“What time does the buckwheat meeting get over?” Libby asked sweetly, resting her hands on her hips and heartily enjoying Tate’s obvious discomfort. At the same time, it touched her heart, the way he cared so much about being a good father, getting things right.
Even to the extent of shopping for tutus, when it came to that.
Her throat ached. Her dad had been the same way.
She missed him so much.
“Eight o’clock, maybe,” Tate said, looking hopeful. “Is that too late?”
“Not for me,” Libby answered, “but you look a little tired, cowboy.”
He flashed her a grin, maybe to prove he wasn’t all that tired.
The twins were at the shop door by then, still squabbling.
Tate bent his head, spoke quietly into Libby’s ear. “I’ll save you some chicken and beer,” he said. “Meet me at the new place later, and bring the dog if you want to.”
“Maybe,” Libby said firmly, unsettled now. “Last time—”
The patented McKettrick grin came again, even more dazzling than before. “Yes,” Tate said. “I remember.”
Libby was wavering, and she didn’t want him to know that.
She all but pushed Tate to the door, and that made the girls laugh.
“Later?” he asked. His voice was a sexy rumble.
“Don’t count on it,” Libby said, but she was rattled and planning on showing up at his place for sure and they both knew it.
Tate smiled and left, shepherding his daughters across the street, hoisting them into the back seat of the truck, assisting with buckles and belts affixed to safety seats while gently fending off a pair of overjoyed pups.
Libby watched, resting her forehead against the glass in the front door of the Perk Up.
When she sensed that Tate was about to turn in her direction, she pulled back quickly and turned the “Open” sign to “Closed.”
She locked the door.
Shut down all the machines and cleaned them.
Tucked the day’s profits into a deposit bag, and the bag into her purse. Although the Perk Up had been doing a lot better financially since Julie had started baking scones and other goodies, Libby had been giving most of the money to her sister.
Which meant she was still just breaking even, most days.
At home, she let Hildie out into the backyard, as usual, and went back inside when she heard the phone ringing.
“Have you seen Marva?” Julie blurted anxiously.
“No,” Libby said. “Isn’t she at the condo?”
“No, she’s not at the condo!” Julie almost screamed. “Libby, she stole my car!”
Libby sagged against the counter. “Oh, my God, Julie, Calvin wasn’t—?”
“Calvin wasn’t in the car, thank heaven,” Julie answered, only moderately less hysterical than before.
Libby echoed that sentiment, letting out her breath, then asked, “Have you called Chief Brogan?”
Julie was beside herself. “Are you kidding? Call the cops on my own mother? Libby, I can’t do that!”
“Calm down,” Libby said firmly. “Julie, calm down. Take a slow, deep breath.”
“But my car—my mother—oh, my God—”
“I’ll be right over,” Libby said. “If I see Marva along the way, I’ll do my best to flag her down.”
The words were disturbingly prophetic, as it turned out.
Libby had no more than uttered them when she heard an odd noise, looked through the window over the sink, and saw Julie’s pink Cadillac speeding down the alley, bouncing over the ruts, tailpipe dragging and throwing off blue and orange sparks.
It all happened quickly, and yet Libby took in the scene in vivid and minute detail.
Marva was at the wheel, the windows rolled down. She was smoking a long brown cigarette jutting from a holder and singing along with the Grateful Dead at the top of her lungs.
“I don’t believe this!” Libby gasped into the phone, one hand pressed to her heart. “I just saw her go by!”
“Try to catch her,” Julie pleaded. “Go! Now!”
“Oh, right,” Libby said, feeling pretty frantic herself, now. “Maybe I could sprint to the corner and just leap onto the hood and pound on the windshield with my fists. Julie, I know you’re upset, but will you get real?”
“Libby, you’ve got to do something!”
“I’ll go after her, but she’s driving so fast the wheels are barely touching the ground. Get here as quickly as you can, and call Paige, too.”
“Get where as quickly as I can?”
