Hank sat on the couch and laid his hat on the cushion beside him. He was making a concentrated effort to hold onto his temper. "You think so, huh? Tell me how."
The chair York had sat in was still warm when Kate eased down on it. "I don't know how. I guess that's what we have to talk about."
"I don't want to drag this out." Little sparks of fire shot from the green of his eyes. "I need a place to run my cows. Tell me what it's going to cost me."
Suddenly, she was seeing Jim's face, hearing Jim's voice. "I don't want to drag this out, Kate. I want my freedom. Tell me what it's going to cost me."
She had begged then. "Please, Jim, darling, can't we work this out?" Pushing down a spiraling anger, Kate reminded herself that the past was her own personal agony, and had nothing to do with now. "I don't understand what you're asking."
"God damn it." Hank stopped, and took a deep breath. "I'm offering to buy Paradise. How much?" He turned to stare toward the fireplace.
Studying his grim profile, Kate thought he looked like a picture from a post office wanted poster. "Paradise is not for sale."
His sharp retort caused her to recoil. "Everybody has a price, damn it. Name yours."
"I told you, Paradise is not for sale."
Hank ran angry fingers through his tousled hair. "Woman, you are trying my patience. I told you to name your price."
Kate grasp one of her hands with the other, and noticed, as she looked down, that they were shaking. "And I told you, Paradise is not for sale."
"You don't belong here. Why don't you take your mother, and go back to the city where you came from?"
All of her life Kate had hated confrontations. As she spoke, she felt a knot of anxiety tie itself inside her stomach. "Paradise is all the home I have. I don't intend to go anywhere."
"That's your final answer?" Hank strode across the floor, and leaned against the wall. "Are you ready to pay me for the improvements that Dad added to Paradise?" "I don't have that kind of money, Mr. Sinclair." Kate extended her hand toward the couch. "If you will sit down, maybe we can work something out."
"Like what?" He made no effort to move. "I need this place to run my cattle. Can we talk lease?"
"I don't think so."
"How much does your decision to be pigheaded have to do with York Taylor?" Hank shifted his weight, and stood with his feet far apart.
"You can't intimidate me into leasing Paradise to you."
"You got a better idea?" He bit the words out in little monosyllables.
The idea that sprang, full blown, into Kate's head was so simple she wondered why she hadn't thought of it long ago, and so daring, she was reluctant to give it utterance. "Do you know what a share cropper is, Mr. Sinclair?"
He looked like he might explode. "What the hell does that have to do with me leasing Paradise?"
"If you will sit down and listen, I will try to explain." The fear in Kate's stomach knotted a little tighter.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really."
He retraced his steps, and sat down on the couch. "That's what I figured. Shoot." Kate took a deep breath, then expelled it slowly. "Why don't I agree to you running your stock on my place for a percentage of the increase, sort of like a share cropper?"
Wary as an animal being forced into a pen, Hank asked, "How much of the profit?"
"Don't share croppers get a fourth of the crops they grow?" Kate rubbed her sweaty hands together, waited and watched.
A bevy of emotions chased themselves across his face. "Those share croppers do a hell of a lot of hard work."
"I'd be willing to work," A flicker of hope fanned through her fear. "I'd be willing to work hard."
"Doing what," Hank asked.
"Whatever the other cowboys do."
"Can you ride a horse?"
"Sure I can." Kate lied again, this time with difficulty. She had never been on a horse in her life.
"Not that I've got a lot of choice, but it just might be the answer." Hank put his hat on his head, and shoved it down. "Somebody has to ride around this place every day, to check the herds in different pastures, and look for broken fences and check the spotter bulls. Would you be willing to do that? It would free a man to do more important things." What, Kate wondered, was a spotter bull? She didn't dare ask. "Sure, I could do that. And I would get one forth of the increase of the cows you run on Paradise?"
"I must be crazy." Hank pushed his hat back and scratched his head. "I must be out of my mind."
Kate ventured, "It would solve our problems."
"I doubt that. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Oh, I want to." Kate was on her feet. "But I don't have a horse."
