The anger almost choked her. “You know very well I’m a journalist, and it was not given to me, by the way, Mr. Clayburn. I had to work hard at it.”
“Even if Daddy does own the paper,” he taunted, his steely gaze shadowed by the rim of his hat.
“Even if Daddy does own the paper,” she defied, pronouncing every cold word.
“Then I’m half sorry we’re not going up on that mountain, miss. Maybe you could teach me a new word or two.” He looked at Hazel, resignation in his handsome smile.
“Hazel, I’ve changed my mind,” Jacquelyn announced, surprising even herself. “Mr. Clayburn, Hazel has my work and home phone numbers. Since we’ll be crossing one of the most difficult mountain passes in the Continental Divide, would I be too much of an ‘uppity, Perrier-sipping brat’ if I request at least one day to prepare?”
“You go right ahead, Miss Rousseaux. Do whatever you think is necessary,” he said as if patronizing her.
Hazel walked her out, looking way too pleased by Jacquelyn’s anger. Just as she was about to let the younger woman through the front door, Hazel whispered, “Don’t you worry about anything on the trip, Jacquelyn. A.J. will handle it. That’s why he’s the best one to take you. Oh, and by the way, don’t go teaching him any new words, either.” The older woman gave a meaningful pause. “He’d only want to learn the dirty Latin ones, anyway.”
Hazel’s Lazy M spread sat in the exact center of verdant Mystery Valley. Several thousand acres of lush pasture crisscrossed by creeks and run-off streams and dotted with scarlet patches of Indian paintbrush.
The town of Mystery, with a year-round population of four thousand, was a pleasant fifteen-minute drive due east from the Lazy M’s stone gateposts. The Rousseaux’s summer lodge was a ten-minute walk to the west, the ranch’s nearest habitation.
Jacquelyn, who had driven to Hazel’s place from the Gazette offices, turned east out of Hazel’s long driveway. Her thoughts, like her emotions, were still in a confused riot. What had she just committed herself to? How could she possibly ever endure such an ordeal—especially in the company of such a man?
Tears abruptly filmed her eyes. The extent of her vulnerability surprised and dismayed her. A. J. Clayburn’s crude baiting had brought back all the insecurities, all the bitter misery Joe and Gina had dragged her through.
Gina and Joe had proved perfect for each other, a matched set. As harmonious as the easy, breezy alliteration of their names. They were both charming, careless people, takers not givers, and honored no laws except self-survival and gratification of their sensual pleasures. And they had taught her a valuable lesson: it was easier to deal with known enemies than with phony friends.
At least, she had to admit as she reached the outskirts of town, A. J. Clayburn wasn’t feigning friendship.
She parked her car. When she entered the office, the red light was on over the darkroom door, which meant Bonnie was busy making photo-offset plates for the next issue of the paper. She left a brief note explaining Hazel’s imperious request, then hung up her hat for the day.
She was returning to her BMW, angle parked out front, when a throaty female voice cut into the tumult of her thoughts.
“Hey, there! How’s ’bout a ride for an old geezer?”
Jacquelyn saw her mother veer toward her along the brick sidewalk, carrying a plastic shopping bag. It bulged from the weight of several clinking liquor bottles.
“I walked to town,” Stephanie Rousseaux explained, “with all sorts of healthy aerobic intentions. But next time I get the fitness urge, I’ll remember to wear tennis shoes. Good God, my feet are killing me! I can’t wait until your father and I return to Atlanta. How I wish at least one of our local rednecks would exchange his pickup truck for a limo service.”
At forty-eight, Stephanie was still a striking woman, her hair covering the right side of her face in a hip style. Though lately she was stouter than she had been and a bit more grim around the mouth. She made it a point of honor to always be civil and even-tempered. But while she was far too cultivated and controlled to ever create an emotional scene, Stephanie had developed a chilly, disengaged manner that stymied others around her. Including her own daughter.
“Some of the local yokels,” Stephanie remarked as her daughter backed out into the sparse traffic of Main Street, “seem surprised that I’m still sober at midday.”
“Mother,” Jacquelyn pleaded, “please don’t start with that.”
“Start with what, Miss Goody Two-shoes?” Stephanie countered, adjusting her diva shades. “I’m quite proud that I have strict rules concerning my addiction. I’m disciplined, just like your dear old dad. After all, baby, decorum should rule everything, don’t you agree? Even a Southern debutante’s failed life.”
Mine or yours? Jacquelyn felt like shouting. But there was no point. She knew her mother meant herself.
“You know,” Jacquelyn said, keeping her tone patient and persuasive, “they have A.A. meetings out here, too, Mom. I checked it out. And you know, Dr. Rendquist told you—”
“Zip it. Renquist doesn’t know his elbow from his libido. The only reason I go to him is because he keeps me in touch with the charming Prince Valium. I’ve decided A.A. is for the great unwashed masses. Your elitist mother has a better system.”
Stephanie shook the bag, clinking the glass bottles inside to emphasize her point.
“Discipline. No therapy until the sun goes down. I despise a daylight drunk. Those lushes at A.A. lack discretion, self-control.”
Discretion and self-control. Two traits instilled in Stephanie back in Queen Anne County, by parents whose ancestry traced back to the First Families of Virginia. Traits that had proven invaluable for surviving a loveless marriage to a faithless, hypercritical man.
Jacquelyn ached to say something that might break through to her mother’s inner core. She knew, from her own childhood memory of her mother, that she had once possessed a deep well of inner feeling. But that well had long since gone dry.
Jacquelyn had borne silent witness for many years. By now Stephanie Rousseaux merely went through the motions of living. She simply reminded herself to change her facial expression now and then, so people would think she was properly “involved.” But in fact her existence had become a long, unbroken silence—the empty and meaningless stillness left behind when love and hope are abandoned.
And there was nothing her daughter could tell her to make things different. Stephanie was the frost queen Jacquelyn feared she herself was becoming—had perhaps already become. A chip off the old ice block.
Now Jacquelyn watched the town of Mystery roll past the car windows, alone with her thoughts. Downtown Mystery still included plenty of its original red brick buildings with black iron shutters—nothing fancy, just practical and sturdy. But the ornate, nineteenth century opera house with its scrollwork dome still placed the community a cut above plain saloon towns. So did the stately old courthouse, the only gray masonry building in town.
“Not exactly the height of sartorial splendor or exotic cuisine,” Stephanie drawled in her droll, husky voice. “But no squalid industrial sprawls, either. Although your father is working on that as I speak—that is, unless he’s relieving his stress with one of his new consultants.”
Consultants. The euphemism of choice, Jacquelyn realized, to designate the string of mistresses that Eric Rousseaux seemed to require in order to “validate his manhood.”
Hazel’s Lazy M Ranch slid by on their left as Jacquelyn headed toward the Rousseaux’s summer lodge at the western edge of Mystery Valley. A. J. Clayburn’s old rattletrap pickup truck was just at the entrance, turning to town. He passed them, tipping his hat while he went. Jacquelyn wondered if