Jake and Cole looked at one another.
“It's pink,” Cole said helplessly.
“I know,” Jake said, just as helplessly, and the two of them stared at each other in dismay.
Jake somehow convinced Cole he could stand to wear it this one time, made a mental note to get the kid a WHITE button-down shirt as soon as possible for emergencies such as this. They worked on Cole's cowlick for a time, but both of them finally conceded there was nothing to be done for it. Jake was wearing a black polo, tucked into a pair of off-white Levi's, which he hoped wasn't some dress code faux pas. The two of them proceeded nervously downstairs, careful not to touch anything.
They had to wander around a bit to find the south dining room, past huge rooms with even more leather furniture and thick rugs and rustic furnishings that looked as if they had walked straight out of a magazine. “We already came this way,” Cole complained once. Yes, Jake knew that, but he wasn't about to admit he was lost. It was the sound of polite, distant voices that finally led them to the right place, and they entered the room like two wayward children.
The room was paneled in white, the windows hung with heavy floral chintz drapes that matched the upholstered chairs. The table had been laid with china, crystal goblets of varying sizes and shapes, mounds of silverware, and real, honest-to-God linen napkins. Bonnie, Rebecca, and Robin, all dressed in expensive-looking summer dresses, were milling about a sideboard where there looked to be appetizers of some sort. Mr. Lear was seated at the table wearing clothes that instantly reminded Jake of Fagpants (save the baseball cap), his shoulders slumped, staring at a veritable pharmacy lined up in front of his plate. He glanced up as
Jake and Cole walked in, gave Jake a cold once-over, then looked again at the array of bottles, scowling mightily.
Feeling extremely out of place, Jake put his arm around Cole's shoulders and nudged him forward.
“Look who's here!” Bonnie sang happily, hurrying over. She stopped mid-stride to admire Cole first. “My, don't you look handsome!”
Cole blushed furiously.
“And so do you, Jake,” she added, with Robin beaming over her shoulder, and damn it if he didn't blush.
“We're eating light tonight, I hope you don't mind,” she said airily and took Cole's hand, leading him to a seat next to Mr. Lear. “It's already so hot, isn't it? Here, Cole, you sit here, sweetie.”
Robin slipped her arm through Jake's and forced him to the table, too, seating him between Cole and Bonnie. She sat directly across from him, Rebecca next to her. Bonnie smiled happily at the group. “What a wonderful treat!”
“Get on with it, Bonnie,” Mr. Lear said gruffly.
Bonnie sighed, picked up a little bell, and tinkled it. Instantly, like genies out of a bottle, a man and a woman appeared, the man with a bottle of red wine, the woman with a bottle of white, and for Cole, a bottle of Coke. They moved gracefully from person to person, asking the preference in a whisper as Bonnie launched into a tale, for Jake's benefit, of how they had come to acquire Blue Cross Ranch many years ago. “We were so lucky to have found it. I always wanted to get back to this area,” she said, after telling Jake how they had stumbled on the property. “My father's people come from around here.”
“El?” Jake asked, perking up a little. “I thought he was from Houston.”
Bonnie gasped with delight. “You know my father?”
“Mom,” Robin groaned. “How could he not? Grandma and Grandpa might as well live with me, they're over so often.”
“Oh, Robbie, you know how they adore you.”
“Actually, El has been a great help to me,” Jake said, earning a frown from Robin and a giggle from Rebecca.
“He's been helping out with the renovation. In fact, he helped me take down a wall just the other day.”
“Elmer Stanton?” Mr. Lear asked, disbelieving.
“Really?” Bonnie asked. “Oh, Jake, that's so wonderful of you! You can't imagine how much that means to my father—he's so desperate to be of some help,” she gushed.
“Mom, stop. It's embarrassing,” Robin protested. “Grandpa is not a charity case!”
“He comes closer to being a basket case,” Mr. Lear said.
“Oh, Dad!” Rebecca chastised him.
Bonnie glared at Mr. Lear, then turned a smile to Jake. “You'll have to forgive my husband, Jake. He and my father have fought like two old yard dogs for thirty-five years. And Aaron's a little cranky these days.”
“You'd be a little cranky, too, if you were drinking this shit!” Mr. Lear snapped.
Beside him, Cole giggled at the cuss word, earning a glare from Lear that only made him giggle more.
