The Last Chance Olive Ranch

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Oh, yeah?” I was willing to go along, to play his game. It might make both of us feel better. It might make me forget that Paul—so full of life, with so much to live for—was dead and that the man who killed him might be coming to kill my husband. “You think so, do you, big fella?”

  “I know so,” he whispered, and put his hand on my breast. “Just watch me.”

  And for the next little while, we did what two people do when they’re in bed and fully awake and it’s not quite time to get up and face the world.

  It was a lovely few moments. But I wasn’t distracted.

  And I could still taste the fear.

  Chapter Two

  Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

  William Shakespeare Henry IV, Part I

  The early-morning phone call prompted a change in the weekend plans.

  Originally, we had planned that Caitie would stay home with McQuaid while Ruby and I spent Friday through Monday at the ranch. But Jess’s unsettling call had given me some serious second thoughts. It would be a major inconvenience for Maddie Haskell—the ranch owner—if I canceled the Saturday workshop. It would be costly for her, too, since the workshop was sold out. She’d have to refund everybody’s money and send them home, or reschedule, or try to find a replacement.

  But as I got dressed and went downstairs to make breakfast—quietly, because Caitie was still asleep—I was remembering that Mantel, now on the loose, had been convicted of killing two teenage girls. I ought to cancel the workshop. I ought to stay home and keep an eye on Caitie, who owns a large chunk of my heart. And be close to my husband, in case . . . well, in case Mantel showed up. In case something happened.

  In the kitchen, I was greeted by Winchester, the three-year-old basset we adopted at Basset Rescue a couple of months before. Winchester (like our beloved Howard Cosell, departed but fondly remembered) is lengthy and low-slung, with floppy brown ears, saggy jowls, a tendency to drool, and a remarkably doleful air. Clearly, his previous life brimmed with calamities and catastrophes, and he’s not fully persuaded that his present life is an improvement—especially because he hasn’t yet been allowed to spend the evening in McQuaid’s leather recliner, or claim the entire foot of our bed, or get away with stealing bagels. But when I put his breakfast kibbles into his bowl, he clambered out of his basset basket and gave me a look of polite appreciation before he dug into it. Winchester may be a bagel thief, but he is a gentleman, through and through.

  While I took our breakfast tacos out of the freezer, I was mentally going over the weekend schedule, figuring out how to handle it. I would cancel the workshop and stay in Pecan Springs. McQuaid would have to cancel his plans for the HOT Barbecue—the local Lions Club annual Heart of Texas barbecue at Pecan River Park. It started on Saturday at noon and ran until late in the evening. He was one of the two food coordinators this year. He’d be standing behind the barbecue table for hours on end, dishing out the food—a very visible target, if Mantel showed up and wanted to take a shot at him. Our friend Blackie Blackwell was the other coordinator. Blackie could handle the whole thing easily, I was sure.

  But McQuaid had been thinking about the situation, too, and he’d been on the phone. By the time the tacos were out of the microwave, he had made up his mind. He wasn’t taking any chances, at least with Caitie and me. He wanted us out of town. Both of us.

  “So I won’t have to worry about you,” he said reasonably. I’m sure he didn’t intend to sound as if he were speaking to a clueless first grader, but that’s the way I heard it. “You go on out to the ranch with Ruby, do your workshop, and just kick back for a couple of days. I’ll drive Caitie down to Seguin to spend the weekend with Dad and Mom. By the time you both get back home, all the excitement will be over.” He waggled Winchester’s ears. “Right, Winnie, old boy?”

  I opened the refrigerator door and reached for the pitcher of orange juice. Excitement? What excitement? What I mostly hoped for at home these days was no excitement. For a nice, quiet, boring weekend in which nothing at all happened, except for maybe an afternoon rain shower or an unexpected visit from Brian. I wouldn’t even complain if he brought his laundry.

  McQuaid gave Winchester one last pat, helped himself to a taco, and stood at the counter, wolfing it down. “In fact, I’ve already called the folks,” he said in an offhand tone. “They’re thrilled at the idea of having Caitie for the weekend. So we’re all set.”

