Texas Born (41 page)

'But you grew up together,' Tex said, trying
to concentrate on the road, a feat which was becoming increasingly
difficult. He licked his lips, a third of his mind on the sexual
tension building up within him, sweet and unbearable, another third
on the road, and the rest on the conversation. 'Weren't you two at
one time like . . .'He sighed as a quiver rippled through him. '. .
. sisters?'

For an instant her hand was still. 'Sisters!'
she spat, then continued to stroke him. 'God, no.' She laughed
bitterly. 'I couldn't stand her. We got off on the wrong foot right
from the start. She wormed her way into my life, stole Auntie's
affection, and now she's waltzing off with what should be my house
and home.'

'I thought you told me you didn't want
it.'

'I don't. But I can't stand to see her
getting it either.' She sighed. Then she quickened her stroke, and
he growled in frustration as he felt his penis straining painfully
against the double layers of restraining fabric.

'I want it, Tex,' she whispered. 'Let's do it
right here. In the car.' Her eyes glowed with excitement.

'Are you crazy?' he growled, but she could
feel the ever-more-stiffening penis under her touch. It was rock
hard now, trying to tent his whipcord trousers. Abruptly she
changed her circular strokes and strummed her fingernails lightly
across it.

'Dammit, Jenny!' He slammed on the brakes and
pulled over to the side of the road. He stopped the car with a
jerk, glanced in the rearview mirror, and scanned the road up
ahead. There was no traffic coming in either direction.

He scooted sideways, toward her. 'All right,'
he said quietly. 'You've got it. Against my better judgment.'

'Got what?' she asked in a trembling voice,
afraid to anticipate, afraid to hear his verdict.

'Him later. Me now.'

Suddenly she flung her arms around his neck
and pulled him close.

'Thanks, Tex,' she whispered in his ear, her
breath warm and sweet and fragrant.

He gazed deep into her eyes, trying, futilely
as always, to pierce through their cloudy armor. 'Why thank me?' he
replied. 'You're Mrs. Tex Sexton. And we're very much alike, aren't
we, Jenny? We both want the same thing.'

She nodded and sought his lips, nibbling and
gnawing at them with her teeth. Then she thrust her tongue urgently
between them. She was filled with a lust such as she had never
experienced before, and felt a moistness dribbling down the hot
flesh of her thighs. There was nothing, she thought, to intensify
the pleasure of sex like getting absolute control over someone's
destiny. Sex and power. Combined . . . combined, they made her feel
suddenly invincible.

Slowly she pushed him away, her fingers
expertly undoing his fly. She reached inside and pulled out his
phallus.

It leapt in her hand, trembling and rigid,
the veins standing out in bold relief. She stared at it, her eyes
gleaming hungrily, and then she slid back the foreskin. The
purplish-red tip was shiny and moist.

With startling swiftness she plunged her head
down and swallowed him deeper than she had ever swallowed him
before. Her head bobbed up and down, her mouth making urgent
suction sounds, and all the while her mind was aswirl with thoughts
of power. Before long, she could feel his phallus getting ready to
burst. Then she heard the strangled cry coming up in Tex's throat,
and in a fit of exquisite passion she plunged down, eating him as
deeply as she could while burrowing her nose in the curly nest of
his pubic hair.

The semen spouted forth powerfully, and she
swallowed it greedily, wave after bursting wave, the thick, salty
semen tasting all the more delicious because she knew it came from
the wellspring of her newly acquired power.

Only after Elender was buried and
Elizabeth-Anne found herself the sole beneficiary of her last will
and testament did the finality of death truly sink in. Up until
then there had been a dreamlike air of unreality about it all.
There had been altogether too many things to arrange—the burial,
the service, the flowers. As Jenny had divorced herself completely
from Elender, it was Elizabeth-Anne upon whom the duties of the
daughter had fallen. She received all the friends and
acquaintances, who offered her their sincerest condolences and,
strangely enough, whom she ended up comforting as much as they
comforted her. It helped her vent her immediate shock and grief,
enough, at least, to help carry her through the first few
unbearable days.

