by Anna Jeffrey
Dad pointed his finger at Mom’s face. “Betty, shut up. And when Drake gets here, I don’t want to hear one damn word about a prenuptial agreement.”
Prenuptial agreement. In Pic’s mind, the two words lit up like a sign on a cheap motel, which was exactly where he had found his ex-wife in bed with a horse groomer. After being so rudely reminded, how could he not think about his own elopement without the benefit of such a document?
For sure, most of the family recalled what had happened when he had gotten divorced. The hefty diamond ring he had bought his bride, which had gone with her when she left him, and the divorce settlement less than two years later had taken a sizeable chunk of his trust fund, plus a bite out of the family coffers. To this day, an anvil of guilt weighted his shoulders about that.
Toying with his silverware, Pic glanced at his watch again.
Grandma spoke up. “I don’t know why everybody’s so unhappy. We ought to be glad Drake found somebody to marry. He’s thirty-five years old. I was starting to wonder if something was wrong with him.”
“Leave it to Grandma to drill straight to the heart of a matter,” Troy mumbled.
“Yep,” Pic agreed. “The queen of saying something nobody wants to hear, especially if you give her some liquor. Kate must’ve inherited that trait from her.”
“We’re all happy, Mother,” Dad assured her.
“Well I’m not happy,” Mom said to Grandma. “I promise you, Sarah, I am not happy.”
“We get that, Mama,” Kate snapped. “I don’t know why we don’t just leave Drake alone. Coming here for a big dinner he doesn’t even want to be at is such a bunch of BS. And it kept me from being at the futurity finals in Houston.”
Kate bred, raised and trained cutting horses. She spent half their time hauling them to cutting competitions somewhere. Sometimes one of them won a few bucks, though not as much as they cost. Breeding fees were what kept her small ranch going. The blood of champions coursed through the veins of her horses. Horse owners from everywhere brought their mares to breed with Kate’s studs. She personally collected and sent frozen semen all over the country, in spite of Mom’s constant rebuke about the “unladylike” practice of playing with horse’s privates.
Their mother placed a hand on Kate’s forearm and gave her a pleading look. “Kathryn, darling, please don’t—”
Kate stopped her by pulling her arm away. Little Sister and Mom had never been pals. Kate blamed Mom for their parents’ marital problems. But then, they all blamed Mom. And her latest stunt was a good example why. Pic couldn’t imagine how he would feel if their mother did something to him like she had done to Drake. Mom believed he should be seeking a mate with more social status than Mandy and she mentioned it often, but Pic ignored her. A wedding wasn’t in his plans for his future. He might never get married again.
Their father’s laser blue gaze pierced Kate. “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk at this table, young lady. This is your brother’s wedding day. Show some respect. He’s done a lot for you. Even now, he’s trying to pry the money for your barn out of that second-rate insurance company that damned lowlife Palmer hooked you up with. God knows if he’ll have any luck.”
Jordan Palmer was Kate’s former fiancé who the whole family thought to be nothing but a gigolo.
On a huff, Kate got to her feet and marched away. To the ladies’ room, Pic hoped, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she left the party. Little Sister was a blond beauty who had never met a convention she didn’t hate or a horse she didn’t love and she felt the same way about quite a few cowboys. Spoiled, for sure. Mom was the only person in the family who had ever tried to hobble her. Dad doted on his only daughter, thus she did what she damn well pleased most of the time.
“What the hell’s wrong with her?” Troy asked. “She thinks Drake hung the moon. Why would she bitch about showing up at his wedding dinner?”
“Beats me,” Pic said. “You’re the one who hangs out with her.”
So much for a joyous occasion with the brawling Lockharts. But then, that was the way the Lockharts were. And always had been. They loved one another fiercely, stood shoulder–to-shoulder in a crisis, but they fought each other fiercely, too.
Chapter 2
Drake finally appeared in the dining room’s wide doorway, holding his hat. Having spotted them first, Pic left his chair and strode toward them. On his arm was a gorgeous redhead. No surprise there. Drake had never taken up with ugly women.