  He had already called them? Without asking me first? I thumped the pitcher of orange juice on the table and turned to get the glasses, fighting a rising tide of annoyance. But after a moment, I took a deep breath. Maybe it was the best thing, after all. McQuaid’s folks live in a very safe neighborhood, right next door to the Seguin chief of police. Caitie would be just fine with them. Safe. Out of sight, where Mantel couldn’t get to her. I shivered. Out of the line of fire.

  I poured the orange juice. “Okay,” I said agreeably. “Caitie can go to Seguin, then. You’re right. She’ll like that. But I am staying here. With you. I’ll call Maddie and tell her that something important has come up and we need to reschedule. She’ll understand.” I paused, thinking out loud. “Hey, wait. What am I thinking? Ruby can handle this workshop. She knows the material and we’ve got everything set up and ready to go. You just need to get Blackie to substitute for you at the barbecue food table and—”

  “No.”

  “No what?” I stared at McQuaid. He fed Winchester the last bite of taco, then went to the sink to wash the sauce off his fingers. “No what?”

  “Forget it, China.” He reached for a paper towel and dried his hands. “You are going out to the ranch with Ruby and doing the workshop, just the way you planned. I am going to go to the park and do my job at the Lions Club barbecue, just the way I planned. Neither of us is doing a damned thing different just because of this.”

  There was a plaintive meow and Mr. P, Caitie’s scruffy pumpkin-colored tabby, wound himself around my ankles, begging for breakfast. I frowned. “Really, McQuaid, I don’t think—”

  “Yes, you do.” He gave me a tight smile and softened his tone, being reasonable—reasonable like a cop. It’s a tone I have learned to actively dislike. “Look, babe. If Mantel is the one who offed the DA—which is not clear yet, by any means—he’s already got his revenge. He’s not going to waste time going after anybody else. He’s hotfooting it for the border.” He balled up the paper towel and launched it at the trash basket. “In fact, Border Patrol is watching for him, right now. Five gets you ten they’ll nab him before lunch.”

  “Maybe.” I opened the bin that holds Mr. P’s dry cat food and filled his bowl. “But maybe not. Maybe he’s on his way to Pecan Springs right now. Maybe—”

  He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “But on the very, very slim chance that Mantel is crazy enough to show up here in Pecan Springs, I don’t want you or Caitie here. I want Caitie with my folks, and I want you somewhere safe, like that olive ranch.” He took a step toward me and put his hands on my shoulders. “You got that?” He put a finger under my chin and lifted my face so I had to look up at him. His voice was soft but his eyes were hard and steady. “Tell me you understand.”

  I understood all right. I understood that I could argue with McQuaid until the cows came home, but he wouldn’t change his mind. While he and I share a very great deal, there are large pieces of his previous life—his marriage to his first wife, Sally; his years as a cop—that I’m not a part of. I get that, and it doesn’t bother me. That’s how it is with adults, especially two adults with years of tough, dirty experience on two different sides of the law: McQuaid’s work as a cop, hunting down people charged with a crime and building the cases against them; my work as a criminal lawyer, defending people charged with a crime and tearing down the cases against them. This thing with Max Mantel had come out of his past, his cop-life, and he intended to keep it there. And keep me out of it.

/>   So I wouldn’t argue. I just . . . wouldn’t argue.

  “I understand,” I said, adding in my good-housewifely tone what I knew he was expecting me to say. “But you’ve got to promise you won’t run any dangerous risks.” I summoned a smile. “You’ll promise, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” he said lightly, and kissed me.

  Mr. P addressed himself diligently to his breakfast. Winchester gave us a long gloomy look over his shoulder, plodded to his basket, and settled down for his after-breakfast nap. As far as they were concerned, all was well. Which of course it wasn’t.

