Where There's Smoke

by Sandra Brown

  Headlights appeared at the end of the private drive. Bowie’s gut clenched reflexively as he watched the car turn off the county road and onto Tackett property. He shrank back closer to the wall, not wanting to be seen until he was certain it was Janellen. Reputedly, Key kept a loaded Beretta beneath the driver’s seat of his car. It could be gossip, but Bowie would just as soon not have it confirmed the hard way. If Key saw a prowler, he might shoot first and ask questions later.

  The headlights, diffused by the rain, approached slowly. Bowie recognized Janellen’s car. She parked in the driveway, got out, and dashed through the rain toward the back door. The screen door squeaked when she pulled it open. She had her key in the latch when he softly called her name.

  Startled, she spun around. Rain fell on her pale face as she peered through the gloom. “Bowie! What in the world are you doing out here?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay, but you’re soaked. How long have you been out here? Come inside.”

  “No, I’ll go on along home now.” He knew he must be a sorry sight, what with the brim of his hat dripping rainwater and his pants wet from the knees down. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right, considering what happened this morning. Word around the shop is that Mrs. Tackett is feeling poorly.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s true.” She unlocked the door and insisted he follow her inside. Reluctantly he stepped into the kitchen, but stayed just inside the door.

  “Take off your jacket,” she said. “And your boots. They’re sopping wet.”

  “I don’t want you to fuss.”

  “No fuss. Let me check on Mama and send Maydale home, then I’ll make some coffee.” She moved through the dark kitchen, but turned when she reached the doorway. “Don’t go away.”

  Bowie’s heart swelled so large he could barely draw breath. She hadn’t screamed or shuddered or puked when she saw him. That was a good sign. Now she was asking him, almost pleading with him, to stick around. “No, ma’am. I surely won’t.”

  While she was gone, he removed his hat and his damp jacket and hung them on a wall peg near the back door. Balancing on one leg at a time, he tugged off his boots and placed them beside a pair that obviously belonged to Key. The toes of his socks were damp, but he was relieved to see that they didn’t have holes.

  He tiptoed across the vinyl tile floor. Leaving the lights off, he gazed through the window over the sink, watching the rain drip from the eaves. After several minutes he heard a muffled conversation at the front door, then watched through the window as Maydale picked her way around puddles to her car while trying to protect her beehive hairdo with a silly plastic bonnet.

  At the sound of Janellen’s approach, he turned. “How’s your mama doing?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “She’s all right, then?”

  “Not really. She won’t follow doctor’s orders. She’s too hardheaded to heed the warnings, like the one she got this morning. She doesn’t believe her condition is serious.”

  “From what I’ve heard, she’s a stubborn old gal.”

  “To say the very least.”

  “Maybe her condition isn’t as bad as the doctors say.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Sometimes they exaggerate to make their point and justify their bill.”

  Her wan smile indicated she didn’t believe that and knew that he didn’t either. “Well,” she said, pulling herself up straighter, “I promised you some coffee.”

  “You don’t have to bother.”

  “No. I want to. I’d like some, too. I won’t be sleeping much tonight, so I might just as well.”

  She moved toward the pantry, but her footsteps were sluggish and her voice unsteady. She didn’t turn on the lights, probably because she didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes. He saw them anyway.

  The coffee canister almost slipped from her hands before she set it down on the counter. Peeling a single paper filter from the compressed stack proved to be a challenge. Once that was done, she spilled coffee grounds as she scooped them from the canister.

  “Oh, dear. I’m making a mess.” She began twisting her hands and brutalizing her lower lip by pulling it through her teeth.

  He felt about as useless as a teat on a boar hog. “Why don’t you sit yourself down, Miss Janellen, and let me make the coffee?”

  “What I’d really like you to do…” She struggled to get the next words out. “What I’d really like…”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  She turned and looked at him imploringly. “If it’s not too much to ask, Bowie.”

  “Name it.”

