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Even the Nights are Better
Margot Dalton
SECOND CHANCE – TEXAS STYLE!Crystal Creek…where power and influence live in the land, and in the hands of one family determined to nourish old Texas fortunes and to forge new Texas futures.LOVE IS BETTER…Vernon Trent has loved Carolyn Townsend ever since they were in the first grade together. But he never told her, and by the time he came back from Vietnam, she was married.Now, twenty years later, the widowed Carolyn can sense there is something Vern wants to share with her. Suddenly she isn't sure she wants to hear what her old friend has to say. It could change things between them forever.



“What are you doing, girl?”
Vernon jumped a little, sending bubbles over the rim of the tub.
“I’m looking for the soap,” Carolyn said innocently.
Vernon chuckled. His spirits began to rise. Maybe everything would be all right after all. He’d make sure to get hold of Scott early in the morning and caution him not to reveal anything. Then later, when he felt Carolyn was ready to hear it, he’d…
He smiled, closed his eyes, leaned back and allowed the warm water to soothe him.
“You keep that up much longer, girl,” he muttered huskily, “and you’re going to find much more than the soap down there.”
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Margot Dalton for her contribution to the Crystal Creek series.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Sutton Press Inc. for its contribution to the concept for the Crystal Creek series.

Even the Nights are Better
Margot Dalton


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to Crystal Creek! In the heart of Texas Hill Country, the McKinneys have been ranching, living and loving for generations, but the future promises changes none of these good folks could ever imagine!
Crystal Creek itself is the product of many imaginations, but the stories began to take shape when some of your favorite authors— Barbara Kaye, Margot Dalton, Bethany Campbell, Cara West, Kathy Clark and Sharon Brondos—all got together with me just outside of Austin to explore the Hill Country, and to dream up the kinds of romances such a setting would provide. For several days, we roamed the countryside, where generous Texans opened their historic homes to us, and gave us insights into their lives. We ate barbecue, we visited an ostrich farm and we mapped out our plans to give you the linked stories you love, with a true Texas flavor and all the elements you’ve come to expect in your romance reading: compelling, contemporary characters caught in conflicts that reflect today’s dilemmas.
Margot Dalton takes us next door to the Double C in Even the Nights are Better, where Carolyn Townsend, J. T. McKinney’s sister-in-law and neighbor, certainly has her hands full. What with an unwelcome business venture opening right under her nose, a health crisis throwing all the McKinneys into a tizzy and a wounded puppy fighting for survival in her barn, romantic advances are the last thing on her mind. Being confronted with a lifelong ardor she hadn’t ever known existed is more than she can cope with right now!
And next month, you’ll want to attend the opening of the Hole in the Wall Dude Ranch with all of us. Everyone who’s anyone in Crystal Creek will be there. And owner Scott Harris’s wandering brother Jeff—who can give Cal McKinney a run for his money in the charm department—is bound to show up sooner or later!
C’mon down to Crystal Creek—home of sultry Texas drawls, smooth Texas charm and tall, sexy Texans!
Marsha Zinberg
Executive Editor
Crystal Creek
A Note from the Author
Even the Nights Are Better begins in the spring, and I soon realized that no matter how hard I tried, I just wasn’t going to be able to describe the true miracle of April in Texas Hill Country. It’s not only the green hills rolling off into the misty distance, the incredible blue of the sky and the miles and miles of wildflowers. There’s something even more magical in the air, something that goes far beyond words. I just hope that someday, everyone will have a chance to visit Texas in the spring and see it for themselves.
Margot Dalton

Cast of Characters
AT THE DOUBLE C RANCH


AT THE CIRCLE T RANCH


AT THE LONGHORN


CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER ONE
RAIN FELL over the hills of Central Texas during the night, carried by gray brooding clouds that had rolled in with the twilight and massed along the darkening skyline as soft and dense as piles of wood ash.
But it wasn’t one of the torrential downpours that often lash the Hill Country in the spring, dropping two or three inches onto green wooded hillsides and gravelly creek beds in the space of a few hours.
This was a gentle sweet spring rain, pattering and rustling in the new green leaves, dancing on the silvered surface of the river, whispering through gullies and shallow draws in the midnight blackness. The moisture flowed like a blessing across the hills and valleys, and by dawn the world was made new, washed clean and bright as a freshly minted coin.
Just as the rain ended, a silver-gray Camaro came skimming along a country road in the early-morning freshness, its sleek sculptured sides catching and reflecting the rising sun’s dazzling rays that broke into rainbows among the silent dripping trees.
This vehicle belonged to Vernon Trent and was his one wry, half-joking concession to longing for vanished youth. On this glorious spring morning, Vernon Trent had just passed his forty-fifth birthday and was, on the whole, comfortable with himself and his life. He liked the maturity and confidence that came with middle age, enjoyed his friends and daily routines and didn’t really miss the real or imagined crises of youth.
But he did have a stubborn boyish love for his shining, sporty Camaro, and never more than on a morning like this when he was alone at the wheel, the only living being in a world so fresh and lovely that it brought a lump to his throat.
His excuse for this drive was a scouting trip before office hours, a search for likely properties for a wealthy businessman from Dallas who fancied a retirement home here in the Hill Country. But this pretext was pure nonsense, of course, and Vernon was well aware of the fact.
After all, it wasn’t as if he’d be likely to stumble across some new piece of land for sale out here. Vernon Trent knew every inch of these hills as intimately as he knew his own tidy kitchen back in the old stone house in Crystal Creek. There was nothing for sale along this road that he wasn’t aware of already, and few that he hadn’t listed personally.
It couldn’t hurt, though, he reflected as he glanced appreciatively out the window. It couldn’t hurt to drive for a spell out here anyhow. Maybe he’d get some ideas. And, he mused, smiling briefly into the smoky mirror, the morning was just so damned beautiful….
The rain-drenched scrub trees in the pastures, mostly cedar and mesquite, glittered damply in the sunlight as if they were fashioned from crystal and emeralds. Beneath the trees wildflowers were already blooming in shy profusion, bluebonnets and buttercups and Indian paintbrush, fluffy wild poppies and bright Indian blanket that carpeted the fields in vivid color.
Small animals, rabbits and coons and squirrels, frisked and played through the swaying grasses, rejoicing in life and springtime while a thousand trills of birdsong rose straight up to the clear blue heavens. Baby animals were everywhere, wobbly little calves and bony long-legged colts attesting to the enduring cycle of mating and renewal.
Vernon passed the high curved gates of the Double C Ranch, smiling as he thought about mating and renewal. There was a lot of that going on at the Double C these days, so much that the neighboring ranchers and townspeople were having all kinds of fun making jokes about the love affairs in the McKinney family.
They were affectionate jokes, though, because everybody liked and respected the McKinneys. In fact, there wasn’t a soul Vernon knew of who wasn’t tickled about what was going on out here, with J.T. finding himself a pretty young wife from Boston, and then all three of the McKinney youngsters unexpectedly following in their father’s footsteps within a few months. Even that lovable wild man, young Cal McKinney, looked to be on the verge of settling down with a good woman. And that, Vernon thought fervently, was a real blessing for the whole family.
Just yesterday morning, during coffee time down at the Longhorn, Vernon had overheard Bubba Gibson joking loudly that the way everybody was behaving out at the Double C, somebody must have dumped a couple of barrels of love potion into the Claro River and let it drift downstream past the ranch.
At the time Vernon had laughed along with everybody else, but now it didn’t seem so funny. Out here, surrounded by sunrise freshness and the beauty of springtime, it just seemed right and proper somehow that the people at the ranch should be fitting in with the cycle of nature, finding themselves some love and tenderness in a big lonely world.
A lot more fitting, Vernon thought with a sudden tightening of his jaw, than the way Bubba Gibson was acting these days.
No matter how many tons of love potion might be drifting down the Claro, there was no excuse for Bubba’s flagrant affair with Billie Jo Dumont, a girl younger than his own daughter. Bubba didn’t even trouble to hide his infatuation, almost seemed to flaunt it, in fact. People felt sorry for Mary Gibson, who bore this public humiliation with quiet dignity and never said a word against her philandering husband…at least, nothing that anybody heard.
Vernon’s wide pleasant mouth set in a hard line and he frowned again, gripping the wheel and surging around a bend in the road a little faster than was really necessary.
Like many confirmed bachelors, Vernon idealized women, liked them and enjoyed their company and had strong feelings about how they should be treated. Especially good women, wives like Mary Gibson who helped their husbands and stood by them through all the lean years, all the building and struggling and hard work. To Vernon’s way of thinking, a woman like that deserved the very best her man could give.
If I had a wife who’d stood by me like that, Vernon thought, there’d never be a minute that she couldn’t trust me. I’d give her so much….
But just then his thoughts halted abruptly. Even his breathing was suspended for a moment as his car purred toward the gates of the Circle T, the ranch adjoining the McKinney place. Pain stabbed at him, as fresh and powerful as it had been all those years ago.
Briefly, Vernon Trent’s shining cheerful world turned gray and cloudy while he swept past the big stone gates.
He gripped the wheel again, wondering with a touch of desperation if he was ever going to get over those old feelings. Maybe it was all this thinking about love, about J.T.’s marriage and the young people finding partners for themselves, even the animals all happily paired out there in the thickets, playing and mating and nesting in secret places….
