“I know, I didn’t mean—those photos out front are fascinating.”
“Which ones?”
“The sod houses?”
“They’re the weaker ones. I’ve got better.”
“Oh, well …” She resorted to her strongest weapon. “I don’t want to interrupt you. I just need to use your phone to call Laurie.”
“Why?”
Annabelle battled inwardly with her scruples and then brushed them aside in favor of coaxing warmth from her child. “I’m worried about her and Hugh-Jay, Belle. I don’t like the way she flirts with Chase.”
Belle’s eyes got big. “You noticed?”
“Who could miss it?”
“It’s ridiculous. I don’t know how Hugh-Jay stands it.”
“It’s got to stop.”
They looked at each other in pleasant agreement, but then Belle looked doubtful. “Shouldn’t Hugh-Jay be the one to stop it, Mom? And anyway, it’s not like she flirts only with Chase.”
“Who else?”
“Who doesn’t she?”
“I’ve never seen her flirt with Bobby. Oh, I hate even saying that!”
“She’s got her ways.” A look of disgust crossed Belle’s face. “She picks on him and insults him. That’s as good as flirting to Bobby ’cause it knocks him down and keeps him interested.”
She stared at her daughter, impressed at her perception.
“Has she ever flirted with Meryl?”
“Not when I’m around,” Belle said with an indignant and proud lift to her chin. “But Meryl says she tries it at other times.”
“Oh, honey.”
Her daughter’s face was flushed. “Don’t worry, Mom. Meryl always makes sure she gets the message that he’s not available, not even to her.”
She felt a rush of compassion for her daughter who had spent her whole life in the shadow of a girl whose pretty face and vivacious manner got her everything she ever wanted. She remembered times when Belle looked as if she’d been crying after parties and other events when she was the wallflower to Laurie’s popularity. She recalled Belle’s barely hidden unhappiness when her oldest brother started dating, then got engaged, and then married Laurie. Thank God for Meryl Tapper, she thought, because he was the best revenge—a boy as nice as Belle’s own brother, and one who liked her exactly as she was, which wasn’t nearly as prickly when he was around to smooth her edges. When Meryl was with her, Belle was almost pretty, too, and her lovely complexion glowed with the pleasure of his attention. If Laurie ever did anything to threaten that happiness, Annabelle thought she would kill her.
Feeling guilty because Belle looked upset, she changed the subject. “Where were you last night, dear daughter?”
“Here.” The lift of Belle’s chin changed to a stubborn tilt.
“Not out with Meryl?”
“He was working.”
“That boy is always working.”
“Don’t patronize him.”
She sighed. “I didn’t mean to.” She and Hugh both had their fingers crossed for the match between Belle and the boy they loved like a fourth son. They’d helped send Meryl to college and law school and were the first to throw work his way when he hung out his shingle. Hugh liked to joke that maybe they could get a good son-in-law for their money even if he didn’t turn out to be a great lawyer. But it was beginning to look as if they had a chance of getting both—a fine lawyer right in the family. “After Belle,” Hugh liked to say, “a judge or jury will be a piece of cake for that boy.”
Rather than take the chance of falling into other conversational traps, she reached for the phone on the desk and called Laurie. When that was done and she was properly invited over, she gave Belle a long, somber look.
“What, Mom?”
Belle reached over to touch her mother’s knee.
“Something bad happened at the ranch last night, honey.”
She blinked back tears prompted partly by the wickedness of Billy Crosby, but mostly by the warmth of her daughter’s touch and the expression of concern on Belle’s face.
AFTER LEAVING THE BANK, she girded herself for her upcoming visit to the other challenging young woman in her family. Alone in her car, she closed her eyes and prayed for her eldest son’s marriage. Then, sending waves of love ahead of her toward her granddaughter, she prayed for Jody to always stay as sweet and happy and easy to get along with as she was now.
“LOOK AT YOU!” Annabelle smiled at the little girl on her lap. “So big!”
