Lone Star Woman

by CALLAHAN, SADIE

  “Oh, you’ve heard it. You know, seven years of good things followed by seven years of bad things?”

  “Hmm, that better not be true,” Jude mumbled.

  “So what’s with this guy, Brady Fallon?” Suzanne asked. “I mean, is he a cockhound or what? My God, it isn’t enough that Joyce Harrison is practically chasing him up the street with her tongue hanging out. Jude Strayhorn, a Texas version of the Virgin Mary, went off and had hot sex for a weekend with him? Some planet must be in retrograde or something.”

  “I know. It’s so weird. I’d never really thought of sex before.”

  A mischievous look angled from Suzanne’s blue eyes. Her mouth tipped into a sly grin. “So how was it?”

  “How was what? The sex?”

  “Hell, yes, the sex. How was it?”

  Jude turned away and frowned. “It was okay.”

  “That’s all? Just okay?”

  Jude felt the heat of a blush crawl up her neck. “All right. Better than okay.”

  “Um, better than that first guy? What’s his name—Wes?”

  “Webb. Yeah, better.”

  “Better than the second guy your daddy still wants you to hook up with?”

  Jude laughed and nodded.

  “Better than both of them put together?”

  Jude nodded again.

  “I swear to God, getting information out of you is harder than pulling hen’s teeth. You aren’t gonna give me details, are you?”

  “It was like you said it used to be with Mitch.” Suzanne heaved a huge sigh. “Wow. This is really something. And something tells me you really like this guy.”

  “But I don’t think he likes me. After we came back from Stephenville, I panicked. I said something I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Now, there’s a news flash. Jude Strayhorn putting her foot in her mouth. What did you say?”

  Jude repeated what she had said about not looking for a boyfriend.

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said he wasn’t holding up a sign in search of a girlfriend, either.”

  A little laugh burst from Suzanne followed by a sigh. She shook her head. “Jude, Jude, Jude. What else would he say? I mean, you burst his little ego bubble.”

  “Do you think he’s really sleeping with Joyce?” Jude asked, a quaver in her voice.

  Suzanne’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. Her eyes grew serious. “I doubt it. She’s such a blabbermouth, I feel like she would tell the world if it was really happening.”

  “Forgodsake, don’t tell anyone about this, Suzanne. Now that Daddy’s made Brady the general manager, I don’t know what would happen if he found out about Stephenville.”

  “Oh, you know I’m not gonna say anything. Have I ever?” Suzanne sighed and looked earnestly at Jude. “Back to my original question. What are you gonna do now?”

  “For the time being, until I get it sorted out, I’m just going to keep helping Doc Barrett breed mares. We’re in the prime breeding season, and we’ve still got broodmares in heat. I’ll keep fiddling with bulls and looking for high producers. And hope Brady changes his mind and lets me breed Patch to his grullo mare. I’m really excited about the idea of a baby paint. It would give me a project for next summer.”

  Suzanne smiled slyly at her friend. “And you said you never think of sex.”

  21

  The following Monday, Brady approached his driveway with his truck’s air conditioner blasting to the max. It was the end of July, and the sun could cook the hide off a rattlesnake in the treeless West Texas plains. He had spent most of the day on horseback, with only his hat for shade. He was worn-out, but working in the sun wasn’t what had made him tired. He was used to hard work outdoors. What had him longing for sundown and the evening’s cool breeze was that he hadn’t returned from Fort Worth until midnight and had slept only four hours before getting up this morning. His weekend had been another one of those marathons: Lockett to Fort Worth, to Weatherford, and back to Fort Worth. Another hard farewell with Andy, then back to Lockett.

  Though he didn’t enjoy so much driving, he had resigned himself to this trying regimen two weekends every month. It was all the Tarrant County domestic court had granted him, and he intended to give Andy every minute of time allowed.

  A shift in the wind had been revealed over the weekend. Marvalee’s husband, Drake Lowery, was a class A commercial builder who had built many of the multistory structures in the metroplex area, as well as other cities inside and outside Texas. Besides being a high-end builder, he liked the high life—skiing in Vail, hopping up to Las Vegas for a little gambling, and escaping at the last minute to Cabo for some marlin fishing and Mexican-style partying. Marvalee had hinted that their social activities were being cramped by the two boys.

