All My Exes Live in Texas

by Aimee Gilchrist

  "He's not my boyfriend." James raised his sandy eyebrows, and it was clear I'd been a bit too passionate in my response. "He's my best friend. The mayor. You'll meet him soon, I'm sure."

  Vi's smile got even more catlike, and James nodded. "Yeah, we need to meet with him today, no question. The best chance of success is getting the local authorities behind us. Do you think he'll be willing to speak to the locals on our behalf?"

  I had no idea, but in all likelihood, Aodhagan would speak out for anything he thought would help Birdwell regain its legs, let alone some of its former glory. "I don't know why not."

  It was the best answer I could give. There were some aspects of Birdwell politics that I just didn't get. I didn't want to promise anything he'd actually be against. As if he knew that we were speaking of him, the door opened and Aodhagan stepped inside, turning to hang up his jacket.

  Aodhagan was all pale skin, black hair, and freckles. The very picture of Irish in motion. His father was Scottish, his mother Irish, and I'd never seen either one of them, but there wasn't much of a question he got at least his coloring from his mother's side of the family. Today, he was wearing dark jeans and a cable knit sweater that made him look like an escapee from a Maine fishing vessel. He was so hot that it stole my breath every time I saw him without warning. But we weren't talking about that.

  "I'm not going to suggest y'all are sexist, but men can knit too, you know," he called before turning around. It was a joke. Probably. For all I knew, he could knit. I was pretty sure he could do anything he wanted to.

  He stopped, teetering in surprise when he saw how many people were in the rooms. From the end of the entryway where he stood, it was possible to see every part of this house except those purposely hidden, like the bedrooms and offices. He could probably see all the visitors to my home.

  His eyes moved to me. "What's up?"

  Honestly, I wasn't even sure what to say for a moment. "These people are interested in opening a factory in Birdwell, so I guess its good timing that you're here."

  He took in the crowd again, closer this time. I watched Vi Crowe watch him. She just looked so satisfied. It was getting on my nerves. What was her deal?

  He gave her a long, slow perusal, eyebrow cocked. Finally, his jaw dropped when he made some determination that I couldn't understand yet. "Vivienne? Good Lord, Vi. Is that you?"

  Of course. I should have understood it from the start. Her behavior was unusual, proprietary, even when just looking at the picture. I should have understood that they knew one another. I had a sudden flashback. A moment where I remembered the conversation I'd had with Aodhagan at the Clive Custer's restaurant in Lubbock about his first girlfriend, some kind of trampy girl who'd offered him all the sex he could possibly want to make up for the sex he hadn't had prior to that point. And at nineteen, that was probably a lot of sex. Vi. He'd called her Vi. I was possibly going to vomit.

  Her lips tipped up with a very blatant invitation every person in the room could see. "I wondered how long it would take you to recognize me." She crossed the ten feet between them and ran her fingers along the collar of his sweater, scoring her nails lightly against his neck. "I guess it has been a few years."

  Marian harrumphed. I felt the same way. Vi's husband was standing like ten feet away! Who did something like that? All of my unwelcome and illogical jealousy aside, she was standing in a room with her husband and her children! And who just touched someone they hadn't seen in like twenty years in such an intimate way? I would have avoided every one of my four ex-fiancés like they were ablaze and spitting lava, let alone started getting all scratchy.

  I was ridiculously, inappropriately, pleased when Aodhagan removed her hand from his neck and stepped back from her. "Look at you." Then he laughed. "Look at me. But the years have been much kinder to you."

  Either he was besotted or he was being polite. Of course, I preferred to assume it was the latter because I was harboring my little secret lust for him, but who knew. He certainly wasn't acting like he was dying to take back up with her. Thank heavens. Especially on account of the family members present. But also on account of how I'd have to kill her in her sleep if someone started having the relationship I couldn't have with a man who was so far under my skin I had little hope of ever getting him out.

  "So, you want to start a factory in Birdwell?"

  Good. We were back to business.

