He’d been given a second chance, though. What he did with it was totally up to him. When he was twenty-three, his mama’s last words had echoed in his head every time he and Loretta walked into church, went to the Sugar Shack for a beer and to dance, or even went to the grocery store.
“She hasn’t been faithful since before you married her. That baby isn’t yours and she’ll break your heart yet. Send her in here and leave us alone,” Eva had said moments before she went into the coma.
Loretta’s face had been ashen when she came out of the room a few minutes later, but she’d never answered when he asked what had happened in those last minutes of his mother’s life. Six months later his mother’s prophecy came true and his world fell apart. Just to satisfy a niggling little seed of the doubt that his mother had planted, he’d paid for DNA testing to be done the first time he had Nona for weekend visitation.
She was definitely his daughter, just like his heart had told him all along. Loretta hadn’t cheated on him and the flirting from the men had most likely been one-sided too. His mother had been wrong. He’d been wrong to listen to her and damn sure wrong to let things go as far as they had that Sunday with Dina, even if she was one insistent woman. He didn’t deserve Loretta after the way he’d acted. It was his fault she was gone.
His father had still been living when the divorce papers arrived at the canyon. He could almost hear the whoosh of relief when Sam Bailey found out that all Loretta wanted was child support. She hadn’t even asked for the rest of Nona’s toys.
“She could have asked for half this ranch. I put it all in your name right after your mama passed on, as you know. It’s always been an unwritten rule that Lonesome Canyon goes to the oldest child, but Loretta could have gotten a good lawyer and there wouldn’t have been a ranch left,” Sam had said.
Jackson pulled his feet up out of the water. Going back and reliving the days before and right after the separation didn’t do a bit of good.
“Hello, the camp,” Waylon Calhoun yelled from twenty yards away.
“Come right in and sit a spell. Don’t have a campfire and beans to offer you, but there’s plenty of water to cool your feet,” Jackson hollered back.
Waylon sat down in the shade of the old oak tree a few feet away from Jackson.
He removed his hat, settled it on a knee, and combed back his light brown hair with his fingers. He sat silently, blue eyes brooding, for a few minutes before he spoke. “You know the Watson place, right?”
“Nona said you guys were going to look at that ranch this afternoon. What did you decide? Are you lookin’ to buy the place on your own or are you and Travis both about to desert me?” Jackson asked.
“Travis isn’t lookin’ to leave his place on this ranch, sir. He knows Flint is grooming him to be the foreman here in the next ten years or so. And he’s in love with Nona. He went along to offer his opinion and Nona went because Travis was going. You know the canyon better than anyone else. Do you think that spread would be a good starter place? I’ll be thirty this next fall and I’d like to have my own spread.”
“It’ll make you a good livin’ and you could raise a family on it. The Watsons had four sons and a daughter,” Jackson answered.
A rare smile split Waylon’s chiseled face. “Don’t reckon I’d be worried about kids these first years. And I’m not real interested in getting rich overnight. I want a little place of my own and he’s willin’ to sell at a good price if I’m interested in buying what cattle he’s got left. He’ll even let the old yellow cow dog stay with the ranch. Someday I might be able to add on to it, but that’s way on down the line in the future.”
“It’ll be a good start. You’re not going into it blind and you’re young and strong. You’ll do fine,” Jackson said.
“Thank you. I’ll call my dad to come on down here and take a look then. Reckon I could have the afternoon off later in the week to go to the bank? I’ll make up the hours next Saturday,” Waylon asked.
“Sure and if you need a cosigner, let me know,” Jackson said.
“My dad said the same thing, but I got enough saved from my rodeo days. Besides, I don’t want to tie up all my capital and not have enough to run the ranch, so I’m going to ask to borrow one-third of the asking price.”
Jackson nodded. “Sounds like a solid plan to me. And, Waylon, congratulations. You’ll have a ranch that owns you.”
A grin spread across Waylon’s face. “That’s what my dad said. Thanks for the advice, sir. I hear Nona’s mama has moved in for the summer. Travis says that she’s a force.”
Jackson nodded. “There’ll be fireworks for sure. We’re at cross horns about Nona, but I’m sure you already know that.”
“Womenfolks do like to have their own way, especially when it comes to their kids. And Nona is an only chicken. My mama is like that, only there was a whole houseful of us for her to fuss over,” Waylon said.
Jackson’s chuckle came from deep in his chest. “Never thought of Loretta as an old hen. I wouldn’t say that too loud around her or the fireworks might really heat up.”
“All women are protective of their children. It’s just a natural thing, but it’s worse when they’ve just got the one child. It’s like they put all the love and energy and worry that should have been divided out into several offspring into the one,” Waylon said.
“How’d you get so wise? You ain’t nothing but a kid yourself,” Jackson asked.
“I’m not wise. Those words come straight from my grandpa,” Waylon admitted. “Nona is a wonderful woman and Travis is lucky to have her in his life. But believe me, ain’t neither one of y’all got a whole lot of say-so when she sets her mind, because she’s a force as powerful as her mama. Someday when I go lookin’ for a wife, I want a woman like her. Canyon ain’t no place for a weak woman. Only the strong survive this place.”
