Dove in the Window Read online

  “Why are you here, then?” I asked. “I know you, Wade. This isn’t just a pleasure visit.”

  For a split second, his face hardened, then he grinned. “Never could bullshit you, could I, blondie?”

  I touched my temple with my fingertips and inhaled deeply, wishing he’d stop using Jack’s nickname for me. “Wade, is it you and Sandra again?” He and my former sister-in-law had never enjoyed a marriage that ran smoothly. During the investigation surrounding Jack’s death last year when I’d first met Gabe, Sandra and Wade had almost broken up over his affair with one of the artists at the co-op.

  He squinted his eyes against the setting November sun. “I think it’s really over this time, Benni. She and her mama took the kids and moved to Dallas. She got a job at an insurance company there and she’s filed for a divorce.”

  I reached out and touched his forearm, sorry for my initial rudeness. “Wade, I’m so sorry. Is there any chance you two can work it out?”

  He pushed his hat back, and I could see his eyes clearly for the first time. “Doesn’t appear so. Uncle Bob’s ranch was so far from town, and she got so lonely. And ...” He let his sentence drift away. I suspected there was more to their breakup than just the ranch’s isolation—Wade had been known to like booze and the ladies a little too much.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I told Uncle Bob and Mom I needed to get away for a while. Thought I’d fly out and see some old friends. And you.”

  “It’s good to see you,” I said, though I wasn’t exactly sure of those sentiments. But it was obvious he was in real pain and, as is not uncommon to human beings, he’d come back to the place where he’d once been happy and whole. My irritation at him cooled because I understood his desire for the idealized past.

  “I won’t hang around long,” he said. “Be on my way in a few days.”

  “I’m sure there’s lots of people who’ll be glad to see you again. And you’re in luck—I baked a Yankee Cake for tomorrow. Your favorite.”

  “Guess your second sense told you I was coming,” he said, laughing. My heart cracked again at the familiar sound. He and Jack were so much alike. But it had been almost two years since Jack died, and I’d since fallen in love with another man and started a new life. How could these feelings of loss suddenly feel so fresh?

  “Let’s go back to the house and see what’s for supper. Guess who came out for Thanksgiving, too? My cousin Emory.”

  “That right? That nerdy little kid from Arkansas?”

  “Not so nerdy anymore. Or little. I do believe he’s an inch taller than you.”

  When we entered the house through the kitchen door, the first sound I heard was Gabe’s rich baritone voice begging Dove for a piece of sweet potato pie. All my aunts and girl cousins were staring at him with the cow-eyed adoring looks I was learning to accept when it came to my husband. When Gabe put his mind to it, he could out charm Mel Gibson.

  He stopped when I entered the room and looked down at me, his eyes crinkling with pleasure. Then his eyes snapped up to Wade standing behind me. Their smoky blueness faded to a dark gray, and his face became still.

  “Wade Harper.” In those two words he managed to convey all his feelings of contempt and distrust.

  Wade dipped his head in an almost imperceptible nod. “Ortiz.”

  I said to Gabe, keeping my voice light, “Wade’s visiting for a few days, seeing old friends and such. Isn’t that nice?”

  Gabe’s face didn’t budge an inch. “Nice,” he repeated.

  Wade glanced around the room at the now silent women, his tanned face coloring at the cheekbones. “Guess supper’s not ready yet. Think I’ll go out and say hey to Ben. Reckon he’s in the barn.”

  “We’ll be setting the food on the picnic tables out back in about a half hour,” Dove said. “Fried chicken, fried okra, corn-on-the-cob, and potato salad. Tell the men while you’re out there.”

  “Yes, ma‘am,” he said, swinging around and heading out the back door.

  When the women resumed their kitchen chores and conversation, Gabe walked across the kitchen to me. He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the back door.

  “Mrs. Ortiz,” he said firmly, though I’d never actually become an official Ortiz, a point that still occasionally rankled his overabundant supply of testosterone. “We need to talk.”

  2

  “I DIDN’T KNOW he was going to be here,” I said before he spoke. We stood facing each other underneath a seventy-five-year-old oak tree that had witnessed a good many of the important events of my life. The sun, a half orange on the horizon, filtered through the bare branches and etched black line shadows across Gabe’s cheekbones.

