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In the suite Amanda shared with Pic, she forced herself to concentrate on the restoration of an old house on the DIY TV network. Shows of this type were the only reality TV she enjoyed. Still, she wasn’t sure how much of it was real and how much was made up for the sake of entertainment.
She lived in an “old house” herself. Parts of it were over a hundred years old. According to its history, it started as a simple two-bedroom house on the bank of the Brazos River. Over the years, it had been remodeled in various ways. When Pic’s mother lived here, she had spent years—and no one ever said how much money—remodeling and redecorating. Besides adding rooms, in some instances, she had torn walls down to the studs and started over.
Now, with seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms, The Double-Barrel ranch house wasn’t a mansion in the classic sense, but it came close enough. Five of the bedrooms were suites—one for each kid, one for Betty and Bill Junior. Each suite was the size of a small efficiency apartment, sans kitchen. In fact, as a student in Lubbock, Amanda had once rented an apartment smaller than her and Pic’s suite.
Amanda bit down on her lower lip, remembering. At that point in her life, Pic had married another woman and Amanda had been forced to abandon her teenage dream of one day living in this house.
She glanced at the time noted on the TV screen. Suppertime was long past due. Johnnie Sue had tried to feed her, but Amanda told her she would wait for Pic. And Pic was late. Not an unusual occurrence these days.
She hadn’t eaten a bite since lunch and she had swum twenty laps before coming home. Her stomach ached with the hollowness of hunger. Still, her only goal for this evening was to make up with her husband and sharing supper with him was a beginning.
Disappointment thrummed within her. And worry. Why hadn’t he come home yet? The rural highways were dark, winding and lonely. There were drunk drivers, more than usual at this time of year. Livestock sometimes escaped the fenced pastures and roamed the highways at night as well as deer and hogs. He could have a car accident and not be found for hours.
On the other hand, maybe he went to find his dad and got caught in an escape-proof trap, as sometimes happened with Bill Junior’s escapades. In the search through some of his dad’s haunts, had Pic found some old girlfriend and decided to renew acquaintances?
Any number of his former girlfriends still lived around Drinkwell and Treadway county, some married, some not.
Tales she had heard from the locals about her husband’s adventures after his divorce from Lucianne Shepler danced around in her mind. If Drake had been rampaging out of control after Tammy McMillan dumped him, after Lucianne Shepler left Pic, he had followed in his brother’s footsteps. Amanda had no firsthand knowledge of the stories. She had lived in Lubbock in those days and had her own marital problems.
Thinking of Pic and other women, Zochi McLaren’s appearance at last year’s July 4th employee barbecue barged into Amanda’s thoughts. Tanned and small and delicate-looking, with thick black curly hair hanging past her waist, Zochi had the kind of exotic beauty that caused people to stare.
At the picnic, they had stared all right. Every man there probably got a lecture from his wife after they went home. Zochi had been dressed like a half-naked island princess. The picnic guests thought her costume was aimed at Troy, who practically drooled when he met her. But Amanda knew better. With the support of Pic’s mother, the bitch from Austin had set her sights on the middle son.
And why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t any woman? Pic was a rich, good-looking, well-educated total cowboy. On top of that, he liked sex uninhibited and on the primal side. Men like him seemed to be able to spot those characteristics in common with some women. Women like Zochi McLaren were his for the taking. Had he taken? Something had happened between Pic and Zochi, but Amanda would probably never know what.
Don’t listen to gossip and don’t jump to conclusions. Pic wouldn’t cheat.
Yeah, right. Except for her father, there was no such thing as a man who wouldn’t cheat.
Troy had stepped in and saved Pic from his own weakness by whisking Zochi away to God knew where. Perhaps the nearest motel. The youngest son was reputedly as persuasive with women as he was with horses. They had disappeared from the picnic in Zochi’s car and not been seen the rest of the day.
