Cowboys and Cabernet

“Hey, Tyler, whadda ya think?” Wayne Jackson called across the room. “Ten bucks a square, an’ the winner gets a case of whiskey?”

“Two bits a square,” Tyler called back firmly, “and the winner gets a free beer. The problem with you guys,” he added, grinning at Ruth, “is that y’all are just so damn greedy.”

Ruth’s cheeks colored faintly when he said this and she met his eyes with a startled look, then glanced quickly away, wondering if the man had somehow read her mind.

Not likely, she thought. Tyler McKinney didn’t have enough sensitivity to read any woman’s mind. He was probably like a lot of people, always quick to criticize something in others that was actually one of his own worst flaws.

She dismissed the thought and returned to her examination of the coffee shop with its red-checked cloths, its chalkboard and big vinyl menus and miniature jukeboxes on each table.

“Care for a tune?” Tyler asked, flipping though the numbered pages and squinting at the various musical offerings while a pleasant young woman delivered their coffee and pastries.

“No thanks,” Ruth said automatically. She smiled up at the waitress and wondered who’d chosen the song currently playing, a noisy wailing number in which some errant husband was apparently pleading with his wife to open the door and let him in.

While they were eating Ruth gazed curiously at the other patrons of the coffee shop, mostly bluff hearty men with hats and boots. But there were a few women, too, secretaries enjoying afternoon coffee breaks and young ranch wives in town for a day’s shopping with their babies.

Two women sat in a booth near the back, and Ruth grew interested in them when she realized that the younger of the pair was studying her and Tyler with unwavering attention.

She was actually just a girl, Ruth realized, probably in her late teens. She had a pale pretty face, carefully made up, and a cloud of dark curly hair. Her eyes were her most arresting feature, large and shining and such a light blue that they were almost transparent, giving her a remote, ethereal look. The young body was ripe and full-breasted, probably destined to become hefty with advancing years. But Ruth didn’t realize until the girl shifted in the booth that her pink gingham shirt was actually a maternity smock, curving neatly over a small swollen abdomen.

The girl had a strangely passionate, concentrated look about her, an avid expression that was unsettling in its intensity. She seemed sly and secretive when she met Ruth’s glance, like some small predatory animal peering out from behind dense cover, pondering whether to attack or escape.

The woman with her was entirely different, tall, plain and rawboned, with a gruff sensible manner and large work-worn hands. Her hair was mostly gray, hacked off carelessly around her ears, and she wore a man’s shirt and jeans. Still, there was a mysterious similarity between the two, a likeness in bone structure and features that told Ruth they were probably mother and daughter.

While Ruth watched, the two women finished their fries and paid the bill, then gathered up handbags and parcels and walked toward the door. They passed close to Ruth and Tyler, and the younger one gave them another look of such intensity that Ruth was startled, even a little troubled.

“Tyler,” she whispered when the two had gone by, “who are those women?”

Tyler peered at the departing pair, frowning as he searched his memory. “I think their name’s Hill, something like that,” he said finally. “There was a big family of them, about eight kids, living in a little shack on the outskirts of town. Their daddy wasn’t good for much, just drinking and odd jobs. He got killed on the road a few years back, run over by an oil truck when he was walking home one night, and she moved the kids over to Lampasas. I think she’s working for a turkey farmer up there.”

“And the girl? Is that her daughter?”

Tyler nodded. “Must be the oldest girl. She’s all grown-up now. I remember her as a scrawny kid with a bunch of little brothers and sisters trailing after her. Come to think of it,” he added thoughtfully, “somebody told me she was back in Crystal Creek, working for Ralph Wall over at the drugstore. I forgot about it till you asked.”

“She looks like she’s pregnant.”

“Looks like,” Tyler said with a grin. “Why? What’s so interesting about those two?”

Ruth hesitated, wondering whether to tell him about the girl’s fixed scrutiny and the disturbing light in her eyes while she watched them.

“Oh, nothing,” she said finally. “You’re right about one thing,” she added, trying to sound cheerful. “These are just the most wonderful doughnuts in the whole world.”

“I told you,” Tyler said. “Dottie makes ’em fresh every morning. Well, are you ready to leave, Ruth? It’s probably safe to go home now, and I want to show you my plans for the vineyard.”

Ruth nodded automatically and gulped the last of her coffee, then waited while Tyler paid the bill and escorted her toward the door with its cheery curtain of red gingham.

She shivered when he took her elbow and pressed close behind her, disturbed by his nearness and the feel of his body against hers. No matter how she felt about Tyler McKinney, Ruth told herself again, there was certainly no denying the man’s physical appeal. She’d have to be careful to…

But she didn’t have a chance to finish the thought. When she and Tyler emerged onto the street in the slanting afternoon sunlight, the mother and daughter from the restaurant were standing just a few doors down, looking in the window of a clothing store while the older woman held forth on the exorbitant prices of children’s clothes these days.

