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  RETURN TO PARADISE

  Barri Bryan

  ISBN 1-891020-41-2

  © copyright Billie and Herb Houston 1998

  Cover art by Jenny Dixon

  New Concepts Publishing

  4729 Humphreys Rd.

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  OTHER NCP TITLES BY BARRI BRYAN:

  A Love Like Mine

  CHAPTER ONE

  "So this is Paradise." Kate McClure gazed across the rolling, sparsely wooded countryside. "It's hot enough to be that other place." Lifting her hand, she shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun."Who named this place?"

  Belle Sullivan laughed, causing the dimples in her cheeks to deepen. "Your Daddy did. He had just come home from dodging bullets, and sleeping in fox holes. It looked like paradise to him."

  "What did you think about this place, Mamma, the first time you saw it?"

  A pained expression slid across Belle's face. "It looked more like that other place to me, too. But Daddy loved it here, and I loved Daddy." She heaved a weary sigh. "Then Daddy left me, and I couldn't run a ranch by myself, so I took you, and moved to town."

  Kate sat on the grassy slope. "Daddy didn't leave you Mamma, he died. There's a difference."

  "Not much." Belle dropped down beside her daughter. "The feelings are the same. I felt just as deserted and betrayed when Daddy died as you did when Jim divorced you and married another woman. It took a long time for me to get over Daddy."

  Kate nodded. "I know Mamma."

  "How would you know? You're not over Jim yet. Sometimes I wonder if you ever will be."

  Kate opened her mouth to protest. "Mamma, honestly," then snapped it shut. Her mother was telling the truth. She changed the subject. "Why didn't you sell this place, Mamma?"

  "I don't know. I could have used the money a hundred times over, but I never could let it go. As long as I had Paradise Ranch, I had a part of Daddy. The place wasn't a total loss. Marcus Sinclair, who owns the big spread next door, leased the land. What he paid me took care of the taxes." Belle lifted her arms, then let them fall to her sides. "So I kept my paradise."

  Kate's hand flew to her mother's arm, in a frightened gesture. "It's not leased to Mr. Sinclair now, is it?"

  "No. He didn't renew his lease this year. I don't know why."

  "Maybe for once, fate was kind to us, Mamma. If we didn't have this place, I would be living with Michael and his new wife, and you would be in Cedar's Retirement Home."

  "I guess you know Michael thinks you're crazy and I'm senile, and we won't last thirty days out here."

  Kate's face hardened, causing her fine features to set in determined lines. "My son has a lot to learn about his mother, and his grandmother."

  "He has a point," Belle argued. "You have to admit it sounds a little crazy for a forty-six-year old woman and her sixty-five year old mamma to decide to become ranchers when neither of us knows anything at all about the cattle business."

  "Don't say that, Mamma." A thread of apprehension began to unravel inside Kate. Maybe this was a foolish venture. She pushed that thought from her mind. "You lived here with Daddy all those years ago. You must have learned something." Frowning, she added, "I may get seasick. That grass billows like an ocean."

  "You'll get used to it. In time you may even learn to like it."

  Kate doubted that. "I'll be satisfied if I can learn to endure it. Because like it or not, Mamma, this is home for us now."

  Belle put her hand to her head. "Maybe you should take your helpless old mamma back to Cedar's and go live with Michael and his snooty new wife."

  "Stop it, Mamma. You're the least helpless person I know. Besides, this was your idea in the first place."

  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. So your husband left you for some floozie, your son thinks you're too old to have a life, and your daughter could care less. Are you going to let a few little things like that get you down?"

  Kate stood up and brushed the dirt from her backside. "I'm not feeling sorry for myself. And you're wrong about Suzie. She does care about me."

  "Sure she does," Belle agreed too swiftly. "That's why she refuses to speak to you. Stop finding excuses for the terrible way Suzie has behaved. She's a spoiled brat. Maybe that fancy college she goes to will teach her some things worth learning, like compassion and understanding."

  "Suzie's my daughter! She's just confused and immature. I won't let you talk about her that way."

