by Jackie Anton
She gave him a friendly peck on the cheek. “It’s good to see you too, Booker.”
She couldn’t escape the introductions. Cutter didn’t ask, and she didn’t explain where she was going.
Cutter didn’t like it one bit that Lexie was out with Booker, or anyone for that matter. Booker looked lethal to him, but Lexie acted like he was an old friend. He’d intended to smooth over some of his knee-jerk response to her question about his wealth the prior evening after dinner. What wore on him was the way she had just introduced him to the other man as her employer using his surname. Technically, that was exactly what he was, so he wondered why it bothered him.
He heard her arrive a little after two in the morning. It wasn’t until she was back in her room that he was able to relax enough to find sleep.
Lexie was too wired to sleep, so she got up and made a fresh container of iced tea for tomorrow. Sitting at the kitchen table in the dark waiting for the tea to steep, and cool enough to put in the fridge, she replayed her evening. Booker drove her to a private rehab hospital to pick up Mr. Potter who was at his daughter’s bedside. According to her father, Mel was much better. She looked like the zombies in those awful sci-fi movies on late night TV, but Lexie kept that information behind closed lips.
“Lexie, is that you?”
Her voice was raspy, and just above a whisper. “Yes, Mel, it’s me.”
“Where have you been?”
Obviously, Mel didn’t remember throwing her out in favor of David Decker. “I’ve been ill too, but I was confined to a hospital in Amarillo. I just got out a short time ago, and came by to see you as soon as I was able.”
Then, like switching off a light, Melinda closed her eyes, dismissing everyone. Dinner was a somber affair as her father brought Lexie up to date on the investigation and Mel’s condition. Back in the dark kitchen, Lexie moved from the table, poured the tea into a clean pitcher, dumped the tea bags in the trash, cleaned the pan, and put it away. She padded down the hall, her bare feet silently soaking in the cool floor, and collapsed across the bed, not waking until almost ten.
Showered and dressed in a pair of cut-offs and her blue hospital gift shop tee, she made her way to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. Luck was with her and Maria was not in the kitchen to throw more visual daggers at her.
Juice in one hand, and two slices of heaven still in the bag from the restaurant the night before, she went to work. The cheese strudel and orange juice hit the spot. The day’s work went surprisingly smoothly, and she got a lot accomplished. Lexie worked through lunch, but called it a day a few hours before dinner.
Once back in her room, she intended to hand wash the only remaining dress slacks and blazer she had with her. She swore that she’d left them and the white tank top along with her good lingerie on the chair next to the bed. Not able to find them, she reluctantly went to check with Maria. Oh, sure! Maria was just being helpful. Lexie knew that the housekeeper had deliberately washed the cottons on hot, and dried them on high for good measure—three hundred dollars’ worth of her best clothes had shrunk to toddler size. The hunter slacks had run all over the white tank, as well as her bra and panties. The beautifully fitting checked blazer had shrunk around its lining, and now looked like a tie dye of various shades of green. Lexie restrained her temper as she carried her trashed garments back to her room. “Only five more days,” she told herself.
Cutter made a point of escorting her to the dining room that evening. He requested a brief meeting following dinner. Lexie agreed, thinking she needed to show him how the new bookkeeping system worked. Maria brought in the food—she was all sweetness and innocence—and Lexie wanted to smack the smile off her face. Only Maria’s husband Jim noticed the tension between the two. He also knew that his wife was up to no good.
Sam and Cutter were busy discussing horses, and were oblivious to the emotional strain of the two adversaries. Lexie started mentally counting the remaining days; if she made it through today, there were only four more. She picked up her tea, taking a big gulp, and gagged on it. She got up so fast that she knocked her chair over. Storming into the kitchen, she confronted the cook. “Maria, you gave me the wrong tea.”
“I’m sorry Señorita, but we only have one kind of tea here.”
Lexie went to the fridge to locate the unsweetened tea. “Where is it? I made a fresh pot early this morning.”
