She’s Gone Country (5 page)

After stepping around the clay pots of clipped topiary standing sentry on the front steps, I knock on the door. Blue and Emily’s maid, Yolanda, answers. Yolanda has met me half a dozen times but never seems to remember me. Or maybe she’s just never happy to see me. Not that it matters.

“Good morning, Yolanda.
Buenos días
. Is Emily home?”

She nods sullenly, motions for me to step into the grand marble entry, but leaves me standing next to the door while she goes off in search of Emily.

It takes Emily so long to appear that I check my watch twice, just to make sure I’m not imagining the wait. Three minutes. Seven minutes. But then she appears, regally descending the curving stone staircase, immaculate in black slacks, an ivory silk blouse, and a little gold chain around an even smaller waist. She always wears staggeringly high heels, and today her dark hair is pulled back in a pouf of a ponytail, teased at the crown to give it height. With her dark hair, blue eyes, and liberal use of eyeliner, she reminds me of Priscilla Presley in her Elvis days. Only I have a feeling Priscilla was a whole lot warmer.

“Why, Shey, what a lovely surprise,” she says coolly, reaching the bottom step and moving toward me even though nothing in her expression reveals pleasure.

I have to smash the wave of regret I feel for stopping by impulsively. I should have known better, but I’m here now and we air-kiss, a fake smooch just off each cheek. As I bend down to reach Emily—she’s only five feet four, if that—I get a whiff of hairspray, cloying perfume, and something else, something far sharper, almost medicinal or metallic.

“Sorry to drop in on you like this,” I apologize. “I was in the area and just wanted to say hello, let you know I was thinking of you.”

She smiles, her teeth small but exquisitely white and beautifully shaped. “How sweet of you.”

She doesn’t mean it, of course, and I feel as though I’ve somehow interrupted something, only I don’t know what.

Emily glances at my faded jeans, boots, and green lace-edged T-shirt before forcing a smile. “Shall we sit?” she suggests, gesturing to her living room, which is crowded with chintz and imported English antiques.

She leads me to the living room and we both sit down on opposite yellow-and-white-striped silk love seats. Emily plumps a pink-and-yellow chintz pillow and smiles at me. I push a matching pillow out of my way.

“Would you like a glass of sweet tea? Yolanda just made a new pitcher,” Emily offers.

“No, thank you. I had some coffee on the way.”

She smiles at me.

I smile at her.

Our conversation seems to end there.

Emily and I have never had the comfortable relationship Charlotte and I share, but it doesn’t keep me from wanting it. I love my brothers. I want to love their wives. Aware of the strained silence, I rack my brain for a suitable topic. “How are the girls?”

“Wonderful.” She sits as straight as if she had a yardstick down the back of her blouse, her hands resting lightly on one leg. “How are the boys?”

“Still settling in.”

Her smooth forehead struggles to register concern. “Public schools aren’t always the best option.”

“I agree, but there aren’t many options in Palo Pinto other than public schools.”

“We warned you,” she replies regretfully.

Yes, she did. Many, many times. “My brothers went to school in Mineral Wells. They turned out fine.”

She doesn’t look as if she believes me. In fact, her lips press and compress a moment before she speaks again. “I heard that Mother was visiting from Jefferson. How is she?”

“Mother” being my mama. Emily and Mama have perhaps the strangest relationship of all of us. They’re almost fond of each other, although they rarely see or speak to each other. But Mama has long respected Emily for being a regular churchgoer, and Emily admires Mama’s devoutness.

“Mama’s doing well. I think it’s an adjustment living with Grandma, but at the same time, they were both lonely and now they have each other.”

“Mother said she’d be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner. Will you and the boys be coming, too?”

I flash back to my conversation with John this morning and shake my head. “The boys will be in New York with their dad.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” But she doesn’t appear sorry in the least. She’s relieved. Pleased. “But you will still be joining us, won’t you?”

I’d already said yes a month ago when the subject came up, but now I’m not so sure. Thanksgiving at Blue’s house without my kids sounds like the most depressing Thanksgiving I could imagine. “I might be away that weekend,” I fib, hoping it just might be true. “I’m still working on some plans.”

We change topics, moving from the holiday back to her girls and then finally to Blue.

“Your brother is entertaining prospective buyers Saturday and Sunday on the ranch,” Emily announces with a disapproving sniff. “I think it’s a waste of time, but he doesn’t listen to me. Never has.”

It takes me a second to realize she means the McCurdy ranch. Blue’s development property.

A sick, sinking feeling hits my gut. I still can’t believe Blue is taking some of the most beautiful land in Palo Pinto County and turning it into fifty ranchettes.

