The Tycoon (20 page)

She gasped. “Drake, I swear. You can be so crude. Barron and I are very good friends. In fact, he’s invited me to spend Christmas with him in Santa Fe.”

Drake gave her an are-you-out-of-your-mind glower. “So that’s what this meeting is really about. That’s where you’re planning to go instead of going to the Double-Barrel.”

Dear God, Drake was prickly as a cactus. And he never hesitated to level criticism at her. Growing a thick skin to mask the hurt her children sometimes inflicted had taken almost as many

years as she had spent learning to deal with Bill Junior’s antics.

She lifted her chin. “Yes. I think I just might. He’s also planning a cruise in January. You know how much I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise and your father would never agree to it.”

“Mom, give him a break. He can’t swim. He’s afraid of large bodies of water.”

“Son, I have known Bill Lockhart Junior since I was six years old. I have never known him to be afraid of anything, not even when we were little kids. That’s just an excuse.”

“Jee-sus Christ.” Drake set down his coffee cup with a
clack.
“I know he’s got his flaws, but—”

“Son, I do not appreciate your tone. Why can’t you understand? Life’s too short to let myself be continually humiliated by your father.”

“Mom, forgodsake.” Scowling, Drake shook his head. “What do you expect him to do? You moved out. You two are separated. You’re up here in Fort Worth flitting around like a damn debutant and he’s alone down there in that nothing town that’s turning into more of nothing every day. He gets lonesome. He wants companionship just like everyone else.”

She waggled her finger like a pendulum. “Do not scold me, Drake. I endured ill treatment from your father for years. He’s always found plenty of companionship in that
nothing
town.”

Indeed she had shed uncountable tears, most of them unseen by the outside world, while living as William Drake Lockhart, Jr.’s wife for more than thirty years.

Drake reached across the table and picked up her left hand on which she still wore two multi-carat diamond rings Bill Junior had given her. A diamond tennis bracelet, a gift from him many Christmases ago, glinted in the bright café lights. “You also
endured
a pretty damn nice life.”

She yanked her hand away from his and made sure her right hand on which she wore another large diamond ring remained in her lap.

Drake returned to his breakfast. “You lived like a queen, Mom. You still do. He never kept you from doing anything. Nor did he fail to give you everything he could afford.”

She set her jaw and turned her head toward the next table, not enjoying being reminded of the tradeoffs she had made. But she couldn’t shut out her son’s words.

“Has it occurred to you, Mother, that he could divorce you for bailing like you did? If that happened, I guess ol’ Barron would have to pick up your expenses, which Pic tells me are considerable these days.”

Betty flinched inside. Drake’s frankness cut like a knife, but she would not let it show. She would not be one of those whining mothers. She would never allow her children to see her as anything other than a strong, independent woman. Never mind that all she really wanted was to have a normal family life and receive as much affection from her offspring as she had for them.

But Bill Junior had always behaved more like their pal than their father, showering them with good times, new cars and money. Betty had been forced to be the disciplinarian. Competing against Bill Junior for their affection had been an unwinnable challenge.

And she didn’t need to be reminded that the Double-Barrel’s accountant controlled her purse strings. She was quite aware that what her second son Pickett knew, Drake knew. She resented her children having knowledge of her personal expenses.

“Pic has no business discussing what I do,” she snapped. “And if you weren’t a grown man, I’d tan your hide for speaking to me like this. As for Christmas, if you need a hostess for the overblown family dinner, perhaps your father can drag the woman he’s seeing out of the bar and dress her up suitably.”

“Mom, wouldn’t you like to spend Christmas with the family? With Dad?”

Her children, Drake in particular, were constantly trying to patch up her sorry marriage to their father. All three of them refused to acknowledge that he was a philanderer and a carouser.

Her second son and her daughter had taken their father’s side as children and that hadn’t changed much now that they were adults. They blamed her for her and Bill Junior’s marital problems, which caused her great frustration.

“They know where I live in Fort Worth,” she said. “If they wish to visit me, they’re welcome any time. But I’ll tell you right now, I’m very close to giving up on those two.”

“Suit yourself, I guess.” Drake puffed out his jaws and blew out a long breath, an indication he considered the argument closed.

He hadn’t finished his breakfast, but he wadded his napkin and threw it on the table. “I’ve got to go. The pilot will have the plane ready by now.” He got to his feet and picked up his hat.

Betty couldn’t let him leave angry at her. She placed her hand on his arm and stopped him. “Are you spending Christmas at the ranch?”

“Sure am. Just like always.”

“Lunch before I leave for Santa Fe?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I have Christmas presents for all of you. I could give them to you at lunch and you can take them down to Drinkwell when you go.” She gave him a pleading smile. “Please?”

He sighed, a sign he was annoyed. “Sure, Mom. Look, I’ll call you when I get back from Lubbock and we’ll get together.”

“Drake, you will call Donna, won’t you? Surely you’ll have time to—”

“Gotta go, Mom.”