  Irony crept into Belle's reply. "I know the feeling."

  "Oh, Mamma!" Kate began to walk toward the dilapidated old house that nestled at the foot of the slope. "Do you think the house is livable?"

  Belle fell in step with her daughter. "Let's have a look."

  An orange sun had climbed high overhead, burning the sky a brassy blue. A complaining breeze sighed through the grass and underbrush.

  "Why did Daddy choose this place, Mamma? He used his GI Bill. He could have bought anywhere."

  "Your Daddy was stationed in San Antonio when he was in the army. He fell in love with this part of the world."

  "Why did he decide to be a rancher? Until he was drafted, he lived all his life in Chicago."

  "I think he saw too many John Wayne movies."

  "No, Mamma, really, why?"

  "Who can explain a dream?" Belle was almost running to stay up with her daughter. "Slow down, Kate."

  Kate slowed her pace. "Tell me about Daddy, and his dream."

  "I met Daddy at the USO in San Antonio. He was the handsomest man I'd ever seen. You look like him, Kate, with that red hair, and those big blue eyes. We took one look at each other across a crowded room, and fell in love."

  Kate had heard that story, at least a hundred times."I want to know how Daddy knew so much about ranching."

  They were coming to the old house.

  "He didn't, at first. He read books, and talked to people who raised cattle. He joined a cattleman's association. This climate here was too hot for the English breeds of cattle, and those were the best ones for producing prime beef. Daddy began to cross breed. He wanted to give his herd the hybrid vigor it needed to adapt to this hot, dry climate without taking away from the quality of the meat."

  By now they were standing directly in front of the old frame house. Winded, Belle sat on a fallen log. "Do you think it's safe to go in there?"

  Kate hooked her thumbs in the back pockets of her jeans. "It looks like your Mr. Sinclair has stored his hay in our house. Did he have permission to do that?"

  "I don't guess he thought he had to ask."

  Kate stepped onto the porch, and leaned against a post. "I don't think I like Mr. Sinclair."

  "You don't know Mr. Sinclair," came her mother's tart reply. "Don't go jumping to conclusions. When you live in a place as isolated as this, you need your neighbors."

  Belle stretched her legs out in front of her, and studied the toes of her boots. "Kate, don't take out your anger at Jim on some man you don't even know."

  Kate decided to ignore that remark. "They made a terrible mess. We may have to roll our sleeping bags out on the porch."

  "We can sleep inside. When will the furniture be here?" Belle stood up and slapped her hat against her leg. "We're lucky. There's electricity out here now. When Daddy and I lived here, we burned kerosene lamps, and cooked over an open fireplace."

  "Where will we have to go to put up a deposit for electricity?" Kate pushed the front door open with her foot.

  "St. Agnes, probably." Together the women entered the house.

  "Dear God, what a mess." Kate surveyed what had once been the living room with open disdain. "Wh
at is St. Agnes?"

  "Don't swear, Kate," her mother admonished. She pointed to the brick monstrosity that covered one wall of the living room. "Your daddy built that fireplace. We hauled the bricks from St. Agnes. It's a little town about twenty miles from here. I haven't been there in nearly forty years. But as I remember, it wasn't very big."

  Kate swore as she pulled grass spears from her jeans. "Damn, every plant here has a burr, or a sticker, or a thorn on it."

  A wide smile creased Belle's face. "Now you know why cowboys wear boots. And there you go, swearing again."

  "Damn it, Mamma, don't tell me not to swear." Kate gave a particularly stubborn grass burr a decisive yank. "Maybe that's why cowboys are a dying breed."

  "Cowboys aren't a dying breed. You can find one on every corner in St. Agnes, or San Antonio. Maybe you should go looking. A cowboy could make you forget that city slicker ex-husband who left you for a woman half his age. The only thing you have to be thankful for is that you were too old to be pregnant."

  "Mamma, honestly," Kate complained, but a smile tugged at the sides of her mouth. "Let's look at the bedrooms, and the kitchen. I guess a bathroom is too much to hope for."

  Belle jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "The outhouse is in the back. We have two bedrooms and a path."

