remembered how she’d let him take that choice yearling in exchange for Gadianton’s services. She seethed at the memory—not angry so much at Jensen but at herself for allowing it to happen.
The cows had been moved to fresh pasture, leaving the bull alone in the paddock. Ruben, on horseback, stood by with a rope, in case extra help was needed getting him into the trailer. But the loading turned out to be no problem. Gadianton lumbered up the ramp, as if relieved to be going home.
“How did the old boy do?” Jensen asked as he bolted the trailer door.
“Well enough,” Tess said. “We’ll know for sure in a few months, but I can’t fault him for lack of effort. Say, how is that yearling doing? What are your plans for him?”
Jensen looked sheepish. “Well,” he drawled, “the thing is, I haven’t got that little bull anymore. I’d planned to raise and buck him, but out of the blue, I got an offer to buy him—for so much money that it made my head spin. I couldn’t say no.”
“So you sold him?” The premonition that crept over Tess made the hair bristle on the back of her neck.
“That’s right.” Jensen checked the bolt and walked around to climb back into the cab. “I sold him to that big stock contractor out of Tucson—Brock Tolman.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
VAL’S OLD BEDROOM WAS PILED HIGH WITH CARDBOARD BOXES. THE newer, more recent ones were folded in on top, the flaps tucked to hold them in place. Others, older, had been sealed shut with silver duct tape. For a time, as Lexie barely remembered, the taped boxes had been stored in a spare room of the bunkhouse. But later, after Val had left home and the space was needed for other purposes, they’d been moved into Val’s empty room, where they’d stayed until now.
Lexie hefted one of the taped boxes in her arms, carried it down the hall to the master bedroom and added it to the stack along the wall. The job was tedious, and she was getting tired. But if this was the price of getting Val out of Jack’s room, so it could be readied for Shane, she would gladly pay it.
The afternoon was hot, even inside the thick adobe walls of the house. Beneath her cotton shirt, Lexie’s body was sticky with perspiration. As she paused to wipe her face with the back of her hand, Val appeared in the doorway with two chilled cans of Diet Coke. “Here.” She held out one to Lexie. “You look like you could use a break.”
Lexie popped the tab and took a deep swallow. “Thanks. I notice you’ve taken a few breaks yourself,” she said.
“I’ve done my share of the work.” Val perched on the foot of the stripped mattress. Even in ragged jeans and a faded tee, her face bare of makeup and her hair twisted up in a clip, she managed to look like a movie star.
“You could have taken this room,” Lexie said. “It’s bigger, with its own bathroom and a double closet. And we wouldn’t have to move all these boxes.”
A lock of Val’s fiery hair tumbled over her face as she shook her head. “Everybody who’s slept in this room has died before their time. I think it might be cursed.”
“Jack died before his time. You slept in there.”
“That’s different. It was temporary.” Val’s gaze roamed the shadowy room, coming to rest on the growing pile of duct-taped boxes. “I can’t believe nobody’s opened these.”
Lexie shrugged. “I figure they’re sealed for a reason. Kind of like Pandora’s box.”
“You know what’s in them, don’t you?”
“Yes. Our mother’s clothes and things that Dad boxed away after she died.”
“That’s not the whole story. But you don’t remember, do you?”
“Not really. I was barely old enough to walk.”
“And Tess never told you what happened?”
“I never asked.” But Lexie sensed that she was about to hear a story, whether she wanted to or not. Val had a way of stirring things up, even things that were better left alone.
“Our mother died on her thirtieth birthday,” Val said. “Our father, who worshipped her, had given her this beautiful palomino horse. She was riding it for the first time when it shied at a rattler and threw her. She struck her head and died. Dad took the horse out and shot it. I remember how we cried, Jack and Tess and I, not just for our mother but for the horse.”
“And that was when Dad boxed her things?”
“No.”