Vernon shook his head restlessly, staring down at the ditch beside the road. Something caught his eye and he hesitated, then braked, backed the low-slung powerful car around and drove slowly back toward the gates of the Circle T. He pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped, got out and walked around his car to peer down into the wet grassy ditch.
Vernon Trent was a good-looking man, even in the bright impartial light of the sunrise. He was a little above medium height, with broad shoulders and a stocky muscular frame, though he was probably carrying twenty pounds or so of excess weight these days. Vernon knew well enough that he’d been letting himself go and should be doing something about getting back into shape, but somehow he just never seemed to find the time or the incentive. In the meantime he disguised the extra pounds well enough with casual pleated corduroys and roomy worn tweed sport jackets like the one he wore this morning.
His face was blunt, square and full of good humor, and his brown eyes were shrewd, though they sometimes softened to a thoughtful faraway look that made people suspect that Vernon Trent might still be a bit of a dreamer.
His thick sandy hair was half-gray, but that was nothing recent. The same dusting of silver had been there for more than twenty years, ever since Vernon came home from Vietnam. He’d wandered into the lonely bus depot at Crystal Creek on a hot August morning with his duffel bag on his shoulder and a slight limp that only bothered him occasionally, in damp cold weather. But there’d also been a look in his eyes that even his best friends had never found the courage to inquire about, and that hair gone gray before its time….
Right now, though, none of this ancient history was on Vernon Trent’s mind. His concerns were more immediate, focused on the small crumpled dark mass he’d sighted at the side of the road just where the shoulder straggled into a lush growth of weeds and grass.
He edged forward intently, heedless of the damp foliage brushing against his pant legs and the puddles of water that squelched up around his suede shoes. He knelt beside the little furry object.
“Hi, fella,” he muttered huskily. “How are you? Pretty bad, aren’t you? Poor little guy. Poor little guy.”
His square tanned face was tender with sympathy, his brown eyes full of compassion as he touched the little dog’s matted fur. The suffering animal lay shivering in the weeds, gazing piteously up at Vernon’s face, blue-black liquid eyes glassy with pain. The dog was slick with dampness, one of those comical terrier types that look like brisk self-propelled mops when they’re on their feet and in motion.
But this little dog wasn’t likely to be in motion in the near future, Vernon suspected. There was no doubt that the animal had been hit by a passing car during the rain last night. It lay crumpled and twisted on the grass, its tongue lolling, one hind leg obviously broken, and a long gash in its side crusted with blood.
Vernon gazed down at the animal, then reached out again to touch one of the silky ears. The little dog lifted its jaw, pink tongue wavering painfully in a feeble attempt to lick the big man’s fingers.
Vernon swallowed hard at this and dashed a hand impatiently across his eyes. After a moment’s hesitation he got briskly to his feet and hurried back to his car, opening the trunk and taking out a battered old plaid blanket that had served many strange purposes over the years. Without pausing to think further, he rolled the little broken body into the soft fabric, set it gently on the seat beside him and pulled through the gates of the Circle T and up the long curving entry road.
Usually when Vernon Trent drove up this particular road, his heart was in his mouth and he had a hard time breathing normally, beset by all the crazy adolescent reactions that he never seemed to outgrow no matter how old he got. Today, though, wrung with concern for the pitiful little object on the seat beside him, Vernon wasn’t bothered quite as much by his own emotions.
Still, when a slim woman came out of the barn at his approach and looked curiously over at his car, Vernon’s throat tightened and his heart leaped with excitement, then settled into the old dull ache that had been part of his life for decades now.
“Hi, Carolyn,” he said casually, getting out of the car and approaching the woman. “Nice morning, isn’t it?”
“It surely is,” the woman agreed, coming toward him with a smile. “’Specially after that rain last night, Vern. What’re you doing up and about so early?”
“Just out for a drive, Caro. Scouting property for a client. You know me, I never stop working.”
Vernon’s voice and manner were casual, but his heart was singing, on fire with love for the woman who stood smiling in front of him.
Carolyn Randolph Townsend was almost exactly his own age, just a week younger, in fact, and Vernon Trent couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t loved her. Maybe in the years before grade school when he’d only seen her at birthday parties and community picnics… maybe he hadn’t loved her then. He couldn’t remember. But certainly by the time they were both in first grade he had selected Carolyn Randolph as the woman of his dreams, and in the forty years since he’d never really wavered from that choice.
Carolyn Randolph Townsend, at forty-five, had a figure to put most younger women to shame. Her tall curving body was firm and beautiful and full of promise, even in the old jeans and denim shirt that she wore this morning with her riding boots. Her wide blue-green eyes were vivid, sparkling warmly in her tanned oval face, and her hair, pulled back casually and tied at the nape of her neck with a blue bandanna, was almost the same rich dark gold it had always been. Still, Vernon’s keen loving eyes noticed a few scattered streaks of gray that he’d never seen there before, glistening softly in the early-morning light.
Poor girl, he thought, gazing at those silvery strands, thinking about all this woman had suffered in the past few years. My poor girl….
He fought the familiar desire to take her in his arms, to hold her and protect her and shield her from pain.
Get a grip, fella, he ordered himself sternly. It’s not you she wants to comfort her, and it never has been….
Maybe things would have been different if he’d had more courage when they were young, if he’d ever told her all the things he was feeling. But she and her older sister, Pauline, had been like princesses, growing up out here on this big sprawling ranch that was one the finest places in the area, second only to the McKinneys’ Double C. He, on the other hand, was just young Vernon Trent, the druggist’s son, living with his parents through most of his boyhood in a little apartment above the drugstore in Crystal Creek.
And in later years, just when all that ceased to matter quite as much and he was ready to open his heart to her, Vernon was drafted. He left Crystal Creek before he was twenty, and came back when he was twenty-three. By that time, everything had changed in the Randolph family. Pauline, Carolyn’s sister, and J. T. McKinney had a little girl to go along with their two boys. The Randolph girls’ charming dissolute father, Steven, had run off somewhere and dropped out of sight, leaving his wife, Deborah, to run the ranch with the help of Frank Townsend, her young foreman. Pauline Randolph McKinney had a little girl to go with her two young sons. And Carolyn had been married for more than three years to Frank Townsend and was a mother herself.
“Vern? Is something the matter?”
Vernon pulled himself back to reality with a visible effort, banishing all those painful twenty-year-old memories and turning with an easy smile to the woman in front of him, who was now frowning anxiously.
“Not with me, Caro,” he said. “I’m on top of the world. But I’ve got somebody in my car who isn’t, I’m afraid.”
He opened the passenger door of his car and pointed to the small motionless bundle on the seat.
“I found him out on the road a few minutes ago,” he said. “Just past your gates. Looks like he…”
But Carolyn was already leaning into the car, turning back the blanket with gentle hands and gazing in horror at the pitiful little dog curled within the folds.
Vernon watched as her expressive features registered a whole series of impressions—shock, compassion, tenderness, pain and finally outrage. “God, Vern, this makes me so mad!” Carolyn said, straightening and turning to her old friend, her eyes glittering in the early light.
“What does, Caro?” he asked gently.
“This,” she said, waving her hand at the dog and then reaching down to caress one of its ears. “It’s happening more and more these days. Those damn town people, Vern, they just never give a thought to what they do. This little dog is certainly no ranch dog. He belongs to somebody from the city, somebody who’s moving away or doesn’t want to be bothered with him anymore, so they drive forty miles out into the country and dump him off, figuring he’ll just find a happy home at some ranch.”
She paused for breath, her chest heaving, her delicate features pink with anger. Vernon was silent, watching her.
“And,” Carolyn went on in a lower tone, touching the little dog’s head again, “it’s just so brutal, Vern. What chance does a little fella like this have out in open country that he doesn’t know a thing about? People who treat animals this way should be shot. They really should.”
Vernon grinned. “Well, Caro, I can’t say I disagree. But it might take a few months to get legislation like that passed, even in Texas.”
“Even in Texas,” Carolyn agreed, swallowing her outrage and trying to smile back. “Lift him out, Vern, would you? Be real careful,” she added. “Just carry him into the barn here, and we’ll make him a little nest of straw in one of the mangers.”
“Look, Carolyn,” Vernon began awkwardly, “I didn’t mean for you to have to do all this. I mean, I don’t want to make a lot of work and trouble for you. It’s just that I thought the little guy needed some help and you were closest….”
“Be quiet, Vern,” Carolyn said, laying a gentle hand on his cheek and giving him a smile that made his heart stop, then begin thudding like mad. “Just do as you’re told, okay? Bring the little guy in here.”
Vernon obeyed silently, carrying the dog into the barn and settling it in the upper portion of one of the mangers, a shallow wooden box designed for oats and other grains into which Carolyn was busily arranging a bedding of soft dried alfalfa.
“This should be nice and cozy for him,” she said, leaning in to study the small dog, examining his injuries with competent tanned hands while the animal shivered beneath her touch.
“Do you still have that toy car phone of yours?” she asked over her shoulder without turning around.
“It’s not a toy,” Vernon said with dignity. “It’s a completely viable working tool, Caro. An absolute necessity in the modern business world.”
“Like hell,” his old friend said cheerfully. “It’s just a toy, Vern, and you know it. I can never get over the way you men love your toys. But I’ll allow that it could be handy at times. Call Manny’s office for me, would you, and see if he could drop by and take a look at this little fella?”
