Sweet Return (32 page)

He had sorted and edited those photographs for hours. Many were shots of some of the ruins of some of the oldest civilizations the world knew. Traversing and shooting in the Middle East was like photographing the Bible. He found the pictures disturbing and depressing and at the same time beautiful and haunting, even exhilarating. All of that.

He loved the work, but through it all, Joanna Walsh hovered in his mind, distracting him and hindering his efforts. He had stopped half a dozen times and debated calling her, to the point where he had searched for and found her phone number in Hatlow’s thin phone directory and written it down on a notepad beside the phone.

Though he had a hunch a woman as independent as she needed her space, and he was willing to allow her that, the notepad with her phone number lay there like a crouching cougar set to pounce on him. Once he had even picked up the receiver, prepared to punch in her number. But he had stopped himself. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to get it right, and telling her that Candace was just a friend sounded flimsy even to his own ears. He wanted Joanna to think him a better man than he was.

Normally, he didn’t worry about what the fairer sex thought of him. Women could either take him as he was or leave him alone. And he sure hadn’t often found it necessary to explain a damned thing to most of those he knew. Since his divorce, he hadn’t met a woman who made him want to change his attitude, either. His own mother first, his ex-wife second, had taught him just how self-centered women could be.

But he felt he owed something to Joanna. She just wasn’t like most of the other women in his world. She was too open and honest. She had no agenda. And that set her apart. It also made her vulnerable to the world’s evils. Hell, she needed a keeper and didn’t even know it.

There was no need to call her, he had finally decided. Tomorrow morning, she would be back to take care of those friggin’ eggs. Then he would talk to her about everything that was on his mind.

The screek of the shifting fan echoing from the windmill in the chicken yard broke the night’s silence. In LA, he was never lonely in his house, rarely longed to hear another human voice. Tonight he was amazed at how lonely he felt in this sprawling old ranch house. He removed his glasses, laid them on the dining table and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips.

Annoyed at himself and the situation, and restless, he left his seat at the dining table and strolled outside, letting his thoughts return to windmills. The well that supplied water to the house had an electric pump, but the one in the chicken yard was still powered by wind. He walked across the driveway, unlatched the gate and ambled to the old windmill’s wooden tower. He climbed up to the platform, braked the fan and seated himself with his back against the cool holding tank.

Looking out into the far distance, he could see the narrow, low line of Hatlow’s lights, shimmering and spitting onto a black backdrop. He could see an occasional pair of headlights on the nearer highway. The view had changed little from when he was a boy.

His mind traveled back to his boyhood and summer nights when he would sneak out of the house and climb this same windmill tower, letting the cool breeze touch his face as he looked out into the dark world. The bird’s-eye view of the surrounding vista had given him a sense of freedom like nothing else. Back then he hadn’t known the symbolism his innocent childhood activity represented. In many ways, now, as an adult with a camera, he did the same thing.

On those nights, he had spent hours envisioning the day when he would escape the Parker ranch and Hatlow, Texas. And he
had
escaped. He had seen and done much that most men would never see or do. His experiences in unpredictable, sometimes harrowing, sometimes heartrending, circumstances had hardened his hide but in many ways had softened his heart. He had learned that people and societies were too complex for the minds of mortal humans to contemplate. The world’s problems were too grave and too complicated for mere human beings to resolve. He had encountered so much of the unreasonable, so much of the unfathomable, that while he’d once had no interest in living a calm, quiet life in a small town like Hatlow, for a while now he had felt growing within him the need for simplicity.

Once he had thought life in Hatlow was complicated. Now he realized just how wrong that notion was.

Chapter 22

Wednesday afternoon came in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Engaged in her egg business for more than two years, trips twice daily to the Parker ranch had become Joanna’s routine. Today she was amazed at how productive she had been without the hens and eggs consuming so many hours of her day. There had to be a message there.

She knew it was cowardly to handle her own anxiety over what had happened with Dalton by not facing him, but she had humiliated herself in his presence and she still hadn’t built the inner strength she needed to face him and deal with him unemotionally. Not yet.

