“Of course I understand,” Neal had said. “I would expect no less from Seth Singleton’s son or the man who married my daughter. I’ll be down in a bit.”
The climb up the stairs had made him feel that he’d lifted something too heavy for his age and condition. He’d have liked a shot of bourbon himself, but he’d needed to be alone to think. The Waverling Tools men were coming back next Monday to stake out the drilling site and set up the platform. Then a service road would be cleared for hauling equipment, and after that the rig would be erected. It would be a number of weeks before the actual drilling could begin.
“What will be your job in the operation, Mr. Waverling?” Neal had asked.
“A limited one. The driller will be in charge of the site, but Daniel Lane and Todd and Nathan will be here until everything is well underway. I’ll make only periodic visits.”
“That so?” Neal had said, relieved. “You must let us know when to expect you so Grizzly can make some of that stew you enjoyed.”
He spoke more sincerely and less graciously in making it clear that La Tres Lomas had no extra bunks to lodge the drilling and supervising crew, and he could not ask his cook to provide additional meals and serve them in the crowded space of the dining room. The men would have to bring their own sleeping tents, food, and drinking water. He hoped Trevor Waverling understood that included Nathan and Todd and Daniel Lane. Trevor had countered with an understanding smile. He wouldn’t for the world impose on Mr. Gordon’s staff or expect accommodations of any sort. His men would be instructed to eat and sleep within the compound of the work area.
Neal threw water on his face. Now that he had been in the company of Trevor Waverling and Nathan, the lump of guilt and fear was back wreaking havoc to his peace. He could raise objections against Samantha’s natural mother and her silly stepsiblings back in Gainesville, but Neal could find none to lift against her real father and twin—none to justify keeping knowledge of their identities a secret. The Waverling men appeared deserving and Trevor irresistible to a daughter’s affection. He was charming, suave, sophisticated, smart, and as fit for his age as any man Neal had ever known—a fine grandfather figure. Once again, Neal sensed destiny’s hand behind the events of today. Would fate’s quirky humor lead Samantha to discover the identities of Trevor Waverling and Nathan Holloway and expose Neal Gordon’s crime in keeping them from her? Todd’s deceit would be a molehill compared to the mountain range of his deception.
Neal dried his face and contemplated himself in the mirror. Of course, he could be dragging around his ball and chain for nothing. Most worries never came to pass. But to be sure, he must prevent any interaction between Samantha and the Waverling men. In the meantime, he would do some digging into Trevor Waverling’s background. The man might not be as pure as he appeared, and Neal’s findings might loosen the tight squeeze on his conscience. He ran a brush through his hair and hitched up his pants. Going down the stairs to where Samantha and Sloan waited, he plastered a smile on his face and rubbed his hands together as if he were the happiest man in all the world.
Chapter Sixty-Four
That night, Nathan wrote his usual twice-a-month letter to Leon. He always included his mother in the salutation, but it was to his stepfather that he addressed his thoughts and shared the details of his life. That evening he hardly knew where to start, he was so full of news. He decided to write of events that had occurred since his last correspondence the middle of August. He dated his letter September fourth, 1900.
I have met an unusual and very attractive young lady by the name of Charlotte Weatherspoon. She’s from a prominent Dallas family long and well acquainted with the Waverlings. We met at my grandmother’s house at a dinner party she arranged to introduce us. I was quite taken with her at first sight but then taken aback by her at the second. I thought her a snob, still do, but I may have reason to change my mind.
Nathan described the circumstances of his second meeting with Charlotte Weatherspoon, how she hadn’t minded that Zak lay on a Wilton rug or that Rebecca immediately ran to her bookcase and took down several volumes without asking permission. To him she’d been less cordial, bossy even. He wrote of the task she’d set him to while his pants dried, appalled at his ignorance of the technique involved in preventing snarls and snags of yarn: She asked me if you knitted, Mother, and I said no, so the whole experience was new to me. It made for a very pleasant two hours.
