Kitabı oku: «Dreamless», sayfa 2

CHAPTER TWO

JAKE COFFEY STEERED THROUGH THE LABYRINTH of streets in The Heights, fighting down a strange mixture of low arousal and high confusion. Since the day the sign went up announcing The Heights, he and architect and home builder C. J. McClean had been on a collision course. He’d spoken to her on the phone several times. But nothing in her smooth, confident, businesslike and occasionally caustic voice had indicated that Ms. McClean was so young…and so very beautiful.

What a face! Even without a speck of makeup, it was a face so fresh—so beguiling—that no healthy, normal man with two eyes in his head was likely to forget it.

Her eyes, he’d noticed the instant she removed the sunglasses, were deep set, blue as a cloudless Oklahoma sky, full of intelligence and fire. And when they’d filled with tears, he’d had to fight the urge to cradle her in his arms.

She sported the kind of thick, bushy blond ponytail that he was a sucker for—a wild, unselfconscious mane that broadcast vitality. That straight, little, barely freckled nose enhanced her look…and to top it all off, she had those full, ripe lips. She was his all-American type, all right. The kind of lively doll he’d tried to impress at high school football games and rodeo championships ever since he was a randy kid.

His type. Complete with that fit, curvy little body. Even those ridiculous overalls couldn’t disguise her curvy bust, especially after she’d stripped off that baggy shirt to help the injured man. With only a thermal undershirt hugging her torso, it was easy to see that Cassie McClean had the goods. What was a woman like that doing sashaying around among construction crews all day long? Breaking lots of hearts, he bet. He’d done enough checking to know she wasn’t married, but he wondered if she had a steady boyfriend.

What the heck was he doing, thinking about her in this vein? He didn’t know a thing about C. J. McClean, except that she had the kind of rare good looks he’d once been a complete sucker for. And behind that pretty face, she had a mean-as-a-junkyard-dog business style.

Cowboy, he reminded himself sternly, for the foreseeable future, you’ve taken yourself out of circulation.

He’d sworn off dating as long as he had Jayden and Dad and the horses to worry over. And besides, since his divorce, he’d discovered that it was damn crazy out there in singleland. Scary, in fact. Cute little numbers wrapped in spandex could turn into a sane man’s nightmare after only a couple of casual dates.

The last sweet young thing in his life had, in fact, ended up being a genuine stalker. Sitting outside the ranch gates in her darkened car. Calling late at night and scaring Jayden with her whispery questions: “Where’s your daddy tonight, honey?”

After he’d finally gotten rid of that weirdo, he decided he would live without women for a while. At least until Jayden’s life was more stable. Truth was, being single wasn’t an impossible lifestyle—if a man kept himself real, real busy.

Your life might not be fun— he recited his familiar self-lecture —but it’s sane. It’s healthy. It’s simple. Well, okay, maybe not simple. He gripped the steering wheel and gritted his teeth as he drove past the rock crushers. They banged so loudly they made his truck windows vibrate. It took enormous self-control not to flip the bird at the cussed things.

What was this business about dynamite?

He grabbed the cell phone off the seat and dialed his attorney.

Yes, Edward Hughes reported, they’d just now received a fax from C. J. McClean’s lawyer. She’d filed a countermotion to force open the road and she’d apparently beaten them to the draw on the noise injunction by planning to bring forth evidence that the noise was not excessive.

“Not excessive!” Jake hollered into the phone. “Listen to this!”

He rolled the truck window down to give Edward the full benefit of the crushers. “And apparently,” he said as he rolled it up again, “she plans to do some blasting with dynamite to finish the job.”

“I know. I know,” Edward Hughes groaned. “But my guess is they’ve got enough crap in this motion that the judge will be forced to conduct a trial. And there is no way the court can hold a trial before a week from now, because Jewett is in the middle of a big criminal case.”

“Can’t some other judge do it?”

“No. The district court is one judge short. Judge Baker is recovering from a heart attack.”

Jake sighed into the phone. He was headed for a heart attack if he didn’t get a grip. “A week from now, none of this will matter. If she starts dynamiting, my mares all will have lost their foals by then.”

“I expect she’ll have succeeded in getting her rock out of there in a week and the whole thing’ll be moot. Pretty sharp maneuvering. Is that McClean woman a total hellcat or what? Chip off the old block, I say.”

“How’s that?”

“She’s Boss McClean’s daughter.”

“That name rings a bell.”

“The old man went to prison a few years back for insurance fraud…and there was something else. I can’t recall. But he was the same way. Anybody who got in Boss’s way paid for it.”

Jake did recall a trial, years ago. “His daughter sure seems to want her way about everything, and pronto,” Jake confirmed.