  “How long is he going to stay?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, leaning against the broad trunk. “We didn’t talk long. He showed up unannounced about fifteen minutes ago on Dove’s doorstep, and she said he could stay awhile. He and Sandra broke up.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “I have no idea, but I imagine it has something to do with the fact that he lived here for so long, was happy here, had friends here.” I picked at the rough tree bark, avoiding his eyes. “I would think you would be a bit more understanding. You know how hard it is when people split up.” Gabe had himself gone through a divorce years before we’d met. I glanced up at his cynical face. It held no sympathy for my former brother-in-law.

  “He’s a flake,” he said. He folded his arms across his chest and spread his legs in that stubborn, macho way that always tempted me to whack him upside the head. “I don’t like it.”

  “That’s obvious, but there’s not much you can do about the situation, so I suggest you calm your raised hackles and live with it.”

  He glared at me. I smiled back in an attempt to soften my words. Gabe’s assessment of Wade was right. He did have problems with hanging out with the wrong people and getting into trouble. After Jack’s death, before we’d lost the Harper ranch, Wade had foolishly made a short career of delivering drugs in an effort to make some extra cash. He quit before he was caught, though his actions proved good judgment was not his strong suit. Gabe and I had never discussed the incident since it took place before we were actually together, though I’m sure he knew about it. But Wade and I had a history. He’d known me since I was a girl and I had loved his brother with the powerful, all-encompassing love that people experience as teenagers. Though I loved Gabe and respected his feelings, I couldn’t turn away Jack’s brother any more than I could one of my own relatives.

  I cupped my palms around the elbows of his crossed arms. “C‘mon, Friday, it’ll just be for a week or so. And I won’t even see him that much. He’ll be visiting old friends, and I’ve got a million things to do with the Heritage Days celebration and the art show. I’ll probably only visit with him for a few hours at the most, and then he’ll head back to Texas.” I tugged at his elbows. “Quit being such a hard ass.”

  Just for effect, he scowled a moment longer before relenting and pulling me into a hug. “I’m going to tell Dove that you’re talking like a truck driver again,” he said, rubbing his lips across the top of my head. I could feel my hair catch on his prickly beard sprouts. “She’ll take you out to the back of the barn with a switch.”

  I laughed, knowing that, at least for the moment, I’d talked him out of his irritation. Tilting my head back, I kissed the bottom of his chin. The whiskers felt like little needles on my lips. “If you don’t tell her, I promise I’ll make it worth your while when we get home Sunday night.”

  He bent down and whispered something in my ear. I leaned back in his arms and poked him in the chest. “Chief, it’ll take more than you not ratting on my bad language to get that.”

  He laughed and rubbed his stubble up and down my neck.

  “Stop it,” I said, pushing him away. “Geez Louise, I’ll have to buy calamine lotion by the gallon if this keeps up.”

  “I promise I’ll keep my
thoughts and feelings to myself. All I have to say is, ex-relative or not, he’d better keep himself squeaky clean while he’s in my city.”

  At ten o‘clock curfew that first night, the men gathered at the front porch and sang “Good Night, Ladies” as they had at every Thanksgiving gathering as far back as I could remember. It was hokey, but it brought a lump to my throat to see my new husband and his son in the back row, struggling with the words.

  After the men retired to their respective bunkhouses, trailers, and tents, I proceeded to give my aunts and girl cousins the details about the meeting between Gabe and my former brother-in-law. I knew better than to try to hold back with this nosy crowd. They’d beat it out of me with their spatulas and knitting needles.

  “He is definitely trouble looking for a place to set itself down,” Dove said about Wade. “But I couldn’t turn the boy away on Thanksgiving. You’d best stay away from him as much as possible.”

  “Now what fun is that?” said my Aunt Ruby, Uncle Luke’s wife. He was the ex-rodeo clown and the craziest of my dad’s brothers. And even at forty-nine Ruby was as rabble-rousing as Uncle Luke. They were the ones we kids had loved tagging after because they were always cooking up some zany game or treasure hunt to keep us occupied.