“Be careful what you wish for, cowboy. You might get it and not know what to do with it,” Jackson said.
Waylon chuckled. “Be fun to give it a try, though. It’s my night to cook at the bunkhouse, so I’d best be on the way.” He got to his feet. “And thanks for the advice about the ranch, sir.”
“You are welcome, and good luck with the loan. It’ll take a few weeks to get it all settled, I’m sure,” Jackson said.
“I figure maybe I’ll be ready to move by the first of August. This enough of a notice?”
Jackson nodded. “I’d love to keep you until then, but if things move quicker, then let me know. I’m glad a steady hand like you is settling in the canyon.”
“See you tomorrow mornin’.” Waylon waved over his shoulder as he headed back toward the bunkhouse.
The smile left Jackson’s face. Waylon had put it all in a nutshell. Loretta and Jackson might fight, but the real war was going to be between mother and daughter. There might not be a whole lot left of the ranch by the end of the long, hot Texas summer.
Loretta sank down into enough water to cover her body all the way to her neck and blew the foamy bubbles away from her nose. She’d always felt like a giant, except in this tub. Here she was petite and she had blonde hair instead of flaming red. Here she spoke in sweet southern tones instead of a gravelly Texas twang that more than a decade in Oklahoma hadn’t softened one bit.
Her neck rested on a rolled-up towel and her toes barely reached the end of the tub when she stretched out. She’d gladly pay to remodel the whole bathroom if Jackson would let her have the tub to take back to her house in Mustang. Legend had it that his great-grandpa had been a really tall man and had had the tub specially made. She knew for an absolute fact that a person could not buy one like it anywhere, because she’d checked.
She heard Jackson’s boots on the wooden staircase, heard him pause by her bedroom door and then cross the landing to his own room and private bath. Those rooms had belonged to the nurse Sam hired to take care of Eva when she first came to t
he ranch. Before that a rotating number of nannies had lived in the room. Eva’s sharp tongue sent most packing after a few weeks. One had managed to last six whole months before Jackson went to kindergarten. He always spoke of her as being older, with a gray bun on top of her head, and that he had put her in a grandmother role.
Loretta sat up in the tub and shook her head. The water had gone cold, so she stood up, slung a long leg over the edge of the tub, and stepped out onto a fluffy rug. She wrapped a towel around her body and all visions of petite blondness escaped when she saw her reflection in the long mirror on the back of the door.
A woman stared back at her with red hair sticking out like a punk rocker’s, a towel wrapped around her that barely covered her ass, and long, lanky legs that belonged on a professional basketball player. She eased the door open and checked to make sure the coast was clear before she darted the few feet across to her room.
She sat down in the rocking chair and looked around. Nothing had changed. The chenille bedspread was the same and the old pair of cowboy boots she’d left in the closet didn’t have a drop of dust on them. Pictures of her and Jackson smiling at the camera still sat in the same places on the dresser, along with a photograph taken of Nona not long before they’d left the ranch. She was a little blonde-haired beauty in her pink fluffy dress, hanging on tightly to a stuffed black-and-white bull toy.
“She cried every time we made her put Bossy away,” Loretta mumbled. “That’s why that damned animal is in the picture. And that’s why I caught Jackson with Dina. Eva said that he’d never be faithful and the only reason he married me was because I was pregnant.”
She stood up and paced the floor, stopping to pick up each picture. Eva had been right all along. If Jackson had truly loved her, he wouldn’t have moved from their room. He wouldn’t have left all the pictures of them behind. But most importantly, he would have come to Oklahoma and fought to keep her.
She stopped by the tall poster bed and narrowed her eyes. If he closed the door to their room like he had to their life together when he and Dina made out in the barn, at least there hadn’t been other women in her bed. That was comforting.
But how many women had been in his other bed since Jackson took over the nanny’s space? She set her jaw and gritted her teeth. Dammit! A tear squeezed through her thick lashes and hung there for a few seconds before it dripped on her cheek. She swiped it away with the back of a wet hand. She flashed on that visual of Dina Mullins with her legs wrapped around Jackson’s waist and her hands tangled up in his dark hair. They had been so involved with their kissing that they hadn’t even seen her standing inside the door with Nona’s stuffed bull, Bossy, in her hands.
“Water under the bridge,” she mumbled.
History couldn’t be changed no matter how much anger was applied. But that did not mean history had to be repeated—not even if a physical attraction would not die.
Jackson heard the familiar squeak of the bathroom door. Her bare feet slapped across the floor and then the door across the hall shut softly. He pictured her sitting in the rocking chair, towel still around her curvy body, and hair pinned up but curls escaping.
He hadn’t been able to spend a single night in that room after she was gone. Her anger and disappointment in his actions, all of it was over there among the pictures of the good times they shared. Their married life had been spent in that room and he’d shattered it all.
Nona had dropped her stuffed animal beside the pickup when they got home from Amarillo that evening. Loretta had been eager to get her into the house for her bath and put her to bed. Jackson thought at the time that luck was smiling on him. He’d made an excuse to go out to the barn and accidentally stepped on the toy as he headed in that direction. Dina had waited for him, ready to take the flirting to a whole new level. He’d shaken the dirt from the toy and set it on a hay bale not far from where she lay, draped over a couple of bales in a seductive pose.
