"One more, that's it!" I told her.

"Which means, like nine more," Julianne said.

"I just wanna hear what goes on at these meetings," I said, ignoring her. "I'm not inserting myself into Spellman's death."

She glanced sideways at me, shaking her head. I knew I was driving her a little nuts, but I was genuinely curious. The fair was a big deal in Rose Petal and if people were s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with it, I wanted to know. It wasn't just that anyone a.s.sociated with the fair might be losing money. The fair had been around for as long as anyone could remember and there were tons of Rose Petal residents who poured their hearts into the week to continue the tradition. If someone was undermining that, people needed to know.

"You'll find a way to go even if I say no," Julianne sighed. "So just go."

"I won't say a word," I said. "I promise."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes. "Just don't expect me to bail you out if you get arrested or something."

"I'll take cash with me."

Carly was at the top of the slide and I walked to the bottom. She frowned at me, then jettisoned herself down the slide. She tried to scoot by me, but I grabbed her and picked her up. "Nope. Said that was the last time."

"But, Daddy!"

"No buts. It's time to go."

Her bottom lip quivered and tears formed in her eyes. "I wanna keep sliding!"

"Maybe tomorrow."

She let loose with a bloodcurdling howl and burst into tears. People in all directions turned to look and immediately gave me the raised eyebrow, wondering what I had done to make this cute little girl scream her brains out.

I looked at Julianne. "We're really gonna have another one of these?"

"Yeah," she said, grinning evilly. "And I hope it has a penchant for making one certain stay at home dad's life a little more uncomfortable."

She really needed to get that kid out.

9.

"I do not understand why anyone would pay me to dig holes in my backyard," my father said.

We'd been home an hour before my mother and father had barged in the front door, my mother because she'd gotten wind that Carly was upset over something at the fair and my father because someone was apparently offering him cash to mess up his yard. Julianne was flat on her back on the sofa, her feet in my lap, feigning sleep, probably relishing the fact that I was having to deal with them when I just wanted to pa.s.s out.

"What exactly are you talking about?" I said, reaching for the beer I'd set on the end table.

He frowned at me from his spot in the easy chair. "Have you not been listening?"

"Actually, no. I haven't." I took a long gulp from the bottle. "You tend to ramble on about nothing and I find that it's easier to tune out and pretend I've listened than to actually try to follow what you're saying. I started doing it back in high school, actually."

His frown turned to more of a snarl. "They want to dig in the backyard."

"Who?"

"The gas people."

"People made of gas? How can you see them?" His face screwed up with irritation. "Pammy! Where are you?"

Julianne's fingers dug into my thigh, but her eyes remained shut. She should've been an actress instead of an attorney. I wasn't sure whether she wanted it quiet or she was enjoying the conversation and wanted me to know it.

My mother walked into the room, holding hands with a red-eyed Carly, who was munching on an ice cream sandwich.

"What?" she asked my father. "And don't yell. Julianne and the baby are sleeping."

"Explain to your son about the diggers," he hissed.

"Well, they're this family on television that has, I believe, nineteen kids . . . ," my mother began.

"Not those crazy yahoos!" my father barked. "Those are the Duggars! I said diggers."

My mother parked herself on the floor and Carly gravitated toward my father. He scooped her up and set her in his lap. She was oblivious, studying the ice cream in her hands.

"Oh, yes," my mother said. "The diggers. Apparently, we own some valuable land."

"How valuable?" I asked.

She shrugged. "We don't know. They want to come to talk to us about it. Or, rather, they want to come talk to your father because I'm entirely uninterested in the subject."

"Again, I ask-who exactly are they?"

"What was the name of the company, Eldrick? I can't recall."

"Taitano Resources," my father spat. "Like they're trying to confuse me or something into thinking they work with computers with a fancy name. Please."

I didn't recognize the name of the company. I took a long drink from the beer. "I'm totally lost here."

My father settled back in his chair and wrapped his arms around Carly. "Taitano Resources is an oil and gas outfit. They want to drill on our property."

My parents had owned the same house on the same several acres since before I'd been born. My father had long maintained that one reason I'd excelled in football as a kid was because we basically had a football field for a backyard, where he had spent hours throwing me pa.s.ses. They were among the early residents of Rose Petal before suburbia had encroached and started throwing up fancy new neighborhoods with gates and streets named after jewels and ponds.

"I got that much, thanks. Drill for what?" I asked.

"Natural gas," he said, making a face. "Apparently, we're sitting on it."

I stroked the sides of Julianne's feet. "So tell them no."

He glanced at my mother. "But they're offering us a lot of money. To lease the land. Or however those leases work."

"I find it hard to believe you don't know how the leases work," I said to him.

