"When he calls, you'll believe me, Chase."
"I believe you."
"He's got to call."
But another week went by and he didn't call.
Lucky came into the office, stamping the mud off his boots. He inspected the bottom of them, decided they were reasonably clean, then glanced up to find his brother slumped in the chair behind the desk, his feet resting on the corner of it, staring into space.
"I thought you would be on your way home by now."
Chase roused himself and lowered his feet to the floor. "No, not yet."
"It's still coming down in buckets out there."
"Hmm."
Chase had regressed into the strong, silent type again, Lucky thought. For a while there, he'd actually acted like a human being. For the past several weeks, though, he'd been morose, uncommunicative, surly.
"That guy from Houston called again while you were at lunch," Lucky told him. "Harlan Boyd. Did you get the message?"
"Yes."
"Did you return his call?"
"No."
It was on the tip of Lucky's tongue to ask why the hell not, but that would no doubt provoke a quarrel, which would serve no purpose.
Or maybe it would. Maybe it would clear the air. He knew, however, that his brother's problem wasn't with him. It wasn't even directly related to Tyler Drilling.
"I take it that Marcie hasn't heard from the creep." Chase's head came around quickly, his expression dark and suspicious. Lucky gave a helpless shrug. "Pat told Mother about it."
"That was nice of him." Chase bolted from his chair. "Dammit! Now I'm sure all of you think she's a nut case."
"No, we're relieved to know what the problem is. We all thought she was sick and dying or something too dreadful for y'all even to tell us about."
Again Lucky was on the receiving end of a glower that demanded explanation. "Do you think we're blind, Chase? She's lost weight.
She's pale as a spook. She's as jumpy as a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. None of that characterizes the Marcie we've come to know and love. She's usually in control, unruffled and well balanced. Didn't you think we would notice this personality change?"
"Why go to Pat? Why didn't you ask me?"
"Mother didn't go to Pat specifically. They were just talking, and she expressed her concern over Marcie, and to lay her mind at rest that Marcie didn't have cancer or something, Pat told her about the pond scum that's calling
Marcie."
"While he was giving away privileged information, did he also mention that he thinks the caller is a product of Marcie's imagination?"
Lucky looked away guiltily.
"I can see that he did."
"Well, I for one think that's crap. And the strength of my opinion can't even compare to Devon's. She went positively berserk when it was even suggested. To his face she called Pat a redneck conservative and a chauvinistic dinosaur.
I'll tell you something, Chase," he said, shaking his head, "if our two ladies ever team up against us, we've had it."
Chase's stern lips cracked a smile, but Lucky could tell his heart wasn't behind it. "How're things otherwise?"
Chase asked testily, "What things?"
"You know, things."
"You mean like our sex life? That kind of things? You want to know how many times a week I make love to my wife, is that it?"
Lucky refused to get angry. One man with a rigid stance, balled fists, and red face was about all the small office could accommodate.
"For starters. How many?"
"Why, are you keeping score?"
"Something like that."
"None of your damn business."
"Come on, Chase, have a heart," he wheedled.
"Devon and I have had to taper off these last few weeks. I've had to resort to voyeurism,."
"Are you sure you haven't been making those phone calls to Marcie?"
Lucky laughed, not the least bit offended.
But within seconds he grew serious. "I hit it, didn't I? Y'all aren't, uh, sleeping together."
Chase flung himself back into the chair, frustration incarnate, a man whose skin had suddenly shrunk too small to fit him.
"I recognize the symptoms, big brother."
Lucky said sympathetically. "Remember how much I wanted Devon but couldn't have her because she was married? I nearly went out of my freaking mind. If being horny was a terminal illness, I wouldn't be here to tell about it."
He dragged a stool across the floor and set it a few feet in front of Chase. "Abstinence was forced on me. What I can't figure," he said, leaning forward from his seat, "is why you're not availing yourself of your very lovely, very sexy wife, who is very much in love with you."
"She's not in love with me," Chase grumbled.
"Bull. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Mother and Devon agree. So does Sage."
"Oh, well, hell, if Sage thinks so…" He let the sarcastic response trail off. "What are we, the constant topic of conversation out there?"
"Actually, y'all are about on equal par with the baby."
Chase muttered a series of curses. Not to be so easily dismissed, Lucky reminded him that he hadn't answered his question.
"No, I haven't," Chase said, "because it's none of your business."
"You're not put off by this pervert who's calling her, are you?" He got a dirty look for an answer. "You don't think Marcie's turned on by it, do you? Or that it's somehow her fault?"
"What do you take me for, an idiot?"
"Well, what else could it be? Did you do something to make her mad?"
"No."
"Did she lock you out?"
"No!"
"So if it's not Marcie, then you're the one whose holding out. Why, Chase?"
Chase made to get up. Lucky shoved him back into the chair. The brothers stared one another down.
Finally Chase shrugged indifferently.
"Okay, you might as well know. You'll probably find out sooner or later. By accident.
Just like I did."
"Find out what?"
Chase told him about the telephone call from the house painter. "It made no sense until I figured out that he wasn't talking about the current Mrs. Tyler, but the late Mrs. Tyler.
He was talking about Tanya. The house we're living in now was the house Tanya had picked out, the one I was supposed to be looking at with her the day she died, the one I subsequently had you buy.
Marcie told you she had a buyer for it. She was that buyer."
This time when Chase left the chair, Lucky made no attempt to stop him. He was preoccupied by this astounding piece of information.
He swore softly. "I had no idea."
"No. Neither did I."
"She told me she would handle everything, the closing and all that. I never would have guessed."
"Startling, isn't it? You can imagine how I
felt when I found out."
"To think that she loved you that much, all that time."
Chase caught Lucky by the shoulder and spun him around. "What did you say? What are you talking about? Love? She tricked me.
She played the dirtiest, rottenest trick—"
"Man, are you muleheaded!" Lucky shouted, surging to his feet. "You're too stupid to be my brother.
They must have mixed up the babies at the hospital."
"Make your point," Chase ground out.
Lucky roughly poked him in the chest with his index finger. "You can't see past Marcie's deception to the reason behind it." Then he peered shrewdly into Chase's gray eyes, which were as turbulent as the low clouds that scuttled across the twilight sky.
"Or maybe you can. Maybe that's what's
eating at you. It's not the house that bothers you so much. What you can't accept is that you have been loved so well. Twice."
He placed a hand on each of Chase's shoulders.