There was a short pause, then she said, “I’ll tell Manny to change out of his swim trunks and back into jeans. When do you want us there? And where’s there?”
He could always count on Diane to have a quick nose for a story. She frequently ferreted out information that no one else thought existed.
He’d experienced a twinge of conscience at not telling her and Manny the truth about his personal reasons for wanting to do the show, but he wasn’t sure what good it would do. Karen Latham might still be as unwilling to listen as she had been seven years ago. He could seek her out, apologize for what his brother had done—she’d stare at him like he was one of the poisonous snakes she probably still thought all Parkers to be. Then he’d slither off, do the show, and they’d leave town. But he had to at least try to talk to her. Her face, her eyes had haunted him for months after the aborted wedding. They still did on occasion. He couldn’t forget her, the way Alex had.
Dusk had settled into night by the time they rolled to a stop in front of the two-story stone house at the head of the Parker compound. Intricately tooled black wrought-iron railings framed porches on both the upper and lower levels.
The front door swung open as they piled out of the truck, spilling enough light to reveal that Mae herself had come to greet them.
Lee moved quickly, taking the two steps onto the porch in an easy hop. But as he reached for Mae, she lifted her cane and held it between them.
“I was beginnin’ to think you’d got lost,” she complained. “It’s so long since you’ve been here.”
“I’d never forget the way. You know that.”
“Humph!” she snorted, then, lowering the cane, she allowed his affection.
She’d changed little in the years since Lee had seen her—the same snowy white hair pulled into a smooth knot on top her head, the same hawklike black eyes, the no-nonsense set to her mouth, the intimidating force of her personality. For more than the thirty-six years since his birth, Mae’s influence had radiated outward from the ranch to the Parkers living in other sections of the state. She kept apprised of their movements and acted when she thought necessary. Up until the time of her eightieth birthday, she’d actively ridden the divisions of the ranch, refusing to stop until a fall and doctor’s orders had forced her off her horse. Some years earlier she’d even managed the ranch when no one else was a ready candidate. The cane was new, though. As was the hidden fragility he sensed in her body when he held her close.
She patted his shoulder as he pulled away. “Glad to see you, Lee,” she said gruffly. “You’re looking good.”
“So are you,” Lee said.
“No, I’m not.” She allowed a wisp of a smile to touch her lips. “But I appreciate you sayin’ so.” She looked at the Cruzes. giving them a glance of quick estimation as they stood on the path, hesitant to intrude. “These folks your friends?” she demanded of Lee. “Tell ’em to come inside. I can’t see ’em good enough out there.”
They filed inside the house Lee had become familiar with through the years. The foyer’s Spanish influence of pristine white walls, black wrought-iron sconces and chandelier and colorful rugs on the dark gray stone floor spilled into a living room, where a huge fireplace dominated the longest wall, sheer curtains graced the windows, and two overstuffed sofas offered an alternative to several straight-back chairs.
Mae chose one of the chairs, her posture, as always, exceptional.
Lee sensed the Cruzes’ uncertainty as they chose seats on one of the sofas. He tried to lighten the moment by introducing them.
Mae nodded acknowledgment, then, leveling her gaze on him, said, “You are plannin’ to stay the night. You wouldn’t come all this way and not. Am I right?”
They had planned no such thing. They were only going to stop by for a short visit, then move on, arriving in Twilight late but expected. Lee, on his own, would then make other trips back to the ranch if it fit into their schedule.
While he groped for words, Mae continued, “I have two perfectly fine bedrooms upstairs that Marie, Marie’s my housekeeper,” she explained to the Cruzes, “has spent hours freshening. I won’t take no for an answer, Lee. You and your friends look tired. A good night’s sleep is the best cure for that.”
“They’re expecting us in Twilight, Mae,” Lee said, holding out.
Her expression was imperious. “I haven’t seen you in five years. I want to catch up on things, get to know what you’re doing.”
“The show keeps me busy, Mae. Keeps us busy.”
“Too busy to visit with your relations when you have a perfectly good opportunity?” Turning again to Diane and Manny, she smiled pleasantly and said, “You must be hungry after traveling all day.”
The irrepressible Manny broke into a huge grin. “I could eat,” he said.
Diane shot Lee a look, telling him the decision was his, before she dealt with her husband. “You can always eat! You’re a bottomless pit, Manny Cruz. Honestly, if I ate the way you did, I’d be bigger than a house!”
“I like to see a person enjoy a good meal,” Mae said with approval. “It means they’ve been working hard.”
Diane giggled. “All Manny’s worked hard today is his mouth. He’s talked our ears off! When he wasn’t talking, he was singing. And he can’t sing!”
“I sound just like Garth Brooks,” Manny bragged.
“In your dreams!” Diane shot back.
Lee saw that Mae’s smile held real amusement as she watched the byplay between his two friends. She liked them instinctively and they, in turn, seemed to like her. All it took was surviving the first shock of exposure to her strong personality.
“All right,” he said. “One night But that’s all we can spare. I’ll let them know in Twilight that we’ve been delayed.”
“Twilight,” Mae repeated, frowning. “I still can’t understand why that place is of interest to you. Pretty no-account from what I remember.”