“Oh, Caro,” Vernon protested. “Truly, I didn’t mean for you to…”
She turned to him, her face in the dim interior of the barn softly illuminated by dusty rays of light slanting through the big open doors.
“Vernon Trent,” she said with amusement, “if you just don’t beat all. You bring me this pitiful little thing, and then you argue with me when I want to help him.”
Vernon laughed with her, then sobered. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that this is getting way more complicated than I’d figured. Do you have any idea what veterinarian fees are these days?”
Carolyn stared at him in disbelief. “Do I?” she asked him. “Vern, you know perfectly well I’ve been running this place on my own ever since Frank died. You think those bills just get paid by magic, somehow, without me signing the checks?”
He paused, stung by her words though she hadn’t meant them unkindly. “I know, Caro,” he said again, his voice low and strained. “And God knows, it’s been a miracle, the way you’ve managed things on your own. I just meant…” Vern hesitated. “Caro, girl…I’m not sure he’s going to be bright and perky again no matter what we do. He looks to be in pretty bad shape.”
Carolyn glanced down at the matted body in her manger, touching the animal’s thin heaving side with a gentle hand. As it had with Vernon, the small dog rolled its head feebly and tried to lick her fingers. Carolyn’s face softened and twisted.
“He’s going to get better,” she said, squaring her shoulders and turning to Vernon with sudden decision, her eyes damp and glistening in the misty light. “I don’t intend to let him die, Vern. I’ve seen enough of death these past few years and I’m sick of it, that’s all. I just plain won’t allow him to die.”
Vernon gazed back at her in silent understanding. Within the past ten years, Carolyn had lost both her mother and her beloved sister to breast cancer, and her sturdy vigorous husband to a heart attack. That was a lot of suffering for one woman to endure, even a woman as strong as Carolyn Randolph Townsend.
Perhaps it had been a mistake to bring the dog to her.
But it was too late now. She’d already forgotten about Vernon and was filling a pail with water to wash the dog’s livid cut. Vernon watched her a moment longer, then turned quietly and went out to his car to phone the veterinarian’s office in Crystal Creek.
CAROLYN DABBED tenderly at the long bloody cut on the dog’s shuddering body, trying to be as gentle as she could, wincing as the little animal growled and whimpered with pain.
“Poor little furry guy,” she whispered. “Poor little tenderhearted baby. You don’t even know what’s hit you, do you? You can’t figure out why the world should turn so dark and cruel all of a sudden. Poor sweet little thing…”
The dog’s bony head lolled wearily and its forelegs twitched. Carolyn rubbed it with another cloth, trying to dry the matted fur without jarring any obvious injuries.
“Carolyn, I called Manny’s office,” she heard Vernon saying behind her. “He’s out on a call, but they’ll try to locate him and pass on the message.”
“Thanks, Vern,” Carolyn said in an abstracted tone, reaching for clean burlap sacks to cover and cushion the little body.
“Well, I’d better be pushing off,” he said. “Unless there’s something else I can do for you, Caro, before I go.”
Carolyn turned around then, smiling at his sturdy form and pleasant anxious face as he hesitated in the doorway of the barn. Vernon Trent was not only one of her oldest friends, but just about the nicest man she’d ever met, she thought suddenly. She was a little surprised at the quick flood of warmth she felt for him as he stood there in the slanting early-morning light.
She smiled and gave him a brisk dismissive wave of her hand. “Vern, for God’s sake, quit fussing, all right? You just go on into town and sell the hotel or the hospital or something, and I’ll look after this little floor mop of ours.”
He nodded and turned toward his car, his square features still full of concern. “I’ll call you later, Caro, okay? I’m interested in hearing what Manny has to say about him.”
“Sure, Vern,” Carolyn said, turning back to her small patient. “Not till evening, though, okay? Cynthia and I have a date this afternoon. They roped us into handling one of the tables at the church pie sale.”
Vernon grinned, the old teasing sparkle back in his eyes. “Well, now, that sounds like fun, Caro. Just your cup of tea.”
Her mouth twisted in a wry answering grin. “Go away. Get that ridiculous kiddie car out of my driveway, Vernon Trent,” she said calmly, “before I get my rifle and shoot the damn tires.”
Vernon laughed and strolled out to climb into his car again.
Carolyn wandered to the doorway, watching him disappear around a bend in the road in a bright flash of silver. She felt strangely wistful as she gazed into the distance, but after a few moments of silence she squared her shoulders and walked briskly into the barn again.
“Mama?” a voice called from the other side of the box stalls. “You in here, Mama?”
“Round the other side, dear,” Carolyn replied. “By the tack rooms.”
She looked up and smiled as her daughter, Beverly, rounded the bank of stalls. As always, Carolyn was stunned for a moment by the girl’s beauty, even though she knew Beverly better than anybody and was often less than impressed by certain aspects of her daughter’s personality.
But there was no denying that the girl was lovely.
She glimmered like a spring blossom in the dusty interior of the big barn, in her soft pink jumpsuit of crinkled cotton with a wide braided-hemp belt and matching sandals. Her thick golden hair, brushed and shining, held back by a pink shell-shaped clip, cascaded down her slim back.
“What’s this?” Beverly asked curiously, bending forward to peer into the manger. “Oh!” she added, and drew back hastily. “Where’d he come from, Mama?”
“Vernon Trent brought him in just now,” Carolyn said. “Vern was just driving by, saw this little fella crumpled by the side of the road.”
“He was hit by a car?”
“Obviously,” Carolyn said dryly. “He’s somebody’s abandoned house pet, I’d guess, without a lot of back road smarts.”
Beverly was silent a moment, gazing at the quivering bundle of sacking. Then she gathered herself and turned to her mother. “So he’s what that call was about, I guess.”
“What call, Beverly?”
“Manny’s secretary called the house just now. She said she raised Manny on his mobile phone and he’s somewhere out in this area anyway, so he’ll stop by on his way back to town.”
“Oh, good,” Carolyn said. “I was sure hoping he could come right away, but I didn’t think I’d be quite that lucky.”
“Is Vern still here?” Beverly asked.
“No, he left a few minutes ago. Why?”
“I thought if he hadn’t left yet I could get a ride into town with him. I’m spending the afternoon shopping with Lynn and she can drop me off later, but I still need a way to get in there.”
“What’s wrong with your car?” Carolyn asked, gazing blankly at her daughter.
“It’s in the shop, Mama,” Beverly said patiently. “I told you yesterday, I’m having that dented fender fixed and painted.”
“Oh, that’s right. Sorry, sweetie,” Carolyn added. “If I’d known you wanted a ride, I’d have asked Vern to wait.” She paused, glancing up at her daughter in sudden surprise. “It’s awfully early, isn’t it, Beverly? What are you planning to do in town anyway, before eight o’clock in the morning?”
Beverly turned away, heading for the door. “Oh, it’s just one of the kids on the ward,” she said over her shoulder. “He’s having his surgery this morning, and I promised him I’d be there when he woke up because his mother has to work. It’s okay,” she added. “Lori said I could borrow her car if I’m stuck. Bye, Mama. I hope your little guy’s going to be all right.”
Carolyn nodded and leaned against the manger, watching thoughtfully as her daughter disappeared from her view.
Sometimes she found it so puzzling, this whole business of Beverly and her volunteer work with the children at the hospital. Carolyn wanted very much to believe that Beverly’s motives were sincere, that in those sick little kids at the Crystal Creek Community Hospital the restless beautiful girl had finally found something to hold her interest and release her from her intense preoccupation with herself.
Still Carolyn couldn’t help being a little skeptical, wondering if the kids were just a new audience Beverly was playing to, a whole new group to dazzle with her gorgeous looks and that beauty-queen smile of hers.
Carolyn’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of another vehicle in the driveway, then the slamming of a door and brisk footsteps.
Dr. Manuel Hernandez, the local veterinarian, appeared in the doorway, white teeth flashing in his dark handsome face.
“Good mornin’, Carolyn,” he drawled cheerfully. “What’s this big urgent problem of yours?”
Carolyn eyed the young man thoughtfully. “You’re awful perky this morning, Manny,” she observed. “Seems like every single soul in Crystal Creek got up with the chickens this morning.”
“Not me. I was up all night,” he said, leaning against one of the box stalls, relaxed and casual in blue jeans and a soft plaid shirt. “Just over at the Double C, in fact. One of J.T.’s mares had trouble foaling, and J.T. and Ken and I worked on her for hours.”
“Oh, no. Is she all right?” Carolyn asked with quick concern.
“Mother and baby doing just fine,” Manny told her with a smile. “It was that new dark sorrel three-year-old, the one Lynn calls Cherokee. Finally dropped a real nice little bay filly, just a half hour ago.”
“Well, that’s good,” Carolyn said with relief.
“But I’m sure one tired cowboy,” Manny said, stretching his lean muscular body and rubbing wearily at his eyes. “I hope y’all don’t have a couple of heifers calving, or something. I want to go home and grab a few hours’ sleep.”
Carolyn gazed critically at the dark-haired young man, shaking her head. “Just look at you,” she commented. “About three times handsomer than any man has a right to be, and you spend all your nights working. It’s time you started thinking about getting married and settling down, Manny.”
