by Anna Jeffrey
He walked up beside her and kissed her cheek, then took a seat opposite her. She could tell before he said a word that he was in a very good mood. A waiter appeared immediately with both water and coffee carafes.
“You certainly look chipper,” she said to her son.
“I am,” he replied, waiting for the waiter to fill his glass and his cup. “Starting the new year off right. Got projects going, deals cooking.”
“And a new girlfriend?”
“Mom, this lunch isn’t going to be about that, is it?”
Betty retreated. “No, no. I just wanted to see you before I leave. In case our boat sinks, you know?” She gave a silly laugh.
“C’mon, Mom—”
“It’s been known to happen.”
Just then, a waitress came and took their orders. Drake ordered the house hamburger for which Reata was famous. Betty ordered soup. After the waitress hurried away, he asked, “How long did you say you’ll be gone?”
“Ten days. We’ll make a stop in Costa Rica. Barron owns property there. He’s even thought of moving there.”
“Hm,” Drake said, sipping his coffee. “Ran out of people to screw over up here, huh?”
“Now, Drake—”
“I’m kidding, Mom. I’m kidding. Who you spend your time with is none of my business.” He set down his cup and gave her an arch look. “Just as who I spend my time with is none of yours.”
Betty exhaled a sigh. “There you go being tacky again. Why won’t you tell me about your new girlfriend? Surely you can tell me her name. Am I going to get to meet her?”
“I don’t know. If it comes around to that, I’ll leave that kind of stuff up to her.”
Her mother’s instinct went on alert. “My Lord, Drake. You sound serious.”
“I might be. I just don’t know yet.”
She sat back in her chair, surprised at that revelation. “Is she from Fort Worth?”
Sipping his coffee, he shook his head. “Camden.”
For a reason Betty couldn’t explain, even to herself, the image of the red-haired woman on the billboard outside of Camden charged into her memory and collided head-on with the description Donna had given her on the phone. Drake had dated heiresses, doctors and lawyers, actresses and God knew what other women who had reached the stratosphere of success. He had never dated a…a real estate agent.
Why, this woman was in the same category as a used car salesman. Oh, dear Lord. This was a serious situation. Betty wanted more for Drake than a money-grabbing bimbo like Pic had married. “Camden,” she said, dumbfounded.
“Yep. She’s been right under my nose all this time. And I’m not saying any more about it.”
Betty had enough sense to change the subject. With her leaving town, she wanted this meeting to be cordial, without her nagging and irritating him.
She reached home mid-afternoon and dug out the regional phone book she kept just in case she wanted someone’s number in Drinkwell or the dozen other small towns around it. Prowling through the yellow pages, she found an ad and the name she was looking for. Shannon Piper. Broker and owner of Piper Real Estate Company. She couldn’t explain why, but she believed she now knew her son’s new girlfriend’s name.
She picked up the phone and scrolled through its memory for Donna Schoonover’s number. But before she found it, she stopped. Donna was no friend to her. In fact, Betty had seen no evidence that Donna was a friend to anyone. She only gave Betty Lockhart the time of day because she wanted to know about Drake.
Besides that, she wasn’t sure Shannon Piper was the right person. What if she gave that name to Donna, then she turned out to someone who had never heard of Drake Lockhart? Although Betty couldn’t imagine who had never heard of her son. He was almost famous. Nevertheless, how embarrassing might mistaken identity be?
And she had to consider that Drake would be murderously angry if he knew his mother had reported on him to one of his former women.
She decided against calling Donna right this minute. She needed to think about it more, needed to ponder if she wanted to risk her son’s ire. Still, she did want to know who he was seeing, wanted to know if it really was that real estate person from Camden.
Aside from debating all of that inside her head, she was intrigued by the idea that Donna had ways of learning about skeletons in someone’s closet. Betty wished she had the same connections.
But then, enough money could buy anything, she thought dismissively. She had seen that happen often enough. Good Lord, Bill Junior’s father had bought every politician and public servant in Treadway County and a few in the Texas legislature. At one point in their past lives, she had believed he had owned the governor.
