by Anna Jeffrey
After Johnnie Sue had named the meat, Xochimilka had made herself swallow only a few more bites—thank God a quail breast only amounted to a few bites—but as she chewed, all she could think of was the pictures she had seen of the cute little things with pretty faces that looked as if they had been painted and top knots on their heads.
She would never again eat sweet little birds. It was bad enough to eat chickens. From now on in this place, she would ask what she was being served before she filled her plate.
Her thoughts shifted to the man who had not been present at dinner, the one who had found her on the road. Pic, the second son and the one Mrs. Lockhart had told her to contact. He was single. Why he was single Xochimilka didn’t understand because he was a really good-looking guy in a rugged he-man kind of way and he was obviously over thirty. In her experience, good-looking men of that age fell into three categories: Already Taken, Prefers Guys or Something Seriously Wrong with Him. Which was he?
He had startling blue eyes and caramel-colored hair. And he was big and solid looking. Somehow, she just knew bulky muscles hid inside that long-sleeve shirt he had been wearing. He had picked her up and put her into his pickup as if she were a feather. And she wasn’t light. She weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, a fact that kept her constantly on a diet.
On a Friday night, did he have a date? Mrs. Lockhart had said he dated someone, but she also had said it wasn’t a serious relationship. While Mrs. Lockhart hadn’t said outright that he was fair game, she had more than hinted at it. Mom had even badgered Dad into using his influence to arrange this stupid photography tour just so Xochimilka could meet the middle Lockhart son.
Mr. Lockhart, the father, came back into her mind. His looks weren’t much different from the son’s. He might be older, but he was still a big, solid guy and he, too, had those blue, blue eyes. He had told her maybe someone would take her out to view some photo opportunities tomorrow, but he hadn’t sounded all that definite. She hoped it was true because the magazine had given her a deadline. The pictures she would take were important to her livelihood and maybe even her future. If she didn’t make a success of this photography gig, she didn’t know where she would turn next. She had failed at so many things.
Now she was awake with sleep nowhere in sight and the wolves were still howling outside.
Being reminded of how important this photography job was to her, she couldn’t keep from thinking about her life and the mess she had made of it.
She had begun her list of failures by flunking out of UT, a huge disappointment to her professor parents, especially after she had attended a prestigious—and expensive—private high school.
Contending with parents who were both PhDs was hard. They expected her to be extra smart. She wasn’t dumb, but she was easily distracted and seemed to be faced constantly with things that upset her or displeased her. Her focus always seemed to be on the wrong things. Like when she had quit her job at Target and used all of her rent money to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in a protest against the Iraq war. The protest had been totally ineffective in the end and with no money, she’d had to move back in with her parents when she had returned home.
Or when instead of enrolling for a new semester in college, she spent the time living in a makeshift shelter in a wet forest studying and learning from an environmental group in Oregon. She’d had a bad cold and a runny nose the whole time and after she gave up, she’d had to move back in with her parents again.
At age twenty-seven, she finally graduated from a small nothing college with a degree in political science. In Austin, Texas, who didn’t have a degree of some kind related to politics? Her parents had displayed pride in her accomplishment, but she wasn’t so dense that she couldn’t see that their enthusiasm wasn’t genuine.
Then there was her screwed-up history with guys. Her parents weren’t happy about that either. On her way to college graduation, she had lived in several guys’ apartments around Austin, then moved out when things didn’t work out. And at the end of every fling, she’d had to move back into her parents’ home.
While getting herself educated, she had found and lost two fiancés, one of whom was now a professor at UT. Too bad he had been a jerk because he made a nice living.
After him, she’d had affairs with several lesser guys in general, some of whose names she couldn’t remember. She had never had difficulty attracting guys—people were always telling her how beautiful she was—but finding a good one and keeping him around had been more problematic.