  She uttered a little squeaking sound, tilted her head to one side, then swayed forward. He caught her, encircled her with his arms, drew her against his chest, and hugged her close. She was so slight, he was afraid he might be holding her too tightly, but trustingly she laid her cheek on his shoulder.

  “Bowie, what will I do if Mama dies? What?”

  “You’ll go right on living, that’s what.”

  “But what kind of life will I have?”

  “That depends on what you make of it.”

  She sniffed wetly. “You don’t understand. Key and Mama are all that’s left of my family. I don’t want to lose them. If Mama dies, Key will go on about his business, and I’ll be left here alone.”

  “You’ll make out just fine by yourself, Miss Janellen.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Now why would you say that?”

  “Because I’ve never had an identity of my own. People only see me in relation to my family. I’m Clark Junior’s daughter. Clark and Key’s little sister. Jody’s girl. Even though I’ve been doing most of the work at Tackett Oil the last couple of years, everybody thinks I’m just Mama’s puppet. I guess they’re not too far wrong. She’s always told me what to do, and I’ve obeyed her, partially because she’s usually right, but mostly, I suppose, because I lack the self-confidence to stand up to her and offer a different opinion. I’ve never really minded answering to her, but when she’s gone, what then? Who will I be? Who am I?”

  He pushed her away and gave her a little shake. “You’re Janellen Tackett, that’s who. And that’s enough. You’re stronger than you know. When the time comes for you to stand up on your own, you’ll do it.”

  “I’m afraid, Bowie.”

  “Of what?”

  “Failing, I guess. Not living up to expectations.” She laughed, but it was a sad sound. “Or, more to the point, I’m afraid that I will live up to everyone’s expectations and land flat on my backside when Mama’s not here to call the shots.”

  “It won’t be that way,” he said with a stubborn shake of his head. “You’ve got years of experience. The men are used to taking orders from you. You’re smart as a whip. I always thought of myself as fairly clever. I’ve got some street smarts, but when I’m with you—and this is the God’s truth—I feel dumber than dirt.”

  “You’re not dumb, Bowie. You’re very smart. Nobody else noticed the discrepancy in well number seven.”

  “Which turned out to be nothing.”

  “We didn’t know that until you installed the test meter.”

  He’d put the test meter midway between the well and the recorder. The data registered had been the same. A leak could be anywhere along the line. In order to locate it, he’d have to move the test meter until a section of line was isolated. That could go on indefinitely. He’d checked the records and, sure enough, that well had had a flare line, but it had been capped off years ago. He felt like a fool for making such a big deal over something his bosses considered insignificant.

  Janellen’s hands were still riding on his waist, and that’s all he could think about now. Finally he said, “I’m sorry about your mama, Miss Janellen, because I know how much you care about her. I hope she lives to a ripe old age so you’ll be spared the grief of her passing. But with or without her, you’re your own person. You don’t have to be anybody’s daughter or sister
or… or wife. You’re good enough all by yourself. You’ve got plenty on the ball and don’t let anybody make you think different.”

  “You’re good for me, Bowie,” she whispered.

  “Aw, hell, I’m not good for much of anything.”

  “That’s not true! You are! You’re very good for me. You make me focus on my strong points instead of my weaknesses. Don’t get me wrong. I know my limitations. I’ve lived with them all my life. I know I’m intelligent, but not exceptionally so. I’m not self-assertive, I’m timid, and I lack confidence. I’m not pretty. Not like my brothers.”

  “Not pretty?” Bowie was baffled, so baffled he didn’t stop to wonder when he’d begun thinking of her as beautiful. “Why, you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, Miss Janellen.”

  Flustered and confused, she ducked her head. “You don’t have to tell me that. Just because of what I said the other day.”

  He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I want you to know right now that I’m not holding you to that.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Oh.” The features of her face worked emotionally. Then she lifted her gaze back to his. “How come?”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, ’cause I know you didn’t really mean it, that’s how come.”

