The Last Innocent Hour

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  Wait, no. Jason slapped his forehead. Jesus Christ, in all the hullabaloo over the horse, he’d left the docs back on his desk in his office, in plain view, where anyone could find them. He swung the car around, fishtailing in the dust. Here he was, nearly home free, nearly done with Lucy, the whole shitty mess of his marriage and the life he’d led here, and Beth had to show up? He’d never expected to see her again. Now he’d gone and shot her goddamn horse. The hum in his head increased. He ignored it, telling himself Beth had left him no choice. He’d seen right away that Miss High and Mighty needed a reminder of who was in charge. She considered she was all grown up now, considered herself a woman, a woman who plainly carried a belly full of hate for him.

  Wasn't always that way, was it?

  The car crawled toward the house as the memories loomed from mental ether. Jason shied from them, wanting and not wanting the montage of fantasies that dragged in their wake. They came as if to spite him, popping up before his eyes through the crack of his indecision, and he saw her as if through a lens warped by time: Beth dressed in red shorts that just covered her ass. Beth in a halter top cut low enough to be an invitation.

  He saw himself place the flat of his palm on the swell of her breasts, watched her eyes widen. Amazing, wasn't it? So real, how brown his hand looked against the pale white satin of her flesh. He dipped his fingers into her cleavage, lowered his hand to the flat plane of her belly. He owned her with his touch. He showed her that she belonged to him. Didn't she belong to him?

  The buzzing escalated, pounding his skull, rattling his teeth. It was a chain saw, a goddamn freight train running through his head. Somehow he got the car off the road, turned off the ignition before the noise consumed him. What was it? Where was it coming from? He clapped his hands over his ears, but still the sound grew spreading an ugly stain over the pretty scene he'd created, turning his memories of Beth black and ugly. Regret rose leaving an acrid taste in his mouth, like sulfur, like scorched earth.

  Finally the sensation passed. But even as he came back to himself, he kept very still, kept his palms flat on his knees, kept his eyes trained on the middle distance. It was happening all the time now. Waking or sleeping. The noise, the grinding, ratcheting noise, would swell against the walls of his brain, and he would see her. Sometimes it was Beth, but more often it was her . . . the other. . . . He would beckon and she came to him, came into his bed with him. He felt her move underneath him, felt himself move inside her....

  He straightened, wiped his hands down his face. He didn't want to remember. Didn't want either her or Beth in his fucking dreams. Didn’t want to be caught sitting around on the side of the road where anyone might drive by and see him playing let's remember and ready to bawl like a jilted drag queen. Sometimes lately, he got scared thinking he was losing it, losing his grip, and he was sober. He couldn’t even blame it on booze.

  He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror. Don’t let it happen. He spoke to his eyes. Keep your mind on your business, on the Japs, on the deal. Don’t let the goddamn bitches grind you down, not this time. Jason lifted his glance. From his vantage point, through the high canopy of the trees that lined the sides of the road, he could see a bit of the house, the roof, a length of the rail that spanned the widow’s walk. He wouldn’t go there now, he decided. It would be safer to come back tonight, while they slept.

  Chapter Seven

  Beth followed her mama across the yard toward the house. Her throat was dry; it hurt to breathe. The blood pumping through her veins felt thick and hot, and her mind seethed with old insult and new rage.

  What a fool she was to think that becoming a wife and mother would somehow alter her status, change her into an adult in Mama's and Jason's eyes. The magic transformation hadn't occurred. They made it clear she was still a child, between them easily manipulated, controlled, humiliated. They were the grownups, she the little girl, under their authority. Helpless, powerless....

  She'd promised Daddy she'd take care of Knight, but Jason had shot him in his stall just to prove he could, and Mama hadn't even tried to stop him. Now Beth's promise lay shattered to bits on the floor of her mind, and every step of her life since the day her daddy died felt like a betrayal.

  She should have stopped Mama from marrying Jason. She should have kept him from ruining their lives. Even before Daddy had the accident, he had warned her that Mama wasn't cut out for the business of running the farm.

  “Your mama's pretty and smart in a lot of ways, “ he had told her, “but she's more concerned about the wine we serve at dinner than she is about the land and what it takes to manage it. Anything happens to me, you'll have to take over. It's going to belong to you one day anyway.”

