The Quiet Seduction

by Dixie Browning

  It had seemed sensible to her. She had kept the stock although she hadn’t known the first thing about horses, much less about breeding them. But the horses had been Jake’s dream, and she was determined to hang on to as much of that dream as she could for their son. She might have come from a privileged background, but from someone—her mother, most likely—she had inherited a backbone. Dust-bowl-survivor genes, Jake had called it, teasing her about the way her jaw squared off when she got what he’d called her I-shall-not-be-moved look on her face.

  Whatever it was, grit or survivor genes, it had enabled her to get through another day and then another one when she couldn’t see her way through the coming night, much less the years ahead.

  “No way,” the man called Storm said adamantly. “Look, I’ll get out of your hair if my being here is a problem, but I’m not going to any damned hospital for a simple sprain and a headache.”

  “Oh, hush up and let me think,” Ellen grumbled. They’d been arguing about how long it had been. She’d said this made three days. The man had said he could only remember one, and not too much of that.

  Pete grinned. He’d come in to bring the morning paper just as his mother was fussing at him again. Boy, it sure was cool to hear her fussing at a grown man the same way she did him when he wouldn’t finish his macaroni and cheese or forgot to put his dirty clothes in the hamper.

  “All right,” his mama said finally, laying down the law. He knew that tone. Man, did he ever! “You can get out of bed and come in the living room. I know you’re dying to watch the storm coverage on TV, but you’re going to keep that foot up and if I hear one more peep out of you about leaving, I’m going to—”

  Pete watched, grinning broadly.

  The man watched. He was scowling.

  “—to call the paramedics to come haul you off and you can argue with them for a change. I just don’t see what’s so awful about having a doctor look you over. For all you know, you might have some broken bones. There are hundreds of bones in your feet, and your foot’s not all that far from your ankle.”

  Storm looked at Pete and lifted a brow. “She go on like this a lot?”

  Solemnly the boy nodded. “Yessir, that she does, but she means well. That’s what my daddy always said.”

  Ellen’s hands flew up in a gesture of surrender. “All right, be one, then!”

  “That’s what she always says,” Pete confided. “Daddy used to tell her B1 was a bomber, and she’d just walk off the way she’s doing now, all huffy and puffy. She’s not really mad, though.”

  Storm didn’t think she was, either. Somewhere among the jumbled miscellaneous impressions he’d dredged up was the knowledge that women acted that way when they cared about someone who refused to bow to their superior wisdom.

  How the hell do I know that? Do I have a wife? Daughters?

  Irritated, frustrated and amused, he said, “Your mother says you’re a checkers champ. Lay out the board, son. Best two out of three, okay?”

  “You bet! But first I’d better go feed up and fill the trough. Booker and Clyde, they’re pro’ly drunk again. Don’t tell Ma, though. She threatened to fire ’em next time she caught ’em drinking.”

  “Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.”

  They continued the conversation after the boy completed his chores. While Pete got out the checkerboard, Storm reiterated his suggestion. From what he’d heard about the two hired hands, they weren’t the type any decent man would want around his wife and child.

  “Know what? They smoke, too. My mom said if she ever caught ’em smoking in the barn around all that hay and stuff, she’d run ’em off with a pitchfork.”

  “Smart woman, your mama.”

  Pete shrugged his skinny shoulders. Emptying out the worn drawstring bag, he began setting up the board. Without looking up, he said, “Know what? Booker’s cigarettes don’t smell much like Mr. Ludlum’s. They smell more like a chicken house. They look kind of funny, too.”

  Very carefully, Storm centered a black checker in a red square. He was going on sheer instinct. “They ever offer you a smoke?”

  “Nope. I wouldn’t take it if they did. I promised Mom.”

  Storm made a tentative move, which Pete promptly countered. He had an idea there was more being handed around in that barn than a bottle of hooch and a filter tip. Frowning, he made another move.

  Pete promptly jumped his man and glanced up, a triumphant grin lighting his bony little face. “Gotcha!”

  “Fair and square. I’d better concentrate on what I’m doing here. I didn’t figure you to be this good.”

