The Cattleman (Sons of Texas Book 2) (22 page)

Unbeknownst to Dad, she had made an appointment with the school superintendent and presented him with a venomous complaint about Amanda Breckenridge and her former husband, including a threat that if the school didn’t release her from her contract, the Lockhart family would withdraw their financial support of many of the school’s events.

“Betty was embarrassed by that,” Dad said. “She apologized and I squared it with the superintendent.”

Dad had squared it all right. He had personally gone to the superintendent and assured him that the Double-Barrel Ranch was not discontinuing its generosity to the school. “I don’t care,” Pic said. “She doesn’t seem to know the difference between right and wrong anymore.

“Just spend tomorrow with that photographer and see if you can wind it up. That should be enough. Then you can tell your mother you made a good try. But for now, put it out of your mind and come on out and eat. You need to meet the new vet.”

Dad left the room. Pic stared after him. Put Zoshi McLaren out of his mind? Easier said than done. Not only was she delicate and beautiful, sex exuded from her every pore. In that way, she was the most vulnerable adult female he had been around since his former wife.

The pathetic fact was that in many ways, she reminded him of Lucianne. Though his
ex-wife had been a fearless horsewoman and a fierce competitor, in the parts of her life outside the rodeo arena, she had been a mess. She had needed somebody to protect her from herself , a trait that had driven to the most primal part of Pic. He had stupidly filled the role as her protector.

That old familiar feeling was creeping into his psyche about Zoshi. Well, in reality, that primal part of him wanted to do more than protect. Lucianne had been hot as a pistol in bed. He couldn’t keep from wondering if that was something else Zoshi and she had in common.

When he joined the guests on the patio, Dad was helping Johnnie Sue take the brisket out of the smoker. A few years ago, Dad had hired a contractor to turn the big rock patio into an outdoor kitchen and eating area. It had colorful Mexican tile counters, a porcelain sink, a gas-fired grill and stovetop and a state-of-the-art smoker. Giant fans at two of the patio corners fended off the heat and mosquitoes. Here, the family and their guests enjoyed many a delicious summer meal.

The big round picnic table’s tile top was loaded with food—potato salad, Cole slaw and the pot of beans that had been cooking all day. As Dad transferred the glistening richly browned brisket to the counter to slice, the guest heaped kudos and compliments on him and Johnnie Sue. He soon brought a long platter of brisket slices to the table. Johnnie Sue came out
of the house with a bowl of sliced watermelon, fresh corn on the cob and a basket of jalapeńo cornbread. They sat down to a feast fit for a king as far as Pic was concerned.

“I’ve asked Johnnie Sue to sit down and eat with us,” Dad told the group
as the housekeeper took a seat beside him. “No sense in her eating by herself in the kitchen when we’ve got plenty of room out here.”

As they all tucked into the food, headlights appeared in the darkness, coming from the direction of the guesthouse. When they reached the driveway, Pic could tell it was Zoshi’s Beetle headed toward the front gate. Where the hell was she going?

A part of him wished she were going home. But another part of him knew there would be hell-to- pay from his mother if she was.

“Is that Zoshi’s car?” Dad asked.

“Looks like it,” Pic said, gluing his eyes to the warm tortilla on which he was stacking brisket slices.

****

As
Zochimilka crept up the town’s one main street, she thought she was in a ghost town. In the distance, bright lights beckoned her. Among a string of dark storefronts, she found a grocery store still open. Inside, it was old, with a pockmarked tile floor.

She had only a few dollars left on her credit card, but hopefully she would find something she could afford that would sustain her for a few days.
She chose a jar of peanut butter, a jar of grape jelly and a loaf of bread. She had gotten along on peanut butter before when she had been broke. When she had skipped a semester at college to go to Oregon for the Green Earth demonstrations, peanut butter was all she’d had to eat for days at a time—without jelly.

At the cash register, she found a short, burly old guy waiting for her. He punched the prices of her purchases into an aged cash register’s keyboard.