Pic grinned until his face hurt. “Hey, Bro.” He stepped back, still grinning, and shook Drake’s hand. “Big day. Congratulations.”
Drake picked up the hand of the woman beside him and Pic saw the plain gold band on his left ring finger. A spike of adrenaline shot through his mid-section. Jesus! His heart swelled with an emotion he couldn’t name.
“Pic, this is my wife, Shannon.” Drake spoke softly, still looking at his bride with an expression Pic could only describe as cow-eyed.
She looked back at him for a few seconds. The sentiment that passed between them was palpable, almost like a living thing. Pic was astonished. Troy’s words rushed in.…he oughtta be able to keep from getting trapped….
Drake didn’t look as if he had been trapped. In fact, he looked like he was in another fuckin’ world. He looked like a man ass-over-teakettle in love, which in a weird way, made him seem like a stranger.
Pic bent his head awkwardly—his new sister-in-law was more than a foot shorter than he—and brushed cheeks with her. Her scent came to him, sexy and feminine. “Glad to meet you, ma’am. I’m looking forward to us getting acquainted.”
She responded with a dazzling smile. “Thank you. I’m looking forward to it, too. Please call me Shannon.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Pic said, captivated by the clarity of her green eyes and the way she made him feel as if all of her attention were focused on him.
A small elderly woman stood to her side and she turned to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Grammy, this is Drake’s younger brother, Pic.” To Pic, she said, “This is my grandmother, Evelyn Piper. She lives in Camden.”
The tiny woman was dressed up. Had she been present at the wedding ceremony? The woman put out a tiny hand. “How do you do? I remember your grandfather. I swear, you do look like him.”
Whoa! A member of Drake’s wife’s family had known their grandfather? Pic barely remembered the man himself. He carefully shook her fragile hand. “Uh, thank you, ma’am. I’ve heard people say that before. You knew him?”
“My late husband and he were acquainted.”
By now, the rest of the family had surrounded them and air kissing and hugging and introductions were going on. A few minutes later, Dad started to steer all of them to the table and that was when Pic noticed that Mom had remained in her seat while the rest of the family had greeted the new Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart in the doorway.
Pic lagged behind, leaned in and whispered in Drake’s ear. “Mom’s here. Dad insisted.”
“No worries,” Drake said. “As long as she keeps her mouth shut.”
A crease formed on Drake’s new wife’s smooth brow. “Drake, please don’t quarrel with—”
“It’s all good, darlin’,” he told her. “Let’s just go eat.”
Pic guided Drake to the chair to his right. While Drake seated his wife beside himself, Pic seated the elderly Mrs. Piper. Grandma immediately started up a conversation with her, but Mom sat silent as a statue.
Dad had arranged for champagne to be served as soon as the bride and groom arrived, so he picked up his glass and did himself proud in an emotional toast to Drake, then to the couple and their coming child. He yanked his handkerchief from his back pocket and patted his eye, then enthusiastically welcomed Shannon into the family.
Mom stared at her plate and toyed with her glass stem.
A prime rib dinner and empty chatter followed.
“Y’all planning on living in Fort Worth?” Pic asked Drake, who, the last he had heard, lived in a
condo on the twenty-eighth floor of his own exclusive development in the middle of downtown Fort Worth.
“Camden. Shannon’s going to continue her business.”
“Hey, cool,” Troy said. “You’ll be closer to the ranch. Maybe we’ll see more of you.”
Kate leaned across her plate in Drake’s direction. “You’re giving up that fantastic condo? How can you do that?”
“It’s already on the market,” Drake answered.
“Oh, my God, Drake. I can’t believe you’d do that. That condo is irreplaceable.”
“It’s just an address, Kate. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Never one to give up, Kate turned her attention to Shannon. “I don’t understand. You don’t like his condo? Is he going to sell it because your business is in Camden?”
“I love the condo,” Shannon answered. “It’s beautiful, but Drake’s right. It’s just a place to live.” She paused a few beats, then said “My business has nothing to do with it.”