Beyond that, her heart was in pain. She had become infatuated with him. Knowing he had someone else to whom he would soon return was almost more than she could stand. What was the worst of all, she had known it when she slept with him. A few drinks were no excuse for doing something so dumb.

At least she would have a change of scenery this evening. Dancing was one of her favorite recreations, and she hadn’t been out in months. All of a sudden she no longer regretted that she had told Shari she would go with her to celebrate her birthday.

She left the store early, went home and showered and spent a leisurely amount of time styling her hair for the first time in weeks. She decided what to wear in a short time. She didn’t own a large selection of going-out clothing, but what she did own was quality stuff purchased in cool shops. She viewed her dress-up clothing sort of like she viewed her mattress. She had earned it.

She dressed in a tan chamois A-line skirt soft to the touch, with perfect drape. Great for dancing. She topped it with a white lacy camisole. She was fussing with her hair again when she heard the Huddleston dually’s diesel engine clattering in her driveway.

“Hey, girl, where are you?” Shari’s voice, calling from the front of the house. She always came in without knocking.

“I’m in the bathroom,” Joanna called back.

“Hey, look at you,” Shari said, entering the bathroom and looking her up and down. “Lace with suede. Too cool. Love that camisole. You didn’t get
that
at Wal-Mart.”

“Up in Lubbock a few months ago. At one of those cute shops out by the college.”

“That’s what happens when you wear a size seven. You can shop where the college kids shop. Get your boots on. Jay’ll be honking the horn.”

“Okay, okay.” Joanna pulled on her best boots, the ones for which she had paid way too much. She had bought them in Leddy’s on an infrequent trip to Fort Worth’s North Side. They, too, were cool. Tan ostrich bottoms, with intricate arty stitching on the tops. And leather soles. Dancing boots if any ever had been made.

“I still envy you those boots,” Shari said. “They’re worth doing without food for.”

“As if you’d know,” Joanna quipped. Shari did without little. Even through the hard times, Jay had managed to be a good provider.

Joanna covered the camisole with a denim jacket. Daytime temps were still hotter than blazes, but once dark settled, she might be chilly in nothing more than a bare-shouldered camisole. To be stylish, she added a glitzy rhinestone pin to the jacket and her sterling silver Vogt earrings with a crystal teardrop. She had paid too much for them, too, but she adored them.

As Shari watched her hook them into her ears, Joanna couldn’t keep from thinking of the differences between her own life and that of her best friend. Shari boasted a box full of “good jewelry” Jay had bought her through the years. He had always come up with something special and expensive for Christmas and special occasions. Joanna, on the other hand, had a box full of beaded odds and ends made by her mother.

Only once had Joanna received a gift of jewelry from a man. A long time ago, an old friend, now married and struggling to pay his bills, had given her a pair of tiny diamond studs. She had promptly lost one of them down the shampoo bowl drain in the beauty salon.

Shari looked at her in the mirror. “You know something, Joanna? I don’t think you realize how pretty you are. Just look at you. You’re buff, you’re tanned, you’ve got a perfect figure. If I had your height and your body…” Shari turned Joanna toward the mirror and together they perused their two reflections side by side. Shari, a good four inches shorter, shook her head, pressing her hands against her sides and stomach. “Look at me. Compared to you, I’m a fat lump.”

Joanna laughed. “You aren’t fat. You just need to lose a few pounds. You should go on a serious diet before you get your new boobs.”

“Forget about me. When those horny single dudes that hang out at the Rusty Spur see you tonight, you’ll probably have your pick.”

Joanna huffed a sarcastic noise. “I’m really looking for that.”

Assessing her reflection, Joanna was satisfied. She didn’t dress up and go out often, but she was encouraged to see she could look good, even if she was pushing forty. There was no forgetting that Shari’s thirty-sixth birthday meant Joanna’s wasn’t too far off.

Joanna climbed into the backseat of the Huddlestons’ pickup, and they roared toward the New Mexico state line sixty miles to the west.

