Trixie didn’t respond. She’d heard it all too many times before. Too many times. Not even Rad’s gentle endearments could bring her out of her deep grief.
She’d sat here in the church were she’d attended services all of her life and listened as Reverend Henry told them to rejoice in Brant’s departure from this life.
“Be joyful,” the good reverend told them. “’They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.’”
In spite of her faith, in spite of the strong Christian values she’d been taught, Trixie couldn’t feel any joy today. After all those many years of riding bucking, angry bulls and fighting his way into and out of barroom brawls, Brant Dunaway had lost his life to the one thing even he couldn’t fight off or sweet-talk his way out of—heart disease.
How could she find any joy in that cold, simple fact? How could she find any joy at all, when in her heart she kept thinking she should have stayed close to her father. She should have made him go to the doctor, take care of himself, live to be an old man. But…instead, she’d stayed away from the ranch in Arkansas where he’d spent his last years isolated and alone. Now she felt the remorse and regret that came with his death. So final, so harsh. So cold. Without even a goodbye between them.
And this was just the beginning. Tomorrow she had to take her father’s body back to Arkansas, back to the ranch he’d loved more than he’d ever loved the fancy mansion near Plano that everyone called Dunaway’s Hideaway. The mansion, Victorian in style and stark white and lacy in design, had been more like an overdecorated birthday cake to her father. His real hideaway had always been the crude, run-down ranch in Arkansas he’d inherited from his mother’s side of the family.
The ranch where he’d requested to be buried.
The ranch Trixie had inherited from him.
The ranch where Logan Maxwell worked as foreman.
Logan. His name still brought little tremors of awakening shooting through Trixie’s system. Would he be waiting there to greet her when she brought Brant home for the last time? Would he speak to her, acknowledge her, talk to her about the last eight years of his life?
Or…would Logan turn away from her in disgust, the way her father had turned away?
Harlan took her by the arm, gently urging her into the waiting, black limousine. “Let’s get going, Trixie. It’s a long ride back to the house.”
Trixie nodded absently, then allowed Rad to guide her into the roomy car, her thoughts on the man she’d have to face once again, come tomorrow. “Yes, Granddaddy, it is a long way back. A very long way.” Then she closed her eyes and thought about Logan…and remembered.
“But where’s Daddy?” Trixie had asked Pamela as they dressed for her coming-out ball that spring night so long ago. “He’s supposed to be here with you, to present me.”
“Brant won’t be attending the ball, sugar,” Pamela retorted, her chin lifting a notch, her eyes capturing Trixie’s in the gilt mirror of the dresser where she sat. Trixie stood in the center of the elaborate bedroom her mother shared with her father, that is, when they weren’t fighting. Pamela then turned away, patting her upswept curls, to stare down into the velvet-lined jewel case set out on the Louis XIV dresser.
Disappointed and steaming mad, Trixie stormed toward her mother, her white taffeta skirts swishing over the Aubusson carpet, her blond curls contrasting sharply with her mother’s darker ones. “Daddy wouldn’t do that to me! He promised he’d be here.”
Pamela pursed her lips as she gazed into the jewel case. Making her selection, she lifted out a brilliant diamond necklace, then smiled over at Trixie. “Here, sweetie, wear this.”
Trixie pushed the gaudy necklace away. “I’d prefer pearls, Mother, and I’d prefer you tell me what’s going on here. Where’s Daddy?”
Frustrated, Pamela snapped the jewel case shut. “And I’d really prefer not to discuss your father. Especially not now, right before your coming-out ball.” Spinning on the satin-covered vanity stool, she stared up at her daughter with beseeching eyes. “Oh, Trixie, we’ve waited for this night all of your life, darling. Tonight you’ll become a part of the best of Dallas society. Let’s not spoil things by talking about your missing father.”
Trixie stood there, her gaze sharp on her beautiful, haughty mother. “You had another fight with him, didn’t you?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about Brant.”
“That’s it! You picked a fight with him so he wouldn’t want to come to my cotillion. How could you do that, Mother?”
Pamela’s expression quickly changed from sweet to steely. “It wasn’t just me, young lady. You know how your father can be. And this time he pushed me too far.” Waving a diamond-clad hand, she added, “If Brant isn’t here tonight, it’s his own fault. Your grandfather will present you. And that’s all I have to say on the matter.”
The matter turned out to be divorce. Of course, Pamela didn’t reveal that to Trixie until after the season was over, until after she’d been to so many debutante parties, and danced with so many fumble-footed sons of oil tycoons and banking CEOs, that she thought she’d literally scream. No, Trixie found out the horrible, awful truth on the day of her graduation from high school, when Pamela lifted her wine glass in a toast at the formal dinner party she’d arranged for “just family,” then presented Trixie with a trip to Europe as a graduation gift.
“We leave in a week, darling. Just you and me. I’ll show you all the best places, of course, and introduce you to my friends over there. We’ll stay at a lovely chateau in France, and I’ve arranged for a private manor house in the English countryside. After we’ve done London, of course. You’ll love Europe. I plan on introducing you to several very eligible bachelors.”
Shocked, Trixie glanced around the long dining room of the Dunaway mansion, hoping to find some answers from either her beaming mother or her strangely quiet grandfather. “And what about Daddy?”
She didn’t miss the meaningful gaze that moved between her mother and Harlan. In fact, she hadn’t missed much over the past few weeks, in spite of being busy. Now she was sure something was going on. Brant hadn’t even stayed for dinner. Her father, usually so carefree and talkative, usually so full of silly banter, seemed so distant, so quiet these days.
Earlier, he’d given her two beautiful graduation gifts, a golden heart necklace and one of his most prized possessions, his belt buckle from his last days as bull riding champ, and then he’d told her, “You know how much I love you, baby. But I’ve got to get on the road again. I just want you to know, Trixiebelle, how proud I am of you.” She hadn’t missed the catch in his voice or the sad look in his brilliant blue eyes.
Needing to know what was happening, and tired of being protected like a fragile child, she repeated her question. “I said, what about Daddy? I’ve hardly seen him in the past four months, and today he rushed in for my graduation, but couldn’t even stay for dinner tonight. Why does he keep coming home, only to leave again on business? He hasn’t traveled this much since his prime rodeo days. Will he at least join us in Europe, Mama?”
“Your father hates Europe,” Pamela explained. “And besides, he wouldn’t come if I begged him. In fact, now that you’re through with graduation, you might as well know—your father has been spending a lot of his time up in Arkansas.”
“Arkansas?” Trixie wasn’t surprised to hear that, but she wondered what the big secret was. After all, Brant owned a huge chunk of land near Little Rock. “Is he finally fixing up the ranch? Is that it?”
Another stern glance from Harlan, but it didn’t stop her mother. Pamela shrugged, then tightened her expression into a firm frown. “Well, he is wasting a fair amount of time