A Sweet Life-kindle

by Andre, Bella

  REBECCA WAS ON THE TELEPHONE—with Buddy, no doubt—when Delaney slipped through the door, deposited her purse and coat on the bench that was the only piece of furniture in their small entryway, and tried to slip through the living room to her bedroom. She didn’t feel like talking, but Rebecca glanced up when she entered, took one look at her, and told Buddy she had to go.

  “Go ahead and talk to Buddy. I’m okay,” Delaney lied, but Rebecca hung up anyway.

  “What happened?” she asked, turning down the volume of a Sarah McLachlan CD playing in the background.

  “Nothing,” Delaney said.

  Rebecca shook her head. “I’m not buying that, Laney. You look as white as a ghost. And the library closed hours ago. Where’ve you been?”

  “At the library,” she said. “Conner came by.”

  “Oh, Laney, you didn’t tell him, did you?” Rebecca wailed.

  “I had to. How can I keep his baby a secret from him?” Rebecca smacked her forehead with her open palm and fell back on the couch. “I knew it. You thought I was crazy to come up with the cancer thing, but—”

  “You were crazy to come up with the cancer thing,” Delaney argued. “If word of that got around, it could break Aunt Millie’s heart.”

  “But it was working. It kept Conner Armstrong away from you.”

  “For a whole week? Big deal.”

  Rebecca rubbed her hands on her jeans. “I can’t believe it. This is exactly what I was afraid of. Now you’re going to tell me he was mad as hell. And of course he was. Who wouldn’t be? But it didn’t have to be this way. He didn’t have to find out!”

  Delaney threw up her hands. “We don’t know that he’s going back to California, Beck. What if he sticks around? Then he would’ve found out eventually. Don’t you think he would’ve wondered when he saw me carrying a baby around?”

  Rebecca groaned and covered her eyes, but didn’t answer, and Delaney started to pace the area rug that covered the scarred hardwood floor. What was she going to do now? She had no idea how Conner was likely to respond, Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph weren’t speaking to her, and she had no job.

  Rebecca was the first to break the silence. “Have you ever thought of leaving Dundee?” she asked. “You could move to a big city, start over, escape Conner and Aunt Millie and all the judgmental bull you’re going to go through living in such a small town once everyone learns about the baby.” She leaned over to reach the stereo and turned off Sarah McLachlan, but Delaney caught her hopeful glance. “You could even move to Nebraska with me.” Delaney sat in her easy chair and crossed her legs, willing the tension to ebb from her tired muscles. For days she’d walked around feeling as though one more setback might make her unravel completely. “You know I’d like to come to Nebraska,” she said. “But I can’t leave here. Aunt Millie might be angry with me right now, but she and Uncle Ralph need someone to take care of them. And so do their friends.”

  “Their friends?”

  “Mrs. Shipley’s kids went away to college and never came back. Who’s going to look after her?”

  “That’s up to her family.”

  “She didn’t say that about me when my mother died. Nor did she say it throughout all the years she took me under her wing at the library.”

  “You were six when your mother died, and you were always a great help to her in the library!”

  “I needed someone, and she was there. Now she needs me.”

  “So you’re telling me that even if Aunt Millie and her self-righteous friends put you down, find fault and judge you, you’re going to stay put and take care of them.”

  “They’re not all self-righteous. Mrs. Shipley will probably just assume that Conner’s no good. And the others, well, it’s just what they’ve been taught. I’m going to help them out regardless.”

  “That’s nuts.” Rebecca shook her head. “Especially now that Conner lives here.”

  “Maybe, but I can’t leave. Besides, I do like my job— if I can just get through the remodelling. Where else can I work noon to eight Monday to Friday, have weekends to myself and be my own boss?”

  “You’re not really your own boss. You’re afraid you’re going to be fired.”

  “In practice, I have a lot of autonomy,” Delaney said. Rebecca twirled her hair around and around her fingers, something she did when she wanted a cigarette but couldn’t or wouldn’t let herself smoke. “So who knows about the baby?” she asked.