Nathan went on to write that on the advice of another new acquaintance, he had accepted an invitation to a party at Charlotte’s home the coming Sunday, September ninth, and that his grandmother had insisted on having him fitted for a new suit for the occasion—“a tuxedo!” Nathan described the satin lapels and tailless (“thank God!”) formal evening suit his grandmother had in mind, smiling to himself as he mentally heard his mother say in annoyance, “Oh, for goodness’ sakes! Doesn’t Nathan know that we know what a tuxedo is?”
Nathan cited other tidbits he thought might interest Leon, and perhaps his mother, mixing news of his boxing lessons with social events he’d attended. He kept for last the mention that Waverling Tools would soon drill its first oil well on a ranch near Fort Worth in Tarrant County called Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad, translated as “the Three Hills of the Trinity.” He would be busy and away from Dallas for a few months as part of the supervising crew.
I’ve had occasion to meet the rancher’s daughter, the acquaintance I mentioned earlier. Her name is Samantha Gordon—or rather, Mrs. Sloan Singleton now. I met her back in July when the company geologist and I made a visit to the ranch to check out a spot where Todd Baker believes oil is to be found. There is quite a story associated with that site inspection, but it can wait until my next visit. At any rate, Samantha seems the sort you can tell anything to. I told her about the conflict of my feelings toward Charlotte Weatherspoon—how on one hand I find her enthralling and on the other… well, put-offish, and she explained that perhaps Charlotte resented my being rammed down her throat as a suitable prospect for marriage. Imagine that! Me, Nathan Holloway, considered a suitable marriage prospect for a debutante!
Nathan reread his letter, confident he’d left nothing out that he’d remember later and wish he’d put in. Leon looked forward to his letters. His stepfather would answer this one right away, commenting on each item since there was so little in his own life to write about. Leon’s last correspondence had stated that Randolph had left for Columbia, and Lily was getting ready to enter the girls’ academy in Denton. He played checkers every Wednesday afternoon on the courthouse lawn with some new cronies: the courthouse janitor, a retired railroad man who ferried across the Red River from Marietta to join them, and a Spanish-American War veteran who’d lost his leg in Cuba. The “Courthouse boys,” he called them, the only friends he’d made in town. He and Millicent had joined a spanking new modern church, but Leon couldn’t stand the preacher. They had begun drilling out at the farm. He’d let Nathan know if they struck it out there, but he’d never see it for himself. Millicent was finding they needed more money to keep up the lifestyle they were living, and Leon had offered to go to work for any number of farmers around who’d be glad to have him, but Millicent wouldn’t have it. Gentlemen of means do not do physical labor, she told him. Well, as Nathan knew, he was no gentleman and he had no means, but he would allow Millicent her illusion. Anytime Nathan felt like paying them a visit, he knew he was more than welcome.
Nathan addressed the envelope and slipped his letter inside. He would mail it the next day.
In his room, Trevor Waverling undressed slowly, thoughtfully, sadly. He’d brought up a scotch and soda to mellow his mood, but the alcohol had not yet taken effect. His mission was now completed. He’d observed his daughter in her natural habitat and found it not wanting. She was loved, protected, cared for. He could offer her nothing she did not have already. If he imposed himself further on her in any way, he’d have Neal Gordon to deal with. The rancher’s eyes had been on him the entire visit, as if he s
uspected that given the opportunity, Trevor Waverling would take advantage of his daughter. Well, let the man think he was a lecher. He wasn’t afraid of Neal Gordon but afraid of the truth that was bound to come out if he pressed his luck.
Now if only he could do something about this… gut-deep ache of paternal loss. Trevor already had a daughter, as Leon Holloway had reminded him. He also had a son, a wonderful boy who, though he didn’t know it, looked likely in time to be snared by Charlotte Weatherspoon, a splendid girl. They would have children and he would become a grandfather, a pleasure he looked forward to. Family had not mattered so much to him before the advent of Nathan. In fact, he’d tried to distance himself from the need for family. Family caused pain. It had taken him years to get over the sudden death of his father, the suicide of his brother. His mother did not like him, and his marriages had ended in disaster and divorce, one leaving him with a retarded child, his biggest heartache of all.
