Heartbreaker (8 page)

“That’s low.”

“That’s J.B.,” she replied.

“Do you want me to stop asking you out, Tellie?” he asked quietly.

“I do not. J.B. isn’t telling me what to do,” she replied. “He can ignore me all he likes. I’ll ignore him back.”

Grange was quiet. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“You just wanted to know what happened,” she defended him. “Nobody could blame you for that. She was your sister.”

He pulled up in front of Marge’s house and cut off the engine. “Yes, she was. She and Dad were the only family I had, but I was rotten to them. I ran wild when I hit thirteen. I got in with a bad crowd, joined a gang, used drugs—you name it, I did it. I still don’t understand why I didn’t end up in jail.”

“Her death saved you, didn’t it?” she asked.

He nodded, his face averted. “I didn’t admit it at the time, though. She was such a sweet woman. She always thought of other people before she thought of herself. She was all heart. It must have been a walk in the park for Hammock’s father to convince her that she was ruining J.B.’s life.”

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“Can you imagine how the old man felt,” she began slowly, “because he was always afraid that J.B.

would find out the truth and know what he’d done. He had to know that he’d have lost J.B.’s respect, maybe even his love, and he had to live with that until he died. I don’t imagine he was a very happy person, even if he did what he felt was the right thing.”

“He didn’t even know my sister, my dad said,” Grange replied. “He wouldn’t talk to her. He was sure she was a gold digger, just after J.B.’s money.”

“How horrible, to think like that,” she murmured thoughtfully. “I guess I wouldn’t want to be rich. You’d never be sure if people liked you for what you were or what you had.”

“The old man seemed to have an overworked sense of his own worth.”

“It sounds like it, from what Marge says.”

“Did you ever know him?”

“Only by reputation,” she replied. “He was in the nursing home when I came to live with Marge.”

“What is she like?”

She smiled. “The exact opposite of J.B. She’s sweet and kind, and she never knows a stranger. She isn’t suspicious or crafty, and she never hurts people deliberately.”

“But her brother does?”

“J.B. never pulls his punches,” she replied. “I suppose you know where you stand with him. But he’s uncomfortable to be around sometimes, when he’s in a bad mood.”

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He studied her curiously. “How long have you been in love with him?”

She laughed nervously. “I don’t love J.B.! I hate him!”

“How long,” he persisted, softening the question with a smile.

She shrugged. “Since I was fourteen, I suppose. I hero-worshiped him at first, followed him everywhere, baked him cookies, waylaid him when he went riding and tagged along. He was amazingly tolerant, when I was younger. Then I graduated from high school and we became enemies. He likes to rub it in that I’m vulnerable when he’s around. I don’t understand why.”

“Maybe he doesn’t understand why, either,” he ventured.

“You think?” She smiled across the seat at him. “I’m surprised that J.B. hasn’t tried to run you out of town.”

“He has.”

“What?”

He smiled faintly. “He went to see Justin Ballenger yesterday.”

“About you?” she wondered.

He nodded. “He said that I was a bad influence on you, and he wondered if I wouldn’t be happier working somewhere else.”

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“What did Justin say?” she asked.

He chuckled. “That he could run his own feedlot without Hammock’s help, and that he wasn’t firing a good worker because of Hammock’s personal issues.”

“Well!”

“I understand that Hammock is pulling his cattle out of the feedlot and having them trucked to Kansas, to a feedlot there for finishing.”

“But that’s horrible!” Tellie exclaimed.

“Justin said something similar, with a few more curse words attached,” Grange replied. “I felt bad to cause such problems for him, but he only laughed. He said Hammock would lose money on the deal, and he didn’t care. He wasn’t being ordered around by a man ten years his junior.”

“That sounds like Justin,” she agreed, smiling. “Good for him.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t solve the problem, though,” he told her. “It’s only the first salvo. Hammock won’t quit. He wants me out of your life, whatever it takes.”

“No, it’s not about me,” she said sadly. “He doesn’t like being reminded of what he lost. Marge said so.”