  “I’m pretty good, all right. I beat Mom almost every game, but that’s pro’ly ’cause she lets me.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure.”

  Storm hadn’t even been sure when he’d offered to play whether he knew how. Evidently, he did. They played in silence for a few more minutes. Then, without looking up, the boy said, “Trouble is, if Mom gets rid of Clyde and Booker, we’ll have to do everything ourselves again, and she’s no good at pulling wire. Last time we tried to fix a section of fence she couldn’t hardly get out of bed the next day. She’s even worse with a post-hole digger than she is with a wire puller, but I’m not tall enough yet. We had us an auger for the tractor, but the P.T.O. got broke.”

  “The what?”

  Frowning, Pete tried to describe, using his hands, how the power take-off worked with different attachments. “I get the idea,” Storm said. And he did—sort of. “What about your neighbors? Can’t one of them lend you a couple of hands for certain jobs?”

  “Nobody wants to work for a woman.” It was a simple declarative statement. Pete looked up from the checkerboard, disgust clear on his tanned face. “’Sides, we’re already scraping the bottom of the barrel. Least, that’s what my friend Joey’s pa says. Mr. Ludlum says men don’t like taking orders from a woman, even when she’s the boss.” He shrugged his bony shoulders and clapped a crown on one of the reds. “My mom’s real smart, but Booker, he calls her stuff behind her back.” The boy’s face turned a dusky red as he concentrated on the worn checkers.

  Storm felt something inside him tighten like a fist. One thing he would do before he left—have a talk with this Booker fellow, whoever and whatever he was. Anger crammed in on the frustration he felt at being laid up, both mentally and physically. He had a strong feeling he wasn’t used to inaction. Restlessness didn’t begin to describe his reaction. Wariness came closer.

  What the devil did he have to be wary about? Was he an escaped prisoner? A drug runner? They weren’t all that far from the border. Then, too, there was something about the state prison….

  It was gone. The impression flickered through his mind like a firefly, then winked out before he could catch it.

  “Gotcha! Mr. Storm, I gotta go help Mom bring in the horses and rub ’em down now. Booker and Clyde, they’ve got to unload the hay wagon ’cause I can’t lift the bales yet.”

  “Yeah, you go ahead, son. We’ll play more later—after you’ve done your homework.”

  Mr. Storm. The name wasn’t a perfect fit, but it felt pretty close.

  The next day went largely like the others. Storm was increasingly aware of the creeping hours and increasingly fed up with being out of commission. His head still ached, but it was a manageable ache—nothing he couldn’t handle. Disdaining the use of the crutch, he limped into the living room and plopped down on the sofa. His knee still suffered the occasional twinge if he turned too quickly, but most of the swelling was gone. His ankle was better, too, as long as he didn’t overdo it.

  He was damned tired, though, of having to wear another man’s clothes. The sooner he got back to his own home, his own clothes and his own business—wherever and whatever that was—the better he’d like it. Hadn’t anyone even reported him missing? A business partner, or a family member?

  No man is an island. Had someone actually said that or had he only dreamed it up? Was it some great philosophical insight or gibberish?
It was the damnable uncertainty that was driving him nuts. Why wasn’t anyone out searching for him? It hadn’t been that long; it only seemed that way. Was there a wife somewhere going quietly out of her mind with worry? He didn’t feel married—however that was supposed to feel. There was no sign that he’d ever worn a wedding ring.

  Ellen wore a plain gold band. Her hands were rough, but nicely shaped. He had a feeling his wife—if he had one—would have smooth, pale hands with polished nails and a full complement of jewelry.

  Now why would he think that? Actually, now that he considered it, Ellen’s hands were just right for a woman. Strong, capable, without being any less feminine. Which pretty well summed up the woman herself.

  From the TV coverage he’d seen, the rash of tornadoes that had barreled across the southwest corner of Texas before streaking up the Mississippi Valley had managed to miss the most heavily populated areas. Thank God for that, at least. The southeast portion of Lone Star County had suffered most of the damage.

  Lone Star County. That definitely triggered a reaction, but for all he knew, he could have seen it on a road sign. He could’ve been just passing through on his way from—

  From where? To where?

