She felt Chase go tense beside her.
Devon snatched her hand away from her playful husband and glanced quickly over her shoulder to see if their loveplay had been noticed. Marcie pretended she hadn't seen it.
She didn't want to embarrass Devon or, more to the point, have Devon see her jealousy.
"Y'all seem to bust The Place up every time you go in it," the sheriff said to Chase.
"What was I supposed to do, Pat," Chase asked defensively, grumpily, "just stand there and let that guy insult my wife?"
"To my way of thinking, Chase had no choice but to deck the jerk," Lucky commented as he passed around dessert plates.
"Well, your opinion on fighting doesn't count for much, does it?" Pat asked crossly. "You fight at the drop of a hat."
"Used to fight at the drop of a hat. Now I'm a lover, not a fighter." He kissed Devon's cheek as she went past him.
Chase's knee reflexively bumped into Marcie's under the table.
"I'm certain that Chase did what he felt like he had to do," Laurie said in her son's defense. "He paid for all the damage done to the bar and took care of that man's medical bills. I just hate to think of his teeth being knocked out. Literally."
Lucky emitted a snicker. Before long, everyone around the table was laughing. All except Jess Sawyer, who was gaping at them with dismay.
"He may end up thanking me," Chase said when the laughter had abated. "Those were the god-awfulest-looking false teeth I've ever—"
"Devon!"
The alarm in Lucky's voice silenced Chase.
Lucky shot from his chair and launched him
self toward his wife, who was leaning over the sideboard. Her face was pale. She was taking quick, panting breaths. One of Lucky's arms went around her waist to help support her. The other hand cupped her cheek and lifted her bowed head.
"Devon? Honey?"
"I'm fine," she assured him with a feeble smile. "A little dizzy spell. I think I just got too warm. Maybe if we turn down the heat a little, hmm? Or maybe something I ate didn't set well with me."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Laurie laid her folded napkin beside her plate, left her chair, and joined the couple at the sideboard. "Why don't y'all stop this foolishness and announce to everybody else what I've known for months?"
Taking the initiative, she turned toward the table. "Devon's going to have a baby."
"Oh!" Marcie never remembered giving that glad cry. She, along with everyone else, even Mr. Sawyer, converged on the beaming couple, who were alternately embracing each other and their well-wishers.
Marcie gave Devon an extended hug. Since her marriage to Chase, the two women had become good friends. Marcie admired Devon's intelligence and acerbic wit, which she put to good use in the columns she wrote for one of the Dallas newspapers. Recently she had told them she'd been approached by a syndicator.
"I'm so glad for you," Marcie said earnestly.
"Are you feeling all right? Is there anything I
can do?"
Devon clutched her hand. "Do you know anything about babies?"
"No!" Marcie laughed.
"Then a big help you'll be."
The two women smiled at each other with mutual admiration and growing affection.
Then Marcie kissed the proud papa's cheek.
"Congratulations, Lucky."
"Thanks. One of the little critters finally fought his way upstream."
"James Lawrence!" Laurie cried, aghast.
"Remember that we have a guest. I won't stand for that naughty kind of talk: I don't want Jess thinking that I've reared a bunch of—"
The shrill, obnoxious scraping sound of chair legs against the hardwood floor brought them all around.
Chase dropped his napkin beside his plate and stamped out.
Before he went through the archway, Marcie got a good look at his face. It looked like a man's shattered reflection in a broken mirror.
The ax arced through the air, making a whistling sound before it connected with the log. Thwack! The log, standing on its end/split down the middle. Chase bent at the waist and tossed the two pieces aside, then picked up another log and set it upright on the block.
"What are you doing?"
Thwack!
"Knitting a sweater. What does it look like?"
"That can't be good for your ribs."
"My ribs are fine."
Thwack!
Lucky put his back to the nearby fence. He leaned against it while hooking the heel of his boot on the lowest rail. He set both elbows on the top one.
"You know. Chase, you can be the most self-centered's.o.b. I've ever run across."
Thwack!