“Oh, I think about it, Carolyn,” he said. “I think about it a lot, actually. You just find me the right woman and I’ll be ready in a minute.”
Carolyn grinned. “From what I hear, Manuel Hernandez, you’ve got no problem finding women.”
“That’s true,” he agreed cheerfully. “It’s finding the right one that’s always the problem.”
Carolyn laughed, leading him across the barn to where the terrier lay.
As soon as he saw the dog, Manny’s teasing and laughter vanished and he was all business, examining the little animal with long sensitive fingers.
Finally he straightened and turned to Carolyn, his face grave. “Most of the injuries are quite superficial, really,” he said. “I could put a cast on the leg and stitch up this cut in just a few minutes, but that’s not the main problem, Carolyn. I think you’d better let me put him down.”
“Put him down?” she echoed, staring wide-eyed at the young veterinarian. “Why would you do that, Manny, if his injuries are superficial? I’m willing to pay for the treatment, and I’ll give him whatever care he needs afterward.”
“I said most of the injuries weren’t serious,” Manny said patiently. “The problem, Carolyn, is that his jaw is shattered. Now, this little guy is just a stray from God knows where. I’m sure you don’t want to pay for the kind of delicate and extensive surgery that would be necessary to repair his jaw. I doubt that any of my clients would, no matter how crazy they were about their dogs.”
Carolyn hesitated. She was flooded all at once with deep sorrow, an anguish so hot and intense that she was afraid to analyze it. “Isn’t there any alternative?” she asked in a low strained voice. “Anything else we could do?”
Manny shrugged. “The only alternative,” he said, “is to strap the jaw into position and then feed him liquids by hand until it knits together, if it’s ever going to. Otherwise the rest of his injuries will heal, but he’ll gradually starve to death. He sure can’t chew and swallow, not like this.”
“What kind of liquids?”
“Carolyn,” Manny said gently, “it’s a big job to take on, you know. It would take hours of patience every day to get enough nourishment into him.”
Carolyn knew Manny was probably right. She was being stubborn and unreasonable over this whole thing, but she couldn’t help herself.
“What kind of liquids?” she repeated.
Manny shrugged. “Just about anything that’s protein rich and easy to digest,” he said. “Bread soaked in milk, soft dog food mixed up in a blender with beef stock or soup, that kind of thing. Whatever you’d normally feed him, only liquefied, trickled down his throat one spoonful at a time.”
“Okay,” Carolyn said in a barely audible voice, avoiding the younger man’s eyes. “Maybe I’ll… I’ll give it a try for a while. If you’d just patch him up, Manny, I’ll take it from here.”
The veterinarian nodded, started toward the door and then paused, giving Carolyn a keen thoughtful glance. He seemed about to say something further but apparently thought better of it, turning away and striding out to his van to get his equipment.

CHAPTER TWO
“WHAT KIND OF DOG is he exactly, Manny? Besides being a floor mop, I mean.”
Manny Hernandez stretched his body wearily and turned to Carolyn, who was leaning in the doorway of the barn watching as he packed his equipment away.
“Well, Carolyn, what he looks like to me is a very expensive little mistake. I’d say he’s a cross between a couple of small terriers, a cross that never should have happened. Probably Yorkshire and Sealyham, by the looks of him.”
“I don’t know much about lapdogs,” Carolyn said. “Those are both furry little mop types, right?”
“More or less. Especially the Yorkie. But I think this fella’s got a lot of Sealyham mixed in there, too, and that’s where he gets that silky crinkly texture to his coat. Nice little dog,” he added. “Probably perky and loyal and intelligent, too, but not worth a hell of a lot.”
“You mean because he’s a crossbred?”
“Sure,” Manny said, pausing by the open door of his van. “I’d guess that it was an accidental mating, and it produced a litter of hybrids that aren’t worth much except as house pets, which is why this little guy ended up where he did, I expect.”
“You mean,” Carolyn said quietly, “they figured they might as well just dump him if they didn’t want him anymore because he isn’t worth enough to bother selling him?”
Manny shrugged. “Sometimes their intentions aren’t all that bad, Carolyn, the people who do this. They’ve got a pet they can’t look after for some reason, and they genuinely believe that the ranches out here are just spacious limitless places that can give a happy home to any stray animal.”
Carolyn nodded. “That was my very first impression when Vern brought him in,” she said. “That he was likely an abandoned pet, I mean, who’d been deliberately dumped off out here. But I wonder…”
She paused, moving the toe of her boot with apparent aimlessness in the soft damp dirt of the driveway while Manny waited for her to finish her sentence.
“What if he really is somebody’s pet, Manny?” she forced herself to ask, looking up at the young veterinarian. “Some local kid’s dog that everybody’s out looking for right this minute?”
Manny shook his head decisively. “Not a chance, Carolyn. A little fella like this wouldn’t have traveled far on his own. His pads show that he’s hardly covered any ground at all. And I know every dog in the district. He’s not from around here—he was brought in by car and dropped off. You can watch the papers for the next few days if you like, but I’d be willing to bet that I’m right.”
Carolyn’s slim shoulders relaxed but she waved her hand in a casual gesture, trying to look noncommittal. “I guess so,” she said.
“You’re not fooling me, Carolyn Townsend,” Manny said with amusement, one hand gripping the door handle as he prepared to climb into the driver’s seat. “You’ve completely ignored all my educated warnings, and you’re already emotionally involved.”
“And a good thing for you, too,” Carolyn rejoined tartly, “considering the size of the bill I’m going to be getting for your services this morning, Manuel Hernandez.”
“What a life,” Manny said dolefully. “Everybody grumbles about the vet fees, and yet they all call me at all hours of the day and night, every day of the year. I just can’t win.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Carolyn asked, smiling at him, her tartness dissipating in a warm tide of sympathy for the young man. “Or some breakfast? I was just on my way into the house to cook myself up some scrambled eggs and pancakes.”
Manny shook his head regretfully. “Sounds wonderful, Carolyn, but I’ve got calls waiting back at the office and I really need to grab a couple hours’ sleep. I’ll take a rain check, okay?”
“Okay,” Carolyn said.
The veterinarian shot her another keen glance. “Is there something else? Something you wanted me to check on, maybe?”
“No, no…” Carolyn shook her head and then looked up, her clear sea-blue eyes troubled. “I just wanted to ask you what you knew about this damned dude ranch that’s opening up next door, Manny.”
“The Hole in the Wall?”
“Whatever,” Carolyn said grimly. “I thought at first that was such a stupid name, but maybe it fits after all. The place is going to be a real hole, far as I’m concerned.”
“Now, Carolyn, it’s not that bad,” Manny began in a reasonable tone. “From what I hear, Scott Harris has done a real good job of fixing up the ranch, and he’s planning to run a first-rate operation out there.”
Carolyn shook her head, unconvinced. “Our family neighbored the Kendalls for generations, Manny,” she said, “and that ranch was always a real nice little family business. It was called the Lazy J, and it was just about the nicest neighbor ranch you could ever hope for. Now this city lawyer’s gone and bought it, and God knows what’ll be going on over there at the edge of my property. I just hate it.”
Manny looked at her. “What is it that you hate about it, Carolyn?”
“Everything!” she burst out, her face flushed with emotion. “To begin with, I’ve hated all the construction, months of bulldozers and heavy machinery rumbling around out there bothering my stock. And now that they’re set to open, I hate the thought of a bunch of idiot greenhorns wandering around at the edge of my property leaving gates open and scattering garbage, teasing the bulls and scaring the calves. But most of all, I hate this rumor I’ve heard about the exotic animals.”
Manny looked blank. “Exotic animals?”
“You know,” Carolyn told him impatiently. “Gazelles and wildebeest and all that—exotic African animals brought in and penned up behind fences for city slickers to shoot at. Apparently this man is planning to supplement his income that way. It’s happening all over Texas, Manny, and I find it purely disgusting. The thought of it makes me want to go over to the Hole in the Wall,” she concluded, emphasizing the words with bitter sarcasm, “and shoot something myself. And not some pretty little gazelle, either.”
Manny looked concerned for the first time. “Well, now,” he conceded, “that’s a different thing, Carolyn. I hadn’t heard that particular rumor, but I’ll grant you it does make me uneasy. Not from a moral point of view,” he added, “so much as medical.”
“Medical?” Carolyn echoed.
“Those exotic animals can be a real danger to domestic beef herds. They bring in diseases and parasites that are unknown in North America, and that our native cattle have no resistance to.”
Blood drained from Carolyn’s face, leaving it pale as marble beneath the tan. She stared at the younger man.
“Manny,” she began in a low strained voice, “we spent twenty years here building one of the finest Santa Gertrudis herds in the state. I can’t bear to see everything Frank and I worked for threatened by some…some upstart desk jockey who’s decided he wants to play cowboy!”
She fell silent, her chest heaving, her eyes flashing blue fire, and Manny gave her another concerned look.
“I hate to see you getting so upset, Carolyn,” he said finally. “You know, I’ve met Scott Harris and he seems like a nice reasonable type. Maybe there’s no real truth to all these rumors, and you’re getting worked up over nothing.”
Carolyn collected herself with an effort and forced a smile. “Sorry to sound off at you, Manny,” she said.”It’s not your fault. But,” she added, her voice grim, “I think one of these days I’ll just go on over and have a little chat with this Scott Harris myself. And somehow I really doubt that I’m going to share your good opinion of him.”
