“Do.”
She reached for the door handle and hesitated. There was business between them yet undiscussed. Cringing inwardly, she said, “The Judge said something about Ross McCallum getting out of prison soon.”
“Real soon.” Nevada’s nostrils flared slightly. “Seems as if ol’ Caleb Swaggert is recantin’ his testimony and claims Ross didn’t kill Ramón Estevan after all.”
“So who did?”
“That, Shelby-girl, is the million-dollar question.”
“One of them.”
“Right. Here’s one that’s bothering me: Why is it, on the very week McCallum is to be released, you get all this information about a child you thought was dead?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Maybe we should find out.”
“We?” She was instantly wary.
“Oh, yeah.” He placed one arm on the door, holding it closed and cutting off all chance of her leaving. Close enough that she could smell him—mingled scents of sweat and soap and dust—he leaned even nearer. Her heart pumped stupidly and she noticed the few dark hairs on the backs of his hands and the irregular shape of the pupil of his bad eye. His breath was warm and feather-light. Beads of sweat ran down her back. Coming here, being alone with him, had been a mistake. A huge mistake. She swallowed hard and tried not to stare at his lips as he continued, “If the girl in the picture is my daughter, you damned well know that I’m gonna be involved.”
“You don’t have to—”
“It’s not about obligation, Shelby,” he said firmly, his gaze locking fast with hers. “It’s about blood.”
Chapter Three
Shep Marson parked the cruiser in the shade of a solitary live oak and mopped the sweat from his brow. The little house he’d called home for the past ten years—a three-bedroom ranch with one bath—appeared shabby in the sun’s unforgiving rays. Light green paint peeled near the front door, the television antenna listed to one side and the shingles on the roof had been patched more than once. But there wasn’t a lot of extra money these days, not when there were six mouths to feed. And that wasn’t the worst of it. He could stretch his salary to cover expenses—after all, he’d bought his house on the G.I. bill—but there were other secrets that seduced the cash from his pockets.
He felt like a damned fool—hell, he was one, but maybe he’d find a way out of this trap. He had to. Before he bled to death. At one point, he’d hoped his wife’s parents would bail them out, but then the old man had lost most of his money when the cattle market collapsed.
Scratching his neck, Shep walked around the house to the back yard, where his hunting dog, straining against his leash, barked like crazy.
“Hush!” Shep yelled, then noticed a neighbor’s calico cat slink under the porch. He yanked the knot in his tie and loosened the top two buttons of his shirt.
The scents of cinnamon and nutmeg greeted him as Shep hung his hat on a peg near the back door and was about to step into the kitchen.
“Boots on the back porch! Shep, you hear me?” Peggy Sue yelled from somewhere near the living room over the din of the television and the squabble of the kids. Two of them ran toward him, their bare feet slapping the worn linoleum. “Daddy, Daddy!” Candice yelled, her blond pigtails bouncing over her ears, her younger brother right on her tail.
“Hey there, little missy,” he said, scooping up the six-year-old as Donny pointed a water pistol at her and squeezed the trigger. A squirt of tepid water stained the front of Shep’s uniform. “None of that in the house,” Shep reprimanded him sharply.
His wife, Peggy Sue, wearing faded jeans, a checkered blouse tied under her breasts and a sorry expression marring what had once been a fresh and beautiful face, appeared from the hallway. Her hair was scraped back, showing off cheekbones that other women had said they’d “die for,” and a few freckles that bridged her pert nose and he’d once thought were so damned cute.
“What did I say about yer boots?” she asked, walking to the oven and blowing her bangs out of her eyes. A ponytail swung behind her head, and the first few strands of gray were visible in her brown curls as she leaned over and opened the oven door. Her butt filled out her jeans more than it used to, and Shep hated the thought that his wife, Peggy Sue Collins Marson, once the premiere baton twirler in the county and the cutest piece of tail he’d ever had in the backseat of his old Ford wagon, was beginning to appear shopworn.