  “You, me, Conner, Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph.”

  “And who knows that Conner’s the father?”

  “Just you, me and Conner. And I want to leave it that way, okay?”

  Rebecca’s lips turned down. “You’re the one telling everyone.”

  “Well, you’re the one who works at a beauty salon and does more gossiping than hair care. And I don’t want Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph to find out—certainly not until they get used to the idea of me having a baby on my own. If I told them now, Aunt Millie would probably make Uncle Ralph march over to the Running Y and demand that Conner marry me.” She noticed Rebecca’s agitated hair twirling again and said, “Why don’t you go have a cigarette?”

  Rebecca didn’t budge. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged impatiently. “I quit.”

  Delaney let her head fall back on the chair. “Oh Lord, not now.” Rebecca had tried to quit several times before. She always lasted a few weeks, then caved in, and those weeks were hell for both of them. She’d eat like a horse, litter the house with empty ice cream containers and cookie and candy bar wrappers and complain about the smallest things, slowly driving Delaney crazy.

  “That’s some support, Laney,” Rebecca said in a sarcastic voice.

  “You know I want you to quit. I’ve been after you to give up smoking for years. But right now, I can’t deal with you constantly chewing your nails and twisting your hair and bouncing your knee. Can’t we get through this Conner mess first? One nervous wreck at a time is enough in this house, and I got there before you.”

  “I won’t be difficult,” Rebecca insisted. “I have more resolve. I can do it.”

  Delaney was afraid for her friend’s health. And she didn’t particularly relish the smell of smoke that trailed into the house on Rebecca’s hair and clothes. But Rebecca had been smoking since she was sixteen. It wasn’t an easy habit to break. They already knew that from past failures.

  “Why now?” Delaney asked.

  Rebecca picked up the remote and turned on the television.

  “Why now, Beck?” Delaney pressed. “Is it because I’m pregnant?”

  “That’s part of it.” Rebecca blew her short bangs off her forehead. “And I saw Josh today. At the drugstore.”

  Josh. Rebecca hadn’t talked about him for a couple of months, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He and Rebecca went way back, to their childhoods. And somehow, whenever he became involved in anything that included Rebecca, the world tilted a little off its axis.

  “Did you speak to him?” she asked, wondering why a recent sighting of Josh would be a factor in giving up cigarettes.

  She nodded. “He stopped to congratulate me on my upcoming marriage.”

  “That was nice of him,” Delaney murmured, but Rebecca offered nothing more, and what she’d said so far didn’t explain why this chance meeting was significant. “Is he still with Mary Thornton?” she asked, probing for the connection.

  “Yeah. She was with him.” Rebecca made a face. “All that perkiness makes me want to slap her, you know? Doesn’t she get on your nerves?”

  Delaney had never been fond of Mary, either, but she was a little surprised that Rebecca seemed to feel so strongly about her all of a sudden. “So how does this connect with your new resolve to quit smoking?”

  “I think Mary whispered something to Josh about me always smelling like smoke.”

  So that was the story. What Mary said had gotten to Rebecca. But why? Rebecca didn’t care what other people th
ought. Especially Josh. Delaney had grown up with the two of them, had witnessed how they competed and goaded and snubbed each other. Although, there was that one night when Rebecca and Josh had danced at the Honky Tonk, and finally left together. But ever since Buddy came on the scene, Delaney had figured that was all in the past.

  “I’m guessing they’ll be getting married soon,” Rebecca said.

  “Probably,” Delaney agreed. “I’m surprised Josh has waited as long as he has to find a wife.”

  “He’s been too involved in building his business. He’s driven, doesn’t do anything halfway.”

  Was that admiration Delaney detected? She shook her head in confusion. One minute, Rebecca’s tone was disparaging, the next it was almost...wistful. “Does this have something to do with that night the two of you left the Honky Tonk and went to his place?” she asked.

  Rebecca’s hair-twirling suddenly sped up. “It didn’t mean anything to me. You know that.”