Well, it would wait, she finally decided. Donna wasn’t expecting to hear from her until after she returned from the cruise.
****
Wednesday morning. Shannon had relented and allowed Drake to send a car for her. When a black Lincoln Town Car stopped in front of the house, before the driver dressed in a black suit could reach the front door, Shannon dashed outside and met him on the sidewalk. She climbed into the spacious backseat and a buttery leather interior with trim that looked like polished wood. She felt like a queen, but she also had never felt so out of place. And she would have to somehow explain the limo to her grandmother.
She found Drake waiting for her. He drove them in his pickup to a small Fort Worth airport. There, they boarded a private jet. It was the same one she had seen in the photograph of him in the Texas Monthly spread. It was outfitted with padded leather captain’s chairs the color of a latte, two sofas that made into beds and a wet bar. “Wow,” Shannon said. “This looks better than living rooms I’ve seen.”
“And you’ve seen a lot of them, right?” He guided her to a seat and helped her fasten her seat belt, then sank to a chair beside her.
The engines came to life and they began to taxi. That tilt in her stomach that flying always gave her struck her with force. Drake must have noticed because he picked up her hand and interlocked their fingers. “Nervous?”
“I’ve never flown on a plane like this,” she said.
“Only way to travel. Too much hassle and wasted time with the airlines and airports.”
They stopped for a few seconds on the taxiway, then roared up the runway and thundered off to Galveston, where they dined on premium raw oysters in a tiny bistro on the ocean and lingered long after the meal. “This is wonderful,” Shannon told him. “I’ve lived in Texas my whole life and never been to Galveston. Really, I’ve hardly been anywhere in Texas. Although I did go to Austin to take the real estate exams.”
“Never been to San Antonio?” Drake asked.
“Nope.
“Then you’ve never seen the Alamo. My God, every Texan should see the Alamo.”
Soon, they flew back to Fort Worth, giving her the time to get home early enough to watch TV with Grammy Evelyn.
They parted in the parking garage, with his invitation for a three-day jaunt to South Texas.
“That’s more than a day date,” she said.
“I know. We can hire a babysitter for your grandmother.”
That possibility was about as pleasant as a broken leg. Shannon couldn’t imagine hiring a stranger to look after Grammy Evelyn. “You keep saying that, but I don’t want to do it. I’ll figure it out.”
Now she had to deal with her grandmother. She stewed over the idea that she might worry or embarrass her if she went off on a three-day fling with a guy. Grammy Evelyn was old, not dumb. She would know they would be sleeping together. In all of the time Shannon had lived in her grandmother’s house, she had never let her become aware that she had done anything like that. Not even when she was seeing Justin Turnbow. Out of respect, she had kept her liaisons with men clandestine and short.
She believed Grammy Evelyn loved her so much she would support her no matter what, but she was a little old lady and Shannon didn’t want her to be the target of gossip and snide remarks. Her own granddaught
er, Colleen, might likely be the worst offender.
She rode home with dread. She only hoped that after confessing her intentions, Grammy Evelyn didn’t feel compelled to lecture her on the birds and the bees.
When she arrived, her grandmother had cooked a dish she called “slumgullion,” which meant she had cleaned out the refrigerator and thrown all the leftovers into one pot. While they sat at the round table and ate, Shannon said, “Grammy, what would you think if I went on a trip with a guy?”
Grammy Evelyn smiled, a twinkle in her eye. “Well, my dear, I think it’s time you had a social life. Time doesn’t run backward, you know. Who are you going with?”
“Drake Lockhart. He’s asked me to go to South Texas with him for a few days.”
She waited for her grandmother to gasp, but she only looked up from her plate. “Lockhart’s an unusual name. He wouldn’t be from the Treadway County Lockharts, would he?”
“Uh-huh,” Shannon said, turning her eyes to the roll she was buttering.
“Is that who sent that fancy car to pick you up?”