After a report of vandalism at the old Lockhart homestead crashed the picnic, in an instant, Troy and Zochi’s whereabouts became a non-issue. Though Troy and Amanda were old friends, she had never asked him about that day.
Out of patience, she picked up her phone and pressed in her husband’s cell number. Three burrs with no answer. Then, “’Lo...”
He didn’t say, ‘Hey, baby,’ as usual, which stopped her. She forced her mouth into a big smile, feigning cheerfulness. “Hi, it’s me. Where are you?”
“Dusty’s. ... We’re havin’ a li’l Christmas toddy.”
Uh-oh. When Pic’s words started slurring, he’d had more than one toddy. Anxiety clawed through her empty stomach. She schooled herself to sound casual, as if a nine o’clock-at-night conversation with him in his cups at the wagon boss’s house were normal. “Is your dad with you?”
“Nope.”
“Oh. Johnnie Sue thought maybe you might be out looking for him. Have you eaten?”
“Nope.”
“Supper’s getting cold. Are you coming home soon?”
“Yep. Tell Johnnie Sue to go on home. I don’t care if it’s cold.” He disconnected.
She stared at the phone. Had he hung up on her?
Patience, Lord. Give me patience.
He was still mad, clearly. That he had ever been mad, in itself, was disturbing. Pic wasn’t prone to anger.
She stood, drew a deep breath and walked to the kitchen, found the housekeeper sitting at the kitchen table working a crossword puzzle. “Johnnie Sue, Pic’s at Dusty’s and they’re having a Christmas drink. He said for you to go on home.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.” Amanda filled a tall glass with ice cubes from the refrigerator door, then pulled out a pitcher of tea and poured her glass full. “I don’t know when he’ll be here. I can heat up supper. I haven’t forgotten how to use the microwave. Don’t worry about the kitchen. I’ll wash our dishes after we eat.”
The housekeeper got to her feet. “I’ll go then. It’s been a long day. I’m a little tired.” She gathered her satchel and her purse and shrugged into her coat. As she started out the back door, Amanda called her name and stopped her. “You didn’t hear from Bill Junior, did you?”
“Naw. Tomorrow, I’m gonna talk to Pic about it.”
Alone, Amanda stood rooted in place for a few minutes, thinking of her father-in-law. He had now been gone since Monday afternoon. Two nights and two days, going into a third night. Did Pic know where he was and/or who he was with? She shook off those thoughts. Bill Junior’s drama on top of her own was the last thing she needed.
She waited sitting at the table in the kitchen, forcing herself to concentrate on grading book reports on “Macbeth” written by high school juniors. When she heard Pic’s pickup engine, she quickly gathered the papers into a neat stack and slipped them into her book bag, out of sight. No need for him to see her doing something that would only anger him more.
As he came into the kitchen, she stood. Large dried bloodstains showed on his shirt and jeans. A problem with a cow, no doubt. These days, Pic hardly ever got directly involved with taking care of the cattle, although he certainly knew how to deal with most bovine problems. Whatever happened must have been an emergency.
She managed a smile. “Hi. Busy day?”
“It was a sonofabitch. What did Johnnie Sue leave to eat?”
“She made a great supper. Baked pork chops and green bean casserole. She and I were the only ones here to eat at suppertime, but I wanted to wait for you.” Assuming her most efficient persona, she quickstepped to the cabinet. “I’ll get some plates.”
“I gotta wash up.” He left the kitchen for the utility room. After working with the cattle and horses, he always washed up in the utility room sink. One thing Betty had succeeded in instilling in her sons was not to bring hands and clothing covered with barnyard filth into the kitchen. Never mind bloodstains.
She prepared his plate and while it turned in the microwave, she set his and her places at the table. He came back into the room and took his seat without a word. She placed the warmed food in front of him, added a couple of Johnnie Sue’s homemade rolls and the butter dish and a tall glass of iced tea. As he started to eat, she fixed her own plate, then sat down adjacent to him. “I was worried about you.”