After graduation, she had been dismayed to learn that a degree in political science from a school no one had ever heard of and a low GPA had left her almost un-hirable in a job that could be called a career. Thus, she had held any number of frou-frou jobs that didn’t even come close to being a career. Her latest gig had been as a pollster for an Austin political candidate. She had walked out on that job because she didn’t like politics.
And then, there was the thing that haunted her the most. The abortion. Something she hoped her devoutly Catholic parents never learned about. She almost couldn’t bear to think of it herself. It had been twelve years ago, but when she thought about it even now, it set off chaos in her head and a cramp developed in her stomach. Like now.
She hated the man who had convinced her a fetus was nothing more than a blob of cells and demanded that she get rid of it.
But most of all, she hated herself for not telling him to go straight to hell after he told her his career came before all else and if she decided to have a baby, she couldn’t count on him. Her baby’s father had been her second fiancé, a lawyer who was ten years older than she, worked in the state attorney general’s office and was supposed to be honest and honorable. A man who was supposed to have loved her. But he hadn’t loved her. From the beginning, he had intimidated her and lied to her. At the time, she had been twenty-three and clueless and making the pregnancy disappear had seemed like the only solution.
Now, she was thirty-five, not far from thirty-six, and she often found herself wondering if she would ever have any kids. Or even a husband. All she had to show for her time on earth was her car and she didn’t really own that either.
At least she hadn’t gotten lost in drugs like many of her friends had. She didn’t even smoke pot anymore.
The cramp in her stomach grew worse. A doctor had told her anxiety caused it. She sat up and swung her feet to the floor. Sitting on the edge of the mattress with her eyes closed, opening her palms, she joined her thumb and middle finger on each hand, drew in deep breaths and hummed a chant. “Ooohmm…oohmm…oohmm….Leave me, negativity….Leave me, guilt….Away thoughts of bad things….oohmm…oohmm.”
She stopped chanting and opened her eyes. That silly exercise wasn’t even helping her clear her head, much less fight off her demons. It wasn’t doing much for her cramping stomach either. She rose and padded into the kitchen, found a glass in the cupboard and ran it full from the faucet. She sipped slowly, trying to settle her stomach.
After a few more sips, she returned to bed, turned on TV and absent-mindedly channel surfed while the baggage of her past tumbled through her mind. At some point, she dropped off to sleep.
Chapter 9
After a night of marathon sex and passion and talking and little sleep, Amanda and Pic dragged out of bed early on Saturday morning. They showered, skipped breakfast and headed north to Drake’s new home in Camden to deliver Pic’s wedding present and have brunch. Marcus followed them.
“Is he going to go with us all the way to Fort Worth?” Amanda asked.
“Just pretend he isn’t there.”
“What’s he going to do while we’re visiting with Drake and Shannon?”
“Baby, don’t worry about it. This is what they do.”
Amanda expelled a great breath. “It must get awfully boring.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Pic replied.
Amanda had met Shannon soon after Drake had married her, when Pic had taken her, Shannon and Drake t
o dinner in Fort Worth. She and Shannon had gotten along from the first. Shannon was only two years older. Not only was she genuine and beautiful, she owned a successful real estate business she had started from scratch long before she met Drake. Amanda admired her.
Drake and Shannon were thrilled with Pic’s drawing. Amanda and Shannon looked on and kibitzed as the brothers hung it in Drake’s spacious home office. With the house located on a high bluff overlooking Camden Lake, the office had a spectacular view of the lake, the landscape beyond and the sky. This morning, the room was bright with sunlight and an upbeat ambience, as was the whole house. In a different way, Drake’s new home was a close match in appeal to the Fort Worth condo he had sold.
Amanda would love to ask Shannon about a hundred questions, such as if she planned to give up her real estate business after the baby came, what they planned to name the baby, if she and Drake planned to have more kids, blah, blah, blah. Most of all, she would like to ask what she thought of her new mother-in-law and what the witch had done to her. Today was neither the time nor place for that conversation, but someday…
“Pic’s a very good artist,” Shannon said, as Pic and Drake settled on the spot on the wall behind Drake’s desk and nitpicked like two old maids about exactly how to hang it. “I didn’t know he drew.”
