She’s Gone Country (11 page)

Dane stares down at me, looks momentarily baffled, and then his expression clears. “It’s been two days.”

“Six. Today’s Friday, and you said you’d call on Sunday.”

His powerful shoulders shift. “I got busy.”

The brusqueness of his answer stings like lemon juice on a cut. My spine stiffens, my shoulders square. “You got busy?”

There’s no apology in his expression. He’s a hard man, far harder than I remembered. “I run a big business, Shey. I travel. Meet people. Have appointments.”

I look at him, shake my head a little. I know what big business is. I used to have that life and those responsibilities. But a promise is a promise, and anger whips through me. “You could have let him down that night. Just told him no then. Instead you strung him along—”

“I just met the kid, Shey. Don’t put that on me.”

I’ve known Dane my whole life, and he can be tough, but right now he’s just ugly.
The
kid.
My
kid. No one talks about Coop like that. “Screw you, Kelly.”

His eyes spark and his jaw tightens. It crosses my mind that if I were a man, he’d probably take a swing at me. I almost wish he would so I could swing back. Because there’s so much I want to say. So much I want to get out.

But a glance over my shoulder shows me my three sons all watching from the café, their faces practically pressed to the glass. With another shake of my head, I turn around and walk back to the restaurant, my heart pounding with every step I take.

I hate Dane Kelly. I do.

But once inside the café, as I take my seat at the table, Cooper looks past me to Dane’s truck. “What did you say to him?” Coop asks uncomfortably.

“Nothing,” I answer, reaching for the sweetener to add to my iced tea.

Bo and Hank exchange glances. “Didn’t look like nothing,” Hank says. “You looked pissed.”

I cringe at his word choice. Hate the word
pissed
. “It doesn’t matter.” I force a smile, will my pulse to return to normal, because I am still worked up, still fighting mad.

Cooper is still staring anxiously at me. “You didn’t say anything about me, did you? You didn’t tell him I was hurt or upset? Because that would just embarrass me, Mom.”

I exhale slowly, silently. “I didn’t do anything to embarrass you. You can relax. Okay?”

Every Sunday at one, Mama calls to catch up, which is her way of checking up on me. This Sunday is no exception. “What did you all do this morning, Shey Lynne?”

I know what she’s asking. She’s asking if I went to church, even though she knows I didn’t. But she wants to make me say it. She’s dying for the opportunity to point out my shortcomings. Again.

“Made the boys farmers’ eggs and your sour cream coffee cake,” I answer, trying to distract her from her goal. “The one with the cinnamon-and-brown-sugar topping—”

“I know which one.”

“I haven’t made it in a while, and I forgot how good it is. Really moist. I saved Brick and Charlotte a slice, but the rest is already gone—”

“Is that all you’ve done today?”

“Well, no. I did the dishes and I’m just about to mop the kitchen floor.”

“Shey Lynne, this is the Lord’s day.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you take those boys to church?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Are you being smart with me?”

“No, Mama. But we do this every week, and every week I tell you that I’m not going to take the boys—”

“Then how about yourself? Because honey, I know you’re struggling. You’re not yourself. Not happy—”

“How do you know? You’re not even here.”

“I have ears and eyes.”

And spies. Charlotte, I think. Probably Brick and Blue, too. Oh, why? Why do they all talk to Mama about us? I can’t ever please her, have never made her happy. “I don’t know who’s telling you what, but I’m doing all right, Mama. I wouldn’t call this my favorite year, but we’re getting through it.”

She doesn’t answer, which makes me uneasy. If Mama’s not talking, she’s thinking something that’s bound to make me miserable. “How’s your day, Mama? What are your plans?”

“I’m going to come stay with the boys when you’re on your modeling trip,” Mama announces. “Don’t worry about changing the sheets. I can do that myself. Just leave me the boys’ schedule and I’ll make sure they’ll get to where they need to be—”

“That’s sweet of you,” I interrupt with a gulp, “but I don’t want to put you out, and Brick and Charlotte are already planning on being here with the kids.”

