“Tate, I need a minute of your time.”

Avery barreled through the previously closed door, interrupting the conference being held in the large den at the ranch house.

Jack, who had been speaking when she made her peremptory entrance, was left standing in the midst of them with his hand frozen in a gesture and his mouth hanging open.

“What is it?” Tate asked, looking particularly ill-tempered.

Eddy was frowning with annoyance; Jack was cursing beneath his breath. Nelson’s displeasure was just as clear, but he made an attempt at civility. “Is it an emergency? Mandy?”

“No, Nelson. Mandy’s at nursery school.”

“Is it something Zee can help you with?”

“I’m afraid not. I need to speak privately to Tate.”

“We’re in the middle of something here, Carole,” he said testily. “Is it important?”

“If it weren’t important, I wouldn’t have interrupted you.”

“I’d rather you wait until we get finished or handle the crisis yourself.”

She felt her cheeks grow warm with indignation. Since their return home several days earlier, he had gone out of his way to avoid her. It had come as a vast disappointment but only a mild surprise that he hadn’t moved back into the yellow bedroom she occupied. Instead, he’d resumed sleeping alone in the adjoining study.

Their lovemaking hadn’t drawn them closer. Rather, it had widened the gap between them. The morning following it, they’d barely made eye contact. Words had been few. The mood had been subdued, as though something nefarious had transpired and neither party involved wanted to own up to it. She had taken her cue from Tate and pretended that nothing had happened in that wide bed, but the effort to remain impassive had made her cantankerous.

He had acknowledged it only once, as they waited for the bellman to come for their luggage. “We didn’t use anything last night,” he had said in a low, strained voice as he gazed out over the Dallas skyline.

“I don’t have AIDS,” she had snapped waspishly, wanting to prick his seemingly impenetrable aloofness. She succeeded.

He came around quickly. “I know. They would have discovered it while you were in the hospital.”

“Is that why you felt it was okay to touch me? Because I was disease-free?”

“What I want to know,” he ground out, “is if you could get pregnant.”

Glumly, she shook her head. “Wrong time of the month. You’re safe on all accounts.”

That had been the extent of the conversation about their lovemaking, although that term elevated the act into something it hadn’t actually been, at least for Tate. She felt like a one-night stand—an unpaid prostitute. Any warm, female body would have suited him. For the time being, he was sated. He wouldn’t need her for a while.

She resented being so disposable. Used once—well, twice, actually—then thrown away. Perhaps Carole’s unfaithfulness had been justified. Avery was beginning to wonder if Tate got off just as easily on the heady thought of becoming a senator as he did on sex. He certainly spent more time in pursuit of that than he did cultivating a loving relationship with his wife, she thought peevishly.

“All right,” she said now, “I’ll handle it.”

She pulled the den door closed with a hard slam. Less than a minute later she was slamming another door in the house—this one to Fancy’s bedroom. The girl was sitting on her bed, painting her toenails fire-engine red. A cigarette was burning in the nightstand ashtray. Condensation was collecting on the cold drink can beside the ashtray. Stereo headphones were bridging her head. Her jaws were working a piece of Juicy Fruit to the rhythm of the music.

She couldn’t possibly have heard the slamming door over the acid rock being blasted into her ears, but she must have felt the vibration of the impact because she glanced up and saw Avery glaring down at her, holding a gum wrapper in her hand.

Fancy replaced the brush in the bottle of nail polish and draped the headphones around her neck. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”

“I came to retrieve my belongings.”

Giving Fancy no more warning than that, Avery marched to the closet and slid open a louvered panel.

“Just a freaking minute!” Fancy exclaimed. She tossed the headphones down onto the bed and came charging off it.

“This is mine,” Avery said, yanking a blouse off a hanger. “And this skirt. And this.” She removed a belt from a hook. Finding nothing more in the closet, she crossed to Fancy’s dressing table, which was littered with candy wrappers, chewing gum foil, perfume bottles, and enough cosmetics to stock a drugstore.

Avery raised the lid of a lacquered jewelry box and began riffling through earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and rings. She found the silver earrings she had reported missing in Houston, a bracelet, and the watch.

It was an inexpensive wristwatch—costume jewelry, really—but Tate had bought it for her. It hadn’t been a bona fide gift. They had been browsing through a department store during a break in the campaign trip. She had seen the watch, remarked on its attractive green alligator band, and Tate had passed the star struck salesgirl his credit card.

Avery treasured it because he had bought it for her, not for Carole. She had noticed its disappearance from her jewelry box that morning. That had prompted her to storm the meeting in search of Tate. Since he had declined to advise her on how to deal with Fancy’s kleptomania, she had taken matters into her own hands.

“You’re a lousy thief, Fancy.”

“I don’t know how your stuff got into my room,” she said loftily.

“You’re an even lousier liar.”

“Mona probably—”

“Fancy!” Avery shouted. “You’ve been sneaking into my room and taking things for weeks. I know it. Don’t insult my intelligence by denying it. You leave unmistakable clues behind.”

Fancy looked down at the incriminating gum wrapper now lying on the bed. “Are you going to tattle to Uncle Tate?”

