Lone Star Woman

by CALLAHAN, SADIE

  Suzanne picked two glasses from the cupboard and a pitcher of tea from the refrigerator. Jude seated herself at the phony-wood table in the small eating area off the kitchen, watching and listening as Suzanne dropped ice cubes into the glasses. She didn’t quite know where to start. She leaned an elbow on the table and propped her chin on her palm. “What’s new with you and Pat?”

  “Aww. He’s the sweetest man. Treats me like a queen.” Suzanne came to the table and placed a tall glass of tea in front of Jude. “But he doesn’t say much about himself. I still don’t understand why he’s divorced. The people I work with at the grocery store said his ex took up with some dude from Lubbock.”

  “She did,” Jude said. “She wanted to live in the city.” Jude remembered well when Pat Garner and his wife had split. It had happened before Suzanne returned to Lockett. She stared out the large window at the end of the room, trying to divert her attention to anything besides what had happened at her own house. “Daddy found out about me and Brady,” she said. The words just came out.

  “Oops,” Suzanne said. “And then what?”

  Jude shook her head, continuing to stare out the window. “I haven’t seen him this mad since I broke up with Webb Henderson. I think he might fire Brady altogether. Then again, he might not.” Her heart heavy, Jude turned her attention back to her friend, her only friend. “I’ve made the biggest mess. It started out as something so simple. I was just going to help out someone who I thought needed help. Somehow everything got out of my control.”

  Suzanne leaned forward, her hand clasping Jude’s forearm. “Did your dad say he was gonna fire Brady?”

  “At first. Then he backed off a little. I still don’t know exactly what he’ll do.” Jude told Suzanne about making the offer on Brady’s land, the crisis with the bulls in the storm, and the unbridled sex at Brady’s house. She even talked about her grandfather’s interest in acquiring the 6-0.

  “What was Brady’s reaction to your dad?”

  “He doesn’t know yet. He’s in Abilene meeting with his ex-wife. He thinks he might get custody of his son.” Jude shrugged and sipped her tea. “He doesn’t like sneaking around. He wanted me to tell Daddy. He thinks my father’s a reasonable man. But Windy told him before I got a chance to, which only made things worse.” Suddenly overwhelmed by all that had happened in such a short time, she dropped her face into her hands. “Oh, God, Suzanne, sometimes I feel like I’m in jail.”

  “Well, it’s a damn nice jail,” Suzanne said. “I’d share a cell with you just to get to wear your jewelry.” She sat back and sipped her tea.

  “I used to think Daddy and Grandpa would eventually tire of trying to run my life. But I just realized driving over here, I’m never going to have a life as long as I live at the ranch. I couldn’t even move into town and get away from them.” She sat back in her chair and sighed. “I think I’ll go to Fort Worth. I should be able to do something there. Teach, maybe. I could teach in one of the colleges.”

  “You’re going to just up and abandon Brady? After he took a risk for you?”

  “His life is here in Lockett now. He might not be working for the Circle C in the future, but he still has the 6-0. Even if he wanted me to be with him, how could I, with Grandpa so greedy for that 6-0 land? Even Daddy doesn’t know what he might try. Grandpa’s a shrewd old guy. Ruthless, too.”

  “I can’t believe your dad and your granddad would do something to hurt you, Jude.”

  “They’ve already done things to hurt me.”

  “But not deliberately. Not maliciously.”

  “What difference does it make? The results are still the same. Do you know what my life would have been like if I had married Webb Henderson? Or Jason Weatherby? Miserable, that’s what. And I don’t think either Daddy or Grandpa has ever considered that. Webb’s a horrible human being, and Jason isn’t much better. But now, in the irony of ironies, Daddy has no compunction about damaging someone who’s a good person—someone I care about.”

  “Does Brady know you’re the one who offered to buy his land?”

  “No. And God willing, he never will. Brady’s proud. He would be so pissed off. I’ve withdrawn the offer.”

  “I suppose the bottom line, here, girlfriend, is how do you really feel about Brady? Are you in love with him?”