At that moment a sleek little pale blue Nissan rolled out of the triple garage behind the house and started down the driveway just beyond where Manny and Carolyn stood talking.
Lori and Beverly were both in the car, Carolyn noted with amusement. Clearly Lori had decided that she wouldn’t lend the younger woman her vehicle, but would give her a ride into town instead. Carolyn grinned privately, forgetting her own concerns for a moment as she thought about the two in the car.
No matter how responsible and mature Beverly was acting these days, she mused, it was going to take a lot to convince Lori that the girl’s transformation was genuine. Lori Porter was Carolyn’s cousin as well as resident accountant and unofficial assistant, but she earned her living by acting as a professional accountant for most of the other ranchers in the district as well. She had lived with the family at the Circle T long enough to have witnessed much of Beverly’s adolescence and young adulthood. Though she usually maintained a discreet silence on the subject, Lori was even more dubious about her young cousin’s motives than Carolyn herself. And she was not likely to be impressed by sporadic good works and noble proclamations from Beverly.
Carolyn and Manny both waved at the two women as they rolled down the drive out of sight, and Manny climbed behind the wheel of his van.
“Remember that little dog needs a lot of nourishment on a regular basis if he’s going to make it, Carolyn,” he said. “Keep him warm, give him liquids every couple of hours, use those drops I left for you and keep the cast dry. And don’t move him unless you have to. I’ll be back early next week to take the stitches out.”
“Thanks, Manny,” Carolyn said. She waved farewell and watched as he backed out onto the drive, roaring off just behind the two women in the blue Nissan.
She hadn’t even had her breakfast yet, but it seemed she’d already spent hours this morning standing and watching people drive down that same road.
That’s all life really is, when you come right down to it, Carolyn thought with a sudden bleak flood of almost unbearable sorrow. Just standing and watching people drift away from you, watching them disappear around a bend in the road and knowing that you’ll never, ever see them again….
She swallowed a brief anguished sob and then set her jaw firmly, annoyed with herself for this weak and uncharacteristic lapse. With a brisk determined stride, she hurried back into the barn and leaned over the manger to check on the terrier.
The small dog looked up at her approach and thumped his docked tail weakly, setting the silky gray coat quivering with emotion. He was almost dry now and the fluffiness of his coat helped to disguise his pitiful thinness, as well as the gash on his side.
In fact, except for the clean white cast on his hind leg and the clipped area where Manny had inserted a neat row of stitches into the long jagged cut, he looked almost normal. But, studying the little animal closely, Carolyn could see that he was still far from any kind of health and strength. His big dark eyes were glazed with pain, and though he made a gallant attempt he was no longer able to lift his damaged head from the sacking to lick her fingers.
Carolyn swallowed hard and tried to smile at his furry, anxious face.
“Poor little guy,” she murmured. “I guess your breakfast is more important than mine, isn’t it? I won’t try to move you just now. I’ll go back up to the house and fix something for you to eat, and bring it right on down here, okay? That’ll make you feel better, boy. That’ll just be so nice…”
Still murmuring in low soothing tones, she backed away and turned toward the big front doors.
But she’d only gone a few steps when she paused in shock, her hand to her mouth. A shadow flitted past her legs just inches away with a glint of white teeth and eyes in the darkness, a scrabbling of straw and a ragged flash of color swallowed up at once in the dusky stillness of the barn.
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed aloud, badly startled. “What was that? Who’s there?” She peered into the dark cavernous shadows of the hay piled next to the door.
“Teresa?” she called. “Is that you? What do you think you’re doing, child, spying on me and scaring me half to death?”
There was no response from the shadows. “Teresa?” she called again. “Are you in there? Is that you?”
The silence was so profound that Carolyn, leaning forward tensely, was almost certain she could hear the child’s shallow frightened breathing. She considered crawling into the cavern between the bales and hauling the little girl out bodily, giving her a good talking-to about her behavior. After a moment, though, she changed her mind and started out the door again.
Teresa Martinez had been living at the ranch for almost four months now, since just before Christmas, and Carolyn had never actually talked to the child. As far as she knew, nobody else had, either. Carolyn had hired the little girl’s mother, Rosa, to help exercise the horses and also cook the meals for the four men that the Circle T employed on a permanent basis.
Rosa Martinez had just moved up from Fort Stockton, she told Carolyn at her employment interview. She was a dark, slim, quiet woman in her late twenties who would probably be quite attractive if she didn’t hold herself under such constant rigid control.
But her personality wasn’t any of Carolyn’s business. As manager of the ranch, Carolyn was only concerned with the woman’s job performance, and that was entirely satisfactory. Rosa Martinez seemed to be as skilled a hand with food as she was with horses. The hired men had never looked so cheerful and well-fed, even though they spent many frustrating hours trying to draw the taciturn Rosa into conversation.
Rosa’s daughter was about nine years old, a wild dark wraith of a child with clouds of tangled black hair and glittering black eyes. She didn’t seem to attend school at all. In response to Carolyn’s worried inquiries, Rosa had said simply, “Teresa, she doesn’t do good at school, and they don’t want her there. Too wild, they say, so I just teach her at home.”
Carolyn frequently wondered if Teresa ever sat still long enough to learn anything. The child seemed to be more wood sprite than little girl, a dark silent flitting presence like a small furtive animal around the ranch. As was the case with Carolyn this morning, people never knew when Teresa might be watching them, or how long she’d been there and what she’d seen. Nobody had ever heard her speak, either, but her unexpected appearances had more than once startled residents of the Circle T.
There were rumors about Rosa and her child, of course. There were rumors about everything and everybody in and around Crystal Creek. They usually originated in the Longhorn Coffee Shop and drifted out across the countryside like an invisible but all-pervasive mist. People talked of some terrible event in Rosa’s past, of a drunken abusive stepfather who had threatened little Teresa’s life and had finally been knifed or shot by Rosa in a panicked attempt to save her child.
“The kid saw it all,” Bubba Gibson reported, wide-eyed and hushed with ghoulish appreciation of the story. “Blood an’ everythin’. Never been the same since, they say. Touched in the head, they say.”
Carolyn tended to ignore the rumors. She considered it none of her business what had happened in the woman’s past. Still, Carolyn Townsend could never quite bring herself to overlook the suffering of small helpless beings, children and animals both, and she often brooded about the strange shadow-child who inhabited the Circle T.
Maybe she’d have another talk with Rosa. After all, Teresa certainly couldn’t go on like this forever, living most of the time out in the open like some wild animal, popping up under people’s noses at all hours of the day and scaring them to death. She needed a daily routine, some decent clothes, a few regular toys. She needed to ride the school bus, have the chance to be with other children….
Carolyn slipped in through the side door of the big ranch house, paused in a nearby bathroom to wash her hands, then moved into the gleaming kitchen with a sigh of pleasure.
Carolyn Townsend loved her kitchen.
Of all the rooms and spaces of this house, this one was the most uniquely hers, reflecting her own personality in its shining whiteness and long polished oak table, its pale blue countertops and blue gingham place mats. Muslim curtains, vivid splashes of green hanging plants and rare delft china added to its charm.
About five years earlier, when Beverly was just getting into the beauty pageant scene and her physical setting had been so important to her, she had begun nagging her father and mother about renovating their big comfortable home.
Important people would be coming to visit, she insisted passionately, people who could have a real bearing on her career. What would they think of the scarred leather sofas, the fading wallpaper, the rugged, “lived-in” look of the old stone ranch house?
Carolyn, who had always loved her home, was offended. But Frank Townsend could never deny anything to this only child of his, this beautiful daughter whom he adored, and the two of them had finally prevailed.
All in all, Carolyn thought, looking around with rueful pleasure, Frank and Beverly had probably been right. Though Carolyn had opposed many of the changes at the time, she had to admit that she liked her home the way it looked now.
She crossed the gleaming floor of dark peggedoak planks, leaning on the counter to gaze out the window at the fields bathed in springtime freshness, and smiled as the curtain fluttered in the breeze and brushed her cheek like a caress.
Then, abruptly, she remembered the animal down in the barn. She pulled out the blender and moved back over to the refrigerator. Resting idly against the open door, she contemplated what she could mix up for little dog.
“Some of that stew from supper last night,” she murmured, thinking out loud. “That’d be good, and maybe a little warm milk to go with it…”
As frequently happened these days, Carolyn suddenly had the uncomfortable sensation that she wasn’t alone in the kitchen, that somebody was nearby and watching her.
“Teresa?” she called gently, keeping her voice deliberately casual. “Are you peeking in through the window again? Why don’t you come inside and have some breakfast with me?”
She waited, listening to the silence. But there was no response, just the soft rustle of the curtains and the morning breeze whispering in the trees beyond the window.
Carolyn felt a brief shiver of alarm, remembering the disturbed young woman who had recently stalked her nephew Tyler McKinney, peering in windows and causing so much trouble at the neighboring ranch. That was different, of course, and much more upsetting. The woman had been unstable. Teresa was just a lonely troubled little girl.
All at once the telephone rang, a harsh sound in the sun-washed morning stillness of the kitchen. Carolyn walked over to the desk.
“Hello?” she said, and then hesitated, puzzled.
