Other books by Carolyn Brown
Love Is
A Falling Star
All the Way from Texas
The Yard Rose
The Ivy Tree
Lily’s White Lace
That Way Again
The Wager
Trouble in Paradise
The PMS Club
The Drifters and Dreamers Romance Series:
Morning Glory
Sweet Tilly
Evening Star
The Love’s Valley Historical Romance Series:
Redemption
Choices
Absolution
Chances
Promises
The Promised Land Romance Series:
Willow
Velvet
Gypsy
Garnet
Augusta
The Land Rush Romance Series:
Emma’s Folly
Violet’s Wish
Maggie’s Mistake
Just Grace
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright ©2008 by Carolyn Brown
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612186382
ISBN-10: 1612186386
This title was previously published by Avalon Books; this version has been reproduced from Avalon Book archive files.
This one is for Bobby Rucker.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter One
Dee Hooper was bone-tired from the fourteen-hundred-mile drive, and the worst was yet to come. The devastation of her heart was nothing compared to what waited less than a mile away. In spite of the blistering Oklahoma heat, cold dread filled her as she turned into the driveway. The swinging wrought-iron sign above the entrance announced that she’d just turned onto Roxie’s property. “Roxie’s B&B,” it advertised. Most folks had known it as Roxie’s Bed and Breakfast for close to fifty years. Roxie referred to it as Roxie’s Blessin’s and Bellyachin’. Dee hoped today was the blessin’s.
Dee stomped on the brakes of the big, black dual-cab Silverado pickup. “Good God! Roxie painted the place red!” She stared ahead at the two-story house now Crayola-red with white trim. Finally, she eased the truck into the multicarport to the south of the main house. There was Roxie’s old ’86 white Cadillac, not a fleck of dust or a bird dropping anywhere on it.
A southern woman’s social dignity is determined by the way she keeps her Caddy clean. Just one of Roxie’s many adages. A newer, purple Ford Escort and an older-model black Buick were parked on either side of the Cadillac. Both were dusty, looking downright shabby next to the old Caddy. Evidently, Roxie had guests this weekend.
Dee checked her reflection in the rearview mirror, reapplied lipstick, and brushed her short, light-brown hair back, but she couldn’t erase the bags under her light-green eyes or the sadness in her face. Her hands trembled, her breath caught in her chest, and her feet felt like they were made of lead, but there was nothing to do but go face the music. The white indentation on the ring finger of her left hand would take a while to vanish, but the scars on her soul would probably last forever.
“Time to go get a dose of ‘I told you so,’ but a southern lady keeps a smile on her face and her head held high whether she’s wading in tall cotton or deep manure,” she whispered, another of Roxie’s proverbs.
She took a deep breath and stepped out of the air-conditioned truck. A blast of still, hot, dry air tried to suffocate her. Not a breeze between her and the Gulf of Mexico. The July heat bore down on her like an anvil. It scorched her lungs and sucked every drop of moisture from her body. She crossed the plush green grass, wondering how much water Roxie used every day to keep the lawn alive, and opened the front door without knocking. “Hello,” she called out. Nothing but silence answered her.
Not one thing had changed. The top of the foyer table was so shiny, she could use it for a mirror. The wood floors looked like they had a layer of glass on them. She could see the reflection of her khaki walking shorts and flashes of the red in her T-shirt as she walked across the floor. She meandered through the dining room and kitchen, and peeked out the back-door window. There was Roxie with several other people, sitting on the wooden lawn chairs, sipping something cold-looking from tall, frosty glasses. It had to be tea or lemonade.
Dee opened the door, inhaled deeply, and went to face them.
“Well, I do declare, just look what the dogs have dragged up and the cats wouldn’t have.” Roxie pushed her sunglasses down on the tip of her nose and peered out over the top. “Did you finally come to your senses, girl? Don’t just stand there. You’ll die of a heat stroke. Pour yourself a glass of tea and find a cool spot under the shade tree. It’s too hot to breathe. Now sit down and tell me that you got rid of that rich man.”
“Dee?” Jack Brewer said right behind her.
She’d been so intent on seeing her grandmother, Roxie, she hadn’t even looked at the other people in the group. “Jack?”
Her childhood fishing buddy, the proverbial boy next door, and her best friend all those years ago, had changed in seven years. His face was a study in angles seven years before. Now it had filled out somewhat and looked good on him. He’d been a tall, gangly kid from the time they were in kindergarten, but now his T-shirt stretched to cover muscles in his chest and arms. And where did those yellow flecks in his hazel eyes come from? Surely it was a contact-lens trick, because he’d worn thick glasses from the time he was in first grade. Where an eighteen-year-old boy had stood, a man had taken his place.
“I just came over for a glass of tea. Hotter’n hell on the judgment day, ain’t it? I’ll get on back across the yard and leave you ladies, now. You’ll have a lot of catching up to do.” He turned his back and walked across the yard to his own place right next door.
“Come anytime, Jack. You know we always like the company,” Roxie said. “Now, girl, you sit over there but only if you’ve got rid of that man you took up with. If he’s out there in whatever you drove, then you remember what I said. It still stands. You got a home here any time you want it, but that man’s not to darken my doorway.”
