Sweet Return

by Anna Jeffrey

  Thinking about the Parker ranch took her mind back to Clova’s problems and hearing Bert say that Dalton Parker might be in Iraq. She tried to think of how she could find out whether that was true. She decided to call his California number again.

  This time, a woman who sounded like Betty Boop answered the phone. Joanna knew it was none of her business, but she couldn’t keep from wondering who the woman might be, because Clova had said he was divorced now. The phone answerer reported that he had gone to run errands, so Joanna repeated the same message she had left on his voice mail earlier and added, “I would really, really like to talk to him.”

  When Joanna reached the ranch in the late afternoon, she didn’t see Clova anywhere outdoors in the places where she usually could be found, but both of the ranch’s pickups and the ATV that no one could start were parked in their shed near the barn. Joanna walked over to the house, knocked on the screen door and called out.

  Clova came to the door and invited her in. “I was just makin’ a sandwich for supper. Come on in and eat with me.”

  Joanna followed her into the kitchen and Clova proceeded to build a sandwich, complaining about store-bought produce as she stacked tomato slices, then crispy bacon onto two slabs of homemade bread. Yum.

  Supper over, Joanna helped her hostess straighten the kitchen, then went to her egg-processing room, which had been an unused, tumbledown outbuilding Clova had let her convert. Joanna used the room to wash and store the eggs until they could be delivered to their respective markets.

  She had designed the interior herself. A friend who worked as a mechanic had saved her a few dollars by bringing his steam washer out and steam cleaning the floor and walls. She hired a handyman to insulate the walls and ceiling and hang new wallboard. Then she painted the room herself with a soft blue enamel paint so she could easily wash the surfaces. The room’s finish was one of the many expenses that had been covered by the money she had borrowed against her home.

  For the most part, she was pleased with the project. She felt a surge of pride every time she walked into the clean, brightly lit blue room. Just like her businesses downtown, she had done the best with what she had to make her egg operation look professional.

  She had already put on her work clothes before she left the shop in town, so all she had to do was pull on a pair of canvas gloves. From the utility storage shelves against the back wall, she took wire baskets and a plastic bucket in which to put any broken eggs she might pick up and moseyed out to the nests.

  “Evening, ladies,” she said to a few hens scratching and pecking near the gate. “Let’s go see if you girls have been busy while I’ve been gone.”

  Three of them trailed along with her as she gathered eggs. People had told her that chickens, with little-bitty brains, were stupid. They might be, but her hens had personalities.

  Some of them had become pets. Dulce, an Ameraucauna named by Alicia, was one that had. Alicia had originally named her Pequeño Pollo Dulce, or Sweet Little Chicken, but Joanna talked the teenager into shortening the name to Dulce. The hen would hop up on Joanna’s lap, and if Joanna rubbed her head with her finger, Dulce would cluck and sing. Sometimes the little white hen faithfully followed, pecking and clucking, all through the egg gathering.

  Joanna usually gathered eggs morning and evening. Frequent emptying of the nests prevented breakage and egg eating by the hens as well as too many egg losses to predators she couldn’t keep out—snakes and skunks and bobcats. Because Alicia had collected some of the eggs this morning, the afternoon’s gathering would be it for today.

  From two hundred chickens, she collected an average of fourteen dozen eggs per day. She lost a few in the washing process and rejected some misshapen ones. Sometimes she set a carton aside for Clova or Mom and a few more to sell to locals who came into the beauty shop to buy them. But she had to admit, she hadn’t found many in Hatlow willing to pay five dollars for a dozen eggs.

  Today she would end up with roughly twelve dozen to add to the order she was accumulating for the Better Health stores in Lubbock and Amarillo and a couple of restaurants near the college. That number would net about thirty-six bucks for the day, not much profit for the amount of work she did. If she was going to make it big as an egg farmer, she needed to find some superhens that could lay more often than every three days or she had to have more than two hundred producers.

  Before Dalton was ready to leave his office, Candace came in. Apparently she had recovered from her snit. “She doesn’t sound old,” she said.

