The Loner (22 page)

It was obvious the besieged animal could not survive, that it was only a matter of time before she succumbed to the ferocious attack and was devoured, along with her calf.

As Summer stared at the painting, her stomach convulsed in fear and revulsion and pity. Yet she couldn’t take her eyes off it. What had happened to her mother in the month Summer had been gone that had caused her to paint a scene like this? What did it mean?

Summer left the room on the run, nearly stumbling and falling down the stairs in her haste to get back to the kitchen. “Maria,” she called out. “Where are my parents?”

Maria backed up against the sink as Summer came barreling into the kitchen. “At the roundup, Señora Coburn.”

“Where’s my mother?” Summer demanded impatiently.

“At the roundup,” Maria repeated.

“Both
of them are there?” Summer asked, astonished.

“Sí
, both,” Maria replied. “Your mother, she went to be with your father. To fly the helicopter.” Maria made a circling motion with her finger.

Summer couldn’t believe her ears. “What? Mom hasn’t been on a roundup since we were kids. Are you sure?”

“Sí
, Señora. Your father, he does not come here anymore, so your mother, she goes there to be with him.”

Summer had stopped breathing as she listened to
Maria’s recital. When her lungs started to burn, she gasped a breath and exhaled a prayer. “Dear God.”

It seemed her father had actually left her mother, and apparently long before last night. And that her mother had joined him at the roundup to force him to spend more time with her.

“Where are they? I mean, where on Bitter Creek?” she asked.

“In the north pasture, Señora.”

“Thank you, Maria,” Summer said as she ran out the door. She couldn’t explain her sense of urgency. She only knew she had to get to the site of the roundup without delay.

Even so, it took her nearly an hour to drive the forty-five miles of dirt roads to the holding pens in the north pasture where the calves would be branded, castrated, and vaccinated. She could see the dust and hear the anxious cows bawling for their lost calves long before she reached the first of the corrals.

She glanced up as she heard the
whup whup whup
of a helicopter driving cattle toward the pens. Several cowboys worked on horseback to keep the animals calm and moving in the right direction. She tried to see who was flying, but the sun reflected off the glass bubble, keeping the pilot a mystery.

Her mother’s family, the DeWitts, had been among the first cattlemen in Texas to use helicopters to drive a herd during the roundup, and her mother had talked her father into the practice. She’d been his first pilot. He never let her fly when she was pregnant, but in the old days, in between children, her mother had always helped with the roundup.

Summer watched the helicopter veer dangerously toward a stand of squat mesquite trees, then rise over them at the last instant. The risky maneuver had her heart pounding. Her mother had always taken that sort of death-defying risk. But she wasn’t as young as she used to be, and it had to be fifteen years since she’d flown a helicopter.

Summer gunned the truck engine, bouncing through potholes as she raced to reach the chuck wagon and branding fire, where she was most likely to find her father and the answer to who was flying that helicopter.

She braked her Silverado to a skidding stop when she spotted her father, whose head loomed above the men working around him. “Daddy!” she called, as she headed toward him, walking briskly, but not running, so she wouldn’t spook either horses or cattle.

He broke from the circle of cowboys and headed toward her. “What are you doing here, Summer? Is something wrong?”

“Who’s flying that helicopter?” she asked.

Her father glanced up as the helicopter zoomed past a lone, towering live oak, then back at her and said, “Goddamn that woman, taking chances like that.”

“Is it Mom?” she asked anxiously.

He took off his hat and swatted it against his Levi’s, raising a cloud of dust, then settled the Resistol back low on his forehead. “Yep.”

“What’s she doing up there? Are you crazy? Is she?”

“Couldn’t stop her,” Blackjack said. “Believe me, I tried.”

“Why is she doing this?” Summer asked, watching as her mother pointed the nose of the helicopter at another
bunch of cattle and started them moving toward the pens. “I didn’t even know she had a current pilot’s license.”

“She doesn’t,” her father replied.

“Then why are you letting her fly?”

Her father gave a disgruntled snort. “You try keeping her on the ground.”

“You’re bigger than she is. You can—”

Blackjack laughed bitterly. “And have her accuse me of physically abusing her? When we’re headed for divorce court? Not on your life.”

“Daddy, you have to—”

Her father interrupted her with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Why did you come here, Summer? What do you want?”

Summer glanced one last time at the helicopter, then turned her attention to her father. “I want you to give Billy back his job with the TSCRA.”

“I told Billy not a half hour ago that there’s no work for him anywhere in this part of Texas, and he might as well sell out and move on. Did he send you here to beg for him?”

Summer blanched. “Billy was here?”

“Sure as hell was. Got to hand it to the kid. Didn’t argue with me, just listened, then turned and left.”

“Billy left without fighting? Without an argument? I don’t believe you.”

Blackjack shrugged. “Believe what you want. That boy—”

Summer was enraged at her father’s dismissal of Billy, enraged at the thought of Billy giving up. Billy would never give up. Her father had to be lying. “That
boy
has more integrity and courage in his little finger than—”

“Whoa, there, Missy,” her father interrupted.

Summer bit her lip. Attacking her father wasn’t going to get Billy back his job. She made herself speak slowly and carefully. “It isn’t fair, Daddy. Billy hasn’t done you any harm. It isn’t his fault I wouldn’t marry Geoffrey. The choice was mine.”

Her father made a disgusted sound, and she hurried to speak so he wouldn’t interrupt again.

“Billy has a son to support. His mother’s sick, and his sister’s pregnant. He has responsibilities. He needs his job to take care of them. Please, if you ever loved me, will you do this for me?”

“You know I love you,” her father said gruffly. “But—”

“Billy’s more your blood than I am. He deserves a helping hand.”