“To wherever I am, of course.” With that, Libby hung up with a bang, raced out the back door and down the steps, passing Hildie, who had settled herself comfortably in her favorite shady spot under the big tree.
“Stay!” Libby told the dog.
Hildie hadn’t shown any signs of moving so much as a muscle, but a person couldn’t be too careful.
“Marva!” Libby yelled, running for the alley.
Dust roiled, but there was no sign of the Caddie.
“Marva,” Libby repeated, this time as a plea.
She was about to go back inside the house, since she’d forgotten the keys to the Impala and it wouldn’t be much use giving chase on foot when she heard the crash.
It was deafening, so loud it seemed to shake the earth and the fillings in Libby’s teeth.
Glass tinkled.
A horn tooted and then honked steadily, a long, terrifying drone.
A cloud of dust billowed far above the roof of Libby’s shop, and except for the horn everything was silent, for one quivering moment.
And then the roof of the Perk Up collapsed.
Libby stood staring, unable to move.
A siren blared somewhere.
“Oh, no,” Libby whispered. “Oh, no.”
Running full out, Libby dashed through the narrow space between Almsted’s Grocery and her coffee shop. More dust and plaster showered down on her.
The horn continued to blow.
Libby finally reached the sidewalk, and there was the pink Cadillac—or part of it, at least—taillights still shining bright red, half buried under the rubble of the Perk Up.
A crowd, probably driven from Almsted’s by prudence, clustered on the sidewalk.
Brent had already arrived; his cruiser was parked at the curb, lights flashing dizzily, siren shrieking fit to wake all the corpses in the Blue River Cemetery. Along with several passersby and members of the volunteer fire department, the chief dug frantically through fallen timbers and old drywall and shards of glass with his bare hands.
Where she got the strength, Libby did not know. But somehow she pushed through until she was shoulder to shoulder with Brent, and dug hard.
The roof of the car appeared, and the driver’s-side window. Unbroken, thank God. The windshield had held, too.
“Marva?” Libby whispered.
Marva turned and looked at her dreamily, both hands still resting on the steering wheel. Except for a small cut above her right eyebrow, she seemed to be all right, but there was no way of knowing that until she’d been examined by a doctor, of course.
Marva rolled down the car window. “Oops,” she said.
“Is she drunk?” Chief Brogan demanded of Libby. He was sweating, like everybody except Marva, who looked cool as could be.
“I doubt it,” Libby said, as wave after wave of residual shock washed over her. She had to grip the edge of the open window to steady herself. “Are you all right, Marva?” she asked, in someone else’s voice.
Marva nodded. “I’m fine,” she said calmly.
The Perk Up was a complete shambles, but Marva was alive and, it appeared, unhurt. For the moment, nothing else really mattered.
It would be a short moment.
“I forgot how to stop,” Marva said, amazed. “I can’t believe I forgot how to stop.”
“Does anything hurt anywhere?” Brent asked.
Marva shook her head. Her gaze meandered sl
owly from Libby’s face to Brent’s. “Am I under arrest?” she asked. “I’m stone sober, you know. And I didn’t actually steal this car, either. It belongs to my daughter, and I’m sure Julie will vouch for everything I say.”
Libby, dizzy, put a hand to her own forehead.
“Let’s not worry about the legal implications right this minute, ma’am,” Brent answered, very politely. “For now, we’re just going to concentrate on making sure you’re all right.”
“I demand a lawyer,” Marva said.
“You don’t need a lawyer,” Libby said.
“She might,” Brent countered, in a whisper.
“Winston,” Marva said, tilting her head back and closing her eyes, “will kill me.”
“Winston?” Libby asked, puzzled.
“My husband,” Marva answered, without opening her eyes. “Winston Alexander Vandergant the Third.”
Libby blinked. “Your—?”
“Husband.” Marva sighed.
“Would you mind spelling that?” Brent asked, taking a little notebook from his shirt pocket and clicking a pen with his thumb.
Marva calmly spelled out the entire name.
