Chapter Forty

How do yourespond to that?

Not ask?

Emmaline Parens appeared unperturbed by my astonishment, at the same time displaying impatience with my continued questions. I also displayed impatience — but with her lack of answers.

Gee broke the impasse, saying they were leaving to pursue errands.

"I'm not done with this," I warned.

"You will find nothing that satisfies your desire for facts," Mrs. P warned back.

****

Esther Ramalarga.

Etta Place.

The dissertation writer knew details about Oscar and Pearl's exploits yet no clue to Pearl's whereabouts or mention of a baby. Protecting someone also associated with the gang whose outlaw love died?

And Emmaline Parens didn't ask.

If I hadn't had this other stop to make, I would have taken the time to let my head explode.

But I still had my original stop to make.

I went west out of Sherman, passing the turnoff Diana used to go southwest toward Elk Rock Ranch.

Between Diana's turnoff and where I would turn south on the highway, sat a substantial construction trailer with a sign that said Burrell Roads, with Connie Walterston's pickup out front.

This marked the southern edge of Circle B land. Sometimes I thought Tom would like to kick it off the ranch completely.

Safe to say, Burrell Roads was not the enterprise of his heart.

Connie opened the trailer door and called, "Elizabeth, what are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd stop by for a bit, if that's okay."

"Sure. Can do most things from home, but I wanted to get a few things straightened out here in anticipation of the season." She tipped her head consideringly as I passed her in the doorway. "I told you I planned to do that today when we had lunch, didn't I."

"Did you?" I asked lightly.

"Uh-huh. So I wouldn't believe it if you told me you're here to tell me all about the wedding dress you keep side-stepping talking about."

She'd caught me off-guard — focused on what I wanted to ask, not what questions might come from her — but I thought I masked it well while taking a seat on the visitor side of the desk that looked neat even with her organizing piles on it.

"You don't have a dress yet, do you, Elizabeth."

I hadn't masked it. "I'll find something."

"Something." She wrang out every available drop of disdain in her pronunciation of the word. "It's your wedding. You want more than something. Does your mother know? Tamantha?"

"Good heavens, no. Please don't—"

"I won't. I have something else in mind."

"Connie—"

She gave me a stop sign hand. "I won't tell your mother or Tamantha. That's all I'll promise. In the meantime, you didn't come here to confess you haven't found your wedding dress yet — have you even looked? Never mind. It doesn't matter, since you haven't found the right one."

I had looked in my closet, but I didn't think that answer would satisfy her, so I jumped on the sliver of an opening she'd given me.

"You're right that I came about something else. I'm curious about Tom's parents. His father, really. They're saying they hope to get here for the wedding." Connie sighed audibly. "I think she wants to, wants to very much."

"He's a good man," she said immediately. "Not necessarily an easy man, but a good one."

That could also be said of his son, but I couldn't imagine how many armies would be needed to keep Tom from his daughter's wedding... in the far, far distant future, of course.

"You worked with him when he ran Burrell Roads?"

"Yes. Basically an assistant — secretary, according to T.Y. Then I stopped for a while because of the ranch and the boys and before we knew about Brian's health." That was her husband, who'd had a degenerative disease before his death a year and a half ago. "When I knew I had to go back to work because we needed the income and insurance so desperately, T.Y. and Nina had retired. Tom hired me on the spot, gave me a raise and a free hand. I'll never stop being grateful — to both of them, in different ways."

"They do seem quite different. Look, I know it might feel awkward, my asking questions—" Though considering she'd been among the most vocal urging me toward Tom...

"I understand. You don't know T.Y. at all and I know Tom holds things in." She met my eyes for an extra beat. "Holds hurts in."

Then she stalled.

Good questioning techniques don't help only with news stories and murder investigations, so I gave her breathing room, while keeping us focused on the topic.

"You call him T.Y., but I've only heard Nina call him Thomas."

"Most people do — call him Thomas, I mean. He was Thomas, Tom was Tom. Since his parents left, Tom gets Thomas used a lot more with business, legal dealings—" An eye flicker reminded us both that one dealing had been charges by the former sheriff against Thomas David Burrell. "—and such, but to most people he's still Tom.

"I started calling Thomas T.Y. when I got to know him and realized..." I saw her shoulders drop the instant she decided to tell me. "He liked T.Y. because it distinguished him from his own father as well as Thomas David — no, that's not exactly right. It wasn't really Tom. It was Nina's father, that's where the David comes from.

"With his own father and his father-in-law, T.Y. couldn't do anything right. If it turned out good, it would have turned out better if only he'd listened to them." She clicked her tongue. "Strong men who'd have been even stronger if they'd been a little softer... if that makes sense."

"It does."

"And in some ways, T.Y. was no better," she said tartly. "He took out his problems with the previous generation on his son, like Tom was responsible for his grandfathers — and I told him that."

"You did?" No questioning technique behind that, I blurted it.

"I did. Not that it did any good. And I said he was hurting his wife at the same time." She half grinned. "I was pregnant and the hormones were running rampant."

"What did he say?"

"Not a thing. His ears got real red and I thought he might erupt, but he just got that real calm, controlled, impenetrable way Tom does, too, and he walked out that door. Miracle he didn't fire me on the spot."

No, a Burrell wouldn't fire a pregnant woman for speaking her mind. But he would walk away, aiming to regain the mastery over himself he required. Maybe there were more similarities between son and father than their facial structure.