.”
“You know what I think of the pree-view!” Pete exaggerated the word from orneriness.
“The whole area knows what you think. You’ve made yourself perfectly clear. But just because you don’t want it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. You don’t own Twilight, Pete, not any more than the rest of them do. You’re outnumbered. The count is twelve to one.”
“That only makes thirteen!” Pete snapped. “That’s not enough.”
“I wasn’t counting baby Jesse or Aunt Augusta.”
“You should have a vote.”
“Pete,” she said patiently, “I don’t live here.”
“You do now. So where’s your vote? You have to take a side.”
Just what she’d been hoping to avoid from the beginning! “Pete, it doesn’t matter which side I’m on. Even if I’m with you, that still only makes two. And if I’m not—”
“You’re not?” he returned, rocking back in surprise.
She sighed. “Can I come in, Pete? I feel funny talking like this, like we’re not friends anymore.”
“Maybe that’s the way it is,” he said stubbornly. “Maybe it’s me that don’t know you so good. I thought I did, but I sure can see now that I mighta been wrong.”
“Pete, please,” she pleaded. “Listen carefully. John says the town is going to become a real ghost town if something isn’t done soon. People are going to move away because they can’t afford to stay. They’re your friends, Pete. Don’t you care?”
“I don’t have any friends,” Pete grumbled.
Karen lost what little patience with him she had left. “No, you certainly don’t! And from the way you’ve been acting, you don’t deserve any, either! Did you take their nails so they couldn’t work? Did you hide the extension cord, make off with the hammers? Did you remove all the screws from the ladder? That’s something a child would do! Not a grown man! Not a man who’s seen as much as you have, who’s done as much. I always looked up to you, Pete. Cheered you for sticking to your way of life. Don’t ruin it all with your stubbornness. You can’t freeze Twilight in time. No matter how hard you try, it’s not going to happen. Towns change, people change!”
“Augusta would be rollin’ in her grave if she had one.” Pete shot back.
“Aunt Augusta would’ve wanted what was best for the people of Twilight. If there was a chance to save the town, she’d be doing all she could to make sure it happened. You know that, Pete, and don’t try to tell me you don’t.” She paused. “If Aunt Augusta was alive, she’d be standing right where I am now, trying to make you see sense.”
Pete glared at her for a long moment before turning away from the door. From her position Karen could see him rummaging through a chest in the corner of the room. He withdrew a paper sack and brought it back with him.
“Give ‘em their darned nails,” he said tightly, transferring possession to her, “and tell ’em I hope every single one of ’em bends or breaks!”
The sack, with other smaller sacks inside, was heavier than Karen expected. She had to make a second effort at supporting it. “I’ll tell them,” she said. Then added with regret, “Try to understand, Pete. Try hard.”
“I don’t hafta understand nothin’, ’cause I’m gettin’ outta here. I don’t wanna be around when the crazies take over.”
She looked at him in alarm. “But you are coming back, aren’t you? You wouldn’t—”
“Maybe...maybe not.” He shrugged. “I haven’t decided.”
“Pete—”
“Get on with ya. I’ve said all I’m gonna say.”
And with that he closed the door, blocking her out of his life.
Karen looked around helplessly. Had she handled it anywhere near properly? Had she said everything she possibly could?
She started to move away, and once again the dog barked.
It gave him something to do.
 
BY LATE AFTERNOON Lee and Manny had settled on several locations for the practice run-throughs of the interviews they would start taping tomorrow. Lee had already arranged times with the chosen subjects—the idea being to use the most effusive and loquacious among the citizenry, so that those harboring misgivings could see how easy it was. Manny, as always, would film everything as a keeper, just in case they ran into a natural who might not be as natural in their “real” interview. It happened that way sometimes. People who were great during the run-through were as frightened as rabbits later on.
They were just about to take the rest of the afternoon off when the clamor of industrious hammering drew them to the hotel. Within minutes they were caught up, helping. Work had broadened from reclaiming the lobby to include refurbishment of the kitchen and the dining room. One or two of the men were in each area, doing what needed to be done. A ruined kitchen drainboard was being ripped apart and dilapidated cabinets were being taken down. The dining room was in the same state as the lobby yesterday, while in the gutted lobby, replacement trims were being put in place.
Manny gravitated to the demolition in the kitchen, while Lee took up a hammer and nails in the lobby.
“You can thank Karen for those,” John said as he jockeyed a length of door trim into proper position.
Lee looked at the thin finishing nail. “For this?” he asked.
“She got ‘em all back from Pete. He’d...uh... relieved us of our burden, so to speak. Almost had a riot. I wasn’t gonna say nothin’ but figured you’d have to be unconscious not to hear about it. We’re all gettin‘ together after work today, havin’ a little shindig to celebrate. You and your people are invited, too, of course.”
