B00DVWSNZ8 EBOK (30 page)

Clary came up beside him. "Is that Judith Ann?"

"Looks like it," Brady answered.

"Where the hell has she been?"

Brady couldn't give the horse wrangler an entirely truthful answer, could he? He was still nervous over the fact that Clary and Jack Durham were friends. "Down by Waco. She went to get bulls."

"She had a wreck?"

"Looks like it."

Clary shook his head and sighed. "Well, let's finish what we're doing."

Following the horse wrangler back into the barn, Brady angled a furtive look back at Jude. She scooted out of her truck and talked to the tow-truck driver. Why the hell hadn't she waited for him?

Jude
parked her pickup and dealt with the tow truck driver, arranging for him to send a bill to the ranch. Inside the house, she bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time. She intended to shower Brady Fallon's body wash and scented cream off her body. She could no longer stand even the idea of smelling like him all day. While she showered for the second time and shampooed her hair, she replayed the phone message the woman had left on Brady's voice mail. Did she have a right to demand to know what that phone call meant?

After drying her hair and dressing in clean clothing, she
went downstairs to the kitchen. Irene was making tamales for supper. Grandpa loved tamales. Windy said Grandpa wasn't eating dinner, so Jude told him not to bother making the noon meal for just her.

Instead, s
he made a peanut butter and banana sandwich. From Windy, she learned that she and Grandpa would be the only ones at the supper table. She would make a point to walk with him this evening if he was up to it. She should have already offered to help him as Daddy had suggested, but she hadn't found the right moment. Tonight, she would make the offer.

After finishing her sandwich, she peeked out the back door. She had seen Brady and Clary and Doc doing something in the barn. Probably collecting semen from a stud. As soon as they left the barn, when they wouldn't be able to see every move she made, she would hook a trailer to one of the pickups in the equipment storage lot and return to the 6-0 to get the bulls.

Meanwhile, she went to her new office and pulled up the stats on Spike and Charlie Brown. She had to decide: where to put them.

But she couldn't concentrate. The memory of last night filled every pocket in her brain.
Surely, Brady wouldn’t use her and just toss her aside. On the other hand, she could well imagine that in a contest between herself and his son, she would lose, hands down.

She tried to refo
cus on the two bulls' stats, but all she could think about was Brady reconciling with his ex-wife. If he did that, he would bring her here to live. He might even move his family into one of the ranch’s newer houses. How would she endure that?

Don’t
jump to conclusions,
an inner voice told her.
Give him the benefit of the doubt.

Her cell phone blared the
Aggie War Hymn
, yanking her from her obsessive thoughts. Fred Whitmore showed up on Caller ID. Her stomach lurched. She let the call go to voice mail.

A few minutes later
, she keyed into her voice-mail box and listened to his message. "Miz Strayhorn? This is Fred Whitmore. Tried to call you a couple times yesterday. I’m available at your convenience when you want to call me back."

Oh, damn.
Yesterday’s call while she had been driving in the storm must have been from him. She dared not think of what he might tell her. If she had talked to him yesterday, would she have done what she did last night? Last night, Brady hadn't mentioned it or even hinted that someone’s offer to buy the 6-0 was in the wind. But considering how closemouthed he was, would he mention it?

On the other hand, perhaps Fred had presented the offer, but Brady had turned it down flat. Or, since Brady didn't know the buyer's name, perhaps he simply hadn't wanted to discuss it with her. That was the m
ost likely scenario.

For all her dithering, she came to only one conclusion: If the offer to purchase had been presented and Brady had known she was the anonymous buyer, last night would not have happened.

Her thoughts flew to Brady. If he had decided to sell the 6-0, wouldn’t he have told her last night? They had discussed many things. Why hadn’t he told her he had gotten an offer to buy the 6-0?

All at once
, a bone-deep weariness spread to her limbs. The sandwich she had just eaten lay like lead in her stomach. Living the past twenty-four hours on an adrenaline roller coaster and having no sleep had caught up with her. She had no energy for returning Fred Whitmore's call. She had no patience for waiting for the men to leave the barn. And she doubted if she had the strength to hook a trailer to the back of a pickup and handle two headstrong animals by herself.