  She wet her lips and took a quick breath. “In fact I did, Bowie.”

  “You did?”

  “I meant it from the bottom of my heart. And if you, well, you know, if you ever wanted to kiss me again, it would be all right.”

  The buzzing inside Bowie’s head almost drowned out the pounding rain on the roof. His heart was beating so hard and fast that it hurt. His throat was tight, but he managed to strangle out, “I do want to kiss you again, Miss Janellen. I surely do.”

  He slipped his hands beneath her hair and cupped her jaw, then drew her mouth toward his. Her parted lips responded warmly. This time they needed no warm-up, no rehearsal. They skipped getting reacquainted and picked up right where they had left off, engaging in a kiss that left them breathless when they at last pulled apart.

  He pressed his mouth against her throat while her hands clutched at his back. “I never knew it could feel like this, Bowie.”

  “Neither did I. And I’ve been doing it for some time now.”

  They kissed again and again, each kiss piercingly sweet and increasingly intimate. They kissed until their lips were swollen, their passions brimming.

  He longed to nestle his erection in the cleft of her long thighs, but he curbed the impulse. However, with an eagerness that was instinctual and almost childlike in its innocence, she arched her body against his, in effect accomplishing what he wouldn’t do for himself.

  The contact was erotically shattering. It would have evoked the animalistic urges of a saint, and that was something Bowie Cato had never claimed to be.

  He fumbled beneath her skirt and grabbed a handful of her bottom, kneading the silk-covered flesh once, twice, while mashing his distended fly against her mound. It wasn’t premeditated. He didn’t weigh the benefits against the consequences. If he’d thought about it at all, he’d never have done it. It was an unthinkable thing to do.

  Janellen’s soft exclamation brought reality crashing down on his head, and along with it shame and self-disgust.

  He released her immediately. Without a word, he crossed the kitchen in three strides, grabbed his boots, his hat, and his jacket, and stomped out the kitchen door and into the donwpour.

  The moment he reached the truck he’d left parked behind the garage, a jagged fork of lightning rent the darkness, connecting the firmament and the earth with a hot-white brilliance that crackled with wrath and seared the air with ozone.

  Bowie figured it was God, meaning to strike him dead. His aim was just a little off.

  Thunder rattled the liquor bottles and glassware behind the bar. “Brewing up a real storm out there,” Hap Hollister observed as he poured Key another drink.

  “Grounded me. I was supposed to be flying to Midland tonight, taking an oilman and his wife home.”

  “I’m right proud of you, Key. You’ve got better sense than to fly in this weather.”

  “Wasn’t me who chickened out. It was the wife. Said she didn’t want to die in a plane crash.”

  Hap, shaking his head over the younger man’s derring-do, moved away to serve the other customers who had braved the storm to come to The Palm. Some were playing billiards, leaning on their cues and drinking longnecks as they awaited their turns. Others were watching a late-season baseball game on the large-screen TV mounted beneath the ceiling in one corner of the bar. Drinkers were grouped in twos and threes.

  Only Key drank alone at one end of the bar. His dark expression and hunched shoulders signaled his mood. News of the incident at the Sak’n’Save had reached every ear in town, and so his silent request to be left alone was sympathetically honored by everyone in the tavern.

  Jody was the subject on Key’s mind as he sipped his fresh drink, but his thoughts weren’t running toward the sympathetic. He’d like to give his mother a good swift kick in the butt. At the hospital and later, when he and Janellen had taken her home against the doctor’s recommendation and their own better judgment, Jody had griped and complained and staved off all their attempts to make her comfortable.

  “I’m hiring a live-in nurse for you, Jody,” he’d told her as Janellen urged her to get into bed. “Janellen keeps office hours. I’m away a lot. Maydale’s a good housekeeper, but we can’t count on her to handle a medical emergency like the one that occurred this morning. You should have someone with you constantly.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Key!” Janellen exclaimed. “Isn’t it, Mama?”