“He’s done it since he was a kid. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he actually took some art and photography classes in college.”
“Has he done a lot of drawings?”
“Quite a few. And some oil paintings. Some of his pieces hang here and there with his family members. Troy has several of his pieces in his house. There’s one in the bank in Drinkwell and I’ve got one of his oil paintings over the sofa in my living room. But most of his work is stuffed in a closet in the ranch house. His mother used to keep a photograph album of everything. I don’t know if she still does. That’s about the extent of it. Pic just never puts his talent out there.”
“Hunh. Drake has never mentioned it.”
Amanda laughed. “Welcome to the world of the macho Lockhart brothers. Pic sometimes buys western art, but he thinks doing it is sissy. I suspect your husband has the same attitude.”
Shannon laughed, too. “You’re probably right. Would you like to go to the kitchen with me? I want to help Grammy put the finishing touches on brunch. She’s made crepes.”
“Yum. I love crepes.”
They left the men in the office and strolled toward the kitchen. “Drake buys western art, too” Shannon said. “Look around this house.” She made a circular gesture with her hand. Original western oil paintings and watercolors hung on the walls. Bronze sculptures sat on tables. All of it had been done by well-known artists. Amanda recognized some of it from having seen it in Drake’s Fort Worth condo.
“I still don’t know what all of these pieces are worth,” Shannon said, “but I think it’s a lot. Art as an investment is something I’m still learning about.”
“I suppose it was Bill Senior who got the whole family interested in it. He was personally acquainted with some artists. There are some beautiful original pieces in the ranch house in Drinkwell.”
“Now that Pic’s running the ranch, he probably doesn’t have time for much drawing or painting,” Shannon said.
“True, but he doesn’t mind. He’s finally doing what he’s always wanted to do. Art has gone on the back burner for now.”
Along with a few other things, she thought, but didn’t say. “He doesn’t want to appear as anything other than a rough-and-tough working cowboy ram-rodding the Double-Barrel Ranch.”
“Drake says he’s doing an excellent job.
“Pic does everything well,” Amanda replied with no small amount of pride. “And he adores the cattle and horses and being out on the range. Sometimes I think he’d live outside if it were practical.”
They had reached the kitchen. Shannon’s grandmother had what looked like wonderful food spread over the cooking island—cream cheese and fruit filling for crepes, an array of fresh fruits and crisp bacon strips.
“This all looks as good as it smells,” Amanda said.
“My grandmother is a wonderful cook.”
The elderly grandmother gave them a thousand-watt smile. “It comes from a lifetime of experience, girls.”
Shannon began gathering silverware from a cabinet drawer.
Amanda picked up the conversation about Pic running the ranch, glad for the opportunity to elevate her guy in the eyes of his new sister-in-law. “Pic’s always lived in Drake’s shadow, but now, I think he’s finally stepping out of it. He’s been the general manager for about seven months. I suppose he’s still in a learning mode, but except for when he was in college, he’s never lived anywhere but the ranch. He’s always had responsibilities, so becoming the general manager isn’t a steep learning curve for him.”
“Given the size of the Double-Barrel, that job must be equivalent to any CEO’s.” Shannon handed Amanda a stack of placemats. “Want to put these on the table?”
“It certainly consumes enough of his time,” Amanda said and inside, she hoped that statement hadn’t sounded bitchy.
As she placed the mats on the table in front of five chairs and set the silverware, it dawned on her she had not heard one word about the baby’s gender. “What sex is the baby?”
Shannon and her grandmother brought the plates and the food and set them on the table. “We don’t know,” Shannon answered. “We still haven’t made up our minds if we want to find out or do things the old fashioned way and be surprised. I have a hunch, though, that Drake will soon cave and want to know.” She grinned. “He likes to be in charge of things, you know.”