“Put me out? You’re not putting me out. I’m your mother!”

“Yes, but Brick and Charlotte—”

“Both have jobs. They’ve got plenty of work to do without taking on more responsibility. And this is why you moved back home, to have family around to help you. So let me help, Shey Lynne, and stop treating me like a stranger.”

I know when the battle’s lost. With a silent apology to the boys, I raise the white flag of surrender. “Yes, Mama.”

“So when do you fly out?”

“I don’t have the final dates yet, but they were saying sometime around the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth.”

“Which would be three weeks from today.”

My heart sinks. “That sounds about right.”

“I’ll arrive on Saturday the twenty-third, then. That’ll give us time to get everything in order.”

“Yes, Mama.”

I hang up the phone and rub my face. I’m not happy. But the boys… they’re really not going to be happy.

I’ve no sooner hung up from talking to Mama than the phone rings again. It’s Charlotte. “Shey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Mama found out about your trip to Puerto Rico and she’s planning on coming to stay while you’re gone. She wants to help with the boys.”

“She’s already called with the good news.”

I can feel Charlotte wince. “Sorry, Shey. Mama was trying to get us to come visit her in Jefferson for Halloween, and I told her we couldn’t because we were helping you out. I should have known she’d see it as an opportunity to move in for a week.”

I hear the distress in her voice. “Not your fault. Mama’s strong-willed. If she wants to do something, she does it.” And that’s an understatement.

I hesitate. “Char, something happened last Wednesday that’s been eating at me. I wanted to get your feedback, see if I was out of line.”

“What happened?”

“I kind of had a run-in with Dane Friday night.” I take a deep breath and quickly add, “I got so mad at him. Told him to screw himself.”

“Why?”

“He’s so different, Charlotte. He’s not the Dane I knew. The Dane Kelly I knew would never have dated someone like Lulu Davies or forgotten a promise he made to a kid. What’s happened to him?”

“He hasn’t had an easy life, Shey. Things were never good with Shellie Ann, but losing Matthew pretty much did him in.”

“But why did he lose custody of Matthew in the first place? I don’t understand why a judge would award custody to Shellie Ann—”

“Matthew’s dead,” Charlotte interrupts.

“Dead?”
I gasp, feeling as if she’s just thrown ice water in my face.

“He died twelve years ago.”

“No one told me.”

“But I did. I told you he was gone. I said Dane had lost Matthew—”

“I thought you meant in the divorce! I thought he was living with Shellie Ann in Austin.” I feel sick now, sick and ashamed. I had no idea, and it changes everything. “How did he die? Was there an accident?”

“Matthew was born with special needs.” Charlotte sighs, remembering. “He always needed a lot of care. His outlook was never good, but he lived a couple years longer than anybody thought. He died just before his fifth birthday.”

Oh God. “I didn’t know.”

“Dane’s never been the same since. He became reckless on the circuit, took stupid risks in the ring, or maybe he just lost focus. Either way he got trampled. It was pretty bad. Dane was out the rest of that season—must have been in 1998—had surgery, battled through rehab, returned the following year just to get hurt all over again. Yes, the man’s wounded, but his hip isn’t the problem.”

As Charlotte talks, I feel worse and worse. I shouldn’t have jumped all over Dane that way. Shouldn’t have been so angry or aggressive. I was just feeling protective of Cooper. I hadn’t realized that Dane’s boy died.

No wonder Dane wasn’t exactly jumping at the chance to work with mine.

My chest feels tight. My heart actually hurts. I don’t want to feel sorry for Dane. Don’t want to forgive him for being a jerk. But to lose a child…

I think of my boys, and I couldn’t lose them. Not one. As it is, I don’t know what I’ll do when they move out.

But for one to die?

Unthinkable.

“I think I owe Dane an apology,” I say in a small voice.

“He’ll forgive you, Shey. Dane couldn’t stay mad at you even if he tried.”