“I know Roxie. He’s gone. But I got to admit. I didn’t get rid of him. He got rid of me. But gone is gone, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is. Divorced yet?” Roxie pushed her glasses back up on her nose and readjusted her broad-brimmed straw hat with a wide, red satin band around the crown.
“Yes, he and his family pulled some kind of strings. It’s been annulled. After seven years they got it annulled. Funny, ain’t it? But they wanted the new wife and the baby to be solid in the church. Seven years and it never happened,” Dee said.
“Well, God won’t lay that one to your charge. Not for that lapse of good common sense,” Roxie said. “You bring any baggage with you?”
“Just what’s out there in my truck. Back end is loaded with my personal things. That’s all. No kids. He didn’t want kids. At least that’s what he said all these years. Ca
me right down to it, he didn’t want them with me. The old girlfriend from high school was a different matter when she came home from France.” Dee sat down on the last remaining wooden lounge chair, the back of her legs sticking to the oak before she’d even gotten comfortable.
She looked closer at the woman on her left. “Mimosa! Is that you?”
“Yes, darling, it’s your dear mother.” Mimosa smiled. “Come here and give your Momma a hug. It’ll slide all your makeup off, but Lord, girl, we ain’t seen each other in a long time.”
Dee hugged her mother tightly and then stooped to hug Roxie.
“You are my Aunt Dee?” The young girl on her right asked.
“Bodine?” Dee could scarcely believe her eyes. The precocious four-year-old had grown up. “What is that you are wearing?”
“Today I am a southern princess drinking mint juleps in the heat of the day,” she announced with a wave of her hand. She wore a pink headband with a pouf of net and a big, yellow plastic sunflower held on with a twist-tie from a bread wrapper. She had pushed a bright red satin dress, with black lace trim around the neck and hem, up to her waist showing her bathing suit bottom underneath it. Freckles had been tossed randomly across her pert little turned-up nose. Her crystal-blue eyes were exactly like her mother’s. Her kinky light-brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
“Found a bunch of Halloween costumes on sale after the holiday last fall. Bodine can be anyone she pleases. Sometimes she’s a princess. Sometimes she’s a pirate,” Roxie said. “Gives her character and teaches her individuality.”
“Where’s Tally?” Dee asked after her sister.
“She’s got another month in county for hot checks and then she’ll be home,” Mimosa said.
“Good Lord!” Dee exclaimed.
Roxie shook her finger at Dee. “Don’t you be taking on that tone. You married a dang fool and spent seven years up there in that gawdforsaken place without ever coming home to see me. She just got a year in county lock-up for those hot checks, and I get to see her every weekend.”
“Roxie, you told me when I left not to come back unless I got rid of him,” Dee reminded her, amazed that she’d just walked back into her dysfunctional family’s life like she’d only been gone thirty minutes on a trip to the store.
“And I meant it, but you could have left him sooner,” Roxie said.
Bodine waved her hand dramatically. “I declare it’s an abominable sin to waste our precious breath arguing in this kind of heat. Here, Aunt Dee, I’ll pour you a glass of tea. Lemon? We’ll talk about nice things. I’m reading Gone with the Wind. What are you reading?”
“You’re only eleven years old and reading something like that? And yes, lemon would be nice, thank you.” Dee still couldn’t believe her niece wasn’t four and talking with a lisp.
“Yes, ma’am, I am eleven years old.” Bodine nodded regally so her headpiece wouldn’t fall off. “But you taught me to read before you left with that man who started the war of northern aggression. I’m glad you finally shot him through the heart and buried him under the compost pile. That’s the only place fitting to bury a Yankee, you know. Just put him out there with the rest of the . . .” She stopped dead and twisted her mouth to one side. “. . . manure,” she finished.
“Bodine!” Dee chided.
“Leave her alone,” Mimosa said. “She’s right. But we’re glad to have the prodigal daughter back home.”
“You’re one to talk about prodigal daughters. What happened to the last truck driver?” Dee asked.
“He retired and so did I. I’ve come home to take care of my dear Roxie,” Mimosa said.
“Hmmph,” Roxie snorted. “I’ve heard that story so many times I know the words by heart. Besides, I’ll be taking care of the whole ragtag lot of you until I’m a hundred years old. I’ll drop dead right after I take a pecan pie out of the oven, and you’ll all be pushing up daisies long before me. The rules are still the same. I’ll abide a lot, but I don’t cotton to men slapping women no matter what the cause.”
Dee nodded.
“That’s my girl,” Roxie said. “Now, enough of this heat. We’ve got air-conditioning in the house. It’s time to start supper, and then we’ll all help Dee get her stuff put back in her room. And, honey, it is right good to have you back home. Tally will be glad to know her sister is here when she gets out of county next month.”
Dee trailed behind them, bringing in the tray with the pitcher and glasses. After all, the prodigal must do extensive penance for committing the two unforgivable sins. Number one: marrying a Yankee. Number two: leaving southern Oklahoma to live in that gawdforsaken place. It would take a lot of tray-toting to redeem her. Even on the judgment day, she might be assigned extra atonement for the first twenty thousand years of eternity.
