T.R.shook his head.“I got into sports early — Pop Warner Football League, Little League baseball.I didn’t have time for Scouts.”
“What positions did you play?”
“Quarterback on the football team, pitcher in baseball.”
Freddy nodded.“The power positions.They probably called you T.R.when you were nine years old.”
He sipped his coffee.“Tommy.”
“Really?”She decided to be bold and see if she could unravel one of the mysteries about him.“Then I don’t understand why you didn’t make the natural progression to Tom.”
He gazed into the fire for a long moment.“That’s what my wife, Linda, said.She refused to call me by a set of initials.Called it stuffy.”
A wife.Somehow, Freddy hadn’t thought there was a wife.“She’s right.”
“Was right,” he corrected in a monotone.“She’s dead.”
“Oh!”Understanding hit Freddy like a blow.She remembered how he’d looked when he’d said Thaddeus must have loved Clara even after her death.Apparently, T.R.still loved his wife.“I’m sorry.I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.I don’t talk about it much.”
Freddy stared into her coffee mug.Of course he wouldn’t want some cowpoke like Curtis calling him by the name his wife had used.But he wasn’t the type to broadcast his personal tragedy, either.Under normal circumstances, she doubted he would have told her, a relative stranger, but there was something about a campfire that encouraged confidences.And he had consumed most of the flask of whiskey.
She waited without much hope to see if he’d add any details.When he didn’t, she refrained from asking.“If it were my choice, I’d call you Ry,” she said at last.
“Ry?”
“Isn’t your middle name Rycroft?”
“I’m surprised you remembered.”
So was she.The number of things that stuck in her mind concerning him were beginning to disturb her.“It’s an unusual name, that’s all.”
“So’s Freddy.I thought you were a man.”
“Would it have made everything easier if I had been?”
He studied her across the dancing flames.“You tell me.Would a man have trailed me over the ranch until I was so saddle sore I couldn’t stand?Would Thaddeus have done that?”
“If his ranch was at stake, he would have.Duane and Curtis thought it was a terrific idea.”
“So everybody was in on it?”
“Why do you suppose you got a brand-new pair of jeans guaranteed to make your ride even more miserable?”
He snorted and shook his head.“You people are tough.”
“Out here, we have to be.”
“Well, let me tell you something.Wall Street is no baby’s playground, either.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but the stakes aren’t as high.”
His eyebrows lifted.“You don’t consider financial ruin a high-stakes game?”
“Not compared to losing the thing you love most.”
The transformation in his expression was dramatic.All the challenge and good humor left his eyes, to be replaced by a stark sorrow that seemed to have no bottom.“You’re right, of course.”
