From Here to There (34 page)

“Stories to write about?”

“Maybe.”

“Well that one wouldn’t likely have much interest anymore to anybody here anyway.” He grinned. “Hey, you can write about me.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

 As Wes sipped his coffee, he watched her. "You know, any man'd be lucky to have you for his wife," he said finally. "I was a fool to not realize that sooner."

 "You hardly know me, Wes," she said curtly.

 "I can see the kind of woman you are. I'll be honest. When I first started coming around, it was with the idea of getting you to help me talk Amos into selling the ranch. A smart woman like you probably figured that out, but you're a lovely woman, Helene. It didn't take long before I had a different idea."

 "It hardly matters." She turned on the back burner of the stove and set the fry pan on it. "I'm married. Or did you forget that?"

 "You said not for long. I notice you still don't wear a wedding ring."

 She looked down at her hand and thought of the plain gold band in her jewelry box upstairs. "Wedding rings don't make for marriages."

 "A marriage that wasn't going to be a marriage very soon."

 "I'm not sure what it's going to be, but I'll guarantee you this--I'm in no mood to get involved with anyone else. Surely you didn't expect me to jump from one mistake to another."

 He laughed, obviously not at all put off by her coldness. "What makes you so sure I'd be a mistake? I have a lot to offer a lady."

 "It's a pointless conversation," she said. "I wouldn't believe you now if you swore on a stack of Bibles. As far as I'm concerned, you're after one thing here and that's the Rocking H."

 He put his hands up innocently. "What'll it take to convince you otherwise?"

 "I'm not interested in being convinced. You were sneaky, Wes. I don't like sneaky people."

 "That husband of yours isn't so upfront either. What about him? Or is that why you are divorcing him?"

 "What are you talking about?"

 "I checked him out, his actual background."

 Helene threw up her hands in disgust. "You are despicable. What gave you the right to do that?"

 "My concern for you and your uncle. Are you aware of from where Phillip Drummond's came? His pedigree isn't particularly impressive."

 Helene smiled with disbelief. "Wes, get out of here."

 "Drummond's older brother was murdered because he crossed the mob. His younger brother, Derek, is flunking out of school. There are rumors of... uh other problems, ways his mother earned her money, and Derek possibly was near to crossing over into serious trouble with the law."

 "Already crossed over," Helene interrupted. "Write that in your records."

 "You knew?"

 "That's where Phillip is. Trying to find out what's going on with Derek and what kind of mess he's gotten himself into. Any information on Phillip’s family, their poverty, the lack of a father, save your breath. You aren’t welcome here."

 "I was just trying to protect you." He moved closer, reaching out as though to take her into his arms.

 Helene backed away, her fists clenched. "You know I once told Phillip how wonderful Western men were, how they had qualities I wished he had. I now see a louse is a louse from wherever he comes."

 "Now, Helene."

 "Don't now Helene me," she snapped. "I want you out of here." When he advanced on her, she raised her fist. "You try anything and I'll break your nose. I took enough self-defense class to know just how to do it."

 He backed off. "All right," he said defensively. "I thought I was helping."

 "I doubt that. You know something, Wes, people are who they are, not who their parents were. Whether it's ancestors who pioneered big ranches or welfare mothers. You might keep that in mind for yourself."

 "What do you mean?"

 "Just what you thought."

#

 Amos and Hobo walked into the kitchen. As Amos brushed snow from his coat, Hobo wiggled all over, dumping his own light dusting. "I saw Wes driving down the highway."

 "He stopped in." She didn't feel like rehashing their conversation. It only left her depressed to think about his disgusting way of trying to undermine her confidence in Phillip. Was there nothing to which he wouldn't stoop?

 "Looked like he had a bee under his bonnet."

 Helene smiled faintly. "I don't know about that but hopefully he got the idea he's not welcome here. Did you get the supplies in town?"

 "Yeah. We'll be set if she really blows. Phil call?"

 "He’s not likely there yet, but I don’t think he will be calling," Helene said, less than honestly.

 "You got a phone number where you can reach him?"

 "I wouldn't feel I had the right to call him short of an emergency which I can’t imagine right now. Whatever he’s going to do, he has to do it." She swallowed back the urge to break down and cry.

Her uncle poured himself a cup of coffee. “You been reading Chelle’s journal?”

“Yes.”

“Figure out why she wanted you to have it yet?”

“Not really. It’s about... well when she first got here in the valley.”

He smiled. “Ah before I convinced her she wanted me.”

“More or less.”

“She didn’t see me as a likely prospect. Well I didn’t see myself that way either where it come to her.”

“I am to the point where she found out you had a girlfriend.”

He chuckled. “Beth.”

