Sweet Return (20 page)

Dalton stood in the dark in the dining room, watching Joanna load some kind of boxes into her truck bed. If he were a gentleman, he would go out and help her. But no one had accused him of being a gentleman in years.

She hadn’t mentioned yesterday that she would show up here before daylight. Hearing her truck engine and the crunch of the tires on the gravel driveway—and being half awake anyway thinking about Lane and the new addition to the family—he had gotten up to see who might be driving in so early.

Lane wasn’t the only one who had been in his head all night. Joanna had been there, too. The fantasy of her naked body had darted in and out of his semiconsciousness, and he felt as if he’d had a hard-on all night. But his thoughts of Joanna were more complicated than those base urges. He kept mulling over her frank honesty, how easy he found her company, her willingness to work at something that had no benefit to her personally. She aroused his emotions in ways he hadn’t yet defined, and he couldn’t decide if he felt safe being around her this morning.

Or any morning until he figured out just what the hell it was that caused her to pique his interest. Jesus Christ, the only common ground between them was her connection to his mother and the ranch. Seeing the shape she was in when she left last night, he had been concerned about her, sure. But this morning, couldn’t he be content with just knowing that she was okay?

“Well, shit,” he grumbled in answer to the question. He went back to the bedroom, slipped his feet into his boots and stabbed his arms into a Windbreaker.

Shoving his hands into his jeans pockets against the chill, he walked up to the door of her egg-washing room. “Hey.”

She startled, her eyes flew wide and her palm slapped against her chest. “God, you scared me.”

“What’s going on?”

“Loading up. It’s delivery day.”

“No shit? You really sell these things, huh?”

“Cut it out. I’m in no mood for teasing. Not that you care, but I’ve got two new customers.”

“How many eggs you hauling out of here?”

“A hundred forty dozen.”

Surprised at the number, he whistled. “Overworked chickens, I’d say. PETA’s gonna to be after your ass.”

A stab from her pretty green eyes came back at him. Not liking the hostile look, he glanced away. “So how’d you do last night, after the snake?”

“Fine,” she said.

In a pig’s eye,
he thought, taking note of the dark circles and puffiness under her eyes. He knew what happened to the body when someone had the shit scared out of him. He had seen plenty of people coming off an adrenaline high and had some experience himself.

“I measured that sumbitch,” he said. “Four feet, eight inches. I skinned him. I’m gonna find somebody to make me a fancy hatband.”

“Need to show off your trophy, eh? How macho.” She tapped her breastbone with her clenched fist and said in a gravelly voice, “Look at me. Big snake killer.”

He stared at her a few beats. Damn her, anyway. He was trying to be nice, and here she was being a horse’s ass. “You know, I came out here to help you load whatever it is you’re loading, but—”

“Okay, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so short. It’s just that I’ve got a long to-do list today and I’m trying to get organized. I appreciate your help. I appreciate
all
help, believe me.”

“Okay,” he muttered, still miffed. He scanned the array of boxes sitting on the ground near the truck bed and realized for the first time that they were thermal coolers. “You deliver eggs in camping coolers?” He couldn’t keep incredulity out of his tone.

“Don’t criticize. It’s what I can afford. They work fine. I just stack them in the back of the pickup. They aren’t heavy.”

They began to work together lifting the coolers into the truck bed. “So who’re you selling all these friggin’ eggs to anyway?” In LA, he could think of dozens of places that sold free-range eggs to consumers, but West Texas wasn’t LA.

“Health-food markets, mostly. But a couple of restaurants called me last week. They have free-range eggs on their menu. West Texas diners are finally catching up with the rest of the country.”

“Humph. I’ve always figured that organic stuff was bullshit. You want the truth? I doubt if most people can tell the difference.”

She gave him an exaggerated gasp as she slid a cooler into the bed. “Have you eaten an egg from your mom’s refrigerator since you’ve been here?”

“Well, sure.”

“And you can’t tell the difference between what you’re eating here and what you get from the grocery store?”

