Sweet Return (29 page)

“Fresh from Walsh’s Naturals,” he said. “Just laid this morning. How about that?”

She smiled up at him. “Should be good. My hens lay only the best.”

He hooked an arm around her shoulder and planted a quick kiss on her temple. “What’re you doing today?”

She watched the bacon sizzle and curl in the skillet, loving being attached to his side like another limb. “I take customers in the beauty shop on Tuesdays. How about you?”

“Going by to see Mom, then going to Lubbock. I thought you might be able to go with me.”

The invitation was tempting, but she had never allowed anything except illness or an emergency to prevent her from taking care of her oldest and most loyal customers. “I can’t. Some of my Tuesday ladies have been coming to me for years. They get upset if I’m not there. Big day in Lubbock?”

“Lane was supposed to get moved out of the ICU yesterday. I need to see what happens next.” He turned the bacon with a meat fork, then broke the eggs into a separate skillet. “But I plan to be back before dark.”

The bacon grease made a loud pop and they jumped. At the same time, his cell phone chirped from behind them. They both turned and stared at it.

The thing continued to bleat. He didn’t move.

It had to be
her
. Otherwise he would answer it. And anyone else would have hung up by now. Like black ink, a feeling Joanna had never known she was capable of spilled into her brain. For the first time in her life, she knew the bitter bile of jealousy. She locked her eyes on his. “You should probably get that.”

He gave the phone a scowl and an almost discernible shake of his head. Oh, yes. He did know it was
her
. “I mean it, Dalton. Answer it.”

He drew a deep breath. Leaving the stove, he stepped over to the counter across the room, picked up the phone, flipped it open and slapped it against his ear. “Yo. It’s me.”

Oh, yes, it was the woman in California, and he was uncomfortable talking in her, Joanna’s, presence. She blinked away the burn that rushed to her eyes. She waited to hear the “babes,” the “darlin’s,” the “sweeties,” tumble from his mouth, but they didn’t.

“I’ve been busy,” he said. “Sure…. Uh-hunh…. Well, yeah…”

Dear God
. Reality. A cruel messenger. And a reminder that she had never done anything quite so stupid as what she had done last night. How could she have been so…so, so
drunk
?

The phone still plastered to his ear, he walked out of the kitchen and on out of the house.

Bastard!
Joanna’s chin quivered, but she refused to let him see her break down and bawl. Instead, she clenched her jaw, picked up the meat fork and punctured the egg yolks. Puddles of yellow spread through the grease just as a grim little satisfaction spread through her. Then she turned off the burner, grabbed the sack of apples still sitting on the counter and walked out of the kitchen. On her way to the front door, she yanked her purse off the dining table, leaving the file folder of chicken and donkey photographs behind.

Outside, squinting against the brilliant sunshine of early morning, she saw him on the front porch, his back to her, one hand in his pocket, his shoulders scrunched against the morning’s cool temperature. To stand out in the cold shivering, he badly wanted a private conversation with Betty Boop.

Joanna strode past him and kept walking until she reached her pickup, parked in front of her egg-processing room. The newly gathered eggs needed washing, but she wasn’t up to it.

As she yanked open the pickup’s driver’s-side door, he hustled up beside her. “Joanna, it’s not what you think.”

“Yes, it is.” She threw her purse and the sack of apples onto the passenger seat. “It’s exactly what I think. I’ve heard you talk to her. I’ve heard the ‘babes’ and the ‘darlin’s’ and the ‘sweeties.’” She climbed into the pickup and plopped onto the driver’s seat.

“Joanna, don’t do this. Don’t be a horse’s ass.”

Anger charged through her, heating her face. She stopped and glared at him. “Me a horse’s ass? Look in the mirror, buster.”

She jerked the door from his grip and slammed it. She did not buzz down the window. She cranked the engine, but he hadn’t stepped back. If he didn’t, she would run over his damned feet. She glowered at him through the window and he finally moved. She backed up, changed gears and roared toward the highway without looking back.

She berated herself all the way home. How could dull, conservative, hardworking Joanna Walsh have allowed herself to get drunk, wind up in bed with Dalton and completely abandon herself and her morals to his carnal whims? How could she have been so damn dumb? Hadn’t she known from the beginning that a woman lived with him in his house in California? Joanna had even talked to her the day she left a message for him. For all she knew, he could be married to her.

