A Woman of Fortune (9 page)

8

B
y mid-morning, light streaming through the windows of the sunroom warmed Claire's face, creating the perfect environment for much-needed sleep. She sat on the sofa and dozed until she felt a hand on her shoulder and slowly opened her eyes.

“Mrs. Massey?” From the conflicted look on Margarita's face, her housekeeper hated waking her. “I'm so sorry. You have a telephone call—Mr. Ranger Jennings.”

Claire let the coverlet slide to the Saltillo tile floor. “Thanks, Margarita,” she said, slipping her feet into her flip-flops. “I'll pick up in here.” She scrambled for the phone on the wicker table and pulled the receiver to her ear. “Ranger?”

“Claire, I just found out Tuck's detention hearing will be in front of Magistrate Rower at eleven this morning.”

“But that's in less than two hours. I can't—”

“You don't have to be there. The entire proceeding will take less than ten minutes. I'll make the best case I can for home confinement prior to arraignment.”

Claire rubbed her temple. “Arraignment? What does that mean?” She'd watched plenty of crime series on television, but this was all new to her.

“I know you have a lot of questions. Let's plan on you coming to the office early this afternoon. I'll have more answers then.”

“Will Tuck be at the hearing this morning?”

“Yes. I know you're anxious to talk with him, but you wouldn't have an opportunity this morning. Don't worry, Claire. I'll get this handled.” They ended the call with Claire clinging to Ranger's reassurance.

“Mrs. Massey, Jana Rae is out at the gate.”

She moved to the window, watching the gardeners at work. “Go ahead and instruct security to allow her in.”

“I told them.” Margarita raised her hands. “But all those men want your personal authority.”

Claire rubbed her forehead. “Okay, sure—with the media circus and all, Garrett probably tightened things up out there.” She grabbed the phone and made a quick call to the entry gate. No doubt the security guys were safer standing in the path of a tornado than weathering her best friend's whirlwind tongue if she lost patience.

Twenty minutes later, Jana Rae stormed into the sunroom. “Why haven't you answered my calls and texts? I've been worried sick.”

Claire turned from the window. “I'm sorry, I should've picked up when you phoned.” She patted the seat next to her on the sofa.

Jana Rae had been there from the beginning, the night Claire had first met Tuck.

It was a Friday night, the first free evening after a week of grueling finals. “C'mon,” Jana Rae urged. “Let's go eat, drink, and get completely inappropriate.”

Claire shook her head. “I don't know. I'm really tired.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “How do you know? This might be the night you meet
the one
! The guy who'll pick you up and whirl you into a vortex of love that'll make you want to dye your eyebrows pink.”

“Jana Rae!”

Her friend rolled her eyes in response. “C'mon, Miss Goody Two-shoes. It'll be fun.”

In the end, Claire adjusted her “halo” and accepted the offer. Her over-the-top buddy had been right. Certainly not about the eyebrow-dyeing part—oh, heavens no—but she walked into the Burger Hut that night and spotted Tuck immediately, standing with several guys over near the jukebox. Dressed in crisp, pressed jeans and a white oxford-cloth shirt, the sleeves carelessly rolled up to reveal brown, well-muscled arms, the man who would become her world turned and smiled in Claire's direction. Instantly, she was reminded of the hunky guys in her daddy's
Western Horsemen
magazines she'd stared at for hours in her early teens.

She smiled back.

It occurred to her now that her heartstrings had been tied to Theodore Massey from that first moment.

Only four days after that night at the Burger Hut, Tuck claimed she was his soul mate and asked her to marry him, sending her heart soaring. She'd laid her usual caution aside and happily let her emotions take over. Less than a year later, he stood by her hospital bedside gazing into their infant's eyes. Choking with emotion, he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Claire, I love you so much I can't breathe.”

At that moment, she bought that pink hair dye, so to speak.

Jana Rae kicked off her boots. She sank down next to Claire and gave her a hug. “The story is all over the news. I got here as quick as I could.”

Claire flinched and burrowed her arms at her sides. “Sorry about that mess out at the gate,” she said in a poor attempt to redirect the conversation away from their embarrassing situation.

“Those goons? The reporters sitting out there on the hoods of their trucks don't know any more about what makes a good news story than my house cat.” Jana Rae shook her head. “Tell you what, sister. Took everything in me not to run a few of 'em down with my car. And I probably would've, except Clark just had the ol' Pontiac waxed. And you know how the Urologist is with his cars.”

Jana Rae often referred to her sweet-mannered husband as the
Urologist. Always behind his back, of course. It was no secret she adored the man, but she often wielded her caustic sense of humor in his direction when he wasn't around.

Clark Hancock was Jana Rae's second husband. Her first marriage to a rock guitar player/tattoo artist ended when she saw his name inked on a blonde's right breast in a bar in Austin. “At least when Clark is looking at some other naked woman, I'm getting paid,” she'd said.

