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Just then, Mandy walked in and drew a cup of coffee from the urn on the end of the counter. “Hi,” Shannon said. “Feeling better?”
“I’m fine,” she answered curtly.
Shannon studied her sister-in-law for a few seconds. She did look fine. She no longer had that stricken expression on her face that had been there when she left the dinner table yesterday.
“Anything left from breakfast?” Mandy asked.
“Still got some sausage and biscuits,” Johnnie Sue answered. “It’s all in the warmer. I can cook you an egg if you want.”
“No, thanks. I’m not in the mood for anything heavy. I’ll just have some cereal.” She dragged a box of cold cereal out of the pantry.
Shannon suspected her sister-in-law wasn’t a lover of the wild pork sausage either, but she wouldn’t say it. “Kate went hunting with the men. Does she always do that?”
“Usually, if she’s here,” Mandy answered. “She likes the competition.”
“Hm. Must be genetic. Her big brother is the most competitive person I’ve ever seen.”
“Kate outshoots the men most of the time, so they’re always a little annoyed at her.”
“Earlier this year, she got a hog that was bigger than she is,” Johnnie Sue put in, showing some pride. “There’s a picture in her room. You should take a look at it. She’s been the major hog killer this year.
Obviously, the housekeeper was Kate’s fan.
Shannon was even more fascinated by Drake’s little sister. She couldn’t imagine shooting any animal no matter how obnoxious. And furthermore, what would you do with a hog after you shot it? “Really,” she said.
“Hogs is what they go after, really. Getting a few birds at the same time is just a bonus that happens to be good eating.”
Mandy grunted. “That’s a matter of opinion.”
As she dragged a bowl from an over-the-counter cupboard and poured cold cereal into it, a memory from a few days ago of what Mandy had said about game birds came back to Shannon. “It hadn’t occurred to me that the real target was wild hogs.”
“They’re a menace,” Johnnie Sue said. “They tear up everything. They’re a threat to calves. ’Course there ain’t any baby calves this time of year, but that don’t mean hogs won’t attack one that’s a little older than a baby if they’re hungry. A passle of hogs don’t have any trouble taking down a calf. An ol’ cow is practically helpless trying to defend against ’em.”
“Feral hogs are a serious problem in rural Texas,” Mandy said. “Drake’s never told you about them?”
“Well, yes, and I’ve heard landowners in Camden County talk about them. But I never gave it much thought. I’ve never seen one except in pictures.”
“They’re nasty, ugly things,” Mandy said, then sighed. “But the meat’s sweeter than domestic pigs and not as fat. We do eat some of it, but it’s an acquired taste. Bill Junior mostly has sausage and salami made out of it.”
“I only make spicy recipes that call for it to be good and done,” Johnnie Sue said, “Like chili and stews. But I always wear gloves when I handle it and I make sure I wash up good afterwards.”
An alert went off in Shannon’s brain and she frowned. Bill Junior and Kate both brought pork when they came to visit in Camden. “Why is that?”
“They can carry nasty diseases that other animals and even humans can catch.” Johnnie Sue answered.
“Brucellosis is one of them,” Mandy added.
What the hell is brucellosis? Shannon’s stomach clenched again. Since being married to Drake, she had heard that word, but hadn’t bothered to learn about it. Had Drake told Gloria how to deal with the raw meat from wild hogs? In case he hadn’t, Shannon made a mental note to take care of that immediately when they returned home. Thank God Drake didn’t want to live here on his family’s ranch. Shannon would never adapt.
Mandy and the housekeeper both must have seen the expression of horror on Shannon’s face because Mandy chuckled. “Makes you want to have a nice pork roast for supper, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Johnnie Sue said. “All you have to do is be clean and be a little bit careful. That’s true of most raw meat.”
Ugh! Shannon might never eat pork again. Maybe she would give up meat altogether and become a vegan. She’d had enough of this conversation, but she made another mental note to discuss all of this with Drake.