The sheer number of mourners staggered her.
She had never stopped to realize just how popular Auntie had been;
it had taken death to make her take notice of that, and
Elizabeth-Anne sensed that these were not mere displays of sadness
and grief . . . these were authentic emotions. Elender Hannah
Clowney had been genuinely liked. She had been a pillar of the
community, and even if she hadn't earned the abiding love of
everyone, she had certainly gained their unanimous admiration and
respect, a feat which was rare indeed.

Then there had been the reading of the will,
and that suddenly hammered home her grief. After the flurried
hurricane of activity, she suddenly found herself in a vacuum, with
time on her hands to think. It was then that the pain and the
profound sense of loss set in. She knew she was helpless to fight
against it, so she let it come. And what a terribly cruel pain it
was! Auntie had been a mother to her, as well as her confidante,
mentor, 'aunt,' and best friend. She found herself grieving for all
these individuals separately, realizing just how many people she
had lost with the death of one unique individual.

In order to draw strength for herself,
Elizabeth-Anne drew her family around her and hugged them close,
seeking solace and comfort from them, and that helped reduce the
pain. But she discovered, to her amazement, that it was Auntie's
legacy which alleviated her grief most of all. Although she had
been helping Auntie for years, working in both the café and the
rooming house, suddenly finding herself the owner of these
businesses was quite a different matter from simply working in
them. Far more time and dedication were required of her, and for
that she was grateful. Just when she was afraid that she had too
much time on her hands in which to conjure up painful memories and
mourn forever, she had no choice but to throw herself into the
businesses with all the energy and stamina she could muster.

And energy it drained out of her, which was
precisely what she wanted. The more fiendishly she pushed herself,
and the more ragged she ran herself, the less time she had in which
to be confronted by her loss.

Zaccheus offered to quit his job working for
Tex Sexton in order to help her with the two businesses, and he was
both disappointed and pleased that she did not want his help. 'At
least not yet, Zaccheus,' she tried to explain. 'It's good for me
to keep every minute of the day filled.'

But the thing which surprised them both the
most was that, just as he was considering quitting his job in order
to help out, Tex offered him a handsome raise no one in his right
mind could refuse.

'It's destined, you see?' Elizabeth-Anne
flashed Zaccheus her first strained, fleeting smile in weeks. 'You
have your work, just as I have mine. Besides, if we worked
together, who would be in charge? You? Me?' Her lips held another
ghost of a smile and she took his hands and held them. 'I'm afraid
we'd only begin to squabble and end up hating each other. And I
don't want that to happen . . . not ever.' She shook her head. 'It
just isn't
healthy
for a young married couple to be around
each other twenty-four hours every day. Besides, after you've been
gone all day, each time you come home I feel like a newly wed.'

He looked down at her, his face serious but
his lips and eyes smiling. 'Mama,' he said softly, using that
endearment for the first time ever, 'you're something else. You
know that?'

She laughed suddenly, and after the dark,
quiet weeks of solemnity, the sound of happiness was music to his
ears. His own happy laughter merged with hers. Then he hugged her
fiercely, a pleased, grateful expression on his face.

'Now, off you go,' she said, slapping his
buttocks affectionately. 'Your day may be over, Zaccheus Hale, but
mine isn't. Not by a long shot.'

And as he grinned and walked off, she
regarded him fondly, thinking to herself:
Why shouldn't he look
pleased? And why shouldn't I be? It is high time to take stock of
our blessings. We've both come through a great deal together, some
things which many marriages couldn't have survived. The three girls
are turning out beautiful and intelligent. Regina is already . . .
seven? She frowned. Is that possible? Has time flown by that
quickly ?

With death had come reflections of blessings
which up to now had been taken for granted.

