Wild Horses

Often, though, Mickey felt that Leon Vanek was too nice, almost groveling. But this was only an intuition, and she didn’t want to say such a thing to Vern, who’d helped Caro pick him. Still, Vanek made her uncomfortable.

Her uneasiness must have shown because Vern took pity on her. He smiled kindly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t play Cupid. Carolyn’s all hearts and flowers and family-family-family now. It’s contagious. Pay me no mind. I’m a doddering old man about to become a grandpa.”

Mickey managed a smile. “You’re not doddering, and you’re not old. But I’ve got to get to back to the accounts.”

Vern’s face went serious. “Help me out first, will you? Caro called me on her car phone. Told me about Enoch. She took it harder than I thought she would. I suppose it brings back the other losses.”

Mickey nodded, for death had taken most of Carolyn’s family. Her father had deserted the family long ago and later died in Canada. Her mother and sister had both died of breast cancer. She had lost her first husband to a heart attack.

Now, both her uncles were gone, too. Beverly and the new baby were her only close blood relatives.

“I never knew Enoch,” Vern said solemnly. “Carolyn always shrugged him off as just a loner, but he sounded like a kook to me. I hope he hasn’t pulled any funny business with this will. Show me the letter, will you?”

Mickey led him into Carolyn’s office. Vern read it and shook his head. “I wonder who the hell this guy is. Hope he didn’t insinuate himself into the old coot’s life to fleece him. Enoch was getting up in years. He might have been losing his grip on reality.”

The thought was a grim one, and it had occurred to Mickey, too.

Vernon swung open the framed painting that hid the wall safe. “The original will’s in here somewhere. I’m going to take it into town and show it to Martin Avery. I want a lawyer’s opinion. I won’t have Caro cheated out of what’s rightfully hers.”

“That makes two of us,” Mickey said. There were eleven thousand acres of lease land, more than half the ranch. If Carolyn lost them, it would be ruinous to the Circle T. Next to her family, Carolyn loved the ranch more than anything in the world.

CAROLYN KNOCKED at Mickey’s door.

“Come on in,” Mickey called. She lay on the couch reading a library book. Carolyn entered, unceremoniously pushed aside Mickey’s stocking feet and sat next to her. “Well, I finally got through to the number Adam Duran gave.”

“And?” Mickey bit into an apple, her midevening snack.

“The number wasn’t a personal phone. It was a marina of some kind. I talked to a man who sounded like he was reciting the lyrics to a Calypso song.”

Mickey laughed. “So what did you learn?”

“Not much. I told him I was trying to find Duran to invite him to stay with us. He said he’d relay the message, that he’d see him later tonight.”

“Did you ask him who Duran is? What he does?”

“No. Too much noise. Like there was a party going on in the background. Anyway, I left word.”

“Hmm.” Mickey shrugged. “So what did the lawyer tell Vern?”

“Martin? He knows the old will was valid—his father’s the one who drew it up. If this Duran tries to pull something shady, Martin can handle him. He’s going to look it over and get back to us. But at this point he doesn’t think we have to worry.”

“That’s a relief,” Mickey said. “Super Barrister on the job. Hooray for Mighty Martin.”

Carolyn rumpled her hair playfully. From the front of the house, they heard the doorbell chime. A moment later, Vern knocked at Mickey’s door, which stood ajar. “Carolyn? Mickey? Come on out here. Lynn’s here. And she’s got a surprise for you.”

“Oops,” said Mickey. “Shoes? Shoes?” She groped around and slipped back into her moccasins, then followed Carolyn to the living room. Carolyn gave her niece’s cheek a smacking kiss, and Mickey greeted her with a grin.

Petite and auburn-haired, Lynn was the daughter of J. T. McKinney and Pauline, Carolyn’s late sister. In her thirties, Lynn looked young for her age, and her jeans and riding boots made her seem tomboyish. She was smiling like someone almost too joyful to contain herself.

“I just found out,” Lynn bubbled, “and I had to ride straight over to tell you in person. Guess what?”

“You’ve got a new horse?” Carolyn asked. Horses were Lynn’s passion.

“No,” laughed Lynn, “much better! Tyler and Ruth sold the winery in Napa Valley. They’re coming home! This time to stay.”

Lynn threw her arms around her aunt. She and Carolyn hugged and laughed and cried at the same time. Mickey grinned. Carolyn’s nephew—her late sister’s firstborn—coming home! Tyler was Carolyn’s favorite of Pauline’s children, and the one about whom she’d worried most.