“Yeah. As in, yesterday,” Edward agreed dryly. “The court appearance has been set for the day after tomorrow. That they managed to schedule a hearing on Judge Jewett’s docket so fast is amazing. Must have some pull.”

“Figures. Apparently, she doesn’t intend to lose a single day getting her damn fancy houses built. Says she has to beat the first freeze.”

“You talked to her again?”

“I’m just now driving back from a little jaunt up to The Heights.” The last two words were soaked in sarcasm.

“Well, then, did you explain the value, the rarity, of an Andalusian foal? And did you tell her the amount of money you’ll lose if your thoroughbred quarter horses foal before January first? The risks?”

“Didn’t get a chance. She was too busy explaining to me that I could simply move my horses. I said maybe I’d have to get the sheriff out there and she was telling me to meet her in court, when all of a sudden one of her men got hurt.”

“Somebody got hurt? Was it serious?”

“Some guy grabbed the business end of a hot wire. The fella survived the shock, but he took a real nasty fall. Can’t say how that’ll turn out.”

“Hmm,” the attorney mused. “That’s awful. In the meantime, maybe we can get the judge to give us another temporary restraining order—at least on the dynamite. That’ll buy you some time. If we can hold off for a couple of weeks, you might not actually lose a foal, even if one does come early. I hate to say it, but maybe Miss McClean will be so distracted by this accident that she won’t show up, and the judge’ll favor us.”

“Oh, she’ll show up. She’s one of those tiny, determined types that likes to make a man sweat.”

“Nevertheless, you don’t have to be present. If you’re too busy with the mares, I’ll get the noise stopped one way or another.”

That’s what Jake liked about having Edward Hughes in his corner. Nobody had to tell Edward what to do. Without Edward, Lana and her daddy would have pounded Jake into the ground by now, and where would that leave Jayden?

“I’ll show up,” Jake assured his family friend and longtime attorney. “I want Ms. McClean to understand that this is as vital to me as it is to her and that I won’t back down any more than she will.”

And the truth was, he was itching to see C. J. McClean again. Hell, just admitting that to himself made him realize he was in more than one kind of trouble with this woman already.

WHEN JAKE DROVE HIS TRUCK under the iron gates at the head of the long driveway leading to the ranch house, he immediately spotted a whole other kind of trouble.

Lana Largeant’s champagne-colored Lincoln Navigator was parked up by the house, sparkling in the sun, looking like one of her daddy’s men had just given it a fresh wax job. He eased his dusty truck past the showy vehicle and saw that it was deserted, meaning Dad had let Lana into the house, despite Jake’s instructions not to.

He suppressed the familiar irritation at his father. The poor old man couldn’t remember what day it was, much less keep the complications of Jake’s relationship with his ex-wife straight. Lana treated Dad like a dear old pet, and his confused mind lapped up her attention.

At least Jayden was at school. This time Lana wouldn’t be able to work her manipulative magic on their daughter.

Another reason not to get involved with some cute little number, he reminded himself as he jerked the parking brake. Relationships brought all kinds of entanglements—like unplanned pregnancies that could complicate your life for good.

Not that he regretted having Jayden. Oh, no. That child was the only joyous thing about his life these days. Besides the horses.

What he resented was the tie Jayden had formed to Lana. As he climbed out of the truck, that fact coiled up in his gut, mean as a sidewinder. Over the past year or so, he had succeeded in setting aside his resentment of Lana for Jayden’s sake, and, thanks to some long, honest talks with his brother Aaron, he had found a measure of peace about the whole deal. But Lana still found clever ways to disrupt that peace, keeping him lightly tethered, silently bound, through Jayden.

He always ended up asking himself the same circular question. How could he raise a daughter without giving the child the benefit of some kind of mother? Wasn’t any mother—even a seriously flawed one—better than no mother?

But last year he’d sworn that if Lana called Jayden one more time when she’d been drinking, he’d order Edward Hughes to find a way to terminate the woman’s parental rights. And, true to form, that’s exactly when Lana had stopped her boozing. Just dried out. Like she’d read his mind or something.

But, sober or not, Jake didn’t trust the woman. As far as he could tell, Lana’s life always revolved around Lana, what she wanted, how things affected her—and to hell with everyone else. The woods seemed full of those self-centered types these days. What he wouldn’t give for one sensible, honest, decent, unselfish…sexy woman.

The screen door banged and Lana stepped out onto the porch, into the morning sun. The newel posts and white siding on the east-facing house glowed around her slim silhouette. Lana’s sleek blond hair and svelte form—wrapped in some kind of clingy high-fashion dress that was printed to look like army jungle fatigues—created a sharp contrast to the simple homey setting. She jutted a bony hip against a newel post and shaded her eyes.

