The Cattleman (Sons of Texas Book 2) (13 page)

Bastard!
She was trembling with anger and on the verge of bawling. She walked over to the cupboard, yanked a glass off the shelf and filled it with ice cubes, then carried it to the dining room, dragged a fifth of Crown Royal out of the hutch and poured herself a shot. As she swallowed the first burning sip, the tears came.

She added another dollop of
bourbon to her glass and moved into the family room. She sank into her favorite reclining chair and turned on TV, but no programming was enough to block her memories.

Her pain penetrated deeper than that inflicted by
her cheating husband. Her hide had thickened against that years back. What hurt her more was that she hadn’t seen or heard from Drake since the family gathering at the Petroleum Club the day of his wedding. And he hadn’t spoken to her then, hadn’t even tried to introduce her to his wife. Betty deserved that, she supposed. She should have known better than to hatch a plot with that Donna Schoonover, but she had let her good intentions override her common sense.

Bill Junior had told her Drake and his wife had moved to a house on the lake in Camden and
sold his Fort Worth condo. Now, Betty was alone in the city. When Drake had lived here, having him almost within walking distance had been a comfort and made her feel safe. Now, she had to rely on some brute in a black SUV and hiding behind dark sunglasses to protect her.

Tears trailed down her cheeks. Would Drake ever make up with her? How could she live the rest of her life estranged from her wonderful oldest son? How could she bear never knowing his child?

Betty yanked a tissue from a box on the table and mopped her eyes. She spent a lot of time in tears these days, so she kept tissues handy.

An image of the woman Drake had married and her wild red hair came to her and temporarily stopped her tears. Drake’s child could have that hair. Betty shuddered and swallowed another sip.

She had attempted to learn more about Shannon Piper besides what had been in the report Donna Schoonover’s detective friend had produced, but no one in Betty’s circle of friends knew one thing about her or Piper Real Estate Company.

She would be going on five months by now, carrying Betty’s longed-for grandchild. She didn’t even know how Drake felt about becoming a father. Didn’t know if he wanted a boy or a girl. Had he learned the baby’s sex? If Bill Junior had that information, would he pass it on to her? Or would he be an ass and keep it secret just to torment her? And what difference would knowing make if Drake wanted nothing to do with her?

She had to do something. But what? If she apologized, would Drake or his new wife listen? Or would they shun her? Unlike Pic, Drake was a grudge-carrier. He was like an elephant when it came to remembering bad things someone had done to him.

More tears flooded her eyes and she broke into sobs.
Oh, hell. I’ve become a crying drunk.

****

Shrill barks and haunting howls drifted through the warm night to Xochimilka McLaren’s ears and she sat up in bed, her heart pounding.
Wolves?
Were there wolves in the Texas outback? She sat stone still, her eyelids stretched so wide they ached, listening to the sounds repeat themselves. She never had this experience in Austin, had never felt so alone and defenseless.

Well, she shouldn’t worry. They
sounded far away. And they couldn’t get into this house. She was confident of that. Thank God she didn’t have to go outside. What would she do if confronted by a wolf? She might just faint.

She glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. Slightly after midnight. She lay back
and turned on her side, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and burying her ear against the pillow, trying to shut out the sounds.

She replayed the day. Johnnie Sue, who appeared to run the Double- Barrel household, had installed her in the guesthouse, a small stone cottage a good walk downhill from the main ranch house. It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms and a full kitchen, including pots and pans and dishes. At first glance, it looked old and rustic, but it was only decorated to look that way. In fact, it was freakin’ luxurious. Totally an improvement over the cheap furnished apartment she had leased in Austin. And she could already tell it had a better bed.

Earlier, her VW had magically appeared under a carport attached to the guesthouse. A tall rangy old guy had told her his name was Smoky and said he had arranged for someone to remove her tire, repair it and put it back on her car. Thank God he hadn’t asked her for money to pay for it.

