Daddy's Girls (3)

    By six o’clock in the morning, she would be on a horse and stay there for most of the day, checking on their fences, watching what went on at the breeding barn, riding across the fields, helping to plan their livestock auctions. There was no aspect of their business that she wasn’t involved in or knowledgeable about. It was a large operation, with bunkhouses for twenty-five of their thirty-five employees.

JT had no intention of retiring. He was a strong, vital man. He was a good father, as long as you did what he said, and agreed with him. Except for Gemma, who never did. He would never have tolerated the same behavior from Caroline or Kate. He had never hidden the fact that Gemma had been “Daddy’s Girl” all her life, and still was. No one could match her looks or glamour when she showed up at the ranch. As much as it was foreign to him, he loved that she was a TV star. Despite the fact that Caroline was successful writing young adult books that were lucrative and admired, the value of what she did went right over his head. Writing for kids seemed irrelevant to him. But Caroline had never hungered for his praise, as Kate had. Instead she had sought freedom, and found it at Berkeley, and then in Marin County as a wife and mother. Peter and her kids were proud of her, that was enough. She always said that her father was a narcissist. Gemma didn’t disagree with her. It was all about him.

None of them remembered their mother, although Kate thought she had some dim early memories from when she was three. She was never sure if she remembered her from the occasional mention of her, or the photograph of her that was in each of their bedrooms. The others weren’t old enough when she died to have recollections of their mother, and their father didn’t like talking about her. He never dwelled on the past. He tried valiantly to be both mother and father to his girls when they were growing up, and succeeded, some times better than others. Gemma gave him credit for that, but he had been more generous about spending time with her than with the others. She had been a gorgeous child. Kate was shyer, and avoided the spotlight, and Caroline simply didn’t comment or speak up. She was almost always silent. She kept her opinions to herself. All she wanted now was to lead a good life and be the perfect wife and mother.

    She supported Peter in everything he did, listened avidly to his plans and problems, and gave him sound advice. She tried to be the kind of mother she would have liked to have and didn’t, because of her mother’s death. She wondered about her parents’ early life in Texas sometimes. Their father made no secret of the fact that they had been poor, and it had been a wild bet on his part to come to California with three little girls and no job lined up, but he had always managed to work things out, and provide for them. Handsomely, later on.

JT was an only child with no living family when they left Texas. He said the memories there were too painful for him once Scarlett died. He wanted a fresh start, and he got one for all of them. In California, he managed with the foreman’s wife’s daycare. He cooked for them himself when he got home at night. And the girls learned early to be self-sufficient and take care of each other. They had suffered at times from not having a mother, but he hadn’t suffered from not having a wife. For a long time, his girls and his work were enough for him. He cooked breakfast for them every morning, bathed them, spent time with them whenever possible, and taught them all to ride.

Gemma was a capable rider but hadn’t ridden in ten years, except briefly in movies and in ads. Caroline had been terrified of horses all her life. Only Kate had his natural talent for horses. She was as solid in the saddle as any cowboy on the ranch, and had ridden in the local rodeo herself when she was younger, and enjoyed it. She was too busy for the rodeo now, and she couldn’t afford the time off if she got hurt. Her father had taught her to rope steers as a young girl, and she was good at that too. She had the eye and the timing, but she’d stayed off the broncos that he had always loved. Gemma called him a born show-off, to his face. No one else would have dared. One of Kate’s biggest thrills was when she was the rodeo queen one year. It allowed her to demonstrate her riding skills, but be seen as a girl. Her father thought it was silly, but was proud of her anyway.

    Kate had gone to college, because her high school teachers said she should. She’d gone to a state university, and hated it. Her father said it was a waste of time, and he needed her on the ranch. Kate missed her father, the ranch, and her sisters the whole time she was there. Gemma skipped college entirely and left for L.A. during Kate’s sophomore year. Caroline had gone to Berkeley at the start of Kate’s senior year. Kate couldn’t wait to get home when she graduated, and never left again.



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As the girls grew up, Jimmy had chosen the right female companion twenty-four years before. He was forty when they met. Juliette had grown up in the Camargue, where the wild horses were in France, in a small seaside town. Juliette Dubré was a young widow, thirty years old, who had lost her husband in a mountain climbing accident, and took a year off to try to recover. She had come to the Santa Ynez Valley on a whim, met Jimmy, and stayed. He was passionate about her, but they were discreet. He let her live in a small guesthouse on the ranch. She was a bright but quiet woman who enchanted him. She never engaged in battle with him, or challenged his sometimes outrageous, very male positions. She was subtle in her influence, and gentle in her ways with him. She was a beautiful young woman with a wild mane of red hair and green eyes. He had fallen in love with her, but never forced her on his children, and she stayed in the background, preferring to be their friend, rather than vying to be their mother. Several local women had been after Jimmy before that, but between the ranch and his daughters, he’d had little time to date, although he was considered a catch, as the ranch grew rapidly in its size and success. Juliette always waited for him quietly in the shadows. They spent hours together, talking, and over time she subtly introduced him to some of the cultural pursuits she enjoyed. She was a good rider too, and knew about horses, which he loved about her.