“Makes you glad that you ain’t plowing in that old open tractor, don’t it?” he asked.
“How did we ever survive?” she asked.
He extended a hand. “We were young and stupid.”
She took his hand and hopped from the running board to the ground. All it took was a gentle pull and she was plastered tightly against him, listening to his heartbeat thump against his chest. She started to step back, but he held her closer and looked down into her eyes. She’d always loved that she had to look up to him. There weren’t many men in the world like that.
He tipped her face up to meet his and she was looking into the sexiest eyes she’d ever seen, the same ones that she’d fallen in love with all those years ago. Then they slowly shut and dark lashes fanned out on his cheeks as his lips moved closer and closer to hers.
She rolled up slightly on her toes and moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. When his mouth claimed hers, she felt as if she and Jackson were the only two people on earth. For that moment there was only the two of them, and they were in a vacuum where everything stood still and it all felt so right.
He ended the kiss with a brief smack on the tip of her nose.
“Just like I remembered and as good as the last one,” he said hoarsely.
Loretta spun around and headed for the truck. One more kiss and she would swoon for sure—and tall, gangly women did not faint prettily.
Chapter Eight
FOUR DAYS HAD PASSED and Loretta wasn’t one bit ahead of the game. It was the middle of the week and all she’d heard out of her daughter was Travis Calhoun’s name a hundred times a day along with ranching business mixed in the middle. She’d thought after one day of doing hard ranch work that Nona would be more than glad to kiss her dad on the cheek and fly off to Paris or Italy with her for a few weeks. But it damn sure had not worked that way.
And in those four days, Jackson hadn’t made a single move to kiss her again. She’d been close enough to him that she could count his thick black eyelashes and smell the morning coffee on his breath. But nothing had happened. Not one thing. Nada. Zilch. On one hand, it absolutely frustrated the hell out of her. But on the other hand, the fact that she wanted him to kiss her again aggravated her even worse.
The smell of the oregano and Italian seasonings in Rosie’s lasagna drifted up the staircase as she took a fast shower and darted across the landing with a towel wrapped around her body. Her phone was ringing when she reached her room. She dug it out of her dirty jeans and flipped it open.
“Hello.”
“Loretta, darlin’, why didn’t you call us to tell us you were back? We just heard today. I’m on speakerphone and Maria is right here in the truck with me.”
“Is that you, Heather? I tried to call the first night I was here but all I got was a recorded message,” Loretta answered.
“Who else has a voice that sounds like she’s smoked two packs a day?” Heather laughed. “And, honey, since we last talked, I’ve probably had three phone numbers. I lose these damn cell phones worse than anyone in the world. We’re going to the Sugar Shack Saturday night. You want to go with us or meet us there? We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. What has it been? Five years since the last time we got together?”
“Try ten years,” Maria laughed.
“More like twelve next Christmas since we actually saw each other, even though we do talk on the phone,” Loretta said. “I’m here for a little while and I’d love to meet you at the Sugar Shack. But I am not here to stay. Nona thinks . . . Oh, crap, I’ve got a call from my sister. I’ll see you Saturday night,” she said.
“Go talk to your sister. Is it Dolly, Emmy Lou, or Tammy?”
“Tammy—this time. I’ll tell you all about it Saturday.” She poked a couple of buttons and said, “Hello, Tammy.”
“I’ve prayed for four days. Please tell me I wasn’t wasting my time and you are on your way home,” she said.
“Depends on what you were praying for, but I’m not on my way home yet,” Loretta said.
“Emmy Lou says that you’re being bullheaded,” Tammy said. “Are we going to have to come down there and have an intervention? We can, you know. And while we’re at it, we’ll have a talk with Nona about school. We are her aunts and she’ll listen to us.”
“I’m a grown woman who is quite capable of handling herself and Nona is my responsibility, not yours, so y’all best leave her alone. She damn sure doesn’t need you interfering in her business,” Loretta said.
“Don’t you use ugly language around me. I’m a preacher’s wife. If you are a grown woman, prove it and act like one.”
“I don’t have to prove a damn thing to you. I’ll talk like I want and I’ll make my own mind up about when I’m going home,” Loretta told her sister.
The whole family was interfering. She was beginning to understand why Nona had set her heels and refused to budge. Even if Loretta had packed her bags and was ready to walk out the door to go home, she would have stopped and gone back inside the ranch house. She had one sister demanding, one playing multiple parts, and one praying for her. And that didn’t even cover her mother’s ultimatums and her father’s advice.
“Shall we have a little prayer right now?” Tammy asked.
Leave it to her youngest sister to want to pray over the phone.
“Thank you, but no, thank you. I’ve got to get dressed for supper. Rosie doesn’t wait for anyone and it’s almost that time. And, Tammy, stop worrying about me. I’m okay. I appreciate the love, but . . .”
Tammy’s voice stopped her before she could finish the sentence. “Dear Lord, please take my sister under your sheltering wings and . . .”
“Amen and good-bye.” Loretta hung up. Surely God would understand.