“Is Karen coming?” Lee asked.
“You bet! Even if we have to drag her. She’s the one we want to thank most for keepin’ the lid on things. Pete’s also taken himself off into the desert, so that means we can actually get some work done.”
As he made his way toward the front door, Hank Douglas spotted Lee. “Pepper’s gonna be up all night tryin’ to decide what outfit to wear tomorrow. She’s got two special ones and can’t make up her mind.”
“Tell her to relax,” Lee called after him. “The camera will love her whatever she’s wearing.”
“Joe says Rhonda’s havin’ the same problem,” John murmured. “She’s drivin’ him nuts, too.”
Mary O’Conner also was included in the first round of interviews and had asked if Benny could sit in with her. Lee looked around for Benny and found him in the street in front of the hotel, steadying a two-by-four across a set of sawhorses for Hank to cut. Benny looked up and smiled, and smiling back, Lee couldn’t help but think how Mary’s love and devotion to her son was going to shine through.
“Western Rambles” was popular because it commemorated the positive facets of the human spirit—honesty, integrity, generosity, selflessness, cooperation—instead of the baser motives.
Lee had left network television to go off on his own because so much of what was done in the name of news was abhorrent to him. Putting a microphone into the face of a vulnerable person to demand an accounting or to question their up-to-that-second feelings—he’d done it, he’d hated it and he’d sworn never to do it again. “Western Rambles” had been his dream. It had taken years of slogging through one production job after another, but finally, it had happened.
“You off dreamin’ somewheres?” John teased, breaking into Lee’s thoughts.
Lee shook his head, trying to bring his mind back to the present. “I was just...thinking about Benny,” he said.
John paused. “Yeah, it’s a sad story. Mary’s a handful, but maybe she’s had to be, not to let anybody take advantage of that boy of hers. Not even his own dad. Did she tell ya? He left ‘em shortly after Benny’s accident, then showed up a few years later, thinkin’ there might be an insurance settlement. Mary says she told him to get lost, but I’m bettin’ there was a little more to it than that. I’ve seen her operate. And I sure don’t want to be on her wrong side!”
Lee smiled. Mary and Mae would probably get along great.
 
AFTER HER TALK WITH PETE, Karen tried again to concentrate on sorting her aunt’s collection. Numerous reference books lay open on the dining room table, the contents of a second box were scattered about on the floor, more pages in her notebook were filled with her neat handwriting. But a niggling recollection continued to vex her: what Lee had said about Alex having another girlfriend.
Because of the upset with Pete, her thoughts had been diverted. But it was something she couldn’t forget. Lee had said he’d just got through pulling him out of a mess with one girl, when he told me he was engaged to you. By that, he’d intimated a short time frame between events. But she and Alex had dated each other exclusively for a whole year before they’d become engaged. And their engagement had lasted a further six months. It had taken that long to plan the wedding. If Lee was to be believed, it meant Alex had cheated on her up to and possibly even during their engagement.
Karen bit her lip. She didn’t want to believe it, but it had the ring of truth. Then another thought struck her: had Alex abandoned her at their wedding to return to the other girl?
Not that it mattered all that much...
She stopped herself. Shouldn’t it matter?
What was wrong with her that she felt only a mild displeasure with Alex? She should be directing as much intense anger toward him as she had with Lee. Even more. She should be throwing things! Breaking things! Why, for all these years, had her deepest resentments centered on Lee, and to a lesser degree on Mae?
Her mind skittered away from any uncomfortable answers and instead clung to the theory she’d maintained for seven years. The Parkers—the family—were to blame for everything. That was all there was to it.
A short time later someone knocked on the door, and she was surprised to find John, Bette, Carmelite and Joe clustered on the landing.
“Bette and I want you to come with us,” John announced, grinning. “And just in case you turn stubborn, we’ve brought reinforcements.”
“You want me to what?” Karen asked, confused.
“Come to the party we’re havin’ at the Lady Slipper,” John explained. “You might say it’s a Gettin’-Pete-Outta-Our-Hair party! We want to relax, have a little fun. Things have been kinda tense for a while. Now they’re not.”
Joe, too, was grinning hugely. So were Bette and Carmelita.
“Come on,” Bette urged. “It’ll do you good. You need to get away from all these old things for a while and have a good time.”
“I like these old things,” Karen said.
“You’re the guest of honor,” John explained, stepping around her to propel her toward the door. “You have to be there.”
Karen frowned. “Me? How? Why?”
“You got Pete to cooperate,” Joe chimed in.
“I made him leave town! I’m not proud of that.”
