He loved his sons. He even loved her in his own way. It just wasn’t enough. She backed from the room as an ache the size of Texas settled in her heart.
MORNING CAME early at Jack’s Bluff Ranch, and the sun was still below the horizon when Becky climbed from her bed. She’d had very little sleep, and her emotions were running on empty. Still she managed a smile as she padded into her sons’ room to get them up and ready for school.
“Okay, sleepyheads, time to rock and roll.”
“Already?” Derrick groaned and buried his head in his pillow.
David rubbed his eyes with his fists and yawned widely as he kicked off his covers. “How come you always say time to rock and roll when we’re just going to school?”
“Tradition. That’s what your grandma used to say to me.”
“Grandma said that?”
“Yes, she did. “Now up and at ’em. She said that, too. And wear something warm. It’s about twenty degrees colder than yesterday.”
“I wish it would snow,” Derrick said as he rummaged through the top drawer of his chest and came up with a red-and-white-striped rugby shirt.
“It never snows in Colts Run Cross,” David said.
“Not never, but rarely,” Becky agreed. But a cold front did occasionally reach this far south. Today the high would only be in the mid-forties with a chance of thundershowers.
“Have you talked to Daddy this morning?” Derrick asked.
“No, and I don’t think we should bother him with phone calls this early. Now get dressed, and I’ll see you at breakfast.”
Juanita was already at work in the kitchen and had been for over a half hour. Becky had heard the family cook drive up. She’d heard every sound since about 3:00 a.m. when she’d woken to a ridiculous nightmare about Nick’s getting hit so hard his helmet had flown off—with his head inside it.
Crazy, but anxiety had always sabotaged her dreams with weird and frightening images. Some people smoked cigarettes or drank or got hives when they were worried. She had nightmares. Over the last ten years, Nick had starred in about ninety-nine percent of them.
Juanita was sliding thick slices of bacon into a large skillet when Becky strode into the kitchen in her pink sweats and fuzzy slippers and poured herself a bracing cup of hot coffee.
The usually jovial Juanita stopped the task and stared soulfully at Becky. “I’m sorry to hear about Nick.”
“Thanks.” She hoped she would let it go at that.
“I brought the newspaper in. Nick’s picture is on the front page.”
The front page and no doubt all the morning newscasts, as well. Nick would be the main topic of conversation at half the breakfast tables in Texas this morning.
“The article said he may be out for the rest of the season,” Juanita said.
“The rest of the season could be only a game or two depending on whether or not Dallas wins its play-off games, but I don’t think anyone knows how long Nick will be on injured reserve.”
“I’m sure the boys are upset.”
“They talked to him last night, and he assured them he was fine. So I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention the article in the paper. They need to go to school and concentrate on their studies.”
“Kids at school will talk,” Juanita said. “Maybe it would be best if you show them the article and prepare them.”
Becky sighed. “You’re right. I should have thought of that myself.”
Juanita had been with them so long that she seemed like an extension of the family. She fit right in with the Collingsworth clan, none of whom had ever strayed far from Colts Run Cross.
And if Juanita had been helpful before, she’d been a godsend since Becky’s mother, Lenora, had started filling in as CEO for Becky’s grandfather, Jeremiah, after his stroke. Thankfully he was back in the office a few days a week now, and Lenora was completing some projects she’d started and easing her way out of the job that would eventually go to Langston. As Jeremiah said, he had oil in his blood.
Jack’s Bluff was the second largest ranch in Texas. Becky’s brothers Bart and Matt managed the ranch, and both had their own houses on the spread where they lived with their wives.
Her youngest brother, Zach, had recently surprised them all by falling madly in love with a new neighbor, marrying and also taking his first real job. He was now a deputy, in training for the county’s new special crimes unit. He and his wife, Kali, lived on her horse ranch.
And though her oldest brother Langston lived with his family in Houston, close to Collingsworth Oil where he served as president for the company, he had a weekend cabin on the ranch.
Her younger sister, Jaime, who’d never married or apparently given any thought to settling down or taking a serious job, lived in the big house with Becky and the boys, along with Becky’s mother, Lenora, and Jeremiah, their grandfather. Jeremiah was currently recovering from a lingering case of the flu that hadn’t been deterred by this year’s flu shot.
Commune might have been a better term for the conglomeration of inhabitants. Becky hadn’t planned to stay forever when she’d left Nick and returned to the ranch, but the ranch had a way of reclaiming its own.
The boys missed their father, but they were happy here. More important, they were safe from the kinds of problems that plagued kids growing up in the city.
Becky took her coffee and walked to the den. Almost impulsively, she reached for the remote and flipped on the TV. She was caught off guard as a picture of Nick with David and Derrick flashed across the screen.
Anger rose in her throat. How dare they put her boys’ pictures on TV without her permission? Both she and Nick had always been determined to keep them out of the limelight.
“Nick Ridgely’s estranged wife Becky is one of the Collingsworths of Collingsworth Oil and Jack’s Bluff Ranch. His twin sons Derrick and David live on the ranch with their mother. There’s been no word from them on Nick’s potentially career-ending injury.”
She heard the back door open and Bart’s voice as he called to Juanita about the terrific odors coming from the kitchen. Becky switched off the TV quickly and joined them in the kitchen. It would be nice to make it through breakfast without a mention of Nick, but she knew that was too much to hope for.
The next best thing was to head her family off at the pass and keep them from upsetting Derrick and David with new doubts about their father’s condition. Nick had left things on a positive note, and she planned to keep them there.
The phone rang, and she inwardly grimaced. Where there’s a way, there would be a reporter with questions. And once they started, there would be no letup. Whether she liked it or not, she and her family, especially her sons, were about to be caught in the brutal glare of the public eye.
BULL STARED in the mirror as he yanked on his jeans. “Hell of a looker you are to be living like this,” he muttered to himself. Without bothering to zip his pants, he padded barefoot across the littered floor of the tiny bedroom and down the short hall to the bathroom.
After he finished in the john, he stumbled sleepily to the kitchen, pushed last night’s leftovers out of his way and started a pot of coffee. This was a piss-poor way to live but still better than that crummy halfway house he’d been stuck in until last week.
And the price was right. Free, unless you counted the food he donated to the roaches and rats that homesteaded here. The cabin had been in his family for years, but he was only passing through until he came up with a plan to get enough money to start over in Mexico.
His parole officer