Now the aroma of Rosie’s famous hot rolls floated up the stairs, which meant there would be cinnamon rolls for dessert. Her theory was that if she had yeast bread in the bowl then she might as well use it for both rolls and dessert. Loretta liked that theory just fine and didn’t intend to count calories or fat grams. Since she was now working like a field hand, she could well afford to eat like one.
When she sat down at the table, Nona was chatting about a calf that showed promise of becoming the next best breeding bull on the ranch. Rosie was talking about her vacation the next week. Jackson was telling her how much he’d miss her cooking. Loretta could hear the excitement in all their voices: Jackson, because his daughter was so interested in a damn bull; Rosie, because she was going on a weeklong senior citizens’ cruise with several of her cousins.
Loretta missed times like this when she sat down to supper all alone in her house in Oklahoma. And as bad as Loretta hated to admit it, her daughter was actually happy here. But that didn’t mean the war was over. There was still a lot of summer left and school didn’t start until September. Happy could fly right out the window in less time than it took a gnat to blink. She was living proof of that statement.
“Hey, hey, where is everyone? Well, I’ll be damned. When did you come back?” Dina Mullins stopped so fast that she had to brace herself on the doorjamb to keep from pitching forward into the dinner table.
Think of the devil and he shall appear, Loretta thought, disguised as a petite blonde who still looked at Jackson with enough heat to cause a nuclear meltdown.
“Hello, Dina,” Loretta said.
“I heard you’d come back. You haven’t changed much, Loretta.”
“You have,” Loretta said.
Dina pushed away from the doorjamb. “And that is supposed to mean what?”
Dina had been short, delicate, and blonde—all the things that Loretta had always wanted to be, but time and fast living had taken their toll on Dina. She looked sixty instead of forty and her style sense hadn’t progressed since high school. She still wore her hair ratted high, but nowadays it looked more like straw. Too many hour
s in the sun had aged her once delicate skin. Her eyes were glazed with too much drinking and too little happiness. Dina had sown her wild oats and now she was paying the price.
Loretta wanted to feel sorry for the woman but she just couldn’t. She picked up a second hot roll and slathered it with butter. “Are you married?”
“More than once. Presently divorced. You?”
“One time. Learned my lesson.”
Jackson glanced back and forth from Loretta to Dina. He’d been such a fool to let Dina coerce him into the barn or to listen to her and his mother about Nona’s parentage.
“What brings you into the canyon in the middle of the week?” Jackson asked.
Dina drew up a chair next to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. It damn sure did not affect him like brushing Loretta’s when they passed dishes at the table or when they both went for the coffeepot at the same time.
“Daddy is having his ranch party next Saturday night. I wondered if you might want to escort the prettiest girl in the canyon to it.” Dina talked to Jackson but her eyes were locked with Loretta’s. “I’m wearing blue satin, so you can bring me a corsage to match. I’m partial to white roses, as you know.”
Nona took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That is pretty brazen right in front of my mother.”
“Darlin’, you don’t understand our history or the inside story about white roses. Besides, your mama has a history of running away when the going gets tough,” Dina said.
“Don’t you talk about my mama like that, lady,” Nona said.
Jackson picked up Dina’s hand and dropped it like a bag of trash. “Sorry, but I already have plans, and I had no idea that you liked white roses.”
“Don’t play coy with me, Jackson.” She tapped him on the shoulder playfully. “Nona is a big girl now. I’d guess she knows what goes on behind closed doors since she’s got a big old mouth-sized purple mark on her neck. Don’t you remember that night you strung white rose petals all over the bed in that hotel room? Or all those other times out in the barn when you sent me home with one just like it?”
“You are drunk. I can smell whiskey all the way over here,” Nona said.
“I don’t remember any of those times. I do remember one time in the barn, but that didn’t go beyond a few kisses and a lot of anger on your part and guilt on mine,” Jackson said. “And it would be wise for you to go now.”
Dina stood up, but kept one hand on the back of the chair and one on Jackson’s shoulder. “So what are you doing here, Loretta?”
“I came back to slap the shit out of you,” Loretta said.
Son of a bitch! The catfight had arrived. Jackson wasn’t sure whether he should sit still and hope the bullets didn’t hit him or to run for the hills.
“I did you a favor. Why would you want to hit me?” Dina asked.
“Well, there is the matter of breaking up my marriage. But we’ll take care of that later. Rosie doesn’t allow fighting in the house and I haven’t had my dessert.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Dina snapped.
“I haven’t had one of Rosie’s cinnamon rolls in a long time and there’s not enough soap in the world to get the filth off my hands from touching you, which would ruin the taste of my cinnamon roll. You ain’t worth it. But rest assured, I’m not leaving the canyon until I knock you square on your ass,” Loretta said.
“And if she needs any help, I’ll be glad to step in beside her,” Nona said.
“Now, darlin’, I told you when I called you that week after you moved to Oklahoma how it was with me and Jackson all through high school. We tried to keep it a secret, especially after you got pregnant, but he couldn’t keep his hands off me.” Dina’s head wiggled like a twelve-year-old girl slinging insults at her enemy.
“You called Loretta?” Jackson asked.