“Carolyn?” a voice was saying haltingly at the other end. “Carolyn? Is that you?” The caller was Cynthia McKinney, Carolyn realized, her new sister-in-law. Or, she corrected herself, not exactly her sister-in-law, but the new wife of the man who had been married for more than thirty years to Carolyn’s own sister. What did that make Cynthia?
“Hi, Cynthia,” she said cheerfully. “I’m just trying to figure out what relation you are to me. You got any idea?”
Normally, Cynthia would have chuckled at this and made some droll reply. Carolyn had been cautious at first about this new woman in J.T.’s life, this sophisticated import from Boston, of all places, but she soon found she couldn’t help liking Cynthia. The woman was so smart and strong and humorous, so warm and serious about her responsibilities, so thoroughly dedicated to making J.T.’s life better. Carolyn, always fair, had to love her for that fact alone.
But today for some reason there was no wit or warmth to Cynthia. She sounded distant and strained, not herself at all. Carolyn decided to joke her out of it, whatever the problem was.
“Hey, girl,” she said cheerfully, “come on, it’s only a pie sale. I know you get real frightened by gatherings of the natives in these parts, but you’ll be safely behind a table, and I’ll be at your side every minute with my Smith & Wesson in my handbag.”
Still no answering chuckle from Cynthia. Carolyn felt a sudden twinge of alarm—an icy finger at the nape of her neck.
“Cynthia?” she said again. “What is it, dear?”
“It’s…it’s J.T., Carolyn,” Cynthia whispered, her voice close to breaking. “He’s…oh God, Carolyn, he’s…”
“He’s what?” Carolyn asked sharply, gripping the receiver so tightly that her fingers hurt. “What’s happening, Cynthia?”
“He’s…sick, Carolyn,” Cynthia murmured in despair. “So sick…”
Panic struck Carolyn like a heavy blow at the pit of the stomach. But with characteristic self-discipline she summoned all her resources and forced her voice to sound calm and soothing.
“What’s happening, Cynthia?” she asked gently. “I’ll come right over, but just give me some idea for now, okay?”
“He was…he was out in the stables all night with Ken, working over some horse that was foaling.” Cynthia paused, struggling to control her voice.
“I know, Cynthia,” Carolyn said quietly, though her blue eyes were darkening with worry. “Manny was there, too, and he stopped in here on his way back to town. Doesn’t J.T. realize that he’s getting past the stage when he should be up all night with foaling mares?”
“Apparently not,” Cynthia faltered, still struggling to compose herself. “Anyway, he and Ken came in for breakfast and I thought he looked awfully tired. I wanted him to go up to bed and catch a few hours’ sleep but he just scoffed at the whole idea, said no man worth his salt sleeps in the middle of the day. He had to get back out and see to getting the early calves branded. And then all of a sudden…” Her voice broke and she began to sob quietly at the other end.
“All of a sudden what?” Carolyn prompted. There was an increasingly familiar and ghastly feeling to this event. She was beginning to have a panicky sense of déjà vu, as if she’d lived through the same dreadful moment at some time in the past.
“He was putting on his hat, walking out the door and then he just…just kind of sagged, would have fallen if Ken hadn’t been right behind him and caught him. We…we helped him upstairs and into bed but he’s…oh, Carolyn, he’s all gray and sweating, and he seems to be in such pain, he can hardly recognize any of us….”
Gray and sweating…in such pain…
An image flashed unbidden into Carolyn’s mind—her tall sturdy husband Frank two years ago just after his massive coronary. Fear stirred and churned at the core of her, choking her, leaving her breathless with terror.
Not J.T.! she screamed soundlessly. Not him, too! I can’t bear to lose any more of the people I love, I just can’t bear it, oh God, please don’t let it be….
“Is somebody with you, Cynthia?” she asked. “Everybody’s here. I mean, Tyler and Ruth and Lynn, and Lettie Mae and Virginia, and Ken, and we’ve called Cal in Wolverton, and Dr. Purdy….”
“Oh, good,” Carolyn said. Nate Purdy had been caring for all of them for more than three decades. Now, just the thought of him ministering to J.T. brought her comfort.
“Is there anything else I should do, Carolyn?” Cynthia asked in a low voice, still sounding helplessly childlike, completely out of character. “Anybody else I should call, or anything?”
“Not now, dear,” Carolyn said gently. “Sit down, put your feet up and get Lettie Mae to make you a cup of her cinnamon tea. I’ll be over right away.”
“Oh, thank you,” Cynthia whispered, with such relief in her voice that Carolyn knew she had to get over there without delay.
She hung up the phone and grabbed a sweater from a hook by the door, flung it over her shoulders, took her car keys from the countertop and ran out to the garage.
“OKAY,VERN,” Martin A very said cheerfully, riffling briskly through a stack of papers. “I think that finishes it. The transfer of title’s in order, the taxes are all paid up to date, and your man owns his property outright, once he signs this last release of funds.”
Vernon Trent smiled at his old friend, who paused to answer the telephone and deal with the caller, a solicitor for a local charity.
“When did you start answering your own telephone?” Vern asked, chuckling at Martin’s glowering expression. “Can’t you poor underpaid lawyers afford secretarial help these days?”
“Very funny, Vern,” Martin grumbled, running a hand through his thick graying hair. “Actually, my secretary called in sick this morning, so I’m doing double duty.”
“Billie Jo?” Vernon asked in surprise. “I saw her at Zack’s last night, and she looked healthy enough then. Bursting with health, you might say.”
Both men were silent for a moment, thinking about the beauteous Billie Jo, with her gorgeous body, her mane of strawberry-blond hair and sexy pouting red lips.
“Yeah,” Martin said dryly. “And that’s not all she’s bursting with, old friend. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that she’s not alone this morning.”
“You think Bubba’s visiting the sickbed?”
“I’d bet on it,” Martin repeated.
“God, he’s a fool, isn’t he?” Vernon commented absently.
“Maybe we old bachelors just don’t understand, Vern. Or maybe we’ll be the same if we start to suffer through a midlife crisis. We’ll be whining and sniffing around girls thirty years younger than us, buying bad toupees and silver Camaros….”
Vernon threw back his head and laughed at this skillful thrust. “Maybe you, Martin,” he said. “Not me, that’s for sure. I’m nowhere near that dumb.”
“Speaking of being dumb,” Martin said cheerfully, “I was talking to young Ben Waldheim and his wife the other day. They said they made you another offer on your house, and you won’t sell.”
Vernon shifted awkwardly in the padded chair. “That’s true,” he admitted.
“How come, Vern? Why’re you hanging on to that drafty old barn? Why not let the kids have it? They want to renovate it, got all kinds of plans.”
Vernon shrugged. “I don’t have time to move and find another place and all that,” he said defensively. “Besides,” he added with a grin, “that’s my ancestral home you’re talking about, Martin.”
“Bull,” Martin said calmly. “Your ancestral home was a little suite above the drugstore. Your daddy didn’t even buy that house till you were fifteen.”
“That’s right,” Vernon said with a small faraway smile. “You know, I can still remember the day he took my mama over there and gave her the keys. She looked like he’d given her Buckingham Palace.”
“Well, that it ain’t,” Martin said. “Those days were thirty years ago, Vern. The old place is falling down around your ears. You don’t have any interest in fixing it up, so why not let it go?”
Vernon frowned stubbornly, thinking about the big stone house he’d inherited from his parents. Martin was right, it was falling into disrepair, growing rickety, faded and musty, and he was getting to hate it more with every passing year. But still, he panicked at the thought of moving out and getting a little apartment. That would be admitting that this was his whole future and he was never going to have a wife or a family….
“You could move into my building,” Martin said, as if reading his thoughts. “It’s a real nice little complex, adults only, with a recreation center and a pool and everything. Real sophisticated for Crystal Creek.”
“I know, Martin. I’ve seen it, remember? It’s just that apartment living doesn’t appeal to me all that much, for some reason. I’d rather just keep living where I am and work real hard so I don’t have to go home much, than move into an apartment.”
“Then build yourself a new house. Dammit, man, you’ve got lots of money. Get yourself out of that lonely old place.”
“A new house wouldn’t be any less lonely, Martin,” Vernon said quietly.
Something in Vern’s voice made Martin hesitate, then glance down awkwardly at the pile of papers on his desk as if searching for a way to change the subject.
“Well, that’s it,” he repeated at last with false heartiness. “You can tell Scott the deal’s through.”
Vernon looked over at the dapper lawyer and mayor of Crystal Creek, then down at the pile of legal documents. He drummed his blunt fingers on the desktop, and his pleasant square features darkened briefly with worry.
“I hear Carolyn’s really upset about the Hole in the Wall,” he ventured. “Has she said anything to you, Martin?”
Martin shrugged. “Just in passing one night a few weeks ago when we were all over at the Double C for one of Cynthia’s fancy dinners. She’s not happy about it, that’s for sure.”
Vernon creased one of the papers thoughtfully, head lowered, eyes concentrated on the careful movements of his tanned hands. “I’m glad we’ve been able to keep it quiet,” he said.
“Now, Vern, you know as well as I do what this town’s like,” Martin said mildly. “Everybody finds out everything, sooner or later.”
“Maybe not,” Vernon said. “Nobody knows the details of the sale of the dude ranch but you and me and Scott Harris.”
“And J.T.” Martin said. “But he’s no gossip, that’s for sure.”