Amanda laughed. “Sounds like he getting married hasn’t changed him a bit. He was like that when we were all in school.”
“He’s starting to relax though. A lot of things have happened lately that were out of his control and he’s had to roll with the punches.”
No doubt, Amanda thought. Number one being fatherhood. “Is he going to do the birthing classes with you and all that?”
“That’s the plan. But I notice he turns a little green every time anyone talks about it.”
“Why? He grew up on a ranch. He must have seen birth a thousand times.”
“That’s what I said. But he just says, ‘You’re not a cow.’ And we drop it.” Shannon straightened and looked over the table. “Okay, I think we’re ready. I’ll go tell the guys.”
The men soon trouped in and they all sat down to eat. The conversation was light and pleasant with frequent references to Shannon’s pregnancy. She sat adjacent to Drake and Amanda couldn’t keep from seeing that Drake often reached for her hand. The looks they sometimes exchanged were filled with so much heat, Amanda had to look away. No question they had a sexy relationship and where there was smoke, there was fire. Amanda knew Drake’s reputation with women. Only a sensual woman would please him. But were they truly in love?
Amanda and Pic were long past the stage where they couldn’t keep their hands off each other in public or in the company of other people. Compared to Shannon and Drake, she and Pic were the ones who seemed like old married people. The thought made Amanda both sad and glad.
Anticipating a heavy evening meal, she limited herself to one crepe with the cream cheese filling and two strips of bacon. At the end of the meal, Shannon left the table and returned with a cake that had HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMANDA written across the top. “I want you to know, I baked this myself,” she said, a huge grin on her face. “I hope it tastes better than the writing on the top looks.”
As they ate the cake, Pic said, “They’re having a playday at the coliseum today. We’re gonna go to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, then stop in and watch Troy ride Pistol’s Darling. She’s a mare out of the ACHA Futurity winner a couple of years ago. I told Troy he and Kate should talk to the owner about breeding her to Kate’s stud that’s out of that King Ranch horse. If y’all aren’t doing anything else, you should go with us. When�
�s the last time you saw Troy ride?”
“Last December in the Futurity pre-lims.” Drake looked at Shannon. “What do you think?”
“I’d love to. I’ve never seen a cutting horse perform.”
“What else are you doing up there?” Drake asked.
“Going to a movie downtown, then to supper at Texas de Brazil. Mandy’s got a thing for that restaurant.” He grasped Amanda’s hand and gave her a smile and a wink.
“All of that sounds like too much for us,” Drake said. “We’ll follow you and get with you at the museum, then we can watch Troy ride and come home.”
Soon, they were motoring toward Fort Worth in a caravan—Shannon and Drake following them, then Marcus and Drake’s security person, Steve Logan, in separate vehicles. “This is ridiculous,” Amanda said, looking behind them.
“Don’t think about it,” Pic said.
They rode in silence for a while. Then Amanda said, “That was fun. Shannon and her grandmother are so down-to-earth. Shannon is nothing like the woman I thought Drake would marry.”
“I know,” Pic replied. “I figured if he ever got married at all, he’d end up with one of those snooty ice queens he always hung out with.”
“I’ve never seen Drake like he is with her. He seems…softer, somehow. Not so edgy.”
“He’s a different guy, for sure.”
“Was it just me or were both of them thinking about sex the whole time we were eating?”
Pic gave a low laugh. “I caught that, too. Knowing my big brother like I do, that’s probably what was going on.”
****
Raps on the front door startled Xochimilka awake. She threw back the covers, hurried over and peeked through the blind on the window, saw the maid, Johnnie Sue. Being naked, she yanked the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around herself. She opened the door and was nearly blinded by bright sunlight.
“Morning,” the skinny maid said, looking her up and down.
“Hi.”
“Just get up? Mr. Lockhart and I were getting worried about you. It’s nearly noon.”