“Visiting somebody local?” he asked.

That was
a nosy question. Any other time, she would tell him so, but being in such a strange environment, she controlled herself. He was just another country redneck. “Uh, no.”

But her sharp reply didn’t cause him to give up. “Just wondered,” he said, smiling. “We’re too far off the beaten path for somebody to be just passing through. Usually, when we meet strangers, they’ve come here for some special reason.” He carefully placed her purchases into a plastic sack.

His affable manner sparked a twinge of guilt for being so mean. “Uh, actually, I’m staying at the Double-Barrel Ranch for a few days. I’m in the guesthouse and I need some snacks. Do you know where that ranch is?”

“Sure do. My boy’s been all over it hunting. Him and Pic Lockhart are good friends. Pic’s a fine young man. He does that family proud. The gal that ends up with him is gonna be one lucky lady.”

Xochimilka gave him a look. Did he think she had come to visit because she and Pic were an item?

“Uh, I’m a friend of the family. He’s uh…showing me around. I’m a photographer.”

Every time she said that, she felt as if she had bitten down on something vile. She was no more a photographer than she was anything else.

His eyes widened and his brow arched knowingly. “Oooh, I see. Taking pictures of the ranch, eh? Oh, that ranch is a pretty place.
The best land in the whole county.” He smiled. “Oil wells, too.”

Zochimilka’s mother had already covered the beauty and wealth of the Double-Barrel. Johnnie Sue’s words about her escort and his girlfriend rushed into her memory. “I thought Pic had a girlfriend
.”

“Amanda? Ah, she’s a sweetheart. Don’t know what the school would do without her. My granddaughter’s on her swimming team.”

“Swimming team?”

“She coaches the high school girls’ swimming team. They’ve won the state championship the last two years.” His chest almost visibly swelled.

Coach?
Xochimilka tried to recall female coaches she had known in the various schools she had attended. “Really?”

“Uh-huh. My granddaughter got nice medals and ribbons to hang on her wall in her room. Amanda teaches something in the high school, too, but I forget what it is. She sings in the choir in the Baptist church, too. The whole county loves Amanda and Pic both. But it’s anybody’s guess if they’ll ever get married. That’ll be eight fifty-two, ma’am.”

A goody-two-shoes. That’s just great. A good little redneck woman. Gag!
Xochimilka gave him a wan smile and held her breath as she swiped her credit card. To her relief, her charge wasn’t declined.

All the way back to the ranch, she thought about what the grocery clerk had said about Mr. Tall and Gorgeous. He did seem to be a nice guy. And she couldn’t keep from visualizing the way his shirt stretched across his wide shoulders, the way he filled out a pair of Wranglers. Every guy wore jeans, but not all wore Wranglers that fit him as well as Pic’s did. Even in Texas.

Perhaps she should be more open-minded in her attitude about him. Perhaps today had been an aberration.

Chapter 14

Early Monday morning, Amanda gathered her swim gear and drove to Drinkwell High School to swim. The minute she pulled out of her driveway and started up the street, the black SUV picked up her trail. Didn’t these guys ever sleep?

She arrived at the pool house, a separate building from  the rest of the school. As she walked to the pool house’s door, her security guard appeared. His name was Chris. Pic had asked him to be invisible and told her that she should behave as if he weren’t there. “I’m going into the ladies’ locker room,” she told him.

He
opened the door for her and dutifully took a seat on the bench at the deep end. Today, after getting a call from her ex-husband, Amanda was glad for his presence.

Near the end of her workout, she spotted her best friend and fellow teacher, Gail Robertson, at the edge of the pool. Amanda and Gail had become friends when they were both students at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Gail had graduated a year ahead of Amanda and in one of those eerie coincidences, had gotten a job teaching fifth grade in Amanda’s hometown. That had to be one of those quirky six degrees of separation things.

