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At five o’clock, Troy ended the day’s clinic. The winter sun had lost its heat. Darkness was descending as everyone loaded horses and one by one drove away. He returned Batman to the corral and stalls Lou had let him use. After unsaddling him, Troy gave him a quick brushing in the dim light of the barn’s one bulb. “You did good today, ol’ boy.”
While he put out feed, Lou came over and asked if he needed anything, to which he answered no.
“I’m going to the house. It’s been a long day. You have a good night.” She ambled toward the tumbledown Beckman ranch house.
Sal reappeared from somewhere. “Good day?”
“Not too bad. Had some good horses. I’m beat. Not enough sleep last night. I’m gonna eat and go to bed.”
“That wild horse okay?”
“The one that acted out? Oh, yeah, he’s cool. Just expressing himself.”
“You sure?”
“He just needs some love.”
“You’re not afraid of horses in the least, are you?”
“’Course not. Are you?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Troy slapped his bodyguard on the shoulder and chuckled. “Sal, Sal, Sal. I imagine you’ve been in situations that would terrify me and you’re afraid of some poor ol’ horse?”
Sal gave him a rare grin. “I’m working on it.”
Inside his trailer, Troy built a ham and cheese sandwich. His diet during his travels left a lot to be desired. When he reached home again, maybe his first meal would be a big rib-eye charred on the grill on his patio or better yet, one of Johnnie Sue’s larruping homecooked meals at the ranch house.
An image of Rudy stayed in his mind. Scarred, unkempt and scared. He had to help that horse and he would. He hadn’t yet figured out the links between the horse and the two women who brought him or the older man who picked all of them up. Tomorrow he would give it more attention.
He lifted a gallon-jug of milk out of the refrigerator and poured himself a glass. Sliding into the booth with his sandwich and milk, the light over the table “spotlighted” him. He reached up and turned it off. No sense tempting fate.
As he ate, Sarah Karol floated into his mind. She was something to look at and he should be a good judge. The cutting horse society was rife with rich, hot women. Groupies. He had met dozens, many of them making no secret of being on the make or searching for something they would never find in a place like a horse show. They all looked and behaved alike, putting on an act, seeking the attention of men like himself. Women like Dorinda Fisk.
The woman he had met today was no groupie. He doubted she ever had been or ever would be. She was a no-nonsense cowgirl, the real deal. On top of that, she was the prettiest girl he had seen in a while and the most interesting. A story hid behind those striking blue-green eyes.
And that mouth. Lord. She could do damage with that harlot’s mouth. With plump, heart-shaped lips, she looked as if she belonged in an old painting. Nude. He shook his head once, clearing it of those thoughts. He didn’t need a new entanglement with a new female. He hadn’t yet totally escaped from the one from whom he was trying to free himself.
After finishing his sandwich, he moved to his reclining chair. Part of the custom design of the living quarters was eliminating one of the sofas so he had room for a reclining chair. He was sometimes on his feet the whole day, like today. He liked putting his feet up when he relaxed. He pried off his boots and kicked back. Then he reached for his phone and switched it on to a long list of text messages.
A message from Kate told him to hurry up and get home because the family missed him. She was as proud of Dandy Little Lady as he was. She should be. She was the one who persuaded him to buy semen from Sandy Dandy’s owner, an outstanding performer belonging to a breeder west of Fort Worth.
Pic’s text said Drake and his wife and kid would show up on Saturday. Last Christmas, Drake’s son was an infant, not good for much except spitting up, messing up and demanding attention. Even then, he was already showing personality traits from his daddy.
Troy saw him again in June when he was a few months older but still barely human. Now, according to Dad, Will was walking around, full of piss and vinegar and getting into everything. Too bad baby humans weren’t the easy keepers that baby animals were. On that score, he and his brother Pic agreed.
He came to two new texts from Dorinda. Setting the other messages aside, he keyed into the first one: Hi. Need 2 talk. Pls call me
Not likely. He and Dorinda had already talked enough. He deleted that text and moved to the next one: Duncan home tomorrow pm. Pls call me B4.
Fuck! Dorinda’s husband was coming home early? The senator spent most of his time in D.C. While his wife played in Dallas, he had his own thing going back there. Or at least, that was what Dorinda said. She also said he paid little attention to her social activities or her friends. He must feel a need to touch base with the voters in Texas.
Senator Duncan Fisk and Bill Junior hated each other. The animosity went back years to environmental issues and legislation in Congress and campaign contributions and only God knew what else.