  Gabe kept his promise and maintained a watchful distance from Wade through the family Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Wade followed Gabe’s lead and stayed as far from him as possible.

  Early Friday morning, when I was out in the backyard putting plastic tablecloths over the picnic tables in preparation for the barbecue that afternoon, Sam walked up. He was dressed in faded sweatpants and a tee shirt that showed a cowboy on horseback gripping a surfboard. The words read, “You Can Lead a Horse to Water but You Can’t Make Him Surf.”

  “You’re looking more like the old Sam this morning,” I commented, smoothing out the blue-checkered tablecloth.

  He took another tablecloth from the pile on a metal lawn chair and started unfolding it. “Yeah, I haven’t gone completely country. I like working on the ranch, and the guys are all right, but sometimes ...” He let his words drift off as he shook out the cloth over a weathered table.

  “They’re just too red-necked and bigoted,” I finished for him.

  He grinned at me as he ran his hand across the wrinkled cloth. “I made them shut up last night when they wouldn’t stop making stupid cracks about your cousin. They’re kinda pissed at me right now.”

  My heart softened as I looked at my stepson’s flushed, handsome face. He was so much like his father, and though Gabe felt guilty about he and Lydia breaking up before Sam had turned twelve, they’d managed between the two of them to raise a fine boy. I hadn’t yet met Gabe’s ex-wife, a successful attorney down in Orange County, but I had to admit, when I observed snippets of Sam’s good and kind character, I was very curious about her.

  “They’re going to start looking for calves in about an hour,” he said after we’d finished covering the last of the twelve picnic tables we’d hauled out from the barn a few days ago. “You gonna ride with us or are you staying in the kitchen with the womenfolk?”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you use that western male condescending tone you’ve picked up so rapidly,” I said.

  “I guess that means you’re riding,” he said, shooting me his drop-the-women-in-their-tracks smile.

  “Save the smile, I’m immune. And by the way, Badger’s mine today.”

  “Man, that’s tweeked. I’ll probably get stuck with Rebel. He’s so slow. The only time he hurries is when he’s heading back to the barn to eat.”

  “There’s a Southerner for you,” Emory said, walking up. He was dressed in his loose definition of ranchwear—perfectly pressed two-hundred-dollar khakis, a Ralph Lauren chambray work shirt, and Lucchese deerskin boots. He looked like an ad in GQ magazine. “We do like our vittles.”

  “Hey, Emory,” I said. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Fine.” He nodded at Sam. “Your daddy’s awful proud of you, Sam. He has a right to be.”

  Embarrassed, Sam ducked his head, murmuring some inaudible answer. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said to me.

  “If you saddle up Badger for me, I’ll hide you a piece of Dove’s devil’s food cake,” I called after him.

  “Deal,” he said.

  Emory and I watched him walk toward the barn. “He is a good kid,” I said. “There’s been a lot of changes in his life these last few months. He’s still trying to find out where he fits in and to sort out his relationship with his dad.”

  “Speaking of his dad, I noticed a bit of tension between him and that brother-in-law of yours.”

  “Former brother-in-law. Technically, we’re not related anymore.”

  His green eyes crinkled at the corners.

  I pointed a finger at him. “You just keep quiet.” Emory did know me better than anyone else. “Yes, he does still feel related to me and yes, I think of Jack every time I look at him. I’m confused enough without your nonverbal comments, thank you very much.”

  “Just enjoying the show. Better than General Hospital.”

  “There will be no show. Gabe has agreed to keep his distance, and I’ll try to see Wade as little as possible. Things will be fine.”

  Emory just nodded and smiled that irritating, superior smile.

  I showed him a fist.

  “Oh, go play, cowgirl.” He shooed me away with his hand. “I myself have no need to prove my masculinity by emasculating young bovines, so I’ll visit the kitchen ladies and offer my superlative taste-testing abilities.”