“Well, hello!” she called brightly, as if she were surprised to see Jake walking up to his own home at ten o’clock in the morning.

Instead of returning her chipper greeting, he sighed and planted a boot on the bottom step. “Lana, what are you doing here?”

She immediately adopted a stunned expression. “Don’t be like that,” she sighed. “Just when Dad and I were having so much fun, remembering when Jayden got up on Arrestado and rode him all the way down to the river. Remember that? When she was only six?”

Jake narrowed his eyes at the woman. She had a lot of nerve, persisting in calling his father “Dad” a full two years after the divorce. And she had a lot more nerve, bringing up the memory of the time she’d been so drunk she hadn’t even noticed that their daughter had run off on the back of a dangerously high-spirited animal—commiserating about it with his addled father as if it were something cute, instead of the most terrifying day of Jake’s life. Nothing pissed him off more than when Lana tried to rewrite history this way.

“Lana, look. This is not a good time.”

“That Jayden!” Mack Coffey exclaimed from beyond the screen door. Poor Dad had always had a way of falling right into Lana’s hands, even before the Alzheimer’s had eaten away at his good sense. “That child always was a real cutter, even as a baby!”

Even with the shadow of the screen over his dad’s face, Jake could see that Mack was overexcited—his cheeks flushed, his eyes unnaturally bright. Lana didn’t give a thought to getting him all worked up like this, the same way she never gave a thought to feeding Jayden too many sweets.

Jake turned his attention away from the task of getting rid of Lana. “Dad, you look tired. Where’s Donna?”

Before the old man could get his mind around the question, Lana answered. “I sent her to the store, Jake.” She moved down the steps, closer to him. “I hope you don’t mind. Y’all never have any of those cookies Jayden likes. And Dad and I need a pack of smokes.”

“Dad—” Jake tried not to grit his teeth, but he was losing what little patience he had left over from the confrontation up on The Heights “—does not smoke anymore.”

“Now see here, sonny.” The screen door creaked and Mack Coffey tottered forward. “I can have a smoke if I want to. I don’t recall ever giving up that particular pleasure. That’s your notion.”

You don’t recall anything, Jake thought, then hated himself for being mean-spirited. It was wearisome, caring for someone so fragile, someone who could be contrary and combative and confused all at once.

“Dad, it’s chilly out here.” Jake angled up the steps past Lana and clamped a friendly hand on his dad’s arm. He had learned how to finesse his father without hurting Mack’s pride. “Let’s go inside.”

Lana, naturally, followed Jake right through the door.

Jake steered Mack to his familiar rocking recliner by the window, then turned a level gaze on Lana. He was not about to give the woman an inch. “Okay, Lana, tell me what you want. I’ve got some skittish mares down at the barn that I need to tend to. I’ve already wasted half the day as it is.”

Her eyes widened. “Nothing’s wrong with the Andalusians, I hope!”

The Andalusians, prized mares from a province in southern Spain, were Lana Largeant’s bread and butter. The mares had come from Lana’s father’s stock, and at the time of the divorce settlement, Jake had felt lucky, getting Lana to let him keep six Andalusians to breed along with his other Cottonwood Ranch mares, mostly thoroughbreds. In exchange for breeding the mares with his own rare Andalusian stallion, Arrestado, Jake had agreed to let Lana sell every foal that was born from certain mares.

An Andalusian foal could sell for as much as thirty thousand dollars, so neither Jake nor Lana had ended up exactly broke, even after they split their operation. This arrangement had satisfied Lana, tenuously, for the past three years.

For his part, Jake had to bear the enormous overhead of getting Cottonwood Ranch back in the black. His father’s slow deterioration was written all over the books in red. Jake didn’t mind the back-breaking work of training and tending the stock on freezing cold nights and blazing hot days. But Jake felt now, just as he had during their ten-year marriage, that he did the work and Lana got the profits.

“The Andalusians are fine.” Jake tried to sound confident. “Mainly, I don’t want my quarter horses to foal before January first.”

“Of course not! Lord knows, you can’t run a yearling like it was a two-year-old.” Jake wondered if Lana still imagined herself as his ally in the equestrian business. It’s in our blood, she used to coo at him.

In the equestrian world, quarter horses turned one year old on January first, even if they’d just been born twenty-four hours earlier on December thirty-first. Thus, a breeder invariably lost money on any foals born late in the year. At sale, in races, those yearlings competed with horses that were actually a year older. With a horse’s gestation running eleven months, two weeks, the timing was tricky. Jake always managed to keep his mares fertile and cycling through the dark winter, using constant barn lighting and every bit of available southwest sunshine. And he could always count on his two stallions, Arrestado and Pintado, to perform on cue.

