She’s Gone Country Read online

  It’s one-thirty in the afternoon and I’m standing on the bottom step of the Highland Park Tudor-style mansion holding a stack of brightly wrapped Christmas packages, dressed in a silver turtleneck, black pants, a black merino wool jacket, and black leather boots, with a long black wool coat on top. And despite the packages crammed in my arms, tight wig on my head, and the scratch of itchy wool fabric, I’m smiling up at my adorable grandchildren, who are running out of the house to meet me.

  Unfortunately, the adorable grandchildren can’t smile in the same frame, which means we reshoot again and again. And the sun’s a little too direct overhead, which means we keep repositioning the lights and reflector screens. And heck, it’s only eighty-nine degrees without the wig, turtleneck, jacket, coat, boots, lights, and silver reflectors.

  A bead of sweat slides down my rib cage. And then another.

  The photographer pauses to check his camera and then the light meter. DeeDee sends the little boy and girl back onto the top step. I close my eyes and count backward from ten. I am not hot. I am not sweating profusely. I am not suffocating.

  DeeDee and the photographer talk, and then DeeDee claps her hands. “Let’s do it again,” she calls. “And Shey, a little more expression. These are your grandbabies, and it is Christmas.”

  The sweat slides down the small of my back. My cheeks feel tight, like a papier-mâché puppet’s. “You got it, DeeDee.”

  I finish just before three-thirty, but it means I won’t be in Mineral Wells for another two hours and I’ll need Brick to pick up the boys. I call him and start to apologize for needing the favor, but he cuts me short, saying he’d planned on picking them up and was already in Mineral Wells at a feed store, so everything was under control.

  “But how’d it go?” he asks. “Did you knock their socks off?”

  I’m just starting my truck, and it’s hotter than hell inside after baking in the sun all day. I pause to scoop up my hair and twist it into a knot on top of my head, using one of the boys’ pencils to secure it in a bun. “They want me back tomorrow. We’re doing the making-holiday-cookies-with-Grandma shots then.”

  “Holiday cookies with Grandma?”

  “Yeah.” I clear my throat. “I’m Grandma.”

  Brick barks a laugh, and I make a face as I pull away from the curb and head down the street. Blue’s house is just two blocks from here, and I’m not sure if I should swing past it to see if anyone is home or just head back to the ranch. “Do you know if Blue is out of town? I called him earlier to let him know I’m in the neighborhood but never heard back.”

  “I don’t think he’s gone anywhere.”

  “Think I should stop by?”

  “Only if you want to listen to Emily moan about how hard her life is, and how Blue hasn’t amounted to anything.”

  Brick likes everybody, but even he finds Blue’s demanding wife exasperating. Emily comes from old Dallas money, and although Blue has made some serious dough during their marriage, it’s still not enough for her. She wants Blue to be like her daddy, and unfortunately he’s not. Blue’s just a millionaire, not a billionaire.

  I stretch, try to get more comfortable as I’m still wired from the shoot. “I’ll head home, then. I should be there around five if traffic isn’t too bad.”

  “You might want to stop somewhere and do some shopping instead of coming straight back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because once I get the boys home, I’m going to have them help me with some chores. They probably won’t like it and they’ll probably bitch and you’ll get all worked up. Better you let me handle it.”

  My anxiety returns. “What kind of chores?”

  “Basic ranch chores, Mama Bear. Stacking hay bales. Unloading feed sacks. Shoveling manure. Cleaning out the water troughs. Nothing that will hurt them, but jobs that need to get done.”

  He’s right. The boys won’t like it. The boys hate farmwork. But at the same time, we’re living rent-free on the ranch, not even paying utility bills, and it’s not right that Brick works his ass off while my three boys sit around and play video games. “I think I will make a little detour and let you handle this one.”

  “They’ll probably call you and complain.”

  They probably will. My brothers wouldn’t have dreamed of trying to get out of chores, but my boys don’t have the same sense of responsibility or work ethic. In their mind, the world revolves around them: their sports, their entertainment, their needs. Guilt and unease gnaw at me. “I won’t answer my phone.”

