She’s Gone Country (3 page)

Brick’s a big guy, and a good-looking guy, if you like rugged men who don’t believe in doing too much to themselves other than basics like hair and teeth and a once-a-day shave. I remember how a couple of years ago John tried to convince Brick that he should use some moisturizer and eye cream, said it’d really help with all Brick’s sun exposure, and Brick looked at John as if he were a freak. Moisturizer, eye cream? Not on this brother.

The truck idles and Brick rolls down the passenger window. He’s got his straw cowboy hat pulled low, and the brim shades his eyes. “You might want to check your cell phone and make sure it’s not dead, ’cause I got a call from your agency in Dallas. They want to book you for a shoot today. Said they’d been trying to reach you since last night.”

I walk around the truck to the driver’s side. “How’d they find you?”

“I guess I’m an emergency contact. Anyway, you need to call them and then hightail it into Dallas.”

“I’ve got to take the boys to school.”

“I’ll take them. You need to do this. It’s always great money, and it’d be good for you to get off the ranch for the day.”

“I’m okay here—”

“Mama’s thinking about moving back home.”

“What?”

Brick tips his hat back. “She thinks you need her, that you’re in over your head and can’t handle the boys—”

“That’s ridiculous! I’m doing fine. Everything’s fine.”

“That’s not what she says.”

“Because Mama’s a busybody!”

Brick gives me a long look. “Yes, she is. And if you don’t want her taking up residence with you in the next couple weeks, you better pull it together and look like you actually enjoy life.”

“I do.”

“Aw, Shey, you’ve always been thin, but you’re downright puny now. The only thing I ever see you put in your mouth is coffee. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were smoking again—”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not taking any pills? Calmers, tranquilizers like Valium, Xanax, anything?”

“No!” I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him. “I’ve never taken anything. You know how I feel about stuff like that, especially after Cody’s problems with substances.”

He reaches out, pushes a long blond tendril from my face. “Do you know you shake, hon? You can’t even hold a pen without your hand trembling. Mama noticed. Charlotte’s noticed. Even I’ve noticed.”

His protectiveness touches me. “I’m just tired, Brick. I don’t sleep like I used to.”

“Maybe we need to take you out of the office and away from the books and put you in the barn instead. A day or two of hauling hay and mucking out stalls might help you with the sleep problem.”

I crack a smile. “Maybe.”

The front door opens and the boys come tumbling out of the house, voices raised in anger. “They’re at it again,” I groan.

“You can’t be soft,” Brick answers.

“I’m not.”

He gives me another long look before laying on the horn. The horn shuts the boys up. “Get in,” he orders, “I’m taking you to school today. Your mom’s got something to do.”

My boys look at me with surprise. “What are you doing, Mom?” Cooper asks, at my side for a good-bye kiss.

I kiss Cooper’s cheek and answer that I might have a modeling job.

“Modeling what? Tractors?” Bo snorts.

“You’re such a jerk, Bo,” Hank mutters as he climbs into the truck to ride shotgun.

Cooper grimaces at me as Bo jumps past him to get into the cab’s backseat. “Have a good day, Mom.”

“I will. You too.”

I lift my hand in farewell as the truck door closes and Brick drives off. Cooper turns to wave good-bye from the back. I shake my head. My boys. Hellions, each of them.

With the boys gone, I go in search of my cell phone and find it on the floor of Pop’s old truck. As Brick suspected, the battery is dead, and I have to plug it in in the kitchen to retrieve messages. One from Mama and three from Joanne at Stars.

I call the number Joanne’s left for me, which must be her cell since the agency doesn’t open for another two hours. Joanne answers right away. “You finally got my message?” she asks.

“I did, sorry, the phone was in the truck.”

“Are you available?”

“I could be. Where do I go, how long is the shoot?”

“It’s for a Dillard’s newspaper insert the day after Thanksgiving. They’ll pay you your hourly rate. You’re to be on location in Highland Park in an hour—”

“Oh, then there’s no way. I’m two full hours from Highland Park. My brother lives there and I’ve never made it in less than two hours, and that’s without traffic.”

“I’ll tell them you’ll be there as soon as you can.” And then she rattles off the address, and I’m fairly confident I know the house since Blue lives on Beverly Drive, too.

“Make sure they’re okay with me being late,” I say.

