Stripped Bare (11 page)

I barely finished explaining what I didn't know and where and how Carly was taking it when the call waiting beeped. I checked it. “Michael's on the line. Can you fill him in? I need to check the cows.”

“Sure. Take care of yourself.” With Douglas, that wasn't a throwaway phrase.

I padded to the kitchen, ignoring a call from Louise and two from other local folks. The last thing I wanted was to talk to people. One of our own had been gunned down in his home and the sheriff lay in the hospital. People were upset and concerned. Of course they'd call. Most of them would know about Ted's affair. I needed some time to temper myself to be in public. Besides, I didn't know anything about the shooting, and as sheriff's wife—not sheriff—I didn't have to talk to them.

I choked down some toast. I had to eat, but the simmering thought of Ted's betrayal seemed lodged in my gullet. When I added real grief over Eldon and what it must be doing to Carly, and the general stress of calving, it's a wonder I wasn't puking every thirty seconds.

I set my phone to vibrate and went about morning chores, knowing work would quell my agitation. While loading a round bale on the hay sled of the tractor and using the hydro-fork to deposit it in mini stacks in the calving lot, feeding the horses and bulls, checking the stock tanks for ice, and pairing up the new calves and cows and kicking them to the adjoining pasture, I checked each vibration. Since none of the calls came from Susan's phone—Carly's phone still sat in the house—and none from the Lincoln area code, I let them all go. Including the dozen from Ted's phone.

The sun climbed higher but didn't offer much heat. Knowing what surprises April often dishes up, the chilly, dry, and still day suited me fine.

I'd just pulled a heifer's calf and was on my way to the house to change my blood- and mud-smeared jeans and maybe force a little lunch down my throat when the purr of an engine alerted me to someone approaching. The nose of Sarah's green Dodge pickup poked around the gap and hurried toward the house.

That was the best sight I'd seen in a while, and I waited for her to pull up behind the house. With her thick chestnut hair tied in a bouncy ponytail, she slid from the tall four-wheel-drive and landed on the dirt driveway. Her outfit matched mine—Carhartt barn coat, faded jeans, flannel shirt—except she didn't sport the stylish cow manure and blood I was rocking.

She draped her arm over my shoulder and pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel's from her coat pocket. “It was only a matter of time before that shit-heel showed his true colors.” She twisted the top off the bottle and handed it to me.

My fingers closed on the cool glass and my heart sank further. “You knew?”

She grabbed the bottle back and took a slug. With eyes blazing in fury she swallowed. “Not until this morning. Louise called and said you weren't answering.”

I took the bottle. “How did she—”

Sarah flicked her fingers in a drink-up gesture. “Aunt Tutti or something.”

“Doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure we're the last to know.” I tipped back the bottle and let a dose of fire burn its way to my empty gut.

The Jack tradition started senior year in high school. Neither of us had dates for prom but, thanks to Jack, we'd had a great time anyway. Throughout college and until now, we'd tipped the bottle at our graduations, engagements, another month when one of us found out she wasn't pregnant—first in celebration, then in commiseration. Richard and Sarah had been trying for a baby for over a year. Ted and I knew we wanted kids, just hadn't decided when. Sarah and I didn't always mark the highs and lows of life with bourbon, but often enough.

Other women might hug me or want me to cry. But Sarah and I understood each other better than that. She tilted her head and assessed me. “What are you going to do?”

I passed her the bottle. “I ought to leave him.”

Always my staunchest defender, Sarah gave me a halfhearted nod. “Is that what you want?”

Walk away from the only man I'd ever really loved? The only man who'd ever loved me? Leave Frog Creek without a backward glance? Fire up the chain saw and lop off both my arms; it wouldn't hurt any worse. I reached for Jack and slugged it back. It burned like acid and erupted in my stomach. “You never liked Ted. Robert hates him.”

Sarah grabbed the bottle and took a swig. “So? You love him. That didn't stop, yesterday, when you found out.”

She sounded suspiciously like Dahlia. “You think I should stay?”

She held up a hand. “Whoa. I didn't say that.”

“Then, what?” I clutched the bottle, but my stomach lurched, so I didn't drink.