  “Smart.”

  Off the phone, I lean back against the seat, aware that if the boys are spoiled and self-centered, I have no one to blame but myself. I’m their mom. I’ve raised them to be who they are. Which is lazy and quite often selfish.

  It’s a sobering thought, and far from flattering.

  Traffic already clogs the South 75, and I’m grateful I have to be on this freeway for only a couple of miles. I can’t imagine 30 West will be much better, though, and I have forty-eight miles on that freeway.

  And then tomorrow I’ll do this again.

  I probably shouldn’t have agreed to return tomorrow. Today was horrible. The models weren’t friendly, and the crew kept to themselves. I was treated like an outsider, and I suppose I am. In New York I knew everyone, but I’m starting over here, and starting as a senior.

  Grandma in today’s Dillard’s shoot.

  The corner of my mouth lifts in a faint, wry smile. And I was worried that I’d look too old.

  I end up making better time than I expect, and seeing that it’s only five now and Brick told me not to come until six, I stop at the Brief Encounter Café on the edge of Mineral Wells for a jumbo iced tea and a turkey club sandwich.

  I sink into the vinyl booth with a grateful sigh. I’m hot and tired and definitely hungry. Brick’s right: I probably don’t eat enough. But sometimes it’s hard to eat when I’m surrounded by the boys and all they do is bicker and fight, which Dr. Phil would also say is my fault.

  For the second time today, I’m aware that my parenting skills are lacking. Were they always this bad, I wonder as I snag a piece of crisp bacon from the sandwich to munch on, or have I lost control since separating from John?

  I’m still puzzling over the situation when the café’s glass door opens, sucking in the hot, heavy heat of Texas. The white glare of late afternoon sunlight floods the brown linoleum floor, and as I glance up to see why the door is so slow to close, my curiosity gives way to shock.

  Dane.

  Dane Kelly.

  Oh, my God.

  I wondered when I’d finally see him—he didn’t attend Cody’s funeral—and I choke on a breath, the air catching inside my lungs just the way it used to when I was sixteen and hopelessly in love with Dane Kelly, bull-riding champ, neighbor, and my brother Brick’s best friend.

  I stare at him, drinking him in, drinking him as if he’s water and I’m dying of thirst.

  He hasn’t changed, not much. He still has the same thick head of hair that’s neither blond nor brown, but a little of both. He’s well over six feet and still fills a doorway with those shoulders that are a little too broad and legs that are a little too muscular and long. He’s wearing the tight, faded Wranglers cowboys prefer and a short-sleeved T-shirt that hugs his chest. And even if I didn’t know him, I’d think it’s a really nice chest.

  The glass door finally shuts behind him, and as the little fan on the corner cabinet coughs and whirs, Dane takes a step, heading for the long counter. That’s when I see his cane and notice his limp.

  Dane limps now. The champion bull rider got hurt.

  I know I’m staring, but I can’t help it. I have to look, have to watch him, as he takes a seat at the coffee shop counter and slowly stretches his right leg out and then rests his cane against his denim-clad thigh.

  My gaze travels from his thigh and then up, over his chest, to his mile-wide shoulders, and finally to his face.

  Sweet Jesus, he’s good-lookin
g. Even better looking at forty-something than twenty-something. He’s all man now. There’s no boy left in that face.

  “Ma’am?” the waitress at my elbow repeats.

  Startled, I jerk my head around, look up at her. She’s holding a plastic pitcher. “More tea, ma’am?”

  I hear what she’s saying, but I’m so shocked that it requires an effort to respond. “Uh, yes, please. Thank you.”

  She fills my huge plastic tumbler and then moves on. I steal another glance at Dane, who’s ordering the barbecue beef brisket dinner plate.

  Oh wow. Dane. Here. Dane. After all these years, and it’s been a long time since I last saw him. Eighteen years. I’d just graduated from Stanford, and he’d just won his second national bull-riding championship. He was also newly engaged to Shellie Ann, a girl I went to high school with. It made me so mad. I felt physically sick from jealousy, love, and longing. So sick I couldn’t even be in the same room with him, and he was at our house, in our kitchen.

