LITMIR.BIZ

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how can you…” Lucia paused, genuinely shocked by this harshness. “Faye Kilmer’s an invalid, June. She can hardly get out of her chair to walk across the room. Everybody knows that.”

      “Invalid!” June snorted, her face hardening. “Liar is more like it.”

      “I can’t believe you’d say that. Willard brought her to the staff Christmas party last year, and she was so sweet to everybody. I thought Faye Kilmer was a lovely woman.”

      “Oh, sure, everybody thinks Faye’s such a lovely woman.” June got to her feet and began to chop aimlessly among the vines again. “She’s so little and dainty, with her big eyes and lace dresses and that I’m-so-delicate-I-might-break act of hers. But the woman’s made of iron, let me tell you.”

      “She spends a lot of her time in the hospital, you know,” Lucia said gently, watching June’s tense broad shoulders.

      “Sure she does,” June said. “Whenever it looks as if Will might be getting a life and planning to move out on her, Faye has some kind of attack. And then she’s just way too helpless to look after herself, so he creeps right back into line.”

      “You think Faye Kilmer is using her medical condition as some kind of emotional blackmail over Willard?”

      “I think she’s a truly selfish woman. It’s my opinion,” June said, “that Faye will never let go of him as long as she lives. And,” she added darkly, “mark my words, Faye’s likely to outlive all of us. Those kind always do, you know.”

      “Have you ever told Willard what you think about any of this?”

      June turned to look at her directly, and Lucia was stunned by the depths of pain and sadness in those level blue eyes.

      “It’s hardly the kind of thing I could say to Will. Never in all this world. But dammit, Lucia, sometimes I wish I could.”

      “You care a lot about him,” Lucia said gently. “Don’t you, June?”

      A bit of color filled June’s tanned cheeks. She waved her hand in an abrupt, dismissive gesture, then let her shoulders drop, leaning on the hoe.

      “Well, I guess maybe I do,” she said. “He’s such a nice man, you know. There’s times,” she added shyly, “when I hear him sing and it purely gives me goose bumps all over.”

      She turned away, clearly embarrassed by this revelation, and knelt to tug at a weed near one of the biggest pumpkins.

      “Once,” she said over her shoulder, “about four years ago, Will asked me to go along with him for the day, hunting arrowheads over by Llano. I packed a picnic lunch and we had a real nice time, even if he was too shy to talk to me very much. I found a big flint spear point, and Will made a wooden frame for it and gave it to me.”

      “That sounds really nice,” Lucia said.

      “It’s a beautiful thing. I still have it hanging in my front room.”

      “So, did he ask you out again after that?” Lucia asked when June fell silent.

      “Yes, he did. A week later he invited me to go with him to the church social. I went into Austin and bought a new dress, first one I’d had in years. Even had my hair done,” she added with a wry grimace. “Silly fool that I am.”

      “And what happened?”

      “The day before the social, Faye had one of her attacks. Will had to rush her to the hospital in Austin and spend about four days at her bedside because she refused to eat unless he fed her with a spoon. After that,” June said, “any time he asked, I turned him down, and it wasn’t long before he gave up.”

      “Yes, I can understand that he’d soon give up,” Lucia said. “Willard’s so shy, I’m sure it would be awfully hard for him to ask a woman out and get turned down.”

      “No doubt,” June said grimly. “I reckon it hurt him, all right.”

      Lucia looked at the other woman’s bent head, with its heavy braid that flared dull gold in the dying sun. “But, June,” she ventured at last, “if the woman was really sick…”

      “That’s just it.” June got to her feet and leaned the hoe against the fence. “I don’t believe Faye was sick any more than I was. I think she was just trying to keep Will from going out with me again. And the very same thing’s bound to happen, anytime he ever decides to have a life of his own.”

      Lucia stared at the pumpkins, wondering what to say.

      With June in such a rare confiding mood, Lucia was almost tempted to tell some of her own troubles. But the other woman had clearly had enough of personal revelations.

      “Come on inside,” June told her, forcing a smile. “That’s enough talk for one night. I don’t know what got into me, blabbing my head off like this.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Let’s get moving. Take that hoe and shovel to the shed for me, and I’ll put the teapot on and give you some of those blueberry tarts I just made. You’re looking thin as a rail these days. I don’t know what women like you eat, but it’s sure not enough to keep a bird alive.”

      Lucia got to her feet silently, put away the garden tools and followed the other woman into the house.

      Behind them, the setting sun painted the western sky with a swirl of pastel colors and turned the rolling hills a deep soft mauve in the distance.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      AS USUAL, Monday morning was filled with a myriad of chores, all the daily administrative duties associated with running a good-size school. Still, Lucia was grateful for the busywork that kept her mind off her problems.

      But by eleven o’clock, she could delay no longer.

      With a touch of uneasiness and some other vague, distressing emotions that she was afraid to examine too closely, Lucia picked up the telephone to dial the number on Jim Whitley’s application form.

      The phone rang incessantly at the other end, and Lucia frowned and tapped her fingers on the desktop as she waited.

      At last she hung up and sat gazing at a framed diploma on the opposite wall, trying to picture the guest house on the McKinney ranch property. Lucia hadn’t seen the place for years, but recalled it as a rustic, lodge-style building, a big single room with fireplace and attached bath.

      The guest house was pleasant and cozy, but there wasn’t much reason for a young man to be sitting there alone on a warm autumn morning.

      After a brief hesitation, she looked up another number and dialed the main house at J.T. McKinney’s ranch. This time the phone was answered promptly by a warm female voice that brimmed with laughter.

      “McKinney ranch, Lettie Mae speaking.”

      “Hi, Lettie Mae. It’s Lucia Osborne calling. How are you this morning?”

      “Well, I’m right as rain, Miss Lucia,” the cook said. “But I sure hope I’m not fixin’ to be called down to the principal’s office.”

      Lucia laughed, picturing Lettie Mae’s silver hair, her quick smile and rich brown skin.

      Lettie Mae Reese was one of the most beloved people at the Double C ranch, where she had been in residence for more than forty years. She also wielded a good deal of quiet, intelligent power behind the scenes, and provided motherly warmth and guidance to all three of J.T.’s grown children—Cal, Tyler and their sister, Lynn.

      “As far as I know,” Lucia said, “your behavior has been exemplary, Lettie Mae. I was just wondering if you could tell me where I might get hold of James Whitley this morning. I understand he’s staying at the ranch.”

      “He sure is, and he’s right here underfoot, trying to steal the recipe for my Double C chili. Come here, Jimmy,” the cook added, her voice suddenly distant as she moved away

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