Sweet Return (38 page)

She reached the ranch before sundown, coming to a stop in her usual place in front of her egg-washing room. As she shoved the Silverado into park, Dalton came out of the barn stalking toward her in his usual get-out-of-my-way gait. He had on work clothing, a chambray shirt and jeans and boots. Even from the front seat of her pickup, she could see that his hair curled at his collar. He looked rowdy and sexy and downright delectable. An awareness of his maleness snaked through her and she wondered if the sight of him would always affect her that way. She opened the pickup door and turned to scoot out.

“I’m going back to LA in a few days,” he said, his voice brittle as glass. No hello, no kiss. Her heart began to race.

His face was a thundercloud, his eyes an onyx stone. She still didn’t know him well enough to anticipate his moods and behavior, but the bubble of happiness she had enjoyed all day popped. She stayed where her feet hit the ground behind her pickup door and drew a calming breath. “Oh?”

His fists jammed against his belt. “I’m giving you notice. You need to do something with those chickens. I’m putting an oil well down over there.” He pointed a finger toward the chicken yard. “It’s gonna be just about where that donkey shack is. That fence will be relocated in the next two or three weeks. You’ve got that much time.”

Her mind reeled, leaving her speechless. “Uh…well—”

“This ranch is broke. I’m hoping to see enough money to pay it out of debt. I’ve already hired a drilling contractor. I’m leaving it up to him to get the fence moved where he thinks it should be. I’m going back to LA, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“But—but…That—that…” Dear God, she was breathless and stammering. She stiffened her spine. “That won’t leave much room for my hens.”

“Take it up with my mother. She’s the one you dealt with in the first place.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go.” He gave her his back, stalked toward the old work truck, climbed into it and drove away in a cloud of caliche dust.

She stood there unmoving for long seconds as her thoughts tried to jell. Why had he picked a fight with her? Why hadn’t he given her some kind of explanation? Or plainly asked her in a simple conversation to move the chickens?

She had already been a victim of his ire when they first met. She knew he pulled no punches in a skirmish. She also knew he had learned to fight for survival as a child. He might have the strength of will and character she wanted in a companion and lover, but those traits also meant he viewed every battle as one to win. Tears rushed to her eyes, but she blinked them back and headed for the house.

Inside she found Clova sniffling in the kitchen. She always looked older than her years, but today she looked frail, washed out and ancient. “Clova, what’s happened? I hope someone can tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s a long story, Joanna.” She shook her head, blew her nose and poured a cup of coffee. “You want some coffee?”

“No.” Joanna’s mouth had gone dry. She didn’t think she could swallow.

Clova carried her cup to the dining table and eased to the seat, looking out the dining room window. “When Dalton was a boy, a wildcatter come in here and leased up our land for drillin’. He said he hit a dry hole, but Earl thought he was lyin’. Earl always said they found oil. Looks like Earl must’ve been right.”

Joanna swallowed finally, her dry throat making a click in her ears. “How did he know?”

“He saw oil circulatin’ out on the pits while they was drillin’. But the driller never said nothin’ about it. Earl called him a crook and they got into it. The driller abandoned the well and covered it over.”

Joanna had lived around the oil industry her whole life. She knew roughly what Clova had said. She also knew a lot of crooked shenanigans took place in the oil business. Still stunned by Dalton’s ruthless words, she could find no sympathy for Clova’s problems. “Dalton said he’s hired someone to put a well where the donkey shed is?”

“Knowin’ Dalton, if that’s what he said, that’s what he means.”

At hearing Dalton’s statement in Clova’s words, Joanna’s first reaction was panic. “Is this a new plan? I mean, how long has he been planning this?”

“I don’t know. I guess he was waitin’ for me to get out o’ the hospital to talk to me about it.”

Joanna inhaled a great breath. He had seduced her, had made love to her. They had touched each other in the most intimate of ways, but
he
hadn’t really been touched at all. He didn’t care enough to discuss his plans, even when they affected her. She fought to keep from bursting into sobs. “I just saw him outside. He said soon.”

“He’s going back to California quick as he can. Some woman out there called him and wants him to come back. He said he’s already been here too long.”