  Funny how they both knew what she meant without her actually saying it. Since his return, she had started to show a possessive streak and insert herself into what he claimed as “his space.” He didn’t recall her being that pushy before he left.

  “No, I guess she doesn’t,” he replied warily.

  “Are you going to call her back?”

  He had never discussed his family with Candace. Or with anyone. “I don’t know,” he answered sharply.

  She angled a sultry pout in his direction. “Well, aren’t you the big meanie.” She came to where he stood and edged between him and his desk, rubbing her belly against his genitals. “Dalty, I don’t like women calling you,” she said softly.

  “Candace, for chrissake, my brother’s—”

  Her mouth on his halted what he would have said. He let her tongue play with his until things started to progress. Then, his hands resting on the rise of her hips, he pulled back and looked at her. “Baby, I’m hungrier than hell. Where are we on those steaks and that salad?”

  She frowned and pushed out her lower lip, then moved away from him, rubbing herself against him like a pet cat as she went. “It’s all ready. All you have to do is cook it.”

  “Great,” he said cheerily, hoping to ward off the fight he could see bubbling close to the surface.

  He watched her saunter toward the door, moving just slowly enough to let him take a good long look. She knew he would, too. A mane of whorls and swirls in a dozen shades of gold fell to the middle of her back. He let his eyes feast again on the tanned, perfectly heart-shaped ass that was damn near bare thanks to a tiny white bikini. White high-heeled shoes gave it a sexy swing. A white barely there halter top showed off her perfect tan and her full tits. Candace Carlisle’s very presence in a room made grown men slobber. She was, inarguably, the best-looking woman he had ever slept with. She wasn’t a bad lay, either.

  But in too many ways, she was brain-dead.

  Exactly when his needs in a woman had transformed from the physical, he couldn’t say, but lately a part of him he didn’t understand seemed to require more than a raunchy roll in the hay.

  Feeling like a chickenshit for his surliness—his screwed-up family wasn’t her fault—he dropped the phone message on his desk, making a mental note to decide what to do about it later. He headed for his bedroom but stopped off at the bar in the rec room for a sip of Jack Daniel’s. He stood for a few seconds and savored the burn all the way down. He had missed having good whiskey on his trip.

  He traded his jeans for a swimsuit and followed Candace out to the sunny backyard. He found her setting the table under the fiberglass patio cover. Two thick steaks waited for him on one end of the barbecue grill. He walked over beside Candace, cupped a handful of firm ass cheek and squeezed. She leaned into him, and the scent of coconut sunscreen and hot woman surrounded him.

  “How well did she know you in school?” she asked.

  He arched his brow rather than voice his irritation. Trying to explain to Candace was too much trouble. He knew from experience that explanation would turn to argument. He replied by covering her mouth with his for another kiss and felt himself getting hard.

  When the kiss ended, she looked up at him with hooded eyes, her lips wet and vivid. Her hand came between them and she rubbed him through his swimsuit. “We don’t have to eat right now,” she said softly.

  “Baby, you’re something else,” he murmured.

  A knowing smile tipped the
corners of her mouth. She knew she didn’t have to do much to give him a hard-on. “So?”

  “So. We screwed half the morning.”

  “But this is afternoon.”

  “And I need my strength. Let me do some laps, then I’ll cook the steaks.” He slapped her bottom and said against her ear, “Don’t let it get cold. I’m working on a comeback.”

  He left her and dove into the lap pool that spanned the width of his backyard. God, he had missed this swimming pool those months in the desert.

  He swam in a smooth, steady crawl, pacing himself and thinking about Candace and his own restiveness. He had met her last year at a publicity photo gig. Not an assignment he normally hired out for, but the money had been too good to turn down. The shoot ran late and Candace had offered herself as a dinner companion. Then one thing led to another.

  When it came to women, a man could do worse than Candace, he reasoned. She wanted to fuck night and day and was game for damn near anything in bed. The fact that most of her beauty was man-made didn’t bother him. He had no problem with a woman assisting Mother Nature a little. If a man were particular about that in LA, he could pass up a lot of entertaining stuff.