“They’ll be fine. They need you.”

Glad somebody does, I think, ending the call.

I shower and leave the house with my hair wet. I’ve also shaved—laser hair removal treatments aren’t completely permanent—and am now racing to Dallas. I’m flying down Highway 180, cell phone connected to car charger, and I dial my brother Blue’s cell phone.

I end up getting his voice mail and leave a message: “Blue, it’s Shey, and I’m doing a photo shoot in Highland Park today on Beverly Drive. I’m thinking it’s the big red-brick Georgian-style mansion down the street from you. Not sure how long I’ll be working, but it’d be great to see you and Emily before I head home if there’s time. Call me on my cell.”

I hang up and concentrate on driving. And trying to quell the butterflies. I haven’t done a lot of modeling in the past ten years, just a couple of jobs a year, but at least I knew most of the photographers in New York as well as the stylists. This, though, is my first job since returning to Dallas and my first job working with the Stars agency. I hope it goes well. I need it to go well. I don’t know why it wouldn’t. I’ve been modeling since the early nineties, appearing on my first U.S.
Vogue
cover in 1994, and then three years later making back-to-back covers for the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit edition.

But modeling is different now. I’m older—thirty-nine—and not as toned or fit. My face is different, too, and when I lived in New York I kept up with all the skin treatments and fillers and injectables. But since moving home this June, I’ve concentrated on the kids, not on my appearance.

Turning the rearview mirror toward me, I steal a quick look at my reflection. Eyebrows need to be waxed. Eyelashes should be dyed. Hair should be colored and cut. Skin cries out for dermabrasion or a chemical peel.

Irritated, I snap the rearview mirror back into place and focus on the road, trying to pretend that my hands aren’t clammy and my stomach isn’t in knots.

Lord, I’m nervous. What if I arrive and they’re disappointed? What if I’m too big for the clothes? What if I’m too old? Sweet Jesus, maybe taking this modeling job today wasn’t such a good idea after all.

I reach Highland Park in exactly two hours and make only one wrong turn before finding the right house. It isn’t the Tudor brick mansion I was thinking of, but it’s similar in style, and U-Haul trucks and cars line the quiet street, with cameras and lights set up outside the house in front of the arched front door. The dark-stained door boasts a huge wreath, and a decorated Christmas tree is visible through the living room’s leaded glass window.

I park the truck down the street and head for the house. My palms are still damp, but I walk the catwalk walk, the one I first learned in Milan and then perfected in New York. It’s a strut that looks confident and careless and hides the fact that I feel like an impostor.

Members of the crew look up as I approach. One of the men has a light meter around his neck. He must be the photographer or the photographer’s assistant. Another man has tools and duct tape hanging from his belt. The thin, graying brunette with closely cropped hair and a clipboard has to be the stylist. She eyes me critically as I join them. I know the look. She’s a woman who feels she has to be a bitch to be taken seriously. She also thinks that Dallas is the big time and she’s the big cheese and I’m lucky to be here on her shoot.

“Good morning,” I say, feeling the sun beat down. It’s not yet ten and it’s already muggy hot. If we’re shooting outside today, wearing winter coats, it’s going to be miserable. “I’m Shey Darcy, and I’m looking for DeeDee.”

The graying brunette gives me another slow once-over. “You’re late.”

I open my mouth to protest, as Joanne had assured me she’d handle this part, then snap it shut and smile tightly instead. “DeeDee?”

She rolls her eyes at the men and then gestures for me to follow her. “Let’s get you to hair and makeup.”

I follow her to a small trailer tucked between a U-Haul truck and a white equipment truck. The trailer is already too crowded with models in various states of dress and undress. It’s also noisy, thanks to the chatter of half a dozen voices and the air conditioner chugging out cool air.

DeeDee introduces me to Marna, who apparently is doing hair and some makeup. “This is our model, the one we’ve been waiting for.”

Marna frowns as her gaze sweeps me up and down. “
This
is our grandmother?”

DeeDee shrugs. “It’s who the agency sent. Age her. Put a wig on her or spray some gray on the hair. Do what you can.”

My heart sinks as DeeDee exits the trailer. I’m not a young adult or a young mom. I’m playing Grandma today. Lucky, lucky me.

I
t’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-looking. 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.