Shep set Candice on the floor and wrestled Donny’s water pistol from him, then nudged off one boot with the toe of the other. “Where’re Timmy and Robby?”
Using two frayed oven mitts, Peggy Sue pulled out a bubbling peach pie and set it gingerly on the top of the stove. “Timmy’s fillin’ out applications over to the Safeway and at Cole’s mill, I think.” She picked off the tinfoil that rimmed the pie plate. “And Robby, he mumbled somethin’ about goin’ swimmin’ with Billie Ray and Pete Dauber.”
“I don’t like him hangin’ out with the Dauber boys. They’re always into trouble.” He reached into the refrigerator and found a chilled can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. “Prob‘ly out smotdn’—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Peggy Sue cautioned, throwing a warning glance over her shoulder, then looking pointedly at the younger kids. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“He should be tryin’ to find him a summer job.”
“He bucked hay last month.”
“And he could be doin’ it still if he hadn’t messed up with old man Kramer.” His bad mood worsening, Shep popped the top of his sixteen-ouncer and smiled as he heard that soft, familiar hiss.
“Water under the bridge.”
“I wants pie!” Donny announced.
“After dinner. Now you run along, pick up them Legos and you, Candice, you help him.” To her husband she added, “Why don’t you fill up the wadin’ pool for ’em?”
“In a minute.” He just wanted to settle into his recliner and watch the news, but the look she sent him would have skewered an angry rattler and he didn’t want to get into a fight, not now. He liked to pick his fights with her later at night and then spend some hours making up in the sack.
When she wanted to be, Peggy Sue could be a wildcat in bed, the best damned fuck in the county. And she was his wife. For whatever reason he felt a sense of pride knowing that she was as horny as a wild mare in season, bucking and screaming on a Saturday night, only to rise early Sunday morning, get the kids cleaned up for Sunday school and lead the church choir with all the piety of an angel. He gave her a playful slap on the rump as he passed, and she turned on him. “Stop that and go fill the wadin’ pool. Now.” Shaking her head, she reached into a cupboard.
“I will,” he promised and killed the Pabst, then tried to wrap his arms around her waist and cop a quick feel of her breasts. He nuzzled the back of her neck and pressed his cock, always at the ready, into that nice little crease in the backside of her jeans.
“Stop it, Shep! I don’t have any time for this!” She wheeled to face him. Her mouth, where only traces of lipstick remained, was set, her jaw hard.
“All right, all right. Hell, you’d think a woman would like a little attention now and again.”
She muttered something under her breath as he found his old pair of sneakers.
Neanderthal?
Is that what she’d said? Not bothering with the laces, he walked outside and frowned.
Skip strained at his leash and put up a ruckus.
“Shut up!” Shep growled. Then, feeling a twinge of conscience as the retriever lunged toward him, hoping for some sign of attendon, Shep sighed and walked down the dusty path the dog had worn in the lawn to pat his head. “We’ll go out huntin’, you and I. Soon, ol’ boy,” he promised, then ambled to the hose bib, where wasps were hovering over a circle of mud from the leak in the faucet he’d planned to fix for weeks. Swatting away the pests, he pulled out the hose and walked to the pool. Week-old water stagnated, and blades of grass, weeds and dead bugs had collected on the surface. He dumped the . old water, filled the pool and figured he’d earned his spot in the recliner for the night.
Donny and Candice clamored down the back porch and, squealing in delight or anger, splashed into the clear water. Candice was a beauty—would look just like her ma, he suspected—but Donny, he was a skinny kid with a nose that was forever running and big, watery eyes. Truth to tell, Shep wasn’t that fond of his youngest son and he felt guilty about it, but there it was. Donny was a whiner, a complainer, and Peggy Sue babied him, wouldn’t ever let Shep put a strap to the boy’s behind when he needed it.