Troy wished he hadn’t opened those messages from Dorinda. He hesitated, his thumb hovering between the “Write” and the “Delete” key. Did he owe Dorinda a Christmas message?
She could have already cleared up the absurdity of Troy being on the Texas Rangers’ persons-of-interest list for Kate’s barn fire. All it would have taken was one short conversation with Blake Rafferty or the arson investigator from Kate’s insurance company. Dorinda had refused to do it.
A flash of anger darted through Troy. Nah, he didn’t owe her a damn thing. He deleted her second message, too.
He braced his elbow on the chair arm. Squeezing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and finger, he thought back on how in the hell he had gotten mixed up with her and her craziness in the first place.
Their fling—that’s all you could call it—began two years ago when Jordan Palmer and one of Drake’s old girlfriends, Donna Schoonover, had introduced them over drinks after a cutting playday. Donna was drunk as usual. Drake had done himself a good turn by kicking her out of his life. Troy had spent his fair share of time partying, so he wasn’t a teetotaler. Still, he had a low tolerance for drunks. Living with their dad, all of the Lockhart siblings shared the feeling.
Dorinda wasn’t the heavy boozer Donna was, but that day at the cutting playday, Donna, in her cups, had made it clear Dorinda was looking for a good time and left no doubt she was a sure thing. At the time, the sure thing was all Troy sought in women. He had no time for seduction and he never did courtship, ever.
The hook-up had been off-the-wall weird from the get-go, starting with the fact that Dorinda was seventeen years older than he. Troy didn’t know her age at first, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. She was hot as a firecracker in bed and a woman’s age had never put him off.
He soon learned that sex with Dorinda was anything but typical. She liked sex hot, raw and dirty, had introduced him to bedroom pleasures he had never known before. Being married and intending to stay married, she demanded no commitment. Traveling as much as he did, he didn’t see her that often. What straight, red-blooded unattached man would reject all of that?
She hung with a small circle of friends with time on their hands and more money than they knew what to do with. Gradually, she had invited him into her orbit. He had willingly gone but soon learned that her friends were more than a little kinky, which turned him off more than it excited him.
He drew the line at voyeurism, multiple partners, sharing partners and a few other acts that were the stuff of porn movies. She swore she didn’t take part either. If he got together with her and her crowd got too strange, he simply went home. Not that he minded watching porn movies under the right circumstances. Becoming a participant was another matter.
Drake and Pic had chastised him for fooling around with not only a married woman but the wife of one of Dad’s enemies and one of the biggest crooks in Washington. Pic had even nagged him about going to see a doctor. Christ, why hadn’t he listened to what they tried to tell him?
Well ... he had followed Pic’s advice about seeing a doctor.
Included among Dorinda’s friends was Jordan Palmer who, years back, was engaged to Troy’s little sister Kate. Small world. The hows and whys of his twenty-one-year-old sister being engaged to a thirty-two-year-old man of dubious reputation had passed through Troy’s thoughts maybe once or twice but hadn’t stayed there.
When Kate and Jordan were engaged, Troy was a kid himself, the same age as Kate. She was in college at A&M and he was enrolled in Tarleton closer to home. His mind was on maintaining a high GPA, rescuing horses when he saw the need and building up to owning and training winners.
After Kate graduated and moved back to the ranch, she came to her senses and handed Jordan his hat, but Jordan hadn’t given up easily. He stalked her and scared her and Drake kicked his ass. Then Jordan eventually latched on to Troy. Even after all of that, Troy still had given little thought to Jordan being his little sister’s former fiancée.
When he thought of it now, the coincidence and connection were as confusing as a math problem with no solution. All of it swirled in his brain and fractured his focus. He didn’t need this crap in his life. He didn’t need Dorinda talking about divorcing her husband of years so something more serious could develop between herself and Troy. He didn’t do serious. If and when he ever did, it would be with a woman who had a few more morals than Dorinda and who was closer to his own age, a woman with whom he might have a family.
He should have listened to his brothers and cut ties with Dorinda and Jordan both a long time ago.
“Fuck it,” he griped and got to his feet. Horses were safer than women. He took a quick shower, brushed his teeth and went to bed.
***
THE NEXT MORNING, TROY awoke early as usual. Rested, he expected to have a good day. He crossed his fingers, hoping Sarah Karol would be around with Rudy. Besides worry over Rudy’s future, something about the Karol woman had seized his attention and held it.
He had been too wiped out last night to answer text messages, but he hadn’t forgotten the messages from Dorinda. He poured himself a mug of coffee then sat down in the dining booth with his phone.