Tyler had brains, determination and an almost endless capacity for work. What he’d never had was luck. His younger brother, Cal, seemed to prosper without effort. Tyler struggled to run two wineries that were a thousand miles apart. He was deeply in debt, mostly to Cal.

Carolyn had feared Tyler and his family might stay in California forever. His wife had inherited the Napa Valley winery. But running it was not only expensive, but a backbreaking job. Tyler’s heart belonged truly to the more humble winery he’d started in Claro County. He had sweat blood to keep both operations working.

“When did this happen?” Caro drew back to study Lynn’s beaming face.

“He called this afternoon. Ruth said she couldn’t watch Tyler work himself to death any longer. She decided she wanted to come back, and just this last weekend they put the winery up for sale. They didn’t tell anybody here, because they thought it might take forever to sell—”

Vern nodded. “True, from what I’ve read lately about the California wine market. I’m glad for Tyler. He’s had enough hard breaks.”

Lynn was so excited, she practically bounced. “But this movie star decided he wanted a winery—and it was theirs he wanted. It was just the right size, he said. So, as soon as they close the deal, in two weeks, they’ll move back.”

“To the house they built,” Carolyn said with satisfaction. “And the vineyards they planted here.”

“I’ve missed them something terrible,” Lynn admitted. Tears still glistened in her eyes.

“I know, honey,” Carolyn said. “We all have. But they had to try.”

Vern shook his head. “Two outfits, that far apart, that high maintenance—I was scared he’d work himself into an early grave trying to handle it all.”

Or go broke trying, Mickey thought. She knew Carolyn had worried about that, too. Without Cal’s help, Tyler would have failed long ago.

Carolyn took Lynn’s face between her hands. “I’m glad good luck’s finally come his way. He’s long overdue, that big brother of yours.”

“And Cal’s coming next fall, too,” Lynn said. “Both my brothers are moving home. I can’t believe it. We’ll all be together again.”

“Well, this occasion calls for one thing,” Vern announced. When the three women looked at him questioningly, he gave them a superior smile. “A toast. In wine. Texas wine.”

Mickey laughed, and so did Carolyn. Lynn hugged her aunt again and said, “And Beverly’s having a baby in less than a month. Nothing’s more important than family. Everything’s perfect.”

“Indeed, it is,” agreed Vern.

And everything did seem perfect. So perfect that no further thought of Adam Duran crossed anyone’s mind.

CHAPTER TWO

ON TUESDAY, Martin Avery came to the house to discuss Enoch’s will. Martin, in his mid-sixties, had rosy pink skin and snow-white hair.

Mild, mannerly and tidy, he had practiced law longer than anyone in Claro County. He was a peaceful man who worked hard to bring about peaceful solutions.

He sat at the dining room table with Carolyn and Vern. Because Mickey handled so much of the ranch’s business, Carolyn asked her to stay and listen to what Martin had to say.

Martin touched the two wills that lay before him. “These are simple documents. Enoch didn’t like doing things in complicated ways.”

Martin summed up the agreement Enoch had originally made with Carolyn’s mother. As long as she paid the lease monies, she was heir to the land. When she’d died, Enoch had the will redrawn naming Carolyn as heir, but nothing else was changed.

He paused. “Did he ever express dissatisfaction with the arrangement?”

Although Carolyn’s face showed concern, she shook her head no. “Every year he endorsed the check and wrote saying that the will stood according to agreement.”

“And when’s the last time he confirmed it?”

“A year ago.” She frowned. “But last year’s lease was legally up on April 21st, and he never cashed this year’s check. If he didn’t cash it, technically, right now, I’m not leasing the land. Is that a problem?”

“Let’s hope not. He probably didn’t cash it because he was ill.”

Vern spoke up. “It still worries me, and so does this executor. Who is he? Why’s he coming here? I don’t like the sound of it.”

Martin laid a slim, pink hand on the older document. “A will has to name an executor. In the first one, he named my father. But my father was retired when Enoch made you heir, Carolyn. He didn’t know or trust me—I was just a young whippersnapper to him.”

He touched the more recent will. “The executor for this one’s a judge in the Bahamas. If he retired or died, Enoch would have to name someone to replace him. Someone he trusted, and he didn’t trust easily. He’d be hard to hoodwink.”

Vern didn’t seem convinced. “Wouldn’t he have to rewrite the will to do that?”

“A handwritten codicil with witnesses should do it.”

“I hope you’re right.” Vern muttered. “But it bothers me. Duran sounds like a crank.”

