"So the three of you were in bed together," I said. Helen and I were sitting at the kitchen table having a second cup of coffee after Jack left for work.
"Yes," she replied, "And your Mr. Young is one of the gentlest men in bed I've ever known."
I felt a twinge of jealousy which I put down right away. So that's where he disappeared! In fact, I hadn't seen him again. Somers and I went downstairs for a drink, after he had given me back my clothes, of course. Somers had mellowed after our encounter. Later, Jack and Helen came down, and we left.
"What did Jack have to say about all this?" I asked. "I thought he was pretty square."
"He wants to please me, Bea. I think he would agree to anything as long as he wasn't left out of it," she said.
"Well, what did you do?" I asked.
"When you and Jack went upstairs, Jack started telling me jokes, dirty jokes. He knows a million of them, as you know. He went through four of them, and then Mr. Somers told a really filthy one. That man has a low opinion of women, Bea. You should have heard that story. Disgusting!" she averred.
"I did an operation head-start on him," I said. "Maybe he has a higher opinion of us now. I remembered how Somers had almost cracked me too. What happened after the filthy joke?"
"Jack told a few more of his traveling salesman ones, and then Mr. Somers said he was tired and wanted to go lie down. He said if we were very tired, he would show us a spare bed upstairs. Jack and I said fine and up we went.
"Well, we both got undressed in the bedroom Mr. Somers had pointed out to us and we were just about ready to get down to business, when in walks Mr. Young, stark naked and carrying his clothes with him.
"He said he was sorry and would be glad to turn the lights out when he left. He said he had been using the bedroom temporarily until he got married.
"I rolled over onto my elbows and told him it was all right. I didn't mind that he had come in, and I told him that Jack didn't mind, and why didn't he just stay." She giggled.
"Why you little devil," I said. "What did he say to that?"
"He looked at me, I mean at what I've got here. You know." She pointed at her breasts. "He said I was a beautiful creature, and that Jack was lucky to have me for a wife."
"Next thing I know, his thing starts swelling, and if he had any ideas about leaving the room, he soon forgot them. He dropped his clothes on the floor and came over to the bed.
"Jack started fussing then, and I kept telling him to shush. Jack was really embarrassed. But Mr. Young started talking to him and pretty soon Jack was all for it.
"Well, Mr. Young lay down on the bed first, on his back. That thing of his was just a rootin' tootin' to go. I wanted it bad too. He told me to get on top of him, which I did, and he put it in. 'Boy,' he said, 'that's wide open country!! On account of the pony, you know.'" She glanced at me shyly.
"Next thing he told Jack to get on his knees behind me and stick his thing up my rear end. Did you ever? Jack really was hot for the idea, too, and he never has suggested anything like that at home. I couldn't believe it.
"He told Jack where to find some cream to use, and Jack went and got it. He put it all over his thing and then rammed it up me. It felt like fire at first, but then all three of us going to town like that together like that, it started to feel good with two things like that in me at once. Have you ever done that?
"We all three came at about the same time and toppled over. Jack had had a lot to drink and went off into dreamland almost at once. I mean he went out. Talk about sawing wood!" she exclaimed.
"Mr. Young said to follow him, and he went into another bedroom where he made love to me extra special. I asked him where you were, and he said you were sleeping. I asked him if you would mind if you knew what he were doing, and he said 'No, you didn't have any strings on him and vice-versa.'"
"Was that it then?" I asked, irritated beyond compare. I was seething inside. I wanted to get into the car and drive over there and break something over his head. I looked down at the floor and began mentally counting the tiles in an effort to take my mind off the whole thing.
"That was it," she said. "What a night!"
I sat, staring at the floor and drumming my fingers on the table.
"Helen," I began, "what do you think happened to Clyde?" I got up from the table and walked slowly over to the door leading to the back yard. The pony was eating the lawn with singular dedication.
"I don't know, Bea," she responded, apparently puzzled by my question.
"I mean," I said without turning, "what do you, Helen Smallwood, personally think happened that day? You must have some notion or theory. Your mind can't be a blank."
"I'm afraid it is though," she replied. "I haven't the faintest notion where he can be."
"Suppose we forget for the moment where he might be right now," I argued. "How do you think he got out of the house?" I turned around and faced her.
"I don't know that either, Bea. There didn't seem to be any explanation. There was no way he could have possibly gotten out."