Emily squares her thin shoulders. “My daddy would have never thrown a lavish party for people who hadn’t even committed to a purchase. It’s a waste of money, and yet one more example of Blue’s lack of business acumen.”

I’d like to defend Blue, but how can I, when I know nothing of his plans or how much he’s investing into this weekend?

“So we’ll see you this weekend?” I ask, feeling unusually evil, as I know that Emily would rather run naked through the streets of exclusive Dallas suburb Preston Hollow than spend a weekend with us in the country.

Emily is not a fan of rodeos, farms, or livestock. She visits Brick and Charlotte on the ranch as infrequently as possible, which usually amounts to once a year, and even then the visit is timed to last two hours precisely.

“Oh, I wish I could,” Emily answers with admirable sweetness, “but this weekend is dedicated to my cookbook committee.”

“You’re writing a cookbook?”

“Compiling.” She bestows a painfully gracious smile in my direction. “It’s for the new
Dallas Junior League Cookbook
. The cookbook is one of our most successful fund-raisers, and this weekend we make the final recipe selection.”

“Ah.”

Her dark arched eyebrows wing so high, I’m reminded of a bird in flight. “I told all the girls last year that I wouldn’t chair the committee again. I made it clear that it was to be my last year, but my dear friend Sidney Sterett, who was chairing the committee, was diagnosed last spring with breast cancer and I had to step forward. I couldn’t have Sidney worrying, and the fund-raiser is just too important to leave to chance.”

“Well, we’ll miss you,” I say, getting to my feet. I have no idea how long I’ve been here—twenty minutes? thirty?—but I’m so uncomfortable, I feel as though I’m about to pop out of my skin. “And if you change your mind, I know the boys would love to see you and the girls.”

“How sweet.”

We walk to the entry, and we air-kiss again, and this time as I lean over Emily, I know what it is I smell. Vodka.

It’s only ten in the morning, but my proper, churchgoing sister-in-law has already been drinking.

A
s I drive home, I puzzle over my exquisitely dressed, vodka-scented sister-in-law. Why is Emily drinking at nine-something in the morning? And what does Blue think of it? Because he has to know. She wasn’t slurring or anything, but she reeked.

It wasn’t just her breath that smelled like alcohol. Her skin smelled bitter, too.

Maybe I’m just imagining it. I hope I’m imagining it. I come from a tough family, heavy on testosterone, and while we have our problems, alcohol has never been one of them. But John’s mom was an alcoholic, and a mean one when she drank (which was nightly), and I wouldn’t wish a dependence on alcohol on anyone.

Thirty miles from Mineral Wells, my phone rings. It’s Blue. He must have heard I stopped by the house. “Hey, Blue,” I say, picking up. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you when I was in Dallas, but I understand you’re coming our way this weekend.”

“I just hung up from talking to Brick. He couldn’t have called you already,” he answers.

“Emily told me. I saw her car out front this morning, so I stopped by to say hello.”

“You saw Emily today?”

“Yeah.”

There is a moment’s hesitation on the line. “But I thought you were in Highland Park yesterday.”

I note the confusion in his voice. “I was,” I answer. “And back today to finish the job. Only it wrapped up a lot sooner than I expected. So I stopped by to say hello, and now I’m heading home.”

There’s another odd beat, as if he’s struggling to decide what he’s going to say next.

“How was Emily?” he finally asks, and I sense it’s not a casual question.

I know my brothers really well and have been pretty tight with them since I was little. Even when I lived in New York, I talked to them every couple of weeks. Well, Brick and Blue. Cody’s another story. “Are you worried about her?”

He sighs, and the sigh adds to my unease.

“She’s a perfectionist,” he replies almost defensively. “And the girls keep her busy. They’re involved in everything.”

I feel for him. I do. He knows something’s wrong, but he’s not going to talk about it. Maybe not even deal with it. But that’s how we were raised. Family matters are private. They’re not things you discuss. Not even with other family members.

“Emily didn’t sound too happy about your plans for the weekend,” I tell him. “You’re entertaining prospective buyers?”

“A developer friend did it in Kauai, and it was a huge success. So I thought I’d try the same idea for the ranch. I’m putting everyone up at the Cliffs Resort over at Possum Kingdom and then busing them in for the day and evening activities, including horseback riding, fishing on the Brazos, a guided bird-watching tour—”

“No ATV wheeling?”

He groans. “Very funny. God knows I don’t need Kelly going ballistic and shooting my buyers.”