A new text appeared from Jordan Palmer: Hey, buddy. Merry Christmas. All the family getting together for a big holiday at the ranch?
Jordan’s message stopped him for a few beats. Troy hadn’t been in touch with him in months. Now, in the past two days, he had received two messages. He scrolled back to Jordan’s text he had ignored on Sunday: Going to be at the ranch for Christmas?
Jordan knew the Lockhart family, knew the family gathered at the ranch every Christmas. He had even spent a Christmas at the ranch when he and Kate were engaged. What the hell did he want? He wanted something because at some point in their history, Troy had finally caught on that using people was a pattern with Jordan.
He set the question aside, mentally tagging it as something he would go back to. He scrolled to the last message from Dorinda and tapped in a reply: U need 2 talk 2 B. Rafferty. Need to clear up Kate’s fire. If U R not willing 2 dont text me anymore.
Satisfied he had done all he could about the challenging people in his life for the moment, he dragged breakfast fixings from the refrigerator. Sal would soon be joining him.
***
AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT, Amanda awoke slowly. Without opening her eyes, she reached across her and Pic’s king-size bed feeling for him, but his big body was missing. She opened her eyes and turned her head, stared at his empty space. They usually greeted the morning together, chatting and teasing and enjoying each other’s company. More times than not they had sex, one of the few parts of life they shared these days without debate.
His dressing and leaving without waking her was evidence of how angry he had been yesterday afternoon after she didn’t put out for him. To be fair, she couldn’t blame him. After he had taken care of her needs, she had ignored his and ambushed him with talk of doctors and conception, a conversation she could have postponed.
No wonder she made no progress trying to explain herself. She should have calmed down and waited for a better time.
Then she compounded the problem by pouting like a kid and not coming out of their suite for supper, followed by pretending to be asleep when he came to bed.
Her only excuse for such a big mistake was that she was excited after her visit to Dr. Goodman.
All through her shower and makeup she dwelled on her marriage. She and Pic quarreled so much lately. Before getting married, they never even argued. Why did his discussing everything with his brother annoy her so much now when it hadn’t in the past? He had always consulted Drake. She knew that a long time before their wedding. If he would ever tell her the truth, before he proposed, he had probably discussed marrying her with Drake.
As many years as she had known Pic and his brother, maybe she hadn’t known the extent to which Pic relied on Drake until after their marriage. Drake—and not her—was the person whose opinion Pic valued first. Drake was the only male, including Bill Junior, in whom he had total trust.
To be fair, besides Drake, who else did Pic know who bore as much responsibility as he did and who understood how his life had changed? He had many old friends from high school and a few from college, but they were not confidantes. In truth, they were nothing but hunting or fishing buddies. Adulthood and responsibility and had isolated her husband. He was no longer the have-a-good-time, happy-go-lucky Pic.
Yet, his bond with Drake was no longer what it used to be either. His big brother had a wife and kid who took most of his attention. In addition, he was so busy these days with his own business Amanda doubted that Pic had been able to talk to him at all about anything personal.
Oh, they all made time to talk about the damn horses, especially now that they were going into breeding and foaling season and Troy had a horse that had won the World Finals. Dandy Little Lady was still a baby, but still, a daily conversation occurred about which stallion should be allowed to breed with her and when.
At the Double-Barrel, one could never forget which mare was impregnated by which stallion or which one was scheduled to be screwed by another or inseminated or whatever. Between the cows and the horses, sex was a never-ending event.
Drake found plenty of time to yak with Bill Junior or Pic or even Troy about the ranch and investments and money, but that talk never veered off into anything personal. Mental sigh. Well, Mr. Big Shot real estate mogul could just give his little brother a few minutes of his time. She would see to it that he did. The future direction of her and Pic’s marriage might depend on it.
After readying for work, she pulled a jacket out of her closet and walked to the kitchen. Johnnie Sue was sitting at the breakfast table, busy with pen and paper. Amanda laid her jacket across the back of a chair. “Good morning.”
“Mornin’.” The housekeeper pushed to her feet, carried her papers and pen to a cabinet drawer and put them away. She lifted a placemat and silverware from another drawer.
“Pic must’ve left really early,” Amanda said. “I slept right through it.”
“It was early all right. He already had the coffee going when I got over here.”
The housekeeper used to live in the ranch house in a two-room suite attached to the kitchen, but after Amanda moved in, Johnnie Sue had moved into a small house a short distance away. Nevertheless, she was in the kitchen by five or five-thirty every morning. In the summer, she drove over in a golf cart and in the winter months, she drove her car.