Ouch! So the new Mrs. Lockhart was no milquetoast. And would a forceful guy like Drake have chosen her if she were? And had he chosen her? Or had circumstances careened out of his control?
“It’s no place for kids,” Drake told Kate and turned to Shannon. “Is it, sweetheart?”
That arcane look passed between them again, then Shannon turned her attention back to Kate. “It was Drake’s decision. I don’t disagree. I don’t disagree with most of his decisions.”
Put in her place, Kate made a little grunt of impatience.
Troy jumped into the uncomfortable moment. “You gonna live on the lake?”
“Don’t know. For now, we’re at Shannon’s grandmother’s in Camden. We’ll figure it out after we get back from the coast.”
“You gonna commute to your office?” Pic asked. Drake’s company, Lockhart Concepts, operated from a vintage building he owned in downtown Fort Worth.
“I’ll be working from home quite a bit. Maybe going up a couple of days a week.”
“Where y’all going down at the coast?” Troy asked.
“Galveston. Only for a few days. Shannon and I both have obligations.” Drake looked over at Shannon. “We’ll take a real honeymoon later.”
She smiled. A smile of…what? Happiness? Contentment? Satisfaction that she had landed one of the most eligible bachelors in the great state of Texas? Being the mother of his kid, no doubt her future was secure for the rest of her life.
****
Soon after noon, Amanda Breckenridge, girls’ swim coach at Drinkwell High School, drove to the school’s pool to swim. Sunday was the only day she had the pool to herself. And with school going on, it was the only day she had the time to work out privately.
Using the pool whenever she chose was a perk for being the winning team’s coach. She had taken her team to state championships the last two years and to near championships the two years prior to that. If she wanted to cover the white and pastel turquoise tile walls with fire engine red paint, they would let her.
She unlocked the front door and entered the dimly-lit building. Familiar chemical smells met her nostrils. She loved it. She was as much at home in a swimming pool as she was anywhere.
She locked the front door behind herself and walked the length of the deck beside the pool to a utility closet where the switches that turned on the lights were located. Along with the bright overhead lights, the heat came on with a rustle. April was still a chilly month, even in North Texas, but unless the temperature was freezing, the money-strapped school didn’t want to pay for the pool house to be heated if no one was using it.
The lights brought the gym-like room to life. With the walls kept sparkling clean by the maintenance department and the well-lit aqua rectangle of water with its delineated lanes, the 50-meter pool looked like a competition pool. Sort of. There were even bleachers attached to one wall that spectators filled when tournaments were going on. Amanda could think of no better place to work out.
At the far end of the pool house, a giant mosaic tile picture of a blue, gray and white dolphin leaping from blue and white waves decorated the otherwise unmarred wall. A huge banner hung from the high ceiling: DRINKWELL DOLPHINS, STATE 1-A CHAMPIONS.
Humility be damned, Amanda couldn’t look at that banner or this pool house without pride filling her chest and a few tears misting her eyes. Her leadership was responsible for both the new modern pool house and the only championships the school and the town could boast.
And they did boast—about the team and about her. Drinkwell was a small rural Texas town on the decline. It had little to brag about, so to say that it was proud of its high school swim team and its coach was an understatement.
Every girl in high school now wanted to be on the team. Unfortunately, all of them couldn’t. Amanda and her assistant had the unpleasant job of choosing, a task she didn’t especially enjoy. She wished all of the girls who wanted to could be team members, but with two state championships to uphold and maintain, choosing those who would compete had become an onerous responsibility as well as a serious task.
Amanda also taught eleventh grade English, but to the town, that was like saying, “Oh, yeah. I almost forgot she does that, too.”
She had put on her bathing suit at home, so she walked over to a bench against the wall and dropped her gym bag, then stripped off her sweats and shoes. She did some bends, some stretches and some shoulder exercises. The she pushed in earplugs, pulled on her cap, shoved on her goggles and dove into the water from the platform end, starting with an easy swim.