"Well, I know how they used to work," he said. "But we didn't really deal with them at the bank. We just held the money people made from the leases. But that was awhile ago and maybe they've changed. And I'm not about to use that danged Internet to go looking for information. You know how I feel about the Internet. That thing is evil." Dad had tried, unsuccessfully, to join Facebook, and it put him off the entire World Wide Web for good. He was convinced he could live off the grid for the remainder of his life.

I wasn't exactly sure how the leases worked, either. Texas laws were weird. When you bought a home, you either retained the rights to your land or you signed them away. In the development that we lived in, we had to sign them over as a condition of purchase. I had no doubt that my parents had retained every right to their property, given that they had lived there for so long.

I knew that oil and gas companies would "lease" the land from you, meaning that they could come in and drill and dig and do whatever they needed to do in order to get to what they wanted. The homeowners were paid-handsomely, in some cases-for the use of their land. They didn't receive a share of what was taken, but they were paid a sum for the companies to come in and do their work.

Or something like that.

"How much?" I asked.

"A lot."

"Like, buy-a-football-team a lot or send-your-grandkids-to-college a lot?"

He raised an eyebrow. "It's somewhere in between. And your wife has a good job, so your children will be able to attend college and you can continue to lay around the house eating bonbons and spending her money."

He never got tired of needling me about staying home and I never was able to stop it from irritating me.

"So do it, then," I said.

"But I don't trust them."

"So don't do it, then."

"You are absolutely no help."

"Probably not."

Carly finished the ice cream sandwich and jumped down out of her grandfather's lap, vanilla and chocolate smeared around her mouth. "Gramma, I think I need a napkin."

"I would say so," my mom said, smiling at her. She glanced at me. "They call it fracking."

"Fracking?" Somewhere, I'd heard the word. On a commercial, on the news. I'd always tuned it out because I didn't think it was going to affect me.

My father snapped his fingers. "That's right. Fracking. I couldn't remember the word."

"How they drill," my mother said. "Something with water and I don't know what else. And it's not supposed to be safe."

"It isn't," Julianne said without opening her eyes.

"Mommy's awake!" Carly said.

"She was never asleep," I mumbled.

"It isn't safe," Julianne said, opening one eye. "Pollutes the water table. Don't do it, Eldrick. I don't care how much they offer you. Won't be worth it."

"At least she knows something," my dad said, frowning at me.

"She knows everything," I said. I leaned down and kissed her stomach. "That's why I love her."

"Yeah, but there's no explanation for why she tolerates you," my dad said.

Julianne looked up at me, both eyes open, a huge smile on her face. "There really isn't."

10.

After my parents left, I threw some chicken on the grill, tossed a salad into a bowl, and chopped up half a watermelon. The girls seemed reasonably pleased with my meal choice, devouring everything I put on the table and topping it off with ice cream from the freezer.

There was a certain satisfaction that came with having learned how to cook meals for my family. I'd always been able to grill, but I'd never had an appreciation for how hard it is to put together a complete meal every night until I actually had to do it when I started staying home. My initial efforts were poor, especially when I was sleep deprived during Carly's infancy. But I'd slowly improved and now I was at the point where I could open the fridge and put together something that would make both Julianne and Carly happy.

I liked that.

Julianne went upstairs to take a shower and Carly and I went outside to throw the football. She'd started to show an interest in throwing and catching things and I didn't want to do anything to stunt that. So I'd bought her a little Cowboys football, much to my dad's delight. Throwing it out in the front yard after dinner was becoming a nightly routine, heat indexes be d.a.m.ned.

"It's still hot," Carly said, stepping with her left foot and throwing the ball at me with her right hand, just like I'd shown her.

I caught it. "News said it was going to be hot all week."

"I get sweat on my bottom," she said. "It feels icky."

I threw the ball back to her and laughed. "Yeah, it does."

She caught it with both hands and fired it back to me. "Is it the same sweat I get on my head?"

"Yep."

"That's really gross, Daddy. I don't want to sweat anymore."

"We'd probably need to move from Texas, then," I explained, tossing the ball back. "Because living in Texas involves a lot of sweat."

She lunged for the ball, but it got away from her and fell in the gra.s.s. She picked it up and thought for a moment, her small facial features scrunching up. "Grandma and Grandpa would miss me if I moved."

The fact that she did not mention that they might miss me demonstrated that she perfectly understood the dynamic with her grandparents. "Yes, they would."

She shrugged and tossed the ball back. "Guess I'll just have to live with sweat on my bottom."

I was still laughing when I saw the Miata motoring down our street. I threw the ball back to her. "Here comes trouble."

She turned just as the car pulled up to the curb. "It's Mr. Doolittle!" She tucked the ball under her arm like a running back and sprinted to the curb.

Victor Anthony Doolittle hopped out of his convertible, wearing shorts and a Hawaiian print b.u.t.ton-down shirt. Tiny flip-flops cradled his tiny feet and a straw Panama Jack hat sat on his bald dome.