  • • •

  AN hour or so later, I was unlocking the front door of my herb shop, Thyme and Seasons, on Crockett Street a couple of blocks east of the town square. I bought the place—a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old two-story limestone building—some years ago, after I left Houston and my fast-paced legal career, which paid me a pot of money but left me feeling empty inside, exhausted, wrung out. I found the gentler, slower life I was looking for in Pecan Springs, a friendly town at the eastern edge of the Texas Hill Country, halfway between Austin and San Antonio. I cashed in my savings and retirement and used the money to open Thyme and Seasons in half of the building and rented the other half to Ruby Wilcox, for a New Age shop she called the Crystal Cave.

  Not long after, my friend Mike McQuaid left his law enforcement career and moved with his young son, Brian, to Pecan Springs, where he joined the faculty of the Criminal Justice department at Central Texas State University. Eventually, we got married and bought a big Victorian on Limekiln Road, several miles west of town. While McQuaid still teaches part-time at the university, he and Blackie Blackwell are now partners in their own PI firm: McQuaid, Blackwell, and Associates. I am not an associate, I tell him, and do my best to stay out of his business. My former life in criminal law was chockablock with criminals. I’ve had enough to last a lifetime. I do not need to go looking for more.

  And if I had my druthers, McQuaid wouldn’t be doing it, either. He swears it’s not dangerous, and that the most serious threat to his health is being bored to death combing through property records in the county clerk’s office. That’s not true, though: witness his recent undercover investigation into a Mexican oil theft ring, which took him across the border and into dangerous territory. Personally, I wish he’d spend more of his time in the classroom. But he’s driven by the love of the chase, the excitement of the foxhole. It’s his life. He has to choose how to lead it. And bless him, he doesn’t try to tell me how to lead mine—most of the time, anyway. Except today.

  I was thinking of this as I unlocked the door and went in. I always love the first moment of a day in the shop, and a quick glance around the familiar space was especially comforting after that five a.m. phone call. I breathed in the sweetly pungent scent of blended herbs, with a citrusy undertone of dried orange and lemon, and smiled at the fall of golden morning light through the window in the east wall.

  I locked the door behind me and turned. Thyme and Seasons’ hand-cut limestone walls, oak floor, and beamed ceiling are a perfect setting for the antique hutches and wooden shelves that display bottles and jars and packages of herbal vinegars, oils, jellies, and teas. Personal care products—herbal shampoos, soaps, massage oils, fragrances, and bath herbs—fill the shelves of the old pine cupboard in the corner. In the middle of the room, there’s a wooden rack filled with glass jars of dried culinary and medicinal herbs, along with extracts and tinctures and aromatherapy products. A four-tiered shelf displays books, stationery, and cards. Buckets of packaged potpourri fill the other corners, and baskets of artemisia, larkspur, yarrow, and tansy for dried arrangements are clustered under the windows. The stone walls are hung with seasonal wreaths and swags.

  People sometimes ask me, “Why an herb shop, of all things?” I tell them it’s because herbs have been people’s friends since before anybody was taking notes, or because they are delightfully useful plants. But the real reason is that after spending more years than I care to count living a fast-paced city life, this is where I’ve found my peace. I love to work in this shop and in the surrounding gardens, and with the people who come here. I love this life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything under the sun.

  Just past the cash register counter, off to the left, is the door to the Crystal Cave, which stays open most of the time. In the beginning, there was just Ruby’s shop and mine, with an empty cobwebby loft above and an apartment in the back of the building, where I lived until McQuaid and I moved in together. Now, the space behind our shops is occupied by Thyme for Tea, the tearoom that Ruby and I jointly own. Behind that, there is the well-equipped kitchen where Cass Wilde prepares food for the tearoom lunches; for our catering service, Party Thyme; and for the personal chef business, the Thymely Gourmet, which is owned by all three of us. Last spring, Ruby and I finally cleaned out and renovated the loft and rented the space to Lori Lowry, for her spinning and weaving classes—a good idea, for they bring extra traffic into the shops. Also for rent is Thyme Cottage (a remodeled stone stable) at the back of the garden. It’s available as a B&B when Ruby and I aren’t using the space as a classroom.