Well, maybe a little
. He shook his head. “Nope. Can’t say that I can.”

“You’re impossible.” She shoved the last cooler into the truck bed, lifted the tailgate and slammed it, then dusted her palms. “There. All done. Thanks again for your help.”

She walked around to the driver’s side and climbed into the truck. Left with the choice of standing behind her truck and risking her backing over him, or following her to her door, he followed her to her door.

She closed the door and buzzed down the window. “Listen, when you go see your mom today, tell her I’ll drop by when I get back.”

He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “Okay. Who’s gonna gather up your eggs this morning?”

“Alicia. Please don’t be mean to her.”

She fired the engine, obviously eager to leave. And that made him anxious for some damn reason. He raised his voice to be heard above the roar of her truck engine. “I told you before, I’m not mean to people.” Without a reply, she put the truck in reverse. That goofy part of himself he didn’t understand wanted her to stay. “You coming out here this evening to gather more eggs?”

“Unless I’m dead or disabled, it’s what I do. Every day.”

“I’m kind of a half-assed cook, being a bachelor and hating restaurants like I do. Mom’s got a freezer full of beef. I’d cook up a steak if you wanted to stay and eat. It gets kind of lonesome out here, you know?”

She replied with a long, level look at him with those pretty green eyes, and at that moment, something feral passed between them. He had been given the eye by many women, but this was different. It was like a spark, so sudden and quick, he wondered if he had imagined it. He didn’t know what it was, but he did know he wanted nothing more at this moment than for her to come back for supper.

“You might not want to wait,” she said. “It could be seven o’clock before I get back.”

If that were true, she would be gathering eggs in the dark. And dammit, what if yesterday’s rattlesnake had a brother or a sister? “If it starts to get dark and you’re not back, I’ll get the eggs for you.”

She laughed. “Have you gone crazy? Don’t tell me you’ve gotten to like the chickens and the egg business.”

Her laugh had a musical quality to it, and he liked that. He also liked the bright smile that went with it. Especially so early in the morning. Any woman that cheerful before daylight had to have a strong constitution.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, stepping back from the truck, feeling a little unsettled by his own unexpected emotion.

“Right.” She backed the truck in an arc. When she stopped to change gears, he approached the door again. She buzzed down the window. “Be careful,” he said. “I don’t know what Mom would do if you ended up like Lane.”

“I’m always careful. I’m a good driver.”

He watched her drive away and continued to watch until she made a right turn onto the highway. Then he headed for the house. For no reason, he found himself whistling.

Dalton occupied
all
of Joanna’s brain as she drove toward town. Unshaven and rumpled, he had looked as if he had just crawled out of bed. And of course, he had. That thought traveled straight to the place within her that had been dormant for a very long time.
Forget it,
she told herself.
He’s got someone, and he’s only in town temporarily.

He had been a different man, helping her load up her eggs and teasing her. Then inviting her to eat supper with him. He was nothing if not a puzzle.

It gets kind of lonesome out here, you know?

So he gets lonesome, she thought smugly. Just like everyone else. He was human.

She reached the city limits and passed through town on her way to the Lubbock highway. Hatlow hadn’t yet come alive. She saw activity only at Betty Lou’s Coffee Cup. There, pickups and cars belonging to the usual coffee and breakfast crowd filled the parking lot. Betty Lou’s was the hub of the local small-business community. Every morning, the group traded gossip and transacted business in the country café atmosphere.

Among the vehicles, she saw Jay Huddleston’s big red dually pickup with its white magnetic sign on the doors that said
HUDDLESTON WELL SERVICING
. Shari would be at home rousing the Huddleston brood and getting them ready for school.

Hatlow hadn’t changed much from its bland appearance of Joanna’s high school days. If anything, it had become more run-down. Featureless two-and three-story buildings of indeterminate age lined both sides of the main street. Square brick boxes with windows. She couldn’t remember when one of them had last received a facelift. The oil bust of the eighties had almost wiped out the town. No one had money for something so frivolous as renovations.