Johnnie Sue had also told her the guesthouse had no food in it
. She could go to town and buy some groceries or she was welcome to eat in the ranch house. What a relief. With only a limited amount of cash and no credit card that wasn’t maxed out or canceled because she hadn’t paid the bill, she was stuck relying on the kindness of strangers. Blanche DeBois had nothing on her.

Having not eaten all day, she had gratefully accepted the maid’s offer. She, Mr. Lockhart and Johnnie Sue ate dinner at a round oak table in the breakfast room just off the kitchen. The Lockharts were supposed to be filthy rich, but Johnnie Sue seemed to be the only domestic help. Odd that the hired help would sit down and eat with her and Mr. Lockhart. That certainly wouldn’t happen
in her parents’ home.

Over dinner, they had talked about mostly nothing. Mr. Lockhart wanted to know how she knew Mrs. Lockhart. Xochimilka was forced to tell him she had seen his wife only a couple of times. Her mother and Mrs. Lockhart had gotten acquainted in an Austin golf tournament and become friends.

Johnnie Sue had served a meal of unidentifiable little clumps of fried meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, salad and hot yeast rolls. But even as hungry as she was, Xochimilka was appalled when she learned that the meat they were eating was quail breast. She had barely managed not to faint or have a fit. She had been to restaurants with her parents where quail breast had been on the menu, but she wouldn’t have dreamed of ordering it.

After Johnnie Sue had named the meat, Xochimilka had made herself swallow only a few more bites—thank God a quail breast only amounted to a few bites—but as she chewed, all she could think of was the pictures she had seen of the cute little things with pretty faces
that looked as if they had been painted and top knots on their heads.

She would never again eat sweet little birds. It was bad enough to eat chickens. From now on in this place, she would ask what she was being served before she filled her plate.

Her thoughts shifted to the man who had not been present at dinner, the one who had found her on the road. Pic, the second son and the one Mrs. Lockhart had told her to contact. He was single. Why he was single Xochimilka didn’t understand because he was a really good-looking guy in a rugged he-man kind of way and he was obviously over thirty. In her experience, good-looking men of that age fell into three categories: Already Taken, Prefers Guys or Something Seriously Wrong with Him. Which was he?

He had startling blue eyes and
caramel-colored hair. And he was big and solid looking. Somehow, she just knew bulky muscles hid inside that long-sleeve shirt he had been wearing. He had picked her up and put her into his pickup as if she were a feather. And she wasn’t light. She weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, a fact that kept her constantly on a diet.

On a Friday night, did he have a date? Mrs. Lockhart had said he dated someone, but she also had said it wasn’t a serious relationship. While Mrs. Lockhart had
n’t said outright that he was fair game, she had more than hinted at it. Mom had even badgered Dad into using his influence to arrange this stupid photography tour just so Xochimilka could meet the middle Lockhart son.

Mr. Lockhart, the father, came back into her mind. His looks weren’t much different from the son’s. He might be older, but he was still a big, solid guy and he, too, had those blue
, blue eyes. He had told her maybe someone would take her out to view some photo opportunities tomorrow, but he hadn’t sounded all that definite. She hoped it was true because the magazine had given her a deadline. The pictures she would take were important to her livelihood and maybe even her future. If she didn’t make a success of this photography gig, she didn’t know where she would turn next. She had failed at so many things.

Now she was awake with sleep nowhere in sight and the wolves were still howling outside.

Being reminded of how important this photography job was to her, she couldn’t keep from thinking about her life and the mess she had made of it.

She had begun her list of failures by flunking out of UT, a huge disappointment to her professor parents, especially after she had attended a prestigious—and expensive—private high school.

Contending with parents who were both PhDs was hard. They expected her to be extra smart. She wasn’t dumb, but she was easily distracted and seemed to be faced constantly with things that upset her or displeased her. Her focus always seemed to be on the wrong things. Like when she had quit her job at Target and used all of her rent money to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in a protest against the Iraq war. The protest had been totally ineffective in the end and with no money, she’d had to move back in with her parents when she had returned home.

