“Does this have something to do with the way you were feeling the other day?” Christine asked. “I thought it was Tate, but—”
“It is Tate! And it’s Aunt Mae! And it’s...oh, I don’t know, everything! Ever since I’ve gotten back it’s been one thing after another.’
The baby made a fretful sound and Jodie guiltily lowered her voice. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Christine patted little Elisabeth’s back and smiled as she resumed her seat. “No harm done.”
“I wish I could say that,” Jodie murmured miserably.
Christine said, “Come on. Sit down. Let’s talk.”
Jodie hesitated. She felt too much on edge to relax. But Christine was the person she most wanted to talk to, besides her father, and this was her opportunity. “Are you sure you’re up to this?” she asked, uneasily taking a seat.
“I’m so happy I’m up to anything,” Christine assured her. “And I’d like to see you happy, too. From the first time we met I knew we had a lot in common. Me not knowing my father, you not knowing your mother. It’s not something other people understand unless they’ve experienced it. How it leaves you feeling somehow...incomplete.”
Jodie was silent a moment, then said, “Do you remember when you first came here? How you had to stand up for what you thought was your and Erin’s rightful share of the ranch, and how, later, it made all the difference in the world to Aunt Mae because you truly were a Parker?”
Christine nodded. “Yes.”
“And how you didn’t want the share then but finally accepted it because of Erin?”
Christine nodded again.
Jodie rubbed her arms. “Well, that’s the way I feel sometimes. I wish I could give my share back. That I wasn’t a Parker.”
“And what would you do then?” Christine asked.
Jodie shrugged. “I have a degree. I could get a job.”
“And be all on your own?”
“Yes.”
Christine watched her levelly. “And what does that have to do with Tate Connelly?”
“He thinks I’m a spoiled brat. At least, he used to think that. Now, I’m not sure. But I do know one thing—like a lot of other people, he thinks we use our name and influence to get what we want around here. That we have too much power.”
“He said that?”
“He as good as.”
Christine murmured, “I used to think that, too. But I’ve learned a few things along the way, Jodie. The Parkers have power and prestige because of who they are, more than how much money and land they have. Think about Rafe for a second. Do you believe he needs the Parker Ranch behind him to have people listen? No. People listen because they sense he knows what he’s talking about and because he’s willing to back it up. So’s Mae. Morgan’s the same, and he’s not a Parker. No one from the ranch throws their weight around.” She paused. “There’s something subtle that happens, though, and I bet that’s what you’re talking about more than anything else. The Parkers may not ask for preferential treatment, but they don’t have to ask. It’s simply given to them. There’s this natural hauteur you all have—yes, you, too! It’s part of your personality, and people respond with deference. I saw it then, I see it now.” She laughed. “I’ve even caught myself acting haughty on occasion before I make myself stop.”
Jodie remembered the incident at Tate’s house—how she realized that she couldn’t let herself cry because she was a Parker and how aghast she’d been at her behavior. She nodded in recognition. “What can we do about it?” she asked.
“Just be aware of it, I guess. Try not to take advantage.”
“But I do that all the time. I do!”
“Jodie—” Christine smiled “—you’re as forceful in your own way as Rafe and Mae are in theirs. You’re a Parker. It comes with the territory. It’s part of who you are.”
“But—”
“Stop fighting it. Stop trying not to be something that oozes out of your every pore. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And if Tate loves you, he’ll love you for who you are. Not for what you’re not. Does that make sense to you?”
Jodie nodded, but still wasn’t convinced.
“Just remember,” Christine continued, “I was on my own for most of my life before I came here. And, Jodie, it’s hard having no one to fall back on. No one to help you when you need it. No one to give you even a simple pat of encouragement. I may still have disagreements with some of what it means to be a Parker, but I wouldn’t trade the support I have here for anything. Morgan, Delores and Dub, Rafe and Shannon. Harriet and LeRoy, your father, Darlene and Thomas, even Mae. We’re a family, warts and all. And most times you ignore the warts.”