  He swore softly and discovered that he was good at it. Came naturally. What else, he wondered, would come naturally? Talking to a kid? Yeah, that was no big strain.

  Talking to a woman? Touching a woman?

  Again it was Ellen Wagner he thought of—the image of her pale green eyes and tanned, hollow-cheeked face. He thought about the woman—about the soft, firm way she had of speaking to her son. The soft, firm way she had touched his brow that first night when she’d thought he was sleeping.

  Back off, man. You’ve already got more than a full caseload of trouble.

  There was a framed crayon drawing hanging on the wall over the bookcase. Crudely drawn horses standing in a lime-green pasture while seven fighter jets flew overhead. Pete’s signature was as big as the horses.

  Oddly touched, he wondered if his own mother had ever hung one of his drawings in such a prominent place. Could he even draw? Did he have a mother?

  Come on, folks, get on the ball! If I mean anything to anyone, come find me. Hide and seek gets pretty frustrating after the first few days.

  Using the remote, he turned the TV on and switched channels until he found the CNN headline news. OPEC, Congress, Bosnia were in the news again.

  Again? Shrugging, he switched channels, caught a name—Mercado—and swore as they went to commercial.

  Mercado. Did the name mean anything, or was he grasping at straws? “Storm Mercado.” He spoke out aloud, trying it on for size. It didn’t fit. He muted the TV sound and reached for the newspaper. The more he scanned, the more his gut twisted. Several names snagged momentarily, but nothing came into sharp focus. Finally, in sheer desperation, he turned to the sports page.

  Hell, he didn’t even know who—or what—to look for there. Was he a football fan? If so, which team?

  A headline read Golf Pro At Lone Star Country Club Claims Vandalism.

  Lone Star Country Club. “Come on, come on,” he muttered. It was there, just beyond his reach. Like a voyeur standing outside the fall of light, watching from the darkness, he tried to see into his own mind.

  And felt like crying when he failed.

  Three

  Thank God for Saturdays. Leaving Pete to finish up in the horse barn, Ellen came in at noon to start setting out sandwich makings for lunch. She sliced a tomato and reached for a sweet Texas onion, working with short, jerky movements.

  Clyde had showed up for work about ten, smelling like a brewery. Booker hadn’t made it in at all. Clyde said he had a headache.

  “You mean a hangover,” she’d retorted. “That’s no excuse not to show up for work. I was counting on you two to repair that section of fence today.”

  “Tell the truth, ma’am, he weren’t feelin’ no pain a’tall last time I seen him.” Clyde had smirked at her. He did that a lot, and it invariably drove her up a wall, but what could she do? She had to have someone. With Pete in school five days a week, she simply couldn’t keep up alone.

  “Hi, Mom, where’s Storm?” Pete banged in through the kitchen door, stepped back, kicked off his boots, then reentered, smelling of sunshine, horses and little boy.

  “Watching the noon news. I piled up pillows on the couch so he could keep his leg elevated and—”

  Both turned at the sound that came from across the hall. A thud and a muffled moan. “Oh, Lord, what now?” Ellen muttered. Drying her hands on her shirt-tail, she hurried into the living room, colliding with Pete in the doorway.

  Storm was on the floor, blinking awake. “What happened?” she cried, rushing to kneel beside him. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No, this is my idea of a good time,” he said, his voice like crushed gravel. “I fell asleep and rolled off the damned couch!” Pete squatted beside him and he closed his eyes. “Sorry, son. Forget I said that.”

  Pete, with one hand under the man’s arm and the other reaching for the crutch, said solemnly, “I know stuff lots worse than damn. You ought to hear what Booker calls that old Zeus! He calls him—”

  “Never mind,” Ellen said repressively.

  Together they managed to get him on his feet again, and Ellen suggested he move into the kitchen, as it was time for lunch. “I can pull up a stool so that you can sit and prop your foot on it.”

  “I don’t need the stool, but thanks,” he said. They’d argued about it before. She made suggestions that he ignored for the most part, but he invariably apologized for putting her to so much extra work.

  Ellen didn’t mind the extra effort, she really didn’t. It was nice having another adult in the house. Pete seemed to enjoy him, as well.