Grange’s dark eyes studied her quietly. “He didn’t want you to know about my sister,” he said after a minute. “I ticked him off that first day we went to lunch, by telling you the family secret.”

“Marge said that she would have told me herself eventually.”

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“Why?”

She smiled. “She thinks I’d wear my heart out on J.B., and she’s right. I would have. He’ll never get past his lovely ghost to any sort of relationship with a real woman. I’m not going to waste my life aching for a man I can’t have.”

“That’s sensible,” he agreed. “But he’s been part of your life for a long time. He’s become a habit.”

She nodded, her eyes downcast. “That’s just what he is. A habit.”

He drew in a long breath. “If you want to stop seeing me…”

“I do not,” she said at once. “I really enjoy going out with you, Grange.”

He smiled, because it was obvious that she meant it. “I like your company, too.” He hesitated. “Just friends,” he added slowly.

She smiled back. “Just friends.”

His eyes were distant. “I’m at a turning point in my life,” he confessed. “I’m not sure where I’m headed.

But I know I’m not ready for anything serious.”

“Neither am I.” She leaned her head against the back of the seat and studied him. “Do you think you might stay here, in Jacobsville?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got some problems to work out.”

“Join the club,” she said, and grinned at him.

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He laughed. “I like the way I feel with you. J.B. can go hang. We’ll present a united front.”

“Just as long as J.B. doesn’t go and hang us!” she exclaimed.

Five

G range liked to bowl. Tellie had never tried the sport, but he taught her. She persuaded Marge to let the girls come with them one night. Marge tagged along, but she didn’t bowl. She sat at the table sipping coffee and watching her brood fling the big balls down the alley.

“It’s fun!” Tellie laughed. She’d left the field to the three experts who were making her look sick with her less-than-perfect bowling.

“That’s why you’re sitting here with me, is it?” Marge teased.

She shrugged. “I’m a lemon,” she confessed. “Nothing I do ever looks good.”

“That’s not true,” Marge disputed. “You cook like an angel and you’re great in history. You always make A’s.”

“Two successes out of a hundred false starts,” Tellie sighed.

“You’re just depressed because J.B.’s ignoring you,” Marge said, cutting to the heart of the matter.

“Guilty,” Tellie had to admit. “Maybe I should have listened.”

“Bull. If you give J.B. the upper hand, he’ll walk all over you. The way you used to be, when you were fourteen, I despaired of what would happen if he ever really noticed you. He’d have destroyed your life, Tellie. You’d have become his doormat. He’d have hated that as much as you would.”

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“Think so? He seems pretty uncomfortable with me when I stand up to him.”

“But he respects you for it.”

Tellie propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. “Does the beauty queen runner-up stand up to him?” she wondered.

“Are you kidding? She won’t go to the bathroom without asking J.B. if he thinks it’s a good idea!” came the dry response. “She’s not giving up all those perks. He gave her a diamond dinner ring last week for her birthday.”

That hurt. “I suppose he picked it out himself?”

Marge sighed. “I think she did.”

“I can’t believe I’ve wasted four years of my life mooning over that man,” Tellie said, wondering aloud at her own stupidity. “I turned down dates with really nice men in college because I was hung up on J.B.

Well, never again.”

“What sort of nice men?” Marge queried, trying to change the subject.

Tellie grinned. “One was an anthropology major, working on his Ph.D. He’s going to devote his life to a dig in Montana, looking for PaleoIndian sites.”

“Just imagine, Tellie, you could work beside him with a toothbrush…”

“Stop that,” Tellie chuckled. “I don’t think I’m cut out for dust and dirt and bones.”

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“What other nice men?”

“There was a friend of one of my professors,” she recalled. “He raises purebred Appaloosa stallions when he isn’t hunting for meteorites all over the world. He was a character!”

“Why would you hunt meteorites?” Marge wondered.

“Well, he sold one for over a hundred thousand dollars to a collector,” the younger woman replied, tongue in cheek.