Her eldest child kissed her cheek and glided away, setting his hat on as he passed through the restaurant doorway. Betty released a sigh of her own. Every encounter with him always ended the same. With him rushing off to somewhere, as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her.

She sat there a few minutes, her oatmeal growing cold as she mulled over their conversation.

…
Has it occurred to you, Mother, that he could divorce you for bailing like you did?...

She had left the ranch to save her sanity. Bill Junior hadn’t wanted her to leave, but he had battered her pride to the ground. She’d had no choice. She didn’t believe for a minute that he would divorce her. If he had wanted to end their marriage legally, in the seven years that had passed since she moved away from the ranch, he could have. Instead, every time they met, he begged her to return.

She
didn’t want a divorce either. For the first time in her and Bill Junior’s long stormy history together, she felt she had the upper hand. But back when she thought she did want him and the Double-Barrel Ranch out of her life for good, a lawyer had convinced her that with the ranch’s ownership being legally and tightly protected for generations past and future, divorcing Bill Junior would be complicated beyond belief and he would make no guarantee what she would end up with.

She was probably just as well off with things as they were, with an accountant who knew more about money matters than she did paying her basic bills and doling out a generous monthly allowance. And in spite of everything, she still cared about Bill Junior, damn rascal that he was.

Now she was in such a foul mood she couldn’t decide if she even wanted to go to Santa Fe. Waking up every morning beside Barron Wilkes wasn’t one of her favorite thoughts.

A sudden flash of heat cloaked her.
Oh, hell. Another damn hot flash.
After quarreling with Drake, she was in no mood for a hot flash.

She dabbed perspiration from her upper lip with her napkin, left her chair and made her way to the ladies’ room. She sat down on a burgundy velvet-upholstered sofa in the lounge, leaned back, closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to September, when she had accompanied Bill Junior to Nashville.

The memory was worth recalling. Bill Junior had rented a luxury suite at Leow’s and they had behaved like honeymooners. At fifty-three, he could still send her over the moon. Fantastic sex was something she missed about life with her husband. He could still do it more than once in a night sometimes and she believed he didn’t take drugs to enable him.

He simply knew all the right buttons to push. They had gotten married when she was seventeen and he was eighteen. They had learned about sex together, had tried everything. Sometimes the memories made her blush. They had been so sexually in tune with each other, if it hadn’t been for the pill, they might have twelve kids instead of only three.

The warble of her cell phone halted her stroll down memory lane and she dug it out of her purse.
Barron.
She knew he wanted an answer about Santa Fe. She keyed into the call. “Hello, darling.”

“Good morning, poopsie.”

“I was just thinking about Santa Fe, Barron. It’s a great idea. A holiday away from my kids sounds wonderful.”

“You’ve just made me a happy man. I’ll call the property manager tomorrow and make sure the house is ready….What are you doing?”

“Right now? I’m downtown. I just had breakfast with Drake.”

“Care to have a little dessert?” He chuckled roguishly. “I just got out of the shower and I’m not dressed yet. And I’ve got a bottle of champagne. We could follow up breakfast with a mimosa or two. In bed.” He chuckled again.

Betty lowered her voice and tittered into the phone. “Barron. You are so naughty. Should you be drinking when you’re taking that, um, drug?

“It’s no problem.”

She tittered again. “Well, then. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

She disconnected on a sigh, resigned to the fact that when it came to men, a fifty-two year-old woman couldn’t have everything.

****

Drake left Rusty’s Campfire relieved to escape his mother. A discussion of her romance set his teeth to grinding. He was her son, forchrissake, not some damn male confidante.

He still believed his father would settle down and behave like an adult if his mother would simply return to the Double-Barrel. But hell, now she was planning on twisting off to Santa Fe at Christmas with Barron Wilkes. What that would cause at the Double-Barrel he could imagine. And it wouldn’t be pretty.

At least meeting with her had temporarily taken his mind off the weekend and the phantom woman who had stolen from his condo like a thief in the night. His ego still smarted.
He suspected she had given him a phony name and no telling how many other lies she had told. Would he ever know who she really was?

He was glad to have the trip to Lubbock to take his mind off of her.  Nothing would be better for clearing his head than the Texas Panhandle’s cold clear air.

As he neared the airport exit, his thoughts veered to Christmas again and the Double-Barrel. He plucked his cell phone off his belt and called his brother. “What’s Dad up to?”

“He’s got a meeting with the vet today,” Pic answered. “Why?”

“I just heard he’s fucking around with somebody in town. Who is it?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I don’t keep up.”

Pic and their father lived in the same house and were close. And they lived in a small town where very little that a Lockhart did went without being widely blabbed about. Drake doubted that his brother didn’t know what their father was doing, but Pic was a peace-loving man who saw no point in making waves.

“He needs to get up to Fort Worth and talk to Mom,” Drake said. “Otherwise, Christmas is going to be all fucked up.”