“It’s not us, Mae,” Lee explained patiently, as if they hadn’t been through this before when he’d first told her what they were planning. He hadn’t mentioned Karen Latham to her, either, feeling it was better to keep the young woman’s presence to himself. “It’s the movie studio. They’re the ones with the big ideas.”
“I haven’t seen Twilight in years,” Mae reflected.
“It’s not far away, is it?” Diane asked, addressing Mae directly for the first time.
“Next county over. About...sixty or seventy miles.”
“Long miles,” Lee said.
Mae nodded. “Everything’s long out here. Probably take a couple of hours to drive.” She regarded Lee curiously, “You ever get out there when you were visiting us?”
“You kept me too busy working, Mae,” Lee said, smiling. Then he explained to his friends, “When I turned fourteen, my dad sent me to the ranch to learn a few things. Like how to ride and rope and work cattle.”
“Things every Parker should know,” Mae agreed.
“I liked it, so I came back for a few years. Even worked on a couple of roundups.”
“Fall roundup’s coming soon. You’re welcome to work that one, too, if you want. Rafe’d be glad for the help.”
“Who’s Rafe?” Manny asked.
“Another cousin,” Lee said. “He manages the ranch, now that—” He stopped, unsure if even after all these years the transference of management was still a sore point with Mae.
“And does a damn fine job of it, too!” Mae said robustly. “Better’n me.”
“They’ll meet him later...right, Mae?” Lee asked.
“They’ll meet everyone,” she replied. “They’re all coming to dinner.”
Lee caught the quick glance Diane exchanged with Manny and had to smother a grin. By the end of the night they’d’ve had their fill of being in the same house with so many strong-willed Parkers.
“You can use the phone in my office,” Mae said, standing up. “You know the way. I’ll tell Marie to get us all something cold to drink. Then y
ou can take your friends to their room. They might like to freshen up. You, too, of course. In the meantime,” she said to the newcomers, “make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be back shortly.”
Typically, Mae had handed everyone their assignments and expected them to be carried out.
Lee used the phone on the credenza behind Mae’s rosewood desk and was just hanging up from making his excuses to John Danson in Twilight, when Mae entered the room.
She needed no preamble to get to the point. “I’ve seen this show you’re involved in. A neighbor made a tape and sent it over. We don’t get public television channels out here unless we have one of those fancy satellite dishes, which we don’t. So I hadn’t seen it until last night.” Her dark eyes, holding his, narrowed. “I didn’t know what to expect. I knew you’d won some awards with it, but—” she took a breath “—I wasn’t prepared to be so proud of you. You did a really fine job with those people trying to get back on their feet after being flooded out of their houses last year. Showed the good and the bad, and that even in terrible times, people can still find things to laugh about I liked it.”
Lee had never received a compliment from Mae. She’d approved of his seemingly inborn ability to handle a horse and a rope and the fact that he’d held his ground in tight situations with an ornery cow. But she’d never gone so far as to actually tell him he’d done well. He was surprised by how good it made him feel. He smiled broadly. “Thank you, Mae. But it wasn’t just me. Diane and Manny—”
“I like them, too.”
“Not all of our shows are so serious,” he cautioned.
“I know. I saw the one about the ostrich farmer. It was silly, but the youngsters enjoyed it. They learned something, too.” She paused, then said, “That brother of yours. What’s he up to now?”
“He’s a lawyer with a big firm in Dallas.”
“No, I mean what’s he really up to? I know what he does for a living.”
“He’s working on marriage number four.”
Mae shook her head in disgust. “Your momma spoiled him. She tried to spoil you, too, but your daddy sent you out here. We took out of you in about five minutes.”
Lee grinned. “So that’s what you were doing. I thought I was going through boot camp for cowboys!”
“Cowboys don’t go to boot camp!”
“I know that...now.”
Mae smiled in spite of herself, and as they returned to the living room, she allowed Lee to place his arm around her shoulders.
“The Parker charm,” Mae said as she resumed her seat. “You have it in spades. Like you have the look, except for those pale eyes.”
All Lee’s life his eyes had set him apart from his dark-haired, dark-eyed father, brother and cousins. His mother had mentioned something about having a great-grandfather from Denmark, but he’d never met the man.
“Never you mind,” Mae murmured, as if offering comfort for an ongoing disappointment. “They look good on TV.”
Which tickled Lee so much he couldn’t help laughing. And without fully knowing why, the others joined in.
CHAPTER FOUR
KAREN SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the floor amid an array of small articles she’d spent most of the morning unwrapping and dividing into groups. At arm’s reach was a large plastic bag for the temporary disposal of tissue paper and, beside that, several drawers, all empty but one.
At first the job of going through her aunt’s things had seemed overwhelming. She knew her aunt had never been good at keeping formal records, so it would be of little use to look for any kind of list to refer to. She was fully on her own. Where did she start? How did she go about it? She’d never organized an estate before. In the end, she let simple expediency be her guide. She could only deal with what she could reach, so she’d started by removing some of the lighter pieces stacked atop others. Not cataloging anything herself yet, just creating a space to work. Then, since none of the chests or bureaus blocking the way could be moved until they were emptied, she’d begun going through drawers.
