Labor Day in Lusty, Texas [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting)

by Cara Covington

  Because there had been some merit to Vanessa’s decree that major decisions should be made deliberately, as opposed to spontaneously, rather than quitting her job outright, Abigail had requested a leave of absence from the firm—a request that, under the circumstances, had been readily granted. She’d also decided that, before she took the step of actually listing this large home in a very upscale neighborhood in Abilene, she would go through and purge the place first.

  Abigail really had nothing but time. It wasn’t as if she had to work to feed herself. Was it only a week since she’d sat in the family’s lawyer’s office and learned she was now very wealthy? That news had been quite unexpected. Yes, the Parkers had always lived well, but Abigail had no idea they’d been rich all these years!

  She focused her visual attention back on the kitchen while her mental focus extended to the house beyond. A purge would be the best use of her time. Lord knew the placed needed it. She needed it. She could freely admit to herself that, at the moment, she was a roiling mass of emotions. Going through this large house, sorting things, disposing of things, should be a good cathartic exercise.

  It would be a good way to say good-bye.

  Then, when all was in order, she could sit down and see if she could figure out what she wanted in life and then decide the best way to go about getting it.

  Abigail didn’t kid herself. She was about to undertake a daunting task. Oh, not that there were piles and piles of possessions sitting out in plain sight—the Parker women had been far too tidy for that. But Abigail knew the attic was loaded with her grandmother’s and mother’s possessions, and there was more furniture in this house than needed.

  Though the attic beckoned, she decided to begin this cleaning with her mother’s bedroom. Did she want to exorcise her mother’s spirit from the place? Abigail didn’t think she was that mean-hearted. But the contents of the room did have to be dealt with.

  Abigail had loved her mother. Vanessa had given her life, and a good life at that.

  No, Abigail believed that she was doing what her own mother must have done immediately following Grandmother Maude’s passing. Vanessa had let it be known that she would deal with her mother’s room on her own. In this, as in everything, Abigail had acceded to her mother’s wishes.

  She’d scan that room, of course, once she finished going through Vanessa’s things. Nodding sharply, satisfied she was doing the right thing, Abigail headed to the previously off-limits area of Vanessa Parker’s inner sanctum.

  It took about an hour to go through her mother’s clothing. Despite the fact they’d been practically the same size, there was nothing in the collection Abigail wanted for herself. She folded each garment then boxed the lot of them, marking each container with a label before stacking them into the corner of her mother’s large room.

  Abigail found no pieces of sentimentality tucked away, no special keepsakes. Her mother’s jewelry box contained a few very good pieces, and since she, Abigail, was the sole beneficiary of everything, she set the box aside to sort through, later.

  Most pieces she likely would keep for sentiment’s sake. She picked up the small box and looked around the room. Abigail knew her mother had lived life on her own terms. But had Vanessa Parker been a happy woman? Abigail felt bad that she honestly couldn’t say, one way or the other. There had been nothing left behind to testify to Vanessa’s state of mind.

  Abigail did know her mother had been content. She’d made plans, and those plans had always run smoothly. Maybe some people weren’t meant to be happy. Maybe, for most, contentment was sufficient.

  Abigail closed her mother’s bedroom door behind her and then walked down the hall to her own bedroom. She set the jewelry box on her dresser then headed back down the hall. At her grandmother’s closed bedroom door, she paused.

  Grandmother’s room had been just as off-limits as had her mother’s. In turn, neither woman ever ventured into her bedroom, once she became an adult. They had lived together in this house for as long as Abigail had been alive, three women—a family? Abigail supposed so, but now, looking back, she wondered if they hadn’t been merely three women sharing space.

  Well, not all of the space. It could definitely be said the Parker women were big on personal space.

  Still, this was her house now, and those rules no longer applied, as she’d just proven to herself by clearing out her mother’s room.