“I’ve been taking care of myself a long time. No need for anybody to worry about me.”
At the curt reply, she flinched inside. “I know that, but when you’re so late, I—”
“What is it you thought I was doing?” He looked up, his blue eyes cold as ice. “Chasing tail?”
The scorn in his tone wounded her. His reading her thoughts threw her off track. She drew a deep breath, determined not to get into another confrontation with him. “Nothing. Working. What you’re always doing.” She sliced into her pork chop. “All I meant is you sometimes do things that can be dangerous. I was worried that you could be hurt or something. I mean, look at you. You’re covered with blood.”
For a few beats, his gaze settled on her face, then he lowered his head and continued to eat.
She slipped the bite of pork she had sliced off into her mouth, chewed methodically and swallowed. “I wanted us to talk about last night, about—”
“Amanda. Cool it. I am not in the mood to talk about babies and doctors and that. I’ve got a helluva a lot more important stuff on my mind right now.” He picked up his glass and swallowed a long drink.
Stunned by his words and instantly on the defensive, she sat back, floundering for what to say next. Fewer than a dozen times in their entire history together had he called her by her given name. Last night’s spat took a distant backseat to whatever was going on with him at the moment. “That—that isn’t what ... what I want to talk about. It’s about...” She let her voice trail off, lost for where to begin.
“About what?”
Her words rushed out. “I didn’t mean to start a fight yesterday, Pic. What happened was thoughtless of me. I just thought... We seem to get into fights over the least little things. I—I just feel that something is off kilter. Lately, we haven’t been close like we used to be. We don’t talk about...” Words failed her. She let her voice trail off.
“Mandy, I’m worn out. I’ve—”
“I know, I know. I can see. ... I just thought—”
“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” His forearms rested on the table, flanking his plate, He gazed at her for several seconds. “Wanna talk about the ol’ cow that got tore up by a fuckin’ passel of hogs and bled to death? Lost her calf, too. ... Wanna talk about cattle rustling, the couple dozen head missing out of the North Pasture and no idea where they went? Or horses getting shot or barns burning? Or maybe calving season coming up? Or how about a conversation about the fuckin’ lawsuit the Feds filed on us yesterday, disputing our ownership of the alluvial plain along our side of the Brazos River? Or the asshole that threatens every member of this family, including you, and the ranch itself?”
A dead cow explained the bloodstained clothing. That a cow had been attacked by wild hogs also explained why everyone at the Double-Barrel who could shoot a gun hunted hogs. She ducked her chin and toyed with her food with her fork. “Well, I—”
“No. You don’t wanna talk about any of that.” He returned to his meal. “What’s going on at fuckin’ Drinkwell High School has got all of your attention. Hell, you never even ask questions about this ranch.”
He tore open a soft roll as if it were made of leather and slashed with his knife at the sticks of butter in the butter dish.
Tears burned behind her eyes, but she swallowed them back. “How can I ask questions about something I know little about? You talk about the ranch with your dad and brother. You don’t discuss it with me.”
“Why would I? Every time I try to talk to you about anything, you’re on your way out the goddamn door, heading for some fuckin’ swimming tournament. Or running back and forth to that fuckin’ schoolhouse five and six, sometimes seven days a week. I’ll bet you don’t even know how many head of cattle the Double-Barrel Ranch owns.”
Damn. That was true. Pic and his dad threw numbers around all the time and Amanda heard them, but they went in one ear and out the other. She did not know how many cattle lived at the ranch. How could she not know that? How could she live here for more than a year and not know that? How could she be so stupid? “That isn’t fair, Pic. You—”
“Don’t talk to me about fair.” He threw his buttered roll onto his plate. His glare, hotter than the Texas sun, came at her and he pointed his index finger directly at her nose. “You reneged on your promise, Amanda. I set you up for life. You don’t have to work at that fuckin’ schoolhouse another day. Or any other job. That would be enough for a lot of women I’m acquainted with.”