“Dane’s pulled a gun?” I ask, finding the idea impossible. Dane’s not a violent guy. He’s a big man, a strong man, but he also has patience and tremendous discipline, which is one of the reasons he became a champion bull rider. Dane controls the bull, not the other way around.

“Of course not. But it got pretty ugly when some of my new owners rode vehicles onto his property. They did do a fair amount of damage, and the kids weren’t exactly remorseful.”

“Blue!”

“In all fairness, they couldn’t tell a crop from a pasture. And I’ve paid for the damages to the crop and paid to repair the fence the kids ran over, so Kelly has nothing to gripe about.”

I don’t agree, but I hold my tongue. This isn’t my feud. I don’t want to get into the middle of it.

But Blue isn’t content to leave me out of it. “Of course you’re taking his side.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“This development is the biggest thing I’ve ever done on my own. I’m going to see a very satisfying return on my investment, and maybe Emily will finally see I don’t need her daddy’s help to be successful.”

I can’t help thinking the whole thing is such a mess. Blue alienated Dane over the development. Emily hates the development. And Blue just wants to prove to Emily that he’s a man and worthy of her respect. “I just wish you and Brick and Dane could patch things up. You were all such good friends for so many years—”

“Cody’s dead, Shey, and I do blame Dane.”

I picture Dane and just shake my head. It’s not right. None of this is right. Growing up, Dane was considered part of the family. He spent so much time at our house that Pop gave him chores to do. My earliest memory is trailing after Brick and Dane as they headed for the barn. I remember it was hot outside and I was wearing nothing but a diaper and my boots with my fuzzy pink blanket under my arm. Brick kept telling me to go back to the house, but I wouldn’t. Finally Dane, all of eight years old, picked me up and carried me back to Mama so I wouldn’t get run over by the work trucks or horses.

But Dane wasn’t protective just of me. An only child, he was that way with Blue and Cody, too.

“Well, I don’t hold Dane responsible for Cody’s problems. If anything, I blame Mama and Pop for not getting Cody help when he first started exhibiting signs of manic depression.”

“You’re still in love with Kelly.”

The contempt in Blue’s voice makes my stomach churn. “Gotta go, Blue. Don’t want to do this.” And I hang up before I can say something I would regret. Because yes, I probably am still a little in love with Dane and probably always will be. Even though I was never his girl, I always wanted to be.

I’m ten minutes from the ranch when my phone rings again. It’s Blue calling back, and he’s quite conciliatory. “Sorry,” he says roughly. “Don’t want to fight with you, especially as I was calling to ask a favor. I’m putting together a sales brochure for the development, and this weekend I’ve got one of Dallas’s best photographers coming to take the photographs and I need you. You’re my model.”

I need you
. Ah, Blue. “Of course I’ll help you. I will always help you. Tell me about the brochure.”

“It’s to mail to prospective buyers and will be eight and a half by eleven, six to ten pages, glossy. There’ll be horseback-riding shots, campfire shots, fishing on the river shots, plus photos of the completed home sites.”

“Are you working with an ad agency, or is someone in-house?”

“I’ve got an agency overseeing it, and they’re the ones who recommended the photographer. He’s been out to the ranch already to select his locations.”

“Sounds good. Shoot me an e-mail with the details and I’ll be there.”

“Will do. And tell the boys I’m expecting to see them at the party I’m hosting Saturday night. It’ll be a proper barbecue with a chuckwagon grill and smoker, live band, and sawdust-covered dance floor. I think they’ll have a good time.”

“We are so there.”

“You don’t have to check your calendar?” he drawls, aware that I was once attached at the hip to my BlackBerry, having spent the past ten years perfecting my multitasking skills. I didn’t just co-own a modeling agency, I still modeled occasionally, while developing a show for the Oxygen channel as well as coauthoring a book on beauty and self-esteem for teens. “Blue, I don’t even own a calendar anymore.”

“Well then, you might just enjoy having somewhere to go after three quiet months on the ranch.”

I’m smiling as I hang up. Blue’s the most social of all of us and knows how to throw a party. Even back in high school, Blue was the big man on campus. Although recruited to play quarterback, Blue wouldn’t stay in the pocket and ended up running all over the field in a West Coast offense that didn’t fly with the old school Texas coaches. After a couple of intense discussions, Blue ended up doing what he always wanted to do—catch, run, block, and make plays. He graduated from Mineral Wells High as the most celebrated tight end in school history, earning a full scholarship to Texas Tech, where he dazzled again until he blew out his ACL his junior year, ending his sports career.