Candace
. The so-called
friend
. “I see.”

Clova’s eyes came back to hers. “I hate to tell you this, hon, but we’re gonna have to figure out somethin’ ’bout your chickens. I guess Dalton’s plans are gonna mess up your little operation. I had to sign a lease for him, Joanna. He’s my son.”

The moment of truth Joanna had expected had arrived. While hurt that Clova stood with Dalton against her, she wasn’t surprised. As the woman said, Dalton was her son. “Of course you did. I understand. I—I just wish someone would have told me sooner.”

“He seems like he’s just as hardheaded now as when he was a kid. When he gets his mind set on somethin’, there’s no changin’ it.”

Multiple problems began to zoom through Joanna’s mind so quickly, she couldn’t grab on to even one of them and concentrate on it. But finally her survival instinct, on its own, began to plan.
Time for the hens to go,
it told her.
Figure out where you can sell them. Find out where you can get the most money for the used equipment
.

“I told him I was gonna give you some land. And I still intend to. You can move your chicken yard a little ways on back behind where it is now.”

No fencing. No water. No highway frontage
. As tears lumped in her throat, she ducked her chin and shook her head. “That’s too far from the windmill, Clova. Getting clean water to the hens would be too hard.”

“I guess you could run a pipe—”

She shook her head again. “Even if I had the money for that, doing it doesn’t make sense. You know the whole operation is marginal.”

“Then maybe we can get Dalton to pay for it. We can get one of those ditch-diggin’ machines in here and—”

“No,” she managed to choke out without breaking down. She shook her head yet again. If she indeed decided to run a pipe from the windmill to a new chicken yard, she would dig a trench with a spoon before she would ask or expect Dalton Parker to pay for it.

“I feel terrible about it, Joanna.”

She cleared her throat and blinked back the wetness in her eyes. “I’m not blaming you, Clova. Listen, I need to think. I’m going back to town, okay?”

“That’s fine, hon. I know this makes a bad problem for you. I’m just so sorry.”

Joanna looked around for her purse, then noticed it still hanging on her shoulder. She started for the front door but remembered that just this morning, Clova had come home from her stay in the hospital. “Oh. How are you feeling, Clova?”

“I’m all right. Got a sack full o’ pills to take. Gotta go back and forth to the hospital to take breathin’ treatments. I got to try to take better care o’ m’self.”

Joanna nodded, but her mind was switching gears. Suddenly all she could think of was getting home and dealing with her own crisis. “I’ll, uh, check on you later, okay?”

He’ll call and explain,
Joanna told herself all the way back to town. She repeated it like a mantra half a dozen times, at the same time gulping down the tears that kept filling her eyes and throat. She had to get control of herself. She couldn’t risk bawling like a teenager and running into someone she knew.

He’ll call and explain,
she told herself again as she closed her garage door and entered her home. Inside, she checked both of her telephones to be sure neither was accidentally off the hook. She changed into sweats, poured a Diet Coke over ice and seated herself in front of the TV.

At last the phone warbled. She sprang to her feet and streaked toward the kitchen phone. On the way, she struck a chair leg with her bare toe and pain shot all the way from her foot to her head. Hobbling, she grabbed up the receiver at the beginning of the fifth warble. “Hello,” she barked.

“Joanna?”

Shit
. “Hi, Shari. What’s up?”

“Did I interrupt something?”

“No, no. I was sort of dozing.”

Shari laughed. “I took a nap myself. Now that I’m thirty-six, I think I’m gonna have to give up late nights.”

“You must have a terrible hangover.”

“Oh, my God. All day, I’ve felt like somebody hit me with a hammer.”

“Hmm, did you go to work today?” Joanna said. She had to be casual and friendly to her best friend, but she hoped this wouldn’t be one of Shari’s marathon conversations.

“I had to. My boss knew I was going out last night. He would have killed me if I hadn’t showed up. Listen, I saw you dancing a lot with Dalton.”

A lump knotted in Joanna’s throat. “Hm. He was fun to dance with.”

“He looks like he’d be fun to do more than that with. He is
so
hot. He was the only guy there not wearing Wranglers, but hey, he looks just fine in Levi’s.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t notice.”