  Beth had protested that nothing could ever happen to her daddy. But it had, quicker than they knew. There’d been no time to educate her about her inheritance and after he died, Mama'd gone around with “helpless female” written all over her. And Jason hadn't lost a moment stepping in to take up the slack.

  At sixteen, like her friends, Beth had been in awe of him, of his looks, his slick talking charisma. Where Mama intoxicated herself almost every night on Daddy's bourbon, Beth found herself drinking in every ounce of Jason and the attention he paid her. It sickened her now to think of how she'd been used. Jason clearly remembered too. She could tell the way he'd stared at her just now, his eyes--those eyes full of light, almost silver, intense, eerie, yet somehow compelling. Beth gave her head an impatient shake.

  She should have told Charlie the truth, then he'd understand how she could be so cold to the fact that Jason had saved Chrissy's life. Jason Tinker was the sort of man who could impress you and charm you, but he never did anything without calculating his return. She knew the danger in him; Charlie didn't, and she hadn't warned him. Behind her now, she could feel his gaze. Irate and questioning, it bored into her back, a near-physical sensation.

  “This is so upsetting.” Mama spoke over her shoulder as they entered the solarium. “Jason has always had a cruel streak, but lately he's surpassed-- He's gone outside the bounds of--” She didn't finish, but instead, said, “Maybe I should call Doc Parker myself. “

  “Where did Maizie go?” Beth asked. The room was deserted, the table littered with the dried remains of lunch. Beth began stacking dishes onto the tray. She didn't want to think of Knight or Jason. Despite her tough talk, her fear of him swelled inside her, making her skin feel too tight.

  Chrissy broke away from her grandmother and retrieved Lamby from under the chair where he’d fallen earlier. She put the woolly toy to her cheek, popped her thumb in her mouth, and flicked a wary glance at her mother. Beth stifled the automatic reprimand that rose to her lips. She couldn't begrudge Chrissy her comfort, only wished her own could be had as easily.

  “Mama?” Beth kept her eyes down and her hands busy brushing crumbs. “It's not like Maizie to leave a mess this way.”

  “I told her to go on home when I saw Jason coming. He fired her last week. I didn't want a scene. She isn't feeling well and doesn't need the stress.”

  Beth pressed her fingertips to her mouth suppressing a bubble of ill-timed mirth. But Lord! Mama didn't want a scene? Aloud, she said, “She needs to see a doctor.”

  Charlie said, “We need to talk.”

  Beth looked at him. “I know, and we will, later. Right now Mama and I have a lot to catch up on.”

  “Come on, Beth. What is going on? What just happened back there?”

  “Please, Charlie, can we not fight in front of Mama and Chrissy?”

  “I’m not fighting. I’m asking you what’s going on.”

  “You got my horse shot, that’s what.” Beth cut her gaze to her mother’s. “Mama, don't you start.”

  “I’ll just take these to the kitchen,” she said.

  “Wait a damn minute.” Charlie wasn’t addressing Mama but Beth.

  She dipped her head, breath held, heart slamming against her ribs.

  He went on, louder and more impatien
t with her than she’d ever heard him. “There's one thing I know for sure. Jason Tinker saved Chrissy's life. If I don't know anything else, it's because you haven’t told me, and if I don't know what the hell is wrong, how am I supposed to know what you want me to do about it?”

  “Charlie?” Mama reappeared and the way she said his name made it clear she wasn’t fooling, and this time Beth was grateful for her high-handed tone. “Chrissy wants to see her room and asked if her daddy would come with her.”

  Beth's gaze, and Charlie's, fell to their daughter standing beside her grandmother. Chrissy's eyes were glazed with tears. “Why are you always yelling?” she asked and her words were soft and broken.

  With a small rueful cry, Beth dropped to her knees in front of her. “Oh, sugar, Mommy's sorry.” She brushed away the damp hair curling on Chrissy's cheeks, then pinched Chrissy's nose, wiping at the mucous, smearing it on her jeans.

  And somehow, when Mama handed over a tissue saying, “Beth, for heaven's sake, use a Kleenex,” it comforted her, as if everything were orderly and routine. But it wasn’t, was it?

  There was really no use pretending.