  Disregarding Janellen, Jody blew smoke at him from her fresh cigarette. “You took it upon yourself to hire me a nurse?”

  “She’ll be here around the clock to fetch and carry for you.”

  “I can fetch and carry for myself, thank you very much. I don’t want a busybody fussing over me, bossing me, meddling in my things, and stealing me blind when I’m not looking.”

  “I went through a top-notch agency in Dallas,” he patiently explained. “They won’t send us a thief. I specified our requirements. I made it clear that you’re not an invalid, that you’re independent and value your privacy. They’re checking their files to see who’s available, but promised a nurse would be here no later than noon tomorrow.”

  Jody’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Call them back. Cancel. Who the hell gave you the authority to make my decisions for me?”

  “Mama, Key’s only doing what he thinks is best for you.”

  “I’ll tell him what’s best for me. I want him to butt out of my life. And you too,” she said, snatching her jacket away from Janellen, who had assisted her in taking it off. “Get out of my room. Both of you.” At the risk of bringing on another attack, they had left her.

  He was worried sick about her. When he’d seen her lying on the floor of the Sak’n’Save, spittle on her chin, her dignity gone, he’d almost passed out himself. But he could hardly remain compassionate when his every attempt at kindness was met with a scornful tongue-lashing.

  Hell, he could take Jody’s crap. He’d been taking it all his life. When weighed against her precarious health, their verbal skirmishes seemed petty. At issue now was that his mother refused to accept the seriousness of her illness. She could die if she didn’t undergo the treatment prescribed for her. Only a fool would flaunt mortality like that.

  Then, smiling wryly, Key reminded himself that he’d been willing to fly into a stormy cold front and would have done so if the passengers who’d chartered the plane hadn’t nixed it.

  But that was gambling, a game of chance with risks involved, the outcome uncertain. It wasn’t like being told by medical experts that you were a time bomb with the clock ticking and that if you didn’t take care of the problem you could die or, what to Key’s mind would be worse,
live in a vegetative state for the rest of your life.

  The doctor at the county hospital had bluntly laid out the sobering facts of Jody’s diagnosis to Janellen and him. He would have liked a second opinion. He would have liked having Lara Mallory’s opinion.

  “Shit.” He signaled Hap for another hit.

  The last thing he wanted to think about was Lara Mallory. But, like the intoxicating whiskey, she had a way of infusing his head, permeating it, saturating it. Silent and invisible, she was always there, fucking with his mind.

  Had his brother sired her child? Had her husband known? Had Clark known? Had knowing that his child died violently precipitated Clark’s suicide?

  If so, didn’t he owe it to Clark—and to Lara—to go to Montesangre and find out the details of the child’s death?

  Hell, no. It was none of his business. Nobody had appointed him Clark’s custodian. It was her problem. Let her deal with it. It had nothing to do with him.

  But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that Ashley was his niece. He’d tried not to think about it at all, but that was impossible. Just as impossible was forgetting how devastated Lara had been when she recounted her daughter’s violent assassination. God, how did anyone retain his sanity after experiencing something like that?

  A few weeks ago, he would have bet his last nickel that he would never waste a charitable thought on Lara Mallory. After hearing her story, he would have to be a real bastard not to feel charitable. So he had held her. Comforted her. Kissed her.

  Angrily, he drained his drink, then stared into the glass as he twirled it around and around over the polished surface of the bar.

  He’d kissed her all right. Not a little, meaningless, charitable peck, either. He’d kissed his brother’s married lover and the scourge of his family like it counted. She had accused him of taking advantage of her emotional breakdown, but she was wrong. Oh, he’d pretended that she had his motives pegged perfectly, but, honest to God, when he was kissing her, the last thought in his head was that she was a lying, cheating adulteress who had beguiled Clark. In his arms, with her mouth moving pliantly beneath his, she became only a woman he desperately wanted to touch. He’d abided by the ground rules he himself had stipulated—he’d forgotten her name.