  By now the sun had begun to slide toward the western horizon. "We'd better make our tour." Belle stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor. "Then walk back up to the gate, and bring the car down."

  Kate stood in the doorway, thinking as she surveyed the old house, that they would have to make any necessary repairs themselves. "How handy are you with a hammer and saw, Mamma? The cabinet looks like it's about to fall off the wall."

  "Do you have a hammer, or a saw?" Belle asked.

  "Sure do, both. I did all of the little repair jobs around the house when Jim and I were first married. He was always too busy. I swing a wicked hammer."

  "Well, it looks like you will be swinging around here for quite a while. I brought my paint brush. If we can't raise cows, maybe we can go into the repair business." Belle yanked the back door open. "I hope the well still has water in it." She let out a war whoop, "Yahoo!"-- then made a mad dash down a narrow path.

  "Mamma, what the...?" Racing after her mother Kate demanded, "What is wrong with you?"

  Belle pointed to the metal tower that rose like a mechanical mushroom between the house and the outhouse. "Look! A windmill! Mr. Sinclair must have put it up to water his cows." She leaned against the sides of a round concrete tank that stood beside to the square tower. "I was scared to death there wouldn't be any water here. Thank God for rich neighbors."

  Kate scowled at her mother as Belle began to dance around the back yard. "You never mentioned there might not be any water here. Mamma, how could you?"

  By now Belle had leaned over and was holding her hands under the pipe that spilled water into the tank. "Would you have come here if I'd told you there might not be any water?"

  Exasperation caused Kate to snap, "Mamma, you said this place was liveable."

  "It is." Belle patted her face with her wet hands, then wiped them on the sides of her jeans. Her features softened as she met her daughter's unforgiving stare. "Katie, darling, I had to get you out of Dallas. All you did was sit around and blame yourself for something that wasn't your fault."

  A smile moved in to erase Kate's scowl. "Mamma, you're impossible. But you shouldn't have lied to me."

  "I didn't lie; I just omitted."

  "Is there anything else you omitted?"

  "Let's go get the car. It will be dark soon, and I'm hungry."

  They began to retrace their tracks up the grassy slope. "Tomorrow," Kate said, as they labored up the sloping incline, "we can go into St. Agnes, and get some electricity out here."

  Belle's silence made Kate suspicious. "Mamma, do you know something about the electricity that I don't?"

  "Slow down, Kate," was Belle's reply.

  What was the use? Kate quickened her pace. If her mother didn't want to tell her, she wouldn't.

  They drove the car across the bumpy terrain, and parked it beside the house.

  It took longer than either of them expected to move the bales of hay around and clear a space in the living room for the bed rolls.

  "Tomorrow, this hay goes outside," Kate promised.

  "We can't do that, Kate," Belle argued. "This hay belongs to Mr. Sinclair. I should have written and told him we were moving back, but when he didn't renew his lease, I didn't think it was necessary. I'll call him when we go into St. Agnes tomorrow. Don't forget, if it wasn't for Mr. Sinclair, we wouldn't have a windmill."

  "Maybe you're right," Kate slung a towel over her arm, and reached for a bar of soap. "Let's go make use of that water Mr. Sinclair has so generously provided."

  They took a leisurely bath in the concrete stock tank, then Kate rinsed her panties and bra, and hung them on the framework of the windmill.

  As she climbed from the tank, Kate cupped her hands and caught a trickle of water from the pipe that ran from the windmill. She sucked the water into her mouth, then choked, causing it to explode into her nose. "Mamma, this water tastes terrible. We can't drink this!"

  Belle was pulling a long nightgown over her head. "It's just a little gippy. You'll get used to it." Lifting her head, Belle pointed a finger skyward. "Look at those stars. They look like sapphires. When you see a Texas sky at night, you see one of nature's more perfect endeavors."

  Kate looked up. The view was little short of spectacular. Millions of stars twinkled like diamonds set in a vast expanse of black velvet. For a moment, Kate stared in awe. Then she brought her head down, and narrowed her eyes against the darkness. "You knew that the water here was terrible!"

