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.“And Rosie is probably closer to eighty, but we do not discuss her age or she gets bitchier than my mama ever was.”Loretta shrugged.“Lookin’ back, I understand Eva a lot better.If my only son had come home at eighteen and said he had married his pregnant girlfriend, I would have been a worse bitch than she was.Add that to the personality change because of the brain tumor and it’s a wonder she didn’t get into your gun safe and do more than just cuss at me.Every time I looked across the table at Travis during lunch, I felt closer to her.”Jackson sat up and propped his elbows on his knees.“Dinner, darlin’.In the canyon the noon meal is dinner.The evening meal is supper.If you’re going to stay with us all summer, you need to get it right.You used to know those things, but I guess all your fancy lawyer boyfriends in the big city taught you different.”“Don’t call me darlin’,” she said.How did he know she’d dated a couple of lawyers, anyway?“Don’t read more into it than it is.Crazy, ain’t it, how we survived that first year and then the second with all the new baby stuff and two more before you got a burr up your ass and split? Are you ready to talk about it?”She picked up her shoes and swallowed the lump in her throat.“Talkin’ wouldn’t have helped then and now it’s too late.”She shoved her wet feet into her running shoes and stood.She tugged at the legs of her jean shorts and tucked a couple of stray strands of red hair back into the ponytail swinging on the back of her head.“You leaving?” Jackson asked.“I didn’t even get to taste your cherry toenails.”“That ain’t likely to happen anytime now or in the future.Enjoy your meditation time,” she threw over her shoulder as she took off in an easy jog toward the ranch house.Twenty minutes later she collapsed on the porch in a sweaty heap, sitting on the steps and panting, glad that no one was home to see her in that condition.It wasn’t fair that she was still attracted to Jackson after what had happened.But then, there hadn’t been a fine-print paragraph in their marriage license guaranteeing that life would be fair or that she would never catch her husband kissing another woman in the barn.When she could catch her breath, she headed into the empty house, up the stairs and toward that big, beautiful tub where she intended to let her mind go completely blank and not think of anything.Chapter FiveLORETTA RAN WITH THE GRACE OF A WILD ANIMAL—all natural, nothing forced, and not a wasted movement.Jackson could have sat there in the dirt and watched her all afternoon, but in a few minutes she was completely out of sight.He had tried rationalizing what went wrong in their relationship; tried to shift the blame for that Sunday into her lap, but it still all came back around to him.If he hadn’t been in the barn with Dina doing things a married man had no right to do, then Loretta wouldn’t have left.Period.He’d been given a second chance, though.What he did with it was totally up to him.When he was twenty-three, his mama’s last words had echoed in his head every time he and Loretta walked into church, went to the Sugar Shack for a beer and to dance, or even went to the grocery store.“She hasn’t been faithful since before you married her.That baby isn’t yours and she’ll break your heart yet.Send her in here and leave us alone,” Eva had said moments before she went into the coma.Loretta’s face had been ashen when she came out of the room a few minutes later, but she’d never answered when he asked what had happened in those last minutes of his mother’s life.Six months later his mother’s prophecy came true and his world fell apart.Just to satisfy a niggling little seed of the doubt that his mother had planted, he’d paid for DNA testing to be done the first time he had Nona for weekend visitation.She was definitely his daughter, just like his heart had told him all along.Loretta hadn’t cheated on him and the flirting from the men had most likely been one-sided too.His mother had been wrong.He’d been wrong to listen to her and damn sure wrong to let things go as far as they had that Sunday with Dina, even if she was one insistent woman.He didn’t deserve Loretta after the way he’d acted.It was his fault she was gone.His father had still been living when the divorce papers arrived at the canyon.He could almost hear the whoosh of relief when Sam Bailey found out that all Loretta wanted was child support.She hadn’t even asked for the rest of Nona’s toys.“She could have asked for half this ranch.I put it all in your name right after your mama passed on, as you know.It’s always been an unwritten rule that Lonesome Canyon goes to the oldest child, but Loretta could have gotten a good lawyer and there wouldn’t have been a ranch left,” Sam had said.Jackson pulled his feet up out of the water.Going back and reliving the days before and right after the separation didn’t do a bit of good.“Hello, the camp,” Waylon Calhoun yelled from twenty yards away.“Come right in and sit a spell.Don’t have a campfire and beans to offer you, but there’s plenty of water to cool your feet,” Jackson hollered back [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]