The Sweet Spot (2 page)

Mitzi flipped a curl of bleached hair over her shoulder. “No apology needed. I’m sorry
I brought you trouble. Sam and I owe you a couple of drinks.”

The sympathy in her look granted him absolution. For the moment, anyway. “After today,
I’ll need them. Let’s get on the road.” He double-clutched and rammed the truck into
gear.

The look of betrayal on Char’s face had sent a shard of guilt slicing through his
gut. He shouldn’t have chanced bringing Mitzi. He knew what it would look like to
Char. But they were two hours late already, and if he’d had to
drive back across town to pick her up… God, he was a shit.

As he goosed the accelerator, the whine of the engine and his thoughts crowded out
Mitzi’s chatter. Aware that the truck’s passenger side would face the kitchen window
on the trip out, he considered asking Mitzi to duck, but that horse had already left
the barn. Besides, it was a long drive to Abilene, and he couldn’t take four hours
of cab time with an indignant woman.

Char’s words stung like sweat in an open cut. Jess had
not
been young enough to be their daughter. He checked traffic and eased onto the highway,
taking it easy on the bulls. Shifting through the gears, he remembered the first time
he and Char had made love, the spring of their senior year.

Telling their parents they were going to the baseball game, they’d driven out to the
Pedernales River for a picnic. He’d spread a blanket on the bank, and that afternoon,
his world shifted. He’d never been inside someone’s skin before, in more ways than
physically. Char’s sharing of her deepest self had loosened his defenses, and that
day she’d settled in, next to his heart.

They’d been what, seventeen? Subtracting that from forty? Twenty-three. Crap. That
hurt, but not because she’d been right about Jess being young. How long had Char been
chewing on this? Long enough to do the math and, he was sure, remember that day at
the river.

His thoughts shifted gears again.
How does she think she’s going to run things by herself?
Since he’d fired Emilio this morning, she wouldn’t even have a hand to help out.
He was sure the ramifications still hadn’t occurred to her. When Charla got mad, she
didn’t think.

A traditional ranch wife, she considered her home and family her career, and everything
outside the house his responsibility. Not a popular career for a girl in the late
1980s, but it fit him down to the ground. They’d made a good team. He hadn’t known
a partnership so strong could break so fast.

Benje’s earnest, seven-year-old face swam into his vision.
I shouldn’t be surprised. When you cut the center out of something, the rest falls
in on itself.

Imagining Char, trying to handle the day-to-day labor of their bucking bull operation,
he relaxed. He’d be getting a call from Little Bit by tomorrow.

A call he’d be waiting for.

Charla rolled over, pulling the covers up to block the light, but it was no use. Consciousness
was as relentless as the dawn that inched across the ceiling, highlighting the crack
above her bed. It had been painted over many times, but the lightning-shaped fissure
had been there, even when this had been her parent’s room.

She felt around the edges of her mind. She’d forgotten something. Something important.
It barreled from a tunnel and slammed her to reality. The hollowness in her chest
made her gasp and she hugged herself, afraid she would implode.

Benje is gone.

She pulled the covers up and curled into a ball. Another day to face, when her reason
for facing it was gone.
Why bother?

She heard the answer in the
shush
of slippered feet passing her door. Daddy. The grief counselor pointed out that they
still had responsibilities. She had to go on for
those. Dashing the tears from her cheeks, she threw back the covers and shouldered
the sunrise.

After a quick shower, she donned an old sweatshirt and buttoned jeans that hung loose,
gapping at the waist. She made the mistake of glancing in the mirror on her way out
of the bathroom. The haggard scarecrow staring back frightened her.
I’m cutting back on the pills today.
She stared down the hag in the mirror.
I am.

After making her bed, Char walked the hall to the kitchen and stopped in the doorway.
Her father, dressed for the day in slippers, jeans, and a blue Western-cut shirt,
sat at the table, staring out the window. His red hair had blanched gray over the
years, and his beard stubble shone silver in the morning light.

Smiling, she walked around the table, rested her hands on his shoulders, and dropped
a kiss on his forehead. “Mornin’, Daddy.”

He looked up, his brow furrowed, worry in his washed blue eyes. “When’s Benje coming
home?”