She was at a crossroads of some kind
. Her body was too exhausted and her thoughts were too turbulent for her to decide what to do. Her bed upstairs beckoned. She ignored Fred Whitmore's message, walked out of the office and into the kitchen where Irene and Windy had already started on supper. “I’m going upstairs to rest,” she told them. “Please don’t let anyone disturb me.”

She
trudged upstairs, unable to stop thinking about the mess she had made and the woman on Brady's answering machine.

Since his
first sister was born thirty-two years ago, and except for the three years he had worked on offshore drilling rigs, Brady Fallon had spent most of his life around women. Yet he didn't claim to be an expert on female behavior. Not even close. But he had taken one look at the tilt of Jude's chin and the resolve in her stride as she stalked across the equipment storage lot and had recognized that something was wrong. He had knocked and asked for her at the house but was told by the housekeeper she was napping and wasn’t to be awakened.

So he had climbed in his truck and headed home, intending to go to bed himself. He had now gotten ten hours of sleep total in three nights. He was running on fumes.

In his kitchen, the red message light on the phone blinked like a beacon. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and leaned a hip against the counter edge as he listened.

"Whoa," he said a minute later.

Would Marvalee really let him have Andy? He had proposed it over the weekend after she had cried on his shoulder that she and her husband were having constant arguments over the kids. But he had never dreamed she would actually let their son go or that her father would stand for it. If she really meant what she said, Brady's entire life was headed in a different direction. Again.

He checked the time the message had been recorded. Seven a.m.
Uh-oh
. Now he figured he knew what had set Jude off. The message had the distinct tone of him and Marvalee kissing and making up. Was Jude pissed off? Probably. Would she listen when he explained what was going on? Maybe.

But his immediate concern was for his son. He rifled through a cabinet drawer, found the address book with Marvalee's unlisted number in it and punched it in. She answered on the first ring, as if she had been sitting by the phone.

"Got your message," he said. "What's up?"

"Brady,
Steve and I have separated. He's moved out of the house. We have bigger issues than the kids."

For a moment,
her words didn't register in Brady’s brain. After they did, his next thought was of Andy and Jarrett and what the future held for them. He carried the phone to the table and wilted onto a chair. "Yeah?"

"I don't know what's going to happen. Daddy's ready to kill
Steve."

Been there, done that
, Brady thought. "That’s too bad, Marvalee. Sorry it didn't work out for you."

"The kids aren't all that upset, though, thank God.
Steve didn't have the same relationship with them that you did. He barely paid them any attention at all."

No news there.
"So why are you calling me, Marvalee? You want me to take Andy off your hands? I already told you I would."

"Brady, have you ever thought about the mistake we made, getting the divorce?"

Brady's gut clenched. He had never been madly in love with Marvalee, wouldn't have married her if she hadn't been pregnant with his child. But he hadn’t hated her and he would have lived with her, wouldn't have cheated on her. He adored the son they had made. He even cared about Jarrett, the son she'd had before they met. She had never married Jarrett's father and the man had no interest in his kid.

"You mean the mistake
you
made, Marvalee."

"Oh, Brady, don't be callous."

Brady couldn't recall anybody other than Marvalee ever calling him callous.

"I've been thinking about the fun we used to have," she said. "Remember when I was pregnant with Andy and you were so worried about—"

"Marvalee, stop. Don't do this. Let's don't whip a dead horse."

She didn't say anything for so long, Brady began to wonder if they had lost the connection. "I guess I deserve that," she said at last. "Listen, Brady, if I drive out there this weekend and bring the boys, you'd have time to spend with me, wouldn't you? So we could talk?"

"What are we gonna talk about?"

"Things. Andy. Life in general."

An alarm went off in Brady's mind. He knew how manipulative his ex-wife could be. She had grown up the only child of a manipulative father and had learned all the tricks from him. "You already know how I feel about Andy. Jarrett, too. I don't know what else there is to discuss."

"Well, Andy really wants t
o see you," she said cheerfully, as if he hadn't flat-ass closed the door in her face. "Jarrett wants to see you, too. He went to bed crying last night. It broke my heart. I told them I would take them to see you. Do you have a place for us to stay?"

