Between Heaven and Texas (21 page)

“Well, I can ask, can't I?”

Offended, and tired of Mr. Waterson's nitpicking and naysaying, Mary Dell picked up the paper sack containing her fabric, pins, and thread and stuffed it into her purse, then bent down to buckle Howard into the stroller.

“Sure you can. It's a free country.” Mr. Waterson chuckled.

Mary Dell put her purse on her shoulder and pushed the stroller toward the door.

“And after that? Who you going to talk to next?” Mr. Waterson called out in an eager tone, pressing his palms on the counter and leaning forward as if he couldn't wait to hear what adorable and naïve thing Mary Dell might say next.

“My sister.”

“Lydia Dale?” The old man's eyebrows shot up. “What's she know about running a business?”

Mary Dell opened the door and pushed the stroller over the threshold without answering his question.

“Good-bye, Mr. Waterson. I'll get back to you in a week.”

He laughed. “Sure thing, Mary Dell. You go right ahead and do that, honey.”

Mary Dell closed the door to the emporium a little harder than was necessary, but left without saying anything more to Mr. Waterson. She pushed Howard's stroller down the sidewalk and around the courthouse square to her parking spot, right next to the statue of Flagadine Tudmore.

It was late afternoon and the sun was starting to sink toward the horizon, glinting against the bronze monument. Later she told herself that the sun was playing tricks on her, but just for a moment, when she looked up at that stubborn and steely visage of her celebrated ancestor, she could have sworn that Flagadine winked at her.

C
HAPTER 36

G
raydon had been up since four, so he decided to lie down on his cot in the tack room and examine the insides of his eyelids until supper. But first, he opened the lid of the old steamer trunk he'd found in a corner under a pile of old horse blankets, pulled out a three-quarters-full bottle of Jack Daniel's from among the empties he had hidden inside.

L. J. Spreewell hadn't cared how much he drank at night as long as he was good to work during the day, but he didn't want the Templetons to know about his liquor habit. Besides, at the Spreewells' he'd just been a hired man. Here he was in charge, he had responsibilities to consider.

Graydon twisted the cap off the bottle and took a slug—just one. He was sorely tempted to take another, but resisted the urge. Jeb would be coming with his supper soon, and he didn't want the boy to smell liquor on his breath.

Graydon counted Jeb among the responsibilities he'd assumed since coming to Too Much. The boy clearly looked up to him, and Graydon wanted to set a good example. He couldn't get through the night without at least one good shot of whiskey, but he was drinking a lot less than he had in Kansas.

After putting the bottle away, Graydon unwrapped a piece of cinnamon chewing gum and popped it into his mouth before kicking off his boots, taking off his shirt, and lying down on the cot.

Three weeks had passed since he'd arrived in Too Much, and not one day of it had been easy. There was a lot to do on a place this size, not that he minded working hard, but working as a hired hand was a whole lot different than being the boss to a bunch of other hired hands—especially the sorry bunch he'd been saddled with.

Moises Rivera was a good hard worker, but Pete Samson and his cousin, Ikey Truluck, were just plain worthless. Ikey was a thief as well, so Graydon had fired him the day before. Pete quit when he heard, which was fine with Graydon. As far as he was concerned, the two of those boys together didn't add up to a pile of dry dung.

But the loss of two hands wasn't fine with Taffy. When she heard the news, Taffy stormed out to the barn and asked him what the Sam Hill he thought he was doing, firing two of their best workers? Especially now, with the ewes about ready to pop?

“I think we've got two or three more days before the lambs come. I hope to find some new hands before then. But even if I can't, we're better off without those two,” Graydon answered. “Four more sacks of feed were missing yesterday. I caught Ikey tossing a few handfuls in the bed of Moises's pickup. He was trying to pin the blame on Moises. When I called him on it, he denied everything, asked me who I was going to believe, him or some wetback? Well, I didn't have to think very long about that, especially after I found the missing feed in the trunk of Ikey's Camaro. You can't afford to keep a thief on the payroll, Miss Taffy. A hand who's capable of blaming another hand for his crime is capable of doing a lot worse than just stealing a few sacks of feed.”

Taffy made a huffing noise, but she couldn't argue with Graydon's logic.

“But what about Pete?” she barked. “Why did you let him quit? You didn't catch him stealing.”

“No, ma'am, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was in on it. He aped everything his cousin did, which wasn't much. Took me longer to get them to do their jobs than to do it myself. We're better off without them,” Graydon repeated.