  Abigail didn’t waste another moment in indecision. She opened the door and stepped inside. The scent of her grandmother’s favorite perfume, honeysuckle, remained as a wisp of memory. But what shocked her to the core was the fact this room had not been cleared out.

  The bed remained unmade, and the tiny garbage basket Maude had kept beside her bed overflowed with used tissues. Abigail slowly walked over to the bed and sat. Was it her imagination that she could smell Vanessa’s musk among the linen?

  There’d been little emotion shown by her mother over Maude’s passing. Perhaps there’d been a shimmer of tears at the graveside. But Abigail could have sworn her mother never cried. She herself had closed herself off in her room, in order to hide her emotions from Vanessa, a woman who’d always maintained that emotions—especially her daughter’s—were highly overrated.

  She looked down at the overflowing basket. She wished she’d known. She wished her mother had felt it would be perfectly okay to show her daughter how she mourned for her mother.

  This new knowledge broke Abigail’s heart and yet, at the same time, was welcome. Yes, emotions can be very contradictory, Mother. But I’m glad you felt some. I’m glad you cried for Maude. Abigail might only be twenty-four, but even she knew sorrow was an emotion to be held close.

  She looked around the room, a larger space than Vanessa’s had been, and somehow seeming to be even more crammed with stuff.

  Abigail began with the bed, stripping the linens, taking the sheets out into the hallway and putting them down the laundry chute to the ground floor. The duvet would go to the dry cleaners. She’d been working steadily for a couple of hours and needed a break. And she’d take one, just as soon as she had a look inside Maude’s closet. She’d have to bring some bags up from downstairs since she was out of boxes, and looking first would give her an idea how many she would need.

  Abigail’s eyes widened. Maude’s closet was jam-packed with clothes. There were boxes lining the floor of the closet, and on the shelf…

  “What in the world?” The shelf wasn’t crammed with stuff at all. It held one box—a metal box that she recognized, almost instantly, must be a fireproof one. Clearly, whatever that box held was something important, a judgement made not only because it commanded the entire shelf but because the box had a lock on it. Why on earth hadn’t Vanessa dealt with this?

  Abigail couldn’t say why she was so certain, but she knew her mother hadn’t touched this box, hadn’t even opened it. She thought for one moment of all the things she’d half-hoped she’d find as she cleared out Vanessa’s room.

  Could some of those family secrets be in this box?

  Abigail had grown up a Parker, only. Maude had given birth to Vanessa, and Vanessa had birthed her. As for the men involved in that biological miracle? Abigail had no knowledge whatsoever. Neither woman had ever married. Neither had acknowledged the father of their babies, not by word or deed.

  Abigail had learned at a young age not to ask questions about the identities of her father or grandfather. In this her mother and grandmother were alike. It wasn’t, she’d come to understand, that there was any deep dark secret about the identity of either man. It was more that neither man was considered relevant by the women who’d carried their children.

  Abigail was certain she was fine with that, now. And yet now as she stood facing this mysterious box, this locked box, she had to wonder what was in it.

  Innate knowledge of her grandmother found Abigail turning to her dresser, to the older woman’s trinket box. She upturned the contents of the small container on the dresser, using her finger t
o sort through the hodgepodge of items. There were all sorts of things—a few stud earrings missing either backings or a partner, a couple of rings, a few screws, of all things—and only one key.

  Abigail lifted down the box, set it on the stripped bed, and tried that key in the lock. When the key fit, when a turn of her wrist popped that lock open, Abigail stood back and exhaled.

  She’d worked for several hours without a break. Now it was time to go downstairs, make a sandwich, pour herself a glass of tea—and then open this box and face whatever secrets it held.

  * * * *

  “Henry, I notice your department managers aren’t sitting with us around the conference table today. Is there a reason for this?”

  “Son, you need to understand. That’s not the way we do things here. This is a meeting of the vice presidents.” Henry Kaufmann looked around the table, a sour look on his face, as if the people sitting in attendance who were not vice presidents had an unsavory scent clinging to their persons. “Dalton Jessop would never permit such an inappropriate convention.”

