Texas Lucky (39 page)

She lowered the gun, mouth agape at what she saw. It was Caleb, lifting Wendell down off the back of his horse.

“I found him on the road,” he quickly told her. “His horse must’ve shied at a rattler and thrown him. He hit his head on a rock. I’m afraid it looks bad, Miz Tess,” he said gravely. “
Real
bad.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Granger, along with some of the other hands, dug Wendell’s grave in a hillock surrounded by cottonwood trees.

“It’s pretty here,” Tess had said in choosing the spot. “I think he would have liked it.”

Wendell had died before the doctor arrived, and Tess had held him as he breathed his last.

He had once said he did not want to grow old alone, so she allowed as to how he would not have wanted to die by himself, either.

He had never regained consciousness. The doctor said his skull was crushed, and he was, for all intents and purposes, dead when Granger picked him off the ground.

George Peterson’s wife had come with two other ladies to bathe Wendell’s body and lay him out, as they called it, while Granger went to Dallas to buy and bring back a coffin.

“A nice one,” Tess had told him as she gave him the money. “I trust your judgment, Granger.”

For five days, Wendell reposed in the parlor, and every night Tess fulfilled her obligation as the grieving widow, sitting beside his coffin wearing a black gown and veil.

People came and went, and though she intended no disrespect, Tess nonetheless prayed for everything to hurry and be over because there was so much to be done around the ranch. Things had come to a complete standstill following Wendell’s tragic death.

Soon it would be winter, and there was hay to be distributed out on the range so cattle could feed when grazing land was covered by snow and ice. Then there was the fall roundup to be completed and new calves branded. She had also directed Granger to fence five hundred additional acres she had just agreed to buy from George Peterson, who was starting to reduce his holdings in his reclining years.

So Tess was anxious to get back to work…anxious to be too busy to think…and brood.

It was the night before the funeral, and she took her seat next to the coffin to receive callers for the last time, relieved there would probably not be very many. Just about everyone for miles around had already come by.

But after a time, Tess began to feel uneasy sitting next to the corpse of a man she realized she had never really known.

She had thought, after he had disclosed on their wedding night how there would be nothing physically intimate between them, that they would at least have companionship. Sadly, however, he had eventually not even wanted that and had almost stopped coming to the ranch altogether, although from time to time she would find an excuse to go to Dallas to see how he was.

On her last trip, she had noted that all the posters advertising a reward for information about Perry had been removed.

She had asked him about that after finding him in a hotel less nice than the one where he usually stayed, but he had been in no mood to talk. His head hurt, he complained, and she could tell by his bloodshot eyes and the reeking odor that he had been drinking heavily.

Instead he had peeled money off a roll in his pocket and told her to go away, promising to come home soon and spend time with her. They would talk, he said, she could show him all around the ranch, and he would stay awhile. Maybe not go back to Dallas for a long, long time.

But he never made it.

Tess allowed that she was actually no more alone than she had been when he was alive.

She would survive.

Life would go on.

But how easier it would have been, she could not help thinking, had Curt not betrayed her.

Damn him,
she silently cursed with fists clenched in the folds of her black crepe skirt.

Damn him for the lying two-timer he is.

And damn
her
for being so stupid as to get involved with him again.

She knew he was a liar, knew he couldn’t be trusted, and…

“Mrs. Thorpe, you have a caller.”

Tess did not lift her head at the sound of Jeremiah’s droning voice. She had heard it so many times in the past nights when he announced guests. Wendell had hired him as a houseboy to see to his needs when he was home, but because those times became so rare she had made Jeremiah a sort of butler instead. He was not a necessity, but he was a good boy, and she hated to let him go.

“Show the person in, Jeremiah,” she said politely, hoping all the while whoever it was would not stay long. Mostly callers would take her hand, murmur condolences, then move to the coffin to stare down at Wendell and say idiotic things about how well he looked, making her want to scream and ask how he could look
good
when he was
dead,
for heavens sake. Only she kept silent, and they would finally leave.

Her head was still lowered when a man stepped in front of her at the same instant Jeremiah further droned, “Mr. Curt Hammond calling, ma’am.”

With a great roaring in her ears, Tess forced her eyes from his boots to stare up at him.

He was wearing a light brown suit, white shirt, string tie, and self-consciously holding the hat in his hands that he had obviously refused to give over to Jeremiah.

His hair was combed, his mustache neatly trimmed, and he looked, and sounded, quite sincere as he said, “Tess, I want you to know I’m real sorry…about a lot of things.”

There was a vase of flowers sitting on the table on the other side of her, and for one insane moment Tess actually thought about picking it up to slam over his head.

The nerve of him.

But then a little voice deep inside whispered,
Whoa there, Tess. He’s a neighbor. Next range to the east. It would look real funny if he didn’t show up. So just act natural. Act like a grieving widow, for God’s sake, and then let him move on to the coffin and declare how good Wendell looks and then get the hell out.

“Thank you,” she was finally able to say.

He bent slightly from the waist to reach for her hand which she still had hidden in the folds of her skirt and clenched in a fist.

They were alone. Jeremiah had returned to wherever he took up position to wait for someone else to knock.

“Tess, I don’t know what to say,” Curt floundered. “I know it happened that day…that day that I…”

“The day I found out what a low-down dirty polecat you are, Curt Hammond,” she hissed from beneath the veil. “Now get out of here, and if I ever see you on my land again, I swear I’ll send you to keep Wendell company—except he’s probably not in the same place you’d go—hell.”