Martin smiled and handed the two wills to Vernon. “Enoch was a crank himself. It figures he’d hook up with one of his own kind.”

“I wonder why he wanted this man to come to Texas,” Carolyn mused. “What’s the point?”

Martin gave a good-natured shrug. “Maybe that’s how he wanted it done. A friend to carry it out in person. Not to hand it off to some long-distance lawyer.” He made a wry face. “We lawyers are reputed to be a shifty lot, you know.”

Vern laughed, and Carolyn and Mickey both smiled. Carolyn said, “So I shouldn’t expect any surprises?”

Martin’s expression grew serious again. “There can always be surprises. If there are, we’ll deal with them as they arise. In the meantime relax, Caro. You’ve got a blessed event coming up. Don’t let some vague worry spoil it.”

Bridget Blum, the cook, knocked at the door frame. “Carolyn, that antique dealer from Austin’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you about the high chair from England. He can get it after all.”

Carolyn whooped. “He can? Fabulous! I’ll be right there—excuse me, everybody.”

And she was dashing off, the will forgotten for the time, her thoughts happily centering again on the coming of little Carrie.

Vernon pretended to hold his head in despair. “Antique? From England? The shipping alone will break us. She’s a woman possessed.”

“But it’s a good way to be possessed,” said Martin.

Mickey and Vernon walked him to the front door. As they watched Martin climb into his car, Vern said, “She has been extravagant lately. Beef prices aren’t what they used to be. It’s harder for her every year to keep this ranch in the black.”

Mickey knew. Every year she’d seen the profits wobble and sometimes shrink. “It’s just that she’s so excited right now. She’ll come back to herself. You’ll see.”

Vern patted her shoulder. “You’re exactly right. She’s kept a tight budget for a long time. She ought to be able to indulge herself.” He glanced at his watch. “I need to get back to the courthouse, but I’ll be home as early as I can. Mick, are you ready for this Duran character to descend?”

“Ready as I can be.”

Early that morning the man with the Caribbean accent had phoned and left a message on Carolyn’s answering machine. He said that he’d told Duran of the invitation, and Duran sent word he would stay if she wanted him to. But only if.

Carolyn and Mickey had found the message cryptic and wondered why Duran hadn’t phoned himself. Carolyn said maybe he was one of those people who didn’t like phones, and Mickey guessed that he was deaf, and they’d spend the whole visit shouting into his ear.

“I’m sure Carolyn’s delegated you the job of getting ready for Duran.” Vern smiled. “She’s too busy in Babyland.”

Mickey shot him a grin. “Bingo.”

She’d already seen to the guest room and given Bridget a supper menu. If Duran needed entertaining, she’d made a list of things that might amuse him. The Hill Country was in full spring bloom now, and if she had to, she’d drive him past every bluebonnet in the county.

Mickey spanked her hands together. “Don’t worry,” she said with total confidence. “I’ll handle him.”

THAT AFTERNOON Mickey was going over Carolyn’s extensive lists of Things That Must Be Done For the Great Journey to Denver.

Round-trip first-class tickets from Austin to Denver. Check.

Rental car in Denver. Check.

Arrange to courier extra luggage. Check.

Get Vern’s prescriptions refilled. Check.

Carolyn’s travel wardrobe. Fifty-two items, stored in guest-room closet, ready to be packed. Check, except two pairs of shoes.

Vern’s travel wardrobe (as if Vern cared). Twenty-one items. Stored with Carolyn’s to be packed. Check.

Presents for Beverly, twelve items. Check.

Presents for Sonny, nine items. Check.

Presents for baby, thirty-seven items. Check except locket to be picked up from jeweler in Austin.

Regular camera. Check.

Digital camera. Check.

Video camera. Check.

Film. Check.

Videotape. Check.

Mickey was starting page two of the list, when Carolyn called her into the living room. She was once again obsessed with The Matter of the Panda. Vern had just got home from work, and Carolyn wanted to talk to him, too.

“I’ve decided yes on that pink panda from Saks,” Carolyn announced. “But I don’t want to send it, I want to take it. I’ll have to carry it on the plane. See what the airline says, will you, Mickey? I’d hate to buy an extra seat for it. But I will if I have to.”

“Good grief!” Vern said. “A seat for a panda? We’ll be bankrupt.”

“Oh, hush,” Carolyn said. “When we come back home again, I’ll behave. You know I will. But that panda’s going to Denver.”

“That thing’s four feet tall,” he protested. “How can you carry it on? It’s big enough to carry you.”