They spirited her down the stairs and across the mercantile’s backyard to the saloon.
“Who cares?” Joe said, his hand on her back, impelling her onward.
“I care!” Karen protested, but her reply was lost in the cheerful noises spilling outside.
Again the room was filled with music, the player piano going full tilt, Benny joyfully pumping it.
A cheer went up as Karen entered, and John quickly stationed himself behind the bar, where he could pull beer and hand out soft drinks. Another cheer was given.
“To Karen!” someone called.
“To Twilight!” someone else added.
“To all the tourists who’ll soon be comin’!” toasted yet another.
Karen’s mood lightened in spite of herself. Everyone was so happy. So hopeful. It was hard not to be swept along. To share in their enthusiasm.
She found herself at one end of the bar, a soft drink in one hand, a noisemaker in the other. “Left over from last New Year’s Eve!” John had explained as he’d tossed them around. The noise level had risen even higher.
“Would it be safe to offer my congratulations?” a familiar voice asked shortly after she felt someone slip onto the bar stool next to her.
Karen wanted to pretend that she hadn’t heard him but knew it wouldn’t work.
With her gaze anchored exactly where it had been, on Benny, she challenged, “Since when have you been worried about safety?”
He chuckled. “Not now, that’s for sure. Maybe I should be wearing my flak jacket.”
“When I’m not holding anything more dangerous than an eight-month-old noisemaker?”
“That might be all you think you’re holding.”
Her gaze switched suddenly to his. “Did Alex go back to that other girl? Is that why he left me in church?”
She hadn’t meant to ask that. Not here, not now! Yet she somehow managed to hold eye contact, trying not to be aware of his magnetism, of his good looks...of her newfound awareness of him as a man. He did remind her of Alex. The same Parker looks, with an equal, if not more potent, measure of Parker charm. What was it his assistant had said about him? Lee could charm the birds from the trees if he wanted? He’d gotten around Bette’s resistance. Was hers so easy to get around, too? She banned herself from making further comparisons. It was imperative that she remain cool, detached.
The smoldering smile left his eyes. He didn’t like to be reminded about what Alex had done to her. His reply was simple. “No.”
“Could you expand on that?”
“No,” he said, “he didn’t go back to the other girl. That’s not why he left you at the altar.”
She took a breath. “More, please?”
“Are you a glutton for punishment, like your mother thinks?” When she didn’t answer, he said flatly, “Alex left because the idea of marriage frightened him out of his mind. And that’s quite a joke now, considering he’s on his fourth marriage.”
“His fourth?” she repeated, shocked.
“He takes a new set of vows every year or two. If he keeps to schedule, number four should be getting nervous.”
“But he’s only a year older than—”
“You are. I know.”
“What’s wrong with him? What’s happened? That’s not the way—the Alex I knew wouldn’t—”
“The Alex you knew didn’t bother to tell you to cancel the wedding. He canceled it himself, like a coward.”
“If I don’t hate him, why should you?”
“I don’t hate him. I just know him for what he is.”
“Because he shamed the Parker name.”
He reacted to her disdain by frowning. “The Parker name stands for something, Karen. Something you never had an opportunity to see. All you got was the rough edge.”
“As if you care!” she shot back. She felt herself tightening up, felt her detachment faltering.
“I care more than you might think.”
She couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to get out of there. Without a word she hopped off the stool and headed for the front door. She heard Lee call after her. Heard other people call her name, as well, but she didn’t look back.
She knew she was calling attention to the two of them by her action. But if Pete had learned their story, so had everyone else. A secret was impossible to keep in a town this small. She was surprised the others hadn’t already begun to question her about it.
Her sandals scuffed lightly on the plank sidewalk, then padded soundlessly across the hard-packed street to the well. As a child she’d played near it for hours. She’d had strict instructions never to touch the wooden covers and she hadn’t. One look down into the seemingly bottomless pit had satisfied her curiosity and convinced her she didn’t want to repeat the mistake of the unfortunate child who’d needed to be rescued.
The tree directly behind the well was even more gnarled than Karen remembered it, some of its branches now lifeless. But it still bore the initials she’d carved in its trunk near the lowest fork—a very small KL
She ran her fingers over her childish effort and wondered at the others scattered around it. Who were these people who’d also left their marks for posterity? Stagecoach riders? Settlers heading west? The child who had fallen into the well?
“Karen?” A woman’s soft voice called for her attention. “Is it all right if we talk?”
Karen looked up to see Lee’s assistant She tried but failed to remember her name.
“Diane,” the newcomer supplied, almost as if she’d read her mind. “Diane Cruz. I don’t blame you for not remembering, considering everything that happened .”