“Is that what you want me to do?”

“Hell, no.” She flopped back down on the bed and began vigorously shaking the bottle of nail polish. “Do whatever the hell you want to. Just do it someplace else besides my room.”

Avery was on her way out when she reconsidered. Turning back, she approached the bed and sat down. Taking the silver earrings, she pressed them into Fancy’s hand and folded her fingers around them.

“Why don’t you keep these? I would have loaned them to you if you had just asked.”

Fancy flung the earrings as far as she could throw them. “I don’t want your goddamn charity.” Her beautiful blue eyes turned ugly with dislike. “Who the hell are you to offer me your sorry leftovers? I don’t want the earrings or anything else you’ve got.”

Avery withstood the verbal attack. “I believe you. It’s not the earrings or any of this stuff that you wanted,” she said, nodding down at the possessions she had gathered. “What you wanted was to get caught.”

Fancy scoffed. “You’ve been out in the sun too long, Aunt Carole. Don’t you know the sun’s bad for your plastic face? It might cause it to melt.”

“You can’t insult me,” Avery returned blandly. “You don’t have the power. Because I’m on to you.”

Fancy regarded her sulkily. “What do you mean?”

“You wanted my attention. You got it by stealing. Just like you get your parents’ attention by doing things you know they’ll disapprove of.”

“Like fucking Eddy?”

“Like fucking Eddy.”

Fancy was taken aback by Avery’s calm echo of her cheeky question. She quickly recovered, however. “I’ll bet you nearly shit when you saw me coming out of his hotel room. Didn’t know I was anywhere near Houston, did you?”

“He’s too old for you, Fancy.”

“We don’t think so.”

“Did he invite you to join him in Houston?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” She sprayed fixative on her scarlet toenails, then waggled them as she admired her handiwork. Hopping off the bed, she moved to a drawer and took out a bikini. She peeled her nightgown over her head. Her body was marred by bruises and scratches. Her shapely buttocks were striped with them. Avery glanced away, a sick feeling rising in her stomach.

“I’ve never had a lover like Eddy before,” Fancy said dreamily as she stepped into the bikini trunks.

“Oh? What kind of lover is he?”

“Don’t you know?” Avery said nothing. She didn’t know if Carole had slept with her husband’s best friend or not. “He’s the best.” Fancy hooked the bikini bra, then leaned into the mirror, selected a lipstick off the dressing table, and spread it across her mouth. “Jealous?”

“No.”

They made eye contact in the mirror. Fancy looked skeptical. “Uncle Tate’s still sleeping in that other room.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Doesn’t matter to me,” she said with a malicious grin, “as long as you don’t try and take up the slack with Eddy.”

“You sound very proprietary.”

“He’s not sleeping with anybody else.” She bent at the waist and, flipping her hair forward, began pulling a brush through the thick, dark-blond strands.

“Are you sure of that?”

“I’m sure. I don’t leave him the energy to screw around on me.”

“Tell me about him.”

Fancy swept her hair to one side and slyly looked up at Avery from her upside down position. “I get it. Not jealous, just curious.”

“Maybe. What do you and Eddy find to talk about?”

“Do you chat with the guys you’re balling?” She laughed out loud. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any grass, would you?”

“No.”

“Guess not,” she said, sighing with disgust as she came erect and threw her hair back. “Uncle Tate went berserk when he caught us smoking that time. Wonder what he would have thought if he’d caught us sharing that cowboy?”

Avery blanched and looked away. “I… don’t do things like that anymore, Fancy.”

“No shit? For real?” She seemed genuinely curious.

“For real.”

“You know, when you first came home from the hospital, I thought you were faking it. You were Miss Goody Two Shoes all of a sudden. But now, I believe you really changed after that airplane crash. What happened? Are you afraid you’re gonna die and go to hell, or what?”

Avery changed the subject. “Surely Eddy’s told you something about himself. Where did he grow up? What about his family?”

Fancy propped her hands on her hips and regarded Avery strangely. “You know where he grew up, same as I do. Some podunk town in the Panhandle. He didn’t have any family, remember? Except for a grandma who died while he and Uncle Tate were still at UT.”

“What did he do before he came to work for Tate?”

Fancy had already grown impatient with the questions. “Look, we screw, okay? We don’t talk. I mean, he’s a real private person.”

“For instance?”

“He doesn’t like me going through his stuff. One night I was searching in his drawers for a shirt to put on and he got really pissed, said for me not to meddle in his stuff again, so I don’t. I don’t pry, period. We all need our privacy, you know.”

“He’s never mentioned what he did between Vietnam and when he came back to Texas?”

“All I’ve ever asked was if he’d been married. He told me he hadn’t. He said he’d spent a lot of time finding himself. I said, ‘Were you lost?’ I meant it like a joke, but Eddy got this funny look on his face and said something like, ‘Yeah, for a while there, I was.’ ”

“What do you think he meant by that?”

“Oh, I suspect he freaked after the war,” Fancy said with breezy unconcern.

“Why?”

“Probably because of Uncle Tate saving his life after their plane crashed. I guess Eddy relives bailing out, being wounded, and having Uncle Tate carry him around in the jungle until a chopper could pick them up. If you’ve ever seen him naked, you must’ve noticed the scar on his back. Pretty gruesome, huh?