While driving Mae back to ranch headquarters, Jodie thought about what Christine had said. She seemed to have adjusted well to what at one time had been anathema to her. Christine had had such a huge chip on her shoulder when she arrived at the ranch, defying Rafe and Mae and rejecting Morgan. Her views certainly had changed.
Now Jodie was going through changes of her own. And it wasn’t easy. Sometimes it hurt. Sometimes it was difficult to tell which way to turn, which way to look, what to say or do.
She glanced at Mae in the rearview mirror, willing her to say something. But not a word had passed her lips since leaving Little Springs.
“Pull off the road up here,” Mae directed a few minutes later, making Jodie jump. The order was so unexpected.
“What for?” Jodie asked.
“Because I said to,” Mae replied coolly. “Right here.”
Jodie braked and cut the engine. Then she watched her great-aunt step outside.
“Come with me,” Mae ordered again, and Jodie scrambled to follow.
Her aunt had some difficulty with the uneven ground and, afraid she was going to fall, Jodie took her arm.
Mae stiffened at first, but didn’t draw away.
“Where are we going?” Jodie asked. “What’s...”
And then she knew. The Parker cemetery. Located on a small rise that gave a nice view of the wide valley, it was only a moderate walk from the compound if you cut across an open field. Jodie hadn’t been up here in years, not since she was a child.
A wrought-iron bench was set among a natural grouping of trees, encouraging a visitor to linger. Across the way, near the edge of the slope, was a fenced off area containing numerous tombstones.
Her great-aunt was puffing by the time they arrived at the bench and she sat down for a moment to rest. Dust covered her black dress shoes and the lower part of the black cane.
“You remember this place now?” Mae asked, throwing her a look.
“Yes.”
“You and I used to come up here and pull weeds every weekend—until you decided you didn’t like it. I always wondered if you thought a ghost was going to come out of the ground to get you. You didn’t need to be afraid of any of the ghosts from here, though. None of ’em would hurt you.”
Jodie did remember feeling spooked by the place, but mostly she hadn’t liked pulling weeds. She’d rather have been riding or searching for the lost gold Parker legend said was buried somewhere on the ranch and generations of Parker children had spent their spare time trying to find. “I remember,” she said quietly.
Mae took a deep breath and said, “Come on.”
They found their way inside the low fence. “Look here and here,” Mae said, pointing. “Look at the names and dates.”
Jodie couldn’t help but see them. Gibson Parker, Virgil Parker—the two brothers who founded the Parker dynasty. Deena, Sue, Watt, Byron—some of the names dating back into the previous century. Theodore, Mae’s brother, the soldier who’d died near the end of the First World War. Jeff and Sara, Jodie’s grandparents, who’d passed on long before she was born. Ward, Rafe’s father. Name after name, all Parkers by birth or marriage. It was like a history book spread open on the ground. As was the custom of the time, some markers explained the cause of death: died of fever, died in childbirth. A number said �
�beloved mother” or “beloved father.” Jodie sighed.
“This is what I’m talkin’ about, Missy,” Mae said fiercely. “This is your connection, and if you can’t see it, if you can’t feel it, then I don’t know how to make you! Parker land, Parker blood! I’m going to be with them soon—I can sense it comin’ on. And I don’t want to go without knowing that you’re set right in the world. Set right in your mind. In here!” She tapped Jodie’s forehead with a gloved finger.
“Are you ill?” Jodie asked, startled.
“I’m eighty-eight! I’m tired. I’m wearin’ out.”
“You didn’t answer me. Are you ill?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“I told you. I can tell.”
Jodie turned away, a hand covering her mouth. Emotion swelled in her breast, threatening to overwhelm her. She’d been right all along! She could see more clearly than those who’d been living with her day by day for the past year that her great-aunt had gone downhill physically. She could see the differences, the changes. And not just Mae’s use of the cane she’d taken to recently.