By mid-February, babies were on the way. By Valentine’s Day of the next year, Jake had new foals in the barn. By the following winter, the pasture was full of yearlings. Thus, the operation at Cottonwood Ranch renewed itself, year after year, in a cycle of breeding, birth and maturing stock that had garnered praise and prosperity for three generations.

Lana frowned as she went on. “But your mares never foal early. You’re a great horse breeder, Jake—why would they?”

He jerked his head toward the noise in the distance as the ka-rump of the rock crusher echoed over the valley. “Hear that?”

“Yeah, I noticed it when I drove up. What the hell is it? Some kind of oil well operation or something?” To the west of Ten Mile Flats, an occasional oil well dotted the prairie.

“It’s that damn upstart young woman’s machinery!” In a flash Mack’s face went from placid to agitated. He tried to push himself up from his recliner, but Jake stopped him with a calm hand on the shoulder.

“I’m taking care of it, Dad.”

“What young woman?” Lana positioned herself in front of Jake.

Jake could see Lana’s jealousies spiraling up as plainly as antennae.

“That woman up there on that hill.” Mack flipped a weathered, shaky hand in the direction of The Heights.

Jake hooked his thumbs at his belt. “There’s a developer building houses up on the old Sullivan ridge. She’s making a lot of construction noise in the process.”

“The builder is a she?”

“A woman architect. Name’s C. J. McClean.” Jake exhaled a pent-up breath. Why did he feel uneasy all of a sudden? “Calls her operation Dream Builders.”

Lana eyed him, then lit up with a kind of excitement. “I’ve heard of Dream Builders! They run a big ad in the paper every Sunday. And they have TV ads on cable.” She turned her head toward the picture window, gazing in the direction of The Heights. “You want me to tell Daddy to make this woman stop that racket?”

“I said I’m handling it.” Jake’s jaw clenched again. He was going to crack every filling in his mouth before this day was over. The last thing he wanted was Stu Largeant poking around in Cottonwood Ranch business. “You don’t need to get involved.”

“But we are talking about our Andalusians.”

“You can only claim the foals, Lana, and only from Bailadora and Encantadora and—”

“How could I ever—” Lana’s voice grew instantly acid “—forget about that…that devil’s pact we made?”

Like her transparent jealousy, Lana’s temper sprouted as plainly as horns popping out on her forehead. She whirled on the hapless Mack, who, Jake hoped, would have no memory later of the undercurrents that had just been unleashed in the room.

“Just for once, you would think your son could forget his stiff-necked pride and let somebody help him.”

“Jake don’t need Stu Largeant’s kind of help.”

Mack, suddenly alert, suddenly lucid, surprised Jake this way at least once a day. That was the torment of Mack’s disease. Jake could never be sure who was on board. Tough, sensible, loving Mack Coffey, or his withered twin, the frail man who couldn’t remember how to put on his own socks.

Jake intervened. “Lana, look. I’ve already talked to the woman myself. And I’ve talked to my attorney. I will get this settled. In the meantime, I want you to stay out of it.” Jake hated to state it so bluntly, but he knew from long experience that you couldn’t give Lana Largeant any wiggle room or before long she’d be ordering your hired help to run out and fetch her cigarettes.

“All right. If that’s what you want.” Lana snatched a stylish leopard-skin clutch off the couch. “I was hoping to discuss something important with you—about Jayden—but I don’t want to do it when you’re in a bad mood. I’d better get going. Don’t worry, Jake, I won’t interfere with this…C. J. McClean woman.”

Jake nodded, but if he knew Lana, she’d head up to The Heights and have a look at C. J. McClean for herself, no matter what he said. And he knew she would run home and tell her rich daddy the whole story.

She thrust her arms into an oversize black microfiber duster. “Tell Donna not to worry about my change.” She said this to Mack. Then she flew out the door without bothering to pull it shut behind her.

Jake walked over and closed the door with a soft click. He removed his hat and hung it on a nearby coat tree. He gave a soft, mirthless snort of laughter when something occurred to him. Lana’s clothes always gave some kind of clue to her mood. He wondered if the cutesy army getup meant she was gearing up for war. Again.

That’s all he needed, more legal entanglements. Her mention of Jayden had caused a familiar twist of fear in Jake’s gut.

“I wonder what Lana wanted. Did she tell you, Dad?”

But Mack was staring out the window, lost again in the cobwebby world of Alzheimer’s disease. “Who?” he said, and his voice was croaky with fatigue.

