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Shannon Lockhart’s workday began early. Her first goal was to get her best friend’s Christmas present to her. She should have brought the gift to work with her yesterday. The week was catching up with her rapidly. She might not have another opportunity to deliver the present before leaving for the Double-Barrel.
Over the past weekend, Shannon and Grammy Evelyn made a huge scrumptious gift basket for Christa who did them both many favors. Included were several designer-brand skincare and bath products from Nieman Marcus, products that were too expensive for Christa to buy regularly and a gift box of her favorite fragrance and lotion—also too expensive for her to buy. Inside the fragrance box, Shannon stuffed a gift certificate to QVC and a Walmart gift card. She topped the basket off with a large box of Godiva chocolates, a name-brand designer wristwatch and several CDs.
This morning, she added three bottles of wine Drake had personally chosen. His company offices occupied the upper floors of a vintage building in downtown Fort Worth. A busy deli leased the street-level floor and sold a wide assortment of fine wines.
On the way to work this morning, she rushed into Walmart and bought a couple of video games for Christa’s two boys. Raising two preteen sons and no husband to share the load, Christa often didn’t have sixty or seventy dollars to blow on a video game. Shannon had given them several.
Before hanging her coat on the coat tree in the corner of her office, she called Christa at her office and made a date for lunch at Red Rover’s, one of their old favorite hangouts. She had just settled at her desk when her cell phone bleated. Most of the calls that came in on her cell were from friends and family. Without checking Caller ID, she pressed into the call. “This is Shannon.”
“Hi, Sister,” Mandy said.
Uh-oh. A puzzling stab of apprehension dinged Shannon, which often occurred when she heard from her sister-in-law. She wasn’t that well acquainted with Mandy, had only seen her a few times. Shannon didn’t dislike her, but sometimes she made veiled criticisms of Drake and other off-the-wall comments that took Shannon aback. She did and said things that in Shannon’s mind were odd for a member of the family.
She took a seat behind her desk, drawing a deep breath and brushing tendrils of her unruly hair off her face. Colum James was already a big baby. She sometimes felt breathless. “Oh, hi, Mandy.”
“Just wanted to tell you I went to an appointment with Dr. Goodman yesterday. I see why you like her so much.”
Shannon put her phone on speaker and began to sort through documents her assistant had left on her desk. She prompted her memory. At least a month ago, Mandy asked for her OB doctor’s phone number. “Oh, did you? Yes, she’s a great doctor. So easy to talk to. Anything new to share?”
“I’m not pregnant if that’s your question. She finds no reason for me not to be though. Not much different from the two doctors I went to up in Fort Worth.”
Twice now, having gotten pregnant accidentally and so easily herself, until this moment, Shannon had given little thought to how badly Mandy wanted a baby. “Hmm. What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure exactly. She wants Pic and me to visit her together, but Pic is being so intractable...”
Oh, hell. Intractable. Shannon only vaguely knew the meaning of that word. Half the time Mandy talked over Shannon’s head. The whole Lockhart family was better educated than she was. If intractable meant stubborn, as Shannon suspected, she related. She dealt with her own challenges with a Lockhart brother. She snorted a laugh. “A Lockhart intractable? I can’t imagine.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to a woman doctor about sex, as he put it.”
Recognizing the tenor of the call, Shannon picked up her cell phone and took it off speaker. “Hey, all of the Lockhart men I’ve met do have a chauvinistic streak. Ego, I suppose.”
“Pic thinks he should discuss this with Drake. I can’t believe he wants to talk about it to someone besides me, but there it is. That man suffers from a middle child complex big time. Sometimes it’s so glaring in his personality it’s textbook. I’ve even gone back to my old textbooks and researched and he shows most of the signs. Anyway, he thinks his big brother can give him the name of a male doctor he can go to after Christmas.”
Uh-oh. Mandy wasn’t shouting, but threads of impatience and even anger underlaid her sharp tone. Shannon worked at staying out of the Lockhart family’s quarrels and upsets. “What kind of doctor?”
“A urologist, I think. Does Drake know a urologist he’d recommend?”
Did Drake know a urologist? The question stumped Shannon and a frown tugged her brows together. She pulled up her salesman’s voice and replied to Mandy with caution. “I’m so sorry you and Pic are having this problem, Mandy. Try not to let it bother you. From what I see, Drake and Pic do have a special bond. Maybe it’s because they’re so close to the same age. In their Wild West upbringing by their parents, I think they must have relied on each other to find some sanity.”
“Oh, I know all about that. Pic and I grew up together. Actually, I’m acquainted with the whole family. You’re right about ego. Overblown ego is part of their DNA. It goes all the way back to Bill Senior and maybe before him. That man was a total chauvinist. I suspect Sarah was never as happy when he was alive as she’s been since he died. She’s so old now and half crazy, so she speaks out a little more about Bill Senior and their marriage.”