He had come to his senses when his conscience screamed at him and pushed her away. She’d said something about never being turned down before and stormed out of the barn. He’d turned to get the toy and it was gone; by the time he got to the house, so were his wife, his child, and his life.
Did Loretta realize that he hadn’t touched anything and the room was the same as the day she’d left? Did she relive the moments in the pictures? Did the bed remind her of their love?
He was surprised that she hadn’t spent more time in the bath. She’d always liked that big old cast-iron tub so much that he was amazed that she hadn’t demanded he tear out the wall and give it to her in the divorce. He would have hauled it the four hundred miles on his back for her in those days if she’d asked, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t wanted anything, and he still wanted everything.
The front door slammed and he recognized Nona’s light step on the stairs. She looked like her grandmother Sullivan and God help her little heart, she had her mother’s temper. But she had Jackson’s love of the land and that’s what made a damn fine rancher.
Nona knocked on her mother’s bedroom door. “Mama, can I come in?”
“Door’s open,” she said.
He could hear the buzz of two voices but couldn’t make out a thing they said. He paced the floor and finally went to the kitchen to make a leftover roast beef sandwich.
God, he hated eating alone!
The canyon as a whole never changed and yet the setting sun could transform the tall, ocher-colored formation visible from the window into a howling coyote or an Indian doing a rain dance. Loretta and Jackson used to draw the curtains back and make a game out of discovering new images.
A light rap on the door startled her, bringing her from past to present. If it was Jackson, he was not coming into the room. She could withstand his subtle touches out there in neutral ground. In the bedroom, she wasn’t so sure she was that strong.
“Mama? Are you sleeping?” Nona asked from the other side.
“Come in,” Loretta said.
Nona eased the door open and shut it behind her, slumped down in the rocking chair, and sighed. The scarf was gone and the hickey shined like a brand-new penny, but Loretta decided that mentioning it would probably start another fight.
Nona cocked her head to one side. “You are wearing your old work jeans.”
Loretta propped a hip on the footboard of the bed. “That makes you sigh like your world is all askew?”
“No, it’s just that you never wear those jeans unless you are serious about yard work,” Nona answered.
“I brought one pair in case I got serious about yard work and a couple of pair of cutoff jeans to wear if it’s real hot. I’m not leaving, Nona, and one declaration of your love and determination isn’t enough to run me off.” Loretta smiled.
“I’m not here for that worn-out conversation. I came to see what you think of Travis.”
“Does it matter?” Loretta asked.
“Of course it does. I’ve been dying to get home and talk to you about him, but we promised Waylon we’d go with him to look at the ranch. I think Waylon is going to buy it but Mr. Watson, that’s the owner, wanted to tell Waylon about everything from the day that God created red dirt.”
Loretta rounded the end of the bed and crawled up in the middle of it, crossing her legs Indian-style. “Explain to me about Waylon.”
“He’s Travis’s cousin and they hired on here at the same time, but Waylon told Daddy up front that he was lookin’ to buy a small spread. He’s older than Travis by about five or six years and is more like an older brother than a cousin, since they lived right next to each other. I’ll introduce you to him next time he’s around.”
“Why is Oliver Watson selling his ranch?”
“I told you that Dora died a few months ago. None of his family is a bit interested in the ranch. They all got out of the canyon as fast as they could and they barely even come home for holidays. One of
his sons does live on a spread somewhere in Pennsylvania. I never imagined farms up north, but then that’s where a lot of Amish are located so I shouldn’t be surprised about farms. Anyway, they’ve put in a little single-wide trailer on their land for Mr. Watson to live in. He’ll still be on a ranch but they can help take care of him,” Nona said.
“Lots of changes going on. Looks like a new generation is stepping up to take care of the land down here in the canyon,” Loretta said.
By the emphatic nod and the expression on Nona’s face, Loretta knew she’d taken two steps backward instead of one forward.
“And some of us have to learn a lot before we’re ready to take the reins, Mama. Waylon is about to turn thirty and ready to have his own spread. He and Travis are excited that they’ll still be ranchin’ close together. I asked you what you thought of Travis and you didn’t answer me.”
Loretta tried hard not to focus on the hickey. “I only met him today, but he seems to have manners, charm, and he is a handsome young man.”
“I’m going to marry him, Mama. It would sure make things easier for the whole family if you liked him.”
Loretta’s heart fell to the floor. “Has he asked you to marry him?”
“Not yet, but he will. So?”
Loretta pushed out of the rocking chair and paced the floor. “I’ve never lied to you, Nona, and I’m not starting today. I want you to graduate from college. It’s just one year and it’ll go by fast. I could preach at you—”
“Like your sisters do you?” Nona asked.
Loretta nodded and went on. “I’m not going to do that. I’ll be here when you are ready to go home, but I won’t support your decision to give up on school.”
“Why are you so adamant?” Nona asked.
Long, Hot Texas Summer Page 5