Chase glared at his brother before tossing aside the split log and getting another. "What did you expect me to do, pass out cigars?"
"That would have been a start."
"Sorry to disappoint you."
Thwack!
Lucky reached in and wrested the ax handle from his older brother while he was bent down. Chase sprung erect, his face fierce.
"I'm not disappointed," Lucky said, throwing the ax to the ground. "I'm mad. Our mother is disappointed. She was counting on your marriage to turn you around."
"Too bad."
"Damn right it's too bad. Because you've got a wonderful woman who is—for reasons I can't comprehend—in love with you. But you're too damn blind to see it. Or too plain stupid. Or self-pitying. I'm not real sure what your problem is."
"You're mad because I didn't make a big deal over your kid."
"And wasn't that small of you!"
"Why haven't you told me?" Chase shouted.
"Why keep it a secret? Building anticipation?"
"No, trying to protect you."
"From what?"
"From the hurt that's tearing your guts out right now."
Chase assumed a combative stance. His breathing was labored, but not from the exertion of splitting firewood. He didn't strike his brother as he appeared ready to do. Instead, he turned his back on him and headed toward the house.
Lucky charged after him, grabbed him by the sleeve, and slung him against the tool-shed beside the woodpile. He made a bar of his forearm across Chase's throat.
"I didn't tell you about my baby before now because I knew it was going to hurt you, Chase. I hate that. I hate it like hell. But that's the way the cards fell and there's not a damn thing I or you or anybody else can do about it.
"I didn't ask for my child to be the first
Tyler grandbaby. I wish it had been yours, as it should have been. But is that supposed to make me less delighted about my own baby?
It can't. I'm sorry. I'm thrilled. I'm bursting with happiness over this kid. I can't wait till it gets here.
"However," he enunciated, thrusting his face closer to his brother's, "that doesn't mean that Devon and I don't still grieve for yours that died with Tanya. We all do. We always will. But life goes on, Chase. At least for most of us it does.
"If you want to live the rest of your life from inside a grave, then do it. I think you're stupid, I think you're sick, but if your misery makes you happy, then by all means be miserable.
Just don't expect the rest of us to crawl into that grave with you and pull the dirt over our heads. We're all damned sick and tired of catering to you."
With an abrupt little shove he let go of
Chase and turned away. He had taken only a few steps when a heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder. Reflexively, he spun around, expecting a blow.
Instead, Chase extended him his right hand.
Lucky saw the tears, which made Chase's gray eyes shimmery. His ordinarily firm lips were unsteady.
"Congratulations, little brother. I'm happy for you."
They shook hands. Then they embraced.
Then they walked back to the house together.
"You didn't have an inkling?"
"About what?"
"That Devon was pregnant."
No.
"I thought Lucky might have told you."
'No."
Chase's mumbled replies were grating on
Marcie's nerves. Her nerves were already raw.
They always were after one of their Sunday dinners with her in-laws.
Not that she was shunned or made to feel unwelcome. The Tylers had graciously incor porated her into the family. Even Lucky, who had expressed the strongest reservations against her marriage to Chase, now teased and joked with her as if she'd been a member of the family for years.
Along with Laurie and Devon, he included her in their warm camaraderie.
Chase's family wasn't at fault. Chase himself was the one who made her edgy and nervous.
He was never verbally abusive. The one and only time that had happened was last Friday night in The Place. He had apologized later for it, and she had accepted his apology, knowing how worried he was about the future of Tyler Drilling and attributing his outrageous behavior to that.
No, she didn't have a quarrel with his deportment.
While they were with his family, he was courteous to her. He didn't criticize her. He didn't embarrass her. He didn't ignore her by treating her as though she were invisible as she had heard wives complaining that their husbands did when they were in public.
In their case, quite the opposite was true.
"You hadn't guessed?"
She jumped, startled by his abrupt question.
"What?"
He was driving her car, with his left wrist crooked over the steering wheel. His right hand was resting on his thigh, within easy reach of the gearshift… or her knee, which he'd found several occasions to cover and caress during the course of the afternoon.