"Exactly!" I said. "There was no way he could have gotten out by himself."
"Are you suggesting someone took him out?" Helen asked. "How did they get in? There was no sign of forced entry anywhere."
I saw the realization of what I had planned for her to think spread across her face. "J-Jack?" She looked up at me in amazement. "You think Jack took Clyde? But he didn't get home until evening," she protested. Her face reddened suddenly. "Besides, for what reason would he do a sneaky thing like that?"
"I'm not sure that he did, Helen," I confessed, walking back and sitting down. She was on the verge of resentment at my accusation. It was the reaction I had expected and wanted somehow. I picked up a nail file and fussed at my fingernails.
"No? You sure seem secretly pleased at the idea if you're not," she perceived. The thought I had planted in her mind was cankering there. "Well?" she asked suddenly. "Is that all you have to say, that you're not sure?"
"I'm not sure," I repeated, looking down at my nails. "There are just some things that make me think of the possibility."
"What things?" she asked.
"Somebody that had a key would have had to let him out of the house," I stated. "I heard Jack say last night at John's that he got back early on Tuesday, not Tuesday night as we assumed."
"He probably meant he got back to the office early in the day," Helen countered. "He doesn't always come directly home after a business trip."
"Then there's that telephone number," I brought out. "The number of a man who keeps a lot of animals at his place. Why would Jack have had just that number on a slip of paper?"
"Didn't we already discuss that?" Helen reminded. "It's undoubtedly a business contact. You said that man owned a garage."
"Yes," I agreed, "But wouldn't it have been more likely Jack would carry the telephone number of the garage? The number on the slip is a home phone," I informed her.
"Oh, Bea," Helen said impatiently, "he knows dozens of those guys personally. Goes on hunting and fishing trips all the time. I even know some of the wives."
"The telephone number of a friend like that would be in some kind of address book, wouldn't it?" I asked. "Jack must keep account books, too. This was a fresh piece of paper, and you said yourself you never heard him mention the name before."
She practically glared at me. "Is that where you're going this morning?" she wanted to know.
I nodded.
"Well, I'm going too," she announced, getting up out of her seat. "Excuse me," she said. "I'm going to get dressed." Her tone was short and curt.
I watched her as she trailed out of the kitchen in the robe. If we found Clyde out there, she was going to be madder than hell at Jack. Either way, she would be angry with me for some time.
I had played with my nails long enough. They hadn't really needed any manicuring. It was just a nervous habit, and I had been nervous talking to my sister. I hadn't intended mentioning the, possibility of Jack taking Clyde until I was absolutely sure, and even then if I could have arranged it with Jack, I might have kept it from her.
Was I really so upset about John with Helen that I had wanted to get even? I had always loved my sister above all others, and now I had deliberately made her uncomfortable.
I stood up and stretched. A warm, pleasureful sensation ran down through my vulva. I squeezed my breasts lightly and walked back to the bedroom to get dressed.
We were out on the highway to Fort Worth when Helen spoke to me.
"If we find Clyde out there, what shall I do?" she asked.
"About Jack?"
"Yes," she replied.
"He'll have to have an explanation," I said. "Helen," I said in all seriousness, "is there any possibility he might have come home early one day and caught you with Clyde without you seeing him?"
"We always did it downstairs," she said. "Clyde doesn't like to go up and down that staircase," she mentioned. "I suppose," she went on, "if Jack had looked in a window."
"What would he have done?" I asked. "Gone out and gotten drunk and sworn to get rid of the dog, right?"
She puckered up her mouth and nodded.
"He's just going to have to live with both you and Clyde, Helen," I insisted. "Compromise. Tell him you only play with Clyde when he's away on trips because you get so lonely for him. Tell him about all your girl friends who play with men when their husbands are away. Ask him if he'd like that better?"
"You know how he can get, Bea," Helen demurred. "You know how it has been with that pony. I don't think it would work."
"If you would just take a stand. I know he loves you," I argued. "You said he would put up with almost anything. Put it to the test."
"He wants to be a part of it," Helen said.
"Figure out a way," I urged her.
We were silent for a long time then. We passed through Fort Worth easily. Helen knew a way to get around to the other side without running into a lot of traffic. She was still sulky to an extent. I knew finding Clyde would be a tonic to her whatever the circumstances.