"I've got one bed and I'm working
long hours every day. I don't know yet what the weekend holds. I guess you could stay in Abilene. That’s the closest place to Fort Worth that has a nice hotel. And it’s nearly the half-way point."

She
assured him she would show up in Abilene tomorrow and he agreed to meet her, though the trip would be a long drive.

He sat sprawled in the chair, his eyes closed, his
memories tangled with his thoughts. Marvalee had been so enamored with Steve Lowery, she had slept with him for at least six months before Brady had learned of it. Then she had married him within days after the divorce was final.

Brady was still in the process of moving out of the
five-thousand-square-foot house he had built for himself and his family as Lowery moved in, almost on Brady's heels.

But
if Lowery had moved out of the house, Brady doubted he had been nearly as affected by the move as Brady had been. He doubted Lowery had relocated to a single-wide trailer house in a remote location, worried about how he was going to eat.

Because Brady knew his ex-wife well, h
e knew what was coming when he met her in Abilene. Now that she was going to be single again, she didn’t want the burden of two kids.

One of his thoughts was of Jude.
He had dared to entertain some fantastical ideas about a future for himself and Jude together. Would she take him, his son and stepson as a package deal? Or would she turn tail and run the opposite direction? He couldn’t blame her if that was exactly what she did. It was a lot to ask of any woman.

Chapter 24

At four a.m., Brady awoke with Andy and Jarrett and Jude moving in and out of his thoughts as if his mind were a revolving door. Marvalee had called him back and told him she, Andy and Jarrett would be at the Embassy Suites in Abilene. The boys could swim and play games there while he and she "talked." He wished he had a suit of armor.

But before the meeting occurred, he had to see Jude. He didn't understand it, but he needed to keep seeing her. Last night had only confirmed what had been going on in his head and the evergrowing feelings in his heart since they
had gone to Stephenville together.

At first, he had been intimidated by who she was as well as the fact that she
had an overly protective father. It was all too reminiscent of Marvalee and her father. But Jude was nothing like Marvalee. Jude was unselfish and caring and didn't flaunt her family's wealth. In fact, the whole Strayhorn family was low-key. If someone met J.D. on the street, he would never guess the man owned more than half a county. Brady no longer cared that Jude was rich and he wasn't. They were alike in the ways that counted.

The importance of his job at the Circle C ranch had faded behind his desire to spend time with Jude. She was the only woman he had been drawn to in any way other than carnal since his divorce.
Hell.
Since long before his divorce, maybe since before his marriage to Marvalee. He wanted her yakkety mouth telling him stories of Texas history and reminding him to eat his vegetables, wanted her willingness to help him do whatever he thought needed doing. And he wanted her loyalty. He wanted her in his life. But he didn't want to sneak around and spend nights at his house as if they were doing something wrong.

Having almost slept the clock around, he felt energized and upbeat. He arrived at the Circle C on time and ate breakfast with the hands.

Jude awoke with real estate and Fred Whitmore on her mind. She wished she had never pursued the idea of owning the 6-0 Ranch. That one desire had caused her untold grief and aggravation. Anything that was that much trouble had to be steeped in bad karma. She no longer wanted any part of it.

Her mind churned all through showering and shampooing her hair.
Perhaps she had jumped to conclusions. Perhaps Fred Whitmore had not yet presented her offer. She had to return his call ASAP and officially kill her offer to buy the 6-0.

She watched the morning news and waited impatiently for eight o'clock. At five minutes after eight, she returned Fred Whitmore's call.
"I got your message yesterday," she told him, "but this is the first chance I've had to call you back." She steeled herself and asked, "Did the owner, uh, accept my offer?"

"He's thinking about it. I haven't heard from him, but I haven't given up."

She sat up straighter. Why hadn’t Brady told her someone had made an offer."Well, I'm giving up. I want to withdraw the bid."

"You can do that, Miz Strayhorn," he drawled. "
Do you mind if I ask why?"

"I've changed my mind. You're sure you didn't reveal my identity?"

"No, ma'am. You asked me not to."

She closed her eyes and heaved a great breath.
"I'll come by your office in the next few days and pick up my earnest-money check."

