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Troy and the hunting party returned before noon with a bag full of quail and chukkar. They cleaned them behind the barn and carried the meat to Johnnie Sue to cook a big supper. Blake and Jack would bring their families.
All morning, Troy had been preoccupied with what Jason Drummond had told him about Mandy yesterday, but he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. No wonder the bodyguard hightailed it. In the security business, banging a client right under the husband’s nose had to be a huge ethics violation that a guy like Chris—or his boss—wouldn’t take lightly.
Before believing that Mandy did or did not have something going on with Chris, Troy wanted to hear from Mandy herself that it was true.
After a buffet dinner of thick chili and beans and all the fixings, Blake and Jack and Jack’s two boys left. Drake’s wife took Will and went to Drake’s old room for a nap. Dad, Drake and Pic tramped to the den to watch a football game. They invited Troy to join them and razzed him when he declined.
He had never played team sports and wasn’t a fan of football. Both Pic and Drake had played—Pic in high school, Drake in high school and college both. Drake often said he was still disappointed that he hadn’t played well enough to be a first-stringer at SMU. The idea was lost on Troy.
He started for home but stopped by the refrigerator in the utility room to pick up a dozen birds to take to Sergio and Tania. Mandy was at the coffee urn filling a mug. With the holiday hubbub, he might not get another chance to talk to her. “Hey, whatcha doing?”
“Fixing to go watch the game,” she answered. “Want a cup? Or are you headed home?”
“In a minute. Hey, the sun’s shining. Let’s go outside. I want to talk to you about something.”
“Oooh, secrets?”
He replied with a phony chuckle and a bob of his brow.
In the utility room, Troy dragged her coat out of the coat closet and helped her into it, then shrugged into his own coat. Outside, out of the sunlight, the temperature felt even colder than it was. “Let’s walk in the sunshine where it’s warmer.”
A spot for a private conversation was what Troy wanted. He gestured to the left and they turned toward the backyard. The week’s sporadic rains had left the ground spongey under the beige grass, but at least nothing was frozen.
“Johnnie Sue said you invited people for Christmas?” Mandy said. “Anyone we know?”
“I told you about her the other night. Sarah Karol. I invited her and her kid and her grandpa.”
“Holy cow. She must’ve made a heck of an impression. Don’t tell me you met someone that important at a horse show.”
Warmth spread over Troy’s cheeks. He never discussed his social life with his family. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody at a horse show I wanted to invite to my house....Naw, man, she was at the clinic I just did over in Roundup. They’re nice people. Don’t have any other family to spend Christmas with. Wait ’til you meet her. She’s special.”
Mandy gave a gasp. “Are you smitten? Look at me, Troy Rattigan.” When he didn’t answer or look at her, she grasped his arm and turned his upper body toward her. “Oh, my God. You are. I can’t wait to tell.”
His cheeks warmed again. “See? This is why I never let y’all know what I’m doing.”
They reached the swimming pool’s concrete and tile deck. “So what’s the secret?” Mandy asked, stepping off the grass onto the concrete. “You’ve fallen in love? Or let me see, you went up to Fort Worth last night to see Betty. She must have told you something juicy. What’s going on?”
Going on? She was kidding around, but what Troy thought was going on between her and Chris was no joke. “I’m thinking that would be a better question for me to ask you.”
She gave a high-pitched titter. “What do you mean? Don’t tell me my mother-in-law is spreading tales about me again.”
He stopped and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “Mandy, I don’t know what to do except just come out with it.”
She stopped, too, and looked at him, her head cocked, her eyes narrowed. “You’re scaring me, Troy. What’s this about?”
“Up in Fort Worth yesterday, I ran into somebody I know. He asked me if you and Pic are having trouble. He said he saw you in the Omni Hotel with a guy I assume was Chris.”
They had reached a round table by the pool, its umbrella removed for the winter. She set her mug on the table and looked at him for a few minutes. Then she flipped her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Good grief. Chris is like a third limb, especially lately. I’m going to miss him, now that he’s gone. After some asshat totaled my SUV up in Fort Worth, Chris was ordered to be with me everywhere. So what?” She pulled a scarf from her coat pocket and wrapped it around her neck. “Damn, it’s cold, even in the sunshine.”