  Brady could read his ex-wife like a large-print book. Any day, now, she would ask him to take Andy off her hands and possibly even Jarrett. And now, thank God and Aunt Margie, Brady had a place to bring his son if Marvalee made that request. And even his stepson. But more than that, he had something to pass on in the future. All Brady had to do was hang on to the 6-0 and keep improving it. He might be tired, but he wasn’t unhappy.

  As he pulled into his driveway, he saw a newer-model Ford SUV he didn’t recognize parked in front of his house. He slowed, wondering who the hell could be visiting him and what they might be selling. Besides the ranch hands at the Circle C, he knew fewer than a dozen people in Willard County. Easing closer, he saw the silhouette of a man wearing a cowboy hat inside the SUV.

  Brady was in no mood to be cordial to strangers. He came to a stop, and even before he popped the latch on his door, the SUV driver’s door opened and a slight-built middle-aged man stepped out. The man walked purposefully toward him. Brady slowly climbed down from his own rig. He stood in the shadow of his open door as the stranger introduced himself and handed over a business card. FRED WHITMORE, REAL ESTATE BROKER, RANGELAND SPECIALIST. “I’m from Abilene,” Whitmore said. “I’ve got a buyer for your place.”

  Why would anybody assume it’s for sale? Brady wondered. Were his dire circumstances more obvious than he realized? His eyes narrowed. “It’s not for sale.”

  He handed back the business card, stepped around the real estate broker and started for the front door.

  “Now don’t get too hasty,” Whitmore said behind him. A second later, the guy was beside him, quick-stepping to keep up. “My buyer’s offering a good price. You oughta look at this offer.”

  Old Man Strayhorn was Brady’s first thought. His second thought was of his deceased aunt’s attitude about the Strayhorns owning more than half the county. He stopped and looked down at the real estate man. “It’s not for sale.”

  The Realtor held up a finger. “Let me show you.” He turned and started back to the passenger side of the SUV. Brady lifted his hat and wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve, watching as the man dragged out a black portfolio that looked like an oversize notebook. He unzipped it and scanned the contents for a few seconds, then came back, adjusting papers inside the portfolio. “I’ve brought a signed contract with me, Mr. Fallon. Drove all this way from Abilene. I’ve got an earnest-money check in my safe in my office.” Whitmore looked up. “Could we go sit down somewhere and just talk about it?”

  Real estate transactions, both as seller and as buyer, weren’t new to Brady. And neither were real estate brokers. In his career as a land developer and home builder, he had sold hundreds of homes and bought hundreds of acres of land, though he hadn’t been near a real estate deal in more than two years. He looked out over the pasture, at his two geldings grazing in the distance. Looking east, he owned everything his eye could see. The rolling acres of grass and knowing it was his touched the deepest place in his chest, and he thought of Andy. “But it’s not for sale.”

  Brady started for the front door again, but the land man dogged his heels. On a sigh, Brady unlocked the front door, looking down at him with an arched brow.

  “You really should look at thi
s offer, Mr. Fallon.”

  On yet another sigh, Brady let Whitmore inside the hot, airless living room. The afternoon sun poured light and heat into the room as if the cheap shades on the windows didn’t exist. Brady felt even hotter. He hooked his hat on a hat rack he had put on the wall beside the front door, then walked over and switched on the swamp cooler. “Gets hot in here with the house facing west,” he said. “It’ll be cooler in the kitchen.”

  He gestured his guest into the kitchen and invited him to take a seat at the round table. Brady had learned to live with the kitchen’s deficiencies. He paid little attention to trappings anyway, but Whitmore seemed to be staring at every corner of the dingy kitchen. “Want a cold drink, Mr. Whitmore?” Brady opened the refrigerator and grabbed two bottles of water.