But by then Blue had caught the eye of Emily Thornton, daughter of Roger Thornton III, oil baron and pillar of Dallas society. She’d grown up in exclusive Old Preston Hollow, a two-square-mile neighborhood dotted with Texas celebrities and Dallas power brokers, and she knew what she wanted—and she wanted Blue Callen, as much for his athletic prowess as for his dark blond hair, deep blue eyes, and square chin. She knew he came from a ranching family. She knew he didn’t have a flashy car or big bank account. But he was handsome and driven and proud, and she liked that, too.

They enjoyed a fairy-tale courtship, followed by a formal black-tie wedding the
Dallas Gazette
called the most extravagant of the decade, and then the birth of their first daughter.

Roger Thornton, now a doting grandfather, rewarded them with their first little house in University Park—a five-thousand-square-foot cottage—which they outgrew two years later when daughter number two arrived. Again Grandpa Thornton stepped in, surprising them with the Georgian mansion on Beverly Drive in Highland Park.

When I lived in New York, I thought Blue and Emily lived a charmed life. Now I’m not so sure.

After pulling off the highway, I stop in Weatherford at Bealls to do some shopping. Hank needs new shoes for PE, Bo could use some new boxers, and Coop needs jeans.

I end up buying more for the boys than boxers, athletic shoes, and jeans. I spot some T-shirts I think they’d like and purchase a heavy sweatshirt for each.

An hour later, I’ve turned off the highway and onto our private lane. I brake as I cross the metal cattle crossing guard and breathe in deep as the gravel road cuts through gold-and-brown fields with the hint of green hills in the background. I love this stretch of road. As a little girl, I never wanted to live anywhere else. I was always going to live here. I had big plans for myself, too, plans that included marrying Dane Kelly—yes, even at seven I had my sights set on him—and having a bunch of kids and spending all day making cookies and strawberry jam.

Five minutes later, I’ve left the fields and pastureland for the grove of big oak trees that shield the house. I turn the corner slowly in case one of Brick’s mongrels might be wandering around. He has three dogs—all abandoned mutts, including one that has only three legs—and they’re spoiled rotten. They also tend to view our house as an extension of Brick’s.

But there aren’t dogs in front of the house. There’s a truck, a big black shiny truck with fancy gold script painted on the side. Kelly Bucking Bulls.

My pulse does a funny little jump.

Kelly, as in Dane Kelly?

I hope. Hope not.

Hope.

Not
.

My hands tremble as I park Pop’s rusted truck between the house and shed. My legs feel stiff but not very steady as I walk the distance to the house. I see where the white paint is peeling from the siding on the enclosed porch, and in the sunlight tall green weeds pop up around the brick steps. I’m suddenly embarrassed by the ranch’s run-down appearance. Not sure why I feel this way. We’ve never been a fancy family, never lived in a fancy house, and Dane knows that. Dane knows who we are, so I don’t know why I feel this sudden need to impress him.

I’m climbing the steps two at a time when the front door opens and Dane appears on the threshold. He moves forward far enough that the front door can close behind him.

He’s wearing jeans and a white western button-down shirt. Even though his cane rests near the outside tip of his right boot, he looks rugged and virile. And because Dane’s so big and solid, there’s no room for both of us on the stairs, and I quickly step back down.

“I found one of your boys walking along the highway,” he says bluntly. “Brought him home.”

I don’t know what I thought Dane would be doing at my house, but this is the last thing I expected. “Who?”

“Bo.”

My heart sinks. All the boys should be in school. I don’t know why Bo wouldn’t be. I squint against the sun as I look up at Dane. “Where did you find him?”

“A couple miles outside of town.”

“He was walking back to the ranch?”

“I didn’t know he was yours when I stopped. I just knew he was a long way from anything.” Dane hesitates. “He sure takes after Cody.”

I feel the pinch in my heart again. So much pain and worry for this middle son of mine. “I know.”

Dane looks as if he wants to say something else, but he shakes his head instead and carefully climbs down the steps toward me, his dark cane supporting his weight. “It’s going to look worse before it gets better,” he adds, fishing his keys from his pocket. “I don’t think anything’s broken, though—”

“What do you mean?”

Dane and I are just a foot apart, and as he looks down at me, I see a flash of something in his eyes. It’s there only a moment before it’s gone. “He’s been in a fight.” There’s the briefest pause. “He didn’t win.”

“A fight?” My voice rises. “Bo’s never been in a fight before. He doesn’t know how to fight—”

“So he’s learned.” Dane’s voice is deep and calm and hard. It’s so Dane, too. Dane has never been one to show fear or emotion, much less vulnerability.

I start up the steps, anxious to get to Bo. But Dane reaches out, snags my wrist. “His pride’s hurt worse than he is, Shey.”