What was so great about family?
But then, into his life had come Nathan, who had taught him what it was like to feel—be—a father. His mother’s house was now a home, not a place where he simply hung his hat. His mother and daughter were not merely tenants with whom he lodged. They had become family.
And a vital member was missing.
Trevor pulled a chair to a window and sat down to look out into the starry night. It was a spot he often occupied in the late hours to consider a pending business deal. It was his custom to separate its components from the whole and examine them individually. He made no decision based on an overall, general picture. If all the parts, or at least a significant number, matched its sum, he was ready to make his move. In likewise fashion, he placed his impressions of people as he came to know them into mental pigeonholes to be inspected separately before he came to a conclusion about them.
So it had been with Samantha.
He’d had the opportunity to study her on only four occasions, if briefly: at the paleontology lecture in Fort Worth, in his office at Waverling Tools, at her wedding ceremony (as he sat in the far-corner seat of the back row), and on her own turf at Las Tres Lomas today. From these short associations—these quick peeks into her life—he had determined her happy and fulfilled, her situation close to ideal. She lived in an impressive, comfortable home surrounded by people who loved her—doting parents, an adoring husband, and a ranch staff who would have killed for her. Why would he declare himself and muck up Samantha Gordon’s life, cause pain to the loving but jealously possessive people who’d given her a good home? What would the information do to Nathan, to his affection for his mother that he held on to despite her indifference, but more important, to his feeling for Leon, if Trevor Waverling were to reveal that they had given away his twin sister at their birth?
If he had not heard from the midwife that Samantha had made a visit to Dr. Tolman’s office with questions about her birth—seeking her kin—he would not be sitting here tonight feeling every breath like the jab of a hot poker. He would have left the late doctor’s office without definite proof but with almost certain knowledge that Samantha Gordon was his daughter and Nathan’s twin, and that would have been the end of it. He would have let matters lie as he had when he learned of Nathan’s existence, keeping an eye on her from afar and feeling the loss of a child he would never know, but he would have been comforted by the knowledge that all was well with her life. But then he’d discovered that all was not well with her life. Samantha had gone looking for her birth family—for Millicent, God spare the child—for Nathan… for him. His heart would not let go the description Dr. Tolman’s daughter had given the midwife: Eleanor said the young woman looked so disappointed that she couldn’t help her. She felt sorry for her. As pretty and well dressed as she was, she made Eleanor think of a little waif.
So here he sat picturing Samantha heartsick with disappointment before the midwife’s desk and her father unable to go to her and say, Here I am, my darling daughter, like today when he came upon Nathan in conference with Samantha and he was powerless to announce, You are speaking to your sister, son. Samantha is your twin.
Trevor took a large swallow of the scotch, feeling the burn of tears. But what was, was, and he must let it be. Samantha was happily settled into her life. The longing that had sent her to Marietta would lessen and fade over the years. Nathan would have his own family in time, never knowing and therefore never missing the link that tied him to the girl with the hair like his mother’s. As for him, their father, he would hope that after the company’s business with Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad was done, he could glean reports of his daughter’s welfare through Daniel now and then. Trevor understood that the woman he’d observed fling herself into his draftsman’s arms at the train station was Sloan Singleton’s sister.
Trevor took another belt of his drink. And as Samantha’s father, he could draw some satisfaction from knowing that his lovely, intelligent, and kindhearted daughter would never learn that Millicent Holloway was her mother.
“You are not going to spend your nights in a tent and eat canned beans and jerky for supper when bed and board are available at the Triple S!” Billie June declared to Daniel that night.
“I’m afraid I am, cupcake,” Daniel said. “Your brother isn’t about to have me under his roof.”
“He’ll have no say about it. My father’s will stated that I can live in the house at the Triple S as long as I live.”
Daniel stared agog at her. “What are you saying, Billie June? Are you going back to the Triple S to live?”