  "Not terrible, gippy. It passes through strata of gypsum on its way up." Belle began to walk toward the house. "All the water around here tastes like that. You'll get..."

  Kate's angry reply echoed into the night. "Don't you dare tell me I'll get used to it. I won't."

  Belle called, "Turn off the windmill."

  Kate wrapped her towel around her middle. "How do you turn off a windmill? Why should we bother anyway?"

  "I forgot you're a city slicker. I'll do it myself. These critters squeak. I don't want to hear it groaning and taking on all night." Belle brushed past Kate, and reached for the long wooden handle that swung on a wire from the top of the windmill. Grasping it firmly, she pulled down hard. The windmill ground to a screeching halt. "Listening to a squeaking windmill is like listening to a man snore." She fastened the handle to the side of the tower with a hook that must have been put there for that purpose. "Reassuring and at the same time aggravating."

  Kate thought, what an analogy. "Mamma, honestly."

  Belle began to hurry down the path. "Let's make supper, then get to bed. It's been a long day."

  Later, as she snuggled in her sleeping bag, Kate thought how fortunate she was to have her mother, and repented that she had let Belle's little deception get to her. Into the soft darkness, she called out, "Mamma?"

  "I'm here." The words fell into the vacant silence.

  "And you always have been. Thanks Mamma."

  There was a catch in Belle's voice. "You're welcome."

  For a long time Kate lay with her arms folded under her head, staring into the darkness, thinking, remembering, regretting.

  Belle's voice called her back from her reverie "A penny for your thoughts."

  Kate sighed and turned over. "You wouldn't want to know, Mamma."

  "Don't you think I don't know you still think of Jim when you go to bed at night?" The bland words stung.

  Kate raised up on her elbow and stared into the darkness. "Do you really want to know what I was thinking, Mamma? I was thinking about Lila, and wondering what it was like to be the other woman."

  "Don't tell me you're envying Lila."

  "Oh, Lord, no!" In spite of herself, Kate smiled. Belle did have a way of making her daughter come to grips
with reality.

  "It's not always easy being the other woman."

  "Don't preach to me, Mamma. You don't know any more about being the other woman than I do."

  "Yes I do," Belle shot back. " I was the other woman, once, a long time ago."

  Kate vaulted to a sitting position. Before she could find her voice, Belle added, "Surprises you, doesn't it?"

  "Yes," Kate admitted, "Although I don't know why. Every time I think you can't surprise me again, you do. You never told me about this."

  "I didn't break up a marriage. Mark's marriage was over long before I met him. But he was a religious man, and didn't believe in divorce. You were all of ten years old when it was happening. I didn't think you would understand. After it was over, I didn't see why I should tell anyone."

  Kate slipped out of her bed roll, and sat cross-legged on top of the covers. "What happened?"

  "Nothing happened. I slept with Mark several times. Enough times to see our affair was tearing him apart. His religion wouldn't let him divorce his wife. His love for me was too strong to let him say no, when I offered myself. A man can decide between two women, if that's all he has to contend with, but throw in an angry God, and you have problems."

  "What did he finally do?"

  "Him?" Belle snorted. "Nothing. I did it. I took you, and moved to Dallas."

  "Wasn't that hard to do?"

  "Sure it was," Belle conceded. "And if it helps your feelings any, you can bet Lila will have some hard times along the way too. I know it sounds trite and old fashioned, but people reap what they sow."

  "Mamma, Lila is just a child, not much older than Suzie." They were getting into an area Kate didn't want to explore, the placing of guilt, and the laying of blame. "Go to sleep, Mamma. We have to unload the car and go to St. Agnes tomorrow."

  Over a yawn, Belle said, "Goodnight, Kate."

  Kate slipped back into her sleeping bag, and closed her eyes, but it was a long time before she fell asleep.

  She had just dropped over the edge of consciousness, when she was yanked back to a terrified wakefulness by a cry like a banshee's wail. In a matter of seconds she was out of her bed roll, and on her feet. "What was that?"