Everybody thought it was adorable how Jody—named Laurie Jo after her mother—had been born with naturally dark and pixie hair to match Laurie’s. She also had her mother’s dark brown eyes and delicate frame. Annabelle, feeling a tad disloyal to her own son, was glad for the child’s sake that the gene pool had tilted toward Laurie instead of Hugh-Jay.
A warm, oozing triangle of apple pie sat on the kitchen table in front of her.
Annabelle, who had accepted an offer of vanilla ice cream to go with the pie, also had to admit that Laurie made fine pies. This one had a lattice crust baked to a perfect golden brown. Sugar crystals sparkled on top, exactly as they should. With her free hand, she took up her fork, cut into the triangle, and gave the first fragrant, gooey bite to her granddaughter, who smiled at her around the fork, making Annabelle’s heart squeeze with love.
While Jody chewed noisily, Annabelle took a bite for herself.
“Mm, it’s wonderful, Laurie.”
“It’s good, Mommy.”
Inside, the filling was just tart enough to make it perfect.
Her gratitude for both the grandchild and the food made it easier for her to smile at her daughter-in-law, who sat across from her at the kitchen table. Laurie, who had an artistic streak, had painted the table sunflower yellow to match her gingham curtains, and pottery that she herself had painted—with big poppy blossoms of orange, yellow, red, and white—and fired in a kiln. They looked like spring bouquets around the circular table. In her yellow sundress, she added the final touch of beauty to the scene. Outside, the day was getting darker and darker by the minute; inside, there was sunshine. Laurie should have gone to an art school, Annabelle thought, instead of trying to make it through a university that expected her to pass freshman biology. When Annabelle had dreamed of having daughters-in-law, this wasn’t the one she thought she’d get, especially not from Hugh-Jay. She realized now that she should never have underestimated a young man’s—any young man’s—vulnerability to a pretty face and figure. And, oh well, she had two more sons and two more chances for the cozy female relationship she rarely had with her own Belle.
In the meantime she had a perfect granddaughter.
Annabelle hugged Jody to her as the child reached for more pie.
“I’ll stay here with Jody,” she offered, starting casually upon her agenda. “You go do anything you need to do.”
Laurie sighed. “I may just take a long leisurely bath.”
“It’s good to get a break,” Annabelle said with careful casualness. “When our kids were little, Hugh and I treasured the times we could get away, even though we missed the children.”
“That would be nice. To get away.”
This is too easy, Annabelle thought, suppressing a smile.
She observed the unhappy downward curve to Laurie’s pretty mouth.
“Are you ready for a little break, honey?”
“Oh, God, yes. A bath will feel great. I may even light candles.”
Annabelle smiled. “Actually, I meant a longer break than that, like a couple of days to go somewhere.”
“I’m ready for a break of about ten years.” Laurie said, and then she sighed. “In Tahiti.”
That made Annabelle laugh. Laurie laughed a little, too.
Laurie’s parents, who had catered to their beautiful daughter’s whims all of her life—had moved to Wichita following the wedding, as if they were turning the care and feeding of their high-maintenance daughter over to the larger, wealthier Linder fam
ily. Annabelle had watched them go with bemused understanding. Now, they seemed content to come for suspiciously quick visits to see their grandchild. It was’t Laurie’s fault, Annabelle reminded herself, that she was spoiled.
“Well, how about taking a weekend off, honey?”
“What?”
“A weekend vacation.” This was her big idea. “Just the two of you, you and Hugh-Jay.”
Laurie sat up. “A whole weekend! But who would—”
“We will, of course.” Annabelle dabbed ice cream off Jody’s chin. “We’d love to. I want you and Hugh-Jay to spend a weekend at the Broadmoor—”
“The what?”
“The Broadmoor. It’s a hotel in Colorado Springs.”
“The one with the spas and the golf, and the—” Laurie began to look excited. “Really? You mean it?”
“Yes, really.”
“Oh, my gosh! That’s incredible, Annabelle. Yes, yes, yes!”
Annabelle felt a little of her own tension melt away. Smiling, pleased, she stroked the yellow tabletop with one hand, admiring how perfectly Laurie had sanded it down to smoothness before painting it. When it came to making things look good, including herself, Laurie had the touch.