Maria smirked, like someone who knew they had seniority and the upper hand. “Oh, you mean the drain cleaner?”
Lexie quietly returned to the dining room. Maria was feeling triumphant.
At the dining table, Lexie picked up the offending glass of liquid and returned to the kitchen, throwing the contents in the other woman’s face before flinging the glass into the sink. The three men heard Maria scream, followed by a loud shattering sound.
“What’s going on in here?”
Cutter was upset. Too bad; so was she. Maria claimed that Lexie attacked her, which was technically true.
“What about it, Lex?”
“She is lucky I just gave her a bath in her diabetic brew. Oh, by the way, I quit.”
“You can’t quit. We have a deal.”
“Well, she broke the deal, and then some. I stayed up until three thirty this morning so I could brew tea for today, put the container in the fridge, and cleaned up. Your sweet precious Maria threw it down the drain.” Turning to confront the cook, she said, “You win. I’m out of here. Just one thing, Maria, I was never any threat to you. If I’d wanted to cook, clean house, and cater to some man’s whims I wouldn’t have spent all those years getting a college degree.”
Lexie turned her back on the occupants in the kitchen, and headed to the back of the house to pack her few remaining personal items.
Cutter made the trip down the hall with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man walking his last mile. What could he say to her? She was packing her luggage. The tears running freely down her face undid him. Since he first found her cussing out mamma cow, he’d never seen her shed a tear. Now, the dam had burst. He wrapped her in his arms while she soaked the front of his chambray shirt.
“Come on, Lex. Isn’t this a lot of fuss over a pot of tea? Maria is making a fresh batch for you.”
She shoved him away, picked up the damaged clothes throwing them at his feet. “I only had two good set of clothes with me. My navy suit was trashed rolling in the mud when I had the misfortune to happen onto the Rocking R. Today, Maria deliberately ruined this outfit. It might not mean anything to you, but I paid over three hundred for this pile of rags that I only wore a few times.”
“May I come in?”
Doctor Callahan was standing in the doorway.
“Sure, Doc, come in. I have a couple of things to take care of, so I’ll leave you two alone. Lex, may I have these?”
She gazed down at the shrunken mess still at his feet. “Throw them in the trash, or burn them. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Once the doctor was done examining the girl, he went down to the kitchen to locate Cutter. From his patient’s accounting of the shenanigans taking place around here, he was pretty confident that he would find the boss there. He overheard Cutter telling Maria that she would have the cost of the ruined clothing deducted from her pay. Maria was warned that should anything like this happen again, she would be fired.
“Cutter, she attacked me!”
It was obvious that Cutter was losing patience with her, so Joe interceded. “I don’t think Lexie attacked you, Maria. If she had, you wouldn’t be standing, and you would probably need my services more than she does. Could I bum a cup of coffee?” Over coffee and a slice of strawberry pie, Doc Callahan discussed Lexie with Cutter.
“Physically she is doing better than I would have thought. It is her emotional state that concerns me. You are as much to blame as Maria for her agitated state.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Didn’t you accuse her of being a gold digger?”
He didn’t say a word, but just
stared at the older man.
“You know, Cutter, she could have really hurt Maria if she’d lost her self-control.”
“Doc, do you call drenching a person in tea and throwing the empty glass across the kitchen self-control?”
“Since she is a first level black belt, I would say she had a lot of control given the situation. I left her a couple of sedatives for tonight. She needs a good night of sleep, and I want to see her tomorrow afternoon.”
While she was the topic of conversation at the other end of the house, Lexie finished her packing. As soon as the doctor vacated her room, she called Mel’s dad to ask for a ride to the rental car dealer. After explaining the situation to him, he agreed to send Booker to pick her up in the morning. She made her way to the kitchen for a tall glass of water to wash down the pills that Dr. Callahan had given her. She’d not expected him to still be here. He and Cutter were seated at the kitchen table working on pie. She decided to ignore them and fill the glass.