“Nobody,” Jake said.

“Where the heck is Donna?” Mack’s gaze was fuzzy as it panned the room.

“At the store. She’ll be back soon.”

“She’d better be.” Mack’s voice cleared and he flicked out his pocket watch in the same crisp manner he always had. “It’s gettin’ on toward lunchtime.”

Jake smiled. That was Mack—in and out.

BY THE TIME JAKE HAD FINISHED an apple and made a couple of business calls, he heard Donna’s Jeep roaring up the drive. Donna Morales bustled in the back door by the kitchen, as was her habit, clumped through the house, and appeared in Jake’s office doorway, out of breath.

“Is she gone?” she huffed.

Jake nodded, frowning.

“I’m sorry, Jake.” Donna pressed a hand to her ample bosom. “But have you ever tried to tell that woman no?”

“Many times.” Jake pushed his leather desk chair back and smiled.

“I swear—” Donna stepped into the office and flopped onto the leather sofa opposite the desk. “She makes me so nervous. I cannot imagine the two of you ever being married!”

Jake smiled again. What would he have done these past three years without Donna Morales? A licensed practical nurse, a mother of three perpetually hungry college-age sons, and an ardent Catholic, Donna whipped up the foods Dad loved, kept their rambling ranch house passably clean, and, best of all, was so honest and plainspoken that even Jayden had come to trust her.

Donna’s quiet, reliable husband, Jose, had worked for Jake for years, cutting hay, cleaning barns, fixing fence and talking to the Andalusians in soothing Spanish. Soon after Lana packed herself off to her daddy’s house, Jose had mentioned that the couple could sure use some extra income, with three boys studying engineering over at the university—and Jake, he had pointed out gently, could sure use Donna’s kind of help.

At first Donna wore herself out, beating a path from the hospital to the ranch the minute her shift was over, arriving just about the time the school bus dropped Jayden at the road. But before long, Jake offered to make her position full time. She and Jose had prayed about it for about two seconds, then jumped at the deal. Jose and Jake’s main hand, Buck Winfrey, had always been friendly, and they soon got into the habit of hitting the ranch house of a morning, looking for Donna’s home-baked treats. Sometimes they’d grab a quick cup of coffee with Mack. Donna called the three older men “the boys” in the same tone she used for her sons. Jake didn’t mind the traffic in his home. His life, Mack’s life and, most of all, Jayden’s life would be awful lonely without that little ensemble running in and out.

And in the past year, Donna had become a trusted confidante to Jake where it concerned his father’s declining health. She seemed to be able to put a calm, cheerful, down-to-earth slant on the discouraging daily incidents that came with Alzheimer’s disease. If the woman had known anything about horses, Jake decided, she’d be dang near perfect. Except that she weighed two hundred pounds and her unkempt frizzy hair was died the color of day-old coffee and her little mustache was thicker than Mack’s. But Jose seemed to think she was a goddess.

“I shouldn’t have left your dad alone with that woman.” Donna looked slightly embarrassed. “Honest to Pete, I don’t know why I let her get to me.”

“It’s okay.” Jake stood and threaded his arms into the sleeves of his denim jacket. “Dad’s asleep in his chair. I’ve gotta get out to the barns.”

“What’ll I do with these?” Donna held up the plastic grocery sack she’d carried in.

“Here—” Jake held out his hand for the carton of cigarettes. “I’ll give the smokes to Buck. He’s not picky about the brand.”

She handed him the cigarettes, then pulled out the expensive cookies. “And these?”

“Have the boys already been here?”

“Cleaned out my cinnamon rolls an hour ago.”

“Then, I guess you and Jayden can have a little party when she comes home from school.”

“Oh, not me. I’m on a diet.” Donna winked.

“Yeah, me, too.” Jake winked back. He grabbed another apple—his standard snack—out of the basket that Donna kept filled on his desk. “So how about a nice big pan of sour-cream chicken enchiladas for lunch?”

Donna flapped a chubby palm at him. “Behave yourself and get on out to the barns!”

AS JAKE PULLED A GOLF CART up to the barns in the eastern pasture, he saw Buck Winfrey opening the south-facing barn doors. On a chilly day like this, Buck might even have the space heaters going. Jake trusted Buck, a veteran of the horse trade, with all such decisions.

Just inside the doors, two barn boys were blanketing this year’s heavily pregnant broodmares for a walk in the sun. Jake was worried. The mares, normally placid, were dancing away as the barn boys held up the blankets. How high-strung had the quarter horses become? Jake had kept the Andalusians, thoroughbreds and quarter horses cycling this winter. Of those, the quarter horses were the biggest worry.