Taffy put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Well, the next time
you
decide to fire somebody who works on
my
ranch, you'd better just be sure to talk to me before you do it! You hear?”

Graydon lowered his chin just a bit and touched the brim of his Stetson with a single finger. “Pardon me, Miss Taffy, but I thought it was your daughters that owned the ranch now.”

A sound that was half growl and half gasp came from Taffy's lips. She stormed back to the house.

Watching her go, Graydon regretted saying that last. There was nothing to be gained from it, but he'd had about enough of Taffy Templeton's high-and-mighty ways. Not to mention the cold shoulder he kept getting from Lydia Dale.

Well, he wasn't here to please Taffy or Lydia Dale. He was here to help Mary Dell and try to do right by his nephew. Little Howard sure was a sweet baby. He was worth whatever grief Taffy and Lydia Dale could dish out. And it felt good getting to know the rest of the family again. Dutch was grateful for his help; so was Mary Dell. They must have told him so ten times a day.

And Jeb was a good boy. Just a little confused, poor kid. Like most boys, Jeb just wanted a little attention and approval. From what Graydon could tell, Jack Benny didn't seem much interested in any of his children. The boy had taken to following him around the ranch like a faithful pup and had perked up considerably since Graydon had started letting him help with the ranch work. He was coming along fine. Last week, he'd even plucked up his courage and taken a ride on Billy Boy. It did Graydon's heart good to see Jeb's grin grow as he walked, then trotted, and finally galloped around the pasture.

Yes, a thing like that made it worth putting up with Taffy's tempers and Lydia Dale's cool demeanor. You had to take the good with the bad. Besides, he enjoyed the work.

This was a fine ranch, best in the county. Once or twice, when he'd been out riding fences or moving the cattle, he'd let himself imagine that it was his name on the deed and that all these beautiful acres belonged to him. It was just a daydream, he knew that, but it didn't hurt anything to dream. That was one of the things he'd loved about ranch work when he was younger—the way it gave him space to breathe and think things through, to imagine what could be. He'd forgotten about that.

On the whole, he figured, his coming to Too Much was a good thing, even if it was only for a few months.

Still lying on his cot, Graydon crossed his feet, tipped his hat forward on his brow to block out the light, and was just about to doze off when he heard the squeak of the big barn door opening and the sound of footsteps treading softly over the dirt floor.

“Come on in,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position when he heard the rap of knuckles on the tack room door. “Door's open.”

The door opened slowly, and Lydia Dale's face peeped around the side.

“I brought your supper,” she said, glancing down at the tray she held in her hands and the plate piled high with pan-fried steak and gravy, mashed potatoes flecked with black pepper, fried okra, yellow squash casserole baked with cheese and topped with crushed crackers, and a dish of banana pudding with vanilla wafers for dessert.

Graydon leapt to the other side of the room and grabbed his shirt, shoving his arms into the sleeves and buttoning it as fast as he could, rushing so much that he skipped one of the buttons.

Lydia Dale couldn't help but smile when she noticed the gaping spot in the buttons, right in the middle of his abdomen.

“I hope you don't mind it was me that brought your supper,” she said. “Jeb and Cady are at Jack Benny's and Daddy's at a lodge meeting in town. It was me or Momma, and I figured you'd rather it was me.”

“Uh . . . no. I mean . . . yes, I'd rather it was you.” He looked down, noticed the gap in his shirt, and quickly redid the buttons.

“Looks good,” he said as Lydia Dale set the tray down on top of an old apple crate that served as Graydon's table. “I love a good steak.”

“I remember,” Lydia Dale said. “That's why I decided to make that and potatoes with lots of pepper, just the way you like them.”

“You made this?”

“I just wanted to thank you for all you've been doing for Jeb. He's a different child since you arrived.”

Lydia Dale unwrapped silverware from a paper napkin and laid it out next to the plate. “Here, go ahead and eat while it's hot. Gravy's no good cold.”

Graydon pulled a battered wooden chair up to the apple crate, sawed off a piece of meat, put it in his mouth, and closed his eyes, groaning with pleasure.

“Oh, my. Now, that is good,” he said, drawing out the last word. “Thank you. But you didn't need to thank me for spending time with Jeb. He's good company.”

“Better company than I've been, I bet.”

Graydon made no response to this, just started in on his mashed potatoes.

“Do you mind if I sit with you while you eat?”

Graydon shrugged, shook his head, and continued eating. Lydia Dale perched herself on the edge of the cot, there being no chairs available. She sat there quietly, watching him.