But then Laurie leaned forward and said, “Hugh-Jay will never go.”
Annabelle’s hand stopped moving on the tabletop. “Why not?”
“He just won’t,” Laurie said, in a tone that sounded both dismissive and a little bitter. “He won’t leave the ranch for pleasure, you know that, Annabelle, not if there’s a single cow to herd or a horse to ride. Now, if you sent him to a bull sale, he’d go for a week.”
“We’ll talk him into it.”
“What if I went by myself?”
Annabelle, flummoxed, said, “What? By yourself?”
Laurie nodded, looking suddenly overjoyed, the weariness vanishing from her eyes. In that instant, she looked stunningly beautiful and wildly alive, and Annabelle understood why her son looked so besotted and so sad. This would be a difficult girl for a plain and decent boy to lose, for any man to lose. In Annabelle’s lap, Jody stared at her mother as if she were a beautiful princess. “Oh, Mom,” said Laurie, “it would be so good for me … for both Jay and me, really!”
Annabelle hated when Laurie called her Mom.
“How would it be good for Hugh-Jay?” she asked, with a bite to her tone.
“I’d come back rested and happy to see him!”
“Lucky him.”
“Exactly.”
Annabelle felt so confused by the sudden turn that she couldn’t think of a way to say no that wouldn’t come out sounding mean and angry. What she wanted to exclaim was, You selfish girl! How can you take this generous offer for both of you and turn it into a treat solely for yourself?
Stalling, furiously thinking, she took another nibble of pie.
She was worried that Laurie had been flirting with Chase that very morning. The business with the barbed wire had shocked her. She hadn’t told Belle about that. She could hardly believe Hugh-Jay had done it, or that the expression on his face said he didn’t regret it. Chase could have been badly hurt. Hugh-Jay was apparently at some kind of breaking point. Even if nothing had happened between Laurie and Chase—yet—it had already reached the point where it set Hugh-Jay off, which meant it had gone too far.
It was Hugh-Jay and Laurie together to whom she wanted to give some time alone to rediscover each other, to work on their marriage, to have fun and pleasure without responsibilities for once.
The phone rang, and Annabelle was so tense she jumped.
Listening hard, she heard Laurie’s end of the conversation from the phone in the front hallway. “Hello.” That sounded normal, but the next words had a funny tone to them, an amused, secretive-sounding tone. “I thought you might be interested … Yeah, at Bailey’s … What?” Annabelle heard her daughter-in-law laugh, a low, seductive kind of laugh. “Oh, you.” Then she heard a stilted tone, the kind a person uses when they’re trying to get a secret message across to somebody, to let them know they aren’t free to say what they want to say. “Listen, my mother-in-law is here.” There was a little silence, followed by another low laugh, and then Laurie hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
“That was Belle,” Laurie said with a breezy air as she came back into the kitchen. “We’re meeting at Bailey’s for supper tonight.”
Annabelle thought, You refer to me as your mother-in-law? To my daughter?
Laurie leaned forward, looking as if she had mysteriously gained more self-confidence. “May I go for three days?”
“Go?” Annabelle said, not understanding at first. Then she blinked at the speed of the escalation from a weekend to three days. “To the Broadmoor?”
“Maybe I’ll take a friend if Hugh-Jay won’t go.”
“A friend?” Annabelle felt queasy. She wondered if she had just made things worse. What she wanted to say at that moment, but could not possibly say out loud, was, The fact that you’re not taking Hugh-Jay does not mean you get to take somebody else, or meet them there.
Annabelle felt sick at having even worse thoughts.
Who was that on the phone, was that her “friend?”
Of course Laurie meant a girlfriend, of course she did, but if Chase suddenly came up with an excuse to visit the ranch in Colorado on the very weekend that Laurie was gone, she would send him off on errands a thousand miles in the opposite direction. She was also going to suggest to his father that a horse-whipping might be in order.
Laurie wasn’t finished asking for things.