Amanda glided to the side and levered herself out and onto the edge, water sluicing off her body. Gail handed her a towel. “I was just watching you swim, Amanda. You are so smooth and graceful. And in that swim suit, you look like a dolphin.”

Amanda usually wore a blue-gray one-piece suit. She had several because the team’s colors were blue and gray. Moving through the water, perhaps she did look like a dolphin. Peeling off her blue swim cap and shaking water from her new shorter hair-do, she laughed. “I hope that’s a compliment.”

“Oh, my gosh. You got your hair cut.”

“It’s part of the new me. Now that I’m thirty-one, my advanced age says it’s time I got rid of my flowing tresses.”

Gail snickered. “Yeah, right. What did Pic say about it?”

Amanda got to her feet and hooked her towel around her neck. “Not much. He wouldn’t try to tell me how to wear my hair.”
What she didn’t say was,
He’s never around to look at it anyway.

She ran her hand through her hair again. “Having long hair was getting to be such a daily fight.
It was starting to look awful. And this year, I’m going to be spending more time in the water, trying some new things. I’m already swimming several days a week.”

“Sounds like you’re all ready for school to start, huh?”

“I’m pumped this year. That’s why I’m trying to get myself in shape early. My dedicated swimmers will start showing up by the end of July. I’ve got two returning that I’m expecting great things from.”

“Hm,” Gail said, as they ambled toward the locker room. Once they were inside, Gail said, “
That guy on the bench. I thought he wasn’t going to let me go over to the pool. Is he one of those security people?”

“Yep. Guess he’s going to be with me for a while.”

Gail frowned and shook her head. “That’s just weird. So what did Money Bags give you for your birthday?”

“Hah. Wait until you see it.”

At her locker, Amanda dragged out her purse. She dug inside, lifted out the tiny box that held the birthday pendant and handed it to Gail.

Gail opened it, stared and gasped. “Oh. My. Gosh. Are those real stones?”

Amanda made a tiny shrug. “I’m almost afraid to wear it.”

“Wow. Well, it’s not a ring, but it must’ve cost as much.
”

Like a rotten egg, s
omething dark and depressing broke within Amanda’s chest, leaving a dull ache. She shook her head. “Pic’s never going to give me a ring.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gail said. She leaned a shoulder against the wall as Amanda studied the pendant for a few seconds herself. The circle of diamonds that surrounded the heart made of
red rubies glittered even more under the locker room’s fluorescent lights.

“Other than the loot, how was the weekend?” Gail asked.

“Great,” Amanda answered, stuffing the pendant and her purse back into her locker. She dragged out her street clothes and re-engaged the padlock. “How was yours? Did you go honky-tonking with Mike Norton?”

Mike Norton was a Double-Barrel ranch hand who lived in the bunkhouse.

As Amanda walked toward the showers, Gail trailed along beside her. “I sure did. Ate supper at Lupe’s Cantina.”

“How’s it working out with him?”

“Oh, he’s just another cowboy looking for sex. He knows I’m not interested in him in that way. He barely has two nickels to rub together. But he’s cute. And fun. Let’s face it, you’ve already got the only good catch in this whole county.”

Amanda ducked into a dressing stall, leaving Gail outside. “You won’t hear me disagree. But, hey,
if it’s money you’re interested in, don’t forget Troy Rattigan. He’s a Lockhart heir just like Pic is.”

Amanda had always thought Gail and Troy would make a good match. With expressive gray eyes and long blond hair, Gail was more than pretty. And she was sweet and kind, qualities Amanda believed Troy needed in a companion. She had known him since kindergarten, knew his history. Though they had been children
when his mother passed, Amanda still remembered how lost and sad he had appeared to be. She had always thought the poor guy hid his gentle heart with rowdiness and braggadocio.

“I’ve never met him,” Gail said. “But the people I know who have say he’s a player. He doesn’t even look at the women in Drinkwell. He goes for the bright lights and big city types.”

“He’s a sweet guy,” Amanda said. “But I think he does have a lot of girlfriends. And he does travel a lot.”