Whoa! Shannon hadn’t heard many details about Drake’s grandparents on either side of his family. Other than a remark once by her own grandmother, she had never heard anyone say anything so disrespectful of the man who was reputed to have taken the Lockharts from being comfortably wealthy to mega-rich. She sat back in her chair, her curiosity abounding. “You think so?”
“Oh, God, yes. When Betty still lived here, Bill Junior was almost as bad as the old man. I witnessed some of those knock-down-drag-outs between him and Betty after he had been out carousing for days at a time. I’m not fond of that woman, but at least she didn’t just roll over and take it like Bill Senior’s wife did. At least she put up a fight. I think she would’ve left here sooner if she hadn’t been so involved with remodeling the ranch house.”
Shannon’s brow arched as her alter ego spoke up: Well, that’s one reason to stay in a miserable marriage. “Hm. No doubt having a project helps.”
Shannon had been to the Double-Barrel ranch house only a few times and had never seen all of it. She pictured the rooms that were familiar. All were beautifully decorated in Southwestern Chic, probably from some elegant store like The Arrangement in Dallas. Though the house was a hundred-year-old small structure remodeled several times into a near-mansion, traces of its age remained. Where was this conversation headed? She bit down on her lower lip.
“And Drake even...”
At the mention of her husband’s name again, Shannon’s spine straightened and she gave a hundred percent of her attention to her sister-in-law.
“I had just started high school when he and Tammy McMillan got engaged,” Mandy said. “I still believe that whole thing was engineered by Betty and Tammy’s mother. The Lockharts and the McMillans were neighbors, you know. Drake had just graduated from high school, but he was still a kid and everyone said he was a virgin. Tammy was waaay more experienced than he was. You can imagine how that went. After she gave his ring back, he turned into a sex maniac. He tried to screw everything that would stand still and let him.”
Shannon’s eyes squeezed shut. She did not want to hear this.
“And belligerent?” Mandy continued. “Oh, my God. He would’ve picked a fight with a priest. Given who he is, I’m surprised somebody didn’t sue the whole family.”
“Well, that was years ago, right”, Shannon said, searching for an exit from this conversation.
“Seventeen to be exact and you know what? I still don’t know for sure what happened to that gorgeous engagement ring he gave Tammy. I do know he got it back. Pic thinks Betty has it in her bank box. Whatever. It hasn’t been seen or even discussed since the breakup.”
Shannon glanced down, straightening the fingers of her left hand and admiring her own wedding ring—a natural yellow diamond the size of a dime. The one he gave Tammy McMillan must have been bigger and fancier.
Shannon’s jaw quirked. Coveting a larger, more expensive ring wasn’t in her makeup, but the emotion attached to it pecked at her. If Shannon Piper left Drake Lockhart, would he grieve by picking fights and pursuing wild women?
Her alter ego piped up again. What is wrong with you? He was twenty years old. All twenty-year-olds would screw a fencepost. He was too young to get married anyway.
Mandy’s laugh brought her back to the conversation. “Oh, crap. I probably shouldn’t tell you that about Drake. Pic would kill me if he knew I said anything.”
Shannon was never disinterested in her husband’s past, but she strived to not let her anxiety travel through the phone. “Oh, don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago. I’ll never mention it.”
“I know. But I know better than most people that hurts like that hang on a long time.”
Shannon didn’t disagree. She had a few recollections of her own that were impossible to totally forget. Did Drake still cling to memories of the blond beauty who dumped him for another man?
Her alter ego gave her a pinch. Stop it! You’ll never know the answer to that question. You need to get on with your day.
Shannon shifted her thoughts to wondering why Mandy had called and right on cue, her sister-in-law responded as if she read Shannon’s mind. “The reason I called is to ask you if you’ll put a bug in Drake’s ear. Maybe when y’all are down here next week, he could find a private minute to persuade his little brother that the two of us going to a doctor together is a good idea. Dr. Goodman is the handiest and I do like her. If Drake blesses it, I know Pic will do it.”
A simple request and the reason for the call. Shannon breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Sure. I’ll talk to him about it.”
“Tell him to discuss artificial insemination and in vitro.”
Anxiety returned. A new frown tugged at Shannon’s brow. “Okaaay. Is that what they call AI in animals?”
“Right. In people, they call it IUI. Intrauterine insemination.”
Jeez. She would never remember medical terms. “Oh, hell, Mandy. I need to write this down. Hold on.” She grabbed a notepad and her Mont Blanc pen Drake gave her for Christmas three years ago. “Okay. Now spell it for me.”
Mandy spelled the words and Shannon jotted them down.
“Pic was horrified when I brought it up,” Mandy said. “He equated it with cows and horses.”
“Naturally, he would. I mean, cattle breeding is the business he’s in, right? So bring me up to speed. I think I know how artificial insemination works, but what about the other?”
“In vitro? In vitro fertilization. It’s a little more complicated. They would collect eggs from me and sperm from Pic, then marry them outside the womb and hope for the best.”