“I don’t care,” said Carolyn. “It’s the most wonderful panda I’ve ever seen, and I want to give it to her myself.”

“Her? She’s a baby, Carolyn,” Vern reasoned. “She won’t even be able to see it.”

But Carolyn wouldn’t be budged. “I want to make Beverly laugh when she sees us deplane. It’s the cutest panda in the world. It’ll tickle her to pieces.”

“It won’t fit in the overhead.”

“I’ll hold it on my lap,” Carolyn replied. “It’s only a thousand miles or so.”

Vern rolled his eyes heavenward in mock despair. But when he let his gaze rest again on Carolyn, he couldn’t disguise his affection for her or his pleasure at her excitement.

Carolyn was thinking out loud. “But if I’m going to carry a pink panda, I can’t wear the red suit. I’ll wear the new pink one. But the shoes haven’t come yet. Mickey, will you call the store? I ordered them three weeks ago. What’s so hard about dying shoes pink?”

“Should be easy,” Mickey agreed and wrote,

Call airline about panda.

Call about pink shoes.

Carolyn laid her finger against her chin thoughtfully. “I should make an appointment at Curly Sue’s just before we go. This new tint she put on my hair isn’t holding. I want my old brand. I don’t want to go to Denver half blond and half gray….”

“I’ll call her for you,” Mickey promised, adding Curly Sue—old tint, to her list.

“You’d be gorgeous if your hair was green,” Vern said and kissed his wife’s forehead. “Settle down, honey. The baby isn’t due for three weeks.”

“Don’t pay any attention to me,” Carolyn said cheerfully. “I’m losing my mind, that’s all.”

“You need reality therapy,” Vern said. “Go change into your jeans. Maybe we’ll have time to take a little canter before this Duran fella comes.”

“But—” Carolyn started to protest.

“Go change,” Vern said firmly. “It’ll do you good. I’m going to get a glass of tea.” He ambled toward the kitchen.

Just as Carolyn headed for the master bedroom, the telephone jingled. Mickey reached for it, but Carolyn, brightening again, said, “I’ll get it. Maybe the locket’s ready.”

But when she picked up the phone and listened to the voice at the other end, her expression changed, and her body tensed as if she’d been physically struck.

Mickey had been on her way to her office, but the transformation in Carolyn alarmed her. She halted, staring in concern.

Carolyn sank onto the sofa as if her knees no longer had strength to support her. Her shoulders sagged, and her hands shook so hard she had to use both to hold the receiver. Her face turned ashen, and suddenly she looked every one of her fifty-six years.

She hardly spoke. From time to time she stammered out a question. But mostly she listened. And listened. Tears welled in her eyes.

Mickey’s heart went cold and clenched up like a fist. She had a sickening certainty: only one thing could hit Carolyn this hard. Something’s happened to Beverly. Or to the baby. Or to both.

When Carolyn hung up, her hands shook worse, and tears streaked her cheeks. Mickey, frightened, hurried toward her just as Vern stepped back into the room.

“Sometimes Bridget puts too much sugar in that stuff,” Vern grumbled, “Doesn’t even taste like tea anymore. Tastes like—”

He stopped when he saw Carolyn’s face. “Caro?” He went to her side and put his arm around her. “What’s wrong, honey?”

Carolyn could hardly speak. She struggled to keep her chin from quivering, but her lips moved jerkily, and she had to choke out the news.

The caller had been Beverly’s husband, Sonny. He’d had to rush Beverly to the emergency ward that morning just before dawn. Doctors had performed an emergency caesarian.

The baby was undersized, and her skin had a bluish cast. Her heart had a serious defect.

Carolyn started to cry harder, but forced herself to tell the rest. Sonny said that little Carrie had an obstruction of the right ventricle. She’d been put in a special neonatal unit. She needed open-heart surgery as soon as possible. Without surgery, she could not survive.

Then Carolyn lost control, and Vern drew her into his arms, holding her tightly.

Mickey, stunned and feeling helpless, put her hand on Carolyn’s shoulder. Never before had she seen Carolyn break down completely. Never.

“They’ll try to operate tomorrow,” Carolyn sobbed. “But she’s—she’s so tiny. And Beverly doesn’t know yet. They haven’t told her how serious it is. Oh, Vern, I want to go to them now.”

“Then we’ll go.” Vern held her tighter.

As he stroked her hair and rubbed her back, his troubled brown eyes settled on Mickey. “Mick, call the airport, will you? Get us on the first flight out of here.”