We had been driving along a back road to the northwest for some time when Helen announced she had to go to the bathroom real bad. After about another mile we saw a service station up ahead on the left. It turned out to be a small rural station offering a cut rate brand of gasoline.
Helen parked the car away from the pumps so as not to give the impression we wanted gas, and we got out.
A beefy kid of about twenty-one or two came pounding out of the little station house grinning from ear to ear.
"Ma'am!" he greeted us. "Got troubles?"
"Bathroom troubles," I said. "Where's the rest room?" I looked around the back of the house for a doorway but could find none.
An older man came running out of the house. "What is it, Homer?" He asked the fat boy. "What do them ladies want? You ladies lost?" he addressed us.
"Stopped by just to use the rest rooms, Pa," he told the older man. "I'll go on down and tidy up," he said, padding off behind the house.
"That boy's a real worker," the man informed us. "Real clever with his hands. Should have been a carpenter."
"Amazing," I noted, thinking about the enormous hams I had observed at the end of each of the boy's arms.
"Are the rest rooms messy?" Helen asked him, appearing somewhat leery of having to use them at all.
"Ain't that," he told us. "Just kids get in there sometimes leaving a lot of paper laying around. Can't always watch it. Homer'll set it in order. No point in waiting here," he said. "Go on down."
We walked down and around the house and observed a path running slightly downhill leading to a wooden outdoor privy. There were two doors marked crudely with chalk designating which was for men and which for women.
"Don't pay no attention to them signs," the old man shouted after us. "One's the same as the other."
I looked at Helen and she laughed for the first time that afternoon. We both laughed.
"Do you suppose Homer is still in there?" I asked Helen when we reached the step leading to the doors.
"I don't know," she said, "but I can't wait or I'll pee in my pants. Keep an eye out, Sis," she requested, stepping up onto the platform and walking to the door marked for women. After she had gone inside and closed the door, I debated whether or not to use the other side. I didn't have to go so bad as Helen, but the power of suggestion was working on me.
I decided to wait until Helen came out and use the one properly marked for my own sex. I half expected to find Homer waiting inside the other one anyway, grinning and blushing sweatily, expectantly hoping I would show a bit of pussy.
It seemed Helen was taking an awfully long time in there. Maybe she had cramps as well as a full bladder. The dear girl had a constipation problem since marrying Jack. Too few orgasms will do it to a woman, I thought.
In a moment there came a shriek from inside followed by gasping moans that seemed to die in intensity. I raced up to the door and pushing it open and saw Helen seated on the commode, her head thrown back, and her body racked with what appeared to be the throes of sexual passion.
Looking down at the round opening I could see her pussy clearly. To my amazement huge strings of jism were cascading down out of it into the pit below. What looked like an entire load came out before it ceased dripping.
"Good Lord!" I exclaimed. "What's happening in here, Helen?" Looking around, I saw no one else was inside. It seemed incredible. I started shaking her. "Helen," I insisted, "what happened?"
"Oh, Bea," she puffed, grabbing my arm for support. "Believe it or not, I just got screwed." She was trying to catch her breath. "And cripes, did it feel good. Phew!"
"But how?" I begged her, "there was no one in here."
"Hand me that paper," she requested, pointing to a small pile of cheap toilet tissues stacked on a shelf.
I handed several to her.
"Thanks," she said, wiping what was left of the load from her cunt. She dropped the papers through the opening and stood up, pulling up her underpants. "Wait until we get back in the car," she whispered.
We walked up the slight incline together and back to the front of the station. Homer was standing there red as a beet and grinning. I noticed his sweat had soaked through his shirt in several places. He reeked of body odor.
The old man came out of the house as we got into the car. "Hope you ladies found things to your liking," he called out to us. Helen waved at him as we pulled out.
"Now tell me, I'm dying of curiosity."
"When I went in there, it looked like an ordinary outhouse," she began. "I went over to the place where you sit and pulled my pants down. I sat up over the hole and began urinating."
"Well," she said, "I had just finished peeing when the fattest, warmest thing you could imagine pushed its way up into me. I didn't know what it was at first, but it sure felt like you know what.
"I looked down through the opening and saw the thing up in me was definitely no imitation. There was a man lying on his back underneath."
"Was it Homer?" I asked.
"I couldn't see his face," she said. "I could just see that part of him that showed through the opening. It was a fat man," she added.
"Then if must have been," I concluded. "That slob. What a way to get a piece of ass!"