He twisted off the faucet and straightened, then looked past the side yard to the street where an aging El Camino glided past. Behind the wheel, her black hair blowing in the breeze, a cigarette wedged between moist-looking red lips, was Vianca Estevan, daughter of the man everyone assumed Ross McCallum had put into an early grave. Over-sized sunglasses hid eyes that Shep knew glowed like dark coals. In one short glance he caught a glimpse of the tops of her breasts, visible over the low-cut scoop of a white T-shirt.
As he turned back to the house, his damned cock tightened all over again and he clenched his jaw tight.
Inside, Peggy Sue was chopping onions while bacon sizzled in a skillet on the stove. Grease, crackling and popping, spattered over the edges of the pan.
“Smells good.”
She didn’t respond. Lately she’d been testy, he thought, as he reached into the fridge for another beer. She shot him a glance, her lips tightened, but she didn’t nag. She knew better. He watched her work and got hard. How long had it been since they’d gone at it? A week? Two? It had been a while. He’d tried to cuddle up to her each night and she’d told him she wasn’t in the mood, then rolled over in their double bed with the sagging mattress and offered him no more flesh than a severely cold shoulder.
“You runnin’ for sheriff?” she finally asked, tossing a handful of chopped onions into the skillet. They sizzled instantly in the hot grease.
“Yep.”
“You filed?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t you think you ought to?”
“I will.”
“What’s holdin’ you up?” She didn’t so much as glance at him as she scraped up the remains of the onions with her knife, cleaning off the scarred chopping block.
“Work.”. He wouldn’t go into it now. She really didn’t want to know.
“It’s because Ross McCallum’s gettin’ out, ain’t it?” she asked, and he was surprised she understood. “My guess is that the D.A. wants to reopen the case because he’s gettin’ some pressure from the townsfolk and them Chicanos or Latinos or whatever they call themselves now.”
“That’s about the size of it.” Leaning a shoulder on a cupboard, he sized her up. She never ceased to amaze him. Sometimes she was dumb as a stone, other times he noticed a hint of brains she’d spent over thirty years hiding. “I already had myself a talk with Smith.”
“Nevada?” Her shoulders stiffened just a mite, but he caught it. She’d always had a thing for the half-breed. Hell, half the women in the county did.
Shep had never understood it, why seemingly sane women hungered after a no-account, worthless rancher with a black reputation, who, unless Shep missed his guess, knew a helluva lot more about the Estevan murder than he’d ever let, on.
“Yep. Smith’s the one who put McCallum behind bars, back before he was thrown off the force.”
“Railroaded, you mean.”
“He had his chance to clear his name. Didn’t take it. Some people think he knew more about Ramón Estevan’s death than he’s sayin’.”
“Do they?”
“I thought maybe I’d just lean on him a bit and see if he’d break.”
“He won’t.”
She was so damned certain of it. Using the knife, she mixed up the ingredients in her fry pan.
“Shelby Cole’s back.”
This time she turned to face him, and her face had gone as white as old Etta Parson’s vintage Mercedes. “You don’t say.” The onions had turned opaque, the bacon sizzling.
“Yep. Saw her in town today, and boy, howdy, who’s the first person she ran into?” He saw the understanding in her eyes. “That’s right. Nevada Smith himself. Had themselves a little talk over at the White Horse.”
“Who told you this?”
“Lucy. But half-a-dozen folks saw ‘em walk in together, then hustle out the back door before they even had a sip. The way I heard it, Badger Collins drank both beers before Lucy could snatch ’em up.” He chuckled to himself, but Peggy Sue didn’t even smile.
“Shit.” She stopped her work, fastened him in eyes that seemed twice her age.
“Somethin’ buggin’ you?” ,
“You might say that.” Her shoulders rose and fell.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant again, Shep.” She blinked hard and sniffed.
“Oh, hell.” His world started to collapse. How could he feed one more mouth? Money was stretched too tight as it was. He finished his beer, tossed the empty into a trash can and walked toward her, but she cringed and held the knife between them. The blade flashed in the dimming light.
“Don’t you come near me, y’hear.”