Maria knew she had overstepped, and tried to make amends. “I have made you a pot of plain tea, Señorita.”
Lexie went over to peer into the warm pot still on the back burner of the stove; she took a one-pound box of sugar and dumped the entire contents into the pot. Then she picked up the glass of water exiting the room without a word to anyone.
Callahan broke out in a ruckus belly laugh. Maria scowled at him, and Cutter was clearly aggravated.
“You think that was funny, Joe?”
“I think it was great! The fact that she struck back should go a long way to reducing her stress.”
The pills Doc had left for her must have been potent. Cutter checked on her not thirty minutes after her last appearance on the kitchen battlefield, and she was out like the proverbial light. He checked on her again before he left pre-dawn to fill hay feeders and monitor the water level of the rain barrels that were set up to pump water into water troughs near the hay stations. The rain catchers positioned around the horse barn, the bunkhouse, and near the house were less than half full. Even the cisterns were straining to produce adequate pressure. Shipping water in wasn’t an easy task, and cost an arm and a leg. That was part of his harsh reaction to Maria’s vindictiveness; wasting water to purposely ruin Lexie’s clothing, and dumping her tea down the drain affected all of them.
Jim brought up the subject of his wife’s uncharacteristic behavior. “Maria is used to being the queen bee. Another woman invading her territory was bound to have repercussions.”
“When I brought Lexie home she pitched right in and took care of her, even calling Doc. Why the about-face?”
“She wasn’t happy about the Mrs. Ross deal. Then, when you showed up with Lexie in tow again, and installed her as the new bookkeeper, Maria began to reassess the situation. Having two women in the same house, well, what more can I say?”
“I’ll try to smooth things over with Lexie. We can have lunch out before making the trip over to see the doctor. You need to have a serious discussion with Maria. Her recent behavior will not be tolerated if I ever decide to marry.”
“Are you thinking along those lines, Cutter?”
“Could be.”
Lexie carted her luggage out to the porch, then returned to her room to make one last sweep. She picked up her handbag and her laptop, before closing the door behind her. She made the long walk down the hall and closed the door on this chapter of her life. She breathed a huge sigh of relief when Booker arrived in the same long sleek black car. Her belongings loaded in the trunk, and securely belted in the passenger seat she said goodbye to the Rocking R. As she stared blankly at the parched landscape she began to envision green rolling hills, sparkling rivers, and the vast waters of Lake Erie. Ohio beckoned to her wounded soul.
Booker didn’t chauffeur her to the rental car dealer, but to Lubbock’s rendition of an International airport. Mel’s dad refused to let her make the long drive back home alone. Instead, he booked a first class ticket for her to Hopkins airport. She would have a short layover to catch a connecting flight home, but she didn’t mind a delay once she was well out of Texas. Mrs. Potter was to meet her in Cleveland.
Once she was safely in the air, tears flowed like the much prayed-for rain in this part of the country. Waves of heat rose from the tarmac as the small commuter plane took to the sky and circled the airport to head east. Lexie gazed through her veil of tears at the scarred and desolate view beneath her. The largest scars on the land below looked to be natural riverbeds, now bone dry, and the larger indents could have been man made quarries, but they were now barely discernible mud puddles.
Cutter returned earlier than usual to clean up and escort Lexie to lunch. He stopped by the office, but the room was empty. Concerned that she was not feeling well, he checked her room. The door was closed, so he knocked. The door handle dared him to touch it with all the threat of a hot branding iron. He already knew she was gone before he worked up the nerve to enter the room. All that remained was the scent of her. She’d exited his life as quickly as she had unexpectedly entered it.
He once again experienced the loss of someone significant in his life, but unlike the others she had just walked away. Cutter weighed his options: First, he had to track her down. That was going to be the easier task, but convincing her to return was going to be a lot more of a challenge.