It was just like Christmas, since she had no idea what each lovingly wrapped bundle would reveal. Her aunt had given no special regard to value or uniqueness. A tin whistle distributed in the forties or fifties as a child’s merchandising prize was tucked next to an exquisite lady’s gold pocket watch dating from the turn of the century. Trash and treasure, a casual observer might presume. But Karen knew better. Her aunt either was aware the tin whistle had value or was speculating that someday in the future it would.
Where Mr. Griffin dealt only with sure things, her aunt combined whimsy with purpose. She knew a sure thing when she saw it, but she also took chances. Mostly because she enjoyed playing the game.
When the last drawer from the last imposing chest was emptied, Karen planned to rewrap all the articles as carefully as her aunt had and pack them in the cardboard boxes she’d found broken down and flattened into a stack in the antique shop’s broom closet. Only this time, each article and each box would be numbered and listed correspondingly in a notebook, so she could find an item when she wanted to examine it in more detail.
She’d just reached for another tissued bundle and was opening it when a car drove up out front. Heavy doors opened and closed, and voices rang out—more visitors to Twilight. Karen’s first instinct was to go look out the front window, but the room was still so solidly packed she couldn’t even see the front window, much less look out of it Quelling her curiosity, she stayed where she was and draped an intricately constructed rhinestone necklace across the back of her hand. It was nicely made, and upon closer examination through a loupe, she recognized the name of a well-known costume jewelry manufacturer on the clasp.
She added it to the jewelry group, then reached for another bundle—which turned out to contain a Kennedy-Johnson political button from the 1960 presidential race.
Her aunt had been extremely proud of her button collection, even to the point of attending numerous political rallies sponsored by both parties across the state in order to collect more. Karen unwrapped one after another. A Nixon-Agnew, a Carter-Mondale, an Eisenhower, a Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Hoover... numerous state and local office hopefuls. Some buttons were in better condition than others, but all could be considered above average. A few were even pristine. Karen was careful to rewrap them immediately, before assigning them their own grouping.
Several hours later she was still hard at work, having emptied two additional chests, manhandled them out of the way against a wall and taken several boxes upstairs to her aunt’s apartment—the only place with enough extra space for storage. A light tap sounded on the back door, before Bette, calling her name, let herself inside.
When she saw Karen on the floor, Bette shook her head. “You’ve got to be kidding! With all these chairs? Why aren’t you using one of them?”
Karen grinned. “It’s easier to be in the middle of everything.”
“Looks like you’re making a good start,” Bette said, glancing around.
“Don’t you mean, ‘It’s messier now than it was before’?” Karen teased.
Bette rooted around for a chair. “That’s always the way when you’re organizing something. The mess gets worse before it gets better. I’m taking a break,” she announced. “Those TV people have finally gotten here. They were supposed to come last night but didn’t make it. Which was probably a good thing, since the argument with Melanie carried on until sometime around midnight Did the noise keep you awake?” When Karen shook her head, Bette continued, “By that time Melanie had finally had enough and told John and the others to either take her offer or leave it—the studio wasn’t going to dicker anymore. Of course, they took it. She used her little portable fax machine thingie and the agreement came back signed by Raymond Armstrong. Now it’s a done deal. It’s happening.”
“I don’t know whether to be happy or sad,” Karen murmured.
Bette shrugged. “Me too. But that’s neither here nor there. Pretty soon this place will be crawling with workers. Ther
e is one good thing that’s happened, though. Melanie and her little friends are gone. They left with the bus. We shouldn’t be seeing any more of them until just before the preview.”
“That’s something,” Karen agreed.
Bette was quiet for a moment, then she said, “I have an idea. I’m making a big meal for the TV people tonight Why don’t you come have dinner with us? Be a friendly face at the table. I’m sure John would appreciate it. And so would I.”
“I thought I’d work as long as I could today. There’s so much—” She glanced around.
“None of it’s going to go anywhere.”
That was a line of reasoning she couldn’t argue with. She smiled. “Sure, dinner sounds fine.” Then her smile lessened. “Bette? Aunt Augusta was happy during the last part of her life, wasn’t she?”
“Augusta was one of the happiest people I knew. Never let much of anything get her down. The only time I ever saw her cry was that first summer you didn’t visit. When your parents—”
“She cried?” Karen said.
“Having you out here livened up her whole year. She took it hard when you couldn’t come anymore. I think she looked on you more as a daughter than a niece. But she got over it. I only saw her cry the once.”
Augusta and her husband had never had children. In the way youngsters plunge innocently into murky adult waters, Karen had once asked why. Her aunt replied that she couldn’t have children, something to do with the way she was made. She’d stated it matter-of-factly, as if it weren’t really a concern, but now Karen couldn’t help wondering if her aunt had been masking her true feelings. It made her sad to think that Augusta had missed her so badly. Though she, too, had cried in Austin, wanting to be in Twilight.
“You...scattered her ashes?” Karen asked, not wanting to talk about the task, but feeling the necessity.
Bette nodded. “John and I did. Out in the desert. Just like she asked in her will.”
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