  Brick said I acted like a bitch that day, but Brick didn’t understand. I loved Dane. I’d loved him for years, and I’d hoped that once I finished school, once I was twenty-one and finally old enough to be with him, we’d be together. Instead, he proposed to a pretty girl from my high school class whose only accomplishment in life was being crowned homecoming queen.

  Appetite gone, I reach into my purse for cash to pay the bill and escape before he sees me. It’s being a chicken, I know, but I don’t want to talk to him. My feelings are still too strong—and not in a good way. Seeing him again just makes me mad.

  He knew how I felt.

  He knew I adored him.

  He knew I wanted him.

  But maybe that’s how it is with first loves. Maybe it’s natural to carry a torch. And let’s face it, I didn’t fall for him just a little bit. I fell hard. So hard that my folks sent me to California to boarding school just to keep me away from him.

  In hindsight, no sixteen-year-old girl belongs on the professional rodeo circuit, and as a parent, I can say it was the right thing for them to do. But at the time, it broke my heart. I loved him. God, I loved him. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone like that since, not even John. And looking at Dane now, feeling what I’m feeling, I know I didn’t make up those emotions.

  I might have been a teenager, but it was love. Crazy love. The kind of love that breaks you open and makes you someone else.

  Someone harder.

  Someone stronger.

  It’s then that Dane turns his head and looks straight at me.

  It crosses my mind that he doesn’t recognize me, and I don’t know if I’m more relieved or disappointed, but I’m the one to look away first. I drop my gaze to my half-eaten sandwich even as heat rushes through me, from my collarbone up my neck to my cheekbones.

  He still has those eyes.

  He still has it, that energy, chemistry, whatever it is that made me crazy all those years ago.

  I hate him. I do.

  I leave fifteen dollars on the table, far more than I need to, but I don’t have change and I don’t want to wait. I have to get out of here, have to get away.

  On my feet, I’m heading for the door, but I can’t get there before Dane does. He cuts me off before I reach the door.

  “Shey.”

  It’s all he says, and I tilt my head back and look into Dane’s green eyes.

  “Dane,” I say in reply, my voice just as cool as his, although my pulse is racing as if I’m running for my life. And in a way, I am. I chased this man for over a year. I mailed him letters. Made cookies. Left notes beneath his truck’s windshield wipers.

  I was a fool, such a fool, and so out of my league. But I had to let him know how I felt. Had to let him know how much he mattered, and how much he mattered to me.

  Dane’s expression is peculiar. “Home on vacation?”

  “Not exactly. We’re living on the ranch right now.”

  “We?”

  “My boys and me.”

  Dane’s eyebrows lift. He doesn’t need to add anything else, but I do. “‘We moved back after Cody’s funeral,” I blurt out. “We’re trying to figure a few things out, and with Mama gone to Jefferson to be with Grandma, Brick could use some help on the ranch, so here we are.”

  Flustered by Dane’s silence, I add, “I looked for you at Cody’s funeral.”

  “I called your mother. And sent flowers.”

  I feel a lash of anger. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “No, it’s not.” He shifts his weight. “But I was in a hospital in Houston, rehabbing after my last surgery. I wanted to be there. I would have, if I could have.”

  My fury subsides, and I feel just loss. “Brick doesn’t talk about you anymore,” I say, hating the sadness that’s replaced the anger. “What’s happened between you?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  I frown and am about to press him for a better answer when I notice he’s not wearing a wedding ring. My thoughts jump, abruptly changing direction. Is he divorced? Or is he just not wearing his ring? Lots of ranchers and cowboys don’t wear their wedding ring when working, because it can get tangled up in ropes and machinery, but Brick’s always worn his. But that’s Brick. He’s rock solid and after twenty-five years of marriage still completely devoted to his wife, Charlotte.

  The waitress sets Dane’s steaming plate on the counter. “Your food’s here,” I say to him, aware of the awkwardness and hating it.

  “You take care, Shey.”

  “Thanks, Dane. You too.”