Or when instead of enrolling for a new semester in college, she spent the time living in a makeshift shelter in a wet forest studying and learning from an environmental group in Oregon. She’d had a bad cold and a runny nose the whole time and
after she gave up, she’d had to move back in with her parents again.

At age twenty-seven, she finally graduated from a small nothing college with a degree in political science.
In Austin, Texas, who
didn’t
have a degree of some kind related to politics? Her parents had displayed pride in her accomplishment, but she wasn’t so dense that she couldn’t see that their enthusiasm wasn’t genuine.

Then there was her screwed-up history with guys. Her parents weren’t happy about that either. On her way to college graduation, she had lived in several guys’ apartments around Austin, then moved out when things didn’t work out. And at the end of every fling, she’d had to move back
into her parents’ home.

While getting herself educated, she had found and lost two fiancés, one of whom was now a professor at UT. Too bad he had been a jerk because he made a nice living.

After him, she’d had affairs with several lesser guys in general, some of whose names she couldn’t remember. She had never had difficulty attracting guys—people were always telling her how beautiful she was—but finding a good one and keeping him around had been more problematic.

After graduation, she had been dismayed to learn that a degree in political science from a school no one had ever heard of and a low GPA had left her almost un-hirable
in a job that could be called a career. Thus, she had held any number of frou-frou jobs that didn’t even come close to being a career. Her latest gig had been as a pollster for an Austin political candidate. She had walked out on that job because she didn’t like politics.

And then, there was the thing that haunted her the most. The abortion. Something she hoped her devoutly Catholic parents never learned about. She almost couldn’t bear to think of it herself. It had been twelve years ago, but when she thought about it even now, it set off chaos in her head and a cramp developed in her stomach. Like now.

She hated the man who had convinced her a fetus was nothing more than a blob of cells and demanded that she get rid of it.

But most of all, she hated herself for not telling him to go straight to hell after he
told her his career came before all else and if she decided to have a baby, she couldn’t count on him. Her baby’s father had been her second fiancé, a lawyer who was ten years older than she, worked in the state attorney general’s office and was supposed to be honest and honorable. A man who was supposed to have loved her. But he hadn’t loved her. From the beginning, he had intimidated her and lied to her. At the time, she had been twenty-three and clueless and making the pregnancy disappear had seemed like the only solution.

Now, she was thirty-five, not far from thirty-six
, and she often found herself wondering if she would ever have any kids. Or even a husband. All she had to show for her time on earth was her car and she didn’t really own that either.

At least she hadn’t gotten lost in drugs like many of her friends had. She didn’t even smoke pot anymore.

The cramp in her stomach grew worse. A doctor had told her anxiety caused it. She sat up and swung her feet to the floor. Sitting on the edge of the mattress with her eyes closed, opening her palms, she joined her thumb and middle finger on each hand, drew in deep breaths and hummed a chant. “Ooohmm…oohmm…oohmm….Leave me, negativity….Leave me, guilt….Away thoughts of bad things….oohmm…oohmm.”

She stopped chanting and opened her eyes. That silly exercise wasn’t even helping her clear her head, much less fight off her demons. It wasn’t doing much for her cramping stomach either. She rose and padded into the kitchen, found a glass in the cupboard and ran it full from the faucet. She sipped slowly, trying to
settle her stomach.

After a few more sips, she returned to bed, turned on TV and absent-mindedly channel surfed while the baggage of her past
tumbled through her mind. At some point, she dropped off to sleep.

Chapter 9

After a
night of marathon sex and passion and talking and little sleep, Amanda and Pic dragged out of bed early on Saturday morning. They showered, skipped breakfast and headed north to Drake’s new home in Camden to deliver Pic’s wedding present and have brunch. Marcus followed them.

“Is he going to go with us all the way to Fort Worth?” Amanda asked.

“Just pretend he isn’t there.”

“What’s he going to do while we’re visiting with Drake and Shannon?”