The day he proposed flashed in her mind. She well remembered the terms of the generous prenuptial agreement he had presented to her, what he asked of her and what she had agreed to. And an engagement ring with a diamond so large she was embarrassed to wear it and that was so expensive it could only be labeled an investment. She could sell it and buy a house. It now resided in a safe deposit box in a bank in Stephenville.
On top of that, as if her memory were not enough, weekly, someone told her how lucky she was and asked her why she was still working for the school. She didn’t even try to explain that confronted with a choice between real life at the Double-Barrel Ranch and giving up her teaching career, she had choked at the last minute and been unable to hand in her resignation. The guilt that never left her weighed on her shoulders like a heavy cape.
She pushed his finger away. “It is enough, Pic. Of course, it’s enough. Your money has never been important to me.”
A ball of tears had gathered in her throat and threatened to choke her. She ducked his eyes and sliced another bite of pork.
“Look at me, Amanda. I’m telling you something.”
She flinched at his aggressive tone, but raised her eyes.
“I want you to know something else I’ve never told you. I know you love swimming. This is an isolated place to live and I know that. I knew you’d be giving up that pool at the school. I never told you the details about that swimming pool out back. I hired one of Drake’s Dallas architects, one of the best in Texas, one of the most expensive, to design you a pool that any Olympic athlete would envy. I paid a hotshot Dallas contractor a premium price plus mileage to bring his crew down here and build it.
“The ranch pays one of those swimming pool maintenance people to come down here from Fort Worth and take care of it. I doubt if there’s a home swimming pool anywhere in Texas that’s any better. Not one damn person in this family wants or needs a swimming pool. Nobody can swim. It was for you, Amanda. I wanted you to be happy living out here.”
The swimming pool was a wedding present. True, he had told her only part of that information about it. Indeed, it was an exquisite infinity pool, like having her own private lagoon. Anyone could see that building it in this remote place had been expensive. Only she swam in it. He waded into the shallow end occasionally, joking that he was afraid if he got too far into it he would float over the edge of the canyon.
Kate joined her sometimes, but she mostly lounged on the side sunbathing in her bikini. If she got into the water, she never left the shallow end. Troy came to swim at times on summer’s hottest days, but he was away from the ranch so much those occasions were rare.
She had no rebuttal. “I am happy, Pic. I love the pool. I just hoped—”
“All I asked of you was that you be my partner. But no, you can’t work that into your busy schedule. Between running your ass and two bodyguards all over the fuckin’ state of Texas and part of Oklahoma to swimming contests and running back and forth to that schoolhouse, you’ve yet to be a partner to me or show any loyalty to this ranch.”
He might as well have slapped her. She had to defend herself. “That isn’t true, Pic. I’ve never failed to support you. But I’m not a—a rural person. You knew that before we got married.”
That, he couldn’t argue with. When they were kids, he teased her with names like “city girl” and “sissy.” Looking back, the only social events they had shared that were related to his lifestyle were cowboy dancing and going to rodeos.
He picked up his fork and returned to his meal. “You don’t pay any more attention to what I want than you do the wind,” he said, his voice quiet. She had never been afraid of Pic, but for him to suddenly be speaking more calmly had an ominous tone. “
Just like a couple of weeks ago,” he went on. “I asked you not to go up to Fort Worth without me or the bodyguard the ranch has hired to protect you. It’s still stuck in my craw that you ignored me. My God, we’re paying a thousand dollars a day for each one of those people whether you use them or not.”
No one had ever told her what Redstone Security’s fees were. Her jaw dropped. “I didn’t ask for bodyguards.”
He looked up at her, his brow arched. “What, you thought you were different from the rest of us? You thought Drake hired ’em because we ran out of places to spend money? You thought getting the shit beat out of your rig and leaving you stranded in an unlit parking lot was fun? The asshole who did that, was his next move against you personally? Do you know?”