“Mandy.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide and questioning. “What?”
He held her gaze, trying to see behind her brown eyes. “Convince me, Sister, that you had a reason, other than the one I’m thinking, for being with Chris in the Omni Hotel.”
Right before Troy’s eyes, she wilted. Jesus Christ! It was true. An odd queasiness passed through his midsection. He had hoped she would deny it.
Her head quickly turned away and she looked out over the canyon. Seconds passed before she spoke, her confident, playful voice no longer present. “Would you, uh...want to share with me exactly who told you that?”
“You’re worried about who saw you? What difference does it make? It was Jason Drummond. I doubt if you know him, but I’m pretty sure Pic does. He’s a horse trainer. And Drake and Kate probably know him, too.”
“That’s awfully convenient,” she snapped. “The whole damn world knows the Lockharts.”
“I’m guessing I don’t have to tell you what he thought.”
A muscle tensed in her jaw. “And what was that? I guess you do have to tell me.”
“C’mon, Mandy. This is me you’re talking to. The question here, the one that concerns me the most, is does Pic know about you and Chris?”
Troy saw only her profile, but her eyes closed for a few beats and a long breath visibly left her chest. “God, Troy. ... It’s complicated.”
“Hey, I’ve got the rest of the afternoon.”
Her head shook.
If she clammed up, what would he do? He needed all of the information he could get from her. This was a goddamn ticking bomb in the middle of his family. He had to make a decision how to deal with it. He proceeded with caution. “Is this, uh...is it an ongoing thing? A one-shot deal? What?”
“No!” she snapped and frowned at the same time. Her head shook again. “Once....Just once.” She turned back to face him. “Don’t blame Chris,” she said, her voice trembling. “It was my fault.”
Fuck! Now what? Now that he had this information, what the hell was he gonna do with it? “Jesus, Mandy, when two people decide to hook up, it’s not a one-sided deal. ... Unless it’s rape. Did he force you? I mean, he’s as big as Pic—”
“Of course not,” she said softly. Her eyes glistened with tears on the verge of spilling over. “I told you, it was my fault.”
An emotion he rarely felt was starting to simmer deeply within him. “So it was a one-time hook-up, instigated by you? Is that what you want me to believe?”
“Hooking up. You’re an expert on that subject, aren’t you?” Her voice came out defensive, almost a sob.
His anger rushed from simmer to boil. “I thought you’ve loved Pic from the beginning of time. At least, that’s what you’ve said.”
A tear finally leaked from her eye, trailed down her cheek. She drew a deep sniff and fished in her coat pocket, came out with a tissue. “I have. ... I do....”
Troy shoved his fingers into his jeans pockets and scrunched his shoulders against the chill. “How did this happen, Mandy? How does my brother’s wife who says she loves him end up shacked up in a hotel in Fort Worth with her bodyguard? And what’s more, a hotel close to the coliseum where people who know her might see her?”
Instead of looking him in the eye, she stared at her ragged tissue, toyed with the corner. “That’s rude, Troy. Just rude. I don’t know, okay? ... Pic and I had this big fight Tuesday night. He said some mean things. Really mean. I was crushed, okay? I wasn’t worried about who might see me. Pic’s apologized since, but ...” Her head shook again and she wiped her nose with the ragged tissue.
Pic wasn’t a mean person. Troy had never heard him so much as raise his voice to his wife. Suddenly, the nosiest person in the whole Lockhart household popped into his mind. Johnnie Sue might be looking out the window at this very moment, seeing Mandy in tears. “Look here, it’s not a good idea to let Johnnie Sue see you upset. Let’s walk down to the end of the pool.” He placed a hand on her back and nudged her forward, out of sight of the utility room window.
They strolled to the far end of the pool and stood at the tall chain-link fence that stood between the yard and the deep Brazos River Canyon. Instead of looking at him, she gazed through the fence’s grid, out at the canyon. She started to sniffle and cry. “This is such a beautiful place.”
That remark and the tone of her voice had a finality to it. Was she about to bail? About to leave Pic?
He re-grouped. He wanted to understand. “What did you and Pic get into it over?”