"I'll send one over with Billy Jack when he comes to get the cow and calf. This has to be done legally. We will have to draw up a contract."
Kate was quick to agree. "When?"
"I'm going to Saint Agnes Monday to the auction. I can pick you up, and we can sign the papers then. I'll call my attorney tonight." Hank seemed as relieved as Kate felt.
Kate didn't dare speak, for fear she would say something that would cause him to change his mind. She nodded her agreement.
"I'll see you Monday about eight o'clock." Hank pushed the screen open. "Be ready. I don't like to wait."
Kate called after him, "Mr. Sinclair?"
Turning, he frowned. "Call me Hank. We're partners now."
"Hank?" She drew a long breath, "Send a gentle horse."
"Sure I will." His laughter mingled with the soft night breezes.
Dust was still settling in the yard when Belle came from the kitchen. "If you don't beat all."
"Mamma, do you know how to ride a horse?" Kate asked, then answered her own question. "Of course you do. You're going to have to teach me."
"A real caution." Belle's dimples deepened.
"Mamma, damn it, do you know how to ride a horse?"
"Don't swear, Kate. All you have to do is get up in the saddle, and hang on."
"Mamma, it's not that simple and you know it."
"I'll help you. You can do it. Now go to bed and get some rest. You must be dead on your feet."
"I have to write to Michael first. Do you think we could get Cody to put up a mail box before he leaves?" Kate wondered if she should tell Michael about her deal with Hank. She decided she wouldn't. It was time she learned to stand on her own two feet.
"Good night," Belle called.
"Mamma?"
"What Katie baby?"
"Do you think I should write to Suzie?"
It was a while before Belle answered, and when she did it was with a question. "Do you want to?"
"With all my heart."
"When was it ever a mistake to follow your heart?"
It was all the encouragement Kate needed. She would swallow her pride, and do what she should have done long ago, reach out to her estranged daughter.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kate was careful to keep the tone of Michael's letter light. She began by saying that she and Belle had made a safe journey to Paradise. She assured him the movers had come and gone, and everything was in place in the house. Then after inquiring politely about Sharon, Kate closed.
She thought, as she licked the envelope, and pressed the flap down with the heel of her hand, that she could have been penning a note to a complete stranger. Would Michael see that between the lines she was pleading with him to answer soon? "Let it be a pleasant reply, not an angry reprimand."
Michael had not wanted Kate and Belle to move to Paradise in the first place. "Mom, I don't like the idea of two old women living alone so far from civilization. Does Dad know what you're planning to do?"
Kate had bit her tongue to keep from answering that with a bitter tirade against Jim. She hadn't seen her ex-husband in almost a year, and her son was asking if she had discussed her plans for the future with him. "You told me your father is on a cruise in the Caribbean."
"He'll be home next week. Why don't you wait and discus
s this with him?"
"Your father has a new wife and a new life." The pity she saw in Michael's eyes, made her add, "I doubt that Jim wants to see me and I know I don't want to see him."
"You're wrong about Dad, Mom. He asks about you often, and he's told me several times that he would like very much for the two of you to be friends."
The idea that Jim would tell Michael he wanted to be Kate's friend after throwing her out of the house and divorcing her, then marrying Lila, made Kate's blood boil.
It took few moments for she bring that anger under control. "Grandma and I are moving to Paradise, Michael. We have no other choice."
Michael was seated behind the desk in his office. He pushed his chair back and sighed. "This is not a choice, it's a whim."
Kate had never mentioned her financial difficulties to her son. She had not wanted to burden him with her troubles. Maybe it was time he knew the facts. " If I stay in Dallas, I will have to apply for food stamps and go on welfare. I don't want to do that."
"What about your divorce settlement? Surely you haven't spent all that."
"All that?" Kate raised a caustic eyebrow. Her divorce settlement had been a miserable pittance. "Do you know how much my divorce settlement was?"
