His Forever Texas Rose

by Stella Bagwell

  Nicole leaned her head against the back of the couch and stared blindly at the whirring blades of the ceiling fan. “I called to ask you about Trey and end up getting a lecture on life. But I suppose I needed it. Has anyone mentioned that you’ve turned into quite the psychologist?”

  “That’s what having kids does to a woman,” she said with a chuckle. “As for Trey, he’s an extremely hard worker, a bit of a motormouth and too kindhearted for his own good.”

  “Hmm. Well, this afternoon we had a cup of coffee together in the break room. Uh—just for a few minutes. I liked him.” Actually, she’d more than liked him. She’d been taken by his rugged looks and warm smile. More than that, he’d had her thinking she could actually be a happy person again. “But you’re probably right. We’re too opposite to ever be more than friends.”

  “Nothing wrong with having a friend,” Roslyn suggested. “And Trey is the best kind of friend a person can have. If you need help, he’s there. If you need cheering or comforting, he’s there. He thinks of everyone else before himself. Throughout those dark days after Joel was killed, Trey was a great support to Chandler. He was someone outside of the family that Chandler could talk to about the loss of his father. Their friendship is as strong as an oak. It always will be.”

  After Roslyn had met and married Chandler, she’d told Nicole about the tragic death of Joel, the patriarch of the Hollister family. From the way her friend had told the story, the rancher had ridden out to check on a herd of cattle, but later, a pair of ranch hands had found him dead; dangling head first from his horse. Since his boot was still wedged in the stirrup, it had first been believed the incident was an accident. For some reason the horse had spooked and drug Joel to his death. Even the Yavapai County Sheriff had closed the case. But over the long years since, certain clues had come to light that the man could’ve possibly been murdered.

  “Speaking of your late, father-in-law, has progress been made about finding the truth about his death?”

  Roslyn said, “Chandler and his brothers believe they’re getting close to discovering what really happened. But nothing definitive yet.”

  “I’ll be wishing them luck,” Nicole said, knowing how much solving the case would mean to the family. “Now, back to Trey, I was going to say you make him sound like a saint.”

  Roslyn let out a short laugh. “Not really. Trey has his wild side, too. But you’ll have to hear about that from him.”

  Nicole would have loved to prod her friend further about the man, but a glance at her wristwatch reminded her that she’d already kept Roslyn on the phone longer than she’d intended. “Okay, it’s getting late, and I’m sure you need to be getting the kiddos ready for bed. And I need to get busy with more unpacking.”

  “Billy is quiet for the moment. I’m almost afraid to see what he and Chandler have gotten into,” she said with a laugh. “Good night, Nicci. I’ll see you at work tomorrow. And I expect your chin to be up and a smile on your face. Got it?”

  “I’ll do my best. Good night, Ros.”

  After ending the connection, Nicole placed the phone on the coffee table, but instead of leaving the couch, she scooted to the edge of the cushion and gazed around the spacious living room. It was beginning to take shape, but the remainder of the rooms were still in a bit of chaos with all sorts of boxes and containers sitting around, waiting to be opened and the contents organized.

  Nicole had purchased the house sight unseen, but not before Roslyn had sent her tons of pictures and Chandler had checked out the major parts of the structure like the roof, foundation and plumbing. Once Nicole had arrived in Wickenburg, she’d been more than happy with her new residence. The house was old but full of character, with little hidden alcoves and plenty of shelves to hold all her books and whatnots. She especially loved the oak floors, the varnished pine cabinets and open arched doorways. Outside, the street was quiet, and her fenced yard possessed two large shade trees. There was even a large covered porch that stretched across the front of the house and a smaller one to shelter the back entrance.

  A year and a half ago, she’d been living in a modern second-floor apartment with a partial view of downtown Fort Worth. At that time, she’d not given much thought to the noise of the traffic or the neighbors on either side of her. Nor to having a yard of her own, or a cat or dog for company. She’d been too busy with her job at the travel agency and dating Randy to think about much else.

  But all that had changed when her father, Mike, had confessed to an ongoing affair and his wish for a divorce. Angela turned into a shattered mess, and Nicole had been forced to give up her apartment and move back in with her mother just to help her deal with the daily chores of living.

  For the longest, Nicole had believed she was going to be forever trapped with her emotionally crippled mother. She’d had to let Randy move on without her, and during that nightmarish interval, she’d wondered how long she’d have to go on sacrificing and paying for her father’s betrayal. To be fair, her older brother, Trace, who lived in Louisiana and worked in offshore drilling, had offered to come help care for their mother, but Nicole had put him off, convincing him that there wasn’t any point in both of them disrupting their lives.

  Now Nicole needed to follow Roslyn’s advice. She had to quit dwelling on the past and start living for the future.

  With that thought in mind, Nicole left the couch and walked through the house to the master bedroom, where boxes of her clothing were waiting to be hung or put away in drawers.