“Baby, don’t worry about it. This is what they do.”

Amanda expelled a great breath. “It must get awfully boring.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Pic replied.

Amanda had met Shannon soon after Drake had married her, when Pic had taken her, Shannon and Drake to dinner in Fort Worth. She and Shannon had gotten along from the first. Shannon was only two years older. Not only was
she genuine and beautiful, she owned a successful real estate business she had started from scratch long before she met Drake. Amanda admired her.

Drake and Shannon were thrilled with Pic’s drawing. Amanda and Shannon looked on and kibitzed as the brothers hung it in Drake’s spacious home office. With the house located on a high bluff overlooking Camden Lake, the office had a spectacular view of the lake, the landscape beyond and the sky. This morning, the room was bright with sunlight and an upbeat ambience, as was the whole house.
In a different way, Drake’s new home was a close match in appeal to the Fort Worth condo he had sold.

Amanda would love to ask Shannon about a hundred questions, such as if she planned to
give up her real estate business after the baby came, what they planned to name the baby, if she and Drake planned to have more kids, blah, blah, blah. Most of all, she would like to ask what she thought of her new mother-in-law and what the witch had done to her. Today was neither the time nor place for that conversation, but someday…

“Pic’s a very good artist,” Shannon said, as Pic and Drake settled on the spot on the wall behind Drake’s desk and nitpicked like two old maids about exactly how to hang it. “I didn’t know he drew.”

“He’s done it since he was a kid. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he actually took some art and photography classes in college.”

“Has he done a lot of drawings?”

“Quite a few. And some oil paintings. Some of his pieces hang here and there with his family members. Troy has several of his pieces in his house. There’s one in the bank in Drinkwell and I’ve got one of his oil paintings over the sofa in my living room. But most of his work is stuffed in a closet in the ranch house. His mother used to keep a photograph album of everything. I don’t know if she still does. That’s about the extent of it. Pic just never puts his talent out there.”

“Hunh. Drake has never mentioned it.”

Amanda laughed. “Welcome to the world of the macho Lockhart brothers. Pic sometimes buys western art, but he thinks doing it is sissy. I suspect your husband has the same attitude.”

Shannon laughed, too. “You’re probably right. Would you like to go to the kitchen with me?
I want to help Grammy put the finishing touches on brunch. She’s made crepes.”

“Yum. I love crepes.”

They left the men in the office and strolled toward the kitchen. “Drake buys western art, too” Shannon said. “Look around this house.” She made a circular gesture with her hand. Original western oil paintings and watercolors hung on the walls. Bronze sculptures sat on tables. All of it had been done by well-known artists. Amanda recognized some of it from having seen it in Drake’s Fort Worth condo.

“I still don’t know what all of these pieces are worth,” Shannon said, “but I think it’s a lot. Art as an investment is something I’m still learning about.”

“I suppose it was Bill Senior who got the whole family interested in it. He was personally acquainted with some artists. There are some beautiful original pieces in the ranch house in Drinkwell.”

“Now that Pic’s running the ranch, he probably doesn’t have time for much drawing or painting,” Shannon said.

“True, but he doesn’t mind. He’s finally doing what he’s always wanted to do. Art has gone on the back burner for now.”

Along with a few other things
,
she thought, but didn’t say. “He doesn’t want to appear as anything other than a rough-and-tough working cowboy ram-rodding the Double-Barrel Ranch.”

“Drake says he’s doing an excellent job.

“Pic does everything well,” Amanda replied with no small amount of pride. “And he adores the cattle and horses and being out on the range. Sometimes I think he’d live outside if it were practical.”

They had reached the kitchen. Shannon’s grandmother had what looked like wonderful food spread over the cooking island—cream cheese and fruit filling for crepes, an array of fresh fruits and crisp bacon strips.

“This all looks as good as it smells,” Amanda said.

“My grandmother is a wonderful cook.”

The elderly grandmother gave them a thousand-watt smile. “It comes from a lifetime of experience, girls.”