  I headed out to the barn where all the men and a few of my girl cousins were congregated. Most of my relatives had brought their own horses, and for a little while there was a flurry of activity while everyone tacked up and received their assignments from Daddy. With this many people riding, gathering fifty or so calves would be a cinch—finding them in a couple of hours instead of all day as it would have taken three or four riders. Plenty of time to play cowboy without getting too dirty for the barbecue at two o‘clock.

  Gabe was talking to my uncle Clarence and Sam, discussing the price of some Black Angus yearlings Clarence had just sold at auction. That showed how hard Gabe was trying to get along with my relatives, because he hadn’t eaten beef for years and found my family’s obsession with it a bit tedious at times.

  “Hi,” I said, going up and giving him a kiss. “Going to ride with us?” He knew I was just teasing. Gabe was an excellent horseman, a talent that had surprised me when I found out about it, but he disliked riding and, like Emory, didn’t care for any ranch work that involved cattle.

  “Think I will,” he said.

  My eyes widened in surprise.

  “I’ll take the Honda ATV, then,” Sam said. “You can have Rebel.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Gabe said. “Does he come with AAA coverage and a cellular phone in case we need a tow truck?”

  “I see you’ve heard about him,” Sam said, laughing.

  Wade rode up on Gigi, Dove’s quarterhorse, then quickly moved into a group of my relatives when Gabe gave him a hard look.

  “That was rude,” I told Gabe as we adjusted our saddles and found out our assigned area, the old hunter’s cabin and barn at the back of my dad’s two-thousand-acre ranch. A creek ran across the back of the cabin where certain mama cows liked to hide among the overgrown brush. Gullies and washes were Badger’s specialty. An eight-year-old, quick-footed paint gelding I’d bought six years ago and trained myself, he loved to climb up and down hills so much that I’d threatened to rename him Jeep.

  “What?” Gabe asked innocently and smiled his devastating smile.

  “You wouldn’t get away with near what you do if you weren’t so good looking,” I grumbled, tightening Badger’s girth.

  Before we could argue further, a brand-new shiny black Ford half-ton pickup pulled up beside us with Bobby Sanchez driving. His two female passengers were members of the artist’s co-op. They slid out of
the front seat and walked over to us.

  “Hey, Parker, Olivia,” I said. “Isn’t this a little early for you guys? Nice truck.”

  “Hey, cow-woman, where’s the beef?” Parker twisted a piece of her straight brown hair around one long finger. Cut in a shoulder-length pageboy with thick, even bangs, her hair was as nondescript as she was. From the first time we met, she reminded me of that girl in everyone’s school who was always the teacher’s pet because she was so obedient and quiet. But anyone who got to know Parker Leona Williams (so named because her mother loved Parker House rolls) came to realize that all her creativity was focused on her art. Known to her rapidly growing and fanatically loyal cache of collectors as P.L. Williams, she was a recent addition to our artist’s co-op. Her specialties were meticulous pencil renderings and autumn-toned watercolors of various aspects of western life. She worked part time at Roland Bennett’s gallery downtown, barely subsisting on her meager salary and on the money from the occasional sale of her work. A native of Bakersfield, she often used migrant farm workers as subjects in her paintings because she herself was only one generation removed from the Okie migrant workers who had settled the Central Valley in the thirties.

  “You’ll see plenty of beef today,” I assured her. “Bovine and otherwise.” I grinned at Olivia, who gave me a thumbs up. She wore a bright red flannel shirt, tight Levi’s, and an electric blue down vest. A dark sketching pencil was tucked inside the thick knot of black hair piled haphazardly on her head.

  Olivia Contreras specialized in western Latino life with a personal affinity for the Latino cowboy. Her acrylic paintings were bright, bold, and big—just like Olivia herself. She’d recently made a sale to a small museum in Santa Fe, which was an important addition to her portfolio. She’d also won the very sought-after commission for the Heritage Days poster. Her colorful painting depicted the Mission Santa Celine, the Sinclair Hacienda, the Chumash Indian petroglyphs at Painted Rock, the old Sam Lee store in what was once San Celina’s bustling Chinatown district, and the Ruiz-Simon Victorian house in downtown San Celina. The poster hung in every business downtown and would be on sale all next week. Both artists were here at my invitation—to view the roundup and to experience a real ranch barbecue.