The Nocona park was located on the south side of Highway 82. It had a small tennis court, basketball hoops, swings, slides, tetherball, and enough sports equipment to keep a whole classroom of kids busy for a whole day. It also had a pavilion with picnic tables and benches where Slade and Jane spread out their grocery store bounty and had lunch.
Slade couldn't believe a little woman could eat so much and stay so small. She barely reached his shoulder, so she was probably five foot three inches at best. Her waist was small, hips rounded, a little small in the bosom—though there was enough to fill out the top of the sundress with no problem.
"And now we put away the leftovers for a mid afternoon snack when we get home, and we go play. I brought shorts and a T-shirt. I'll change in the truck and you'll keep watch." She announced as she finished off a chocolate donut complete with sprinkles on top.
He pushed her on the swing and her laughter rang throughout the park like church bells. She climbed on every jungle gym, raced from one ride to the next, and dared him to see-saw with her. She'd been eleven years old the last time her mother took her to the park in Greenville. It wasn't nearly as big as the one in Nocona nor did it have as many toys. Her mother had played with her and it had always been one of her fondest memories.
It was late afternoon when they got back to the ranch only to find a message on the machine from Nellie, saying that she'd won five hundred dollars at the poker tables the day before and Ellen had won four hundred. Myra had lost and so had Jeannie but they'd sworn in blood they wouldn't tell how much. Sunday they were skipping church and hitting the shopping mall at one o'clock right after lunch at the Cracker Barrel so she wouldn't be calling again until Monday or Tuesday. They had her cell phone but by damn if they called for anything other than blood, guts, or a similar emergency they'd have to deal with her when she got home.
Jane and Slade had an afternoon nap and sat on the deck reading the rest of the evening. Jane had the urge to kiss Slade on the cheek when they reached his door at bedtime but she hesitated and the moment passed. She was tired enough to sleep soundly—at least until morning when the nightmare awoke her again. The only variation in the horrible dream was that Slade was there. John was drowning her in the clear water and Slade was hitting him with his fist. When she awoke she wondered what a dream interpreter would make of that?
Monday.
Jane expected a routine Monday.
She didn't get it. Dinner came off without too much trouble. She made banana pudding and a double batch of brownies for dessert while a pot roast complete with pota toes and carrots cooked in the oven. Biscuits and green beans with ham hocks and thinly sliced onions finished off the meal. The men ate with gusto, leaving just enough leftover roast to slice for barbecue sandwiches that night.
It was after dinner that things got hectic. One of the older Mexican hired hands had a heat stroke in the one hundred-plus degree weather. Another one took him to the emergency room at the Nocona hospital. That left Slade shorthanded and he needed to get the hayfields plowed under and readied for another crop.
Jane had the cookbooks down, intending to make a couple of Bundt cakes for the next day's dessert, when the phone rang. She picked it up on the second ring.
"Hello. Luckadeau residence."
"Who's speaking?"
The hair on her neck stood straight up. Chills chased down her spine in spite of the heat. "Who would you like to speak to?"
"Nellie Luckadeau, please."
"May I ask who is callin'?"
"This is Ramona Farris."
"Well, ma'am, you'll have to call back. Miz Luckadeau has gone off on a little visit. Will anyone else do?" Jane exaggerated a Mexican accent, hoping that Ramona wouldn't recognize her voice.
"Slade Luckadeau?"
"He's off on a tractor. I don't reckon he could come to the phone right now," Jane said.
"Would there be a young lady in the house by the name of Ellacyn Hayes?"
"Used to be."
"Where is she now? Out shopping with Mrs. Luckadeau?"
"No, ma'am. Miss Ellacyn stayed a week with us and took off one night in the middle of the night. Just disap peared after she got that first paycheck. I liked the girl just fine and she was a hard worker. This new one Miz Luckadeau hired ain't got nearly the spunk."
"Do you know where she went?" It was clear Ramona was getting bored with the conversation.
"Yes, ma'am, I surely do. It was my job to see to it she worked in the kitchen helpin' fix up the menfolks' dinner. They get hungry out there a-workin' like dogs in the heat so we have to feed 'em good. So we got to be good friends, me and Miz Ellacyn did. Strange name, that is, ain't it?"
"I don't care about her name. I want to know where she went," Ramona snapped.
"Lady, I don't have to be givin' out no information to you." Jane hung up the phone. She counted to ten and tried to breathe normally. It would ring again because Ramona needed the information.
It did.
"Hello, Luckadeau residence." Jane said.
"This is Ramona Farris again. I'm sorry I was rude. It's just that Ellacyn is my sister and she's got psychological problems. She's escaped from the institution where we keep her and she needs her medicine or she might do harm to herself. We've been looking for her for a month. Anything you could tell me would be a great help."