The young girl looked at them and quickly fumbled with something that looked like a camera, then turned away with deliberate composure, rummaging in her big patchwork handbag and answering a question from her mother.

Ruth paused nervously and glanced up at Tyler to see if he’d noticed. But he was laughing and chatting with a young cowboy who’d slowed his pickup truck on the street to call out a greeting, and had apparently missed the whole incident.

Still feeling unsettled and troubled, Ruth walked beside Tyler in silence and allowed him to help her into the waiting Cadillac, while the pregnant girl in the pink smock stood on the sidewalk, watching their departure with those smoldering pale blue eyes.

“JODIE HILTZ, what in the world do you think you’re doin’?”

“My name is Jacqueline,” the dark-haired girl said, strolling along the street and gazing dreamily at her reflection in the store windows. “Jacqueline Hillcroft.”

“Like hell it is,” Marg Hiltz said coldly. “Your name is plain Jodie Hiltz, and you’d better stop puttin’ on all these phony airs, girl. They’ll bring you nothin’ but grief.”

Jodie ignored her mother. She smiled to herself as she patted her small bulging abdomen, then frowned angrily when a teenage boy with headphones and a skateboard careered past her, almost jostling her from the sidewalk.

“You took a picture of them people,” Marg said after an awkward silence.

Jodie remained silent, reaching up to pat her dark curls, tucking a strand of hair thoughtfully behind her ear.

“Didn’t you?” her mother persisted.

“A baby has a right to know what his daddy looks like,” Jodie said in a soft voice. “He’ll say, ‘Mama, what did my daddy look like when I was born?’ And I’ll show him the picture and say—”

“You’ll do nothin’ of the sort!” Marg stopped in midstride and reached out a big hand to grip her daughter’s arm, leaning forward to glare at the girl. “And what’s more,” the older woman added, glancing furtively over her shoulder and dropping her voice to a harsh whisper, “you better stop sayin’ things like that, Jodie Hiltz. You’re fixin’ to get the whole family into trouble, talkin’ such nonsense.”

“I’m not talking nonsense,” Jodie said calmly, shaking her mother’s hand away and resuming her march up the street.

“Tyler McKinney is not that baby’s father, and you know it,” Marg muttered furiously. “I got no idea who is its father, but it’s damn sure not one of the McKinneys! You’re just crazy, girl.”

Jodie gave her mother a placid secretive smile. “I know what I know,” she said.

“You know nothin’,” Marg said forcefully. “An’ if you got any brains at all, you’ll come back to Lampasas with me an’ help with the other kids, and forget this nonsense.”

“I’m staying right here. I want my little baby to grow up close to his daddy,” Jodie said with imperturbable calm. Marg shook her head helplessly, glancing at her oldest child and wondering what on earth ailed the girl…besides being pregnant, of course.

The fact of Jodie’s pregnancy was something that Marg dismissed quite casually. These things happened. In fact, Jodie had happened to her at just about the same age, though these days Marg certainly looked older than her years.

Raising eight kids with no money could do that to you, Marg thought philosophically. But she wasn’t complaining. The kids were healthy and if truth be told, life was really a whole lot better since Joe was gone. Now she could save a bit, and the kids could have a few nice things in return for all that hard work.

The prospect of another mouth to feed didn’t worry Marg. If Jodie would just quit her silliness and move back home they could make do when the baby came along, just as they always had. It would even be nice, Marg thought wistfully, having a sweet new little one around the house again. She’d always loved babies.

But Jodie was getting to be a real worry. Just last year she’d quit high school a few courses short of her diploma and announced that she was moving back to Crystal Creek to get a job. Then had come this pregnancy, though Marg had had no idea her daughter even had a boyfriend. And suddenly, just a month or so ago, she’d confided to her mother that Tyler McKinney, of all people, was the child’s father.

Marg didn’t know what to make of it. She couldn’t bring herself to believe the girl’s story, and yet there was Jodie’s calm unshakable conviction, and the clear absence of any other male in her daughter’s life, at least none that Marg could see on her visits to Crystal Creek.

They paused by the bus depot and Marg squinted at the sun. “There’s another bus leaves in a couple hours,” she said hopefully, “an’ Tommy promised he’d look after the chores for me tonight. I could just go on over to your place for a while, Jodie, have a mug of coffee an’ see what your—”

“No,” Jodie said quietly. “You better catch the early bus, Mama. Tommy’s awful young to be looking after the chores all on his own.”

Marg looked at this pretty daughter she’d never really understood, even when she was just a little bit of a thing.