  Chapter Eight

  Jason stopped at Doc Parker’s office and told him he’d shot Beth’s horse and why. He expected the vet would have already heard Beth was back, that everyone in Wither Creek would have heard about her arrival by now, but if he had, he made no comment, nor was he surprised at Black Knight’s vicious behavior. The doc knew the horse's reputation. He was familiar with Lucy’s reputation, too, and when Jason asked him to go straight to the barn without disturbing her and remove the animal, Doc Parker nodded. He knew she'd be well into the bottle by this time of day. That was another thing everybody in town knew, but Doc Parker was discreet. He kept to himself.

  Unlike Jimmy Lee Phelps, the mayor of Wither Creek, who was likely shitting nails over Beth’s sudden reappearance. But then Jimmy Lee was always wound up over something. He was going to take some handling now; he was going to be skittish and nuts like Beth’s damn horse, but Jimmy wouldn’t be cured of his condition so easily, Jason thought. Wasn’t like you could go putting a bullet in the brain of the town mayor and get the local vet to haul away the carcass, was it?

  Jason parked outside A-OK Auto and Tire. In addition to serving as mayor, Jimmy ran a string of businesses around Lincoln county. This one had belonged to his daddy, and Jimmy claimed he kept it running for sentimental reasons. But it was a ploy, an act. It meant he could pretend he was a working man, too, just like all the slobs who voted for him. He could claim he was on their level, that he cared about their standard of living when he could give a fat fart. Jimmy’s ego was exceeded only by his ambition. Even the pissant job as mayor was nothing but a stepping stone, a way to heft his boot higher in the stirrup of Texas politics. It was a role Jason might have considered under other circumstances, if he’d been given Jimmy’s advantages, if his mother hadn’t deserted him for some grease-ball lover she'd likely picked up in a bar. Because of her, he’d never had a chance, and it rankled. It stuck in his craw. What had she thought? That one of her loser boyfriends would see to it her son went to college and got a law degree?

  The mayor took his alligator-booted feet off his desk when Jason came in. “Been waitin’ all afternoon on you, son.” The grin was window dressing, a politician’s grin. Displeasure cloaked Jimmy’s eyes, burled the corners of his mouth. He was a big man, built wide, with a drawl and a red neck, but he came from money. Like a lot of folks around Texas, his family had struck oil, a numberless bunch of times. They owned mineral rights all across the state. They were like the Ewings on that TV show Dallas. But Jason had learned there were two things you had to be careful of in this state, one was copperheads, and the other was oil hicks with money. Of the two, Jason thought the snakes might be easier to get around.

  He dropped into one of the leather chairs gathered around Jimmy's desk. “I was on my way into Houston to meet Royce and figured I better stop in. See what you're up to.”

  Jimmy’s smile went like dew before the sun. He bent his weight onto his elbows. “Heard you got company out at your place.”

  Jason laughed, rubbed a careless hand over his head. “Never can get used to how fast news travels around this burg. Hell, what I was told, Beth only got in around noon.”

  “Well, when I heard about it, I said it was six years since anybody saw her, how'd they know it was her? I figured it was a mistake.”

  “It's no mistake.”

  “Did you know she was coming?”

  “Not until I went to the house just now. I haven't been out there in a while.”

  “She just show up or what? Did Lucy know she was coming?”

  “If she did, she never said so to me.”

  “The deal isn't in jeopardy, is it? You know I've got to have everything together to run for office by the eighteenth of August or I'm out. That's less than a week from now.”

  “It’s under control.”

  “The docs are signed, Royce has got them?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m on top of it.” If it made Jason nervous to think where the docs were right now, it would drive Jimmy off the edge.

  The mayor leaned back. “Beth is bound to find out, don’t you imagine? And when she does, do you really think she’ll just sit by? I'm surprised you got the deal past Lucy, but Beth’s no drunk. Soon as she hears what her mother’s gone and done--” He snicked his tongue against his teeth. “Does Royce know she’s back? What if she calls him? He’s her mother’s attorney for Christ’s sake.”

  “Royce is on our side, remember? Look, don't sweat it. The Japs are sold, one hundred percent. Yamaguchi swears they’re all on board.”

  “So you say, but I still think you should have Lucy declared incompetent on account of her drinking. It’d be kind of like insurance. Then if Beth was to find out and mess things up at the last minute--”

  “There's no need for that.”

