The Widows of Wichita County by Jodi Thomas Page A

though he’s already left us.”
    â€œHe can’t hear. Hell, he wouldn’t even be breathing if it wasn’t for this machine. All I’d have to do is reach up and…”
    â€œStop it, Trent! You don’t have the guts to kill him.”
    â€œOr the need. What the rig explosion didn’t do, the old man’s stubbornness about being transferred to a real hospital will. He may have blamed the Dallas hospital for killing Mom, but I’ll be able to thank this little place fornot having the ability to keep him alive. In a few hours, I’ll be running Howard Drilling. Even if he lives, he’ll be a vegetable, and I’ll take over.”
    The woman’s tone was cruel. “And our dear little tramp of a stepmother will be back to waiting tables where she belongs. I’d feel sorry for her if I thought Daddy ever loved her. But she was just his toy. I’ll always believe he married her just to irritate you.”
    â€œHe did a good job of that.”
    The woman laughed. “Wait till you see what I brought her as a change of clothing. I find it hard to believe she had the guts to even ask me to do such a thing. She hugged me as if she could comfort me and asked if I’d do her a great favor. She even said it didn’t matter what I brought, she just needed a change because she wasn’t leaving the hospital until Daddy did.”
    â€œAll she’ll have left is guts as soon as the old man dies.” Trent laughed.
    A door opened. The conversation ended. He drifted with the pain for a while before he heard someone crying again.
    â€œDon’t die, darling,” the soft Southern voice whispered over and over. “Please don’t die.”
    Her fingers pressed lightly over the bandages on his hand. She willed him to live with a determination stronger than his need to die. Whoever she was, she wasn’t giving up. She wasn’t letting go.
    Through the pain he realized he didn’t want her to give up on him. She was the only hope he felt he had ever known.

 
    Sleepy little farming towns flooded overnight with thousands of oil field workers, teamsters and speculators. Gambling houses, saloons and shacks called parlors offered entertainment for a price. Small-town sheriffs from Borger to Port Arthur called in the Texas Rangers to help maintain a modicum of control. When the boom died, the local law stood alone as the towns drifted back to sleep.

October 12
1:45 a.m.
Frankie’s Bar
    T he bartender leaned as far over the bar as his huge belly would allow and whispered, “We’re closing, Randi, you want another one?”
    Randi Howard stacked her last shot glass beside the others and shook her head. “Can’t seem to drink enough to feel it tonight, Frankie.”
    The old boxer behind the bar nodded. “I’ve been there, kid, believe me.” He used two of the glasses she’d emptied to pour them each a shot of tequila. “Jimmy was a good man and he’ll be missed. Here’s one to him.”
    Randi didn’t down the offered drink. She just nodded. “He was a good man. Best damn husband I ever had.” She looked up at Frankie. “He never beat me. Did you know that? Not once.”
    Frankie moved down the bar to the next customer; sympathy and advice were doled out like whiskey, in short shots. He’d been a boxer and a biker before settling down to tending bar. Randi guessed he’d heard every hard luck story over the years, and hers was just one more.
    She lifted the last drink to her lips. “To you, Jimmy. I might not have been able to stand the boredom of living with you any longer, but I’m sure going to miss you now I know you’re gone and I can’t come running back.”
    Blinking away a tear, she remembered how he once told her that she was a one-woman wrecking crew leaving broken hearts wherever she went. He always said things like that to her before they married.