Brent wrote it down.
“You have a husband?” Libby echoed.
“Call him,” Marva told Brent. “He’ll straighten out this whole situation. Winston is just a whiz when it comes to problem solving.”
Brent merely nodded.
Two EMTs politely elbowed Libby and Brent aside so they could remove Marva from the car.
Libby was standing on the sidewalk when Paige roared up to the curb in her subcompact car, Julie in the passenger seat.
By then, the paramedics had put a neck brace on Marva and placed her carefully on a stretcher. She was loaded into the ambulance; according to protocol, she would be examined at the Blue River Clinic, and if her injuries were serious, transported from there to a trauma center.
Julie, standing on the littered sidewalk, assessed Marva, the collapsed roof of the Perk Up and her nearly buried car.
“What happened?”
“I think that’s obvious,” Paige said dryly, but she ran over and climbed into the ambulance just as the doors were about to be closed, scrambling inside to take Marva’s hand. The vehicle raced away.
Libby ran home, retrieved the keys to her Impala from the kitchen, backed the car out of the garage, and stopped for a still-stunned Julie in front of what was left of the Perk Up.
They headed for the clinic.
“Where’s Calvin?” Libby asked, as she navigated the familiar streets. By then, her brain was clearing; she was starting to think in practical terms again.
“With Marva’s neighbor, Mrs. Kingston,” Julie answered.
Libby nodded, reassured. Mrs. Kingston, unlike their mother, was quite sane. A responsible human being.
“She could have killed herself,” Julie fretted. “Marva, I mean.”
“Right,” Libby agreed tensely. “And a lot of other people, too.”
Her mind raced. Julie’s Cadillac might be salvageable, but the Perk Up was a total loss. What was she going to do now? How was she going to earn a living?
She’d barely been getting by as it was.
Ashamed of worrying about herself when Marva might be lapsing into a coma in the back of the ambulance at that very moment—she doubted it, but anything was possible—Libby blinked a couple of times and bit down hard on her lower lip. “Julie, how did Marva manage to swipe your car?”
Julie closed her eyes tightly, hugged herself. “I left the keys in the ignition. I was talking to that nice Mrs. Kingston, Marva’s neighbor—she has the loveliest climbing roses and I wanted to know how often she pruned and fertilized because I’m thinking of putting in a garden next spring myself and—”
Libby broke into the nervous flow of her sister’s conversation. “Do you know how lucky we are that Calvin wasn’t in the car? Or behind it, or in front of it—”
“Do you have to remind me of what could have happened?” Julie snapped. “It seems to me that what did happen is bad enough!”
“I’m sorry,” Libby said, to keep the peace.
Julie reached over, squeezed her hand. “Me, too,” she said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
Less than a minute later, they reached the clinic, a small brick building on the eastern edge of town. Thanks to the generous support of the McKettricks and other oil-and-cattle-rich families in that part of Texas, the facility was well-staffed, with four different doctors working in rotation, several nurses, a full office staff and assorted technicians.
The equipment was state-of-the-art, and there were two spacious four-bed wards for overnight patients.
Paige was waiting in the parking lot looking fidgety, when Libby and Julie wheeled in.
The three of them hurried past the parked ambulance, its rear door still standing open. Brent’s cruiser stood beside it, empty.
The receptionist explained that Dr. Burt was examining Marva, and they might as well sit down because it would be a while.
Paige led the way into the small waiting room, plunked some coins into a vending machine, and watched as a cup dropped down a chute and began to fill with steaming coffee.
“She has a husband,” Libby said, apropos of nothing. “Marva, I mean.”
“A husband?” her sisters chorused.
“Winston Alexander Vandergort the Third, or something like that.”
“Who?” Julie asked.
“That’s all I know,” Libby insisted, defensive.
Julie began to pace. “A husband,” she muttered.
“Do you both have insurance?” Paige asked, ever practical, her gaze traveling between Libby and Julie.
“Yes,” Julie said. “But that Cadillac was a classic. Irreplaceable.”