“Yes,” Karen agreed tightly. “I did make a rather dramatic exit.”
Diane tossed her short blond hair and laughed. “I’ll say! It took us all a full minute to speak. We were so surprised. We didn’t know. Lee hadn’t told us.”
Karen pushed some stray strands of hair away from her face. She didn’t want to talk about Lee, or Alex, or her involvement with either of them.
“Is it naturally curly?” Diane asked, motioning to her hair.
Karen nodded.
“I’ve always wanted curly hair. I tried a permanent once, but it frizzed so badly I looked like a monster from a B horror movie. Frizz Girl from the Black Lagoon!” She giggled.
Karen smiled. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“Oh, it was. Ask Manny.”
Diane went to stand by the well, and after a moment Karen joined her. She missed having Rachel to talk to.
Diane mused, “I wonder what it was like when Nate Barlow jumped off his horse to get a drink and heard the child’s cry for help? How it felt to have to make that kind of decision. Your life or the child’s? If he’d ridden on, the child would more than likely have died. No one would have heard him.”
“I’ve never really thought about it,” Karen said, shrugging.
“It’s just a story you’ve heard since you first came to Twilight.”
“Yes.”
“What about your aunt? Did she ever say anything about it?”
“Not really.”
Diane worked a pebble through a small crack in the wooden covers. Moments later they heard a hollow-sounding splash.
“It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it?” Diane mused again, turning to look at her. “The town going downhill because the well fails them, the outlaw, the posse, the child, the 1939 movie, the current remake, the town possibly starting to prosper again—all because of what happened at the well. It’s almost as if there’s a plan. Do you believe in fate?”
Karen wondered what the woman was getting at. Diane seemed sweet, but she was also smart. And she’d had a reason for following her. Karen murmured, “As you say, when you look back, things often seem to have a purpose.”
“May I ask you something personal?” Diane asked.
Karen nodded, tensing imperceptibly. Dusk was heavier, but her action was still visible.
“What do you have against Lee? I mean, other than being Alex’s older brother. And other than being a Parker—neither of which he can help.”
“Did he send you after me?” Karen demanded.
Diane smiled wryly. “Lee doesn’t send anyone to plead his cause. He either pleads it himself or says to hell with it. I was just wondering, because you’re the first person I’ve ever met who’s reacted negatively to him. Most people take to him right away. It’s a gift. Manny has it, too, but not as much as Lee. Do you know, Lee still gets calls from people we worked with the first season of ‘Western Rambles’? They want to tell him what’s going on in their lives. Not for the show, but because they continue to see him as a friend.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Karen asked tightly.
Diane shrugged. “He’s my friend, too. I don’t like to see him treated unfairly.”
“He’s a Parker!” Karen scoffed. “I doubt he’ll suffer.”
“I’ve met the Parker family. The ones who live on the ranch—Mae, Rafe and Shannon. Gib, Harriet and LeRoy, Christine and Morgan. Taken all together in one place, they’re a bit—” she smiled “—over-whelming. But I like them. They’re good people.”
“You’ve obviously never been on their wrong side.”
“And you were,” Diane said.
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
Diane’s blue eyes filled with sincerity. “Manny and I have never met Alex, but I know brothers can be as different as night and day. Lee’s a good man. A great boss. The best thing Manny and I both ever did was agree to work with him. He’s always treated us fairly, with friendship, with respect... and not many bosses would do what he has—made his crew partners in the business. He has control, but we have a say. And we get a share of the profits. We’re a real team.”
“Which underscores my skepticism.”
“I’m not saying this because Lee asked me to,” Diane denied again.
“But you know which side your bread is buttered on, don’t you? Can’t you conceive he might not be as wonderful as you think? That none of the Parkers are?”
Diane shot back, “And can’t you conceive that he is?”
Karen turned to walk away. This day had been interminably long, with too much emotion swinging back and forth. She barely knew what she was saying anymore, what she was thinking. All she wanted was to go somewhere quiet.
Diane jogged a few steps to catch up with her. “Karen, look,” she said, falling into place at her side, “I didn’t mean for us to argue. Maybe we’re both just a little prejudiced in our views. You’ve had one experience with the Parkers, I’ve had another. All I was trying to do was get you to give Lee a chance.”
A chance to do what? Karen wanted to counter. She was as close to tears now as she’d been after she and Lee—She thought again of her strong reaction to his kiss. Of the way she’d felt upon seeing him in the yard, of talking to him just now at the bar....
All right! Yes! She admitted to herself. There was some kind of attraction flaring between them that had nothing to do with her prior relationship with Alex. But that didn’t mean she had to give in to it! She’d be crazy to give in to it!
She didn’t notice when Diane broke away and returned to the saloon.