"At Vernon's urging?" Sara asked.
"Perhaps. And why did Kay Murray tell me a useless lie about continuing to be Vernon's lover up until the time of his death, if the sexual relationship had ended?"
"Sex and secrets," Sara said. "A potent combination."
"Murray offered to give me a blow job if I left her alone." Sara raised an eyebrow.
"Really? Did you take her up on it?"
"No, it wasn't the type of bribe I usually accept." Sara punched him on the arm in response.
Kerney shook off the love tap and tickled Sara's tummy. "What do you make of it?"
Sara pushed his hand away. "Stop it. I think you're right to follow the sex angle. Something has been going on in the Langsford family for a long time that everyone wants kept secret, and it's connected to the judge."
"That much I know. But what is it?"
"You'll figure it out. But not this weekend, if I have anything to say about it. I hope you haven't made any plans."
Kerney cocked an eye. "What have you cooked up?"
Sara pushed herself into a sitting position. "We're weekend guests at Dale and Barbara's."
"Don't you have to be back at the post tomorrow night in time for Monday classes?"
"Classes don't resume until Tuesday morning. I've rented a car to drive down to the ranch."
"Are we in a hurry?"
Sara lifted the bedsheets, looked at Kerney's crotch, and smiled. "Not necessarily. What have we here?"
"Has all this sex talk turned you on?"
"No more so than you, it would appear," Sara said. "Did I mention that I'm fertile this weekend?"
"Thanks for the late warning."
Sara laughed as she swung a leg over Kerney's torso. "Matrimony usually brings with it the promise of children, Kerney. That's a given, unless negotiated otherwise."
"So I've heard," Kerney said, thinking back to his conversation with Bill Kendell.
The Rocking J, Dale and Barbara's ranch on the western slope of the San Andres Mountains, bordered White Sands Missile Range and spread down to the Jornada del Muerto-the journey of death-a waterless, desolate savanna of cactus, creosote, and mesquite. Once part of El Camino Real that ran from Mexico City to Santa Fe, the Jornada earned its name because of the scores of lives it claimed during the early days of Spanish settlement.
The remote ranch headquarters stood on a ridgeline overlooking a deep canyon, with views of the basin below and the red-tinged forested mountains inside the missile range. Only the soothing sound of the wind in the trees and the call of Mexican blue jays broke the silence.
On arriving at the ranch, Kerney became pensive and somewhat quiet, and although he hid it well, his moodiness remained just be low the surface.
Sara didn't press him about it, thinking that perhaps staying in the old foreman's quarters, where Kerney and his parents had lived after losing their ranch to the army, brought back sad memories, including the harsh reminder of the tragic death of his parents, who had died in an auto accident on the day of Kerney's return from Vietnam.
Kerney had buried them in a small family cemetery under a grove of old pine trees on the Rocking J. After greeting Dale, Barbara, and the girls and chatting for a while, he paid a solo visit to the grave site for the better part of an hour.
When he came back, Dale got him to help with some chores, and the routine of ranch life seemed to lift his spirits somewhat. Sara watched the two men for a while and then worked on supper with Barbara and the girls, all of them talking up a storm as they prepared the evening meal.
The two girls, Candace and Meaghen, were lovely, wholesome, spirited teenagers who made Sara yearn for a daughter. As she flattened bread dough with the heels of her hands, she wondered if her lovemaking with Kerney had turned that longing into reality. The possibility brought a smile to her face that made Barbara raise an eyebrow as she passed by on her way to the kitchen sink with a bag of potatoes that needed peeling.
Working with Barbara and the girls reminded Sara of her own family's Montana sheep ranch and her mother, who had taught her to work as hard as a man and cook as lovingly as a woman. There was something to be said for the country life, Sara thought, as she molded the dough, covered it with a towel, and set it on the top of kitchen windowsill to rise. If nothing else, it was a welcome break from the spit-and-polish routine of the military.
She looked at her three busy companions, took in the delicious smells of the roast in the oven, the handmade welcome wreath hung over the kitchen door, and the neat row of hand-painted antique food canisters on the shelf next to the stove. Barbara was still peeling potatoes, Meaghen was putting final touches on an apple cobbler, and Candace was busy snapping string beans.
"Why the big grin?" Barbara asked.
"This is just a lot of fun," Sara replied, as she found a paring knife and joined Barbara at the sink.
The remainder of the weekend went wonderfully well, and after an early Sunday supper, Barbara left the dishes for Candace and Meaghen and invited Sara on a walk. They followed the ranch road into the canyon, the creaking sounds of the lovely old wooden windmill next to the corral wafting along behind them on a slight breeze, before Barbara led her off on a game trail that wandered down to a distant stock tank on the flats.
The breeze had pushed away a light haze and the Jornada sparkled under a harvest-yellow sun. Barbara pointed out the bleak San Cristobal Mountains, named for a friar who'd died on his return journey to Mexico four hundred years earlier. The peaks cut into the sky like sharp incisors, blunted only by the towering expanse of the Black Range that filled a hundred miles of the horizon to the west. Sunlight bounced off the metal roof of a distant wine-processing shed near the railroad tracks that cut through the Jornada, past the remnants of Engle, once a thriving railroad and ranching community.
Water for the acres of adjacent vineyards on the tableland was piped across the desert from Elephant Butte Lake, the largest water impoundment reservoir in the state, which ate up forty miles of land along the Rio Grande.
"Is Kerney's heart still set on ranching once he leaves the state police?" Barbara asked, as they stood looking at the view.
"He hasn't been talking about it quite as much as he used to."
"I would never say this to Dale, but I wish there was a way for him to slow down and not work so hard. Except for our trip to Montana for your wedding, we haven't been anywhere as a family for the last five years."
Sara nodded, her thoughts turning to her father and brother on the Montana sheep ranch. "The work takes its toll."
"And you can't tell these kind of men that they might not be twenty years old anymore," Barbara said, turning to look at Sara.
"And what about you? Do you want this kind of life?"
"I grew up with it," Sara said.
"That doesn't answer my question."
"I want Kerney to be happy."
"He's going to have a lot of options open to him," Barbara said. "Maybe he hasn't considered all of them."
"Do you think he's holding on to an unrealistic dream?"
"You two fit together like a hand and glove, Sara. If both of you were going to build a ranch together, I'd say go for it. Ranching may be hard, but it's a wonderful way to live."
"I know it is," Sara said.
Barbara smiled. "Want some advice?"
"I thrive on it," Sara said playfully.
"Help Kerney learn how to enjoy all that money he stands to gain from the sale of Erma's land. I don't think it's sunk in that he's going to be a rich man."
"Convince him to give up the dream?"
Barbara shook her head. "Heavens, no. But he could ranch in a small way, for the fun of it, and enjoy life without worrying about the price of beef on the open market, or the next drought, or the cost of doing business."