  And then I’m outside, where the sun’s just beginning to sink on the horizon, painting the sky layers of lavender and red.

  For a moment I’m lost, filled with emotions both bitter and sweet.

  He was the last person I expected to see, the last person I wanted to see. My legs feel wooden as I head for the truck and climb behind the steering wheel.

  Starting the engine, I feel the most ridiculous urge to cry.

  The past once hurt so much. The present is a mess, and I can’t even see a future.

  Can’t even imagine where we’re supposed to go from here.

  The red sky and rolling countryside stretch in all directions as I leave historic Highway 80 and take the turnoff toward our ranch. The oak trees look like hulking giants in the twilight, and meadowlarks warble from their nests in the lavender-shrouded fields.

  Usually I love this drive. Usually I find the landscape with the hills in the distance beautiful, but tonight I feel cornered. Empty. Trapped.

  The problem with a small town is that everyone knows you.

  The problem with a small town is that you know everyone.

  I slow down as an owl swoops low over the road in front of me. I turn my head and see a jackrabbit running. Poor little jackrabbit. Hope it makes its way home.

  It’s quiet when I pull up in front of the old brick-and-clapboard ranch house. The house is dimly lit, and Brick’s blue truck is still parked out front. I open the front door, and the living room is empty. No sound comes from the back. Maybe everyone’s still in the barn.

  And then I hear voices coming from the kitchen. I shut the door, set my purse on the table next to the sofa, and head to the kitchen, where I see Brick sitting at the oak table next to Cooper with Cooper’s math book open between them. But they’re not doing math. The kitchen’s warm, and I can smell something savory cooking in the oven.

  It’s a tranquil scene and touchingly domestic.

  “Hi, guys,” I say, leaning over to kiss the top of Coop’s head. I ruffle Brick’s short hair, the sun-bleached strands just starting to gray. “Something smells good.”

  “Charlotte sent dinner over. She knew you were working, and since she had to attend a hospital fund-raiser, she made us all dinner.”

  “You do know you have the best wife,” I say, opening the oven and peeking in. Pork chop casserole, and the sauce is bubbling and the chops are just starting to turn golden brown.

  “I’m a little fo
nd of her,” Brick admits.

  “Me too.” I straighten, open the fridge, note the four chilled beer bottles that have been in the door for the past three weeks. No one in our family is much of a drinker, but Mama still had a fit when she saw the beer in my refrigerator. “Are you thirsty? Want a beer?”

  He shakes his head. “No, I’m good, and Coop here has just one more problem and then he’s done.”

  I put together a salad while Brick finishes helping Cooper. As soon as Cooper finishes his math, he packs up his books and binders and takes off for his room, where I’m sure he’s gone to play his PSP. The boys have been begging me to buy an Xbox or a Wii since we moved here, but I’ve refused. They each have a PSP, and that’s all the electronic games they need.

  “How did it go with the boys?” I ask once Cooper’s gone.

  “Fine.” Brick extends his legs and folds his arms over his deep barrel chest. You wouldn’t know he’s forty-five by looking at him. Working the ranch keeps him in great shape.

  “They didn’t give you too hard a time, did they?”

  “I’ve raised two kids, Shey. I can handle yours.”

  So they did give him a hard time. I grimace, feeling guilty all over again. The last thing I want is for my boys to be disrespectful, much less to a member of the family. “I’m sorry—”

  “Not looking for an apology, and not wanting you to feel bad. I’m glad you and the boys are here. You’re a big part of this family, and I want to do what I can to help. So does everyone else.”

  Thus the casserole and the babysitting and the tutoring help…

  I feel a wash of deep, inarticulate gratitude. “Thank you.”

  “Whatever I can do, hon, I’ll do.”

  My chest grows tight. It’s a bittersweet thing being home. I wouldn’t have moved home if Cody hadn’t died. Two years my senior, Cody would have been forty-one this month. “It was Cody’s birthday on Friday,” I say now. “Mama didn’t say a word about it.”

  “Did you say anything to her?” Brick asks.

  I shake my head. “She gets so upset every time his name is mentioned that I just thought it was better to leave it alone.”