“Right. So if we all stay quiet, maybe we can keep it safely under the rug until Carolyn’s had a chance to find out for herself that the Hole in the Wall won’t be such a bad neighbor after all.”
Martin chuckled. “She’s not an easy girl to convince of anything, Vern, never has been. What a woman.”
Both men were silent for a moment, but this time their faces were affectionate as they thought about Carolyn Townsend. The phone rang and Martin cursed mildly, then lifted it and barked a greeting.
“Carolyn,” he said after a brief pause, his voice softening. “What a coincidence. We were just talking about you. How are y’all this fine spring day?”
Vernon tensed in his chair and sat erect, eyes fixed on Martin’s face. But Martin was unaware of his friend. He was listening to the voice at the other end, his debonair face slowly turning ashen.
“God, Carolyn” he muttered finally. “That’s terrible, girl. What can I do?”
Vern made frantic gestures, but Martin waved him to silence and listened to the caller again.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Vern’s here with me now and we’ll both come right on over.”
He murmured a farewell and hung up slowly, staring at his friend across the desk with a stricken expression.
“That was Carolyn,” he said unnecessarily. “J.T.’s had a heart attack. They just brought him in to the hospital by ambulance.”
“Oh, my God,” Vernon whispered, gazing unseeingly at Martin’s face. Despite the shock of the news his first thought, as always, was for Carolyn. He recalled the woman he loved and the way she’d looked earlier in the day, with the spring sun in her hair and her eyes as blue as the morning, telling him fiercely that she’d seen enough of suffering and death….
“I’ll go right over there,” he muttered, getting hastily to his feet and stuffing the papers into his briefcase. “Maybe I can help somehow. Coming, Martin?”
Without a word, Martin took his suede jacket from a coat tree by the door and followed Vernon out into the bright morning sunlight.

CHAPTER THREE
THE SHABBY LITTLE visitors’ lounge at the Crystal Creek Community Hospital seemed filled to overflowing with people. Most were crowded into uncomfortable chrome armchairs and long slippery vinyl lounges while a few, like Ruth Holden and Tyler McKinney, stood near the automated hot drink dispenser sipping blankly at foam cups of the vile black liquid that passed for coffee.
Vernon was fairly certain that Tyler McKinney could have been drinking battery acid and he wouldn’t have been aware of it. The young man’s face was pale and haggard, bleak with fear, making him look twenty years older. In fact, Tyler McKinney, on this bright spring morning, looked more than ever like his father.
Lynn, beside him, had obviously run in from the stables and not taken the time to change her clothes. She was small and shapely in her riding gear. Her beautiful tanned face was wide-eyed and strained, and she kept glancing desperately toward the door as if waiting for someone.
While Vernon and Martin edged toward a vacant couch, Sam Russell followed them into the crowded room and Lynn went to him, moving blindly into his arms like a child, oblivious to everyone else in the room. Sam held her in a close embrace, patting her heaving back and murmuring to her, his blond head close to her auburn one. Vernon swallowed and looked away from them, sinking down onto the couch and glancing around.
Cynthia McKinney sat across the room from him, with Rose Purdy, the doctor’s wife, on one side and Carolyn on the other, both of them holding her hands firmly and murmuring to her by turns. Beverly Townsend sat next to her mother, her lovely golden face streaked with tears.
Vernon couldn’t help wondering as he looked thoughtfully at Beverly if the tears were real or if they were just there for effect, in case somebody from the media might be around snapping camera footage of the bereaved family.
But as soon as he framed the thought, he chided himself for being uncharitable. He knew Beverly had her good qualities, and that Carolyn, despite her frequent impatience with the girl, loved her daughter deeply. Still, Vernon found himself wondering sometimes how a woman as generous, intelligent and practical as Carolyn Townsend could have produced an offspring so self-absorbed and shallow.
As he was gazing with cool appraisal at Beverly, a couple of children came wandering into the room hand in hand. They were little girls of about seven and three, both wearing institutional gray bathrobes. The older one trundled a mobile IV unit along beside her, strapped to her left arm, and the other one limped badly, trailing a leg in a heavy steel and plastic brace.
While Vernon watched in amazement, Beverly got up, smiling through her tears, and gathered the smaller child tenderly in her arms. She murmured something to the older girl, then took the child’s hand and walked from the room still carrying the younger girl. Vernon watched them go, stunned by the little tableau and the obvious warmth and sincerity of Beverly’s interaction with the children.
He shook his head and then smiled automatically as Reverend Howard Blake and his wife, Eva, came into the room, followed by Bubba Gibson, who looked hastily assembled and a lot less chipper than usual.
Vern shifted awkwardly on the hard vinyl seat, waiting for his chance to go to Cynthia and offer his own sympathy and support. But she was surrounded, and the crowd seemed to be growing by the minute. There was another stir at the door and Cal McKinney entered, limping slightly from an old rodeo injury. He was followed by Serena Davis, who looked quiet and pale.
No wonder, Vernon thought, glancing at his watch. Cal was already notorious for how fast he drove that stretch of highway between Wolverton and the home ranch, but he must have set some new records today. His body was tense, his hazel eyes glittering with tears as he was gathered into the arms of his family.
Vernon felt a startling quick stab of pain, wondering what it must be like to be J.T. McKinney and have such a rich legacy, to have all this family loving and fretting for you, these tall handsome sons weeping over you….
He looked up to find Carolyn’s blue eyes resting on him with mute appeal. He began to rise, to move toward her. But just at that moment the room fell silent and everyone turned to the door where Nate Purdy stood, weary and somber in his crisp white lab coat.
Immediately all eyes were fastened on the doctor’s face and there wasn’t a sound in the room except for a few quick ragged intakes of breath. The group waited tensely, watching Nate as he moved into the room and stood by Cynthia and his wife, dropping a hand onto the shoulder of each.
“Well, I think we’re through the worst of it, Cynthia,” he said. “And we’d better thank the good Lord that we’ve got one tough hombre in there, or he wouldn’t still be with us.”
Cynthia looked up at him, her brown eyes widening, her cheeks as white as the pale walls all around her.
“Is he…did he…?” she faltered. Carolyn gripped the younger woman’s hand and slipped her free arm around Cynthia’s shoulders, holding her close, cuddling her like a child.
“He had a massive coronary,” Nate said, “just a few minutes ago. The first attack at home this morning was actually a precursor. As soon as I examined him at the ranch I expected a more serious cardiac event to follow shortly, and we were real lucky that we got him here in time. If we hadn’t had the equipment and the medication available, I think we just might have lost him, tough as he is.”
The room stirred and settled. There was a clearing of throats, a restless shuffling of boots, a flurry of hands dashing furtively at tear-filled eyes.
“The worst is over,” Nate Purdy repeated, turning to address the room in general. “He’s resting comfortably now, but he sure won’t be if this gang descends on him. Only two visitors at a time, and nobody but immediate family. The rest of you good people, y’all go on home now, and come back to visit him when he’s feeling stronger. And thanks for coming,” he added with a warm tired smile. “I’m sure Cynthia appreciates all the support.”
Cynthia nodded blindly and struggled to her feet, supported by Carolyn and Rose. She managed to smile and nod her agreement with the doctor. “Yes,” she whispered. “Thank you all. Thank you so much. I’m sure that J.T. would…”
With these words Cynthia’s poise deserted her and she choked, then leaned gratefully on Tyler who had crossed the room to stand beside her.
“You and me first, Cynthia, okay?” he murmured huskily, putting his arm around her. “Let’s go see Daddy.”
Nate Purdy turned to follow them out of the room, then paused and looked back at Carolyn. “By the way, Carolyn,” he said, “I certainly consider you immediate family, if you’d like to wait and see him for a minute.”
But Carolyn shook her head. “No, Nate,” she said in a low voice. “That’s all right. Too many of us right now will just tire him. Cal and Lynn can go in next, and I’ll come back tomorrow when he’s stronger.”
People began to file out, still murmuring to one another in hushed tones. Vernon took advantage of the general exodus to cross the room and sink down beside Carolyn.
“Hi, Vern,” she said, giving him a small bleak smile. “It’s nice of you to come.”
“Oh, Caro,” he murmured, deeply moved by her evident pain and weariness. “How could I stay away, girl? Is there anything I can do for you?”
She shook her head automatically, then paused. “Actually, there is, come to think of it,” she said. “I drove over to the Double C this morning as soon as I heard, and left my car there. I came in with Tyler and Lynn. Now Lynn’s giving Beverly a ride home later this evening and she’ll be bringing my car back then, so I guess I’m on foot. Could you…could you give me a ride home?”
“Nothing would please me more,” Vernon told her with warm sincerity. “That is,” he added solemnly, trying to make her smile, “if you don’t have any moral objections to riding in a Camaro.”
“It’ll probably wreck my reputation completely,” Carolyn said, responding gallantly to his effort at humor, “but what the hell. A good reputation’s a dull kind of thing, isn’t it, Vern?”
“I NEVER THOUGHT it would be J.T.,” Carolyn murmured, gazing blindly out the window as Vernon’s car skimmed along the curving country roads. “Of all the people in my life, I’ve always looked on him as the strongest, the most indestructible, somehow.”
“I guess we all have,” Vernon said. “I remember looking up to J.T. as a boy, way back when he was a football and basketball star at school and a rodeo star in the summertime, everything a kid could ever dream about.”
