The Sweet Spot (6 page)

It was
his
job to keep his family safe—to keep the wolf from the door. The lancet of blame cut
deeper. While he’d been on guard at the front, that goddamn wolf snuck in the back,
stealing his most precious possession.

He pressed on the gas and headed for whatever awaited at home.

C
harla leaned on the shopping cart, hobbling a bit as she cruised the cereal aisle.
Her groin muscles protested. Pork Chop’s wide back had pushed them past their limit,
and now she couldn’t quite hold her legs together. She’d almost skipped Walmart this
afternoon, but she was out of everything. Her lower back gave an alarming tweak, threatening
spasm. She stopped in the main aisle, straightened, and put a fist to the muscles
of her lower back.

Delighted laughter came from behind. Though carefree was a distant memory for Charla,
happiness was still an irresistible force. She turned.

The blonde she’d last seen perched on the seat of Jimmy’s truck stood laughing, hanging
on the considerable bicep of a young man in a T-shirt and cowboy hat. Their faces
glowed with enchantment for each other. They stood
in the center of the aisle, oblivious to the shoppers who veered around them.

She knew that feeling. Char hurtled back in time, to when she and Jimmy had existed
in a shiny bubble of new love and the rest of the world seemed separate, extraneous.
Her hand stole to her chest, to rub the ache that spread like a bruise.

There was no way a woman could feel like that with more than one man at a time.

Jimmy had told the truth. This time.

Guilt-tipped talons pinched her heart.

She turned away, pushing her cart into the next aisle. Dropping a box of generic shredded
wheat into the basket, Char punched the price into her calculator. The cookie aisle
was out. She still had to buy her father’s prescription, and she was not putting all
this on a credit card. Especially since she hadn’t yet checked out the business finances.

Scanning the boxes of cereal, her gaze snagged on Benje’s favorite brand. Her fingers
tightened on the cart handle. How dare it still be here when he wasn’t?

She’d gotten pretty good at steeling herself against these little jabs to the heart,
small wounds that drained her if she didn’t avoid minefields like the toy section
or the kid’s clothing department.
But how do you shield your heart from Count Chocula?
Her finger traced the cartoon vampire on the box, then she made herself move on.
If someone found her sobbing over a box of cereal, they’d probably haul her away.
Cleanup on aisle six!
Lord, she wanted a pill so badly her skin crawled. Surely she’d earned it today.

After chasing down that fool cow, she’d put out hay.
Jimmy always made it look easy, manhandling the bales. Lifting her palm, she tested
a blister she’d gotten in spite of the gloves. Char had discovered that in a wrestling
match with a hundred-pound bale against her one-twenty, she could hold her own—barely.
Sighing, she dropped her hands back to the cart handle and pushed. Standing here licking
her wounds wasn’t getting it done.

She took a left at the end of the aisle while checking out the line at the prescription
counter.
Krssh!
The impact of the cart collision traveled up her forearms. “Oh, I’m sor—” Bella Donovan
looked as startled as Char felt. A hopeful look flashed across Bella’s face before
the usual mask of jaded indifference fell.

That quick glimpse was the last push Char needed. “Bella! I’ve been thinking about
you.” Char glanced down at her cart, noting it held nothing that wouldn’t stand a
ten-minute break. “Do you have time for that cup of coffee?”

The woman looked down her sharp nose and snorted. “Here?’

Bella’s outfit today was as unfortunate as yesterday’s—white fringed boots, a white
lacy cowgirl hat, and, in between, a micro denim skirt and a long-sleeved leopard
leotard with a plummeting neckline.

“Hey, if you can drink Junior’s sludge, Walmart coffee should be ambrosia. I’m buying.”

“Oh, all right,” Bella said with wary look. “But I’ve only got a few minutes.” She
did an about-face and led the way to the fast food area.

Char couldn’t look away from Bella’s heart-shape rear.
At least she has the body to carry off the getups she wears.

They parked their partially loaded baskets in the Kart Korral, with its ridiculous
Western theme, and were served coffee in Styrofoam cups with running horses on the
sides. A small, guilty part of her made Char sit with her back to the store. She hated
to give the local women any more fat to chew on. Bella slid her long legs into the
other side of the orange plastic booth.