“Okay. And how would they get Pic’s sperm?”
Mandy’s laugh came over the line. “He’d have to jack off in a cup. That might be the part that’s really bothering him.”
Yikes! TMI! Heat crawled up Shannon’s neck and she knew her face had turned red. What she had read about sperm banks at some point past flashed in her memory. A visual of her big, robust brother-in-law in a closed-in room reading girlie magazines to arouse himself to ejaculate in a cup refused to form in her mind, but a question did. Would Drake go through all of that to have a baby? She doubted it. If he wouldn’t do it himself, would he try to persuade his brother to do it? She doubted that, too. For that matter, would she go through it herself?
“If they wind up with fertilized eggs,” Mandy went on, “then they plant them in the uterus.”
Shannon’s thoughts flew immediately to news items she had read about women carrying quintuplets and sextuplets and maybe more. Her skepticism level rose higher. “Did you say eggs, as in more than one? Is this how those women you see on the news wind up with six or eight babies?”
“I don’t know for sure. I need to learn more. Seems logical it’s a possibility.”
“Oh, my God, Mandy. Are you sure about this?”
“That isn’t what they start out with. They begin with fertility drugs. Pic was equally horrified when I mentioned that.”
Now Shannon heard the nervousness in Mandy’s voice. “Fertility drugs?”
“It’s just conversation. The point is, there’s more than one option to talk about and you have to start somewhere.”
“Maybe the doctors can figure out why it hasn’t happened. Maybe they can do something so you won’t need those exotic procedures.”
“Maybe. We’ll have to see. But we’ll never know if Pic doesn’t go to a doctor.” A pause, then, “Pic said y’all will be here on Saturday?”
“That’s the plan. Should be there by noon. With Will, for us to go anywhere is like moving a house. Drake wants to get down there early and settle in so he can be in on the Sunday morning bird hunt without interference.”
“Oh, yeah. Blake Rafferty and his partner are going to hunt with them. That means they’ll shoot a lot of birds and we’ll have a quail feed. Ugh. I don’t even like quail. It’s white meat, so that part’s okay, but I don’t really enjoy eating it. I hate the idea of swallowing buckshot and I don’t like biting down on it, either.”
Shannon didn’t share Mandy’s distaste. At home, her freezer was full of quail and other game birds Drake had shot. Time for a change of subject. “Drake’s eager to visit with Troy. Except for last week in the arena, he hasn’t seen him since we were down for branding back in June. Troy was so mobbed with fans after the performance in Fort Worth, Drake had no chance to talk to him. He’s so excited about his horse’s win.”
“We’ve hardly seen him either. He’s off in West Texas doing one of his clinics now, but he’s due back here Friday night. And that’s another bomb waiting to go off.”
Uh-oh. Were there new developments with her brother-in-law’s status in the barn fire investigation? She had overheard any number of phone conversations between Drake and Troy, with Drake telling him to clean up his act. But Drake didn’t discuss those conversations with his wife. He still held his relationships with his brothers apart from her.
She sized up the situation nevertheless. Drake’s youngest brother was a thirty-year-old man. Being given orders by his older brothers probably annoyed him no end.
“I need to run to my English class,” Mandy said hurriedly. “I wanted to catch you before the day gets started. Can’t wait for y’all to get here.”
They disconnected, leaving Shannon unsettled. Was the catalyst for all of this the fact that she had given birth to Will? If so, what would Mandy do when she saw that Shannon was pregnant again? Now she was glad Drake had postponed telling his family.
Though Shannon hadn’t spent much time around Mandy, she saw how competitive she was. Good grief, she had put Drinkwell High School on the map in high school sports. She coached a swimming team of teenage girls she single-handedly took to unexpected championships, something unheard of in an under-funded sports program in a tiny poor school in a tiny town. That had to be like pushing rocks up a steep mountain. What other woman did Shannon know who had the drive or ambition or ability to accomplish something like that? No one.
Drake thought Mandy to be a solid, well-grounded woman and a great wife for his brother. Shannon saw something different. Hidden beneath the nice person everyone thought Mandy to be, Shannon saw a rebellious edge, a fierce independence and a strong will. As good as Drake was at reading people, why did he not recognize the same traits in Mandy that she, Shannon, did? Maybe he found it easier not to.
Her thoughts veered to what Mandy said about Drake’s past. When it came to her husband’s broken engagement with his former fiancé, Shannon knew only the part of that story Drake had chosen to tell her, which had not included an array of women in the aftermath or his getting into fights.
No doubt Mandy knew every detail. Shannon weighed again if she really wanted to hear the whole story. If asked, Mandy would probably tell her. She appeared not to be good at keeping secrets.
Shannon’s alter ego barged into her thoughts again. Forget it! Like she said, it was seventeen years ago. You’ve already accepted that he used to be a player. You haven’t exactly been a saint yourself.