She folded her arms, calm flowing from her, as usual. “Take some time to think before you react. Right now you've got emotions running rampant. Let it settle, then make a decision.”

My eyes weren't red-rimmed and puffy from crying. I was taking care of business as usual. Growing up in the middle of nine kids had taught me how to keep a stone face. If you let someone know you're ticklish, they'd be sure to tickle you. But Sarah was tuned into my silent distress. She might not know exactly what I was feeling, but she knew I felt it a lot.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out, not so much because I wanted to talk but more to change the conversation. I didn't recognize the local number, but I answered it anyway.

A booming voice identified himself. “This is Clete.” Clete Rasmussen was county commissioner, with a million years seniority. He probably wanted to know Ted's condition. “I understand Ted is in the hospital and won't be able to make it to tonight's debate.”

Ha. Pretty casual comment, considering everything it meant. “I don't suppose he's up to it right now,” I said.

Clete cleared his throat; the sound blasted a pathway straight to my brain. I switched the phone to my other ear. “We still plan to have the debate for the school board and whatnot,” he said. “But somebody suggested it's not fair to Rich Hamner if he don't get to speak his mind in public.”

Rich Hamner, Ted's only opponent, didn't have trouble speaking his mind most Saturday nights in the Long Branch.

“So I was thinking,” Clete rambled on. “Maybe you could fill in for Ted. Come to the debate and sort of … be Ted's mouthpiece.”

Someone suggested? Someone named Dahlia? I'd have to sit in front of a roomful of my friends and neighbors and even a few not-so-friendly neighbors and try to sound halfway intelligent. There wouldn't be a soul in the room that hadn't heard about Ted and Roxy, and they'd scrutinize me. I'd be like a plucked chicken turning over an open flame, the fat popping and sizzling in the fire. “I don't think so.”

Sarah frowned at me. She couldn't help but hear Clete's thunderous dialogue.

He cleared his throat again, but this time I was ready and had the phone a couple of inches from my head. “I understand. But it really ain't fair to Rich Hamner. And you know Ted's platform, and it seems like the neighborly thing to do.”

Sure. Neighborly. I opened my mouth to say no again, but then I glanced at Sarah's stern face. One reason for Ted's popularity at the polls was the backing of the Fox clan. If I turned away from him, he might not fare so well.

I didn't care. He deserved to lose the election. His going to prison for Eldon's murder would even be sweeter.

Probably.

Sarah raised her eyebrows and tilted her head.

Damn it. She was right. The only way to buy myself decision time was to hold it all together. My stomach did a barrel roll and splashed into the inky ocean. “Fine. I'll be there.”

When I punched off, Sarah clapped me on the back and offered me the bottle. “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”

I shook my head. “You hate Ted.”

She knocked back a gulp and twisted the lid on the bottle. “But I love you.”

She had made the first moves to leave, when Aunt Twyla's Jeep Wagoneer puttered over the AutoGate, followed sixty seconds later by my neighbor, Doris Cleveland, in her dark-blue, twenty-year-old Lincoln Continental.

Sarah raised her eyebrows in a question.

I thought about the sixteen missed calls on my cell. “Guess I should have answered the phone. I never thought anyone would drive all the way out here to gossip.”

Dick Fleenor, the EMT Eunice's rancher husband, followed the two women in his beater ranch truck.

Sarah scooted to her Dodge. “I'd love to stick around, but if I have to go to town tonight for the debate, I need get some work done.”

She drove ahead and around the ranch yard in a circle and waited for the caravan to file behind the house. She stuck an arm out her window and waved as she accelerated away, leaving me to deal with the gossip patrol.

My nose was used to the manure and calving fluids, my own work-strained body, and the bits of straw and mud that clung to me. I wondered how offensive I'd be to civilized people. If they'd held off for a few more minutes, or at least given me some warning, I might have had time to clean up.

Twyla hit the ground with her mouth running full speed. “I tried to call but you didn't answer. People have been stopping by the Long Branch all morning.” She opened the back door of the Wagoneer and hefted out a grocery bag.

I hurried over to help.