As she swam, she thought about how lucky the school was to have this facility. It had the Lockhart family to thank for it. When dedicated funds to construct it had come up short, even after all of the state’s contributions and the donations from the local citizens, the Lockhart family’s foundation, Future Hope, funded by income from oil, gas and wind energy and God knew what else, had made up the shortfall.
Ironic. Of all the luxuries the wealthy Lockharts enjoyed, a home pool wasn’t one of them. None of them could swim.
The town gossips said the only reason the Lockharts had been so generous was because the swim coach slept with one of the Lockhart sons. Though that was old gossip that had become like a scarred-over sore, Amanda still felt a little stab to her chest when she heard it.
But she held her head above the prattle. Generations of Lockharts had attended school here. They felt a loyalty to the town and they were generous people. The Lockhart patriarch sought to donate where there was a need and it had nothing to do with Amanda’s association with the middle son.
As her thoughts veered to the Lockharts, and Pic in particular, she swam toward the ladder at the side of the pool, now in a hurry. Pic would be coming to her house after his brother’s wedding. She had to work tomorrow, so she didn’t know how long he would stay. These days, since he had so little free time, when he was able to escape his responsibilities at the ranch, he sometimes stayed several days at her house.
She climbed out of the pool shedding water. Peeling off her goggles and swim cap and removing her ear plugs as she went, she picked up her sweats and shoes and gym bag and headed for the ladies’ dressing room, still thinking about Pic. She hadn’t seen him since Valentine’s Day. Six weeks. Prior to his becoming the General Manager of the Double-Barrel Ranch three months back, they had spent almost every weekend together. But since he had taken on the new job, she hadn’t seen enough of him to even call him a boyfriend.
Carrying her shampoo and soap, she entered one of the sparkling clean shower/dressing room combinations. She stripped off her swimsuit and examined her body in the full-length mirror, a luxury she didn’t have at home. She ran her hands over her skin, checking for smoothness, including her newly-shaved legs.
Sex was on tonight’s agenda, probably before anything else. Pic had already told her how horny he was. She was eager, too. BOB worked only to a point. The battery operated toy could take her to an orgasm, but it didn’t fill the emptiness. Or tease h
er with naughty sexy talk. It didn’t provide tender affection and the ambience of a man who was a one hundred percent alpha male devoting one hundred percent of his attention to her.
A sane woman wouldn’t stand for weeks to pass between his visits, common sense told her as she adjusted the water temperature and stepped under the shower spray. A sane woman would take up with another guy.
But she loved Pic. Had loved him since she was fifteen years old. And she knew he was under enormous pressure. Not only was he trying to learn to be the general manager of a ranching empire, every day he felt the shadow of his smart, incredibly successful big brother, the one who had been their father’s first choice to oversee the ranch.
As an outsider, Amanda had seen that fact had less to do with Pic’s ability than with Drake being the oldest child. All of the Lockhart siblings had grown up with the notion that Drake would someday be the overseer. None of them, including their father, had considered that Drake might have plans of his own that didn’t include managing the ranch. Still, Pic hadn’t quite gotten past believing that he had been considered second-best. Thus he worked incredible long hours, weeks and months.
Amanda had no siblings herself, but she knew about sibling rivalry and the middle child syndrome. As a competitor herself, she understood competition, understood Pic’s profound need to be successful.
And because she knew him so well, she hadn’t once considered trying to find some new male friend. She wouldn’t be able to anyway. In the small-town environment dominated by the Lockhart family, she had been labeled Pic Lockhart’s woman, period. No other guy would ever challenge that. And she was her own worst enemy. She was so enthralled with Pic, she hadn’t even tried to meet anyone else.
But she had to admit that changes were occurring between her and Pic. They were subtle, but there nevertheless. She could no more put them into words than she could fly. Nor did she know why they were happening. On the surface, everything seemed to be all right. He had always been a devil-may-care kind of guy, joking irreverently about everything and always grinning and laughing. He still was like that to an extent, but some of his fun-loving personality was gone and he was more intense. The weight of responsibility did that, she supposed.