Shannon didn’t look up. “Uh-huh.”
“Oh, my dear,” her grandmother said. Shannon did look up then, and saw Grammy Evelyn’s eyes huge and round behind her glasses lenses. “The Lockharts are very influential people. Wherever did you meet one of them?”
Grammy Evelyn had said “one of them” as if she were speaking of an alien species. “In Fort Worth at the Realtors’ ball.”
“Is is one of Bill Junior’s children you’re seeing?”
“Uh, I believe so.”
“Which one?”
“His name’s Drake.”
“The oldest one. Oh, my dear,” Grammy Evelyn said again, covering her thin lips with her tiny fingers.
“You don’t have to worry, Grammy. I’m going to ask either Christa or Colleen to come by and visit you and make sure you have everything you need.”
“Oh, I wasn’t worried about myself, dear. It’s you I’m thinking of. You must be careful. Those Lockharts, they’re takers. They’re all brought up to be that way. They think the world belongs to them.”
“In this part of Texas, I guess a good part of it does,”
Subconsciously, Shannon had already filed Drake in the “taker” category, though she didn’t know him that well. But how could he not be a “taker?” she reasoned, when the world was his oyster?
“I’ll be careful, Grammy. Listen, if you have to go to the grocery store or the drug store or anywhere else, just let Christa know. I’ll call her tomorrow and tell her you get your hair done on Saturday and she’ll pick you up and take you to the beauty shop. And I’m sure Colleen and Gavin will be happy to take you to church.”
“Christa’s such a nice girl. We had the best time when you went up to Fort Worth on New Year’s. We baked those cookies. She and Arthur got along very well. She brought him a cute little feather on a string. She knows a lot about cats.”
Shannon laughed. “Christa knows a lot about everything, Grammy.”
“Have you told Colleen where you’re going? And with who?”
Shannon’s shoulders sagged. “No, Grammy, I haven’t. She would…she would judge me. And you know Gavin. He might try to make hay out of me knowing Drake Lockhart. I know we can’t keep it a secret that I’m going somewhere, but we don’t have to tell who I’m going with.”
Grammy Evelyn reached across the table and patted her arm. “Then that part will be another one of our little secrets. Mine and yours and Christa’s.”
Shannon felt a mild relief. She didn’t want cold water thrown on her good mood. She left her chair, walked over and pressed her cheek against her grandmother’s. “Thanks, Grammy. You’re the best grandma I ever had.”
Grammy Evelyn gave a little old lady chuckle. “I believe I’m the only grandma you’ve ever had.”
Indeed. Shannon’s mother’s mother had been out of the picture since Shannon was a child and she didn’t even know why. “I believe you’re right, Grammy.” They both laughed.
“You just be careful,” Grammy Evelyn said again. “Don’t let him mistreat you just because he’s a Lockhart.”
****
The Town Car picked her up again on Thursday afternoon and delivered her to Lockhart Tower. She and Drake piled into his Aston Martin and roared off to San Antonio, where they slept in an historic old hotel near the Alamo.
The next morning, along with hundreds of other tourists, they inched through the most famous historical monument in Texas. Drake had visited it several times. At every exhibit, he stopped and expounded on the display and the related event. Until then, she hadn’t known he
liked history and knew a lot about it.
He seemed more relaxed than she had known him to be up to now. She loved every minute of seeing him as she suspected few people did. But as he told historical facts and stories, that feeling of inadequacy flickered anew within her, reminding her that he was so much better educated than she was and had always lived in a different world.
After the Alamo tour, they browsed in the gift shop where she bought a collector’s spoon for Grammy Evelyn. Then they moved on to the Mexican market where she bought trinkets for her friends. He showed no interest in picking up souvenirs and she suddenly wondered about his friends. She had seen no sign of them and heard little about them.
They ambled along the Riverwalk, ate delicious Mexican food. When a strolling Mariachi band stopped and played a romantic Mexican ballad at their table, Drake reached across and covered her hand with his.