11
Lexie was the furthest thing from a frequent flyer. She made a concerted effort to avoid the hassle of baggage security scans, long lines, personal groping, and invasion of individual privacy that were part of airline travel since 9/11/01. She managed to shake off the sadness and bizarre feeling of loss that had assailed her upon her departure from Lubbock International. The four-hour layover to catch a connecting flight to Cleveland helped to push the Panhandle and a certain tall Texan to the back of her mind.
She began to relax and breathe normally as the jet’s circling pattern took her out over the waters of the lake. Tension flowed from her like a heavy oppressive weight was slowly being lifted from her shoulders. The Cleveland skyline appeared pristine from the altitude the plane provided. She knew that it was just an illusion, or maybe the city was wearing its best face to welcome her home. Finally, the giant metal bird touched down and taxied to the gate. Once on the ground, she retrieved her phone to alert Mrs. Potter. Mel’s mom was already at a waiting area near gate six baggage claim. Mel’s mother greeted Lexie with warmth and a fierce hug.
“Thank you so much for alerting us to Melinda’s condition. Her doctors have told us that she would not likely have survived another week.”
On the ride to North Olmsted, Lexie found out more about the dire physical condition of her friend. Mel had miscarried a child! However, Mrs. Potter was more concerned with Mel’s mounting depression that seemed to be delaying her return home. Mel’s miscarriage must have happened after Lexie left Texas, or maybe just before. Booker and Mr. Potter may have withheld the information thinking that she would have refused to leave Mel at such a critical time. Lexie had thought her friend was improving. Mel had actually recognized her immediately, and carried on a short, coherent conversation before withdrawing again.
Neither Lexie’s mother nor her grandmother was home when she arrived that evening. Skip was the only one to greet her when she stepped through the front door of the little Cape Cod that was home. After a lot of tail wagging and rolling on the floor, Skip made a beeline for the back door. Lexie let him out to take care of an obviously full bladder. While her dog was out in the backyard, she carried her single piece of luggage and the carryon up to her room. She had called and left a message on her mom’s cell when Booker deposited her at the airport instead of a rental car agency. Everything had happened so fast that she hadn’t been able to give them much warning that she was on her way home.
A week later, she had a temporary bookkeeping job filling in for an employee out on maternity leave. Lexie’s strength was returning, aided by long walks with her German Shepherd companion. She even managed a ride on her dist
ant cousin’s horse on a recent weekend trip to the Lake County home of Grandma’s childhood. Gram’s father was still active in the daily operations of the lakefront home and dog breeding operation. Great Grandpa Huffman had given Skip to her almost six years ago. Skip was only five months old at the time, and it was unusual for Grandpa Huffman to have a puppy much past weaning unless it was destined for the show ring.
“This pup is will be too large for the breed standards. He has all his puppy shots and has already been neutered. I will not sell him with papers, so he has been passed over many times. He is yours, Alexandra, if you want him.”
Lexie watched Skip romp on the beach, playing tag with the incoming waves, and remembered the hours they had spent here when he was a pup and she was still in high school. His training had been a little tougher than she’d anticipated. He only understood German, so Grandma had pitched in. She was raised with the dogs that Grandpa Huffman had brought back with him from his stint with the occupying forces in Germany, following World War II. Thankfully, Skip learned her English commands also. Lexie was not fluent at that time, but she understood her grandmother’s language fairly well. She learned to give the basic commands. She took him to the puppy obedience classes at the nearest dog trainer. The summer he was two, she added guard dog training to his education.
Lexie picked up German as her language class in college, and joined a German club that really helped her with speaking the language.
Things were looking up, and she was getting stronger. Mel, her father, and Booker returned nearly two weeks after she had arrived home. Mel’s return home brought threatening e-mails to Lexie’s in box. She had lunch a few days later with Booker.
“Do you have any idea why Mel would be sending me threatening e-mails?”
“What makes you think Melinda is sending them, Lexie?’
“It was sent from her laptop. Who else could it be?”
“Her laptop as well as her blackberry was missing from what we were able to find of her belongings. Most likely Decker had them stashed somewhere to isolate Melinda.”