  "Oh yes, I have such…exciting memories of this place." Her cheeky grin left very little to the imagination about the nature of her memories. "It was the first thought I had when it came time to find a West Texas location for a third plant."

  I could see the process of Aodhagan wrapping his mind around the idea, slowly processing every angle of the mechanics. Aodhagan was insanely smart. Literally the smartest person I'd ever met, bar none. But when it came to Birdwell, he spent his time considering everything before committing to any changes.

  "Where would you build?"

  Vi tried to step closer to him again, at which point he started pacing, which might or might not have been manufactured. He did like to move while thinking.

  "Out in the old McCrary Field."

  He nodded. "That's a good location. How many would you employ?"

  Vi's husband Carl seemed to realize the conversation was returning to the most beautiful thing in the world, and he crossed back our way. "A workforce of seventy-five would be required in the end. But we'll start with just our immediate staff. There are others who'll be along this afternoon."

  Seventy-five? That was a lot. I could see Aodhagan working out what a boon this could be to Birdwell's flailing economy. He addressed his next question straight to Carl. "Where will you live?"

  Vi took the wheel again. "Here. We'd live right here. We're going to buy this house. Helen's already agreed. Isn't she a darling child?"

  CHAPTER TWO

  I heard Marian giggle again. I'd forgotten she was even here, and I couldn't imagine what she found so amusing. I didn't appreciate being called a child while actually in my thirties. Especially since she was the same age as Aodhagan, who was forty later this year.

  Aodhagan eyed me. "The first thing Vi is going to do is tear down every wall in this place and paint the whole thing floor-to-ceiling shades of gray."

  I recoiled, like he was threatening something soft and furry. Actually, if Vi was going to destroy anything, I would have preferred it be my inherited, malcontented, badly maladjusted cat, Lucky. He'd been my aunt's pride and joy, and now I was lucky enough to have him as the bane of my existence. I didn't much care for animals as a general rule and had a particular hatred for Lucky, who regularly ate the insanely expensive imported koi from my fishpond.

  I glanced at Vi, who shrugged in a manner so very French it had to be studied. She wasn't denying it.

  "We can talk about the house later," I said vaguely.

  Aodhagan sighed and turned back to Vi and Carl. I knew he wasn't keen on me leaving Birdwell, and it hadn't mattered previously on account of how there was no one here who could actually buy my house. But the Crowes could.

  "You guys should find an open car to ride in for the parade. People will want to see you before they believe this whole thing is for real."

  Saturday, tomorrow, was the annual Birdwell Spring Fest Parade and Festival. Until his words, I'd forgotten all about it. Never let it be known to the native Birdwellians, who would add burning me at the stake to their list of festivities. Apparently they lived for this yearly event, which allowed them to watch half a dozen "dignitaries" drive the two-mile length of town a couple times, waving like high school prom queens. Then Birdwell's only band, Oh, Ohio—the members of which claimed not even a single person capable of identifying Ohio on a US map, let alone who had ever been there—would play music for the dance and fair. The whole thing constituted big excitement around this part.

  People still talked about past festivals as though they were landmark occasions, the Birdwell historical equivalent of the World's Fair. Go
ne down in the books was the Spring Fest where Aodhagan's lifelong best friend, Junior Hudley, who was one of Aodhagan's volunteer deputies, had saved a local twelve-year-old, Marian Depew, from a bull pen she'd slipped into after walking on the fence. She'd been kicked in the head, which I suspected was the majority of her problem now, and couldn't rescue herself. Thirteen years later, Junior and Marian were now Birdwell's hot item, and I'd had the unfortunate bad luck to encounter them, more than once, sucking face in the back of Junior's pickup. Junior wasn't the kind of man anyone was likely to forget, with his tight jeans, huge belt buckle, and overwhelmingly chiseled features. But despite the fact Junior and Marian were both very attractive empirically—the Birdwell librarian and the deputy were a strange couple.