The hope she’d garnered in the mirror blew away.
Another bad day.
She had to quit kidding herself; he was getting worse. Trying to convince Daddy of
facts he didn’t remember only upset him. “Benje’s gone off with his dad. They’ll be
back by dinnertime.” She hugged his neck, resting her head against his as his shaky
hand patted her hair. Eyes closed, she took comfort from his touch for a moment, then
sniffed and straightened. “Coffee’s coming up.”

As she filled the carafe at the tap, the sound of an indignant bawl from outside jerked
her head up.

The heifers crowded the fence, gazing toward the house. “Now where’s that darned Emil—”
It all came
crashing back. She’d been so mad yesterday that Jimmy telling her he’d fired Emilio
hadn’t even registered. She fetched two of her mother’s Vintage Rose teacups while
the coffeemaker burbled and her mind whirled. Their eighty acres was a decent-size
spread for Fredericksburg. But between the bucking bulls and the mama cows, they were
overgrazed, so JB had to supplement feed. Her shoulders slumped. Scratch that.
She
needed to feed.

Dang him. She’d been naive enough to believe, the first time, that the little buckle
bunny perched on his truck seat belonged to a friend. Did he really think she was
stupid enough to swallow the same story a second time?

The heifers at the fence bellowed for breakfast.

Focus, Charla. You have bigger problems today.

After yanking out the loaf of bread she’d made the day before, she popped two slices
in the toaster, then glanced at her father’s profile, his long face slack as he stared
out the window.
I can’t leave Daddy alone today.
She needed at least part-time help with him, but after Jimmy’s comments on their
finances yesterday, she was glad she hadn’t asked him for more money.

A half hour later, Char stood in front of the open barn door.
Only two sacks of feed? What the heck were you thinking, Jimmy?
The bawl of hungry cattle got her moving. She would have to make do.

“I’ll get this, Little Bit.” Her father rounded the bed of the pickup. Growing up,
she’d worshiped this big bear of a man who’d constructed the world to fit her mother
and her. She glanced at his bent shoulders and spindly bowed legs. When had he gotten
so fragile?

“We’ll do it together, Daddy.” They wrestled the sacks onto the battered truck bed.
Her father walked to the
fence and opened the gate, and she drove through it. After closing the gate, her dad
got in the truck, and she drove to the center of the pasture. Jimmy always fed there,
not wanting the cows at the front fence, leaning on it, breaking it down.

She turned off the engine and looked around the messy cab for Jimmy’s work gloves
as her father came around to open the door for her. Giving up the hunt, she stepped
out, then hopped into the bed of the truck as the curious cattle trotted up. She had
to admit, the infernal beasts were pretty. Their colors were as varied as their breeds:
rusty reds, blacks, creams, brindles, and even a few speckled blues. All fat and pregnant.

Char wrestled the cloth bag onto the edge of the tailgate and studied the sewn closure.
I should have thought to bring a jackknife.
“Why the heck don’t they make these things easier to open?” She worked a fingernail
under the string. A spear of pain shot up her finger. “Oh, dadgum it!”

She inspected the nail, broken below the quick. Something bumped at her backside.
Whirling, she saw a heifer back away, breaking a string of drool that stretched from
its snout to the rear of her jeans. “Yuk.” She glared at the offender. “Y’all just
cool your jets, will you? None of you look like you’re going to starve to death in
the next five minutes.”

Her father chuckled as he pulled himself up into the truck bed. “That’s what you get
when you hang your rump in the wind, Little Bit.”

She met his gaze and grinned back.
This
was her dad.

“Scoot over, I’ll do that,” he said.

“No, I’ve got it, Daddy. I need to learn this.” She bent
over and managed to tear a hole in the bag. Together, they emptied it out of the end
of the truck. As the stream of golden feed spilled, the cattle jostled each other
to get to it. Her father helped drag the second bag to the tailgate, then jumped down
and walked to the front of the truck as Char emptied the feed bag.

She straightened, a stiff breeze lifting her hair. The ancient oak and pecan trees
looked dormant face-on, but if she squinted just right, they had a wash of green so
delicate she had to look twice to be sure. Not a cloud marred the bluebonnet sky,
and she inhaled crisp air, feeling like she’d hibernated the winter away.