“It’s because he’s my blood that I don’t want him married to you,” Blackjack said. “I want him gone from here. Gone from your life.”

“That isn’t going to happen, Daddy.”

“Then he’s got zero chance of getting a job around here.”

Blackjack started to turn, but Summer laid a desperate hand on his arm. “Are you saying that if I left Billy you’d help him? That you’d give him back his job with the TSCRA?”

“Are you saying you’ll leave Billy if I do?” Blackjack countered.

Summer felt her throat tightening and swallowed painfully. “I can’t—I won’t—divorce Billy,” she said. He
needed to be married to protect his rights in court. “But if you give him back his job, I’d be willing to move back home. At least for a while until… until we can get all this sorted out.”

Blackjack’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not living at home.”

“All the more reason for someone to be staying at the Castle with Mom,” Summer said. “Is it a deal?”

“You promise to keep your distance from Billy?”

“If you give him back his job with the TSCRA, I’ll move back home.” Summer thought about her mother’s promise to sell Bitter Creek when she divorced Blackjack. “So long as there is a home.”

“Done.” Blackjack held out his hand and Summer shook it, then turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” Blackjack said.

She stopped and glanced at him over her shoulder. “To tell Billy he’s got his job back.” And to find someone to keep an eye on Dora once she was gone.

“Be sure you don’t stay long. We can use some help here.”

Summer glanced at the helicopter, once again flying dangerously low. The first thing she intended to do was talk her mother out of the air. She had no business—

Summer gasped. The helicopter was headed for that lone live oak again. And it didn’t seem to have enough altitude to get over it. “Pull it up, Mom. Up. Up. Up!”

Summer was running toward the tree, shouting as she went, but the helicopter had a mind and will of its own. “Mom!” she shouted. “Mom!”

She was a hundred yards away when the helicopter seemed to bounce off the tree, then tipped sideways, so
the blades chopped into the ground, breaking off and flying in all directions. Summer ducked as a piece of metal tore past her head like shrapnel. Then she was moving again, running, breathless, desperate to reach her mother.

S
UMMER HEARD SOMEONE SCREAMING AND REALIZED
the horrible sounds were coming from her. She fought against the iron grasp that kept her from reaching the crumpled wreckage, clawing at the sinewy arm wrapped around her waist from behind. “Let go of me, damn you. I said let go!”

“Settle down,” an angry voice said and the arm clamped around her chest so tightly she struggled to breathe.

Summer saw the cowboy who’d reached the wreckage stick a hand inside the cockpit, then look a little past her and shake his head. She turned to see who he’d been signaling and realized her father was holding her captive. “I have to get to Momma. She’s hurt, Daddy. Please let me go,” she begged. “Momma’s hurt.”

“She’s dead Summer,” her father said.

“No,” she said. “No.” She didn’t want to believe him, but the distress in his eyes, the tremor in his voice, were too real. “She can’t be dead. She can’t!”

“I’m sorry, baby. She’s gone.”

Summer sagged against her father as a low moan tore from her throat. She felt him pick her up in his arms and
pull her close as he turned and strode away from the crash.

She shoved her face hard against his chest and grabbed him around the neck, holding on tight. She and her mother had never been close. They hadn’t even been friends. So why was her throat so tight it hurt to swallow? Why couldn’t she stop sobbing?

“I want to go home,” she said.

“We’re heading for the Castle now,” her father said as he set her in the passenger seat of his pickup.

“I want to go
home,”
she said through the open window as he closed her inside the pickup. “I want Billy.”

“You can call him from the Castle,” he said. “I need to be there to meet with the authorities and make arrangements for your mother’s body to be brought home.”

Summer stared at the wreckage, then at her father, who was sliding behind the steering wheel of his pickup. “How can you walk away from her?” she said. “How can you just leave her there?”

“We left each other a long time ago,” her father said.

“You’re glad she’s dead!” Summer accused. “Now you can marry that Creed woman and still keep everything!”

“I’m not sorry she’s dead,” Blackjack corrected as he met her gaze. “That’s a whole other thing. And I would’ve married Lauren Creed even if we had to live on bread and water the rest of our lives.”

That was a hard truth for her to hear. Especially right now.

She couldn’t believe her father could be so callous about her mother’s death. Then she saw his hands were
trembling. And that his jaw was clamped so tight the muscles jerked. “Daddy…”

She reached out to touch his arm and he turned his head away and she heard the gurgle as he swallowed several times.

“Daddy…”

He started the engine, his movements jerky. “You coming or staying?” he said, his voice like a rusty gate, his gaze focused straight ahead, his eyes narrowed.

Summer was torn in two. She wanted to stay and offer comfort. But she couldn’t leave her mother alone. She shoved open the door and got out, slamming it behind her. She faced her father and said, “I’m staying here with Momma. She shouldn’t be alone.”

He hesitated, then said, “Do what you need to do. I’ll be back when the authorities show up.”

“You never should have let her fly.”

“You’re right,” he admitted. “I should have stopped her. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?” she asked, tears clogging her throat. “Why didn’t you make her go home?”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Goddamn that woman. I don’t know. Maybe I was hoping that exactly what happened would happen.”

Summer gasped, and Blackjack made a pained, grunting sound.

“Hell, I didn’t mean that. Summer, I didn’t mean it! Don’t go off half-cocked and—”

She didn’t hear the rest of what he said. She’d already turned her back on him and walked away. Her knees kept threatening to buckle as she headed toward the downed helicopter.

A cowboy stepped in front of her and said, “Don’t think you want to get any closer, Missy. There’s a bit of gas on the ground. Could be everything’ll go up in flames.”

Summer shuddered. “I have to see her. I have to be with her.”