Roxie hung her straw hat on the nail beside the back door and started giving orders like a drill sergeant. “Bodine, you make us another pitcher of tea and slice the lemons. Thin, now, you hear? Mimosa, you can make the biscuits and cut up the okra. I’ll fry the chicken. If you haven’t forgotten how, Dee, you can make the fresh pickles and slice the tomatoes. Eggs are in the refrigerator, already boiled. Dee, you can devil them. Southern style. Don’t you be puttin’ nothing in the eggs that you learned up there among those heathens.”
Roxie fluffed up her hair, the same brilliant red she’d always had. Right out of the Clairol box. She’d been born with red hair and she swore she’d be laid out in her coffin with the same color. She wore electric-blue Spandex capri pants with a bright red tank top, covered with an oversized shirt of some kind of gauzy material that looked like it had been constructed of a Confederate flag. Dee had never seen her without her pearl earrings. She even slept in them just in case she was wrong about living to be a hundred and still making pecan pies. She wouldn’t think of facing off with St. Peter without her pearl earrings. Dee had also never seen her grandmother in anything but high-heeled shoes. She gardened in them, cooked in them, and went to church every Sunday morning in them. Only difference was, the ones she gardened in weren’t made of Italian leather.
“Why didn’t you just bail Tally out of those hot checks?” Dee peeled cucumbers and sliced them wafer-thin, along with onions, into brine made of salt and cold water.
“I told her after the first two times that if she did it again, she was steppin’ up to the plate and takin’ her castor oil. I don’t make promises I don’t intend to deliver. Judge over there at the courthouse asked me if I wanted to pay the fines for the checks again. I told him that she could do her year in county and maybe she’d learn a lesson. Just like I meant it when you left here with that sissified, pretty city boy. You wasn’t comin’ home until you got rid of him.”
“Was he really pretty?” Bodine asked.
“Yes, he was very pretty,” Dee answered.
Roxie deftly cut up the chicken, rolled it in a flour mixture that contained her own herbs and spices, and made the Colonel’s take a back seat. “I never thought he was pretty. That diamond earring glitterin’ in his ear was pretty. Guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder.”
Mimosa started to say something but shut her mouth with a heavy sigh. Dee noticed that her mother hadn’t progressed past the hippie stage where she’d gotten stuck back before Dee and Tally had been born and shifted over to Roxie to raise. Back when Mimosa changed truck driver husbands as often as she changed her hair color. She still wore bell-bottom jeans, floral shirts with flowing sleeves, platform shoes, and pale pink lipstick. At least her dark-brown hair was short now instead of long and straight as a board. That was most likely because it took only one box of dye to keep it colored when it was short.
“Soon as supper is over, we’ll get that truck unloaded and your things toted up to your room.” Roxie dropped the chicken in hot grease, let it brown rapidly on one side, then turned it over and put a lid on the cast-iron skillet.
“You didn’t make my room into a B&B room?” Dee asked.
“Retired two years
ago from that. Got to be more bellyachin’ than blessin’, so me and Bodine, she was the only one here at the time, we had us a regular executive meeting and decided we was tired of the gig. We only got one huntin’ bunch we still let use the place, and I’m thinkin’ on letting Molly Branson have that business this fall. She’s about ready to throw in the dishrag too. Fightin’ with cancer. Three of us, me and Molly and Etta, we’re all ready for retirement,” Roxie said.
“I’m so sorry about Molly. I’ll have to go see her soon. So my room is still the same?”
“Same as the day you left it. I figured sooner or later you’d see through all Ray’s citified ways and come home.” Roxie gave her a brief hug when she passed from one side of the kitchen to the other.
“The earring and ponytail disappeared pretty fast when we got to Pennsylvania. His father saw to that when he made him vice president of that big company they own.” Dee was amazed that she could talk about Ray without wanting to cry. Even more amazed that she was taking up for him.
“If he did you dirty, why are you defending him?” Mimosa asked. “I can’t remember defending a one of my husbands who treated me shabbily.”
“I’m not taking up for him. I’m just trying to explain. Maybe it’s because if I don’t, then I feel like a bigger fool than I was. I’m so mad I could chew up oak trees and spit out toothpicks. I almost, and I said almost, shoved the settlement back into his father’s face. But I didn’t. I figured it was payment for seven years of being stupid. Every time I withdraw a check from the bank on that account, I’ll remember it and not make the same mistake again.”
“Now, that’s my girl.” Roxie nodded seriously. “You hear that? She’s got her head on just like a Hooper woman. She’ll do just fine. Don’t be lettin’ them pickles set too long now in the brine. They’ll get soft for sure. Just a few minutes, then put them in half vinegar, half ice water.”
“Yes, ma’am, and Mimosa, don’t you dare burn that okra. I haven’t had a bite of fried okra in seven years.” Dee managed a weak smile.
“It’s a wonder you’re still alive!” Bodine exclaimed dramatically.
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