“You two make a good couple. Some of us at the table talked about it. When y’all were out there waltzing? You looked like you’d been dancing together all your lives.”

Joanna squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back more tears. “Well, you know I like to waltz.”

“All the gals at the table kept envying you.”

“Yeah. Listen, Shari, I’m in the middle of some, uh, bookkeeping. Did you need something?”

“You said you were napping. What’s going on, Joanna?”

“Nothing,” Joanna snapped. “I dozed off, but I’ve got to get at this bookkeeping.”

“Good grief, you don’t have to bite my head off. I just wanted to know how it went with him.”

Joanna sighed. “I’m sorry, Shari. Too much on my mind, I guess. It didn’t go. It was just dancing.”

“That’s too bad. He’s single. You’re single. Y’all are about the same age.”

A dull ache began to grow in Joanna’s chest. “He’s on his way back to California.”

“I was just thinking. Before he goes home, why don’t we get Jay to invite him and let’s all go to dinner some night at Sylvia’s? It’d really be fun to talk to him. Jay said he’s done some really cool stuff.”

“I don’t want to do that, Shari. I don’t have time and I don’t enjoy his company that much.”

Big sigh coming through the receiver. “Joanna, you beat all. It’s just dinner, forgodsake. Nobody wants to marry you off to him. I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

“Then why don’t you and Jay just invite him over to your house or something? I’ve really got to go. I stubbed my toe getting to the phone and it’s bleeding.”

“Uh-oh. Sorry, girlfriend.”

They disconnected and Joanna thought of Clova’s phone number. By now, Dalton would surely be at home. Should she call and ask him if he was feeling better? Ask him if she could do something to help him? Ask him if he needed a dry shoulder?

Don’t be dumb,
her pride told her.
He treated you like something he picked up in the barnyard on the sole of his boot
.

She limped back to her chair, braced her heel on the edge of the seat and studied her injured toe. It was agonizingly painful and already turning purple. “Shit,” she muttered wondering if she would be able to wear a shoe. The bruise on her forehead was just now going away.

All at once she remembered, not only had she not gathered the evening’s eggs herself, she hadn’t made arrangements with Alicia to do it, either. If an ambitious skunk or a weasel found his way into the chicken yard, half the eggs could well be gone by morning. Her shoulders sagged. Lord, she was a mess.

But a part of her brain that had been screaming for attention but been ignored for months now expressed relief that she might soon be out of the egg business.

Dalton leaned back and closed his eyes as the jumbo jet on its way to Los Angeles lifted off the ground. An early-morning flight was the only one he was able to book a seat on. He had gotten little sleep again. Midnight had come and gone before he’d gotten packed and ready to depart. Then his mother had driven him to the airport early.

Now, as he dozed, just like last night for the few hours he had been in bed, Joanna Walsh filled his mind. Last night, after Mom told him she didn’t gather her eggs, he had gathered them for her, all the while berating himself for being a horse’s ass. He might have strong emotions about his mother’s land gift and Joanna’s role in it, but something inside him wouldn’t be so despicable as to cost her the evening’s eggs.

This morning, now that he had cooled off, he wished he had never met Joanna Walsh, period. What had he been thinking, pushing sex with her?

She was nothing like the women he typically hooked up with, women who required no commitment. She didn’t fit that profile on any level. She fell into the category who always got
feelings
mixed up with a good time, who always wanted
relationships
. Women like Joanna were why he usually kept his sexual encounters on the casual side.

He had turned weak with her, let his guard down and violated most of his own rules. Hell, he had even allowed himself to screw without protection. Not that he worried about catching something, but he had shown little regard for the pregnancy possibility, either.
Dumb, dumb, dumb
.

Now that the land deal had been revealed, the survival instinct that had always ruled his life wouldn’t allow him to trust her. How could he when she withheld facts from him? She could have told him his mom had promised her land. Why hadn’t she? He wouldn’t even have known she used the chicken yard for free if his mother hadn’t told him.

Besides that, just knowing her and being with her held out a false hope for the future that really had no more place in his life than all that crap about feelings and relationships.