Even the Nights are Better. Margot Dalton

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.”

      “Well, don’t you think that’s good news?” Vernon asked. “Aren’t you glad to see the kids prospering?”

      “Not at the expense of my ranch and my herds.”

      “They won’t bother your herds,” Vernon said comfortably. “Besides,” he added with his wry grin, “just think how much business those greenhorns are gonna bring in to the hospital, what with all the rope burns and cactus spines and saddle sores and broken bones. Maybe the nursery will finally be able to afford those new baby incubators they’ve been lobbying for.”

      Carolyn chuckled in spite of herself, then looked gloomy again. “I just wish I knew where he came from, Vern.”

      Vernon glanced at her in surprise. “Everybody knows the man’s biography by now, Carolyn. He comes from Austin, grew up there and got his law degree from—”

      “From Baylor,” Carolyn interrupted impatiently. “I know all that, Vern. And he’s a highly successful divorce lawyer who’s decided he wants a new challenge, some wholesome country life, etc. etc. I could recite the man’s pedigree in my sleep, I think. What I want to know is how he got to be my neighbor. Who told him the place was for sale? It was never advertised in the city. Who sold it to him? Where did he come from?”

      Vernon was silent, gripping the wheel of his parked car and looking with apparent deep interest at the quiet deserted veranda of Carolyn’s sprawling stone ranch house.

      “I know, I know,” Carolyn said, gazing at his quiet profile. “You’re not going to tell me, are you? Realtors stick together and protect one another just like any other profession. But believe me, if I ever get my hands on whoever sold that man the ranch next door without even so much as coming over to mention to me that it was for sale…”

      She paused and her beautiful face tightened briefly with emotion. Then she collapsed against the seat, washed under by a sudden flood of dark misery.

      Vernon turned to her, his face full of concern. “Caro? What’s the matter, girl?”

      “Oh, I don’t know, Vern,” she said helplessly. “Somehow it all just seems too much to bear, you know? The place next door bringing disease and problems to my herd, and poor Cynthia and J.T., and everything…seems like this day’s been getting more and more awful ever since you came through the gates this morning with that pitiful little mop dog.”

      As she spoke the words, her face twisted suddenly and she stared at Vernon, her blue eyes wide with wretched appeal.

      “Vern,” she whispered. “The mop dog! Oh, God, when Cynthia phoned I forgot all about him till this moment! Oh, no…”

      Still murmuring distractedly, she flung herself from the car and ran across the driveway to the barn. Vernon watched her for a startled moment and then hurried after her, his face drawn with anxiety.

      “I was in the kitchen,” Carolyn said hastily