“Could you take Jody back to the ranch with you tonight? She’d love to spend the night, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”
The child, made joyful by the warmth in her mother’s voice and by the suggestion to go to her favorite place, flung her arms around her grandmother’s neck and whispered, “Please.” She adored her grandparents and delighted in the ranch, where there were uncles to take her for horsey rides and there was endless space in which to run around and play.
When Annabelle said yes, it was only to that request.
Laurie didn’t seem to notice the distinction, and as grandmother and granddaughter were leaving, she prattled about the massages and facials she was going to get and the clothes she was going to need. “I think I’ve heard of the Broadmoor! It’s really famous and really nice.”
She appeared to consider it settled, with no requirement to say thank you.
Beaming, the beautiful young mother escorted them rapidly to the front door and closed it as soon as they were standing on the front porch. Annabelle felt as if they’d been put out unceremoniously, like the trash. “Well,” she said, looking down at the child whose hand she held, “let’s go start supper. While I slice the meat loaf, you can check on the new kitties in the barn.”
“New kitties!” Jody jumped up and down with glee.
Annabelle noticed that the child didn’t look back for her mother.
AN HOUR LATER, on her way out of Rose with Jody in the backseat, Annabelle jumped when a horn honked behind her. She looked in her rearview mirror and saw it was Hugh-Jay. “Look, Jody, it’s your daddy.” She pulled over to the nearest curb and parked, and he did the same behind her. Had he already heard about the trip? she wondered, feeling guilty that her good—if interfering—intentions had gone awry, leaving him out.
But when he appeared at her car window, he just smiled and said, “Hi, Mom.” Then he reached in a long arm so he could gently squeeze his daughter’s left knee. “Hey, pumpkin.”
Jody giggled at his touch. “We’re going to the ranch, Daddy.”
“Well, don’t ride any cows, okay?”
“Daddy, you don’t ride cows!”
He laughed and withdrew his arm. “That’s right. Good thing you reminded me.” He smiled at his mother. “I saw the Caddy, and I wanted to say ’bye before I leave for Colorado.”
“Is everything … taken care of, with Billy … at the ranch?”
He a
nswered in similar code to avoid scaring the little girl in the backseat. “All taken care of. Taken away. No trouble at all.”
“That’s good.” She looked into his big, kind, unhandsome face. “Hugh-Jay?”
Teasingly, because of her suddenly serious tone, he said, “Mom?”
“Speaking of Colorado, I may have done a bad thing,” she confessed.
“Impossible,” he said with a grin.
“Well, wait until I tell you before you judge. I offered a little vacation to Laurie, for the two of you, but it seems to have turned into a spa trip for just her.” Wishing to lessen the blow, she gilded Laurie’s excuse, to make it sound more tactful. “Laurie felt you might not want to leave the ranch, with so much work to do.”
She saw a frown appear between his eyes before he erased it.
“She’s probably right. That’s fine. It’ll be good for her.”
“It would be good for you, too.”
“Do I look like a spa kind of guy?”
She smiled. “Hugh-Jay?”
Again he teased her, though not quite as lightheartedly. “Yes, Mom?”
“Don’t ever let anybody tell you that happiness has to be earned.”
His expression turned quizzical and more genuinely amused. She was infamous among her offspring for offering bits of impromptu wisdom to them.
“Okay,” he said agreeably. “I won’t.”
He chuckled, but for some reason, she couldn’t work up another answering smile. She felt her eyes start to fill, and blinked it back. “What I mean to say,” she said, “is that if happiness had to be earned, then out of all of my children, you would be the happiest.” She paused, then plunged in, and said softly so that little ears couldn’t overhear, “But you’re not, are you?”
“Mom,” he said, his voice gentle.
Because he was right there in her window, she placed her left palm against his right cheek, feeling the stubble of the whiskers of her most-grown son. They were so blond they were nearly invisible. She looked at him as if memorizing him. After her first weeks of being a novice at mothering, he had been such an easy child. So simple to manage. Easy to please. As he grew up, a piece of chocolate cake made him happy, any sitcom could make him laugh, Christmas absolutely delighted him. He was never grouchy in the mornings, and now he had his own baby daughter and he thought the sun rose and never set in her.