“Just goes to show you what trouble Grandpa stirs up even when he's not here,” Robin said and took a long, fortifying drink of wine.
Once the food was served, Mr. Lear lost interest in everything around him and concentrated on the eating. Jake noticed he took small bites, then would put his fork aside and close his eyes, chewing carefully. His expression was so pained that Jake had the image of knives sliding down the man's esophagus. Speaking of pained—Jake spent most of his meal nudging Cole to sit up, to remove his bare hand from the food on his plate, to wipe his mouth (with a napkin!), to take smaller bites, and for God's sake, say nothing about what Jake was fairly certain was a part of a pheasant, which apparently was what Bonnie considered light summer fare.
Bonnie did most of the talking, peppering her daughters with questions they both seemed terribly disinclined to answer {Have you talked to Bud, Rebecca? So, Robin, have you and Jake been to visit his parents?). By the end of the meal, it seemed to Jake that everyone was exhausted from trying to make conversation or avoid it.
When the genies reappeared to clear their dishes away, the family retired to the front room—a huge bay centered on a massive limestone fireplace, over which a longhorn steer's head hung. The paneled walls were lined with bookshelves, a smattering of leather couches, and big overstuffed pillows were grouped around the cold hearth. A large, furry white rug lay atop polished wood floors. To one side there was a large oval table—a gaming table, judging by the green felt covering and the chessboard shoved off to one side.
Mr. Lear headed straight for a long, narrow cabinet, on which sat a silver tray with several crystal decanters filled with amber liquids. The women filed in behind Jake, choosing various seats. Cole stood at Jake's hip, and as Jake moved, Cole moved, shadowing him. Jake chose a couch. Cole sat directly next to him.
“Anyone for a scotch?” Mr. Lear asked gruffly, unstopping one of the decanters.
“Aaron, do you really think you should?” Bonnie asked and shook her head when Mr. Lear glared at her. She held out her hand to Cole. “Come here, young man—I want to show you something.”
With a furtive look to Jake, Cole got up, shoved his hands in his pockets, and head down, followed Bonnie to the gaming table. She went to a hidden cabinet in the paneling and extracted a game. “I hope you like games!” she said cheerfully. “Robin? Rebecca? Think you can beat your mom at a game of Yahtzee?”
Yahtzee? This was beginning to look a little like Beaver Cleaver land. But then Mr. Lear finished pouring drinks and plopped down across from Jake holding two glasses. And here was Ward Cleaver on acid, Jake thought wryly.
Mr. Lear leaned forward with some effort and handed him a glass of amber liquid. “You're man enough to drink scotch, aren't you?”
Now! In this corner, the contest of the biggest balls! Jake smiled wryly, took the drink, tossed it down his throat, and handed the empty glass to Mr. Lear.
Mr. Lear smiled. "Good for you—now you've shown me
you can be a jerk. That's one-hundred-fifty-year-old scotch; it should be savored."
Prick. “Is that what you were trying to accomplish?” Jake asked calmly.
Lear shrugged, sipped at his scotch. “I'll pour you another—”
“Don't bother. Wouldn't want to waste any of that fancy scotch on someone like me, now, would you?”
Lear's clear blue eyes—Robin's eyes—sparkled with twisted glee. “At least you're man enough to admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“That you aren't good enough for her.”
“I'd be the first to say it,” Jake agreed and leaned back, casually slinging one arm across the back of the couch. “No one is good enough for her. But at least I'm willing to do whatever it takes to try.”
“Ah, poetic,” Lear said, nodding appreciatively. “Nice touch.”
No, this wasn't going to work, old man. Jake had lived far too long on the streets of Houston to be a man who was easily intimidated, not even by the lofty likes of Aaron Lear. He glanced across the room, to where Robin was sitting. She was looking at them, a worried frown on her pretty face.
He smiled, to reassure her.
“You're good at this, I'll give you that,” Lear continued. “But you damn sure aren't the first one to come sniffing around my daughter looking for a free ride. Sadly enough, you probably won't be the last.”
