B00DVWSNZ8 EBOK (26 page)

"I know
, right? It's so weird. I'd never really thought of sex very much before."

A mischievous look angled from Suzanne's blue eyes. Her mouth tipped into a sly grin. "So how was it?"

"How was what? The sex?"

"Hell, yes, the sex. How was it?"

Jude turned away from Suzanne’s eyes. "It was okay."

"That's all? Just okay?"

The heat of a blush crawled up Jude’s neck. "All right. Better than okay."

"Um, better than that first guy? What's his name—Wes?"

"Webb. Yeah, better."

"Better than the second guy your daddy still wants you to hook up with?"

Jude laughed.

"Better than both of them put together?"

“Cut it out, Suzanne.”

"I swear to God, getting information out of you is harder than pulling hen's teeth. You aren't gonna give me details, are you?"

"No! It’s private. But I’ll tell you this. You know how you said it used to be with Mitch? Maybe it was like that."

Suzanne heaved a huge sigh. "
My God. This is amazing. And something tells me you really like this guy."

Jude
leaned forward and toyed with her straw wrapper. "I did. But it’s kind of a mess. Even if
do like him, I don't think he likes me.”

“Are you kidding? He risked
the job he said he was desperate for and took you to Stephenville with him. Would he do that if he didn’t like you?”

Jude sighed. “I don’t know. Men are so hard to figure out. When we got back to Lockett, I started thinking about all that could happen if anyone knew we’d spent the night together in Stephenville and
I panicked. I said something I wish I hadn't."

"Now, there's a news flash. Jude Strayhorn putting her foot in her mouth. What did you say?"

Jude repeated what she had said about not looking for a boyfriend.

"What'd
he
say?"

"He said he wasn't holding up a sign in search of a girlfriend, either."

A little laugh burst from Suzanne followed by a sigh. She shook her head. "Jude, Jude, Jude. What else would he say? I mean, you burst his little ego bubble."

"Do you think he's really sleeping with Joyce?" Jude asked,
unable to stop a quaver in her voice. How could she bear it if he actually married her? How could she stand to see him every day, knowing he was married? And what was worse, knowing he was married to someone like Joyce Harrison.

Suzanne's shoulders lifted in a shrug. "I doubt it. She's such a blabbermouth, I feel like she
’d tell the world if it was really happening."

"
Listen, Suzanne, don't tell anyone about me and Brady. Now that Daddy's made him the general manager, I don't know what would happen if he found out about Stephenville. And you know how people around here would gossip."

"Oh, you know I'm not gonna say anything. Have I ever?"
An earnest look came from Suzanne’s eyes. "Back to my original question. What happens now to
you
, Jude?"

"For the time being, until I get it sorted out, I'm just going to keep
searching for bulls that are high producers and helping Doc Barrett breed mares. We're almost to the end of prime breeding season and we've still got broodmares in heat. It isn’t too late for Brady to change his mind about letting me breed Patch to his grullo mare. I'm really excited about the idea of a baby paint. A foal would give me a project for next summer."

A sly smile crawled across Suzanne’s face.
"And you said you never think of sex."

Chapter 21

The following Monday, Brady approached his driveway with his truck's air conditioner blasting to the max. It was the end of July and the sun could cook the hide off a rattlesnake on the treeless West Texas plains. He had spent most of the day on horseback, with only his hat for shade.

He was worn-out, but working in the sun wasn't what had made him tired. He was used to hard work outdoors. What had him longing for sundown and the evening's cool breeze was that he
had slept only four hours before getting up this morning. He hadn't returned from Fort Worth until midnight. His weekend had been another one of those marathons: Lockett to Fort Worth, to Weatherford, and back to Fort Worth. Another hard farewell with Andy, then back to Lockett.

Though he didn't enjoy so much driving, he had resigned himself to this trying regimen two weekends every month. It was all the Tarrant County domestic court had granted him, and he intended to give Andy every minute of
the time allowed.

The trip this time had been worth the stress.
A shift in the parenting landscape had occurred. Marvalee had hinted that her and her husband’s social life was being cramped by the two boys. Her husband, Steve Lowery, was a class A commercial builder who had built many of the multistory structures in the metroplex area, as well as other cities inside and outside Texas. Besides being a high-end builder, he liked the high life—skiing in Vail, hopping up to Vegas for a little gambling and escaping at the last minute to Cabo for some marlin fishing and resort-style partying.

Brady could read his ex-wife like a large-print book. Any day, now, she would ask him to take Andy off her hands and possibly even Jarrett. And now,
if Marvalee made that request, thank God and Aunt Margie, Brady had a place to bring his son. But more than that, he had something to pass on in the future. All Brady had to do was hang on to the 6-0 and keep improving it. He might be tired, but he wasn't unhappy.