They all enjoyed good health. They were
happy. Overall, despite the tensions and naturally competitive
circumstances of each workday, Zaccheus' job was going
exceptionally well; his raise proved that. Most important, he
genuinely liked what he was doing. Working for the Sextons was by
no means a piece of cake, but somehow he alone of all their
employees was left unharassed. There was a popular saying in
Quebeck: 'The Sextons get richer while the rest of us get poorer,'
but that didn't apply to the Hales. And although Zaccheus worked
for Tex and spent a lot of his time out at the ranch, he rarely saw
Jenny. They made a point of avoiding each other. Those unavoidable
times when their paths did cross, she would pointedly ignore him,
sailing past like a duchess, her head held high, as if he did not
count, and that suited him just fine.

Yes, other than Auntie's death, which had
come as a staggering blow to all of them, things were on a
wonderfully even keel. Sometimes Elizabeth-Anne feared that things
seemed to be going almost too smoothly.

Life was good, abundant.

There were the two houses they had inherited
from Auntie, and considerable savings too. No fortune, but no
piddling amount either; added to their own savings, it came to a
tidy nest egg. They were far from rich, but they were comfortably
well-off and had financial security. They were unburdened by bills.
Nor was there need to worry about bad times on the horizon. There
was plenty saved up to tide them over these, should they, God
forbid, ever visit. Nor did they need to pay rent anymore, although
the cottage had been inexpensive by any standard. They had moved
into Elender's apartment above the café

Every passing year was better than the
previous.

And then the highway was planned. It would
stretch northward from Brownsville to Laredo, bypassing Quebeck two
miles out across the fields, and connect with another new highway
swung from Laredo over to Corpus Christi on the gulf.

Nothing sates the hungry wheels of commerce
more fully than routes of transportation, and the excitement in
Quebec was intoxicating. Even the old diehards who had originally
been opposed to a new highway had become converts. Every day, it
seemed, someone in Quebeck was buying a new car. Those who owned
horses and buggies, like Elizabeth-Anne and Zaccheus, were fast
becoming the minority—soon horse- drawn transportation would
disappear forever. The highways would see to that.

Zaccheus looked around from his high perch
atop the buggy seat. The early evening sunset was spectacular,
striating the sky in the west with the deep rich tones of oranges,
yellows, and reds and streaking the wisps of high cirrus clouds
above him with the paler, more delicate pastel shades of lavenders
and pinks. For once, he was immune to the splendors of the setting
sun.

He sat looking around with little interest.
The field at which Elizabeth-Anne had asked him to stop the buggy
was large and uninspiring. Scrub brush and waist-high weeds
inhabited it, but little else, Zaccheus thought grimly, except bugs
and, possibly, snakes.

'Well?' Elizabeth-Anne asked with the subdued
excitement of a schoolgirl showing off.

'Well, what?' he demanded. He turned slowly
to face her. 'I was under the impression we were going to a
special
place,' he said. 'But
this!
' He indicated the
insignificance of the field with an indifferent gesture and barked
a short laugh. 'Elizabeth-Anne, it's nothing but a field badly in
need of irrigation!'

'No, Zaccheus,' she said with such solemn
intensity that he dared say no more. 'It's
not
just another
field. This is a
special
field.' She got down off the buggy
and stood there in the weeds, hands on her hips, and looked up at
him. He was sitting stiffly erect, his face creased in a frown of
confusion.

'Close your eyes,' she said suddenly.

'What?' He stared down at her to see if she
was serious.

'Just close them, Zaccheus. Please?'

'Oh, all right.' He smiled indulgently and
did as he was told. 'Well?' he asked.

'Now, just imagine in your mind everything
I'm about to describe to you.'

He vented a sigh and nodded.

'In front of you, about fifteen yards away,
is the new asphalt highway. Wide and sleek, with lots and lots of
cars zooming past.' She paused. 'Can you hear them?'

He frowned and shook his head. 'No, I can't
honestly say I do.'

She made an impatient sound and raised her
eyes heavenward. 'Well,
imagine
you're hearing them, then.'
She waited a moment. 'Now, do you hear them?'

He nodded to humor her. 'May I open my eyes
now?'

'Not yet. Now, the cars are whisking back and
forth in both directions. But not only cars. There are trucks and
buses too.' She had turned around; he could tell that from the way
her voice changed. 'Can you see them?'