  Jude looked into her eyes, her throat tight. “I don’t know. I just know I think about him all the time. No matter what I’m doing, he’s in the back of my mind. I turn to jelly when I’m close to him. But no more than I know myself these days, it might be just the sex I like. It’s so incredible with him, like nothing I’ve ever known.”

  “See?” Suzanne said softly. “Now you know why I stayed with Mitch about five years longer than I should have.”

  They continued to talk, moving on from discussing Jude’s unsolvable problems to more talk about Pat Garner. Soon the suppertime hour at the Circle C had passed. Suzanne put a pizza in the oven and they ate it and drank beer on the back porch. When Jude mentioned going home, Suzanne said, “Stay here tonight, girlfriend. You know we’ve got an extra bed.”

  Jude stayed. For the first time in her life, she stayed away from home in anger.

  When Brady showed up at the Circle C cookhouse for breakfast the next morning, J.D. was already there. Breakfast talk concerned the coming fall sale and a new stud J.D. had negotiated for in Amarillo. After breakfast, J.D. caught up with him outside and they strolled toward the corral attached to the big barn where Clary Harper was working with a one-year-old.

  “Good trip?” Brady asked, chewing on a toothpick. He wondered if Jude had talked to him. They reached the corral fence and hooked their arms over the top rail, watching Clary work with the colt. “I sure like the looks of that colt,” J.D. said. “He’s one of Sandy Dandy’s.”

  Brady nodded. “He’s a catty thing. I like that in a horse.”

  “I need to talk to you about something, Brady.” Yep, Jude had told him. Brady angled a look at J.D., but J.D stared straight ahead. Brady could see only his profile. “To tell you the truth, Brady, I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Try the beginning,” Brady said.

  “My, uh, daughter, um, mentioned that . . .” He cleared his throat. “Uh, mentioned that, uh—”

  “Want me to make this easier, J.D.? Jude and I want to see each other. And we don’t want to do it behind your back.”

  “Right. And I’m grateful. And Jude’s what I want to talk to you about. She didn’t come home last night. I, uh, thought . . . well, I thought—”

  “You thought she was with me? Well, she wasn’t. I didn’t get home from Abilene until late.”

  Jude’s meeting with her dad obviously hadn’t gone well. Brady wished he had been the one to tell J.D.

  J.D. turned and gave him a blank look. “Well, then, where is she?”

  Good question, Brady thought, now starting to be concerned. His heartbeat kicked up. “Beats me.”

  “She and I had a, um, disagreement yesterday afternoon. She left here upset. She’s probably at Suzanne’s house.” He plucked his cell phone from his belt and punched in a number. Brady watched and listened as J.D. confirmed that Jude was at her girlfriend’s house. J.D. asked her about coming home, as if she were a teenager. He soon disconnected and hooked his phone back on his belt. Brady hadn’t seen a grown man so flustered in a long time.

  “She spent the night at Suzanne Breedlove’s house,” he said, obviously relieved.

  Now Clary was trotting the colt in a circle. “I guess I’d like to, uh, know your intentions toward my daughter,” J.D. said, his eyes on the yearling.

  What did a thirty-four-year-old man say to a father who asked that about his twenty-nine-year-old daughter? Brady wondered. “I intend for us to spend time together. Get to know each other. Jude’s a wonderful person.”

  J.D. turned and faced him, resting his elbow on the fence rail. “That’s all?”

  Brady looked at the colt, not knowing what to say. What did J.D.
expect?

  “Look, let me be candid, Brady. For you and Jude to be, uh, to be—well, this presents a helluva dilemma for me and for this ranch. I’ve put you in a position of trust. You can see how it looks, you taking up with Jude and, uh, the two of you—”

  “Sex” was the word J.D. was having a hard time wrapping his mouth around. But he surely must have known she’d had some kind of sexual relationship with the two men she had been engaged to. Perhaps those affairs occurring outside Willard County made a difference. Embarrassed, Brady would allow this conversation to go only so far. “I won’t insult your intelligence, J.D., by telling you Jude and I haven’t been close.”