She hung up,
deflating for the first time since yesterday.

By the time Brady finished breakfast, daylight had burst
onto the scene with brilliant sunshine and a sky so clear and blue, tiny black specks danced in his sight. The downpour from Tuesday night had washed the red dust off everything, and the landscape shone and smelled like cedar and sage.

He met with the wagon boss and planned the workday, then
walked over to the ranch house's back door, knocked and asked for Jude. The housekeeper let him in. He lifted off his hat as she led him to the breakfast room. Jude was sitting alone at the table eating cereal.

…
I always do things alone. It's no big deal….
He remembered her saying those words Tuesday night, but seeing her alone at the big round oak table dramatically emphasized the point. Most likely, "doing things alone" was a bigger deal than she let on.

She looked so beautiful the sight of her almost took his breath.
The morning sunlight pouring through a wall of French doors highlighted gold in her hair. She had on another one of those tight little T-shirts that made his mouth water. Would he ever get tired of just looking at her?

She looked up when he walked in. She didn't exactly smile, but she didn't frown, either. Now he knew for sure sh
e had heard Marvalee's message.

As he approached the table, Windy brought him a mug of steaming coffee and set it on the table. "How ya doin' this mornin', Mr. Fallon?" the grizzled old cook asked. "What'd ya think o' that rain? A real frog-drownder, wasn't it?"

"And we sure needed it," Brady replied.

"Yes, sir, we did," Windy said. "But the boys tell me it didn't bring us much relief from this dang drought." He ambled back to the kitchen.

Conversation about rain and the lack of it was never ending in West Texas. Like a sponge, the thirsty ground had already sucked up Tuesday night's drenching.

Brady fixed his eyes on Jude and pul
led out a chair adjacent to her. He wanted to kiss her good morning, wanted to take her in his arms, wanted to hear her say she shared his feelings, but he could hardly have an intimate conversation with her with the kitchen help so close. He noticed her cereal bowl was empty. "Wannna take a walk?"

“Absolutely,” she answered
and stood.

He pulled her chair back, then picked up his own mug
and they walked outside to the terrace. The wide expanse of red limestone slabs took up half of what was considered the backyard, a bigger footprint than the whole 6-0 house.

“Thought yo
u didn’t like coffee,” he said.

She beamed a smile up at him. “I’m drinking green tea. It’s better for you.”

He set his hat on and they began to stroll the length of the terrace, squinting in the bright sunlight, their boot heels clunking against the solid stone.

"No one really comes out here anymore," she said, gazing at the orchard a hundred yards away. "A long time ago, there were parties out here. There would be politicians and businessmen. A few celebrities. People would fly in. Cable used to bring all of these rodeo people. Even some country-western musicians. I don't know what happened to all that. It just sort of went away."

As far as Brady could tell, there was little time for partying at the Circle C. Routinely, J.D. worked sixteen-hour days. It wouldn't be easy to party hard when a man went to bed before sundown and rose before daylight.

And Jeff Strayhorn, even at his age, worked long hours, too. Brady had heard J.D. say that on some days, the old man never came out of his office until supper. Brady had been surprised to learn that the ranch's money—outside of the huge cow and horse operations—came from Jeff Strayhorn's astute invest
ments.

S
omeone Jude's age living in this environment with two old men and a few Mexicans employed as household help reminded him of some fairy-tale princess in a tower, protected from the outside world. "I wanted to talk to you," he said.

She stopped walking and looked up at him with those wide, wondering eyes and he felt it again—that spinning sensation, as if they were caught in a vortex. "What about?" she asked, keeping distance between them. Her tone was matter-of-fact, unemotional.

"You must have heard my ex-wife's phone message," he said.

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug, and they began to walk again. "That's what you want to talk about?"

"No. And yes."

They had reached the end of the patio. A rectangular concrete table with two benches sat at the edge under the shade of a giant old tree. The tree roots had heaved up the limestone slabs in several places. Tufts of grass grew in the cracks.

"Let's sit down," she said, and stepped up on the bench. She sank to the tabletop, placing her feet on the bench. He seated himself beside her, his hip and shoulder touching hers. The concrete had already been warmed by the sun and he felt it against his bottom. He rested his elbows on his knees and wrapped his hands around his mug. "What I'd really like is to kiss you good morning, but I don't suppose you'd want me to do that."