  Jimmy’s expression turned belligerent. He liked his idea and was determined to have his say. “Everybody in town's seen Lucy drunker 'n a hoot owl at one time or another. It’s not like there’d be any question.”

  Jason tightened his teeth. It never ceased to amaze him that Jimmy really believed he was an equal player in this game.

  “The Japs want all twenty-five thousand acres,” Jimmy said, as if Jason didn’t know the terms of the deal. “Lucy's eight is smack dab in the middle. We've got to have it or no sale, and you know as well as me what the money means. Me gettin' elected state representative takes more than a little old mound a chicken feed. It takes a whole pile of that green shit.”

  Jason crossed his ankle over his knee, waiting for Jimmy’s mouth, his fucking self-importance, to run out of gas.

  “Me and Lutie Mae did our part.”

  Lutie Mae. What a joke. Jimmy’s over-groomed, pink poodle of a wife fancied herself in the governor’s mansion. She was counting the days same as Jimmy. State representative was just the first rung on the ladder. The two of them were so damned caught up in their own little vision, they couldn’t see daylight. And while it suited Jason’s purposes, it also aggravated him, having to deal with their stupidity that had clearly been in existence since before they got married, which had happened, according to Jimmy, right after he knocked Lutie Mae up. He’d had to do right by her. That’s what he’d told Jason and Royce one day over beers at Royce’s office.

  “Maybe Lutie Mae ain’t the prettiest girl in town,” he had said, “but she’s damn sure built good. Always did have the biggest set a hooters you ever saw. Got 'em in grade school.” Jimmy Lee’s eyes had been lit up like he was talking about the latest models in a new set of Hot Wheels.

  “I got Lutie’s twelve thousand acres without a whimper,” he said now and accusation rode hot in his voice.

  Jason flicked a glance at him, bored, wishing he could leave, knowing it was too soon. Jimmy might be an idiot, but he still had to be played. On his own, he couldn't locate a box seat at the Astro
dome much less get his fat ass elected to a higher office, but it was that very ignorance that made him invaluable. He was softer than fucking clay, a flake, a pawn in Jason and Royce’s hands. Getting Jimmy into the state house was only step one in the plan. Ultimately, they intended to see him into the governor’s mansion. That’s where they’d get the real control they were after. Jimmy’d be out front, the man of the people, and Jason and Royce would be backstage. They’d pull the strings and run the whole state.

  “Are you hearing me?”

  Jason looked at Jimmy now; he did hear him, but the noise in his brain was back. He shook his head; the buzzing retreated, but not far enough and he rubbed his face, keeping his hands over his eyes.

  “What in hell’s the matter with you?” Jimmy wanted to know.

  “Headache.” Jason took his hands down. “It’s nothing.”

  Jimmy looked skeptical. “You better get a grip. Get this deal off the ground, or it’s your ass in a cell right alongside mine.” He bent forward as if the shift of his bulk would lend weight to his threat. “Same for your buddy, Royce. If I get caught some way, I won’t take the fall alone. I’ll sing like one’a them canaries they talk about in the old movies. You get me?”

  Jason raised his palms. “Jimmy, Jimmy,” he said and his voice was gentle now and placating. “Settle down. The deal’s in the bag. Everything’s under control, okay?”

  But Jimmy shook his head, stubbornly, and sitting back, crossed his arms. “You’ve got a drunk for a wife, Jason, and a drunk’s sorta like the weather around here. And we all know there’s no predicting what the south Texas weather will do.”

  o0o

  Jason got away from Jimmy, but there was no escaping his observation about Lucy. She could get wild; she could be ungovernable. Jason knew it first hand all too well, and it was another source of worry, that she’d somehow screw up his plans. As he slid behind the steering wheel of his car, he thought back to their early days. It didn’t seem to him that she drank as much then. Maybe she’d cut back on purpose, to make a better impression, to make him believe they could have a regular relationship, which was bogus. They both knew he was in it for the money, that love wasn’t part of the deal. She was lonely; she didn’t deny that, and that was all fine and good. He was happy to climb into her bed and relieve her stress from time to time, as long as she didn’t make a habit out of it. But she’d started getting sloppy. She’d started to embarrass him. The last straw had fallen a few months ago when they’d gone out to dinner in Houston. They’d joined Royce and his wife at the Rivoli, and as usual Lucy'd had more than anyone else to drink. Way more.