Marge whistled. “Wow! Maybe I’ll get a metal detector and go out searching for them myself!”

That was a real joke, because Marge had inherited half of her father’s estate. She lived in a simple house and she never lived high. But she could have, if she’d wanted to. She felt that the girls shouldn’t have too much luxury in their formative years. Maybe she was right. Certainly, Brandi and Dawn had turned out very well. They were responsible and kindhearted, and they never felt apart from fellow students.

Tellie glanced at the lanes, where Grange was throwing a ball down the aisle with force, and grace. He had a rodeo rider’s physique, lean in the hips and wide in the shoulders. Odd, the way he moved, Tellie mused, like a hunter.

“He really is a dish,” she murmured, deep in thought.

Marge nodded. “He is unusual,” she said. “Imagine a boy on a path that deadly turning his life around.”

“J.B. said he was forced out of the military.”

Marge gaped at her. “He told you that? How did he know?”

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Tellie glowered. “I expect he’s had a firm of private detectives on overtime, finding out everything they could about him. J.B. loves to have leverage if he has to go against people.”

“He won’t bother Grange,” Marge said. “He just wants to make sure that the man isn’t a threat to you.”

“He wants to decide who I marry, and how many kids I have,” she returned coolly. “But he’s not going to.”

“That’s the spirit, Tellie,” Marge chuckled.

“All the same,” Tellie replied, “I wish he wouldn’t snub me. I’m beginning to feel like a ghost.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“You think so? I wonder.”

Saturday came, and Grange had something to do for Justin, so Tellie stayed home and helped Marge clean house.

A car drove up out front and two car doors slammed. Tellie was on her hands and knees in the kitchen, scrubbing the tile with a brush while Marge cleaned upstairs. J.B. walked in with a ravishing young blond woman on his arm. She was tall and beautifully made, with a model-perfect face and teeth, and hair to her waist in back.

“I thought they abolished indentured servitude,” J.B. drawled, looking pointedly at Tellie.

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She looked up at him with cold eyes, pushing sweaty hair out of her eyes with the back of a dirty hand.

“It’s called housecleaning, J.B. I’m sure you have no idea what it consists of.”

“Nell takes care of all that,” he said. “This is Bella Dean,” he introduced the blonde, wrapping a long arm around her and smiling at her warmly.

“Nice to meet you,” Tellie said, forcing a smile. “I’d shake hands, but I’m sure you’d rather not.” She indicated her dirty hands.

Bella didn’t answer her. She beamed up at J.B. “Didn’t we come to take your sister and your nieces out to eat?” she asked brightly. “I’m sure the kitchen help doesn’t need an audience.”

Tellie got to her feet, slammed the brush down on the floor and walked right up to the blonde, who actually backed away.

“What would you know about honest work, lady, unless you call lying on your back, work…!”

“Tellie!” J.B. bit off.

The blonde gasped. “Well, I never!”

“I’ll bet there’s not much you’ve never,” Tellie said coldly. “For your information, I don’t work here.

Marge gave me a home when my mother died, and I earn my keep. When I’m not scrubbing floors, I go to college to earn a degree, so that I can make a living for myself,” she added pointedly. “I’m sure you won’t ever have a similar problem, as long as your looks last.”

“Tellie!” J.B. repeated.

“I’d rather be pretty than smart,” the blonde said carelessly. “Who’d want to give you diamonds?” she scoffed.

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Tellie balled a fist.

“Go tell Marge we’re here,” he demanded, his eyes making cold threats.

“Tell her yourself, J.B.,” Tellie replied, eyes flashing. “I’m not anybody’s servant.”

She turned and left the room, so furious that she was shaking all over.

J.B. followed her right into her bedroom and closed the door behind them.

“What the hell was that all about?” he asked furiously.

“I am not going to be looked down on by any smarmy blond tart!” she exclaimed.

“You behaved like a child!” he returned.

“She started it,” she reminded him.

“She thought you were the housekeeper,” he replied. “She didn’t know you from a button.”