  It was the one time of year that Aodhagan drove his 1942 Cadillac 60 Special convertible sedan. I hadn't even known it existed for a good six months, as he kept it under lock and key. The poor Birdwell roads stripped the mint cherry red paint, so he never pulled it out, save party day. When he'd lived in Baltimore, he'd apparently driven it every day, but he couldn't bear to see it hurt, and honestly, I didn't blame him. I wasn't a car person, even a little, but even I couldn't find the words to describe how beautiful that thing was. It was poetry in motion. Sometimes I had dreams about Aodhagan's Caddie. Of course, some of those dreams just featured the back seat and were not the kind of dreams one repeats in public. Did I mention I haven't been on a date in a while?

  I myself was to ride along with him, waving a magnetized sign telling people with questions about starting their own business to call me or log on to the website I'd started to properly disperse Penny's money, intended for the sole purpose of bettering Birdwell. Now I wouldn't just have to have extensive conversations about the beauty of appliances with the Crowe family. I would also have to ride caravan with them, waving like the presidential motorcade.

  Vi waved any consideration of having trouble finding a proper car away with a careless hand. "We'll have Jackson rent a convertible. Let's buy the house now," she told me.

  Aodhagan's mouth pressed, but he said nothing. Of course. It hadn't been quite a year yet, but there were some things I'd come to understand very well about Aodhagan MacFarley. This town depended on him for everything. So he was always friendly, always polite, always did what he needed to. If he was struggling, he went somewhere to be alone and lick his wounds where no one else would ever know he wasn't Superman. But he didn't do it for pride—I knew that was true too. He did it for Birdwell. Because they'd lost everything over the past many years, and now they needed him to be everything.

  "Hold on, now," I said. "We need to talk out details. This is not a given."

  "What do you think, Mac? Should we be neighbors?" She grinned at him girlishly.

  I'd heard other people call him Mac before, and I supposed it made sense to call him that. Aodhagan, pronounced nothing like it looked, was a difficult name, Scottish and unwieldy. The closest approximation most of this neighborhood seemed to get was Aid-Again, like he was coming to help a second time, which he probably was, knowing him. Helping was some kind of irresistible compulsion with that one. But somehow it sounded much more annoying to hear Vi Crowe call him Mac.

  "We'll see how it all works out. Where will you stay?" Aodhagan requested.

  Vi seemed irritated by the question. "Well, here of course."

  "This is my house," I reminded, just in case they weren't aware that I still owned this place and hadn't yet decided if I was going to sell to them at all.

  "Well, we'll pay you to stay here," Carl said, opening his wallet and pulling out a wad of hundreds, which he started casually pulling off.

  Vi laid a hand on Aodhagan's arm, her diamond ring flashing. "We could stay with Mac. We're old friends. I know he'd let us."

  He would let them. Even if they weren't old friends. He'd let me stay with him the year before, and he hadn't known me even a little. But I didn't want them there. Well, honestly, I just didn't want Vi there. I hadn't forgotten the story he'd told me or how much raunchy sex he'd hinted at having with Vi as teenagers. I didn't care that she was married now or that he'd seemed only marginally interested in her presence at all. I didn't want them sleeping in the same house.

  Because jealousy is an ugly, ugly thing, I snatched the money from Carl's hand. "You can stay here."

  James flashed me a grin that he knew was potent and said, "You know there are more of us, right?"

  "More?" I glanced at Aodhagan, as though he somehow knew who was coming, and he shrugged.

  More than six? Were they traveling with everyone they knew? As if they'd choreographed it, the doorbell rang. At least the rest of them hadn't elected to walk right in without even knocking. I opened the door and watched them all march through, the rest of the Crowe Appliances team.

  The two women at the front were as different as night and day—or Texas and me. The one in the front was a delicate blonde, her hair pinned into a very complicated chignon. She looked so frail and fragile that I had a hard time recognizing her as an adult, though I knew she surely had to be. The woman behind her was a sprightly redhead in a long flowered dress and a pale green sweater. She was fresh faced and pretty, and actually, she reminded me a bit of Aodhagan's ex-fiancé. He had one, but I had four, so that didn't put us on even ground.

