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What if she could have had both, the money and the pleasure?
And then she finally saw it, the silver lining that her anger and the sluggish day had hidden from her until this moment: Hugh-Jay was going to be gone that night and maybe longer! She could do what she wanted to do. She could do what she needed to do, and had every right to do, because didn’t she have a right to be happy? And she wouldn’t even get in trouble for it, because there would be nobody home to catch her.
In her arms, Jody stirred and opened her eyes.
“Hi, sleepyhead,” her mother said, with an encouraging smile that surprised her daughter into smiling back. “How would you like to go out to Grandma and Grandpa’s to spend the night?”
9
ANNABELLE FELT NERVOUS as she drove her black Cadillac out to the men working in the pastures that afternoon. She was going to have to see Billy Crosby-after the awful things he’d done-and pretend she didn’t know he’d done them. It was vital to keep Billy out here at the ranch while the sheriff did his work in town. Billy wasn’t to know what was happening there. He needed to be taken into custody out here in the country, far from his vulnerable wife and i
It was her job now to contribute a touch of normalcy to the scene by doing exactly what all of the cowboys, including Billy, were expecting her to do.
And so she was taking iced tea and ci
“What will you tell them?” she’d asked him.
“Same thing I told the boys, that it’s vandalism and that’s all I know.”
Going nonstop, a group of neighbors, hired hands, and Linder men had managed to repair every cut section of fence but one that still awaited mending. A tour of the ranch had revealed other fences cut, other pastures breached, and other herds mixed up with each other. The cowboys were already organizing for getting on horseback to return cattle to their proper pastures, but when they saw A
Weather wouldn’t stop them from work, unless it turned to lightning, but the smell of A
The rain slickers that A
A
She was greeted with “Hi, Mom” from her sons and with courteous, drawled thank-yous from the other men. “Sure am sorry this happened to you folks, A
“I agree,” she said, and smiled at him.
Red Bosch, the youngest cowboy there, jumped forward with an offer to assist her with the rolls.
“Be happy to carry those rolls for you, Mrs. Linder,” young Red said earnestly.
He put out both arms so she might lay the tray on top of them. The rolls, huge and warm, had dripped their powdered sugar icing down their sides into gooey, soft-crusted puddles on the waxed paper she had placed beneath them.
“Don’t you let him do it,” an older cowboy warned her. “Or there won’t be any left for the rest of us.”
“Hey,” Red joked back. “I’m just a growing boy.”
“Exactly,” the cowboy said dryly, and everybody laughed, a welcome relief.
“Here, Red,” A
Another laugh went around the group.
The biggest grin came from Red himself. The boy had flunked out of high school and was trying to earn money to buy his own truck. A
A
Fortunately, he was looking at the sky, so she didn’t have to speak to him.
She darted a glance at her husband, who looked at his watch.
Her stomach clenched as she thought of Valentine alone with her boy while the sheriff’s deputies searched through their home. She wished there had been a way to warn Val to take the boy to a friend’s house before the sheriff arrived.
Poor little guy, she thought, looking down to hide tears in her eyes.
Collin Crosby’s childhood was just the kind that produced the sort of boy that she and Hugh Senior tried to help. Boys like his father and Red Bosch. She hoped that one day they wouldn’t feel a need to put Collin Crosby to work to keep him out of trouble, or that if they did, they’d have more success with him than they’d had with his father.
A
One by one her sons sidled up to her as she stood there.
“Mom,” Hugh-Jay said so quietly that nobody else could hear him. “Dad’s wrong about Billy. He did it and I’ve got the proof. I’ve tried to tell Dad but he won’t listen to me. Can you talk to him?”
“What kind of proof?”
He told her about the truck mileage.
A
“Let your father handle this,” she said.
Hugh-Jay frowned, as if to say there were things that weren’t making sense to him, but he didn’t ask about them, and A