By the time Joanna reached the bathroom in her house, she had stripped. Minutes later, she stood in the shower letting warm water cascade over her head. It would serve her right if she drowned.

But soap and water couldn’t clean her mind or restore her spirit or wash away the humiliation that was stuck in her chest like a tight knot.

More cold hard facts bombarded her. What if he had a disease? What if she were pregnant? And if she was, whose fault was it? Hers, that’s who. The very idea sucked the air from her lungs and every other thought from her head. The pulse in her temples pounded harder.

She had to leave the shower when the water became cool. She shrugged into her favorite robe, a thick pink chenille that was a size too big for her. She sank into the chair at her vanity to style her hair and try to put herself together for the day, but she was perking on only one cylinder.

More scenes from Dalton’s bed began to replay in her mind. Indeed he had taken her to a place within herself she hadn’t known existed. She could count on her fingers the number of times she’d had an orgasm with a man, and she had never had several in a night. That pleasure had been so rare, at times she had wondered if something was wrong with her.

Then a new and certain knowledge dawned on her. Today she had a comprehension that she hadn’t had yesterday, and she found it almost incredible. She had never quite understood Shari’s relationship with Jay, had never related, had thought the two of them silly, had even wondered whether they were perverted. After last night, she got it. Finally. She was thirty-five years old and she finally understood the man-woman thing and the mystery of sex, the riddle that had puzzled her most of her adult life.

Chapter 20

After feeding the gnawing empty feeling in her stomach with another glass of milk, a slice of toast and three aspirins, Joanna dragged into the salon two hours late. Her mother was waiting for her behind the counter in the beauty supply store, scowling from beneath a furrowed brow. “Where have you been? You missed your ten o’clock.”

Oh, hell. Evelyn Rogers
. “I brought you some apples.” Joanna placed the bag of apples she had bought in Lubbock yesterday on the counter, then sailed past her mom, avoiding her accusing eyes. “Was Evelyn mad?”

Sailing past was a poor avoidance tactic. Mom followed her. “A little. But she got better when I told her you was tied up with a problem with them damn chickens. She let me give her a trim.”

“Thanks. I’ll call her and apologize.”

“Where have you been?” her mother asked again. “I tried calling you. I tried your cell phone, too.”

Reaching her desk, still ducking her mother’s piercing look, Joanna busied herself stowing her purse in a bottom desk drawer, removing her sweater and laying it on top of a file cabinet. “Don’t know what happened, Mom. Guess we just didn’t make a connection.”

Alvadean Walsh might be flighty as a butterfly, but she wasn’t one who gave up easily. “Are you sick?”

“I’m probably just tired.” Joanna checked her desk for messages. “I went all day yesterday without food.”

Mom jammed a fist against her hip, her mouth pursed. “Well, you look awful.”

Thanks, Mom
.

Her mother’s head shook, one-two-three. “I don’t know why you don’t get rid o’ them damn chickens. It’s not like you’re makin’ any money. They ain’t worth your health, and they’re costin’ you business in this beauty shop. Why, if I hadn’t o’ been here this mornin’, Evelyn—”

“Mom, please.”

“How far did you have to drive yesterday? Just look at the time and gas you’re a-wastin’ runnin’ up and down the road. With the price gas has gone up to—”

“Mother. It’s my time and my gas. Okay?” She placed her hand on Mom’s shoulder and captured her eyes with hers. Most of the time, Joanna refrained from hurting her mom’s feelings by expressing her own opinions about some of Alvadean’s habits and hobbies. Some days, keeping quiet was harder than others. This was one of the hard days.

She saw the rise of reluctant surrender in Mom’s eyes. She might nag and wear a cloak of self-righteousness, but Joanna knew that deep down, her mother supported her.

“You’ve got Shari down on the appointment book,” Mom said. “She’s due to show up here any minute.”

Even as her mother spoke, Joanna heard the front door chime and looked up to see her best pal hurrying in just in time to rescue her from more of Mom’s hounding. Time to get on with the day. Joanna met Shari in the salon.

“Are you sick?” Shari asked, dropping into Joanna’s hydraulic chair and frowning at her in the mirror.

Joanna wanted to cry. She must look worse than even
she
thought. Indeed she was sick. Sick at heart, sick in the head, sick of men. Again. She wrapped a silver plastic cape around Shari’s shoulders. “I don’t know. Flu bug maybe. It’s that time of year.”