“I know,” Carolyn said with a distant smile. “He was ten years older than you and me, Vern, but I had such a crush on him when I was little. I envied Pauline so much when she started going out with him, I could hardly talk to her for a year or so.”
She stared out silently at the trees shimmering in the afternoon sun, recalling the vivid agonies and delights of that long-ago childhood time.
Vernon grinned. “You got over it, though, I hope. Just look at the bluebonnets in that field, Caro. I’ve never seen them so spectacular so early.”
“I know,” Carolyn said absently. “I was thinking the same thing, just this morning. Seems like a century ago. Yes, I got over it,” she added, returning to their earlier topic. “But after I recovered from my crush, J.T. turned into one of my best friends. I’ve always depended on him, and more than ever since Frank’s been gone. I just can’t bear the thought of…”
She choked and fell silent. Vernon gave her a quick glance. “He’s going to be all right, you know, Caro,” he said. “Nate sounded optimistic, and you’ll notice that he mentioned several times how tough the man is. Nate’s a square shooter. He doesn’t say things like that just to hear himself talk.”
“You know what I keep thinking?” Carolyn said as if Vernon hadn’t spoken. “I keep thinking it’s my fault, that I should have seen it coming. I noticed lately how gray and tired he’d been looking, and how
he’s been rubbing his left arm a lot. I actually teased him once about old cowboys and arthritis, but I never thought about heart attacks. You’d think that of all people, I would have been alert to warning signs like that.”
“You were just like the rest of us,” Vernon told her calmly. “J.T.’s always seemed indestructible, so we all just chalked it up to stress. After all, there’s been a lot of that in J.T.’s life lately, even though most of it’s happy stress. He’s got a brand-new wife, and a new business venture starting up at the ranch, and a whole crew of prospective new family members, considering the way his kids are all getting paired up these days.”
“That’s not all,” Carolyn said, her voice bleak as she stared out the window.
“Not all what?”
“Not all the new family members,” Carolyn said miserably. “Vernon, don’t tell a soul because nobody knows yet, okay? Cynthia’s pregnant.”
Vernon gripped the wheel and stared at Carolyn, his square cheerful face reflecting his stunned amazement.
“Oh, my God,” he muttered aloud.
“You bet,” Carolyn said grimly. “I thought this morning that Cynthia wasn’t looking well, and wasn’t dealing with this whole thing as well as I would have expected her to, either. I managed to corner her at the ranch before the ambulance came and asked her if anything else was wrong, and that’s when she told me. Nobody knows yet but Nate Purdy.”
“And J.T., of course,” Vernon said automatically.
Carolyn shook her head. “Not even him. She’s just about a month pregnant, Vern. In fact, she only found out for sure yesterday, and she was going to tell him tonight. They were planning to go out to a romantic candlelight dinner at the country club, just the two of them, and she was going to tell him then.”
“The poor kid,” Vernon murmured, gazing straight ahead through the smoky curved windshield, his face deeply troubled.
“I know,” Carolyn said. She brushed absently at the slow tears that trickled down her cheeks. “And now, on what should be the happiest day of her life, she’s got this to deal with. And I know she’s blaming herself, Vern, thinking that she’s the cause of all this because she’s brought so much upheaval into J.T.’s life, first with her opposition to Tyler’s vineyard, and then the wedding and the renovations to the house… she feels just awful.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Vernon said. “She’s been damned good for J.T. He may have an ailing heart, but he’s looked happier these past few months than I’ve seen him in years.”
“Tell her that, Vern, if you get a chance,” Carolyn said, wiping her eyes and trying to smile at him. “She really needs to hear it.”
“You bet I will,” Vernon said. “You know,” he added haltingly, “it sounds ridiculous, but I almost envied J.T. this morning, while I was sitting there in that hospital waiting room.”
Carolyn stared at him. “You envied him? Why on earth, Vern?”
“I don’t know,” he said awkwardly. “I just thought what a lucky man he is to have so many people who love him, all those pretty women crying over him, and those two big tall sons….”
“You would have liked a family, wouldn’t you, Vern?” Carolyn said softly, looking with affection at the man beside her. “Why didn’t you? Ever get married, I mean? Lots of girls were after you when we were in high school. You were considered quite a catch.”
His mouth lifted in an engaging lopsided grin, and he swerved skillfully to avoid a little cottontail rabbit scuttling across the highway. “You’re kidding. Me, a catch?”
“Well, sure,” Carolyn said. “Remember Sally Thompson? She was crazy about you. She wrote your name all over the walls in the girls’washroom.”
Vernon gave a theatrical sigh. “Now she tells me,” he commented sadly. “Thirty years too late. Actually,” he added in a more serious tone, “I guess that the years when I might have been interested, Carolyn, I was running around in the jungle carrying ammunition clips. And then when I came home, everybody was kind of settled already and I was odd man out, and I just decided to stay that way. Less complicated,” he added.
Carolyn gave him a thoughtful glance. There was something strange and guarded in his tone and she was on the point of questioning him further, probing a little more deeply. But just then something came into her line of vision and she stiffened in annoyance, turning sharply to gaze out the window.
“Look at that!” she burst out, peering at a set of intricate wrought-iron gates adorning a low curving stone wall. “He’s even got it on the front gates now, for God’s sake.”
“What?” Vernon asked.
“The Hole in the Wall. He’s had those gates mounted since the last time I was by here. Look at them. Isn’t that awful?”
“Well, Caro,” Vern said reasonably, “it is the name of the ranch, you know. He’s entitled to put it on the gates if he wants to. I’ve heard that it’s easier for customers to find the place, you know, when you have the right name on the gate.”
Carolyn ignored this attempt at humor. “I hate it,” she said darkly. “I just hate it, Vern.”
“Why, Caro? What’s so bad about it?”
Carolyn repeated her grievances, telling Vernon all the same things she’d told Manny earlier in the day, while he drove through her own gates and parked by the house, listening in silence.
“Well, I agree with Manny,” Vernon said finally, turning to her and resting his arm along the top of the seat. “A lot of this could just be gossip and conjecture, Caro. You’ve never been one to pay much attention to gossip, far as I can recall. Why don’t you wait till the place opens and then judge for yourself?”
Carolyn tensed, irrationally annoyed by the calm reasonableness of his words and his tone. “Well, I sure don’t have much choice, do I?”
“I think it’ll be great for the community,” Vernon went on. “Bring in all kinds of new business.”
“Yeah, sure,” Carolyn said gloomily. “Thousands more dudes and rock hounds, littering and trespassing and bothering the cattle. Tyler says Cal and Serena are thinking of opening a boot shop out at the dude ranch. They’re expecting so much business that they feel it would actually be viable.”
“Well, don’t you think that’s good news?” Vernon asked. “Aren’t you glad to see the kids prospering?”
“Not at the expense of my ranch and my herds.”
“They won’t bother your herds,” Vernon said comfortably. “Besides,” he added with his wry grin, “just think how much business those greenhorns are gonna bring in to the hospital, what with all the rope burns and cactus spines and saddle sores and broken bones. Maybe the nursery will finally be able to afford those new baby incubators they’ve been lobbying for.”
Carolyn chuckled in spite of herself, then looked gloomy again. “I just wish I knew where he came from, Vern.”
Vernon glanced at her in surprise. “Everybody knows the man’s biography by now, Carolyn. He comes from Austin, grew up there and got his law degree from—”
“From Baylor,” Carolyn interrupted impatiently. “I know all that, Vern. And he’s a highly successful divorce lawyer who’s decided he wants a new challenge, some wholesome country life, etc. etc. I could recite the man’s pedigree in my sleep, I think. What I want to know is how he got to be my neighbor. Who told him the place was for sale? It was never advertised in the city. Who sold it to him? Where did he come from?”
Vernon was silent, gripping the wheel of his parked car and looking with apparent deep interest at the quiet deserted veranda of Carolyn’s sprawling stone ranch house.
“I know, I know,” Carolyn said, gazing at his quiet profile. “You’re not going to tell me, are you? Realtors stick together and protect one another just like any other profession. But believe me, if I ever get my hands on whoever sold that man the ranch next door without even so much as coming over to mention to me that it was for sale…”
She paused and her beautiful face tightened briefly with emotion. Then she collapsed against the seat, washed under by a sudden flood of dark misery.
Vernon turned to her, his face full of concern. “Caro? What’s the matter, girl?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Vern,” she said helplessly. “Somehow it all just seems too much to bear, you know? The place next door bringing disease and problems to my herd, and poor Cynthia and J.T., and everything…seems like this day’s been getting more and more awful ever since you came through the gates this morning with that pitiful little mop dog.”
As she spoke the words, her face twisted suddenly and she stared at Vernon, her blue eyes wide with wretched appeal.
“Vern,” she whispered. “The mop dog! Oh, God, when Cynthia phoned I forgot all about him till this moment! Oh, no…”
Still murmuring distractedly, she flung herself from the car and ran across the driveway to the barn. Vernon watched her for a startled moment and then hurried after her, his face drawn with anxiety.
“I was in the kitchen,” Carolyn said hastily over her shoulder, running through the wide double doors of the barn. “I was just getting something ready to feed him, and then Cynthia called and I forgot all about him. Oh, Vern…”
She paused beside the manger and looked up at Vernon who stopped beside her, a little out of breath from this unexpected exertion.

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