“How could I know that?” she cried, fighting back tears.
He picked up his glass, swallowed another drink, then set it back on the table quietly. “Even my dad says you’re as disinterested in this ranch and in me as a man as Lucianne was. ... I told him that isn’t true, but I have to say, I’m beginning to wonder if he’s right.”
At being compared to his former wife and criticized by Bill Junior, Amanda cringed. With Pic’s mother already hating her, the last thing she wanted was for Pic’s father to hate her, too.
“And now, on top of the swimming, the traveling, the staying in town late to tutor high school kids too dumb to read, you’re nagging about having a baby. What would we do with it, Amanda? You don’t have time to take care of it. Is it your idea that we’d hire somebody to raise the kid so you can keep flitting around?”
He stared at her as if awaiting her answer and she had none. Like a silly ninny, she hadn’t thought that far ahead. Her throat ached, her chin quivered. “Don’t be silly.”
“All I know is I sure as hell don’t have time to take care of it myself. And I don’t know if I ever will.” He paused, his eyes holding hers.
A few seconds passed. Heartbeats echoed in Amanda’s ears. He resumed in a soft voice. “I’ll be real honest here, Amanda. I’ve already got all I can say grace over. Every morning when I wake up, I wonder what I’m gonna fuck up next or what some sonofabitch is gonna tear up that I can’t fix. I know Dad and Drake are breathing down my neck.” He turned his gaze to the darkened windows, his head shaking. “I don’t know how my dad ran this place as well as he did and still managed to raise four kids.”
Memories of the material blessings Bill Junior had bestowed on his wife and children through the years passed through her mind. But tonight, with the man off in locales unknown, doing only God-knew what, Mandy refused to let Pic’s statement stand. “He didn’t raise his four kids,” she said, her voice equally soft. “His wife did. Including one who’s the child of his mistress. For that alone, your mother deserves a medal.”
“Amanda. Nobody knows better than I do my parents have got their flaws. I’m not gonna let you make this about them.”
She quailed. “I’m not. But you have to consider that the ranch is different now from when your dad was a young man, Pic. It’s more diverse. More complicated. You have more to deal with than he did.”
He pushed his chair backward and stood abruptly. “Bullshit. It’s been a long day, Mandy. I gotta get up early tomorrow. I got a lot to do before the weekend gets here. I’m going to bed.”
She, too, got to her feet. “I understand, Pic. I didn’t mean to start—”
“I know.” He stepped to her, grasped her shoulder, bent his head and kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning. Let’s just let all this lie and try to get a good night’s sleep. We can settle it after Christmas.”
After his boot heels faded into the silence, she stood there for a few seconds in the cavernous kitchen, breathless and paralyzed and gripping the back of a kitchen chair. Settle it? What did that mean?
From a distance, above the pulsebeat pumping in her ears, the high-pitched howls and barks of coyotes rent the silence. Nearer to the house, the scraping and screeching of the windmill’s fan changing directions accentuated the ranch’s remoteness from the outside world. When she first moved here, those sounds late at night were lonely and sad and even haunting. Now, she was used to them. They had become background noise she tuned out.
Pic’s words battered her again. She had never been dressed down quite as thoroughly or rendered so speechless. In all the years she had known him, she had never seen such an outburst of anger from easy-going Pic, especially at her.
“...You don’t have time to take care of it. Would we hire somebody to raise the kid so you can keep flitting around?...”
“...I sure as hell don’t have time to take care of it. I don’t know if I ever will....”
“...I don’t know how my dad ran this place as well as he did and still managed to raise four kids....”
The truth began to sink in. Her husband didn’t want a family. Even if he said he did, it was so far down his list of priorities, he would never get to it.
She glanced down at the unfinished plates of food on the table, her appetite gone. Why had she told Johnnie Sue she would clean up the kitchen? Now that she had said that, she had to do it. She dared not leave a mess. She walked over to the table and began to clear away what was left of their supper.