“Well, don’t get sick now. We’re celebrating my birthday tomorrow night.”

Joanna huffed a humorless laugh. “I could be dead by then.” She picked a sterilized hairbrush from her drawer and began to brush Shari’s hair. Heaving a great breath, she directed a long assessment at her best friend in the mirror. “Okay, birthday girl, what are we doing to you today?”

“I found some gray hairs. Do you think I need some color?”

Joanna cocked her head, her mouth twisting as she more closely examined Shari’s hair. She had beautiful thick hair the color of coffee. Joanna had created a straight, blunt-cut style that fell just past her nape. It was perfect for a woman who had a houseful of busy kids and a busy husband, and who didn’t have time to maintain a fussy hairdo. “I’d leave it alone.”

“Okay, then, just trim it and style it. Make me look sexy. For Jay.”

Joanna stood back to let her friend rise from the chair. They walked together back to the shampoo room, and Shari seated herself in the chair in front of the sink. “How’s Clova?” she asked as Joanna gingerly tilted her head backward into the sink. “I heard she’s got pneumonia.”

“Yep.”

“Bummer. Guess you can’t be too good if you’re sick enough to be in the hospital.”

Joanna nodded, testing the water spray for temperature.

“Dalton came by Jay’s shop yesterday.”

Shocked, Joanna almost sprayed water on the wall. “When?”

“Yesterday morning.”

Instantly Joanna’s interest in Shari’s conversation perked up. She shuffled back through last night’s talk with Dalton, but if he had mentioned visiting Jay Huddleston, it had gone right past her. Unable to believe a man as self-centered as Dalton had any interest in renewing acquaintance with an old school friend for the sake of doing it, she asked, “Whatever for?”

“He was wondering about an oil well that was drilled on the Parker ranch. It was a long time ago. Jay couldn’t remember it, but his dad did.”

Joanna doused Shari’s hair with warm water and shampoo. “Humph. I wonder what that’s about.”

“You don’t know?”

“About an oil well? I might have heard Clova mention it here or there, but no, I don’t know.” Joanna went about shampooing Shari’s hair.

“Jay said Dalton’s trying to find somebody to drill on his mom’s place.”

It dawned on Joanna that in last night’s supper conversation they had discussed what Dalton had been doing all over the world in the last fifteen years, but not a word about what he had been doing all day yesterday in Hatlow. Her next thought was about the land Clova had offered to her, and a tiny anxiety came back to niggle at her. “So did he find someone?” Joanna asked cautiously.

“Oh, hell, I don’t know. Jay doesn’t exactly fill me in on all the details of anything. He said Dalton hasn’t changed much except for a little gray hair. But hell, we’re all getting gray hair.”

“Not me,” Joanna replied, thinking about Dalton’s hair and the intimate places where it was still coal black.

Finished with the shampoo, Joanna helped her friend to an upright position. Shari looked up at her, her eyes filled with glee. “Virginia Newman said he’s still hot. You must see him every day when you go out there to take care of your eggs. What do
you
think?”

Joanna thought back to the Sunday when she and Dalton had taken Clova to the hospital. Virginia had been the admitting clerk. “Nothing much. He’s always busy, and so am I.”

“But you must be getting acquainted with him a little bit. Practically everyone we know is pea green with envy that you see him every day. Virginia told Sandy Billings he guaranteed Clova’s hospital bill. He must be loaded.”

“Hm,” Joanna replied.

“Don’t give me a ‘hm.’ Virginia said you were there when he signed the paper.”

Joanna sighed, thinking of something Dalton
had
said during last night’s supper conversation. Indeed everyone in Hatlow did have their noses in everyone’s else business. “Yeah, I was there.”

“Well, did he guarantee the bill or not? Clova being in the hospital will cost a lot of money. Is he loaded?”

“I suppose he wouldn’t have said he’d pay if he couldn’t.”

And from what Joanna had seen of him, she would bet her last dollar on
that
fact.

They walked back to the chair at Joanna’s station. As she snipped away at Shari’s ends, her pal’s prattle wandered to the new lights at the football stadium and the letter Cody had received from A & M. Her youngest son, Dillon, had to have braces on his teeth. Sometimes a person needed a program to have a conversation with Shari. Today, she seemed even more convoluted than usual.