Before she'd come out into the barn, she'd had a speech all prepared, an apology, worked out word for word. But now that she was actually in his presence, sitting on his bed, his battered old Stetson sitting right next to her, watching him enjoy the food she'd prepared just for him, she couldn't remember it. She just kept thinking how good he looked, marveling at how little he'd changed over the years.

Of course, appearances were deceiving. Everything
had
changed, at least between them. They were different people than they had been thirteen years ago. Life turned out to be a lot more complicated than they'd figured back then. Remembering that reminded her of what she'd come out here to say.

“Graydon, I . . . I haven't been very friendly since you got here. In fact, I've been downright cold. I guess you noticed.”

He shrugged. “I expect you had your reasons.”

He took a long swig from the glass of cold sweet tea that accompanied his meal, put down the glass, and turned to face her, his brown eyes boring into hers in a way that made her uncomfortable.

“But now that you've brought it up,” he continued, “what were they? As I remember it, you were the one who ran off and got married the second I left the country, not me.”

The accusation in his tone caught her by surprise. A wave of guilt washed over her, but it was fleeting and followed by anger.

“That's not fair. They said you'd been killed. Donny came over to the house and showed me the telegram and the letter he'd gotten from your commanding officer, describing how you'd been ambushed by the enemy, but they hadn't been able to identify your remains because the helicopters had flown in and napalmed the whole area and that the bodies of the soldiers who had been killed in the battle were burned beyond recognition. They found your dog tags, and so they knew you'd been killed—that's what the letter said. I didn't want to believe it, but everyone said I had to; they said I had to face facts. What was I supposed to do?”

Graydon didn't look up. “You were supposed to wait.”

“I did wait!”

Lydia Dale's shout startled Graydon. He looked into her eyes.

That was what she had wanted for a long time, to look him in the eye to force him to consider things from her perspective, and see that it wasn't her fault, that none of it, the war, the wedding, the misery and mess they'd made of their lives, was her fault.

“Jack Benny started coming around barely a week after we heard you'd been killed in action, saying how sorry he was and that if I needed anyone to talk to, he was available. He tried to keep it low-key at first, but I knew what he had in mind. I told him I wasn't interested in him or anyone, but he just kept coming around, week after week. He brought flowers and when I told him I didn't want them, he showed up with more the next week, this time for Momma.

“Next thing I knew, Momma was inviting him to come over for supper after church, baking him pies, and telling me what a nice boy he was. I still wasn't interested, but he kept coming around week after week, and after a while. . . .”

Lydia Dale spread out her hands and looked up at the unpainted ceiling of the tack room, as if the explanation she was searching for might be hidden there among the cobwebs and rusty nails.

“He made me smile. He can be real sweet when he wants to be, when he's not drinking. He can be funny too, and I hadn't laughed in such a long time. But I didn't love him. When he proposed, I told him that. He got mad, got drunk, and ran his truck into a ditch. But the next week he was back, with a new truck Marlena bought for him and an armful of flowers.

“When he proposed again two months later, I said yes. Momma was thrilled, of course. She called up Marlena first thing and made a lunch date to talk about wedding plans. I think she was more excited about that than the actual wedding. Mary Dell tried to talk me out of it. We argued about it, but I'd made up my mind and basically told her to mind her own business. I should have listened to her. But . . . I didn't.”

She looked at him helplessly, hoping he'd say something. When he didn't, she stood up to leave. But as she passed through the door, she grabbed hold of the doorjamb, clutching the rough wood so tightly that her fingertips turned white, standing with her back to him as if trying to make up her mind to go or to stay.

“The thing is . . .” she began and then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished.

Graydon couldn't see her face, but he could hear the emotion in her voice and see how her fingers released their grip on the doorjamb and moved toward her face, her hand twisting backward to wipe away tears.

She was so lovely, even after three children and so many years, even from behind, with that long blond hair he wanted to stroke and that soft swelling that marked the place where waist became hips, the sweet curve that he remembered so well, that fit his hand so perfectly.

Graydon stood up, took three steps toward her, but stopped himself. He shouldn't touch her. He couldn't. He wasn't the man she thought he was, and maybe he never had been.

And even if things had turned out differently between them, he knew that wasn't what she wanted, not now. And he wasn't sure if it was what he wanted either. He had come here to help Mary Dell and Howard. It wouldn't do to make things any more complicated than they already were. He closed his fingers on empty air and dropped his arm to his side.