“You said that to my mama?” Nona pushed back her chair and came to a standing position, her eyes glued on Dina.
Dina tilted her chin up toward Nona. “Well, I did need to straighten things out with her, darlin’, so she could understand the full meaning of my relationship with your daddy and how long it had been going on. I owed it to Jackson to explain it all to her,” Dina said.
“Daddy!” Nona turned her gaze to his end of the table.
“We never had a relationship, not in high school, not in the barn that day or since then,” Jackson said.
“You remember it the way you want and I’ll remember it the way I want,” Dina said. “I’ve got to run. If you change your mind, remember white roses and pick me up at eight. I want to make an appearance, so we’ll have a couple of drinks first before we go down to the sale barn for the party.”
Loretta held up a palm. “Don’t hold your breath, honey. You look pitiful in that shade of blue. And you’d best make other plans, because Jackson and I have a date.”
Dina smiled. “And he’ll come get me afterward, like he used to do in high school. The reason I came over is that our housekeeper, Hilda, has retired, so she can’t come over here and work for you while Rosie is on vacation. ’Bye now. See you later, Jackson.”
The air in the kitchen turned eerily quiet and cold.
Nona finally broke the silence. “Okay, I want some explanations. Everyone knows what happened but me. Daddy, what did go on in the barn? Mama, you were baring your claws in that catfight, but if someone treated me like that I’d have mopped up the floor with her. And what does it matter that Hilda retired? You can still go on vacation, Rosie.”
Rosie picked up the cinnamon rolls and handed the platter to Loretta. “Not without some help around here. This is a busy time of year and every one is needed on the ranch. Here, Loretta, you deserve the first one. If you’d knocked her square on her ass in the first place, things would have gone a hell of a lot better around this place.”
Nona slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus.”
“Yep,” her dad said.
“You had an affair with that slut.” Nona’s words came from behind her hand as she sank back into her chair.
“I did not!” Jackson bellowed.
“But he wanted to,” Loretta said.
“And you didn’t kill her?” Nona whipped around to face her mother. “You took me away from Lonesome Canyon because of her? If you don’t slap the shit out of her, I will.”
“It takes two to tango,” Rosie said.
All three women’s eyes fastened on Jackson. He threw up his palms defensively. “Hey, Dina was like superglue. I peeled her off the best I could, but evidently your mama had already made up her mind about what she saw and she was gone by the time I got to the house. And your mother wouldn’t take my calls or talk to me, so it’s not all my fault. And for the record, I never, not one time, cheated. I didn’t even go out on a date for two years after the divorce.”
Nona’s blue eyes narrowed into slits. “I don’t want a cinnamon roll. I’m going outside to sit on the swing and think about this, but you two”—she pointed her finger first at Loretta and then at Jackson—“are not out of trouble. We will discuss this later when I’ve had time to give it some thought. Grown-ups talk about their fears and their worries and what happens. They don’t run from their problems. It’s time for you both to grow up.”
Nona pushed back her chair and stormed out of the house by the back door, cussing and mumbling under her breath the whole way.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Rosie said. “You should listen to her.”
“It’s complicated,” Jackson said.
“Like I told your wife, I hate that word,” Rosie said.
“Ex,” Loretta and Jackson said at the same time.
“I’ll call my cousins and tell them I can’t go on the family cruise,” Rosie sighed.
“Why?” Loretta asked.
“Because,” Rosie sighed, “Hilda always
comes over to cook and take care of things while I’m gone a week in the summer. They’ve got enough extra help up at Dina’s daddy’s farm that she can do that, but now that she’s gone, I’ll have to stay home,” Rosie explained.
“I expect I can cook, clean, and do laundry for a week,” Loretta said.
“I’ll let you live in my house and give you my paycheck for the week. I’ve been looking forward to this cruise for a year. Jackson?” Rosie asked.
“Can you still fry chicken and make decent mashed potatoes?” He looked over at Loretta.
She nodded.
“Then I expect we’ll be fine, Rosie. But don’t get it in your head to stay gone like Hilda did. Ranch would be lost without you,” Jackson said.
“Of course it would,” Rosie said.
Didn’t the word ex mean that there had been closure? Back in the beginning of the separation, Loretta’s mother had told her there would be seven steps of grieving involved in getting a divorce. She’d listed them: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, and last, acceptance and hope.
Loretta had gone through the first four fairly rapidly, but when it came to the fifth, she’d gotten stuck. That next step didn’t look too inviting and the last one? Hell, no! She wasn’t ready to accept any bit of the divorce or trust anyone to bring her hope of a new life. So she’d devoted her life to her daughter and her work and learned to live with the guilt.
Driving a hay-hauling truck that afternoon, she went back over those steps and remembered how she’d felt with each one of them. But somehow all of the first four had attached themselves to that fifth step named guilt and hung on like a hound dog with a ham bone. Seeing Dina and Jackson all tangled up together in the shadows of the barn had been the shock of her life, but guilt was its twin sister. The trauma had sent her into flight mode, but the guilt had reminded her that if she had been prettier, smaller, and not a big ugly duckling, then Jackson wouldn’t have let Dina into his life.
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