  “No, thanks.” The Realtor removed his straw hat and placed it on the table, then reached into his back pocket for a handkerchief and patted his brow. The man opened his portfolio on the tabletop and removed a pen from his shirt pocket. A real optimist, Brady thought, suppressing a laugh and putting one water bottle back in the fridge. He dragged a chair from the table, turned it around and straddled it, resting his forearms on the back and hanging on to his water bottle. “How would somebody in Abilene even get wind of my place? And why would they think I want to sell it?” He unscrewed the cap on his bottle, tilted his head back and swigged a long, cold drink.

  “That I couldn’t tell you, Mr. Fallon.”

  “Well, show me what you’ve got. I’ve got to eat and get to bed. I’ve been up since four a.m.”

  The Realtor slid a contract across the table until it lay directly in front of Brady’s chair back, its white surface and tiny black print a vivid contrast to the shiny brown of the tabletop. Brady craned his neck and scanned it—and almost did a double take when he saw the purchase price. What he didn’t see was a buyer’s name. Suspicion streaked through him like a wild horse. Jeff Strayhorn. “Whoa. Somebody’s offering me a million dollars?”

  The real estate broker looked him in the eye, holding his pen over the portfolio. “That’s the offer. There’s some financing involved, but it would be cash to you.”

  Brady’s mind reeled. Most of the people in Willard County didn’t have two nickels to rub together. He could think of absolutely nobody local who could pay a million dollars for grazing land. Nobody except Jeff Strayhorn. But Brady was now a Strayhorn employee. Why would the old man play games by hiring an Abilene real estate broker? “Who’s the buyer?”

  “The buyer wants to remain anonymous until the closing,” Whitmore said. “As you can see, the closing date is thirty days from acceptance. You could have your money in your hand before winter.”

  Brady shook his head and slid the contract back to Whitmore. “This is bullshit, Mr.Whitmore. There’s nothing here to be secretive about. If somebody wants to buy this place, they need to be up front about it. Even if I wanted to sell, I might like to have a say in who I sell to. But like I told you, the place isn’t on the market. I’ve got my own plans here. I am interested in knowing, though, what somebody has seen here that makes them want to buy it.”

  “A good-size chunk of good bluestem, all cross-fenced, with windmills and stock pens, a house and outbuildings. All of that in one package isn’t easy to find in this part of the country, sir.”

  As far as Brady knew, bluestem grass had been here since before the American Indians. It wasn’t that rare. He wondered how this guy knew about the cross-fencing or the windmills or even the stock pens, unless he had been out snooping over the place in Brady’s absence. He didn’t trust Mr. Fred Whitmore entirely. He had dealt with too many real estate brokers not to have instincts and biases. “If all that’s true, Mr. Whitmore, then that price sounds a little low.”

  “It’s a good, clean deal,” Whitmore said. “I urge you to consider it. The way things are these days, you’ll be a long time getting this kind of offer again.”

  Well, the guy had slid right past the comment about the price. So it was a low offer. Still, even if it was a little lower than market, it was a million dollars. Brady had nothing invested here except the money he had paid out of pocket for the taxes and a few dollars he had spent on the barn. A million dollars cash would solve damn near all his short-term financial problems and even put him on the road back. It would enable him to start over, if in a smaller way, and rebuild.

  When he first learned he had inherited this place, hadn’t his very first thought been to sell it for any price he could get for it? Of course, that was before he got a fool notion to fix it up and reestablish it as a cattle operation. If he had known back then that he could get a million dollars for it, he might have sold it and never looked back. But that was before he got the idea of someday bringing Andy here to grow up. “How long’s the offer good for?”

  “Not long. I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you, if you don’t take the deal right off, it can be withdrawn at any time. Things happen, you know. People’s minds change. In the real estate business, we often say time is of the essence.”

  Indeed. How many times had he heard that? Brady wondered. “I’ve got a lot going on right now. And this isn’t a decision I’m willing to make overnight.”

  After the Realtor left, Brady made himself a bologna and cheese sandwich, poured a glass of milk and walked outside. Not a tree grew near the old house. The only shade was from the roof of the small back porch. But the pleasant breeze that always kicked up late in the afternoon touched his face and brought a bouquet of smells—clean, fresh air, fecund barn-yard aromas and the scent of rich earth growing good grass. He sank to an aluminum folding chair he had put beside the back door. The capriciousness of life had flummoxed him again. With somebody hiding behind the curtain of anonymity waving a million dollars at him, Brady had to think.