  Uneasiness crept up Delaney’s spine, and it had nothing to do with the blatant worry she felt about her own situation. Was Rebecca rushing toward certain marital disaster? Delaney hesitated, but what needed to be said needed to be said. Better now than after the wedding. “Beck, if you have any kind of feelings for Josh—”

  “Stop it!” Rebecca said. “I don’t feel anything for him.

  I’ve never even liked him.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to Buddy if—”

  “I said I don’t feel anything for him. He belongs with Mary Thornton or someone just like her. She fits into the Dundee mold. She’d never do anything that would so much as raise his eyebrows. I’m not like that, and we both know it.”

  “But do you love Buddy?” Delaney asked.

  “Of course I do.” Then she stood and headed to her room, leaving a Seinfeld rerun on the TV. “I’m going to bed.”

  Delaney didn’t respond. She’d always taken Rebecca at her word when it came to Josh Hill. But she was beginning to wonder: Was Rebecca telling the truth when she said she felt nothing for him? Or did she like him just a little too much?

  Chapter Ten

  “YOU OUT OF SORTS?” Roy asked, lingering after supper instead of going directly to his house in back as he usually did.

  “Why do you ask?” Conner replied, slouching lower on the brown leather sofa in the ranch’s main living room and taking a long swallow of his beer.

  Roy stepped over the two dogs lounging at Conner’s feet and carried his beer to the chair closest to the fire that raged, hot and crackling, in the huge stone fireplace. “Been brooding most of the day.”

  He had good reason to brood, but he’d be damned if he was going to tell anybody about it. His family had sent him to save the ranch, and he’d knocked up the town librarian instead. The second they found out he was involved in yet another scandal, his grandfather would probably follow through with his promise to cut him off.

  “Maybe I’m beginning to take after you.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that.”

  Conner prodded Sundance to move over and stretched his legs, hoping the fire’s heat would ease the stiffness in his muscles and help his anger to dissipate. He hadn’t slept a wink last night, and he and Roy had hauled water and feed to cattle all day. He was exhausted. But not exhausted enough to forget what Delaney had said to him last night, what she’d done to him.

  “So?” Roy said, interrupting the incessant question—what the hell am I going to do now?—that had been consuming Conner’s thoughts for nearly twenty-four hours.

  “So, what?” he replied, taking another sip of his beer. “You gonna tell me what’s the matter?”

  He swallowed and drank some more. Maybe he’d get drunk and forget the whole thing. Maybe he’d call up a few old friends and run off for Europe, let his grandfather and uncles have the damn ranch and everything else.

  That’s it. Give it up before everyone finds out it was starting to mean something to you, the voice in his head quickly agreed.

  “It doesn’t mean anything to me. None of it means anything to me.”

  “Pardon?” Roy said.

  Conner grimaced. “Nothing.”

  Roy snorted and tilted his bottle, but made no move to stand or go. Conner stared into the flames, seeing Delaney’s face and hating himself for falling into her carefully laid trap. That skimpy black dress...

  “Maybe we could raise horses,” Roy said, out of the blue.

  Conner shifted his gaze to the older man’s weathered face. “What?”

  “You asked if there was any way to turn this place around.”

  Two months ago! Conner arched his brows. “I thought I was in this on my own.”

  “Well, maybe I like your new haircut. Or maybe I’m starting to enjoy your cheerful personality.”

  Conner didn’t answer. He’d gone to the barbershop instead of the salon to avoid seeing Rebecca again, and hated his new haircut. But a bad haircut was the least of his troubles. His uncles were going to have a heyday when they heard about the baby.

  “I’ve been thinking that the Hill brothers seem to be doing mighty well for themselves,” Roy went on. “They raise horses, you know. Thoroughbreds.”

  Did Conner care about this anymore? No. He didn’t want to hear it. Roy’s suggestion had come too late to make any difference.

  Roy shifted forward in his seat and leaned his elbows on his knees, as though he believed that might help him gain Conner’s attention. “You remember, you met Josh at the feed store when we were there last.”