Claire watched her best friend stand and move toward the pitcher of Margarita's sweet tea on the tray on the end table. Jana Rae poured a glass and drank it down. “Whew, that's better. My throat was dusty as a Midland oil field.” She turned toward Claire and looked her over. “By the way, no offense, but you look awful this morning. That flat head of yours resembles a truck-kissed armadillo.”

Claire ran her hand through her long blonde hair. “Thanks a lot. I've had a few things on my mind besides blow-dryers.”

Jana Rae's eyes softened. “Did you get any sleep?”

Claire pasted on a fake smile and nodded, maybe a little too assiduously. “A couple of hours. The rest did me good.”

Her friend frowned and plopped back down beside her on the sofa. “Well, apparently, your body didn't get the memo.”

That was what Claire loved about her best friend. Despite a few quiet surgeries neither of them ever mentioned, there was nothing plastic about Jana Rae. What you saw was what you got. They'd known each other for years, and she was the one friend Claire could always count on to be in her corner.

Back in high school, when Jana Rae didn't have her face planted in her history book, she busied herself making grocery lists and planning how to divide household chores between her two little brothers. After her mom left with some dude from El Paso, the mothering duties fell to Jana Rae. All the more poignant since she'd never had children of her own.

Even now, she crowed with pride over Mike, who pastored a small church in Waco with his two adorable girls—a far cry from
her younger brother, Jay, who'd left the Texas landscape littered with illegitimate children. “That lazy piece of bones would need sixteen jobs to pay all that child support,” she'd said more than once, while Claire knew Jana Rae quietly slipped checks in the mail each month to the various mamas.
And
sent a generous check to Jay every Christmas.

Good ones like Jana Rae were hard to find. Claire knew she was lucky. Like Jana Rae often said, “Not much a woman really needs besides the support of a good bra and a close friend.”

Jana Rae tucked her feet underneath her. “Like I said, y'all are all over the news. Every station, even national. That Joel Knickerson on cable, I used to think he was so cute. Until I learned he buttered his bread with a fork instead of a knife.”

“Jana Rae!”

“Oh, pooh. I'm just saying, that's all.”

Claire gazed back out the windows at the vista above the river, trying to ignore the sound of news choppers hovering back and forth on the horizon.

As usual, Jana Rae sensed her mood. “I'm here, you know.”

She nodded, swallowing emotion building in her throat. “We won't know the full story until our meeting with Ranger Jennings later this afternoon.” Then, more for her own benefit, Claire added, “Tuck will fix all this.”

In rare occasions where life dealt unpleasant situations, she always relied on Tuck to step in and make things right.

This time especially, she needed him to come through.

The heels on Claire's shoes clicked across the shiny tiled floors of her entry foyer. Outside massive double doors, a black town car waited with the engine running.

“I don't know when I'll be back. It's possible I'll stay in town tonight. If so, Margarita, you know how to reach me at the Adolphus.”

Jana Rae followed close behind, purse in hand. “Hey, trying to support you is like pulling a double-wide trailer with a scooter. Blast it, Claire, let me go with you.”

The housekeeper dug her hands into her pockets. “
Vaya con
Dios
, Mrs. Massey,” she muttered.

Without a word, Claire stepped through the doors onto the landing and walked to the car. She settled into the plush leather backseat and waited for Henry to close the door. She lowered the darkened window and leaned her head out. “Well, Jana Rae, are you coming?”

Confusion briefly crossed Jana Rae's face. She glanced at Margarita and shrugged, then rushed to open the car door. When Claire rolled her eyes, Jana Rae grinned and said, “Oh, don't look at me in that tone of voice.”

With Jana Rae settled inside, Claire knocked on the Plexiglas barrier. “Henry, we can go now.” Minutes later, they were on their way down the paved lane lined with oaks.

The Masseys had called Legacy Ranch home for twenty years, moving to the spectacular thirty-two-thousand acre spread when Garrett and Lainie were young and Max was tucked safely inside Claire's swollen belly.

Of course, back then none of the outbuildings had existed, and they lived in the house Tuck's father had built for his mother when they'd first been married, a rather modest one-story ranch style made of Austin stone, with a sprawling wraparound porch complete with rocking chairs. In happier times, before Tuck's mom started drinking, his parents perched themselves in those chairs after dinner, watching spectacular sunsets on the horizon in back of the stock ponds.

Years back, Tuck's cattle brokerage provided the means to rebuild, and Claire fashioned the showplace they now called home. Their ranch house, now valued at over thirty-eight million, had been featured in
Texas Homes Monthly
and was built by the same architect who worked for celebrities such as Alan Jackson and Reba McEntire.

Tuck wanted a showplace, and Tuck always got what he wanted.

Both Claire and Jana Rae now sat silent, staring out their respective windows as they passed the turnoff that led to the stables and indoor arena, each lost in her own private thoughts. For over a mile, the car rolled along river frontage until the massive iron security gate leading into Legacy Ranch loomed ahead.