He dropped her hand.

“If you’d only listen, I can explain—”

“We could have a double funeral tomorrow if you like,” she warned.

“Tess, I—”

“I’m going to count to three.”

He sighed and moved to the coffin, head bowed. Suddenly Tess could stand no more and leaped to her feet to slam the coffin lid closed with a loud bang.

“I want you out of here now, and I mean it,” she whispered fiercely. “And don’t you dare show your face at the funeral tomorrow. I never want to see you again. Can’t you understand that?”

Misery was etched in every line of his face as he implored, “If you’ll only give me a chance, Tess, to tell you why it happened. I never meant to hurt you. God knows, I was dying myself. I had to do something, because it couldn’t go on. We might have got caught. The risk was too great.”

Tess began to back away from the coffin, wishing she had her guns. At the same time she was glad she didn’t, or, God forbid, she might have lost control and actually blown him away.

“You’ve made a fool of me for the last time, Curt.”

“I didn’t mean to. Don’t you see? Sanchina had been throwing herself at me for months, but I didn’t want her. Can’t you understand that? I only wanted you, but I couldn’t have you, and it had to end, so I let you think—”

“Have you no respect?” Her words were like bullets, sharp, quick. “You dare to come here and stand beside my husband’s corpse and tell your lies in hopes of worming your way back into my life now that he’s gone?”

Curt defended himself, “Wait a minute, Tess. I’m not showing disrespect, because we both know what kind of marriage you two had. The fact is, I couldn’t wait any longer to talk to you, because I couldn’t stand having you believe I was really involved with Sanchina. Don’t you see? I staged it so you’d hate me, so that no matter how tempted I was to come back to you, you wouldn’t want me. But the minute I did it, I knew it was wrong, only it was too late.”

“Damn you to hell, Curt, I’m telling you for the last time to get out of here.”

“Tess, please. You need me now. And I need you.”

Her laugh was cold and brittle. Did he think she was so desperate for love that she had no pride? “Well,
I
don’t need
you
.”

“But you don’t have anybody else, and—”

“I have…” She paused to think.

Who
did
she have?

And then she heard the sound of voices.

The hired hands were coming to pay their respects. Granger had told her they would do so the last night of the wake.

And that was when the idea struck her to get back at Curt and make him think she did have someone.

“I have Granger.”

He reeled slightly and gripped his hat tighter as he asked in a tight voice, “Did I hear you right?”

“You did.”

His eyes narrowed with anger. “You’re telling me that you and Granger are—”

“
Lovers
,” she finished for him as she managed a sly smile. “Now will you please go? I hear him coming in now.”

Curt worked his lips silently, furiously, for a few seconds before scathingly saying, “You didn’t wait long, did you? But I guess the kind of woman who’d marry a man just for his money has no scruples, anyhow.”

He turned on his heel and walked out, nearly bumping into Jeremiah as he appeared in the doorway to announce Granger and the hands.

Granger, glancing from Curt’s stiff, retreating back to Tess’s stricken face, asked, “Is anything wrong?”

“No. Nothing,” she lied, glad that a heart made no sound when it finally broke.

She managed to go on and make polite small talk with all of them but soon excused herself, saying she was tired.

Upstairs in her room, with the door closed and locked, Tess ripped off the black garments of mourning and threw herself across the bed to cry until there were no tears left…because despite how much she told herself to hate Curt, she knew she loved him.

And always would.

“Mrs. Thorpe, thank you for coming.” Maxwell Jernigan leaped to his feet as Tess entered his office.

She was puzzled to see another man there whom she had never met.

Maxwell indicated a chair. “Please sit down. Can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps?”

“No. Nothing.” She was made uncomfortable by the way the stranger was looking at her, with—what? Pity? “I don’t believe I know you,” she addressed him coolly.

Maxwell rushed to say, “Forgive me. I should have made introductions. This is John Burkette. He’s the bank’s attorney.”

He sat back down behind his desk before continuing, “I’m afraid there wasn’t time at the funeral day before yesterday to explain why we needed to have this talk, Mrs. Thorpe, and I want you to know how much I appreciate your coming in to see me so promptly. I know this has to be a very difficult time for you, and—”

“And I would appreciate it if you would just get to the point,” Tess said, pleasantly but firmly. Ever since Maxwell had come up to her after the funeral to ask her how soon she could come to his office, she had been perplexed as to why. She knew there would be business to take care of concerning Wendell’s estate but did not understand the sense of urgency.

She also disliked wearing mourning clothes because everyone stared at her when she walked down the street, so she did not want to be out in public.

And now she was even more disconcerted by how Maxwell and John Burkette were exchanging glances, as though each challenging the other to go first.

Tess sighed with impatience. “Please, will one of you tell me what this is about?”

John Burkette cleared his throat and, with another uncomfortable look at Maxwell, said, “Well, it’s about your husband’s estate, Mrs. Thorpe.”

“I thought as much,” she said, “but why the urgency? Wendell made sure I had access to his accounts, and he maintained one strictly for me to manage the ranch, anyway. I haven’t had a chance to go over them, but I plan to this week, so I don’t see why this couldn’t have waited.”

She smiled.

They did not smile back.

And hers quickly faded upon hearing what Mr. Burkette had to say next.

“Actually, Mrs. Thorpe, the only account you have access to now is your own. I’m afraid upon hearing of your husband’s tragic death, the Cattleman’s Club he belonged to instructed me to immediately freeze the funds in his other accounts.”