"Yes, ma'am. Like I said, it's a strange name. I'm right sorry to hear that the poor little thing ain't right in the head but you know, I kinda thought that when she was here that week. Miz Luckadeau, she give her a hun'erd dollars for that week's work and I don't reckon she earned but about half that much. Stayed in her room and looked scared most of the time. Would that have been a-cause she didn't have her medicine?"
"Oh, yes, I'm sure it was. Now could you please tell me where she said she was going?"
"Be right glad to tell you seein' as how the poor little thing needs to be put back where they can take care of her. You never know about all the crazy people out there in the world. Why, any man could come along and talk her into doin' ugly things for a few dollars to keep her alive."
Ramona sighed and Jane smiled.
"She packed up her bags on a Saturday morning when Miz Luckadeau and Slade was off to the grocery store. The foreman here on the ranch said he was going over to Gainesville to get a part for a tractor and she asked if she could go along with him and would he drop her at the bus stop. Said she was headin' on north for a spell. Maybe Tulsa or Miami. That's a town on up past Tulsa in the corner of Oklahoma. I figure she'll go to Miami. No reason except that she kept talking about liking the beach. I didn't know there was a beach there. Did you?"
"Maybe she was talkin' about Miami, Florida," Ramona said.
"Never thought of that. I bet she was. But why would she go to Tulsa first? Maybe she's got relatives there who she wanted to see? She didn't mention anyone but one distant cousin and she didn't say if she lived in Tulsa or not. Sorry I can't be of no more help to you. Poor little ole thing out there all alone."
Ramona hung up without even saying good-bye.
The phone rang again and Jane's nerves about snapped.
"Hello. Luckadeau residence." Jane was still using her fake Mexican accent.
"Jane, is that you?" Slade asked.
"It's me." She changed back to her normal voice.
"What are you doing? Playing jokes in case Granny calls? Never mind. Don't tell me. You'd beat around the bush until it was stripped bare of leaves. I need someone to drive a tractor and plow until dark. You ever done that?"
"Where are you?"
"Remember when you rode the fence line with me?"
"Yes."
"Go all the way to the second section line and turn left. You'll see the dust before you get to me. Pull in and park the truck anywhere."
She followed directions, crawled up into the cab of a John Deere tractor, and fired up the engine. All after noon she plowed and worried that Ramona might have seen through her story. If not, maybe she bough
t herself a few more days and they'd be off on a wild goose chase to Tulsa or Miami… Oklahoma or Florida. She didn't care as long as it kept them away from the ranch and out of her sight.
*********
Tuesday.
She cooked all morning. Two Bundt cakes. Vegetable soup. Ham and cheese sandwiches on thick slabs of her own homemade bread. Chips and picante made from her mother's recipe.
She plowed all afternoon, stopping just long enough to drive back to the house, make sandwiches, refill the tea jug, and carry his meal to Slade at suppertime. She ate while she drove the truck back to the field and didn't sit around jawing with him while he swallowed his food. She got back inside the cab of the tractor, fired it up, and turned on the lights. At ten thirty that night they stopped and dragged themselves to the house. They didn't have energy for anything other than showers, and were asleep five seconds before their heads hit their pillows.
Wednesday.
Lord Almighty, but she'd be glad when Nellie got home. She missed her so bad that morning as she laid out chicken to barbecue in the oven that she could have wept. She whipped up two pecan pies and a double recipe of peach cobbler for dessert, then made baked beans and potato salad.
Slade and the help talked about moving cattle that afternoon from one pasture to the next. They debated whether to get out the semi and load them up, or round them up by horseback and herd them from one section of land to the other.
"Hey, Jane, you want to ride this afternoon? We could use another person. You ever worked a herd?"
"I expect I could learn fast enough," she said, glad for anything to pass the afternoon so she wouldn't be so homesick to see Nellie and Ellen.
She whispered threats into Demon's ear as she saddled him. She stuck a foot in the stirrup and hefted herself up and over in one graceful motion. He must have believed her about the cat food industry because he responded to every touch of the rein the rest of the day. She brought up the rear and would have had to eat a fair amount of dust had they been driving the cattle in anything but pasture grass. But to her notion she had the best seat in the house.
The cattle dogs were a big help in keeping the cows together but often a calf would get lost and start bawling for its mother. During the afternoon when they rounded up a straggler and brought it back to the herd, she and Demon flushed a dozen rabbits that skittered off away from the cattle hoofs. Slade had trained his dogs well, though, because not a one of the four took off after the rabbits. She could almost see the desire to chase them in their eyes, but they obeyed when he whistled.
Would he expect his wife to jump like the dogs when he hollered?
"None of my business, is it, Demon?" she mumbled as she adjusted her hat.
They hit the house that night at dark and ate leftover chicken straight out of the pan, standing at the kitchen bar. They wiped their fingers on paper towels and Slade called for the first shower that night. She didn't see him again until morning. She was too tired and sore to dream about anything that night. There was surely not time for fretting about what could be or would be on a ranch. Every waking minute was taken up with work. Not that she was complaining. She was down to two weeks until her birthday on July eighteenth. Then Paul was going to find out what it felt like to be on the street without a job. And John could abandon his plans to marry slash kill her and go on back to sleeping with his pseudo sister.