  Conner did remember a man a couple of inches taller, wearing a denim shirt and a tan cowboy hat, but he could barely manage a grunt.

  “They own almost a hundred brood mares and a million dollar racehorse,” Roy said with a whistle that made the dogs’ ears perk up. “You should see the stud fees they’re charging.”

  “I’ll have to look into it,” he said, so that Roy would shut up and go away. Conner had already thought of raising horses, but they didn’t have the capital it would take to get started, and Josh and Mike Hill had a pretty firm hold on that sector of the market, anyway. Why did Roy have to open up to him tonight of all nights?

  “There’s one other thing that might help some,” Roy volunteered.

  Conner didn’t answer. He was too busy going over the conversation between him and Delaney in Boise. “Do you have protection?”...”You don’t have to worry about that.”

  Why the hell hadn’t he insisted they buy some condoms?

  Because she’d told him she was a virgin and that she’d taken care of birth control.

  She had been a virgin. She hadn’t lied about that. “Conner? Are you listening?”

  He wondered how long it would be before she hit him up for money. “Hmm?” he said.

  “I was saying that a lot of people come to hunt and fish once summer gets here. They camp along the creek below the south pass. We’ve never charged anyone to use our land—people have helped themselves for years—but they gather our wood for fires and often leave their garbage behind. We could establish some campsites and charge sixteen, eighteen dollars a night.”

  “We’d have to police it, collect payment and run off anyone who won’t pony up,” Conner said automatically, not particularly excited by the idea. Finding a solution for the ranch didn’t matter anymore, unless he could do it overnight.

  “True, but we could make two, three hundred bucks a night,” Roy said.

  Conner glanced at him. “How? The Bureau of Land Management controls a chunk of the south pass, and the government doesn’t charge for camping, does it?”

  Roy fingered his mustache, then smiled. “Learned something since you’ve been here, have ya?”

  “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know we’re not going to make any money selling something people can get for free.”

  “I would’ve thought so, too, until water started going for two and three dollars a gallon.”

  “That doesn’t happen around here.”

  “W
e still trust our water. That’s why people want to come here. But if we start charging campers, maybe the BLM will follow suit. Even if they don’t, it’d be worth it— if only to get visitors to stick with the free BLM sites so we won’t have to clean up after them.”

  Conner nodded, marginally interested because the idea seemed to have some merit, but in the end, his dark mood won out, and they sat in silence until Roy finished his beer. Setting his bottle down, the foreman finally stood to go, but Conner stopped him with a question.

  “How well do you know Delaney Lawson?”

  “She grew up here, for the most part,” Roy said. “She’s a real nice girl, has a drink at the Honky Tonk now and then, bakes a great pie. She’s single, if that’s what you’re after. You interested?”

  In making her pay for what she’d done to him, maybe.

  Conner didn’t answer. “What about Rebecca?”

  “Hang out at the Honky Tonk or the barbershop or even the convenience store long enough and you’ll learn all you want to know about Rebecca Wells,” Roy said. “Her daddy’s the mayor.”

  “So she’s locally famous?”

  “I’d say it’s more like she’s—” his lips twisted into a wry grin as he shoved his hands in his pockets and jingled his change “—notorious.”

  “How’s that?”

  “When she was, oh, ’bout seventeen, she ran away with a biker, but she was too hard to handle, even for him. He sent her packing right away.” Chuckling, he scratched his head where his hat had left what looked like a permanent imprint. “She’s getting married soon, though. And believe me, you don’t want to hook up with her, anyway. Just ask Josh Hill. They’ve had a feud going for as long as I can remember. The whole town stays out of their way.”

  “What’s wrong with Rebecca? Besides her hair?”

  He shrugged. “She’s wild. She set the high school on fire trying to burn the mascot symbol into the football field, and dyed Mrs. Reese’s hair blue the night before she was supposed to chair a meeting for the Daughters of the American Revolution, and—”

  “The hair thing wasn’t an accident?” Conner asked.