As he pulled into his driveway, he saw a newer-model Ford SUV he didn't recognize parked in front of his house.
Who the hell could be visiting? Besides the ranch hands at the Circle C, he knew fewer than a dozen people in Willard County. He slowed, easing closer. A man in silhouette, wearing a cowboy hat, sat inside the SUV.

Brady was in no mood to be cordial to strangers. He came to a stop and even before he popped the latch on his door, the SUV driver's door opened
. A slight-built middle-aged man stepped out and walked purposefully toward him.

Brady slowly
stepped down from his own rig and stood in the shadow of his open door as the stranger introduced himself and handed over a business card. FRED WHITMORE, REAL ESTATE BROKER, RANGELAND SPECIALIST. "I'm from Lubbock," Whitmore said. "I've got a buyer for your place."

Why would
somebody assume the 6-0 was for sale? Were Brady’s dire circumstances more obvious than he realized? His eyes narrowed. "It's not for sale."

He handed back the business card, stepped around the real estate broker and started for the front door.

"Now don't be too hasty," Whitmore said behind him. A second later, the guy was beside him, quick-stepping to keep up. "My buyer's offering a good price. You ought to look at this offer."

Old Man Strayhorn
, was Brady’s first thought
.
His second was Aunt Margie’s attitude about the Strayhorns owning more than half the county. He stopped and looked down at the real estate man. "It's not for sale."

The Realtor held up a finger. "
All I’m asking for is just a minute. Just let me show you." He turned and quick-stepped back to the passenger side of the SUV.

Pushy real estate brokers weren’t new to Brady.
In his career as a land developer and homebuilder, he had bought hundreds of acres of land and sold dozens of homes through Realtors, though he hadn’t been near a real estate deal in more than two years. His mind was closed to any kind of transaction, but he saw no point in being rude. Whitmore had a job to do the same as everybody else. Waiting as the man dragged out a black portfolio that looked like an oversized notebook, Brady lifted his hat and wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve.

Whitmore
unzipped the portfolio and scanned the contents for a few seconds, then came back, adjusting papers inside it."I've brought a signed contract with me, Mr. Fallon. Drove all this way from Lubbock. I've got an earnest-money check in my safe in my office. Couldn’t we go sit down somewhere and just talk about it?"

Brady
looked out over the pasture at his two geldings grazing in the distance. Looking east, he owned everything his eye could see. The rolling acres of grass and knowing it was his touched the deepest place in his chest and he thought of Andy. "But it's not for sale," he repeated. “I hate to see you waste your time.”

He
started for the front door again, but the land man dogged his heels. On a sigh, Brady unlocked the front door, looking down at the guy with an arched brow.

"You really should look at this offer, Mr. Fallon."

On yet another sigh, Brady let Whitmore inside the hot, airless living room. The afternoon sun poured light and heat into the room as if the cheap shades on the windows didn't exist. Brady felt even hotter. He hooked his hat on a hat rack he had mounted on the wall beside the front door, then walked over and switched on the swamp cooler. "Gets hot in here with the house facing west," he said. "It'll be cooler in the kitchen."

He gestured his guest into the kitchen and invited him to take a seat at the round table.
Whitmore’s gaze roamed every corner of the dingy room. Brady had learned to live with the kitchen's deficiencies. He paid little attention to trappings anyway.

"Want a cold drink, Mr. Whitmore?" Brady opened the refrigerator and grabbed two bottles of water.

"No, thanks."

The Realtor removed his straw hat and placed it on the table, then reached into his back pocket for a handkerchief and patted his brow.
He opened his portfolio on the tabletop and removed a pen from his shirt pocket.

A
real optimist
, Brady thought
.
Suppressing a laugh, he put one water bottle back in the fridge. He dragged a chair from the table, turned it around and straddled it, resting his forearms on the back and hanging on to his water bottle. "How would somebody in Lubbock even get wind of my place? And why would they think I want to sell it?" He unscrewed the cap on his bottle, tilted his head back and swigged a long, cold drink.

"That I couldn't tell you, Mr. Fallon."

"Well, show me what you've got. I've got to eat and get to bed. I've been up since four a.m."

The Realtor slid a contract across the table until it lay directly in front of Brady's chair back, its white surface and tiny black print a vivid contrast to the shiny brown of the tabletop. Brady craned his neck and scanned it—and almost did a double take when he saw the purchase price. What he didn't see was a buyer's name. Suspicion streaked through him like a wild horse. "Whoa. Somebody's offering me a million dollars?"

The real estate broker looked him in the eye, holding his pen over the portfolio. "That's the offer. There's some financing involved, but it would be cash to you."

Brady's mind reeled. Most of the
citizens of Willard County didn't have two nickels to rub together. He could think of absolutely nobody local who could pay a million dollars for grazing land. Nobody except Jeff Strayhorn.

But Brady was now a Strayhorn employee. Why would the old man play games by hiring a
Lubbock real estate broker? "Who's the buyer?"

