Margot Dalton - Even the Nights are Better

“I know,” Carolyn said with a distant smile. “He was ten years older than you and me, Vern, but I had such a crush on him when I was little. I envied Pauline so much when she started going out with him, I could hardly talk to her for a year or so.”

She stared out silently at the trees shimmering in the afternoon sun, recalling the vivid agonies and delights of that long-ago childhood time.

Vernon grinned. “You got over it, though, I hope. Just look at the bluebonnets in that field, Caro. I’ve never seen them so spectacular so early.”

“I know,” Carolyn said absently. “I was thinking the same thing, just this morning. Seems like a century ago. Yes, I got over it,” she added, returning to their earlier topic. “But after I recovered from my crush, J.T. turned into one of my best friends. I’ve always depended on him, and more than ever since Frank’s been gone. I just can’t bear the thought of…”

She choked and fell silent. Vernon gave her a quick glance. “He’s going to be all right, you know, Caro,” he said. “Nate sounded optimistic, and you’ll notice that he mentioned several times how tough the man is. Nate’s a square shooter. He doesn’t say things like that just to hear himself talk.”

“You know what I keep thinking?” Carolyn said as if Vernon hadn’t spoken. “I keep thinking it’s my fault, that I should have seen it coming. I noticed lately how gray and tired he’d been looking, and how

he’s been rubbing his left arm a lot. I actually teased him once about old cowboys and arthritis, but I never thought about heart attacks. You’d think that of all people, I would have been alert to warning signs like that.”

“You were just like the rest of us,” Vernon told her calmly. “J.T.’s always seemed indestructible, so we all just chalked it up to stress. After all, there’s been a lot of that in J.T.’s life lately, even though most of it’s happy stress. He’s got a brand-new wife, and a new business venture starting up at the ranch, and a whole crew of prospective new family members, considering the way his kids are all getting paired up these days.”

“That’s not all,” Carolyn said, her voice bleak as she stared out the window.

“Not all what?”

“Not all the new family members,” Carolyn said miserably. “Vernon, don’t tell a soul because nobody knows yet, okay? Cynthia’s pregnant.”

Vernon gripped the wheel and stared at Carolyn, his square cheerful face reflecting his stunned amazement.

“Oh, my God,” he muttered aloud.

“You bet,” Carolyn said grimly. “I thought this morning that Cynthia wasn’t looking well, and wasn’t dealing with this whole thing as well as I would have expected her to, either. I managed to corner her at the ranch before the ambulance came and asked her if anything else was wrong, and that’s when she told me. Nobody knows yet but Nate Purdy.”

“And J.T., of course,” Vernon said automatically.

Carolyn shook her head. “Not even him. She’s just about a month pregnant, Vern. In fact, she only found out for sure yesterday, and she was going to tell him tonight. They were planning to go out to a romantic candlelight dinner at the country club, just the two of them, and she was going to tell him then.”

“The poor kid,” Vernon murmured, gazing straight ahead through the smoky curved windshield, his face deeply troubled.

“I know,” Carolyn said. She brushed absently at the slow tears that trickled down her cheeks. “And now, on what should be the happiest day of her life, she’s got this to deal with. And I know she’s blaming herself, Vern, thinking that she’s the cause of all this because she’s brought so much upheaval into J.T.’s life, first with her opposition to Tyler’s vineyard, and then the wedding and the renovations to the house… she feels just awful.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Vernon said. “She’s been damned good for J.T. He may have an ailing heart, but he’s looked happier these past few months than I’ve seen him in years.”

“Tell her that, Vern, if you get a chance,” Carolyn said, wiping her eyes and trying to smile at him. “She really needs to hear it.”

“You bet I will,” Vernon said. “You know,” he added haltingly, “it sounds ridiculous, but I almost envied J.T. this morning, while I was sitting there in that hospital waiting room.”

Carolyn stared at him. “You envied him? Why on earth, Vern?”

“I don’t know,” he said awkwardly. “I just thought what a lucky man he is to have so many people who love him, all those pretty women crying over him, and those two big tall sons….”

“You would have liked a family, wouldn’t you, Vern?” Carolyn said softly, looking with affection at the man beside her. “Why didn’t you? Ever get married, I mean? Lots of girls were after you when we were in high school. You were considered quite a catch.”

His mouth lifted in an engaging lopsided grin, and he swerved skillfully to avoid a little cottontail rabbit scuttling across the highway. “You’re kidding. Me, a catch?”

“Well, sure,” Carolyn said. “Remember Sally Thompson? She was crazy about you. She wrote your name all over the walls in the girls’washroom.”

Vernon gave a theatrical sigh. “Now she tells me,” he commented sadly. “Thirty years too late. Actually,” he added in a more serious tone, “I guess that the years when I might have been interested, Carolyn, I was running around in the jungle carrying ammunition clips. And then when I came home, everybody was kind of settled already and I was odd man out, and I just decided to stay that way. Less complicated,” he added.

Carolyn gave him a thoughtful glance. There was something strange and guarded in his tone and she was on the point of questioning him further, probing a little more deeply. But just then something came into her line of vision and she stiffened in annoyance, turning sharply to gaze out the window.

“Look at that!” she burst out, peering at a set of intricate wrought-iron gates adorning a low curving stone wall. “He’s even got it on the front gates now, for God’s sake.”

“What?” Vernon asked.

“The Hole in the Wall. He’s had those gates mounted since the last time I was by here. Look at them. Isn’t that awful?”

“Well, Caro,” Vern said reasonably, “it is the name of the ranch, you know. He’s entitled to put it on the gates if he wants to. I’ve heard that it’s easier for customers to find the place, you know, when you have the right name on the gate.”

Carolyn ignored this attempt at humor. “I hate it,” she said darkly. “I just hate it, Vern.”

“Why, Caro? What’s so bad about it?”

Carolyn repeated her grievances, telling Vernon all the same things she’d told Manny earlier in the day, while he drove through her own gates and parked by the house, listening in silence.

“Well, I agree with Manny,” Vernon said finally, turning to her and resting his arm along the top of the seat. “A lot of this could just be gossip and conjecture, Caro. You’ve never been one to pay much attention to gossip, far as I can recall. Why don’t you wait till the place opens and then judge for yourself?”

Carolyn tensed, irrationally annoyed by the calm reasonableness of his words and his tone. “Well, I sure don’t have much choice, do I?”

“I think it’ll be great for the community,” Vernon went on. “Bring in all kinds of new business.”

“Yeah, sure,” Carolyn said gloomily. “Thousands more dudes and rock hounds, littering and trespassing and bothering the cattle. Tyler says Cal and Serena are thinking of opening a boot shop out at the dude ranch. They’re expecting so much business that they feel it would actually be viable.”