  “I know. I know. She told me. Look, I don’t know how much you know about her past. She’s immature where men are concerned. She’s been engaged twice. To men my dad and I thought would make good husbands, but—”

  “J.D., your daughter’s not some kid. She’s a smart woman able to do her own thinking. Old enough to decide what she wants.”

  The man gave a great sigh, then faced Brady with a wide, insincere grin. “She certainly is, and you seem to be what she wants.”

  J.D.’s behavior gave little indication of how he felt about that. Brady waited for further comment, but J.D. turned his attention back to Clary, who was leading the colt into the barn. He reset his hat and adjusted his glasses. “I’ve been thinking on this, Brady. I thought about it all night, in fact. The easiest solution for all of us would be for you and Jude to just get married. As you say, she’s smart and she’s attractive. I’m sure she’ll make a good wife. She certainly comes with a dowry.”

  Brady’s felt his brow shoot up. “Did you say dowry?”

  “Cows. I know you want a cattle herd of your own. I’d be willing to set you up with breeding stock, no strings attached. Margie Wallace’s place ought to easily feed a couple hundred head. You can take your pick. I’m sure my dad would go along with that. We’d just call it a wedding present.”

  Brady could scarcely believe his ears. “J.D., I’m in no position to take a wife. I’m not saying the day won’t come, but—”

  “Fallon, you’re in no position not to.” J.D.’s demeanor and expression had changed quicker than a snap. “Not if you want to continue an association with this ranch. This is my daughter’s home, and Lockett is her hometown. As well as mine. If you’re going to . . . going to continue to enjoy her company, you’re damn well going to marry her.”

  Fury crawled up Brady’s spine, along with sympathy for Jude. “Since we’re being frank, J.D., I’m gonna leave this conversation with this. Your daughter shouldn’t be a bargaining chip in a negotiation for a husband. And as for my association with this ranch, I took on the job as general manager in good faith, intending to be a loyal administrator. My interest or disinterest in Jude had nothing to do with it.”

  They faced off for a few seconds, glaring. J.D. broke first and stalked toward his house.

  Several minutes later, J.D.’s truck passed on the way to the front gate. Clary Harper walked out of the barn. “Where’s the boss going? He upset about something?”

  “Don’t know exactly,” Brady lied. “Listen, Clary, I’m gonna go to my house and get my horse trailer and haul Sal home. She’s been here long enough.”

  “Whatever you want to do, Brady, but she’s not any trouble. Fact is, I like having her around. Jude wants to breed Patch to her. I was hoping you’d consider doing that. We haven’t had a baby paint around here in a long time.”

  Just then, Jude’s truck came up the road, and Brady wondered if she had met her dad as she came in. She parked in front of the garage and walked into the house without so much as a look toward the barns. “I might just go over and have a talk with Jude about that now,” Brady said, and headed for the ranch house’s back door.

  26

  Brady knocked on the back door and asked for Jude. Lola Mendez let him in and told him she was in her office. He removed his hat as the housekeeper led him up the short hall and pointed to a doorway. Peeking inside, he saw a bright, cheerful room in disarray—a couple of unpacked cardboard boxes, a framed picture on a chair, flat surfaces scattered with papers and documents. Jude was standing behind a desk, her long hair pulled back and clipped at her neck. A memory of her standing in his kitchen wearing his bathrobe sprang to his mind and he had to resist the urge to take her in his arms. “Hey,” he said, and smiled.

  She looked up, her eyebrows rising. “Brady. I wasn’t expecting you.” Fatigue showed on her face. He suspected she’d had a sleepless night. She had waged a battle that might appear simple to some, but to her, it was an outright rebellion.

  “Stopped by to say good morning,” he said, entering the room.

  “Have you seen Daddy?” She had yet to smile.

  “Just talked to him over at the round paddock.”

  “Was he . . . mean?”

  He would never tell her that her father had tried to use her to strike a marriage bargain. “I’ll just say we didn’t part seeing eye to eye on much besides Sandy Dandy’s colt. But he’s okay.”

  She nodded, but he could feel the tension emanating from her, almost as visible as summer heat waves.

  He looked around the room, then cautiously glanced back in her direction. She had that taut, fragile look, like she might break into pieces. He hated empty talk, but he said, “I like your new spot. It looks like you.”