“He must’ve been scared shitless they were gonna get captured by the Cong. Eddy begged Uncle Tate to leave him to die, you know, but Uncle Tate wouldn’t.”

“Surely he didn’t think Tate would,” Avery exclaimed.

“Well, you know the fighter pilots’ motto—‘Better dead than look bad.’ Eddy must’ve taken it to heart more than most. Uncle Tate was the hero. Eddy was just another casualty. That must still play on his mind.”

“How do you know all this, Fancy?”

“Are you kidding? Haven’t you heard Grandpa tell it often enough?”

“Oh, sure, of course. You just seem to know so many of the fine details.”

“No more than you. Look, I’m going out to the pool. Do you mind?”

Inhospitably, she walked to the door and pulled it open. Avery joined her there. “Fancy, the next time you want to use something of mine, just ask.” She rolled her eyes, but Avery ignored her insolence. Touching the girl’s shoulder briefly, she added, “And be careful.”

“Of what?”

“Of Eddy.”

* * *

“She said for me to be careful of you.”

The motel room was cheap, dusty, and dank. But as Fancy bit into a fried chicken drumstick, she didn’t seem to notice or mind. She’d become accustomed to the shabby surroundings in the last several weeks.

She would rather have had her trysts with Eddy in a more elegant hotel, but the Sidewinder Inn was located on the interstate between campaign headquarters and the ranch, so it was a convenient place for them to meet before going home. The motel catered to illicit lovers. Rooms were rented by the hour. The staff was discreet—out of indifference, not empathy.

Because they had worked through the dinner hour this evening, Fancy and Eddy were sharing their time together with a bucket of Colonel Sanders’s best. Naked, they were sitting amid the rumpled sheets, eating fried chicken and discussing Carole Rutledge.

“Careful of me?” Eddy asked. “Why?”

“She said I shouldn’t be getting involved with a man so much older,” Fancy said, tearing off a bite of meat. “But I don’t think that’s the real reason.”

Eddy broke apart a chicken wing. “What’s the real reason?”

“The real reason is because she’s eaten up with jealousy. See, she wants to play the good wife for Uncle Tate, just in case he wins and goes to Washington. But in case he doesn’t, she wants to have someone waiting in the wings. Even though she pretends not to, I know Aunt Carole craves your body.” Playfully, she tapped his chest with the drumstick.

Eddy didn’t respond. He was staring absently into space, frowning. “I still wish she didn’t know about you and me.”

“Let’s not have another fight about that, okay? I couldn’t help it. I walked out of your room and there she was, clutching that stupid ice bucket to her chest and looking like she’d just swallowed her tongue.”

“Has she told Tate?”

“I doubt it.” A piece of golden-brown crust fell onto her bare belly. She moistened her fingertip, picked up the crumb, then licked it off. “I’ll tell you something else,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “I don’t think she’s quite right in the head yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“She asks the dumbest questions.”

“Like what?”

“Yesterday I mentioned something she should have a vivid memory of, even if she did suffer a concussion.”

“What?”

“Well,” Fancy drawled, dragging the nearly clean drumstick across her lips, “another ranch was buying some horses from Grandpa. When the cowboy came to look at them, nobody was around. I took him into the stable myself. He was real cute.”

“I get the picture,” Eddy said drolly. “What does Carole have to do with it?”

“She discovered us screwing like rabbits in one of the stalls. I thought I was sunk, see, because this was a couple of years ago and I was barely seventeen. But Carole and the cowboy connected immediately. You know, snap, crackle, pop. The next thing I know, she’s as naked as we are and rolling around in the hay with us.”

She fanned her face theatrically. “God, it was fantastic! What an afternoon. But yesterday, when I mentioned it, she looked ready to puke or something. You want some more chicken?”

“No thanks.” Fancy tossed her cleaned bone into the box and took out the last chicken leg. Eddy encircled her ankle with his hard fingers. “You didn’t give away any of my secrets, did you?”

She laughed and nudged him in the butt with her bare foot. “I don’t know any of your secrets.”

“So what did you and Carole talk about regarding me?”

“I just told her you were the best I’d ever had.” She leaned forward and gave him a greasy kiss on the lips. “You are, you know. You’ve got a cock of solid iron. And there’s something about you that’s so exciting—dangerous, almost.”

He was amused. “Finish your chicken. It’s time you headed home.”

Disobediently, Fancy looped her arms around his neck and kissed him languorously. She left her lips in place as she whispered, “I’ve never done it doggie fashion before.”

“I know.”

She drew her head back sharply. “Didn’t I do it good?”

“You did it fine. But I could tell you were surprised at first.”

“I love surprises.”

Eddy cupped the back of her head and gave her a searing kiss. Together they fell back onto the sour-smelling pillows. “The next time your Aunt Carole starts asking questions about me,” he panted as he pulled on a rubber, “tell her to mind her own frigging business.” He plowed into her.

“Yes, Eddy, yes,” she chanted, beating on his back with the drumstick she still had clutched in one hand.