  At the foot of the bed, she opened one of the larger boxes and pulled out a red sequined dress she’d worn for a company Valentine party. The compliments she’d received had assured her the dress had been perfect for the occasion. But now the notion of glamming herself up and walking down the streets of Wickenburg seemed ludicrous.

  Trey is country. His life is simple.

  Nicole and Trey probably were complete opposites, she thought. But hadn’t Roslyn ever heard of the old adage that opposites attract?

  Smiling to herself, she put the sequined dress back into the box with the other party dresses and carried the whole thing to the closet, where it was going to remain out of sight and out of mind.

  Tomorrow Nicole was going to go shopping for a whole new wardrobe, and she would make sure it didn’t involve high heels or sequins.

  * * *

  The next evening the last bit of sunlight was slipping behind a ridge of bald desert mountains when Trey knocked on the front door of his grandmother’s house. It wasn’t often that work took him this far from the clinic and over into Maricopa County, but he’d spent the better part of the afternoon helping a nearby rancher treat a herd of sick cattle. Afterward, he’d decided to take advantage of the close proximity to the one and only relative he had living in the area.

  When his grandmother failed to answer his knock, Trey entered the unlocked house and passed through the rooms calling her name. In the kitchen, he found a transistor radio playing on the cabinet counter and a pot of charro beans cooking on the stove, but Virginia Lasseter was nowhere in sight.

  When he’d braked to a stop in the driveway, he noticed her car was parked beneath the carport. She had to be close by, he thought, as he stepped onto the back porch. As he peered across the lawn to a small vegetable garden, he spotted her hoeing between rows of leaf lettuce.

  “Granny, you have company!”

  She looked around and instantly squealed with delight. “Trey! Wait right there! I’m coming!”

  She dropped the hoe, then brushed the dirt from her jeans and shirt and trotted over to the porch.

  “You don’t need to bother tidying yourself up,” Trey said with a grin. “I’m dirtier than you are.”

  Laughing, she climbed the steps and gave him a fierce hug. “I don’t care how nasty you are. You look great to your old grandmother.”

  “Old? Hah! You’re only seventy. That’s still
a young chick.”

  With another laugh, she pointed to the ponytail hanging over one shoulder. “I found a few more gray hairs yesterday. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be silver pretty soon instead of black.”

  “And you’ll still be just as pretty,” he said as he smacked a kiss on her cheek. “Need help with the garden?”

  “No. Everything is growing. All I need is hot sun and the water hose.” Snaking an arm around the back of his waist, she urged him toward the house. “Come on. I’ll feed you some beans.”

  “I didn’t stop by to mooch a meal. But I’ll accept if you’re offering. Are they done?”

  “They’re done. Been simmering for hours. Are you hungry?”

  He opened the door and allowed her to enter the house ahead of him. “For your cooking, Granny, I’m always hungry.”

  Inside the small kitchen, she didn’t waste time pulling out dishes and silverware.

  “Want some help setting the table?” he offered.

  “No. You go on and wash up. I’ll have it ready by the time you get back here.”

  Five minutes later Trey was sitting across from his grandmother eating the spicy beans with warm flour tortillas on the side.

  “What are you doing this far west?” she asked, as she lifted a spoonful of beans toward her mouth. “Working, or did you drive out here just to see me?”

  Virginia, or Virgie, as most everyone called her, had been widowed more than fifteen years ago when James, her husband and Trey’s grandfather, was killed in a freak tractor accident. Since then, a few of the single men in the area had tried to talk Virgie into marriage, but none had succeeded. She liked her independence.

  Chuckling, he said, “You know, I should lie and say I drove out just to see my precious grandmother. But you taught me that lying isn’t good, so I won’t. I’ve been helping a rancher, Hoyt Anderson, with some sick cattle today. After we finished with all the doctoring, I decided I was so close to Aguila that I’d drop by to see you before I drove home.”

  She smiled at him. “I’m glad you did. Doc didn’t come with you?”

  “No. He had too much to do at the clinic today. He sent me to do this job alone. And it wasn’t easy. I didn’t bring any of my own horses. I rode one of Hoyt’s, and he was a stargazer. I wore myself out just trying to keep him under control.”

  She nodded knowingly. “I’m acquainted with Hoyt. He comes into Yellow Boot fairly often. I’ve heard he’s a cheapskate.”

  Virgie worked as a waitress in a café called the Yellow Boot, located less than a mile away in the tiny community of Aguila. Along with needing the income, she loved being around people. Trey was just thankful she was very healthy and didn’t have any problem keeping up with the physically demanding job.

  “Yeah, he uses baling wire to keep the tailgate from falling off his truck. But he takes good care of his animals, and that’s the most important thing.”

  “Well, he can’t take good care of his wife because she up and left him. Guess you knew that, though. Word was that she took off to Reno with some guy who’d just happened to be driving through town. Guess he wasn’t as cheap as Hoyt.”

  “Poor man,” Trey muttered.

  “Which one?”