“I’m not worried,” she said. “I’m not much of a cook, so I don’t know about the, uh...finer points. So, um...do they always take booze when they go hunting?”
“If the weather’s chilly,” Mandy said.
“Is that safe? I mean, whiskey on top of all the guns they have?”
“Bill Junior taught all of his kids how to handle guns when they were little kids,” Mandy said. “Drake doesn’t have his guns at home?”
Until knowing her husband, Shannon had never been around hunting. Or guns. Or, for that matter, people who were dedicated hunters. She pictured the rifle that used to stand in the corner by the door opening out onto the back deck. Sometimes Drake used it to shoot coyotes, but he was always sober when he did it. She, too, had shot it, with his help. With Will starting to walk, Drake had locked the rifle in a gun safe in his office.
“Well, yes,” she said to Mandy.
She swung a look at her baby boy still sitting in his high chair playing with his toy horse. At what point did Drake intend to buy him a gun? When would he start taking him bird hunting or hog hunting? A sting of tears darted behind her eyes, but she blinked them away and pressed her hand against her stomach. She must be over-emotional because of the pregnancy.
Will still hadn’t eaten his breakfast. “Uh, I guess I’d better finish with Will’s breakfast. How long will the hunters be out?”
“Should be back before noon. If they get enough birds, we’ll have a quail feed for supper.”
Shannon returned to her chair at the breakfast table beside Will’s highchair. The toy that had his unswerving attention was the rubber horse Kate had given him yesterday. She could think of no single toy that had fascinated him so much. Was loving horses and hunting and guns in his genes?
She heaved a sigh and reached for Will’s dish and spoon. “Okay, cowboy. Time for you to finish your breakfast. We’re going to try this again.”
By the time they finished, his cute bib that was decorated with red and green Christmas elves was covered with gray cereal. Drake had mentioned a few days back that the nanny had asked to take Christmas off and what Shannon had replied came back to her: “Go ahead and tell her to take off. We made this kid together and I gave birth to him. Surely we can take care of him for a few days.”
Had she been in her right mind when she said that? Lord, she missed Lauren. And to think, before Will’s birth, she believed they wouldn’t need a nanny. A feeling of inadequacy threatened to overwhelm her. What was wrong with her? Most of the parents she knew raised their kids without a nanny. And a lot of them raised them on ranches. With guns. With horses. Shannon gave herself a mental shake. She had to stop this stewing.
As she tried to cajole Will into taking more bites of cereal, he pushed her hand away and the contents of his spoon landed in a splat on the tile floor. He continued to pound on his highchair table with the toy horse.
Johnnie Sue’s helper rushed over with wet and dry paper towels and cleaned up the mess.
Johnnie Sue stood watching her, her arms crossed over her flat chest. “Somebody told me once that when a kid gets hungry, he’ll eat. Maybe he’s not hungry.”
Shannon sighed. “Maybe he’s not.”
Needing to free herself from the housekeeper’s scrutiny, she gave up on feeding her son, set his dish on the table away from the highchair and began to wipe his hands and face with a damp baby washcloth. He squirmed in his seat and resisted.
The housekeeper turned and walked back to the counter in the kitchen, leaving Shannon alone with Will.
Shannon lifted him from the highchair and carried him to the bedroom to clean him up. Prissy trotted along beside her. In the suite, a low fire burned in the fireplace. It hadn’t been there when she and Drake arose before daylight. Who had built a fire and when? At home, if they had a fire in the fireplace, Drake usually built it himself.
Will fretted and protested as she washed him in the bathroom sink. Prissy looked on anxiously and even barked. She was very protective of Will.
After Shannon finally wrestled the one-year-old into clean clothes, she was worn out. She hadn’t been nearly this tired during her first pregnancy. She ordered Prissy to her doggie bed, then sank into the nearby plush recliner/rocker and cradled her baby boy against her body. With her protruding belly, there almost wasn’t enough room for him.