“Does she still live around here?”

“No, she married a guy from Idaho and last I heard was still there and very happy.”

“She wrote that you and Beth were pretty serious.”

“Beth told her that, I guess. That wasn’t why I hadn’t been trying to make time with Chelle though. Beth wasn’t someone I was going to marry, and I had never let her think otherwise. We just did things together sometimes. Kids today would call it hooking up, I reckon. When she met Chelle, she got jealous. Silly women sometimes. Evidently she wanted her out of the competition.”

“I haven’t read yet but did it work?”

“What was against me with Chelle wasn’t Beth whatever Chelle or Beth thought. I was not in Chelle’s league. I never saw it as even something to consider. She was a beauty, come from that rich family, had gone to the best schools. She’d never want a man whose nails were dirty, who come home at night dripping in sweat. The ranch here was barely making a living. I had nothing to offer her besides being a friend.”

“Sometimes that’s all a person wants.”

“Well, it wasn’t all I wanted but didn’t matter because I knew she’d never want somebody like me. I wasn’t rich, wasn’t polished, and didn’t have the looks to make a woman forget all of that.”

“You had something though. Must have. I mean she married you.”

“Marriage is a funny thing about why we choose what we do, what we make out of it.”

 "That’s for sure. If it hadn’t been for you and Aunt Rochelle, I wouldn’t have ever thought marriage could ever work. You were my example of it being possible for more.”

“Maybe that’s why she wanted you to have this journal then.”

“And the reason would be?”

“Because nobody really has it all, hon. Chelle and I didn’t find it easy starting out and had our tough times. We didn’t go telling folks when we had troubles, but no marriage is always smooth sailing.”

“You must have wanted the same things though. The thing is I don’t think that Phillip and I do.” She pressed her lips tightly together.

 "You know most men need a woman to teach them what they want. Women are the civilizing influence on life. Woman tells a man what she wants and he goes out and cuts down whatever stands in the way." Amos lifted the towel off the bread dough. "What's this?"

 "Cinnamon rolls... if I didn't beat them to death."

 The phone rang. Helene stared at it as Amos reached for the receiver. "Yeah... Yeah, she's here." He handed it to Helene. "It's Nancy."

 Helene tried to smile brightly, to respond to Nancy's questions with answers that made sense but all she could think about was Phillip and her desire to hear his voice. When she'd hung up, she made a decided effort to sound excited. "The baby's put on a pound since he was born."

 Amos chuckled proudly. "One of the few times a man likes putting on weight, when he's growing into a man."

 "She said they decided to call him Amos Phillip, but I think the real reason for the call was they want us to baby-sit him tonight."

 Amos got a look of concern on his face. "I don't remember much about babies... in fact with our own two, Chelle was the one changing diapers and such."

 "Well, I don't know much either, but I think Nancy and Emile need a night out, just the two of them. It's got to be a hard adjustment to go from being two to three... especially when the third person is so needy of attention. She wanted to get checked out by Doc and then have dinner out."

 Amos shook his head. "So what time they bringing him by?"

 "I think late afternoon, unless the weather forecast gets worse." She grinned at his scowl. "Don't worry. They'll tell us what we have to do before they leave him. She’s breastfeeding; so it can’t be for too long."

 "I guess you're right." Amos sighed as he grabbed the pile of mail from the day before and began opening envelopes and reading letters.

 "Your mail's not making you very happy," Helene said. It was impossible to ignore the deepening furrowed lines in the old man's forehead, the tight set of his lips.

 "I warned you before you came out that I was having a hard time hanging onto this place," Amos said, throwing the remaining bills back onto the counter.

 "I remember. Are those all bills?"

 "Too many of them," he said noncommittally. "It ain't your problem to worry about though."

 "It is if it means you might be forced to let go of this ranch. Can't you talk about it?" What was it about men that made them bottle up all their concerns? Did they think it was weak to share their worries with a woman or that women were useless in a crisis?

 "It's not right burdening you with my troubles," he growled.

 "Right now, the way my life's going, I'd rather be thinking about somebody else's problems."

 Amos smiled faintly. "Mostly it's loans, some I took out almost twenty years ago. Seemed like in them days the banks wanted a man to borrow money, improve the place, add purebred livestock to the herd. They made it look mighty attractive and maybe just a little too easy. Those loans haven’t been so easy to pay off."

 "How much do you owe?"

 He snorted. "About what I did when I borrowed it. The cattle market wasn’t good some of those years. One year I lost a lot of the calves between pneumonia and predators. Interest payments being what they've been, there hasn't been much way to pay down on the principle. Then came Chelle’s illness. We did all we could to keep her but that cancer beat us. It’s just been hard to catch up."