“I'm not looking for a free ride,” Jake said evenly. “Robin and I have a relationship—”
“Right,” Lear interrupted him. “A relationship that goes something like this: You spend every dime of your pathetic little paycheck on her, make her feel like a princess with your presents and compliments, maybe even manage to move into her house for all intents and purposes. And all the while you are dreaming about the day she and all of her money agrees to be your wife, and you figure your bonus is going to be a good one, seeing as how her old man is dying of cancer. That sound familiar?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, it does,” Jake said, smiling at the look of surprise on Lear's face. “Sounds exactly like what your boy Evan is up to.”
That caught Lear off guard; his eyes narrowed and he slowly took another sip of scotch. “You better watch yourself, hotshot. You're not nearly as slick as you think.”
Robin stood up, started in their direction. “I never thought I was slick, Mr. Lear. I'm an honest man who happens to love your daughter—”
“Spare me your crap!” he snapped.
Jake shrugged. “You don't want to listen to what I have to say? Fine,” he said and turned a blindingly false smile to Robin.
Whatever her father had said to Jake, she was not going to have it from him, that much was obvious. They had stopped talking when she joined them, and in fact, Dad had complained of nausea and had retired early. But she had seen the look on her father's face, knew that look all too well.
Jake would only smile when she asked. “Your father loves you,” was all he would say.
The next day, after a cowboy breakfast Mom insisted on serving on the veranda (all to impress Jake, hello), they piled into the Jeep with Rebecca and drove to the far side of the ranch to see if any new calves had been birthed. There were two, still wobbly on their legs, bleating at their mothers.
Cole was mightily impressed. “Can we ride the horses now?” he breathlessly asked Rebecca when they piled back into the Jeep.
“Yes! Want to come along, Jake?” Rebecca asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
Jake laughed. “No, t hank s. I've never ridden a horse, so I'm not sure it's a good idea.”
“You've never been horseback riding?” Robin exclaimed, punching him playfully in the arm. “Then you must go!”
“No, no, no.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Maybe some other time.”
“Now's as good at time as any,” Robin disagreed. 'To the stables, Bec."
And over Jake's protestations, Rebecca drove them down to the stables.
There were three horses in the stables; a half dozen more were out grazing. They began in a paddock, where Rebecca and Robin showed them how to approach a horse, how to get on, how to dismount. Cole was far better at it than Jake, swinging up like an old pen rider. Rebecca showed him how to rein the horse and took him around the paddock a few times until Cole was doing it on his own. In the months Robin had known Cole, she had never seen him smile so broadly. He was enjoying the hell out of himself.
Jake, on the other hand, was not enjoying himself quite so much. In part because he was inexperienced. But mainly because they had saddled up old Belle for him, a mean old mare who was one step away from becoming a bottle of Elmer's Glue. But at least she was supposed to be manageable, a prime consideration as far as Jake was concerned. Only Belle did not like to be ridden, and she made that very clear the moment Jake sat on her back.
Naturally, being 110 percent male, Jake refused any help from Rebecca and insisted on trying to persuade Belle to trot around the paddock. Belle was having none of it; she danced, tried to switch him off with her tail. Then she began side shuffling, trying to rock him off. But Jake held fast.
Robin and Rebecca exchanged looks, both stifling a laugh, watching as Jake desperately held on to the old girl. Finally, in a fit of frustration, Belle did the unthinkable— she bucked. Having no clue it was coming or how to hold on, Jake went toppling off her like Humpty-Dumpty, landing squarely on his butt. Robin shrieked and tried to climb over the rail; Rebecca went rushing over to help him up, and Cole laughed hysterically from atop his horse.
Jake was up before Rebecca could even reach him, waving her off. “I'm fine,” he said cheerfully. “But I'm going to kill that old nag,” he said and went striding forward, prepared to do battle.
He won.
Belle was riding beneath him after another hotly contested match between them, and from the look of it, even seemed to be enjoying herself. As for Jake, well, the Cheshire cat had nothing on him. That was so like Jake, Robin thought—when life kicked him in the teeth, he got up, brushed himself off, and went at it again. She so admired that about him.
Rebecca next took them out of the paddock and into the adjoining pasture while Robin watched from atop the railing. She turned when she heard the sound of an approaching golf cart, thinking it was Mom. But it was Dad, wearing a safari hat, khaki pants, and Maui Jim sunglasses.
He stopped the cart and got out, walking carefully in a sort of lopsided way to where she was sitting.
“Hey Dad, how are you today?”
“A little green.”
“Jeez, shouldn't you be feeling a little better now?”