Mae’s hard stance softened when she saw Jodie’s reaction. She put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “It’s gratifying to know you care. Sometimes I’ve wondered. Now don’t get all blubbery on me. I’m not expectin’ to drop off tomorrow. Anyway, what if I did? I’ve had a long life and it’s mostly been a good one.”
Then she dug at a newly sprouted weed with the tip of her cane. “My only worry is what I’ll say to these people when I meet ’em at the Pearly Gate and they ask me how I did managing the present-day Parkers. I’m afraid they won’t think I did a good enough job. That I made too many mistakes.”
“With me, you mean,” Jodie stated flatly, beginning to see this stop for what it really was. If Mae couldn’t get her to change her ways by fury and couldn’t convince her by persuasion, why not try a little guilt? The terrible thing was, the guilt was working.
“I’ve come up here almost every day for the past nine or ten years, did you know that?” Mae went on. “I talk to them, tell ’em my problems.”
“And what do they say back?”
“Nothing. They’ve earned their rest and won’t say a thing.” She smiled wryly. “So don’t expect any answers from me after I’m gone. I’ll have earned my rest, too!” Mae stopped to dig in her purse. “Here,” she said gruffly, and handed Jodie a green velvet box like those she’d produced earlier.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
Jodie did, and inside she found a locket that perfectly matched the child’s ring and bracelet.
“I’ve been holding on to that for years,” Mae murmured. “It’s yours—part of the set. You can use it now or save it for a future baby. Just don’t throw it away.”
Jodie’s throat closed again. She could barely speak. “I’ll never throw it away, Aunt Mae,” she whispered.
Mae led the way back to the car, spurning any offer of assistance. But instead of installing herself in the rear seat, she slid into the passenger front and nodded her desire to complete the journey, instead of using the more imperious cane tap.
RESTLESSNESS KEPT a firm hold on Jodie as she tried to get through the remainder of the day. She didn’t know what to do with herself. After all the tension surrounding the Rio episode, as Harriet now termed it, an ordinary day, void of worry, seemed somehow unnatural. And every time she let her mind drift, it moved automatically to Tate. Should she call him or wait for him to call her? Had she made too much of a few brief episodes? And how, exactly, did she feel about him?
Her father came to her rescue. “If you’re not doin’ any thin’, why don’t you come help me pick out which paintings to send to the exhibition?”
Jodie jumped at the opportunity. She followed her father to the old storage shed he’d converted into a studio. Canvases were set on edge in jumbled rows, leaning against old ladders and house-paint cans. Several easels held partially finished works. Tubes of paint, from new to tortured, were scattered about on makeshift shelves, and numerous sketches, ideas for new works, were tacked onto the rough wooden walls, while various-size brushes bathed in turpentine.
This was her father’s inner sanctum. His refuge.
He replaced the partially finished paintings with canvases that were complete. Then set up some others about the space. “I’ve narrowed it down to these,” he said. “What do you think? I can only send six.”
Jodie studied the paintings. She liked all eight. Three were of horses and riders at work on a roundup, two were of cowboys doing the ill-favored job of mending fence, one was a scene of cattle gathering at a stock tank in the shadow of an old windmill, one was of a pair of well-worn boots, and another was of a cowboy preparing a young horse to be ridden for the first time.
She shrugged and admitted, “They’re all good.”
“I can’t send more than six,” he repeated.
Jodie pursed her lips and hardened her judgment. Finally she said, “These two of the roundup, this one of the fence, the boots—definitely, the boots—the windmill and the horse. That’s Rafe, isn’t it, with the horse? The last one?”
Her father grinned. “Look on the back,” he said, and showed her the x he’d put on the two paintings she’d left out. “We have similar tastes,” he said. Then he answered her question. “Yeah, that’s Rafe. I usually try to disguise the faces, but I liked the way this one set up. I’ve shown it to him and he doesn’t mind.”
“I’m surprised Shannon doesn’t want it.”
“She does. I’m not to sell it.”