"I had no idea how long the thing was he had stuck in me," she continued. "When I looked down, all I could see was like a tree stump stuffed up between the lips. I had the feeling that plenty was in there, though. It was grand. It didn't seem as if he were going to get around to pushing it in and out," she continued.
"He probably couldn't," I suggested. "Not in that awkward position. Undoubtedly it took all his strength just to hold on."
"I couldn't take it," Helen went on, "not just sitting there stuffed like that with nothing happening. I started rotating my bottom, you know. Around the circle, then up, down. Around the circle, then up, down. I didn't know about him, but it was sure working on me."
"I started working that routine harder and faster, and pretty soon I came. I could feel it running down out of me. I noticed then that he was still working up into it as best he could. He hadn't come yet. Before I knew it, I felt a second orgasm building inside me. How many times does that ever happen? You know how the second one can really zap you, so I grit my teeth and hung on."
"When the warm flow of all his come gushed up into me, there was a wrenching spasm in my pelvis. I felt my back arching and my legs go straight. It felt so good I cried out. It must have frightened him because he pulled out suddenly before I had had a chance to come all the way down."
"That must have been when I arrived," I said. "You were still way up there. Too bad," I sympathized with her.
"Yes," she agreed. "Why do some men do that? Jack does that, Bea. You know it? Drop that load and get out fast. That's his motto."
"I wonder how often Homer pulls off that little trick," I chuckled.
We had reached the county road leading to Felt's place. Turning onto it we soon saw it was badly in need of repair. Whatever county funds were earmarked for paving roads must have always found priorities somewhere else. It didn't appear to have been patched in years.
Helen's car was fairly new, and each time a wheel ran into a chuck hole in the road I felt a twinge of guilt for having brought her car there.
"By day's end, you're going to have an old rattletrap for a car," I said rather apologetically.
"If it means finding my pooch, I don't care," she declared.
When it appeared we were close to the general area, I told Helen to slow down in order to read the numbers on the mailboxes. Some boxes carried the names of the tenants as well as the number. Perhaps we would be lucky and see Felt's name on one, I hoped.
Numbers had been placed on the mailboxes in many different ways. No two boxes seemed to use the same decals, paint or reflectors in posting the numbers.
To my delight, I saw Felt's name on a box up ahead. I told Helen to drive alongside the box to check the number just in case there was more than one Felt in the neighborhood. The number checked.
Felt's farm was evidently not close to the county road.
A long, dirt road went off across the fields at a right angle to the county road and must have continued for quite a distance for no buildings were visible on the immediate horizon.
Helen and I turned into the dirt road and bounced along for what seemed like miles before a clump of buildings came into view. As we pulled into the compound, we were surprised at the number of animals to be seen around us.
There were the usual barnyard animals running loose; chickens, ducks, geese, even pigs seemed to be roaming at will. Other animals, mostly dogs it appeared, were cooped up in cages placed in no visible pattern around the area. Several dogs were tied to stakes sunk into the ground. The din was terrible.
The main house was in a decrepit state. Shutters hung by one hinge where there were any left. Practically all the paint had peeled from the clapboard sides, and the roof showed many barren patches were shingles had been lost and never replaced. Shades were drawn over all the windows.
"You go see your friend," Helen proposed, jumping out of the car. "I'm going to look around."
We had parked next to several vehicles already there. One, a battered pickup, bore the name of a garage in Fort Worth. I stepped out of the car and watched Helen trudge up past some of the cages, then went up the steps to the porch and rang the doorbell.
When I had not had any response for some minutes, I knocked on the door thinking that the doorbell probably did not work.
The door opened quickly, and I beheld a man in the dimly lighted hallway inside. He was dressed in a crumpled suit and asked me to please come inside.
He led me into what must have been the parlor where he offered me a seat and a cup of coffee. I accepted both. He poured the coffee from a silver pot and asked me if I would like it braced with some cognac.
I declined the brandy but complimented him on his service.
"Thank you, Miss Starr," he returned. "I presume?"
I smiled acknowledgment and looked my host over. He was a slight man, graying, and probably in his late fifties. He evinced a delicacy that didn't seem to fit his surroundings.
"There are a million and one stories here for your magazine," he revealed. "Every animal has a story to tell, don't you agree?" he asked.
"Perhaps we mightn't keep them around if they could tell it," I suggested.