Wishing she had.

A bull’s outraged bellow snatched her attention. Looking up, her heartbeat stuttered.
Her father had wandered fifty yards away and stood staring down a yearling bull that
pawed the ground between him and the truck.

Before Char could catch her breath, the bull charged.

“Check one, check.” JB tweaked the bass a bit and sang softly into the mike, “ ‘Women
have been my trouble since I found out they weren’t men—’ ” Sound checks had always
seemed lame to him, so a year or so ago, he started singing instead.

He looked up, to where Jess’s sexy, knowing smile used to be, across the arena, among
the riders’ wives. They’d met at an event in San Angelo, when his singing had prompted
her to ask her friend for an introduction. The gravitational pull that hit when he’d
slapped eyes on that innocent face and wicked little body hadn’t let go, though, Lord
knows, he’d tried. She’d made him feel alive at a time when he’d forgotten what alive
felt like.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when Char hadn’t believed him yesterday. Jess may
have gotten him through that horrible time, but his lies had cost him dear.

The arena before him was anthill busy. Workers hung gates on the bucking chutes at
one end, while more swarmed in the center, setting up the round shark cage that would
house the camera crew. Its flat top would provide a haven from charging bulls as well
as a stage for the arena clown.

“Hey, big guy.” As if his thought conjured him, Wylie Galt, the arena entertainer
of the event, simpered up, waggling his fingers. He hadn’t yet dressed in his signature
baggy shorts and oversize hockey jersey, but his whiteface makeup and huge red smile
were in place. And obviously he was playing the clown already. “Oooh, that song has
me positively tingly.”

“Put a sock in it, Wylie, you idiot. We’ve got work to do.” They’d worked events together,
the past two years. Along with being the arena announcer at pro bull riding events,
JB had played straight man to Wylie as they entertained the crowd during the breaks
in the action. But Wylie was more than a coworker; he was a good friend. Most of the
men on the circuit were single—JB and Wiley both knew what it was like to be on the
road, missing a family back home. Well, JB used to know what it was like. “The PBR
nixed your idea of bringing the fan of the night down on the dirt—too much liability.”

“That’s okay. I’ve got a better idea.” Wylie scanned the empty seats of the arena.
“I’ll jump the fence and go to them. Can the camera follow me up there?” He pointed
to the seats at the ceiling of the arena.

“The camera can, but it’s gonna look bad if you collapse of a heart attack on national
TV.”

Wylie puffed out his chest. “That might be tough for a lesser man.” At JB’s snort,
Wylie leveled a gaze at JB’s midsection. “Shee-it, cowboy, you’re the one gone soft
as a girl’s hands. Either Jess was blind, or you’ve got the biggest squash in the
garden under that bushel.” He pointed to JB’s crotch.

“You know, you picturing my gourd makes me a little squeamish. I’d wonder if you were
going vegetarian if I didn’t know Dana was home with a new baby. Now, can we get to
work here, so we can trick the fans into thinking you’re clever one more time?”

His production manager hollered, “JB, we’ve got some things to go over.”

JB didn’t realize how many things the manager referred to until he looked out over
the stands and realized they’d filled. Standing behind the sound boards, he shrugged
into his Western yoked suit coat and breathed in the excitement and electric pulse
of anticipation rolling off the audience. Another packed-to-capacity crowd. He looked
out at the colorful swath of humanity: families, cowboys, buckle bunnies, old men,
and babies. He felt most alive here, in the arena, his voice the focus of thousands
of people.
Time to go to work.

He flipped the mike. “Hello, Abilene!” The crowd cheered. “I’m JB Denny, and we’ve
got a heck of a show for you tonight. Just like in the olden days, the best bulls
in the country have converged on Abilene, and the cowboys waiting to ride them are
tougher’n a two-dollar steak.

“We’re going live on national TV in a few seconds, so let’s show the rest of the country
what a Texas crowd sounds like.” The crowd murmured as the lights went down. JB went
silent, letting the anticipation build. Roadies
ran out to light kerosene poured on the dirt in front of the bucking chutes, spelling
out P B R.