  What did bother him was that in the year he had known her, they had rarely had a conversation about anything other than the movie business. Except for the energy she exerted in the sack, the only other effort he had seen her put forth was to get a part in a movie.

  He had recognized early that she was no housekeeper. Though she had only a part-time job and spent a good part of her days off watching TV or doing something to enhance her appearance, he continued to pay someone to clean the house. He had tried to teach her to cook, had tried to teach her to help him with his photographs. Hell, he had even tried—and failed—to teach her to play poker. Damn near everything she knew outside the movie and glamour business was something he had succeeded only with great effort in teaching her.

  She was driving him fuckin’ crazy.

  And he had been back only a month.

  After cleaning up the supper dishes, he and Candace smooched on the sofa in the rec room and half-heartedly watched a movie. It was a sexy movie, the love scenes were hot, so before it ended, they were naked on the sofa. They moved into the bedroom and finished there.

  Afterward, he switched off the light and lay there, staring into the darkness. He felt empty and dissatisfied and didn’t know why. He couldn’t put his mother’s problems and the Texas ranch where he had grown up out of his mind.

  “Are you asleep?” Candace asked him softly.

  “Hm.”

  “Whatcha thinking about?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Texas?”

  “A little.”

  “We could go see your mom. I’ve never been to Texas.”

  He looked at her profile silhouetted against the bedroom’s moonlit drapes. He hadn’t thought once about taking Candace, or any woman, to meet his mother. Christ, he had taken his former wife to Hatlow only a couple of times.

  He didn’t reply.

  After an extended silence, she said, “Where are we going, Dalton?”

  “What do you mean?”

  But he knew what she meant. What he didn’t know was the answer to her question. Hell, he didn’t know where he was going, much less “we.” But wherever it might be, he was sure he would go alone.

  “We’ve been together almost a year. I haven’t, you know, been with anyone else. Even when you were gone.”

  If that were true, it could be some kind of miracle. Since Candace had moved in, Dalton had been gone almost as much as he had been present. She liked men and sex, and she just wasn’t a woman who would go without. Nor would she have to. While overseas, he had sometimes wondered who she might be banging in his bed, but it had been a curiosity rather than a worry. He supposed he would have to care for it to worry him.

  He chuckled. “You sure about that?”

  “Yes, I am,” she said indignantly. A few seconds later, she added, “Well, maybe once or twice. But I didn’t bring anyone here.”

  Thank God for that, he thought.

  “I nearly went crazy while you were gone,” she said. “You know how horny I get.”

  He chuckled again. “Baby, you’re the horniest woman I’ve ever known.”

  He turned on his side, braced his elbow on the mattress and leaned his head on his hand. The profile of her breasts and nipples in silhouette in the moonlight was almost as interesting as seeing her nakedness in the light. He still didn’t understand what a woman who looked like her saw in him. Hell, he was getting old. He couldn’t fuck all night like he used to. His black hair was peppered with gray. His body bore scars. He now wore glasses for close work, and he was crankier than a sleep-deprived bear.

  He trailed a finger from her throat down the middle of her silky body. She arched her back, covered his hand with hers and placed it between her opened thighs. “I know you thought about this while you were gone,” she said huskily.

  “Hmm,” he said, slipping two fingers into her. Jesus, she was wet and ready again. He took her nipple into his mouth. Then he remembered that she didn’t respond well to breast stimulation. She’d had so much plastic surgery, some of the feeling was missing. For some reason, on this particular night, that annoyed him. He let go and flopped over to his back.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he answered.

  She turned to him and pressed her breasts against him. “You could have me for good, you know.”

  Her hand slid down his belly and her nimble fingers began to stroke his soft dick. At the same time she dragged her tongue over his nipples.

  Now it was he who wasn’t responding, which was both puzzling and a little frightening because he’d had no plastic surgery. “Don’t, baby.” He moved her hand, cupped the back of her head and brought it to his shoulder. “I think I’m out of juice. Let’s just go to sleep.”