Now that she was here, Char didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t imagined this scene
that far ahead. “Well. How do you like our little town so far?”

“I think the place needs a good mechanic.”

Char cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“I have to think the Welcome Wagon is just busted. I’ve lived here three months, and
you’re the first woman I’ve had a halfway friendly conversation with.”

Bella wasn’t quite wrong about the women in town. Char felt her face flush. “Where
did you live before?”

“New York.” Bella rolled heavily mascaraed eyes. “I know, the accent
is
subtle.” She smiled, taking the sting out of the words. “Russ got transferred down
here, and he’s traveling a lot.”

She must have seen surprise on Char’s face. Bella reached up and tugged on a gold
chain around her neck. A diamond wedding band strung at the end of it popped out of
the band of spandex. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m the whore home-wrecker all you ladies
are afraid of. I overheard all the gossip from under the dryer at Macie’s Clip ’n
Curl.

“I guess you’re not afraid to talk to me because you have no man for me to steal,
right?”

Char’s hand jerked, and coffee slopped onto the table. She jumped up. “Now, that was
mean, Bella Donovan.”
She grabbed napkins with one hand to mop up the mess, reaching for her purse with
the other. “I can vouch for almost every person in this town, and for the most part,
they’re good, honest people.” As she glared across the table, her groping hand finally
found the strap of her purse on the back of the chair, and she tugged it over her
shoulder. “And I’m the woman who was trying to have a friendly conversation with you.”

“Don’t get your thong in a twist, East Texas. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Char finished mopping up the mess and shoved the sodden napkins in the cup.

Bella sat back. “Look, I’m sorry to take it out on you. I have a feeling that you
can relate to how it feels to be the source of gossip.” She stood and put her hand
on Char’s arm, stopping her. “And I’m sorry for your boy too, Char.”

There was no pity in Bella’s gaze. Concern, yes, and regret. But no pity. Maybe Bella
had a point. Maybe they did have something in common, after all. The anger receded
as quickly as it had advanced. Char sniffed. “I accept your apology.”

Bella’s dark, canny eyes searched hers. “You know, Char, sometimes it’s easier to
talk to someone you didn’t get sand in your diaper with in the neighborhood park.”
Bella reached for her purse. “I have to get going too. Russ is coming home tonight
for the first time in three weeks, and I have to get sexy for him.” She wriggled,
tugging the hem of her skirt down.

Char lifted an eyebrow. “I think you’re done already.”

Bella looked up and barked a surprised laugh. “You know, Charla Rae, you may be a
little odd, but you’re okay.”

Char eyed Bella’s getup.
I’m
odd?

They threw away their trash and walked to the shopping carts. Bella was right about
one thing. It
would
be easier to talk to someone who didn’t know the old Char—the little ranch wife who
went about her charmed life, unaware that it could vaporize in a moment. She dropped
her purse in her cart and turned to Bella. “Have you ever seen a working cattle ranch?”

“Hon, I’m from the Bronx.” Bella’s dark curls swung as she shook her head. “The only
cow I’ve come close to came on a bun.”

JB set the glass of iced tea on the battered coffee table and sat, automatically avoiding
the lump in his butt-sprung couch. He crossed his stocking feet next to the two-inch
pile of bills on the table and balanced the laptop on his legs. The spreadsheet didn’t
look any better than it had five minutes ago.

Might as well face facts. As crappy as this apartment was, he couldn’t afford it.
The business couldn’t support two households. Not without more bulls.

Buckers that he didn’t have the cash to buy.

He glanced around the depressing, battle-scarred equivalent to a college dorm. He’d
stayed when Jess moved out, not wanting the hassle of moving. That had been a mistake.
Only the last in a long string of mistakes.

He could see now that Jess had just been a distraction. A Band-Aid, slapped on the
shark-bite hole Benje’s loss had made in him. He was an idiot. It wasn’t bad enough
that everyone in town knew it. But the truth was that a twenty-year-old coed figured
it out before he had.