"I can't believe Dad was anything but generous." Michael raised one hand in a resigned gesture. "But if that's gone, I can contribute some to your support, and I'm sure Dad will help, when he knows you are destitute of circumstances."
The urge to tell Michael how Jim had used every underhanded legal trick in the book to hold on to all but a small fraction of their mutual financial assets, was overpowering, but Kate held her tongue. Through this entire ordeal, she had never once derided Jim to Michael. The one time she had voiced questions about Jim's integrity had been to Suzie, and Kate had lived to regret that error in judgment. "I don't want a handout. I want to make it on my own."
"Maybe," Michael recognized that Kate was becoming more and more upset, "Dad or I could help you find employment."
"I've had four jobs in the past six months," Kate explained, wearily. "None of them paid a living wage, and I'm unemployed now. I have no training, no marketable skill. All I have is Paradise."
"You can come and live with Sharon and me," Michael offered.
"Thank you, Michael. You are very kind, but I don't want to live with you and Sharon. I want a life of my own."
Michael stood and shook his head from side to side. "I can't believe Grandma is going along with this hair-brained scheme."
Should she tell him that this hair-brained scheme had been his grandma's idea in the first place? The smile in her eyes never reached her lips. "Grandma doesn't like living at Cedar's."
Michael gasped in surprise. "Why not? It's an excellent facility. I must have checked a dozen retirement homes before I suggested Grandma move to Cedar's. It has everything a senior citizen could want."
"Everything except a challenge, and you know how Grandma loves a challenge."
"Paradise sounds more like a disaster." Michael quipped. "And I won't be a part of it. If you and Grandma go, you're on your own."
"That's exactly as it should be." Kate wondered why Michael should be so willing to help her if she stayed in Dallas, and so ready to abandon her if she moved to Paradise. Her voice gentled. "I would like to have your approval."
"Mom, I can't approve such an unwise move."
Her son's pained expression was breaking her heart. "Then will you at least try to understand?"
Michael came around his desk and grabbed Kate in a bear hug. "I'm trying, Mom, and in a way, I do. I know none of what has happened over the past two years has been easy for you."
That was an understatement! "Try not to worry." Kate gave Michael a little peck on his cheek. "Grandma and I will be fine. I promise I'll write you as soon as we get settled in our new home."
And now Kate had fulfilled that promise. She laid her pen down, and flexed her fingers as a feeling of despair washed over her. She could no longer avoid the ordeal of penning a letter to Suzie. What could she possibly say to the daughter who had not spoken to her for over a year? Kate suspected that much of Suzie's animosity sprang from guilt. Lila had been Suzie's college roommate. Jim would never have met her if Suzie hadn't brought her home for a weekend visit.
Lila was a graduate student, several years older than Suzie, and Kate sensed immediately, not a good influence on her daughter. Some of Lila's avant garde ideas about life had shocked Kate to the core. "I hope you don't concur with that girl's notion that premarital sex is all right," Kate told Suzie, as they were making dinner the day after Suzie and Lila arrived home.
"Please, Mom," Suzie laid her finger across her lips. "She might hear you."
"She's well out of ear shot," Kate answered. "And she's too taken with your father to pay attention to the likes of me."
Suzie took silverware from a drawer. "Mom, you're jealous."
Kate remembered how she had laughed at that. "I just don't approve of your roommate. That girl is wise beyond her years. I'm surprised that the two of you are such good friends."
"Lila warned me this might happen." Suzie turned from her task of stacking plates to look at her mother.
This manipulating female wielded far too much influence over her daughter, Kate opened the oven to peek at her rib roast. "What might happen?"
"Lila said you might resent us being such good friends. I told her how close you and I have always been."
Kate straightened, and turned to stare in bewildered surprise at Suzie. "I am not jealous of Lila, and I don't resent her."And she hadn't been, not then. The jealously, the resentment, the recriminations all came later.