She sat behind Shari, lost in her thoughts and giving herself a mental pep talk. Going out with Shari and Jay without a male escort was nothing new. Joanna had done it many times, but the tinge of awkwardness was ever present. She hadn’t noticed it so much in her twenties, but since she had passed the thirty mark, she thought of it often. She had lived single long enough not to fear or be intimated by going somewhere alone, but now, whenever she went with a couple, she had to battle that out-of-place feeling. Joanna Walsh, the odd woman out. Joanna Walsh, old maid. She repressed a groan.

At the Rusty Spur, as she walked behind her two friends through the wide entryway, that “woman alone” mood threatened to send her back to the pickup. Obviously her emotions were still teetering on the edge. The episode with Dalton had done something to her.

The Rusty Spur drew partiers from all over the Texas Panhandle and eastern New Mexico. Even a few brave hearts all the way from Oklahoma. It was the very definition of a cowboy honky-tonk. It had a rustic interior, including wooden plank walls and exposed bare trusses in a high ceiling. More like a barn than anything else, it was big enough to house a jumbo jet. No one could remember when it had been built, but it had a wooden dance floor worn to a smooth patina from the thousands of boots that had scooted across it to the beat of country-western tunes.

A band usually played on weekends, but tonight, a weeknight, the music came from a loud jukebox piped through an outstanding sound system. George Strait singing “All My Exes Live in Texas” sounded as if George himself were in the building. Across Shari’s shoulder, she saw uncountable couples shuffling around the floor. Everyone danced to George Strait. He was so beloved in Texas, he could probably be governor if he wanted to.

On a silent sigh, Joanna followed her host and hostess into the smoky, crowded room. The Rusty Spur hadn’t so much as acknowledged the antismoking movement, much less taken steps toward a smokeless environment.

The seating was, and always had been, long wooden picnic tables with benches one had to climb over to sit down or stand up, either. She had never seen the tables in daylight, but at times when she had been here and bored out of her mind—and there had been some of those times—she had speculated how many layers of paint must cover these old tables. No fewer than twenty, she suspected. But as she had heard Jay say, “With all these drunks spilling beer and booze all over, they gotta have something that’ll stand up to a good hosing.”

Someone already seated hollered from all the way across the room and waved them over. At least a dozen of Shari’s well-wishers from Hatlow were seated at the table.
Crap
. The evening was going to be even worse than Joanna had feared.
Oh, well,
she resolved. At least she knew them all. It would be no worse than a family reunion.

They pushed through the crowd to the table that butted right up to the dance floor. Through the hellos and how-are-yous Jay raised a hand and made a circle with his finger. “Beers all around?” He clumped off toward the bar.

Joanna had just removed her jacket and started to climb onto a spot on the bench seat when she felt a touch on her back. She turned and faced Owen Luck.
Oh, hell
.

“Hi, Jo,” he said, a drunken grin on his face. “Feel like dancin’?”

Shari pushed her from behind. “Go dance, Joanna. Show us how it’s done.”

Joanna let herself be led to the dance floor. Vince Gill was singing something slow and romantic, and to Joanna’s dismay, Owen pulled her against him as if he had a right to. Joanna ignored the affront—after all, he was from Hatlow—and tried to follow his steps. Owen was uninteresting company, and he was a worse dancer. All Joanna could think of was how much damage he might be doing to her custom-made boots.

Vince’s song ended. They stayed on the dance floor and stumbled through a fast one by Gretchen Wilson. At the end of that, Joanna had had enough. “I’m kind of tired. Let’s sit down, okay?”

Owen still wore that same silly grin. “Sure, Jo.”

Joanna’s teeth clenched. No one who knew her well used that nickname. She hated it. “Owen, I would really, really appreciate it if you’d call me Joanna.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m going to get another beer. Want to go with me?”

“No, thanks. But you go ahead.” Not wanting him to assume they had suddenly become a couple, Joanna made a beeline back toward her group. When she neared, she saw Jay standing beside the table. His back was to her and he was having an animated conversation with someone, gesturing with his beer bottle and his free hand. She could tell even from a distance that he was talking football. Three steps later, his conversation partner came into clear view. Dalton Parker.