Nancy Pickard - The Scent of Rain and Lightning

Fun. It felt like forever since she’d had any.

On days such as this one, when the house and the heat made her feel like an animal who wanted to claw and howl her way to freedom, Laurie thought she would take any escape that anybody offered to her.

And it wasn’t as if nobody ever did…

She smirked to herself, reveling in that other truth.

Her thoughts made her shiver again, but in a delicious way.

In that overheated moment, she intensely felt her own raw, tingling nakedness under her sundress, longing for hands upon her skin that were not her husband’s callused, fumbling, clumsy ones. She felt those other hands moving on her breasts, another mouth pressing against hers, another man’s weight on top of her, his eyes admiring her, eating her up, loving her in the ways she wanted to be loved and not in the tame, safe, predictable, infuriating ways she actually was loved. She imagined him commanding her, refusing to give her instantly what she demanded, making her wait and beg and do whatever he ordered her to do, holding her arms back, pinning her legs down, tasting her, teasing her, until she exploded with desire for him, and only then would he give it to her-laughing at her, tormenting her as he made her moan and scream and beg again, again, again. Her breath went shallow. She felt consumed by desire for skin she wasn’t supposed to touch, obsessed by sex she wasn’t supposed to have, wild with longing for things she wasn’t supposed to do and would never do with her husband. She didn’t believe she had made a mistake marrying Hugh-Jay-Laurie never thought she made mistakes because there were always other people to blame-but sometimes she wondered what it would have been like to marry one of those other boys who stared at her, one of the good-looking, sexy ones who hadn’t been respectful and patient like Hugh-Jay, one of the ones who’d been hot instead of lukewarm, who’d been exciting instead of steady, passionate and fun instead of plain and dull. What would her life be like if she went with a man who whispered shocking words to her, and who gave her things that didn’t have anything to do with money?

What if she could have had both, the money and the pleasure?

And then she finally saw it, the silver lining that her anger and the sluggish day had hidden from her until this moment: Hugh-Jay was going to be gone that night and maybe longer! She could do what she wanted to do. She could do what she needed to do, and had every right to do, because didn’t she have a right to be happy? And she wouldn’t even get in trouble for it, because there would be nobody home to catch her.

In her arms, Jody stirred and opened her eyes.

“Hi, sleepyhead,” her mother said, with an encouraging smile that surprised her daughter into smiling back. “How would you like to go out to Grandma and Grandpa’s to spend the night?”

ANNABELLE FELT NERVOUS as she drove her black Cadillac out to the men working in the pastures that afternoon. She was going to have to see Billy Crosby-after the awful things he’d done-and pretend she didn’t know he’d done them. It was vital to keep Billy out here at the ranch while the sheriff did his work in town. Billy wasn’t to know what was happening there. He needed to be taken into custody out here in the country, far from his vulnerable wife and innocent son-who should be spared the trauma of watching his father be carted off to jail. Billy needed to be surrounded by strong men who would make sure he didn’t do anything crazy or violent. Hugh wanted the arrest made quickly, quietly, with a minimum of trouble. So, with all her heart, did Annabelle. It had slowly sunk in on her and, she thought, on Hugh, just how dangerous a man might be who could do such things, and so she wasn’t only anxious, she was also scared of what was going to happen next. She had never seen anybody arrested except on television or in the movies, and never dreamed the first time would be at their own ranch. As she parked on the dirt road that ran through the pasture, she sent up a prayer for everybody’s safety.

It was her job now to contribute a touch of normalcy to the scene by doing exactly what all of the cowboys, including Billy, were expecting her to do.

And so she was taking iced tea and cinnamon rolls to them, because she always took treats to them when they worked long afternoons or mornings. When her daughter Belle was younger, she’d gone along, or she’d been up on horseback herself, helping with the cattle work. On some days, Annabelle took coffee and chocolate chip cookies or lemonade and molasses crinkles. Because of the impending weather, she had also stocked her Caddy with rubber rain slickers and plastic hat protectors for any man who’d neglected to bring his own. The clouds had finally moved across the Colorado-Kansas state line, with the main part of the storm now only a county and a half away from them. The first rain had already blown through in thin, intermittent sheets, not enough to stop the work, just enough to cool and mist the cowboys and their horses, all of whom had been working ever since Hugh Senior convened them with his emergency request for assistance.

“What will you tell them?” she’d asked him.

“Same thing I told the boys, that it’s vandalism and that’s all I know.”

Going nonstop, a group of neighbors, hired hands, and Linder men had managed to repair every cut section of fence but one that still awaited mending. A tour of the ranch had revealed other fences cut, other pastures breached, and other herds mixed up with each other. The cowboys were already organizing for getting on horseback to return cattle to their proper pastures, but when they saw Annabelle park on the shoulder of the highway, they tied up their horses again in anticipation of what she’d be bringing to them.

Weather wouldn’t stop them from work, unless it turned to lightning, but the smell of Annabelle Linder’s homemade rolls could, it was widely claimed, stop a rutting bull in his tracks.

The rain slickers that Annabelle brought, some bright yellow and others black, were heavy. Several of the cowboys jumped forward to assist her in carrying them, along with a big plastic jug of sweet iced tea and plastic cups. They transferred the treats across the grass and the dirt-which was just damp enough to stick to the bottoms of their boots-and set them on the backseat of one of their trucks.

Annabelle followed under an umbrella, carrying the napkins.

She was greeted with “Hi, Mom” from her sons and with courteous, drawled thank-yous from the other men. “Sure am sorry this happened to you folks, Annabelle,” one of the neighbors said. “It’s a rotten thing,” another man commented, which produced a murmur of masculine agreement in bass tones that felt comforting to her, as if they’d put a collective, caring arm around her shoulders. “Hope they catch the sons a bitches,” asserted a cowboy, followed by, “begging your pardon, ma’am.”

“I agree,” she said, and smiled at him.

Red Bosch, the youngest cowboy there, jumped forward with an offer to assist her with the rolls.

“Be happy to carry those rolls for you, Mrs. Linder,” young Red said earnestly.

He put out both arms so she might lay the tray on top of them. The rolls, huge and warm, had dripped their powdered sugar icing down their sides into gooey, soft-crusted puddles on the waxed paper she had placed beneath them.

“Don’t you let him do it,” an older cowboy warned her. “Or there won’t be any left for the rest of us.”

“Hey,” Red joked back. “I’m just a growing boy.”

“Exactly,” the cowboy said dryly, and everybody laughed, a welcome relief.

“Here, Red,” Annabelle said, handing the tray over to him. “You pass them around where everybody can see your hands.”