  Seconds later, he heard her sniffle. He suppressed a sigh, fearing that if he released it and she heard, she would interpret it as a desire to “talk about it.” He stroked her hair. “C’mon baby. There’s no need to cry now. Let’s just go to sleep.”

  He probably should feel a pang of conscience, he told himself, but he couldn’t help it because the emotion she wanted from him wasn’t there. He hadn’t been able to muster an enduring emotional attachment to any female in a long time.

  Another part of him, the part that felt used by Candace, stepped up and asked why he should feel guilty. Hell, she had made out okay. When he met her, she was on the verge of being evicted from a thirties-vintage dump in Venice Beach, working part-time in a Starbucks and surviving on tuna fish and crackers. Now she enjoyed rent-free living in a pretty damn nice place, free food and use of his truck and was required to do zip in return for any of it. He even gave her spending money. She earned a little working at the coffee shop near his house, but he never questioned her about the money she earned. He assumed she spent it on herself.

  “I thought you’d, you know, miss me…while you were gone,” she said, her nose stuffy from crying. “I thought…when you got back…we’d, you know, ma-make things…per-permanent.”

  Another mental sigh. He had never promised her anything, nor asked her to make promises to him. He had learned his lesson about making pledges to women. He had done it once, before God and state. When it ended a few years later, all he had left was less than half of some expensive photography equipment, a mortgaged house badly in need of remodeling and the shirt on his back. Later, after he learned his ex had put his photo equipment up for sale on eBay, he had bid on and rebought what he couldn’t afford to replace new. “I’ve never said that, Candy.”

  “But you di-didn’t say you—you wouldn’t. I wa-want to be your wife, Dalton.”

  “Candy, please. I’ve already said I’m not interested in getting—”

  “You know what you are, Dalton? I’ll tell you what you are. You’re a self-centered son of a bitch.” She fl
ounced out of bed and left the room.

  And at that moment, he knew his next destination. He had to go to Texas.

  Chapter 4

  Sunday. A day to work with the hens and do maintenance in the chicken yard. As always, when this was Joanna’s purpose, she rose early, donned ragged jeans and old boots and a T-shirt and covered her hair with a ball cap. Through her morning ablution, she drank three cups of coffee heavily laced with cream and Sweet’N Low. She followed up with a breakfast consisting of a high-protein energy bar and a Diet Pepsi, which she consumed as she walked to her pickup.

  Most of Hatlow’s citizens dressed in their better clothes and went to Sunday school and church. They sang and rejoiced over their blessings, prayed for their families, friends and neighbors, and prayed for the country, and, no matter what else might be happening, they never failed to pray for rain. They followed church with a delicious Sunday dinner.

  But not Joanna. True, she had gone to Sunday school and church as a child, and still did on occasion. But when her grandparents passed on, Sunday dinner went with them. Delicious home-cooked meals had never existed in Alvadean Walsh’s household. Joanna’s mother could barely boil water and, as far as anyone knew, had never been interested in learning to do more.

  Sunday was also a day of rest for many in Hatlow. That luxury didn’t exist for Joanna, either. She had made the ten-mile trip to the Parker ranch almost every morning just after sunrise, including Sundays, for two and a half years now. Sometimes she could count on Alicia for some relief in the evenings, but at the crack of dawn, not even the loyal Alicia volunteered to drive out to the Parker ranch, tend the hens and gather the eggs. She did it if Joanna asked, but reluctantly.

  Joanna had heard the old adage all of her life about the owner of a dairy herd being tied down. Well, she could give testimony from experience that a dairy herd couldn’t possibly be any more confining than a flock of egg-laying hens. Nor could a dairy herd be as sensitive. If something upset the hens—and it could be something as simple as a little noise out of the ordinary—they molted. If they got mad at one of their own for some chicken reason, they might peck her to death. If their food and water didn’t suit them or if they became traumatized by something, they refused to lay eggs.