“It was silly.” Her head shook again and a few seconds passed before she spoke. “I’ve wanted to have a baby, as everyone knows. Even before Pic and I got married, we talked about it.”
Troy’s head began to spin. Convoluted conversation was one of those woman things. “Boy, you’ve lost me, Mandy. How does fucking around with Chris Taylor fit into that scenario?”
“Don’t say that, Troy. My God. You make it sound like—”
“Okay, okay.” He patted the air with his palms. “Don’t cry. I’m not trying to make things worse. I’m just trying to understand.”
She opened her palms, her fingers splayed and rigid. “I’m trying to explain. Pic and I’ve been arguing off and on for weeks about a baby and going to doctors and—I don’t know, it all seems so silly now. ... He and Dusty got drunk. When he came home, he was already mad. He and Dusty had lost a cow and her calf. I tried to talk to him, but he refused to talk. We got into another argument.
“Everything sort of went downhill from there. He finally admitted a family is not what he wants. And he’s really mad at me over a few other things. For all I know, he doesn’t even want to be married, at least not to me.”
“Aww, c’mon, Mandy—”
“I wanted to talk ... to straighten it all out the next day, but he had to go to Brownwood to deal with Bill Junior’s problems. He was gone a couple of days. We had no chance to talk about our own problems.
“There’s no privacy in this house, you know. Bill Junior and Johnnie Sue have their noses in everything that happens. My God, one or the other or both of them even know when Pic and I have sex. Your dad makes jokes about it. You know something? It was a mistake for us to share this house with him. Half the time he acts like a kid who needs a good spanking. We should’ve had our own house—”
Troy raised a palm and stopped her. “You’re rambling. It wouldn’t have mattered if the two of you lived in Dallas or Houston or California. If Dad needs help, one of his sons will always be there for him. Drake used to be the one, now it’s Pic. That’s just the way it is.”
“And I hate that,” she cried. “Why don’t you ever get stuck with that job, Troy? You’re never available, that’s why.”
She shook her head and looked away again. “After what Pic said to me, I was devastated. ... I had no one to talk to. This place is so damn far from everything. Sometimes I feel like I live on the friggin’ moon. I felt so alone and Chris, he...he...he listened. It wasn’t him who started the whole thing, Troy. It was my fault. I drank too much wine. ...”
Seconds passed. Troy waited. Finally, she looked up at him, a plea in her brown eyes. “I’m sure you feel obligated to rat me out, but you should—”
“I don’t know what to do. Pic’s my brother.”
She looked down. “We’ve been friends a long time, Troy. We were friends when we were little kids. Before you and Pic were friends. In school, before you came to live here. I, uh...I guess I’m hoping that fact might mean something to you.”
Now she was breaking his heart. “It does. You know it does, Mandy. Jesus Christ, back then, I was one lost little kid. I thought God had sent you to protect me. But, Jesus, Mandy, Pic’s my brother.”
Her brow tented. Like a whipped dog, she looked into his eyes. “If you don’t know what to do, Troy, who’d be hurt if we just pretend your friend didn’t see us? Who’d ever know?... It was just one time and it’ll never happen again, I swear. Chris has left the ranch and I’ll never see him again. Pic and I made up. We both have a better understanding of some things now.”
“God, Mandy.” Involuntarily, Troy’s head shook. “I’d never be able to look at Pic again without thinking about it. I’d feel like you and I are in a conspiracy against him. I believe he’s been a faithful husband. I’d be amazed if somebody told me he’s fucked around behind your back.”
Her brow furrowed, her eyes closed. Seconds passed before she spoke again. “He might be faithful now, but he certainly wasn’t before we got married. My God, Troy, while I waited for him here in Drinkwell, believing he loved me, he went off to college in Stephenville and married another woman. You were here then. You know what that did to me. I was lucky my aunt lived in a town that had a college where at least I could get out of this sick swamp of gossip and go away to nurse my wounds and go to school.”
“That was a long time ago. You and he both were kids. And as I remember it, y’all weren’t engaged or anything like that.”