"Women seem to have a sixth sense about
that stuff," he said, referring to Devon's pregnancy.
"I thought maybe you had suspected."
"No. Although I guess I should have read the signs. I remember somebody teasing her at our wedding dinner about eating two desserts."
"I just thought she was putting on a few extra pounds."
Marcie smiled. "I'm sure she is." Chase didn't smile. "She's already six months. I can't believe she hid it so well for so long. Of course, she's tall. And clothing can camouflage a lot.
But my goodness, the baby will be here before we know it."
"Hmm."
"And when it gets here, are you going to continue acting like a jerk about it?" Chase's head came around. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and closed his mouth with an angry little click. "When you stamped out of the house like that, Chase, it broke your mother's heart."
"My heart's been broken too."
"Oh, yes, we all know that. You wear it so well on your sleeve for all the world to see.
Well, we've all seen it, and frankly, it's getting old."
"I apologized to Lucky, didn't I? I told him
I was happy for him."
"I know, I know. I even saw you giving
Devon an obligatory hug. That's the very least you could have done."
"If I had gushed and simpered, it would have been hypocritical."
" 'Hypocritical'? What an odd word for you to use."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He stopped the car in their driveway. Marcie alighted and headed for the door. She was already inside shrugging off her coat when he caught up with her.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he repeated angrily, tossing his coat in the general direction of the coat tree and missing it by a mile.
Something inside Marcie snapped. For over a month she had been pampering him, humoring his dour disposition and overlooking his provocations, which she knew were deliberate.
The harder she tried to make life pleasant, the harder he worked at being a jackass.
Well, she had had it with him. Good wife be damned. It was time he got as good as he gave.
Her red hair was bristling. As she closed in on him her eyes narrowed. "What it means, Chase Tyler, is that you are a hypocrite every single Sunday we go out there. It means that your congratulations to them were no more genuine than your phony displays of affection for me."
He shook his head stubbornly. "That's not true. I'm very happy for my bro— Wait a minute. What phony displays of affection for you?"
"Come on, Chase," she cried. "You don't want me to spell it out."
"Like hell I don't. What are you talking about?"
She drew back her shoulders and glared up at him. There was heat radiating out of her cheeks. Every muscle in her body was pulled taut.
"I'm talking about the knee massages. I sit on the sofa, you sit on the sofa. I cross my legs, you cover my knee with your hand. I
stand up, you place your arm across my shoulders.
I shiver, you offer me your jacket. I look up at you, you touch my hair. I laugh. You laugh."
His jaw was working, the muscles in his face knotting. Marcie knew she was pushing, but she couldn't stop. For a month she had been living with a chameleon. For several hours each Sunday she had endured his sweet, husbandly caresses that she knew meant nothing.
She would return home feverish and aroused to the point of agony. And there was never any relief.
Because once they were away from his family, he reverted to being broody and remote.
"I'm only trying to be nice," he said defensively.
"But if you don't like it, I'll dispense with these courtesies." He turned away and went to the fireplace in the living room, where he began stoking up the fire. All his motions were angry, jerky.
Marcie wasn't finished with him. She joined him at the hearth, catching his arm as he laid aside the poker. "Your family is carefully gauging us, watching to see how we relate to each other. Thanks to your Academy Award performance every Sunday, I'm sure they're convinced that everything is hunky-dory. Little do they know that we're celibates.
"Oh, no, because they're bound to have intercepted some of those smoldering looks you send my way when you know they're watching.
I'm sure they saw you twining that strand of my hair around your fingertip while you talked NBA basketball with Lucky. How could they miss it when you nudged my breast with your elbow as you reached for your coffee cup?"
"Don't pretend now that you didn't like it,
Marcie," he said in a low, vibrating voice.
"Because even through my sleeve I felt your nipple get hard. I heard that little catch in your throat." He used her momentary speechlessness to launch his own attack. "While we're on the subject, I don't like your foreplay any—"