  A weak smile passed over her full lips. “Well, I haven’t put everything away. And I don’t exactly have a real desk yet.”

  He nodded, noticing now that her desk was a table. A familiar-looking piece of paper on the corner caught his eye. He didn’t mean to snoop, but the paper looked so familiar, he couldn’t not look at it. It was a real estate purchase contract. It looked like the document that had been presented to him by the real estate broker from Abilene. Just to be certain he wasn’t seeing things, he laid his hat on the table and picked up the contract.

  Jude looked across the table at him, bug-eyed, then grabbed for the contract. But he moved it to the side, away from her reach. “You have no right to take something off my desk,” she said sharply.

  He looked more closely at the document. To verify what his eyes had already told him, he thumbed to the back page and saw Fred Whitmore’s signature below the typed phrase “Buyer’s name to be disclosed on acceptance.”

  “What is this?” he asked, looking up at her and schooling his voice not to sound harsh.

  She stood still, her wide-eyed gaze glued to his, like a deer caught in headlights.

  “Brady—”

  “What is this?” he asked again. “You’re trying to buy the 6-0? . . . In secret?” As this revelation sunk in, bitterness and distrust spread through him. “And I thought it was your granddad I had to worry about.”

  “Brady, I can—”

  “Don’t. Just don’t.”

  He tossed the contract back onto her desk, picked up his hat and walked out, hanging on to the hat brim to keep from wrapping his hands around her neck and strangling her. He had trusted her, had taken risks for her. Had she been scheming behind his back from the start?

  Setting his hat on, Brady strode across the barn lots. Women. A man couldn’t trust a single damn one of them. It didn’t matter if you were married, shacked up or just fucking one—they were all the same. Jude was no different from Marvalee. And J.D. was no different from Marvalee’s father. Hell, the Strayhorns were more dangerous than Marvalee’s father. They had more money and influence than Marvin Lee Erickson.

  He walked into the vet clinic, on into the office that had never really been his office, found a blank piece of paper and wrote out his resignation. He placed it on top of the desk in plain view, weighted it with a horseshoe and walked to his truck.

  He had just moved on to Plan B. Not his plan of choice, but he could see now it was a helluva lot less complicated than Plan A.

  Women, he thought again. On the day of his divorce two and a half years ago, he had vowed never to make anot
her commitment to a female. He should have remembered that before he stepped into Jude’s trap.

  Jude clutched her elbows tightly as if letting go might make her fly apart. She made no attempt to chase after Brady. What could she say? How could she ever explain? She wilted to a wicker chair and stared outside at the barns. And that’s where she was when her father came through the back door. He had a piece of paper in his hand.

  He saw her from the hallway and came into the room, looking around. He was obviously uncomfortable.

  “This looks nice,” he said, as if trying to sound normal. “It’ll be comfortable and pretty when you get organized. Penny Ann would be pleased you’re using her room, punkin.”

  “Daddy, please do not call me that silly name. I hate it.” She stood.

  “I worried when you didn’t come home last night.”

  She snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t have Jake out looking for me.”

  “We don’t need the law to resolve our family issues, Jude.”

  “Right. And we don’t want to have anything to do with Jake, anyway, do we?” She started for the doorway. She didn’t know where she was headed, but she had to get away.

  “Jude, wait. We need to talk.”

  “No, Daddy, you need to talk. We . . . never talk. You talk and I listen. And more times than not, I’ve always done what you said. You need to know that has changed.”

  “Jude, listen—”

  “See? This is exactly what I just said. I do not want to listen. Listening to you and Grandpa has caused me nothing but grief.” She turned to leave the room again.

  “Jude,” he said, his voice elevated and hard. “Come back in here and talk to me.” She stopped and leveled a heated glare at him. “I have some things to tell you,” he said more softly.

  She heaved an exaggerated breath. Nothing could have kept her from scowling and snapping, “What?”

  He sat down on the serape-covered cushion of the wicker love seat and laid the paper he had in his hand on the tiny wicker coffee table in front of the love seat. Her eyes narrowed, moving from the paper to his eyes. “What is that?”