She angled an accusing glare up at him. “We weren’t kids last summer. As long as you’re remembering, maybe you’ll remember that hot chick Betty sent up here from Austin. That woman came after Pic, but she ended up with you. My God, for all I know, she screwed Pic and you both.”
Zochi McLaren.
Well, that cleared up what the family thought about him leaving last summer’s picnic with her. Troy had looked at it as taking her away and saving Pic’s ass because Mandy was right. That woman damn sure wanted Pic and Pic was taken with her. Hell, what straight, red-blooded dude wouldn’t be? She looked like a Playboy centerfold and the words “let’s fuck” might as well have been tattooed across her forehead. Fortunately, Troy had been sober enough to pass up what she offered. She had offered Pic the same thing. Pic had told him so and he, too, had passed.
“That didn’t happen, Mandy. Not with me and not with Pic.”
“Hah. I’ve seen how you and your brothers stick together. I’ll never know what really happened, will I? I’ll tell you this much. Moving past that took a long damn time.”
“What’s a long time? I remind you, Sister, you did move past it. As soon as round-up ended two months later, you and Pic got married.”
She gave a huff and looked away again. “Okay, fine. To quote your brother, why whip a dead horse? That’s where we are, Troy. Whipping a dead horse.” Her eyes brimmed with tears again. They finally spilled over. “I would be forever in your debt if you could forget you know this,” she sobbed. “My God, it was once. Just once. Why would you want to hurt him?”
“Why would you want to hurt him?”
“I told you what happened. I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I just...I just wanted someone to appreciate me for once. And Chris...Chris—”
“And ol’ Chris did that for you, huh?”
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose again.
“Trying to forget I know this leaves me in a bad spot, Mandy, and I don’t like it.”
She said nothing for a few beats. Then, she lifted her arms and let them fall to her sides. “We’re starting to repeat ourselves. Okay, fine. I understand. For you, it’s kind of a Gordian knot, isn’t it?” She turned her back and walked away, back toward the house.
Shit! His heart felt as if it weighed fifty pounds. What the hell was he supposed to do now? How could he tell his brother, a man he cared about, that his wife, a woman he had always cared about as a friend, had fucked another man? And should he tell him? If so, how? And when? “Wait a minute, Mandy.”
She stopped and Troy caught up with her. She looked up at him. “I’m finished with this conversation, Troy. You’ve made yourself clear. I have nothing else to say.”
“Look, I’ll make a deal with you. You tell Pic yourself and I won’t mention it again. And I won’t tell Pic another horse trainer saw you and Chris together.”
“I’ve already told you, Troy, I have no desire to hurt my husband. ... It’s up to you. If you think he really needs to know, I guess you’ll just have to do what you have to do.” She stalked back to the back door.
Troy stared after her. Fuck! He had never felt so helpless.
After the back door into the utility room slammed, he hesitated for a few more seconds, then started for his truck. For the whole conversation, Dixon Turley had been standing nearby, waiting and watching, hopefully unable to hear them. Did he know what had happened between Mandy and Chris? Maybe the whole damn security crew knew it. Maybe they all had a meeting and decided Chris should fall on his sword, so to speak. Troy wanted to ask Turley, but that would accomplish nothing. The bodyguard wouldn’t tell him a damn thing.
Troy veered toward the house, eased through the back door, saw the kitchen empty. He grabbed the bag of birds he had put aside for Sergio and Tania out of the refrigerator that then started for home. Turley dutifully followed him. Once at home, Troy checked his phone for messages, saw one from Sarah: Jericho said OK. See you tomorrow.
His mood elevated. He spent what was left of the day working with his horses, trying not to think of the Double-Barrel’s bullshit melodrama.
This was why had hadn’t wanted to live in the ranch house ever. Living under a separate roof, the ranch house hysteria rarely touched him.
He didn’t really want to go back there for the quail feed tonight, but he had to.
***
THE NEXT MORNING, AS Troy floated in a pool of semi-consciousness, Sarah Karol drifted in and out of his thoughts. Today, she would be here with a new challenge for him. He blinked himself to full consciousness. Mandy and Pic and Chris and reality hung in his mind, but he shoved all of it aside. It would wait until after Christmas. Given enough time, some problems solved themselves.