He had obtained premium tickets to a music concert in Austin conducted by Texas Country musicians. Tomorrow they would drive to Austin.
****
Late Friday afternoon, Betty Lockhart was scurrying around like a mad woman. She and Barron were leaving at noon tomorrow. She still had a million things to do. She was in Macy’s at the cosmetic counter when her cell phone warbled a George Strait song. She dug it out of her purse and keyed in to the call.
“Hi, Betty, remember me?” a female voice said.
Betty had heard that voice. Her brow tightened as she scrolled through her memory, but came up blank. “Um, no I don’t think I do.”
“It’s Tammy.”
“Tammy?”
“Tammy McMillan.” She laughed. “Or I should say it’s Harper now.”
Betty could have been blown over by a feather. To hear from Donna Schoonover out of the blue was one thing, but to hear from Drake’s former fiancé of fifteen years ago was a monumental shock. “Oh, my God. Tammy. How are you?”
“Fine. I’m living in Fort Worth now and I heard you’re living here, too.”
“Well, my goodness. How did you find me?”
“I joined the Riverside golf club and I saw your name on the roster. I talked to someone who knows you and she gave me your cell number. It’s really a small world.”
“It certainly is. I can’t believe you’re here now. The last I heard, you had moved to Arizona.” Betty deliberately omitted a comment about Tammy’s husband.
“That’s one of those long stories. Listen, I thought we might get together for lunch. Or dinner or something. We might even go for a golf game someday when the weather’s pretty.”
“I’d love that, darling.”
Old times bombarded Betty. The McMillans owned the ranch adjoining the Double-Barrel. Betty had known them most of her life. Once the McMillans and Lockharts had been good friends. For six years, they had anticipated they would join families until Tammy broke her engagement with Drake and married a pro golfer from Arizona. Betty had never known the whole truth of the breakup. To this day, Drake refused to discuss it.
“Where are you folks these days?” Betty asked.
“Still in Scottsdale. Still playing golf.” Tammy laughed again.
Tammy’s father had always been as much a Texas redneck as Bill Junior. Betty couldn’t imagine him playing golf any more than she could Bill Junior. Betty distinctly remembered that
t
he McMillans had moved to Arizona to be near their only daughter and her children. “My, my. And you’re here now?”
Tammy laughed again. “I know, right? Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Ma’am, did you want to purchase this mascara?” the cosmetic clerk she had been dealing with asked.
“Oh, excuse me, darling,” she said to the clerk and handed over her credit card. “I’m in Macy’s,” she said to Tammy, so I can’t really talk. And I’m leaving town tomorrow, but I’d love to visit with you for hours. Are you busy this evening?”
“Not really.”
“Come to my house then. I’ll cook dinner. I haven’t cooked in weeks. But I warn you, it’ll be something simple.”
“Sounds good to me. Give me your address.”
Soon Betty was speeding toward home, her thoughts churning. Tammy McMillan. My God. What are the odds?
After Tammy and Drake’s breakup, the friendship between the two families became too awkward to continue. Then, not long after Tammy moved to Arizona, the McMillans leased out their ranch and followed her.
Still, someday Tammy would inherit the MCM Ranch, lock, stock and barrel, and its half a dozen producing gas wells. The MCM wasn’t as big a spread as the Double-Barrel, but it was big enough and rich enough to make Tammy a wealthy woman.
When Drake and Tammy were engaged, Betty had thought them a perfect match—long-acquainted, both from old Texas families, both with small-town upbringing and deep roots in the cattle ranching business. Both beautiful people. Betty had expected them to spawn beautiful babies who would fill her hours and life with joy.
As she pulled into her garage and parked, she was so glad she hadn’t called Donna Schoonover back. If she was going to broker a make-up date between Drake and any woman, that woman should be Tammy McMillan.
Chapter 30
For Shannon, the latest chapter in the fairy tale ended on Sunday. The black Town Car appeared at Lockhart Tower to pick her up and take her back to Camden. She climbed into the backseat, closed her eyes and tried to nap in the cushy comfort.