Jess
had broken up with
him
. He snorted. She’d tried to let him down easy. There was apparently no limit to humiliation.

He remembered Char’s expression, when she’d thought he’d now taken up with Mitzi.
The sour twist of distaste on her lips, the look in her eye—like he was a toothless
bum, stumbling out of a Dumpster into her path.

Why is it I seem to spend my life disappointing the people who matter to me?

Char carefully placed the glass of water and a pill on the edge of the computer table.
It would be her reward after finishing her last chore of the day. The padded office
chair squeaked as she sank into it, the seat so worn it retained the imprint of Jimmy’s
backside.

She felt bad, feeding her dad a quick dinner, dispensing his medicine, and hustling
him off to bed. They’d fallen into the habit of spending evenings in the great room,
her reading to him from a book by McMurtry, Zane Grey, or Elmer Kelton. Tonight, though,
she was flat tuckered.

Yawning, she started the computer. Sleep wouldn’t come until she had some idea of
their finances. One more job of Jimmy’s that had fallen to her the day she booted
him off the property. How did he ever keep up with it all?

“Practice, I guess.” She muttered, staring at the login screen for their accounting
software. Password? She tapped in the first number that occurred to her, the date
of their anniversary. The program popped open to the business checking account. A
single, sparkly bubble rose from
the depth of her mind. “Nobody changes those things once they set them.” The bubble
popped.

The balance wasn’t as bad as she feared or as good as she’d hoped. Char did the math.
Even a high school kid wouldn’t work for what profit remained.

She visualized days like today, one after another, marching into the foreseeable future.
The figures on the screen blurred. “I cannot do this. I’m not equipped to do this.”
Hearing it aloud made it real. This was impossible.

She stripped off her reading glasses, put her head on the desk, and let the tears
come. It wasn’t fair. Every woman she knew had time to go to the beauty shop, garden,
read. She glanced at the clock on the screen. Here she was doing bookwork at midnight.
Heck, even Bella Donovan had a husband to go home to.

Whoa up here, Charla Rae.
The last thing she needed to add to this mess was another man. She’d barely survived
the first one. Lifting her head, she grabbed a tissue and honked into it. “All right,
dang it, this is the end of the pity party.” Sitting up straight, she put her glasses
on and stared at the screen.

Short of going hungry or cutting off the heat, there was no way to reduce expenses
in any way that mattered. That left only the other side of the equation. She opened
her Internet browser.

The judge had offered her alimony in the divorce settlement, but the thought of standing
with her hand out, waiting for Jimmy to dole out money, stuck in her craw. After what
he’d done, she wanted him as far out of her life as possible.

Not long after their separation, she’d heard the rumors.
Jimmy had taken up with a girl half his age. Char had even seen them together, eating
lunch at the diner in town. Jimmy’d sworn the gossips had it wrong, that she was only
a vet student he was mentoring. Char didn’t think anything of it because he’d done
that before, helping college students gain experience while he got a cut rate on vet
bills. But in the past the students had always been men.

Separated or not, she and Jimmy were still married in the eyes of God. Jimmy said
he wasn’t dating the girl and she’d believed him. JB Denny didn’t lie.

Char put her elbows on the desk and dropped her hot cheeks in her hands. Her head
couldn’t fathom it, but the brass-knuckled lies had battered that fact into her heart.
This man wasn’t the one she’d married. That Jimmy Denny was as dead to her as her
son.

Now Jimmy owned the bulls, and she owned the ranch. The judge finally ruled that any
proceeds from the business would be considered a combination of alimony and lease
payment for pastureland. Money Jimmy earned as announcer for the PBR, or any other
job he took, was his.

A bolt of insight jarred her shell-shocked brain. What had really changed? She’d left
the finances to Jimmy, same as she always had. He’d been keeping the books, tapping
into the home computer from his laptop. She was still standing in front of Jimmy with
her hand out.

“Jeez, Char. Where have you been all these months?” She shuddered. Nowhere she wanted
to think about. Or go back to.

The revenue split sounded great in theory, yet with the increased expenses…