  We consider ourselves lucky to be able to do what we love, but we also need to make a living from it. For that, it helps to have not just one or two but several different profit centers. When the shops don’t do well, the tearoom picks up the slack. If the tearoom traffic falls off, the catering and personal chef businesses fill the gap. If we’re still short, the rent from the loft and the B&B can help. And then of course there are the classes and the workshops and—more recently—the online retail sales from our websites. Being in business for ourselves is like keeping a dozen balls in the air at once. It’s always a juggling act, always a challenge. But we love it.

  As I went in, I heard strains of music—Ruby’s favorite CD of traditional Celtic harp and flute. I stood in the door between our shops.

  “Hey, Ruby,” I said. “Sorry to be late.” Usually, I’m the early bird, getting to the shop before eight, while Ruby comes in at nine, when we both open our shops. “Something unexpected came up. Caitie is spending the weekend with her grandparents, and I had to get her packed and on her way.”

  I hesitated. There was more, but Ruby wasn’t going to like it and I hadn’t yet figured out the best way to tell her. She was the one who had set up the workshop at the ranch and nagged me until I agreed to spend the whole weekend. I’d resisted, because early June is a busy time in the garden, but she had been unusually urgent about it. Some ulterior motive, I suspected, maybe having to do with her friend Maddie. But she hadn’t told me, and I hadn’t asked.

  Ruby had a feather duster in her hand and was bent over, dusting a shelf of crystals. She was wearing a summer costume so bright it made me blink: leggings splashed with a bold orange-and-green floral print; a floaty, flirty, thigh-length orange tunic and multi-strand orange-and-green necklace; jeweled green sandals; and a green chiffon scarf tied around her wild frizz of carroty-red hair. I tend toward the modestly monochromatic, like the beige Thyme and Seasons T-shirt and khaki pants I was wearing this morning. But Ruby is a colorful soul. She is also six feet tall, and when she unfolds herself and straightens up, she is a jolting bolt of color that will make anybody smile. Even me. Even this morning.

  “Actually, I came in early,” she said cheerily. “I thought I’d better get things ready for Cass, to make it a little easier for her while we’re away for the weekend. She’s already in the kitchen, getting set up for lunch. Hazel is coming in at eleven for a couple of hours, and Lori says she’s available if she’s needed—except for late afternoon. She has a weaving class upstairs from four to five today, so there’ll be some extra traffic in the shops.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.” I gave her a crooked grin. “But something came up this morning. I’m afraid there’s been a change in plans.”

  Ruby went behind the counter and hung
her duster on a hook. Her forehead creased in a frown, and her glance flicked to my face and fastened there. Her eyes widened. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “Something’s going on.” Her voice flattened. “It’s . . . McQuaid, isn’t it? Is he okay?”

  I understand why people often think that Ruby Wilcox is some kind of flake. At the Cave, she teaches classes on channeling spirits and using the Ouija board. She sells books on astrology and she’ll draw your chart for you and explain the theory of the zodiac and help you explore the I Ching. She trades quite comfortably in the kind of thing that rational people laugh at and skeptics scorn, which means that people sometimes see her as . . . well, eccentric.

  Now, I’m a skeptic by nature, and my legal experience has made me even more so. I’m verbal and analytic and I don’t apologize for having done exceptionally well on the bar exam. I’m used to functioning from the left side of my brain, the rational side, and communing with the universe is not exactly my cup of tea. Ruby is very well organized, too, and a first-class businesswoman. But she is also a right-brained person with an intuitive streak that manifests itself every now and then, in a way that does not make a lick of sense to sensible people. She once received a startling message about a murder from a perfectly innocent Honda Civic, whose owner turned up dead in the boarded-up basement of an abandoned school. Another time, a Ouija board under her direction told us where to find Brian, who had been kidnapped by his mother. Laugh if you want to, but when Ruby Wilcox pulls one of those psychic rabbits out of her hat, she will make a believer out of you. Out of me, anyway.

  “You’re right, it’s McQuaid,” I said hesitantly, not sure how much I should tell her. But she was counting on our going out to the ranch together. I had to come up with a good reason to stay in Pecan Springs.