Soon he settled and his eyelids fluttered closed. This was the part of being a mother she loved most, when they were almost as close as they had been when he was growing inside her. Maybe when she held him like this they were re-bonding. Maybe he was even bonding with his new brother.
She drew a deep breath, closed her eyes and let her mind drift. Privacy at last. An escape from the commotion of a roomful of adrenaline-fueled males and the prying eyes of Drake’s family. Four more days to go. She began to count off the hours.
Her thoughts traveled to her own little family’s arrival yesterday. The minute Steve Logan helped her out of the backseat of Redstone’s SUV, every Lockhart family member had stared at her as if she had grown a set of horns and they had been sneaking furtive glances at her ever since. Drake should have told him she was expecting again and not sprung it on them suddenly. She couldn’t remember now why he hadn’t.
But what difference did it make, really? When Will was born, only Bill Junior and Kate had come to the hospital. She was readying to leave the hospital when Pic and Mandy showed up. Only Bill Junior and Kate dropped in at their home in Camden for an occasional visit. Pic and Mandy, not so much. Since Pic had taken over management of the ranch, he had little free time.
A big family was a big pain. You had to constantly walk on eggs to keep from offending someone. Funny. She had always thought she wanted a big family, but in some ways, this was more difficult than her caustic relationship with her own sister.
A light tapping sounded on the door. Shannon struggled to her feet with sleeping Will, placed him inside the playpen and opened the door. “Oh. Mandy.”
“Johnnie Sue and I weren’t sure where you’d disappeared to.”
Shannon glanced back at Will who slept soundly. “Will was wearing his breakfast, so I came back here to give him another bath and change his clothes. I was just about to go back to the kitchen.”
Mandy walked into the room and over to the windows that overlooked over the Brazos River Canyon.
“Hunters aren’t back yet?” Shannon asked.
“Not yet. Johnnie Sue and Rita are working in the kitchen getting lunch together. Or dinner as we say here. I still haven’t gotten used to lunch being dinner and dinner being supper. Half the time, I have to check the clock to know which meal I’m eating.”
Shannon laughed again, finally relaxing in Mandy’s company, “I know what you mean.” She walked over to the window, too, and looked out. “This is the canyon Kate shot across?”
“Yep. The Brazos River Canyon.”
“I can see why you shouldn’t do it. I still can’t believe she went hunting with the men. I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy less than shooting birds. Or I should say, shooting at birds. I doubt I’d hit one.”
Mandy shrugged. “She’s always been one of the guys. That’s the way Bill Junior and Betty raised her. Pic says that even when she was a little kid, she never liked playing with dolls and girl stuff. Bill Junior taught her and Troy together to ride and rope and shoot. She’s not a total hoyden though.”
Shannon looked across her shoulder at Mandy. “You’re going to have to enlighten me. I don’t know what a hoyden is.”
“Tomboy. She does like clothes and jewelry. She spends a fortune on clothes.”
“Oh, well, I suppose she’s got it to spend. ... Drake says spending money keeps the economy going.”
“It does get to the point of being ridiculous though. You should see the Rocketbusters she bought herself. She called them a Christmas present, but she would’ve bought them whether it’s Christmas or not.”
“Rocketbusters?”
“Boots. She paid over four-thousand dollars for them. If I hadn’t known she’s done it before, I might’ve fainted.”
Shannon felt her eyes bug. “For boots? Oh, my God. Are they sewn with gold thread or something?”
Mandy waved away Shannon’s shock. “Oh, it’s no big deal to her. You should see her house. When she remodeled it, she converted one whole bedroom—large bedroom—into a closet. She has a whole wall of fancy boots.”
“Have you noticed the purse she’s carrying right now?”
“Not really. I’ve never seen her with a purse.”
“It’s got embroidered peacock feathers all over it. My God, she paid more than twelve hundred dollars for that.”
“Where would she wear boots that cost that much?”
“She wore that pair to the Cattle Baron’s Ball in Dallas back in October. They’re beautiful. They’re black with knee-high shafts and bright-colored flowers printed all over the shafts. They look like they’re embroidered.”