  Behind the women was a middle-aged man with a massive barrel chest and improbably small feet. He looked like any moment he was going to topple forward, tipped by the poor disbursement of weight. Behind him were two more men. A man who looked so much like James that he could only be related, and another man who managed to be even hotter than James and seemed to know it even more. That was clear in just the lazy way he took in every single woman in the room like she was waiting for her chance to jump into his bed.

  I looked out the door, but thankfully there was no one behind them. If they thought I could easily put up eleven people, they really did think I was a hotel. Vi stepped forward and took on the duty of introducing the rest of the group. "This is Daisy Wentworth. She heads our Public Relations department," she said, indicating the woman in the green sweater.

  She looked like her name ought to be Daisy, or Rose, or Tulip, or some garden variety flower. If I'd had to pick any woman in this room I could envision straight-as-an-arrow Aodhagan making time with, it would have been fresh as a daisy Daisy. I was still struggling with the idea he'd picked Vi. Of course, he'd been a teenager, but nevertheless. It was so odd.

  He didn't even glance at Daisy, contrary to what I would have expected. Nor was his attention on Vi. He was looking at his phone. Finally, he glanced up. "I've got to go. Spring Fest business. Thanks for considering Birdwell." Aodhagan directed the comment at Carl and not at Vi before nodding at her and then heading out.

  Marian excused herself and followed him out.

  Once they were gone, I shook Daisy's hand firmly. Her nails were neatly trimmed and ridiculously shiny. She smelled faintly of lilac. "Helen Harding," I told her.

  I wasn't sure why Vi had elected to introduce Daisy first, but the reason was obvious as Daisy smoothly took over the introductions. "This is Glen Matson. He's our corporate office head accountant." Glen was the man with the massive chest. He nodded at me almost imperceptively and returned to digging through his attaché case.

  "This is Jackson Spenser, head of marketing, and he does a wonderful job." Daisy smiled at the man who recognized, and clearly spent his time dining out on, how hot he was. I wasn't sure how wonderful a job he could be doing, as I'd never even heard of the Crowe's small appliance company before an hour ago. Not that I was nearly as enthusiastic about small appliances as Carl was. Maybe that explained it.

  "This is Carl's daughter and son, Faith and Robert Crowe."

  Faith Crowe was the frail-looking woman who had yet to utter a single syllable. The only thing that seemed to hold her attention at all was the fish in the koi pond and Jackson Spenser. Robert Crowe crossed the room and found the hand of Leslie Cooper-Crowe, and I guesse
d he was the source of the Crowe section of Cooper-Crowe. Now that the introductions were all finished, Daisy took control of the group like a sweetly scented camp director. Everyone, even Vi, seemed willing to do just as she asked.

  And what she asked was for everyone to unpack the cars. Then she turned to me. "I'm so sorry to be such an imposition. None of us realized there wouldn't be a hotel here in town, though I suppose we should have considered it. We'll be just as quiet as possible. We'll just set up a command center here until another option comes available. I know there are a lot of us. How many spare rooms do you have?"

  I wanted to tell her none just to watch her brain produce the perfect, very polite answer to my lack of bedrooms, but I didn't. "Four."

  She clapped her hands together once, reminding me again of a camp director. "Okay, we'll put James and Jackson in one, Faith and me in one, Robert and Leslie in one, and of course Vi and Carl in one." She bit her lip. "I'm not sure what to do with the boys or Glen. We need some kind of office space too."

  By "the boys" I assumed she meant the emaciated Greek Gods who were still inside and making no effort to help their parents or the others unload. I pointed up. "There's a small library loft area. The children can probably sleep there since there's a couple of couches. I actually do have an office. I work from home. I suppose I can move the things I need to my bedroom." I very much didn't want to do that. But I couldn't think of a better option at the moment. "There's a Murphy bed in the office. When you aren't using it to work, Glen can sleep there."