He glanced at my face oddly. "What a strange thought! Ah, but you're thinking about the ponies," it occurred to him quickly.
"Mr. Felt," I said, leaning forward in my chair, "Joe Cunningham has sworn to me he sold you four ponies over the past two years. If, as you say, you have only one pony now, I am curious about what happened to the others."
"My dear," he began, "curiosity in you is a virtue I admire. I do not have to tell you, you realize, what you want to know, but I can say at least that they have died."
"Died?" I asked. "All of them? How?"
"What does it matter how?" He inquired. "Death comes to everything sooner or later."
"It doesn't always have to come sooner," I commented.
"Perhaps," he said.
"Mr. Felt," I began a new tack, "You strike me somehow as out of place here. I understand you own a garage in the city, too. None of it fits as far as I can see."
"It's true," he admitted, "I'm no farmer. You can see that outside. The fields are rented out to those who like that sort of thing. As to the garage, it is operated on a lease basis by someone else. All of these things," he opened his palms, "are just an inheritance I haven't had the heart to sell."
"Then how do you explain that truck outside?" I inquired.
"A private matter, Miss Starr, a private matter," he asserted. "Nothing to do with the business of the garage, I assure you. But why should that be of concern to you?"
"Mr. Felt," I said, "do you know a Jack Smallwood?"
"Why, yes," he replied, becoming more and more disconcerted by my interrogation. "Only casually."
"I have reason to believe Mr. Smallwood stole a valuable dog recently and that you have possession of that dog right at this moment." I had not minced my words.
His hands twisted in his lap. He appeared to become more agitated.
He stood up at once. "My dear girl, what are you saying?" He appeared flustered. "Come with me at once," he requested.
I followed him out of the room. He unlocked a door and led down a flight of stairs to another door at the bottom which he unlocked also. After that we entered a damp enclosure that was evidently a little used portion of the basement.
At one end of the damp area we entered what appeared to be a small arena or theater in the round. The seats were arranged around a small platform on which was a bed and an few straight-backed wooden chairs.
We passed through the theater area to another door that led to dressing rooms and a lounge. A man and two women were sitting around drinking and talking. The man stood up when he saw us come in.
"Elbie," Felt addressed the man. "Bring the collie out here."
The man put his drink down and walked back to a rear door. The two girls, who looked suspiciously like prostitutes, ogled me curiously. Moments later the man returned with a collie held by a leash. I recognized Clyde at once.
"Clyde!" I called.
His ears perked up and seeing me broke away from his holder and bounded in my direction.
"Clyde, you old rascal," I blurted out, hugging at him.
He licked at my face and started humping at my leg in the excitement. The man and the two women laughed abruptly.
"Maybe we can use her in the show, Felt?" the man suggested.
"I had no idea this dog was taken from anybody," Felt confessed to me. "Believe me." He seemed sincere. "I have private shows here in the evenings," he went on, "shows in which we use animals in, let us say, erotic situations with our actors."
The others seemed amused by Felt's choice of words.
"This collie was brought to me by Mr. Smallwood, who had heard about the entertainment I provide and thought I might be interested. He took no money for him. He told me he was his dog and that he could not take care of him anymore." He paused.
"What else did he tell you about him?" I asked.
"Else? Why he said the dog was a natural born actor," Felt hedged.
"What kind of an actor?" I insisted. "I want to know exactly what he said."
Felt looked embarrassed. "He said the dog liked to, uh, do it to girls."
"He does, too, lady," Elbie piped up. "He don't need drugs, either."
"Drugs?" I asked.
"Yes, does that surprise you?" Felt wanted to know.
"Do you drug the animals in your shows?" I wondered.
"Most of them will not perform unless they are drugged," Felt revealed. "This collie is a grand exception. One in a million."
As well I knew. I patted Clyde on his shoulder and thought about Helen.
"Drugs ain't good for them. He's lucky," Elbie chimed in again.
"Is that what happened to the ponies?" I asked Felt.
"It's a tough life for all of us, Miss Starr," he volunteered rather gratuitously.
"But what a way to go!" Elbie exclaimed.
The two girls giggled. One of them, who had been eyeing me during the conversation, winked. I had no explanation for it but the wink sent a hot flash through my body. Furious, I glared back at her.
"I must get my sister," I said. "She's outside waiting for me. I assume you are going to let me take the dog," I asked Felt.