  Carson Benedict sat back in his chair in the boardroom of Benedict Oil and Minerals and gave the appearance of being a man who was calm, cool, and collected.

  Affecting that appearance was becoming more taxing with each successive month he sat in what his Uncle Dalton often referred to as the Hot Seat.

  Dalton should know. Until just a couple years ago, this seat had been his.

  Carson also knew, despite Harold Kaufmann’s most recent proclamation, exactly how “we do things here”—because here was the boardroom of Benedict Oil and Minerals, and he, Carson, was the President and CEO. And Mr. Kaufmann was about to understand that he was also the man who held Kaufmann’s career in his hands.

  Carson set his gaze around the table, at the various members of his executive staff. Attending this monthly meeting were not only the full slate of vice presidents of the company but most of the department managers, as well. This was the way things were going to be done around here from now on.

  This wasn’t the first point on which he and Henry Kaufmann disagreed. Usually, however, the ripples between them occurred in private. Carson believed he’d been beyond patient with the man.

  And he couldn’t say he hadn’t seen this moment coming because he really had. But while Carson would always allow a vice president or, hell, even a manager to disagree with him, he could not allow such a direct challenge to his authority in front of others.

  For one moment, two competing urges warred within him. On the one hand, his compassionate side wanted to keep what was about to happen private. On the other hand, if he didn’t take a definitive stand, and an open one at that, he would be faced with this same situation again and again—and possibly not just from people in his own company. It dismayed him to admit that businessmen were bigger gossips than men accused women of being.

  Carson Benedict had been the head honcho of BO&M for nearly three years now. For the first year, he’d continued on with his uncle’s policies and practices, as he got to know the company and the business. Then slowly, gradually, he’d begun to put his stamp on things.

  Enough really was enough. He sighed and sat forward, bringing his hands before him on the table, his fingers steepled and pointing straight ahead.

  “Mr. Kaufmann, this is the way we do things around here, now, because I say it is.” Carson himself had promoted the man to vice president just after he’d assumed the “Hot Seat.” At the time, he’d known there might be a bit of friction between them since Carson had only been twenty-six at the time while Kaufmann had, at that point, been with the company for nearly thirty years.

  But the Benedicts believed in rewarding loyalty, and when the previous V.P. of Administration retired, Carson had believed that Kaufmann, who’d been manager of the personnel department for the previous eight years, had earned the promotion. He’d felt good about his decision at the time.

  Kaufmann had taken advantage of Carson’s generosity, perhaps mistaking that generosity for weakness or a need to rely on one of the company’s most senior employees as if relying on a crutch.

  “Well, you may be the president now, but—” Kaufmann’s admission was so reluctant that Carson nearly laughed. Instead, he cut the man off.

  “There is no but. I am the president, the CEO, and I am also the designated representative of the Board of Directors. If you can’t follow the policies I initiate, if you can’t get with the program, then we’ll have to have a parting of the ways. You’ve been with the company for a substantial number of years, Mr. Kaufmann, and we’re cognizant of and grateful for your service. But you don’t run things. I do. The decision, of course, is yours.

  “From this moment forward, you will either comply with each and every one of my directives, or you can tender your resignation. It’s entirely up to you.”

  No one around the table said a word. All eyes were on Henry Kaufmann, and Carson felt the air fairly crackle with tension.

  Had the man thought he could bully Carson into giving him his way? True, Carson had always been polite in conversations with Kaufmann because he truly did value his service to the company.

  I’ve been carrying on like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs instead of just doing what Uncle Dalton suggested in the first place and seizing control. Carson didn’t want to admit that maybe nice guys did finish last in business, but the evidence was piling up. He’d been a nice guy to Henry Kaufmann, and as a result, the man believed he could challenge him.