Billie June swirled before her mirror. She had purchased a new frock and had tried it on for Daniel to admire. “I propose to go home for the duration of the drilling and take you with me. As my guest, Sloan can’t possibly kick you out any more than he could me.”
Daniel scraped his hand over his bristly chin. “Oh, Billie June, I don’t know. Your brother would have every right to object to our sleeping together in the family home.”
Billie June unbuttoned the fitted bodice of her dress. “You weren’t listening. I’m not talking about sleeping together. I’m talking about your taking up residence in one of the spare rooms as my guest.” She grinned at him impishly. “Of course you can always slip down the hall to my room when the house is asleep.”
“As if your brother wouldn’t figure that out,” Daniel said.
Billie June slipped out of the dress. “Let him,” she said. “He’s not liable to come barging in on us. How embarrassing that would be for everybody! Samantha would not allow it anyway.”
“What about your music lessons?”
“I can always resume them. Besides, I’m homesick for Sloan and Samantha and the ranch. This time of year the Triple S is at its most glorious, and it’s fall calving season. I love to feed the orphaned calves their bottles. Also,” Billie June said, with a jiggling of her eyebrows, “I’d miss you here all by myself.”
Daniel gazed at her. He ought to feel nettled at this feeling of hers that they could not be apart. When she first came to live in Dallas, he’d vowed to make it clear to her that he had other demands on his time, other people in his life, and she would have to seek other interests besides him to fill her time, but he had not gotten around to it. Billie June’s apartment building had a telephone in the hall, and he would contact her there from the office around five o’clock. The other tenants had learned that a ring at that time was probably for Billie June and left it for her to answer. He had not wanted to make a habit of that, so for a few afternoons each week at the beginning, he’d deliberately not telephoned. He’d gone to a bar, the races, treated himself to a fine dinner or to a cabaret show, always with an eye for the girls, but there had been a hollow feeling where his pleasure should have been. He realized he missed Billie June. He would also miss her the weeks he’d be away spent only in the company of men, eating out of a tin plate around a campfire and falling asleep in a cold tent while listening to the bay of coyotes. On the other hand, he wouldn’t enjoy the awkwardness of living in
the same house with Sloan Singleton watching his sister thumb her nose at him. And he had to consider the discomfort the situation might cause Samantha.
Billie June was now in her corset and stockings, and he thought she’d never looked more fetching. Now that he thought about it, her idea wasn’t such a bad one. The barb of Sloan Singleton’s archenemy living in his grand house, sitting at his dinner table, and lolling about in his fine chairs would be a pleasure he wouldn’t mind experiencing. Daniel had never stepped foot beyond the screened back porch of the Triple S.
“All right, cupcake,” he said. “If you can manage the frowns and growls of your brother, it’s okay with me. Now let me help you with those ties.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Three days later, September seventh, Leon Holloway collected Nathan’s letter from his post office box in Gainesville. He slipped a fingernail under the envelope’s flap, thrilled to see two full pages enclosed—two!—and began to read even before he got outside the building. There was one from Randolph, too, mailed from New York City, but he would wait until he got home to give it to Millicent to read aloud to both of them. His house was within walking distance, and he enjoyed the daily trek to and from the post office, especially on sunny, brisk days like today.
By the time he reached the park, Leon had finished the letter and was forced to sit down on the bench he often occupied when the house became too confining. Dropping his head back, he stared horror-stricken up into the canopy of the turning maple tree that afforded shade in summer, two items in the script dancing before his stark gaze: Samantha Gordon and Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad. Lord have mercy! Nathan had met his twin sister! The shock of it had knocked his pins right out from under him, but as his heart rate slowed and his legs steadied, Leon wondered why he should feel so blown off his feet. There had been times when he had worried that the hand that had made the universe would somehow, some way, throw the twins together. Dallas and Fort Worth were not that far apart. He’d known of such strange, far-fetched things happening. He’d heard of a soldier in the war who, when rifling through a dead Yankee’s pockets for a souvenir of his kill, had pulled out a photograph of his own parents. The Yankee had killed the man’s brother.
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