"The buyer wants to remain anonymous until the closing," Whitmore said. "As you can see, the closing date is thirty days from acceptance. You could have your money in your hand before winter."

Brady shook his head and slid the contract back to Whitmore. "There's nothing to be secretive about, Mr. Whitmore. If somebody wants to buy this place, they need to be up front about it. Even if I wanted to sell, I might like to have a say in who I sell to. But like I told you, the place isn't on the market. I've got my own plans here. I am interested in knowing, though, what somebody has seen here that makes them want to buy it for this amount of money."

"A chunk of good bluestem
grass. Cross-fenced pastures, with windmills and stock pens, a house and outbuildings. All of that in one package isn't easy to find in this part of the country, sir."

As far as Brady knew, bluestem grass had been here since before the American Indians. It wasn't that rare.
How could this guy know about the cross-fencing or the windmills or even the stock pens unless he had been out snooping over the place in Brady's absence? He didn't trust Mr. Fred Whitmore entirely. He had dealt with too many real estate brokers not to have instincts and biases.

"If all
of that's true, Mr. Whitmore, then that price sounds a little low."

"It's a good, clean deal
with no contingencies," Whitmore replied. "I urge you to consider it. The way things are these days, you'll be a long time getting this kind of offer from a buyer this solid again."

“Guess I could form my own opinion about that if I knew who the buyer is,” Brady said.

The guy had slid right past the comment about the price. So it
was
a low offer. Still, even if it was a little lower than market, it was a million dollars. Brady had nothing invested here except the money he had paid out of pocket for the taxes, a few dollars he had spent on the barn and a little sweat equity . A million dollars cash would solve damn near all his short-term financial problems and even put him on the road back. It would enable him to start over, if in a smaller way, and rebuild.

When he first learned he had inherited this place, hadn't his very first thought been to sell it for any price he could get for it?
If he had known back then that he could get a million dollars for it, he might have sold it and never looked back. Of course, that was before he got a fool notion to fix it up and re-establish it as a cattle operation, before he got the idea of someday bringing Andy here to grow up.

"How long's the offer good for?"
he asked.

"Not long. I'd be remiss if I
don’t tell you, if you don't take the deal right off, it can be withdrawn at any time. Things happen, you know. People's minds change. In the real estate business, we often say time is of the essence."

Indeed. How many times had
Brady heard that?

The capriciousness of life had flummoxed
him again. With somebody hiding behind the curtain of anonymity, waving a million dollars at him, he had to think. "I've got a lot going on right now, Mr. Whitmore. And this isn't a decision I'm willing to make overnight."

“That’s fine. You’ve got my card.
You can call me any time.”

After the Realtor left, Brady made himself a bologna and cheese sandwich, poured a glass of milk and walked outside. Not a tree grew near the old house. The only shade was from the roof of the small back porch. But the pleasant breeze that always kicked up late in the afternoon touched his face and brought a bouquet of smells—clean fresh air, fecund barnyard aromas and the scent of rich earth growing good grass.

He sank to an aluminum folding chair he had put beside the back door. He set his glass on the porch deck and sprawled in the folding chair, resting on his tailbone, one long leg thrust straight in front of him, while he munched on his sandwich. His view from the back porch was mostly of the barn and tumbledown outbuildings. The new un-painted boards he had nailed up showed on the sides of the barn, making it look like a checkerboard. The old thing stood straight now, the result of a prodigious effort. Strengthening it and shoring it up had taken a whole month of only brief snatches of time and he wasn't finished with it yet.

All he could see around him was work and more work.
If he were the general manager at the Circle C, no telling when he would get around to really fixing this old place up or getting his own cattle. Or even if he ever did own his own herd, would he have the time and extra energy to take care of it? As for a place to live, the Circle C would furnish him a house. In fact, if he worked at the ranch, living on it would be more convenient.

Were his circumstances so tenuous that he had to consider any offer
on the 6-0 and make the practical decision about it?

He had to delve deeper. He had to consider what he really wanted. He was thirty-four years old and suddenly didn't have a clue what he wanted to be when he grew up. Just a couple months back, he had wanted to be a cattle rancher. A few years
prior to that, he had wanted to be a successful homebuilder. And before that he had wanted to be a college graduate. He hadn't planned on being a father, but after he became one, he had wanted to be that, too. Eventually he had become all that he planned, though the cattle-ranching goal still had hurdles to overcome.

A
ll of that was superfluous fluff. His life had followed more diverse paths than most young men's, but in the bone-deep part of him, he had always known what he wanted most of all—security and a decent home. A house that wasn't overcrowded with too many dwellers or that was never clean because everybody who lived in it worked at menial jobs from sunup to sundown just to eat and had no time or energy left for housekeeping. He wanted a loving woman who cared about him in a way he had rarely seen in real life, a woman who was glad to see him come home at night. He took pride in being a caretaker, but he wanted somebody in his life who was eager to be his helpmate. He wanted a woman who was faithful.