“The wagon boss came by,” she said. “I cooked breakfast for both of ’em and made ’em a lunch. They headed for the mesa.”
Amanda pictured the slow, rugged trip to the high plateau known as the mesa. “Oh, hell. I suppose that means he’ll be gone all-day.” She drew a mug of coffee from the urn on the end of the counter. “I hope they weren’t horseback. Pic was already sore from riding yesterday.”
“They took one of the work pickups.”
Amanda leaned her backside against the counter edge and sipped her coffee. The housekeeper placed the placemat on the breakfast table, then a cloth napkin and silverware. “I made your lunch out of the fried chicken we had yesterday. I put in some of the slaw we had, too.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Finished with setting the table for one, Johnnie Sue looked up. “Go ahead and sit down. You want some pancakes for breakfast? I still got bacon and there’s plenty of batter.”
Amanda was capable of making her own breakfast, even preferred it, but Johnnie Sue was so insistent Amanda had ceased arguing months ago and submitted to being served. When she first moved into the ranch house, thinking the cooking and housekeeping for the sprawling house and bunkhouse were large tasks, she offered to help with housekeeping chores and even the cooking. Her offer was always declined.
Finally, Pic had told her, “You don’t need to worry about housekeeping stuff. We’ve got people to do it.”
Indeed. Two different women from town came in three days a week to do cleaning and laundry, supervised by Johnnie Sue. The housekeeper hired additional people if the ranch had guests.
As long as Amanda had known Pic and as often as she had been to the Double-Barrel before they married, she had never known exactly how the ranch household worked. She had been so dumb. Who wouldn’t figure out that two men living alone would hire household help?
“Sure, I’ll eat a couple of pancakes,” she said to Johnnie Sue.
The breakfast table that sat at one end of the kitchen was usually brightened by the morning sunlight streaming through a wide bay window. Yesterday had been a bright, sunny day and the temperature had been in the seventies. Today, the temperature was still supposed to be warm, but the clouds hung low, hiding the sun, making a gloomy day. Fitting for her mood.
The antique round oak table overlooked the steep walls of the Brazos River Canyon, its ancient layers of limestone strata and beyond. She took a seat giving her the best view and watched a hawk float soundlessly down into the canyon.
“Cloudy this morning,” she said and keyed into an app on her phone that told her the day would be balmy but cloudy.
Still thinking about how the housekeeper had staked a claim on the kitchen, she turned toward the stove and watched her finishing up the pancakes. She had the cooking and housekeeping well in hand and was more territorial than a cat. The only thing she required from Amanda was an answer to “What do you want to eat and when?”
Amanda did do her own laundry. On that much, she insisted. She couldn’t imagine someone else doing something so personal as washing the clothing she wore.
“Bill Junior didn’t go up to the mesa with Pic and Dusty, did he?” she asked.
“Lord, no. Bill Junior hasn’t been home since yesterday.”
Oh, hell. Amanda had lived here long enough to know what that could mean. “Where is he?”
“Don’t know.”
Damn. Probably drunk. Amanda’s jaw tightened. Her father-in-law was a binge drinker. He might go for weeks, even months and not drink at all or drink only moderately, then something would tip him over and he would drink steadily for days at a time.
Since becoming Pic’s wife and living in the house with his father, Amanda had researched binge drinking. It was a type of alcoholism, but she had never heard anyone call the powerful William Drake Lockhart, Jr. a drunk. She had always known in a distant way that the Double-Barrel patriarch behaved this way, but before marrying Pic, she hadn’t known how trying living with it day-to-day could be.
“Isn’t Marcus supposed to be keeping up with him?”
“Bill Junior tells those bodyguards not to follow him, so they don’t. He’s the one writing their paycheck, so...” Johnnie Sue shrugged.
Bill Junior was not the one who wrote the checks to Redstone Security. An accounting firm in Fort Worth paid all of the Double-Barrel’s bills, overseen by Drake. That was none of the housekeeper’s business, but she seemed to know everything else that went on at the ranch. Why she didn’t know who signed her paycheck was a question. “Hah. I’ll bet Drake doesn’t know that. No one knows where he went?”
Johnnie Sue pulled a plate out of the warmer and arranged slices of bacon and three perfectly cooked golden pancakes on it. “I don’t think so. Or if anybody does, he ain’t saying.”
Damn. The he to whom Johnnie Sue referred was obviously Pic. If Bill Junior failed to come home today and Pic didn’t know his whereabouts, he would feel obligated to go out and look for him.