“So was my business,” Libby said. “Irreplaceable, I mean.”
“Let’s not panic here,” Paige said.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Libby said.
“Yeah,” Julie agreed.
“Everything will work out,” Paige insisted.
Again, easy for her to say. She had a good job, with benefits, and she definitely didn’t live from paycheck to paycheck, either. Her car hadn’t been wrecked. Her coffee shop hadn’t been reduced to a pile of broken boards and bits of plaster.
“We’ll manage,” Paige said, putting one arm around Libby’s shoulders and one around Julie’s and squeezing. “I promise.”
“We?” Libby challenged.
“We,” Paige confirmed. “I have savings. I can help—”
“I won’t take your money,” Libby said.
“Neither will I,” Julie agreed.
Brent came out of one of the exam rooms and approached them.
“Well,” he said, “we won’t be charging your mother with driving under the influence, anyway. Which is not to say her sanity isn’t in question.”
“But is she going to be all right?” Julie asked anxiously, staring up at Brent.
“She seems to be,” Brent replied patiently. “The doctor wants to run a CT scan and take some x-rays. Could be a long wait.”
Julie glanced down at her watch. “Calvin is probably worried,” she said, pale with anxiety.
“Let’s pick him up and bring him here,” Paige suggested. She looked up at Brent. “Would you mind giving us a ride back to my car, Chief? I left it at the Perk Up to ride in the ambulance with Marva.”
“Sure thing,” Brent replied, cocking a thumb toward the cruiser. “Hop in.”
Julie nodded, then shook her head. Gave a despairing little giggle at her own contradictory response. “I mean, I don’t have a car seat now—”
“I do,” Paige reminded Julie. She’d purchased the seat at a garage sale two summers before, because she and Calvin spent a lot of time together when her schedule clicked with Julie’s. “I’m beginning to think you’re in worse shape than Marva is. Are you all right?”
“My car is buried under tons of rubble,”
Julie answered, almost snappishly. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”
They both climbed into the back seat of Brent’s cruiser, still bickering.
Yep, Libby thought sadly, Julie’s car was under tons of rubble. And that rubble had once been her business. Her livelihood.
Not that it had ever been all that lively.
Paige got out of the cruiser, came back to Libby and brought her cell phone out of her purse, handing it over. “Just in case,” she explained.
Libby stared down at the device. It was a moment before she remembered Brent was still there.
Looking up at him, she calmly asked for Tate’s cell number.
Brent gave it to her, and Libby nodded her thanks and keyed in the digits as she walked around the corner of the clinic to stand in the side parking lot, out of earshot.
She watched as the cruiser pulled out onto the highway, then looked up, surprised to see that the moon was already visible, even though the sun hadn’t fully set. The sky blazed crimson and lavender and apricot.
He answered after two rings. “Tate McKettrick,” he said, a puzzled note in his voice.
Of course, Libby realized, Paige’s number would have come up in the caller ID panel, since she was calling on her sister’s phone.
Libby leaned back against the brick face of the Blue River Clinic, suddenly exhausted. “It’s me,” she said. “Libby.”
“Lib? Are you all right?”
She had to swallow a throatful of tears before answering. “I’m okay,” she said, and then it all came tumbling out, in a crazy rush. “But Marva—my mother—drove my sister’s Cadillac through the front of the Perk Up, so we’re all down here at the clinic so I can’t make it to your place for leftover chicken and beer—and I don’t suppose it even matters that much but I—”
“Libby,” Tate said, firmly but with kindness. “Honey, take a breath.”
Honey.
Libby fell silent. Honey. What an ordinary, beautiful word.
“Was anybody hurt?” Tate asked. His voice was level.
Libby’s chest ached and her eyes burned and she still didn’t trust herself to stand up straight, even though the bricks comprising the clinic’s outer wall were digging right through her blouse into the flesh of her back. “Marva’s being examined right now,” she said.
McKettricks of Texas: Tate Page 24