Shannon laughed, unable to picture herself in foot covering that cost that much money. “Wow. Why, I’d be afraid someone would kidnap me to get my boots. It would’ve been worth going to that party just to see them.”
“Oh, I forgot. You and Drake didn’t go.”
“He told me the ranch made a substantial donation to the cause. Breast cancer research, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I suggested to Kate that she could buy cheaper boots and give the difference to the charity, but she just looked at me as if I’m stupid. It was an extremely nice party. Toby Keith entertained.”
“That part would’ve been fun. Kate’s an interesting woman all right. Does she date someone?”
“Who knows? If she does, it’s some cowboy who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together, I’m sure. She does like cowboys, the wilder the better. Pic and Drake have always been in a stew over who she dates. There’s always the shadow of some guy taking up with her to get close to Drake or Pic or the Lockhart millions.”
“I can see that happening.”
“They should mind their own business. The truth is, she scares most men to death. She deals with them on her own terms, so her boyfriends never last. It will take a special man to get along with her over time. Right now, it appears she spends most of her time on the horses. Foaling season’s coming up, so she and Troy will be joined at the hip day and night.”
“Drake told me just recently about Betty and Troy’s mother being pregnant at the same time,” Shannon said. “I didn’t realize they were almost exactly the same age. How awkward, not to mention heartbreaking. I wonder if it ever comes up between Kate and Troy.”
“They don’t seem to be bothered by it. To Betty’s credit, she never made it an issue to either one of them. Betty always treated Troy like he was her own kid. According to Pic, she carried on as if it were normal for a husband to get his wife and his girlfriend pregnant at the same time.”
“Amazing,” Shannon said. “I doubt I could handle that.”
“Betty might not have been vocal, but the local gossips who knew them back then say that incident was the beginning of the end of Betty and Bill Junior’s marriage. They’ve always fought, but she was wiped out when she learned Bill Junior had a bastard kid.” Mandy chuckled wickedly. “Speaking of Betty and since it’s just us girls talking, is Drake ever going to make up with her?”
“I don’t know. We rarely discuss her. If her name comes up, he changes the subject. I doubt she and I will ever be friends, but I do wish our kids could have a relationship with her.”
“Pic’s back on good terms with her, at least when she comes around here, which isn’t very often lately. I tolerate her for his sake, but I’ll never forget what she tried to do to me.”
“If you’re married into the family, it’s easier to forgive and forget, Mandy. She tried to get rid of me, too, you know, but I make myself put it out of my mind.”
“But she didn’t try to destroy your career. No one in this family, including Pic, realizes how awful getting fired from a Podunk school like Drinkwell would have been for my reputation. I could’ve lost everything I’ve worked for. I’d probably never get another job teaching. Or coaching.”
Certain that Mandy was well taken care of financially, Shannon was stunned at what the woman had just said. Most ordinary working women—even dedicated career women—would be thrilled to marry into the kind of financial security the Lockharts provided. Pic’s former wife would probably live well to her dying day on what she had taken away from her marriage to Pic. “Do you still need a career? A job? Isn’t your devotion supposed to be to Pic and the ranch now?”
A startled look came from Mandy, then she ducked her head. “I, uh—I’m still having a hard time with that part.”
“Since you and Pic were going to get married, they might’ve thought your career didn’t matter so much.”
“That’s because none of them have ever had to work for a living.”
“But they do work. Drake works hard. Sometimes he works seven days a week. He says Pic does the same thing. And look how hard Troy works with horses.”
“I meant none of them have ever worked for a paycheck. Although Betty should’ve known what it’s like. I think her parents lived from payday to payday, so she didn’t grow up rich. She and you and I have that in common. Instead of being so rude to us, she should welcome us.”
Unwise to be overly critical of Betty Lockhart. Shannon still wanted to get acquainted with her. “Mandy, you seem to be keyed up. Are you upset about something?”
