Best Kept Secrets(27)

knew her expression must reflect her shock.

He took in the room at a glance. "Well, isn't this a cozy

little scene."

"Hey, Reede," Junior said from his position near Alex,

which suddenly seemed all too close and familiar, for a reason

she couldn't explain. "What brings you out? Drink?"

"Come on in." Angus signaled him into the room. Sarah

Jo ignored him as though he was invisible. That mystified

Alex, since he had once lived with them like a member of

the family.

He laid his coat and hat in a chair and moved toward the

bar to accept the drink that Angus had poured for him. "I

came to check on my mare. How is she?"

"Fine," Angus told him.



"Good."

There followed a strained silence while everyone seemed

to contemplate the contents of their glasses. Finally, Angus

said, "Something else on your mind, Reede?"

"He came out here to warn you about what you say to

me,'' Alex said.' 'The same way he did Judge Wallace earlier

this afternoon."

"When somebody asks me a direct question, I'll do my

own answering, Counselor," he said testily. He threw back

his drink and set down the glass. "See y'all later. Thanks

for the drink.'' He stamped from the room, pausing only long

enough to pick up his hat and coat.

Surprisingly, it was Sarah Jo who filled the silence once

Reede had slammed out the front door. "I see his manners

haven't improved any."

"You know Reede, Mother," Junior said with a casual

shrug. "Another glass of wine?"

"Please."

"Have another drink together," Angus said. "I want to

speak to Alex in private. Bring your wine if you want," he

told her.

She had been helped out of her chair and escorted into the

hallway before she quite knew how it had come about. As

they moved down the hall, she looked around.

The walls were covered with red flocked wallpaper and

held framed photographs of racehorses. A massive Spanish

chandelier loomed threateningly overhead. The furniture was

dark and bulky.

"Like my house?" Angus asked, noticing that she was

dawdling to take in her surroundings.

"Very much," she lied.

"Designed and built it myself when Junior was still in

diapers."

Without being told, Alex knew that Angus had not only

built but decorated the house. Nothing in it reflected Sarah

Jo's personality. Doubtless she countenanced it because she'd

been given no choice.



The house was atrociously ugly, but it was in such appalling

and unapologetic bad taste that it had a crude charm all its

own, much like Angus.

"Before this house was here, Sarah Jo and I lived in a

lineman's shack. You could see daylight through the walls

of that damn thing. Nearly froze us out in the winter, and in

the summer, we'd wake up with an inch of dust covering our

bed."

Alex's initial reaction to Mrs. Minton had been dislike.

She seemed distracted and self-absorbed. Alex could, however,

sympathize with a younger Sarah Jo who had been

plucked like an exotic flower out of a gracious, refined culture

and replanted into one so harsh and radically different that

she had withered. She could never adapt here, and it was a

mystery to Alex why either Angus or Sarah Jo thought she

could.

He preceded her into a paneled den that was even more

masculine than the rest of the house. From their mountings

on the walls, elk and deer gazed into space with resigned

brown eyes. What space they didn't take up was filled with

photographs of racehorses wearing the Minton colors standing

in the winners' circles of racetracks all over the country. Some

were fairly current; others appeared to be decades old.

There were several gun racks with a firearm in each slot.

A flagpole with the state flag had been propped in one corner.

A framed cartoon read: "Tho I walk through the valley of

the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil . . . 'cause I'm the

meanest son of a bitch in the valley."

The moment they entered the room, he pointed her toward

a corner. "Come over here. I want to show you something."

She followed him to a table that was draped with what

looked like an ordinary white bed sheet. Angus unfurled it.

"My goodness!"

It was an architectural model of a racetrack. Not a single

detail had been overlooked, from the color-coded seating in

the stands, to the movable starting gate, to the diagonal stripes

painted in the parking lot.



Purcell Downs," Angus boasted with the chest-expanding

pride of a new father. "I realize you're only doing what you

feel like you've got to do, Alex. I can respect that." His