  Carson kept his gaze locked with Henry’s and knew the moment the man made his decision.

  Henry Kaufmann rose from his chair, defiance oozing from every pore on his body. “My resignation will be on your desk within the hour.”

  “Very well.” Carson gave the man a dismissive nod then turned to look at his secretary, sitting to his right but back, away from the table. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Kaufmann’s surprise at being summarily dismissed.

  “Stella, please go down to administration and invite the department managers to our meeting.”

  “Right away, Mr. Benedict.” She also stood, set her note pad on her chair, and headed toward the door. She paused by Carson and bent toward him. “I’ll call Jeffrey first and have him keep an eye on Kaufmann.”

  Carson nodded. Jeffrey was head of security. If Carson hadn’t been so ticked, he’d have thought of that small detail himself. Stella Wyse had proven to be an excellent choice for the position as his secretary. The woman had the friendship and respect of his mother, and that had actually tipped the scales in her favor.

  No one knew people better than Katherine Wesley Benedict.

  He turned his attention back to the meeting. Without appearing to, he focused on the last two vice presidents who were holdovers from his Uncle Dalton’s tenure. So far, they hadn’t given him too much grief. But going forward, he decided, he would tolerate none.

  “Let’s take a ten-minute break while we await the rest of the managers.” Carson got up and headed back to his office, just a short walk from the boardroom. While he was there, he’d ring his brother, Michael, and see if he wanted to drive up to Lusty tonight.

  Carson needed to touch base with his family and his roots and spend a restful weekend not being in the Hot Seat. Maybe he’d saddle Pericles, his gelding, and take a good long ride.

  He reached for the phone. Maybe Michael would be up for an overnight camp-out by the creek. Carson grinned. Providing, of course, that his parents didn’t have similar plans.

  Chapter Two

  When she’d sat down at this table two hours before and opened her grandmother’s locked box, Abigail hadn’t known what she’d find. A part of her, that tiny insecure little girl that still lived deep within her, had hoped there’d be some information with regard to the missing pieces in her life—the identities of her father and her grandfather.

  What she’d discovered had been both less, and more.

  Abigail stared at the photographs, tiny moments of time
preserved on glossy paper that curled at the edges, now. They should be in a book. Pressed flat, preserved. The thought, in her mother’s voice, echoed as it trailed off into the ether.

  It was hard to get the voice to be quiet, usually. Not today. The shock of what she’d discovered once she’d opened her grandmother’s box still quivered inside her.

  Each photo had not only a photographer’s stamp on the back—and that had been a shock of a different sort—but someone had transcribed the names of the subjects of each picture on the backs.

  A tiny snicker of laughter escaped. Some of the lyrics for “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie played through her mind. Perhaps that was her subconscious telling her that she’d indeed wandered into the ridiculous.

  Abigail hoped the sublime wasn’t too far behind. She was finding the ridiculous somewhat difficult to take in.

  She’d been through the stack of thirty pictures several times but kept coming back to this one. She looked down at the photo in her hand. For the umpteenth time, she flipped it over and reread the inscription. The Parker-Jones Family was printed neatly at the top. And then, perhaps so the observer could tell who was who, the individual names had been placed in what appeared to be a replica of the relative positions of the people in the photograph. The two adult men, standing, flanked the lone adult woman, who sat in a high-backed chair. Standing at an angle in front of each man was an adolescent boy and on the woman’s lap sat a toddler—a baby girl. The names were in a very neat script, and Abigail wondered who’d had the precise penmanship—one of the men or the woman?

  Terence Parker, Phyllis Parker-Jones, Jeremy Jones,

  Morgan Maude Logan

  She’d noticed the little things, details that had escaped her the first few times she’d studied this print. The men each had a hand on the woman. There was a sense of pride in both men, each of whom also had a hand on the shoulder of the boy who stood in front of him. It seemed, too, as if the toddler was looking at her mother with absolute adoration.