Thursday.
Jane moaned when she crawled out of bed. Her legs were going to be permanently bowed if Slade asked her to ride all afternoon again. He'd already eaten breakfast and was going out the back door when she reached the kitchen.
"Got to get at it early today. We're branding the late calves. Should be done by noon. Sorry to hurt your feel ings if you've got a thing for seared flesh," he said.
"Only yours. Bring the iron on home while it's hot. I can always put the brand on you," she said.
He picked his hat from the rack and settled it on his head. "I bet you would, too."
"It was a promise, not a threat."
"Actually, I'm not sure I'd want you to brand me. Isn't that what you women say when you catch a man and haul him kicking and screaming to the altar?"
"Just leave it at the corral. If that's what it means, I damn sure don't care anything about it," she said.
He left with a chuckle and a wave.
She put on an old Conway Twitty CD she found in the rack beside the television and listened to music as she cooked. She swayed with an imaginary dance partner when Conway sang, "Hello Darlin'." While she made a batch of chocolate chip cookies to go with the fruit salad for dessert she listened to "I See the Want To in Your Eyes." He sang about seeing a sparkling little diamond on her hand and that it was plain she already had a man but he could see the want to in her eyes.
That drew her up short. Had she met Slade when she was engaged to John, would he have seen the want to in her eyes? Would it have even been there? She was finally willing to admit she enjoyed the bantering they shared. That he was handsome was never a question; that he would ever find her attractive had six question marks behind it.
By the time she started making meatloaf, Conway was crooning "Tight Fittin' Jeans." He sang about a woman trying to hide the kind of woman she truly was by the denim clothes she wore and that he saw right through her tight fittin' jeans. Lord, she truly hoped Slade never saw through her tight fittin' jeans and found out that she was worth a fortune. Conway's song said there was a tiger in the tight fittin' jeans and they'd gone through a lot of beer.
Maybe Jane really was a cowgirl if all it took was jeans and a love for good old cold beer to make her one. She made up her mind before the song ended that she was selling the oil company for sure. She'd fallen in love with ranch life. Maybe she could even talk Nellie into coming to Greenville for a visit occasionally.
Conway started singing an old favorite of her grand mother's: "I'd Love to Lay You Down." Her skin began to tingle as she pictured Slade singing that song to her.
"Now where in the hell did that come from?" she grumbled. "He'd never sing that to me, especially when he finds out that I really have duped him all this time. He thinks I'm a poor vagabond gypsy. He'll feel like I made a fool of him when he finds out the true story."
"Who are you talkin' to?" Slade opened the back door and started singing with Conway about how he'd love to lay her down and there was so many ways her sweet love made the house into a home. He mentioned her standing in the kitchen in her faded cotton gown.
"You singing to me?" she asked.
"Just singing with the old Twitty bird." He grabbed another pair of gloves and was gone again.
That set him to thinking about how he had liked to see her in the kitchen in her faded nightshirt that came to the top of her knees. And how she had stepped right up to the task and taken on the running of the house all week.
He shook his head to clear such idiotic notions out of it and went back to work.
The next song on the CD was "Don't Call Him a Cowboy." When Conway said not to call him a cowboy until you've seen him ride, Jane's face turned scarlet. Then he sang about fancy boots and a Stetson hat that didn't tell what's inside and if he wasn't good in the saddle, she wouldn't be satisfied, and the high color in her cheeks actually burned.
That set off a whole string of visuals of Slade in a saddle that was not on the back of a horse. She had no doubts that he'd make it through more than a one-night rodeo like Conway mentioned. Lord Almighty, folks went on and on today about the innuendos in the songs on the market. Conway alluded to as much or more than the new singers.
She wished she could erase the pictures in her mind, but they wouldn't go away. At noon she avoided Slade like the plague and was very glad he didn't need her help that afternoon. She caught up on laundry, cleaned house, scrubbed bathrooms, and made six pies for the next day's dinner. Still, every time she turned around she was humming that song about not calling him a cowboy until she'd seen him ride.
"Oh, he's a cowboy, no doubt," s
he giggled.
"What's for supper?" He hit the door at seven thirty that night.
"Potato soup is on the stove. Bread is sliced and in the Tupperware container. Cookies are beside that in a plastic bag. I'm off to read a book until I fall asleep."
He ate alone and wondered if his singing had offended her.
Friday.
Jane awoke with a song in her heart, but it didn't have words and Conway Twitty had never sung it. Nellie was coming home and she was as excited as a five-year-old with a fistful of money in a candy shop. She hopped out of bed and headed for the kitchen only to be met with the aroma of bacon and coffee wafting down the hall.
Slade, cooking breakfast? Had the world come to an end or had hell frozen over?
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