"What can I say?" He smiled, throwing up his hands. "Come by some night and see the show, and bring your Clyde," he urged. "We invite audience participation at all times."
I left them laughing. Felt insisted on accompanying me back up through the house.
"Remember what I said," he reminded me at the door. "And no hard feelings?" he wanted to know.
My feelings are my own so I said: "Am I going to report the theft to the police? Is that what you want to know? The dog belongs to my sister. It was her husband who took it. Need I say more?"
He seemed astonished, and I left him in that condition.
I found Helen, or rather Clyde found Helen poking around inside a hen house looking for fresh eggs. She forgot about eggs when she saw Clyde and fell into him with joy.
"Oh, Clyde, honey," she cried deliriously, her eyes filled with tears. The dog was humping at her legs, but Helen paid no attention. "I'm so glad, so glad," she repeated burying her face in his fur. "My baby's back, my Clyde baby's back!"
Clyde kept humping at her excitedly, his pink organ inching its way out slowly. He licked at her face and began to whine.
"Oh, Bea," she pleaded. "I can't wait I'm so hot for him. Stand at the door, will you, honey?" Her eyes were all soft and moist. I could see the longing in them.
She stepped back into the chicken coop and put her purse on the floor. She pulled her pants down as best she could with Clyde clambering all over her and got down on her hands and knees in the straw.
Clyde mounted her insanely, humping at her rear end like a frenzied creature. The wet looking penis was way out and jabbed forward missing the right spot on every thrust. It poked, it slid off to the side, it almost bent in a right angle to itself when it struck one of her buttocks.
Suddenly it slapped into the right spot and dug in deep. Clyde changed his frenzied humping to a kind of close in ramming. He was humped up with his haunches as close as he could maneuver and in an effort to dig deeper lifted one rear leg off the floor, set it down, then lifted the other, rocking from side to side.
He was panting madly, the pants coming in short, tight huffs. They began to lower in register until they became almost inaudible. He was just about to come, I thought.
I heard a groan escape Helen's lips, and she pitched forward, the dog falling with her.
Clyde got up right away and stood alongside her, panting as though it were the hottest day of the year. I could see his meat bent clear around still anchored into her hole. It resembled an umbilical cord twisting out in that strange way.
The dog was too interested in getting its wind back to try breaking the union at once. Helen, too, was down in the hay, out of this world and into some seventh heaven. She relaxed abruptly, and I saw the twisted dong come grooving out.
Immediately behind it a big blob of white come welled up and blocked the entrance to her vagina. Helen shifted slightly, and the come slowly oozed back inside the hole. She turned and sat up.
"Where are my panties?" she inquired, the picture of contentment.
Clyde was over in a corner licking carefully at his member. I handed Helen's panties to her, and she stood up to put them back on.
"Got a Kleenex or something?" she asked me.
I searched through my bag and handed her a couple. She took them and folded them, then placed them down inside her underpants covering the vulva.
"If I don't do that, I'll drip all over the place," she averred.
She reached down for her purse and we walked out to the car, Clyde trotting after us.
"You drive, Bea," she said. "I'm just too up to think about driving. Do you mind?" she asked me.
I didn't mind at all and told her so. We were soon barreling down the dirt road homeward bound. Clyde kept poking his head forward over the front seat between us and demanding little pats of attention from Helen. She was only too willing to oblige him.
"We'll have to have it out with Jack tonight," Helen remarked. "I take it you found out he knows."
I told her about Felt's little theater group and Clyde's natural acting ability.
She hugged the dog's head affectionately. "I wonder how many times he performed in the last few days." She stared straight ahead out the windshield. "It's like Jack to have taken Clyde there. Don't you see the humor in it? He could have disposed of the dog anywhere, but he didn't."
She was milking something out of the situation that was flattering to her husband.
"He's going to wonder how in the hell we ever found that place," Helen said, laughing at the series of events that had found him out.
"Put the blame on me, if you want," I told her. "He will be only too glad to jump on me. We haven't had our usual blowoff this visit yet, anyway," I said.
She reached over and put her hand on my thigh. "Bea, I know how upset you were this morning. You wouldn't have said anything about Jack otherwise. I'm glad that you told me, though. I want you to know that. I want you to know, too, that I still love you better than anybody."
I took my right hand off the wheel and placed it on top of hers.