  He set his glass on the porch deck and sprawled in the folding chair, perched on his tailbone, one long leg thrust straight in front of him. His view from the back porch was mostly of the barn and tumbledown outbuildings. All he could see around him was work and more work. New unpainted boards showed on the sides of the barn, making it look like a checkerboard. The old thing stood straight now, as a result of a prodigious effort. Strengthening it and shoring it up had taken a whole month of only brief snatches of time, and he wasn’t even finished with it yet.

  Were his circumstances so tenuous that he had to consider any offer and make the practical decision about it? If he were working as the general manager at the Circle C, there was no telling when he would get around to really fixing this old place up or getting his own cattle. Or even if he ever did own his own herd, he wondered if he would have the time and extra energy to take care of it. As for a place to live, the Circle C would furnish him a house. In fact, if he worked at the ranch, living on it would be more convenient.

  He had to delve deeper. He had to consider what he really wanted. He was thirty-four years old and suddenly didn’t have a clue what he wanted to be when he grew up. Just a couple months back, he had wanted to be a cattle rancher. A few years back, he had wanted to be a successful home builder. And before that he had wanted to be a college graduate. He hadn’t planned on being a father, but after he became one, he had wanted to be that, too. Eventually he had become all that he planned, though the cattle-ranching goal still had hurdles to overcome.

  But all of that was superfluous fluff. His life had followed more paths than most young men’s, he suspected. But in the bone-deep part of him, he had always known what he wanted most of all: security and a decent home. A house that wasn’t overcrowded with too many dwellers or that was never clean because everybody who lived in it worked at menial jobs from sunup to sundown just to eat. He wanted a loving woman who cared about him in a way he had rarely seen in real life, a woman who was glad to see him come home at night. He took pride in being a caretaker, but he wanted somebody in his life who was eager to be his help-mate. A woman who was faithful.

  Unbidden, his thoughts turned to Jude Strayhorn. Why couldn’t he
get somebody who met none of his criteria out of his mind? Was it because he couldn’t figure her out? For sure, she’d had him scratching his head from the first minute she showed up in his driveway. She had come on to him like any number of barroom babes he had run across in his life, then showed herself to be less experienced with men than today’s teenagers. Then after he had followed her into a petty deception against her family and endangered his own plans, she had brushed him off like lint on her shoulder. As if all of that hadn’t left him confused enough, just when he had almost concluded that the weekend in Stephenville had been a figment of his imagination, she had showed up at his house looking sexy and smelling like flowers and offering to ride his horses and lease his land.

  Yet, despite the confusion, he instinctively knew why she appealed to him. She was a fierce warrior and didn’t even know it. Though she’d had every material advantage life could offer, she was a lonely heart struggling to find a place to belong. Like him, she was a loner, but she had the same deep yearning as he. And the fact that she was rich and he wasn’t had nothing to do with it.

  Brady had learned a lot about the Strayhorns in the short time he had spent with J.D. Jude might think she had traditional relationships with her family, but that was bullshit. They treated her like a possession. Brady didn’t doubt J.D. loved his daughter. But he loved her from a distance, as if he feared reaching to her across his desk might bring an emotion he couldn’t handle.

  Jake Strayhorn had the same quality about him. Such was the shroud that hung over the whole Strayhorn family, Brady suspected. The darkness of its past. The Campbell Curse.

  A low grumble escaped Brady’s throat, the sound of him chastising himself for letting his mind wander from the question at hand. He straightened in his chair, picked up his glass and finished off the milk. Now he had a decision to make. To sell or not to sell.

  Early the next morning, Jude’s father left for an AQHA conference in Amarillo. Soon after, Jude departed for the Dickerson ranch, northeast of Fort Worth, to pick up a pair of prizewinning bulls. Spike and Charlie Brown, she had already named them. Those weren’t their registered names, but their registered names were boring. It was the wrong time of year to be bringing in new bulls, but these two had piqued her interest, and she hadn’t wanted to miss the opportunity to acquire them.