The next morning, I’m still feeling bad for losing my temper with Dane. After dropping the boys off at school, I make an impulsive turn off 180, taking one of the back roads that cuts to Dane’s property. I didn’t plan on seeing him when I left home this morning, but guilt eats at me. I feel like a jerk for what I said to him.

It takes me fifteen minutes on the back roads to reach Dane’s ranch. He has a decent spread of several thousand acres. It was once three times its size, but Dane’s father sold off a couple of big parcels in the early eighties when beef prices tumbled and the cost of raising calves rose 15 percent. The early eighties were tough on Texas cattle ranchers, and many farmers and ranchers went bankrupt. Those who didn’t struggled mightily owing to the shortage of winter pastures, high grain prices, and drought. Things turned around in 1988, and the cattle market became bullish for seven years, then struggled again in 1995. But that’s the nature of cattle ranching. Up and down, down and up. It’s all cyclical.

I haven’t been to Dane’s ranch in years and am shocked to see that the Kellys’ simple ranch house is gone, replaced with a rugged two-story limestone mansion topped by a steep metal roof that glints in the sun. For a moment, I think I have the wrong place—maybe Dane sold these front acres—and then I see his big truck off to the side of the circular driveway.

The black truck’s silver bed brightly reflects the morning light just like the roof, and I pull up next to his truck only to find a little red sports car already parked there.

The red sports car throws me. It’s the same car Dane was leaning against the night of Blue’s party, and I’m suddenly not so sure that appearing on his doorstep is a good idea. Maybe the apology would have been better made over the phone.

I let Pop’s truck idle as I reconsider dropping in. It’s not too late to go. I think I should go. But before I can reverse, the front door opens and Dane and Lulu step out.

She’s talking to him and he’s got his head turned, listening and smiling at her in a way he doesn’t smile at me. She says something that makes him laugh, and my heart stutters to a stop.

He likes her. Maybe even loves her. The pain is shocking. The pain reminds me of the moment when John told me he was in love with someone else.

I’d vanish if I could. I’d snap my fingers and make Pop’s dilapidated truck disappear with me inside. But there’s no disappearing, not when the red rusting truck is right in the middle of the driveway, blocking access to their cars.

And now Dane looks up, sees me, and I give him a big hard smile so he won’t know I’m feeling like the biggest fool there is.

Dane says something to Lulu, and she stops walking and he moves on alone toward me.

I fix my gaze on his cane as I fight to regain my composure.

“Hey,” I say, cursing myself as I roll my window down. “How are you doing?”

He’s definitely guarded. “Fine. You okay?”

“Yeah, oh, yeah, great.” God, I’m stupid. I take a deep breath, inject a breezy note into my voice. “I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by.”

He leans on my sill. “You were in the neighborhood.”

Looking at him, I can see why I once loved him. He’s big and tough and oh, so handsome with those eyes, lips, and jaw. “Yeah.”

“Kind of a big neighborhood.”

“Yeah.”

His gaze travels slowly over my face, and I see something in his eyes, but I don’t understand it. Don’t understand him anymore. “Shey, what are you doing here?”

This is so awkward. I hate myself around him. Hate that he makes me feel so much, hate that I’m always so emotional. “I wanted to apologize for snapping at you Friday night. I was wrong. I’m sorry I didn’t handle the situation better.”

“You were pretty hot under the collar.”

“Cooper was hurt and I, well… I went into my crazy mama bear mode. Protecting the young and all.” I swallow hard, struggle to smile. “Kind of lost it, though. Sorry.”

“Your boy was pretty hurt?”

My chest aches. I nod. “He’s such a good kid. He never asks for anything.”

“And I let him down.”

“It’s okay. I should have known… should have…” I look away, bite my lip, worried that the tears aren’t far off. “I didn’t realize—” I break off, unable to finish the thought.

“You didn’t realize what?”

I shake my head. “I just wouldn’t have let him impose. I wouldn’t have let him ask you…”

“If what?”