Aggravation pecked at Amanda. A grown man of Bill Junior’s wealth and status disappearing with no one knowing where he went or when he would be back was ridiculous. She would never grow accustomed to it. Her own father, God rest his soul, would never have done something so irresponsible. “You know something? Sometimes he acts worse than some of my students.”
Johnnie Sue brought her plate to the table. “Want me to freshen your coffee?”
“I’ll do it.” Amanda rose to her feet and started for the coffee urn. “You’d think the man could control his tom-catting around until after the holidays. Makes you wonder if he ever gives any thought to anyone besides himself.”
The housekeeper shook her head as she stood a bottle of real maple syrup on the table. “He’s a troubled man. He’s been in one of his moods ever since he heard Mrs. Lockhart was going to Santa Fe with her boyfriend.”
“Humph. I wonder what excuses he used when he and Betty were younger and lived together. As far as I’m concerned, Bill Junior has earned whatever torment Betty inflicts on him. I don’t know why her going on a trip with what’s his name—Barron Wilkes?—should be a big upset since she did the same thing last year with the same guy.”
Amanda might not like Betty Lockhart, but facts were facts. The high school’s gossip mill talked and even joked about Bill Junior’s affairs and multi-day benders and had for as long as Amanda had been teaching there. The man had partied hard and cheated on Betty off and on for years with numerous women, apparently without much criticism from anyone in the family.
Pic and Drake and even Troy and Kate turned a blind eye to their parents’ marital strife and most likely, that would never change. Amanda found the hypocrisy stunning. She held a firm conviction that his going off the deep end every time Betty did something he didn’t like was the most current childish excuse for obnoxious conduct.
Thank God for all of the hours of psychology she had taken in college. She recognized the toxic co-dependency between her in-laws for what it was. That recognition was the only thing that enabled her to have a cordial relationship with her father-in-law.
She spread soft butter over her pancakes and drowned them in maple syrup. She would have to swim an extra twenty laps to get rid of all of these calories. She loved Johnnie Sue’s pancakes with real butter and real maple syrup. Because of the price, before becoming a member of this family, genuine maple syrup was something she passed up in the grocery store. Johnnie Sue was instructed to buy and serve nothing but the best of everything.
The housekeeper’s hands propped on her skinny hips, she stood gazing out the window over the sink, as if watching for Bill Junior might make him show up any minute. “I don’t like to criticize. Bill Junior and his boys have been real good to me. I feel like I got a home here. I feel bad for him when he gets like this. I wonder if Mrs. Lockhart knows how much what she does affects him.”
Oh, the evil witch knows and she’s probably happy about it. But it wouldn’t do to say that to Johnnie Sue who appeared to be as loyal as a dog. “I’ve wondered that myself,” Amanda said instead.
She restrained her speech, but her mind churned. The whole world knew that Bill Junior and Betty were separated even if they weren’t divorced. If he wanted a nice woman in his life, he could most likely have one. He was an attractive middle-aged man who was richer than Croesus, forgodsake. Women threw themselves at him, some quite a bit younger than middle-age. The way society behaved these days, a little fact like a lack of a divorce decree would be no obstacle. He didn’t have to pine for Betty or take up with barflies.
These and other annoyances jumbled within her. She rose from her chair and carried her plate to the sink. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be late. Thanks for breakfast. Have you seen Chris yet?”
“He came in and got coffee earlier,” Johnnie Sue answered. “He’s out front waitin’ on you.”
Amanda had been included in the Lockhart security bubble even before she and Pic married. At first, Chris Taylor had only followed her the short distance to school from her house in town, discreetly hung out around the school and swimming pool then followed her home.
Since the Fort Worth parking lot incident, the cocoon of security had grown even more constricting. Now she hardly drove herself anywhere and Chris was a constant presence. Every day, he drove her to school in one of Redstone Security’s big black SUVs, armed and making himself obvious wherever she was, and bringing her home in the afternoon. Like some monarch, Drake had pronounced that arrangement “safer.”
“He’s so efficient,” she said sarcastically. She plucked her jacket off the back of the chair and shrugged into it. “I sure hope this storm that’s coming in clears out by Christmas.” She picked up her book satchel and purse. “See you tonight. Anything you need from town?”
“Not a thing. You have a good day, you hear? Don’t let those kids get the best of you.”
Amanda gave the housekeeper a thumbs-up. “So far, so good. If you don’t mind, tell Pic I should be home early.”
And when she got back home, she intended to dedicate the evening to making up with her husband. She had been a jerk and she owed him an apology.