"Windy's probably spying on us through the breakfast room doors. He and Daddy have been friends their whole lives, you know. He tells Daddy everything that happens. They don't call him Windy for no reason."

Chuckling, Brady clasped her thigh and pulled it close to his, letting his hand linger between her legs. He just wanted to touch her. "What I came to say, Jude, is this. If we’re going to keep seeing each other, I think we need to come clean with J.D. We need to stop sneaking around and lying to him. I’m just not comfortable hiding."

"Are we going to keep seeing each other?"

He smiled. "Jude. We've slept together. And it was pretty damn good for both of us. You think we just ignore that like it never happened?"

She leaned forward, too. "I don't know. You slept with Ginger, too. Apparently for a long time. She had your things. Your friends thought you were together."

Uh-oh.
This might be harder than he had hoped. He stopped and swirled the liquid in his mug. How could he explain Ginger without sounding like an asshole? "Ginger was, uh—well…"

"
Convenience? Is that the word you’re looking for?"

"We were convenient for each other," he said, throwing the remainder of his coffee onto the grass. "Life's like that."

"Not my life. I don’t know any people who are convenient....Besides that, you and I have never exactly talked about anything serious."

"You don't think Tuesday night was serious?"

"Well, yes. It was for me. And that night in Stephenville was serious, too, but—"

"
Jude, look at me.”

She turned her head and faced him. “T
uesday night was about as serious as I get. Like I said then, I want us to give this a shot. I’m looking you in the face and saying I care about you. I’m not good with flowery words, but I’m saying I haven't felt this way in a long time, maybe ever. I can’t explain it, but in my heart, I believe you’re the one for me. And I mean for all time.”

He saw a glister of moisture in her eyes.
“I care about you, too, Brady. I have since the first day I saw you.”

He reached up and brushed tendrils of her hair from her face.
“Then let’s tell your dad how we feel, so we can be open and up front. I don't like lying."

Jude
’s chest swelled with emotion, more than she’d ever had to deal with so quickly. Coming from him, that speech was an oration. A plain-spoken sonnet without rhyme. Now she was the one who was speechless, a handicap she had rarely suffered.

She swallowed, waiting for her voice. "
If we tell Daddy, you're the one with something at risk. I’ll still be his daughter and he won’t kick me out of the house, but I don’t know what he’ll think of you. You have to understand that for my entire life growing up, I was told by him and Grandpa and Grammy Pen to stay away from the ranch hands."

"
I know that. I can see why they'd say that, Jude. This is a world of men around here, some of them unruly. If I had a young daughter growing up in this environment, I might do the same thing."

"It's a moot point now. I'm friends with most of the hands. I know their families. I've taught their kids in school. I’ve even done babysitting for them. They respect me.”

"I know that, too. I hear the way they talk about you. Anyway, I'm willing to take a chance with J.D. When we went to Stephenville together, if I had known him like I know him now, I wouldn't have asked you to keep the trip a secret. I wouldn't have thought he'd be upset over your going with me. I believe he's a reasonable man."

"Hmm.
You don’t know him well enough yet. He has selective reasonableness.” She looked up at him, seeking his eyes. “I don't like lying, either, Brady. And keeping this from Daddy bothers me.”

"
Then if you agree, I'll talk to him today."

"
I should be the one to tell him. He's due back from Amarillo this afternoon. I'll make it a point to have a drink with him before supper. I need to discuss Spike and Charlie Brown with him anyway."

"Who?"

"The bulls."

Brady studied her a few seconds, then chuckled
. “Oh, the bulls. I didn’t know you had already named them. They're okay, by the way. I sent one of the hands over to my house to pick them up. Doc looked them over."

"I heard."

He gave her a serious look across his shoulder. "So now that we've settled on telling your dad, there's something else I want to talk to you about. I'm heading down to Abilene. I'm meeting my ex-wife. She and her husband are getting a divorce. I'm hoping she's gonna let my boy live with me. I’m hoping I’m gonna eventually get legal custody. It’s what I’ve been trying for for two years."