Slow Waltz Across Texas. Peggy Moreland
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to his ear.
She laughed when he ducked his head, his cheeks reddening. “Still the same shy cowboy, I see,” she teased.
“Clayton shy?” Rena snorted and rose from her chair. “That’ll be the day.”
“Sure he is,” Megan replied and shot Clayton a sly wink. “And he’s so cute when he blushes, don’t you think?”
Rena glanced at Clayton, then away, frowning. “If you say so,” she said, refusing to rise to the bait.
Clayton snugged his hat back over his head, irritated by his wife’s indifference. “If you’ll excuse us, Megan,” he said, glaring at Rena’s back. “Rena and I have some business to discuss.”
“Clayton!” Rena cried in dismay, whirling to look at him. “How rude. Megan only just arrived.”
“That’s okay,” Megan said, and scooped her purse from the patio table. “I need to go, anyway. I’m supposed to meet Harold at the club for lunch.” She gave Rena a quick hug. “I’ll call you later,” she said, giving Rena a meaningful look, then turned to leave, whispering to Clayton as she brushed past him, “Hang in there, cowboy. I’m on your side.”
Clayton waited until Megan was out of earshot before turning to Rena. “Where are the kids?”
Furious with him for the way he’d rushed Megan off, Rena dropped down onto the lounge chair and snatched up the bottle of sunscreen again. “With Dad.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“When?”
“Do I have to make an appointment to see my own kids?”
She heard the resentment in his voice and bit back her own caustic retort, knowing she wasn’t being fair. After all, they were his children, too. “No,” she replied as she spread the cream over her right calf. “But, in the future, you might want to call first to make certain they’re here before you drop by.”
Clayton watched her smooth the cream over her calf, then up her thigh, his gaze lingering on the sun-warmed flesh her skimpy bikini left exposed. Setting his jaw against the desire he felt rising, he dropped down on the foot of the chair Megan had vacated and braced his elbows on his thighs as he looked out across the pool. “When are we going to talk about this, Rena?”
“Talk about what?” she asked and calmly squirted more cream onto her palm.
He angled his head over his shoulder to look at her. “About our marriage.”
She snorted a laugh and swept her hand across her middle, smearing the cream over her bare abdomen. “What marriage?”
“Our marriage,” he shot back. “The one you seem so anxious to end.”
“We don’t have a marriage, Clayton. We have nothing but a legal document that binds us together.”
“We damn sure do have a marriage, and a family, too,” he told her furiously. “And I think it’s high time you quit playing whatever little game this is you’re playing and come home where you belong.”
She slammed the bottle down on the table hard enough to make the carved iron legs wobble. Grabbing the chair’s arms, she jerked herself forward and leaned across the distance that separated them, putting her face only inches from his. “This isn’t a game, Clayton,” she warned him darkly. “This is my life we’re talking about.”
He ripped off his hat, tossing it to the tiled deck that skirted the kidney-shaped pool, and twisted around to face her fully. Though frightened by the anger that turned his blue eyes to steel, Rena refused to shrink away from him.
“And mine,” he grated out. “And, by God, I have a right to know why you left me.”
“Why?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Does it hurt your male pride to have to tell your traveling buddies, Pete and Troy, that your wife left you?”
He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders, taking her by surprise, and yanked her closer still, his fingers digging into her bare skin.
She struggled, trying to get free. “Clayton! Let go of me!”
He dug his fingers deeper. “Don’t mess with me, Rena,” he warned. “I’ve already listened to about all the verbal abuse I can stomach for one day.”
She stilled immediately, her face going pale. “Mother,” she whispered. “What did she say to you?”
He dropped his hands and twisted back around, bracing his forearms on his thighs again and scowling at the pool’s shimmering surface. “Nothing.”
She grabbed his elbow and tugged, but only succeeded in drawing herself to the edge of her chair, not turning him back to face her as she’d wanted. “Clayton!” she cried in frustration. “What did she say to you?”
He thinned his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Nothing that she hasn’t said before.” He gave his arm a jerk, pulling his elbow from her grasp. “I want to see my kids. When will they be back?”
“Soon,” she murmured, staring at his stiff spine. “Dad wanted to take them to the office so he could show them off.”
Clayton stood abruptly and crossed to the edge of the pool, bending to scoop his hat from the tile surface. With his back to her, he settled it over his head and ran his index finger along the edge of the brim in front, snugging it down low over his forehead. “I’m staying at the Wayfarer Inn on Interstate 40. Call me when they get back.”
Rena watched him stride angrily back up the flagstone path toward the house. When he reached the patio, he hesitated a moment, then spun to the left and headed for the side yard and the gate that led to the driveway, obviously anxious to avoid another confrontation with her mother.
Two
Rena stood before the kitchen window, her arms hugged beneath her breasts, staring out at the pool and the lounge chair where Clayton had sat only moments ago. Though her skin still held the warmth of the sun, she rubbed her hands slowly up and down her arms, trying to ease the chill that penetrated to the bone. She could still see the hard set of Clayton’s jaw, the stiffness of his spine, and knew that whatever her mother had said to him had hurt him deeply.
But that was nothing new, she thought wearily. Her mother had always delighted in making Clayton feel inferior—though Rena sometimes wondered who her mother hurt more with her biting comments…Clayton or Rena?
Nothing but a shiftless cowboy.
Married out of your class.
A man with his intellect and upbringing couldn’t possibly understand the needs and expectations of a woman with your background and breeding.
Rena had heard her mother’s opinions of her marriage spouted throughout the four-plus years of her marriage to Clayton, but never delivered more smugly than when Rena had arrived in Tulsa with her children in tow and informed her parents that she had left Clayton.
No, her mother had never approved of Clayton, and Rena was sure that Gloria Palmer would feel no compunction at all in letting her son-in-law know exactly how she felt about him. Especially now, when she knew of Rena’s plans to divorce him.
“Oh, there you are, dear.”
Rena glanced over her shoulder as her mother swept into the kitchen, her expression a picture of innocence. “I didn’t realize that I was lost,” she said, trying, but failing, to keep from her voice the resentment her mother’s appearance drew.
“And what has put you in such a foul mood?” her mother asked. “Or should I ask who?” she amended pointedly.
“What did you say to Clayton, Mother?”
“Say?” her mother repeated innocently. “Why nothing out of the ordinary.”
No,