  He hobbled into the kitchen just as the back door opened and a scruffy-looking individual wearing ragged jeans and a dirty shirt came in. “This is Clyde,” Ellen said, tight-lipped. “Clyde, this is Mr. Storm. Clyde, you might want to wash up.” She looked pointedly at his grimy hands, then busied herself pouring iced tea, leaving the decision up to him.

  “Yes’m,” he said, disappearing into the washroom off the kitchen, where he stayed for all of five seconds.

  “Don’t think I seen you around these parts before,” the hired hand said with a smirk, looking from Storm to Ellen and back.

  Pete said gruffly, “Storm’s visiting.”

  “That so?” Clyde had tracked mud into the kitchen, which Ellen made a point of sweeping up. “Sorry ’bout that, ma’am,” he said, leering at Ellen’s backside as she leaned into the cleaning closet to hang up the dust-pan.

  Storm’s eyes met Pete’s. The boy was furious and embarrassed, but being a boy, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. Storm might be impaired in a lot of ways, but that much he picked up on easily.

  “This looks mighty good,” he said with a smile that was patently false. Change the subject. You’re in no shape to take on the bastard in hand-to-hand, much less to take his place if he quits.

  But he was getting there. One more day and she wouldn’t have to depend on that pair. Even with a sore head and a bum leg, he could shovel manure and push a wheelbarrow.

  “I haven’t had time to shop for groceries this week,” Ellen apologized. “I heard part of the roof was torn off the warehouse next to the IGA.”

  “And the church steeple,” Pete said with boyish excitement. “Man, it was busted to pieces! Joey said they found the pointy part way over by Mrs. Williams’s house.”

  They made sandwiches from the ingredients she’d set out and drank iced tea and talked about the storm damage, reports of which were still coming in. Clyde didn’t have much to say, but he made the little he did say unpleasant by taking a big bite of bologna, onion and cheese on white bread and talking while he chewed. As far as Storm was concerned, that alone was a firing offense.

  “Man, that sure is a ugly knot on your head,” Clyde said admiringly.

>   Storm wondered what he was supposed to say—thank you? If he’d been Pete’s age, he might have said, “That sure is an ugly knot on your shoulders. What is it, your head?”

  Irritated, he excused himself and stood, picking up his plate and glass. Ellen frowned at him, and he got the message. He wanted to say, “I’m not totally helpless. Let me at least do this much.”

  But with both Pete and Clyde watching, he remained silent. Before he left he was going to have to find a way to repay her for hauling him out of that ditch, feeding him, giving him a bed, not to mention binding up his knee and ankle and doctoring his assorted minor scrapes. Even in the shape he’d been at the time, the feel of her cool hands on his hot, swollen flesh had damn near finished him off. Under the circumstances, his reaction had been just plain crazy.

  She’d even washed his shirt, his shoes and his underwear. Silk underwear. What kind of man wore silk underwear? What was he, anyway, some kind of freaking Hollywood type? A drug lord?

  No way. He might not know who he was, but he sure as hell knew who he wasn’t.

  At the moment he was wearing a pair of her late husband’s jeans, which were a few inches too short in length and slightly too big at the waist. Instead of bunching them up with a belt, he’d let them ride low on his hips. Pete said he looked cool.

  Cool or not, it was the best he could do for now. His own pants were beyond help. He’d looked them over, hoping for a clue—hoping for something to jar his mind loose. A tailor’s label—anything.

  There’d been nothing. Nothing other than the fact that they were flawlessly tailored of an excellent worsted, cut to hang just the way a pair of pants should hang, although just how the devil he knew that, he couldn’t have said.

  “Do you always invite your hired hands to eat in the house with you and Pete?” he asked Ellen when they were alone together in the kitchen. Ellen had stayed behind to wash the dishes. He put away the mustard and mayonnaise and opened cabinets until he found where the salt and pepper belonged.

  For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she shrugged. “The last man did. Mr. Caster was a thoroughly decent man. Pete liked him a lot. When we bought the place, the old bunkhouse had already been turned into storage, but we were planning to clean it out and add a bathroom so he wouldn’t have to commute. We never got around to it.”