She passed her own white brick building and its pink sign that said
JOANNA’S SALON & SUPPLIES
, its windows lit and showing off a colorful display of new hair-care products from Redken. As she always did when she saw the business on a quiet morning, she made a silent prayer of thanksgiving that it was still standing. She didn’t expect it not to be, but she still felt grateful. Thank God she had organized the salon and the retail store so well they almost ran themselves, because it seemed that she paid less and less attention to them these days.

Speeding along the highway toward Lubbock, her mind wandered again to her rescuer, Dalton Parker.
Be careful
. She was touched that he made the effort to caution her, as if he would care if she had an accident.

She thought of the old proverb from somewhere that said if someone saved your life, they were responsible for you forever. Or something like that. She didn’t believe her life had been in danger yesterday, not really. But confronted by a rattlesnake, who knew what would happen? She was just glad he had been there. She had faced challenges, but she had never had to do something so violent as whack a rattlesnake. Firing her shotgun at chicken hawks was different.

She thought of the fence-building project and what her mother had said about Dalton that Sunday following Lane’s accident:
Even when he was a little boy, Earl worked him like he was a grown man
.

Every muscle and sinew in Joanna’s body could confirm that the man had learned how to work.

Different comments she had heard said about Dalton during the past two weeks came back. Her sister’s words:
I could tell he carried a hurt. But it wasn’t caused by some girl.

She thought of what Clova had said that night in the hospital when they waited together to learn Lane’s fate:
He don’t care nothin’ ’bout us, anyway, Joanna. And I don’t blame him. Back when it mattered, we didn’t act like we cared much about him.

Now she was more curious than ever to know what Clova had meant. What Joanna had seen of Dalton was inconsistent with the behavior of a man who cared nothing about his mother or brother.

She had not spent all of her adult life in a service business without learning a little about human nature and behavior. It dawned on her now that she might have Dalton Parker figured out. Growing up, he’d had no one. The very person who should have supported him, his mother, had failed him somehow, and he had been hurt profoundly. Joanna believed he had a good heart, but he feared getting hurt again. He had grown a hard edge in self-defense. She had always assumed that Clova adored Dalton, so how had she managed to cut him so deeply? Her own heart softened even more toward both son and mother.

Stop it,
her good sense told her.
He’s the one person whose problems you don’t need to take on
.

Still, Joanna couldn’t stop thinking about him. She couldn’t imagine growing up in a home where parents were cruel to their children. Her father had been a kind and gentle man. And he had been a patient man to have put up with Alvadean Walsh’s eccentricities without quarrel. Clova and her triangular relationship with her deceased husband and her children was becoming a bigger curiosity all the time.

Indeed, Joanna might have Dalton Parker figured out. But now, with a flurry of such unfamiliar emotions, she was no longer sure she understood Joanna Walsh.

Chapter 14

Dalton started his Monday at the Wacker County Courthouse, writing a check that paid the taxes on the Parker ranch. When he had called his business manager in LA last night to arrange for the money to be transferred into his checking account, the guy had given him a stern lecture about paying taxes on real estate he didn’t own. But at the moment, Dalton saw no other choice.

From there he crossed the street to Hatlow Farmers Bank. A plaque beside the front door marked it as a Texas historical building. The bank had been founded in the nineteenth century and the hundred-year-old red limestone building had obviously been maintained to reflect its American Victorian-era history. Dalton delivered a copy of the receipt from the tax assessor’s office showing the taxes paid current on the Parker ranch. The Hispanic employee who took it couldn’t have cared less about a ranch that was as much a Texas historical landmark as the bank. Ironic, he thought.

Leaving the courthouse square and driving along Hatlow’s main street, he saw the aftermath of a collapsed economy. What had once been a thriving Norman Rockwell-ish small town, supported by oil and agriculture, was now a dilapidating shell of buildings and stores with boarded-up windows and locked doors. Mom had told him the landscape was the same all over West Texas. Depressing to see the site of his youth in decay.