Jodie fingered through some drawings in a folder as her father gathered their choices and put them aside. She was surprised to see an image of herself. “This is me!” she exclaimed. “Dad! It’s me! When did you do it? My hair’s long, so it was before I went to Italy, wasn’t it?” She smiled at him happily, then noticed he wasn’t smiling. She looked at the drawing again and began to notice the subtle differences. A thinner nose, a rounder chin, eyes that tilted just a little more than hers did. The same smile, though in a fuller mouth.
She stared at her father, stunned. “Daddy? Is this...?” She’d never seen a picture of her mother. Mae had burned them all.
Gib snatched the drawing from her hands. He started to tear it up, but she stopped him. “No, Daddy, don’t. Please!”
He stopped.
She pulled it free of his grip and tried to smooth any creases. “It’s her?” she asked softly, looking up.
“Mae’s gonna kill me for holdin’ on to that.”
“This is my mother?” Jodie breathed.
He nodded wordlessly.
Jodie studied the drawing again. “No wonder I don’t look like the Parkers. I was curious, but—She never seemed real enough for me to imagine. She was always this mysterious woman—out there somewhere, trying to get money, not caring that she left you and me.” Jodie shook her head, still stunned.
Her father cleared a collection of newspapers off an old nail keg and sat down. “You want a seat?” He motioned to a second keg.
Jodie shook her head. If she moved, her legs might buckle and she would fall. “What...what was she like?” she asked. Never mind that it was a subject they’d always avoided. Never mind that Mae would be displeased. Jodie had gone through her whole life not knowing. She wasn’t going to waste another second.
Her father swallowed, ill at ease. “She was beautiful. Like you are.”
“And?” she prompted when he dried up. “Did you meet her at a bar like Mae said?”
“Just like Mae said.”
“And you got married right away?”
He nodded.
“Then you brought her back here and she and Mae...”
“Mae had a hissy fit. She didn’t like her the moment she set eyes on her. And the feeling was mutual. I never saw two people take such an instant dislike for each other.”
“Did you love her?”
He was s
ilent for so long Jodie thought she was going to have to prompt him again. “I loved her,” he said at last. And Jodie knew he meant it.
She cleared her throat. “Do you still?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she left you. I was hurt, but I could understand. You couldn’t.”
“Aunt Mae told me she gave her money. How much?”
“Enough so she’d agree to a legal separation. I’m sure she got herself set up pretty good.”
“With her rodeo cowboy.”
Gib nodded.
“So she was a bitch, just like Aunt Mae said.”
“Did she tell you that?” he demanded, his tone suddenly angry.
“All but the word. I got the idea, though.”
“My God.”
“You didn’t know?”
He shook his head.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Dad? Why didn’t you ever talk to me about her? Didn’t you think I’d wonder?”
Gib got up, grabbed a brush, smeared it in some paint and began to work on one of the unfinished paintings. “I never knew what to say. Mae...Mae told me she’d handle it. But I never—”
“Didn’t you realize I might think that if Aunt Mae disapproved of my mother, she’d disapprove of me, too? That no matter what I did, it would never be enough? Ruby was my mother! If she was a terrible person, I was a terrible person!”
Jodie didn’t know where that had come from—it had just burst out. As if it had been waiting for years.
Her father looked at her in anguish. “No!” He went to set the brush down, but he fumbled and it fell. “Jodie, no.” He came to her, but she didn’t want to be cuddled. She avoided his touch.
“Is she alive or dead?” she asked tightly. “Or do you know?”
“She died when you were eight. In a car wreck. Somehow someone connected us and sent word.”
“I should’ve been told,” Jodie said.
“Yes,” her father answered, his chin down.
Jodie was silent, trying to take in all she’d heard, most of which was confirmation. Still...she looked at her father, angry at first, then with growing compassion. The whole affair must have been tremendously hard on him. To love someone, to have it fall apart, to have money mean more than you and your child.
Texas Lawman Page 20