“I want to get to Beverly,” Carolyn said. “And my grandbaby. I’ve got to.”

Mickey’s mind raced, searching for the best way to meet this crisis. “What if I call J.T.? Maybe he could fly you.”

J.T., Carolyn’s brother-in-law, was a pilot, with his own small jet.

Vern looked at her gratefully. “Bless you, Mick. I didn’t even think of J.T.”

“I’ll phone him,” Mickey said. “Then I’ll pack for you.”

J.T. NOT ONLY AGREED to fly Caro and Vern to Denver; he insisted on it. He would be ready to take off in an hour, and urged Mickey to just get them to his place. And so Mickey packed only two suitcases instead of the dozens Carolyn had so painstakingly planned.

Carolyn refused, superstitiously, to take any of the presents, especially the baby gifts. If the worst happened, it would be too unbearable to have them there, each like a pulsing wound.

Mickey drove Carolyn and Vern to J.T.’s ranch. As Carolyn climbed into the plane, she looked dazed. She wasn’t wearing her pink suit or pink shoes or carrying the big pink panda designed to make Beverly laugh.

Mickey noticed, sadly, that Carolyn had been right. Her hair was half gray and half blond. She had planned to get off the plane in Denver looking glamorous and confident, ready to buck up Beverly’s spirits. Instead, she would arrive wan, disheveled and shaken.

Mickey brooded on the unfairness of it all the way back to the Circle T. Carolyn, Vern, Beverly and Sonny were good people, kind and generous. Carolyn had been like a second mother to Mickey—no, in truth, she’d treated Mickey far better than Mickey’s own mother had. She had been Mickey’s salvation. And so had Vern.

As for Sonny, he was himself a doctor, easing suffering and saving lives. Beverly was a hospital administrator. She, too, had worked to serve and heal people. Why was their child stricken? Life wasn’t simply unjust, it was random and cruel.

Lost in these gloomy thoughts, it wasn’t until late afternoon that Mickey realized she’d forgotten something. Worry and sorrow had driven all else from her mind.

She was puzzled when she heard an unfamiliar-sounding car come up the drive and stop. Its door slammed, and someone mounted the front porch steps. The doorbell rang, buzzing like an impatient wasp.

Mickey stifled a swearword. Oh, no, she thought. Adam Duran. Who needed him at a time like this? And Carolyn had invited him to stay.

The last thing Mickey wanted at this point was to guest-sit a stranger and pretend to be hospitable. She stamped to the entrance foyer, feeling anything but welcoming. But Carolyn would want her to be gracious, so she tried to hide her irritation as she swung open the door.

She saw the man standing there, and she blinked in amazement.

Good grief, he’s gorgeous, she thought in confusion. This can’t be him.

But it was. “I’m Adam Duran,” he said. He had a low voice, slightly husky. “I’m here to see Carolyn Trent.”

He held out his hand. She grasped it. It was warm and seemed to vibrate in hers, as if his gave off an electrical charge.

He was six feet tall with unfashionably long hair that fell past his ears and curved in a thick forelock across his brow. The hair was dark blond, and he was as tanned as a construction worker. His eyes were azure-blue.

He was dressed casually, almost insolently so for someone on a legal errand. His jeans were faded. The cotton shirt, too, was washed out, laundered so often the fabric was thin.

Yes, she thought, slightly awed, he looked like someone who lived on a sun-drenched island, who swam in the ocean every day, who was a different breed of man altogether from the land-bound cattlemen she knew.

The only thing that seemed out of place was that he had on cowboy boots, well-worn black ones, scuffed and down at the heels. In his left hand he carried a battered duffel bag.

A giddy, fluttery sensation filled her with bewilderment. He was a striking man, but handsome men didn’t have this effect on her—ever.

The expression on her face must have gone odd. He looked at her more closely and frowned. “This is Carolyn Trent’s place?”

Mickey, embarrassed by her reaction, tried to seize control of herself. She’d been carrying her reading glasses, and thrust them on as if donning a protective mask. The lenses blurred her vision. This helped her regain control of herself. Dimmed and out of focus, he was not as disturbing.

“Yes,” she said in her crispest tone. “I’m Mrs. Trent’s secretary. She said you’d be here. Come in.”

He took a step closer then paused. The sea-blue eyes had a critical glint as he looked her up and down. “And your name is…?” he prompted.

Her smile felt stiff, forced. “Miss Nightingale. Michele Nightingale. Er, Mickey.”