I should have thrown her out that first day, Kate thought. But she hadn't, and hindsight, as accurate as it was, was useless. The heavy tread of sorrow trekked across Kate's mind as she picked up her pen, and began to write. Dear Suzie, Grandma and
I... She crossed out the words. Dear Suzanne, I hope you... That wasn't right, either. Suzie's face drifted across the mirror of Kate's memory, those big brown eyes filled with tears, that sweet young mouth quivering. "Mom, why won't you divorce Dad?"
Jim had asked Kate to leave only days before. She was staying with friends, and she knew they could hear right through the walls. "If your father wants a divorce, he can sue for it. I don't want to divorce him, so why should I?" Even then, Kate realized this was not the time to have this conversation with her daughter. She was so hurt, so raw emotionally, that clear thinking was impossible.
"I hope you will reconsider." Tears stood in Suzie's eyes. "Dad is trying to do what's best for everyone concerned."
Hurt beyond measure, Kate lashed out, "Is that what he told you?" She couldn't believe her daughter was taking Jim's side in this matter.
"Dad is suffering too, Mom. He feels terrible about what's happened."
Her words ignited Kate's smoldering temper. "After the way he's behaved, how can you believe anything that man says?"
"Mom," Suzie protested, "He's not, 'that man', he's my father."
Again, Kate interrupted, "And I'm only your mother." Never before had she felt so betrayed. It was one thing for her husband to abandon her, it was quite another for her only daughter to forsake her. Kate flew into a rage, and said things she didn't mean, terrible, scathing, unforgivable things, and in the end, she had alienated her daughter. Suzie's hand shook as she brushed tears from her eyes. "Dad's right. You are stubborn and unreasonable. Why can't you accept the inevitable and let Dad go?" She had run from the room, and out of Kate's life. Kate hadn't seen or spoken to her daughter since that day.
With a resigned sigh, Kate got a tighter grip on her pen, and reached for a new sheet of paper.
Dear Suzanne,
Grandma and I are living on Paradise
Ranch now. We miss you, and would like
to hear from you.
Regards,
Mom
She slipped the note into an envelope, and addressed the outside, but she
didn't seal it. She wanted Belle to read what she had written. A sudden and agonizing question floated across Kate's mind. Was she that unsure of herself? Couldn't she write a note to her own daughter without seeking her mother's approval? Her fingers flicked the gas jet on the gasoline lantern, plunging the room into darkness. With the ebony silence, came the grim answer. Yes, she was. Kate undressed in the dark, and tumbled into bed. "Go to sleep," she told herself, "Tomorrow will be a busy day."
The next morning, after breakfast, over coffee, Kate took the envelope from her pocket, and pushed it across the table toward her mother. "I wrote Suzie a letter. I want you to read it."
Belle cut her eyes toward Cody who was studying the contents of his coffee cup in apparent disinterest. "Suzie's Kate's daughter. They had a fight."
Cody poured coffee into his saucer. "Maybe they can set things right." He tipped the saucer to his mouth and drank the contents. "There's nothing worse than families feuding."
Belle scanned the note. "At least you didn't ask for her forgiveness."
"I thought about it." Kate swallowed around the lump in her throat. "I wanted to."
"You don't owe your daughter an apology." Belle folded the paper, and put it back inside the envelope.
"I think I do, Mamma. I said terrible things to Suzie."
"Suzie's behavior was unforgivable. She got exactly what she deserved."" Belle pushed the envelope toward Kate. "You can't protect Suzie, or Michael from the hard knocks that life hands out, Kate. Try as you might, you can't." She pushed her chair back. "I'm going to help Cody put up a mailbox today. When you go to St. Agnes Monday, you can stop by the post office and find out our route and box number."
"Do you want to write something to Suzie?"
"What I have to say to my granddaughter," Belle's face was bleak. "I will say to her in person, when I see her again."
Cody helped himself to the last biscuit. "Anybody else want a biscuit?" He didn't wait for a reply. "Good, I'll finish this last one off." Breaking the biscuit open, he spread a liberal pat of margarine inside. "It's a pity you ladies don't have a cow. You have plenty of pasture. Margarine can't compare to butter." He bit into the biscuit, and smiled. "Kate, your mamma does know how to make biscuits."
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