Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (bill gates books recommendations .TXT) 📗

smiling, shaking her head, toying with the dessert she no longer wanted. "He's fine. Physically healthy, anyway. I'm beginning to wonder if he's mentally sound. He's threatening to give up his scholarship."

"What?" Neva's eyes widened before she frowned. "You're kidding. Why?"

"I'm not kidding, no. And because he wants to be a good person. Not just a good football player." Such a noble-sounding reason. Such a complicated truth. "He wants to stay and help out on the Bremmer ranch, what with Jase missing and calving season being right around the corner."

"Wow." Neva sipped her coffee thoughtfully. "That's some sacrifice. I'll bet his father's proud."

If only that were the case. "Not proud. Furious."

"Really." Neva cocked her head to the side. "Huh. Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've heard rumor that Yancey is adamant about Spencer playing ball."

"It's not so much the football as it is the education. We could never afford to send him to a school like Texas Tech." Jeanne thought of the pennies she'd pinched, the magazine subscriptions she'd canceled, their vehicles, which often seemed held together with crossed fingers and baling wire. "Neither one of us wants him to give that up whether it's for a good cause or because of a girl."

For a long moment the room was silent, Neva drinking her coffee, Jeanne wondering if she'd said the wrong thing, if she'd gone too far. If she wouldn't have done better to come right out first thing and admit why she was here.

But she and Yancey had always kept their private life private, and talking about this now, even with a friend, seemed like a betrayal of the promises she'd made with her husband.

Finally, Neva exchanged her cup for her fork and sliced into her pie. "By girl, I'm assuming you mean Candy?"

Jeanne nodded, dropping her gaze to her own plate, her own wedge of perfectly browned pie, the tiny flecks of silver and gold in the Formica tabletop. "I hate to pry, but does she talk to you about Spencer at all? Her feelings for him? What goes on between them?"

"Not really, no," Neva replied once she'd swallowed. She cut off another bite. "I know she's very fond of him."

"Fond," Jeanne repeated. Such a superficial word. She was quite fond of the lotion she used on her dry elbows. Yancey was fond of pouring ketchup on his eggs. "I know she's older than he is ..."

"I don't think that has anything to do with it," Neva responded, pinching the corner of fluted crust from her pie and popping it into her mouth. "I think it's that she knows Yancey doesn't approve of her."

"Yancey doesn't approve of Spencer seeing any girl," Jeanne admitted rather harshly, aiming the sentiment at her husband's unyielding insistence that their son would have a better life were he not tied to Pit Stop. Implying that their own lives weren't all that they could be.

That she was at fault for choosing to leave Dallas and make their home at the end of the road. She looked back across the table at her friend. "He doesn't want Spencer to have any reason to come back once he leaves."

Neva shifted in her chair, tucked one leg up beneath her and huffed. "As long as you're living here, he'd damn well better have reason."

Jeanne smiled at her friend's indignation. "Besides coming back to see me."

"What if he wants to stay here?" Neva asked, waving an encompassing arm. "I know it's not Houston or Dallas, but you have to admit it's got its own quirky charm."

Oh, yes. Weren't they all here for the charm? "Is that why you moved here? The charming appeal of a single country grocery store that doesn't know a shitake mushroom from a cow patty?"

Neva laughed. "That, and your lemon chess pie. Oh, and ew. I'll never eat a shitake again."

"But at least you know what one is," Jeanne said, and sat back.

Neva did the same, ran an index finger along the table's ribbed aluminum flashing. "It's going to be hard to have him go, isn't it? When does he leave?"

"He has to be at football camp in just a few weeks," Jeanne answered, glancing toward the window over Neva's sink, the sun that was setting, another day stolen away. "I didn't think it would get here so soon."

A nod of agreement. "The summer's going by fast."

"I don't mean his leaving for school. I mean his being grown up and out on his own." Jeanne felt her chest and throat tighten, felt like she wouldn't be able to squeeze out another breath. "It seems like he was ten only yesterday. Five the day before that. But next summer he'll be twenty. How the hell did I get to be so old?"

Leaning forward, Neva reached out a hand. "The same way we all do, sweetie. One day at a time."

Jeanne wrapped her fingers around her friend's and squeezed. "Well, I don't like it one bit," she said with a halting laugh. "I'll tell you that right now." She also didn't like the way so many of her emotions were bubbling up.

"You know what we should do? Take a girls' day away. Maybe one day next week? Go to El Paso and play. I'm desperate for a break," Neva said, a twist to her mouth. "Not to mention a couple of bras that have all of their hooks."

"How sad is it that we consider taking care of the basic necessities to be pampering?" Jeanne asked, uncertain whether to laugh or to cry. "If Spencer or Yancey need anything, I don't hesitate to pick it up."

"I guess it's our plight as the female caretakers of the species," Neva said, adding a small private laugh. "Though I have no excuse for the state of my underwear. I'm not taking care of anyone but myself."

Jeanne couldn't help a stab of uncharitable envy. But only a small stab. She did, after all, love her husband and son very much. Possibly more than she loved herself. "Well, you