Doris Cleveland crept to a halt behind Twyla and lugged her basset hound face toward us, two loaves of bread clutched to her chest. She wore her husband's oversize work coat with the logo of Hodgekiss Feed and Grain embroidered across the back. The Clevelands owned the ranch farther down the road from Frog Creek. We shared fence lines and two-track trail roads.

Twyla settled one paper grocery sack in my arms. A Tupperware dish, probably containing the obligatory green-Jell-O salad, sat atop a five-pound can of coffee. “No one knows where to take the food. Your father must have gone somewheres, because no one's answering the door.” Her disapproval of Mom's capriciousness about opening the door to uninvited guests was a given.

Dick Fleenor, potbellied and slow moving, joined us, toting a plastic grocery bag with two sleeves of paper cups towering out the top. “Eunice sent me over with supplies. She didn't know where folks were gathering and said you'd know what to do with this.”

For Sandhillers, bringing food and paper plates to grieving families was like washing your hands after using the bathroom. You might survive if you didn't, but you wouldn't feel right about yourself.

Despite my growing nerves about the debate and falling behind on my ranch chores, as well as worrying that I smelled like a floating garbage barge, I invited them in for coffee.

“Only a quick cup,” Twyla said. “With the debate tonight, we'll probably be packed for supper, and then that damned news crew tromping in and out at all hours.”

“I can toast up some of this cinnamon swirl loaf to go with it.” Doris pointed her doughy chin at the bread she held.

Dick grinned and held the porch door open while we trudged inside.

I set the coffee to drip and directed Doris where to find the knives and cutting board. “I think I'm out of butter. Sorry.”

Dick rummaged in the bag with the cups. He pulled out a tub of margarine. “Here's the goose grease. Eunice thinks of everything.”

I excused myself to change out of my gunk-caked clothes. By the time I returned, Twyla was pouring coffee and Doris had filled a plate with warm cinnamon swirl toast, dripping with margarine.

Dick sat at the Formica table and talked around the bread in his mouth. “Eunice said Rope and Nat looked pretty torn up.”

Twyla blew on her coffee. “I can see where Rope would be wrecked. He and Eldon have been close since they were pups. But that Nat, I'd say they was more crocodile tears.”

I picked up a slice of toast. It smelled good, and it might be smart to let it soak up the Jack in my empty belly.

Dick warmed his hand on his coffee mug. “I always liked Nat. She was full of spit and vinegar when we were in school.”

Nat? She seemed like a tangle of anxiety now.

Doris busied herself putting the cold groceries, a casserole dish, and the Tupperware bowl in my bare refrigerator. “All that trouble with Mick took it out of her.”

Mick was Danny's father, Rope and Nat's only son. He'd got on the wrong side of the law in Omaha and was locked up. That's why Danny lived with Rope and Nat.

Twyla sipped noisily. “I wouldn't wish that hellion on anyone, but Nat was a bitch well before Mick went bad.”

Doris looked affronted. “I don't think that's right.”

I nibbled at the bread.

Twyla shrugged. “She's a slippery one. You knew she told Rope she was pregnant to get him to marry her, and there wasn't a baby for eight more years. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't shoot Eldon and Ted herself.”

Dick frowned. “No reason for her to do that.”

Twyla had a cagey look to her. “Folks liked Eldon because he was generous and helped people out. Like loaning Tuff Henderson money to buy the Stewarts' place.”

Doris reached for the bread. “I didn't know that.”

Satisfaction that she'd produced new information seeped across Twyla's face. “Course, Tuff spends all his time bellied up to the bar, so he's bound to lose it all. But Eldon, he did all sorts of things like that.”

“That don't say why Nat should hold a grudge against him,” Dick said.

Twyla leaned forward. “Well, see, that's just it. He helped out everyone else but never helped Rope out.”

“Did Rope want help?” Doris asked. She'd finished another slice and reached for the last one on the plate.

Twyla set her nearly full cup in the sink. “Don't know if he cared, but I heard Nat and Roxy complaining about it one time.”

I perked up. Tending bar, Twyla was privy to all kinds of unguarded conversations, and her insight could be helpful. In such a small town, everyone in the county mingled together, drawing interaction between unlikely partners.