  Trey laughed at her question, then promptly shook his head. “Granny, you’re terrible. We shouldn’t be joking about Hoyt’s troubles. And anyway, I’m beginning to think no one values marriage anymore. Every time you turn around, someone is getting divorced. Hell, my own parents couldn’t even stay together. I’m lucky to be single, Granny. Damned lucky.”

  Cutting a brown eye in his direction, she leaned back in her chair. “You think so?”

  “Damned right,” he repeated. “I don’t have to worry about a wife running off or cheating or spending every dime I’ve busted my butt making. Who needs that?”

  She tore off a piece of tortilla and ate it before she asked in a sage voice, “Is that how things are with Doc and his wife?”

  Trey grimaced before he finally admitted, “Okay. It’s not that way with everyone. But Doc and his siblings are a rarity nowadays.”

  “I see. You’re thinking you’d end up in the miserable majority.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, when the right woman comes along, you’ll see different.”

  As Trey watched his grandmother’s focus return to her food, he couldn’t help but think about Nicole.

  “Doc hired a new receptionist. Violet had to quit—for family reasons.”

  She cocked a brow at him, and Trey thought how pretty and youthful she looked in spite of living for seventy years. Her complexion was freckled and wrinkled a bit from too much sun, but the clarity in her eyes suggested she was definitely young at heart.

  “Do I know the new girl?” she asked.

  “No. She just moved here from Texas. She’s an old friend of Roslyn’s.”

  “I see. How’s she working out?”

  For the past couple of days, Trey had been surprised at how often his thoughts had drifted to Nicole and how much he’d wondered about her. But he wasn’t about to admit such silliness to his grandmother. He was way past the age to be daydreaming about a woman. “I guess okay,” he answered with a shrug. “I’ve only talked to her once.”

  “Does she have a family?”

  “If you mean a husband or kids, no. She’s fairly young. I’d say no more than twenty-five.”

  “Oh. That’s interesting. What’s she like?”

  Trey kept his gaze on the bowl of beans in front of him. “She’s one of those delicate types. Slender and fine boned with soft skin and long hair that’s kind of reddish blond.”

  “You’re telling me what she looks like. I wanted to know what kind of person she is.”

  “Heck, Granny, she’d have to be trustworthy for Doc to put her on staff. Anything else, I couldn’t say. She seems nice enough. And before those little wheels in your head start turning, she’s way too nice for me. She wears high heels and smells like some sort of exotic flower.”

  “What’s wrong with that? Women like being women. Even me.”

  He let out an amused grunt, then reached over and patted the top of her leathery tanned hand. “Yeah, but you’re a combination of pretty and tough. If I ever find a woman for myself, that’s the kind I need. Especially if I ever get to have my own ranch. She’ll need to be rough and strong.”

  “In other words, you need a ranch hand. Not a soft little thing to hug and kiss and make you feel like a man.”

  Trey groaned. “Granny, look at Mom and Dad. They couldn’t even stay together until I got out of elementary school.”

  “No. But they’re better off apart,” Virginia said. “They just didn’t fit together, and they both had sense enough to realize it.”

  Trey gave his grandmother a wry smile. “I guess I should be grateful they fit together long enough to have me.”

  “That’s right.” She lifted a pitcher of sweet tea and topped off Trey’s glass. “And if you’re happy with the way things are now, that’s all that matters.”

  His grandmother had never pushed or nagged him about his private life. If he asked for her advice, she’d give it, then step back and let him make up his own mind about things. It was one of the many reasons he loved her and enjoyed her company.

  “If I got any happier than I am right now, I couldn’t stand myself,” he said, then leveled a pointed look at her. “And speaking of happy, how many marriage proposals have you received so far this week?”

  She slanted him a coy look. “Four, I think. But only two of them were serious.”

  He playfully clicked his tongue. “Only half of them. That’s downright terrible. What’s wrong with the hold-out guys?”

  She snorted. “Nothing. They’re just smart enough to know I’m not about to sit around and take care of an old man who’s too shiftless to tak
e care of himself.”

  “And what about the other two? Will you ever say yes to one of them?” he asked.

  Her expression turned a bit wistful. “After sleeping with your grandfather for thirty-seven years, it would take a mighty special man to make that happen.”

  Trey reached over and squeezed her hand. “Guess I can quit worrying about you eloping with one of those old men.”

  She shot him another coy look. “I didn’t say they were all old. One of those marriage proposals came from a fifty-seven-year-old guy. Pretty good-looking, too, if I say so myself.”

  Trey sat straight up in his chair and stared at her. “Who? Are you kidding me, Granny?”

  Clearly amused by his stunned look, she laughed. “No. Why do you look so surprised. You just said I was still a young chick. Apparently, Harley Hutchison thinks so, too.”

  “Harley! Why, I ought to go beat the snot out of him,” he muttered, then on second thought, he arched a questioning brow at her. “Or was he in the nonserious half of that group of proposals?”

  “No, Harley was serious.” Sighing, she stirred the beans left in her bowl. “I keep telling him he needs a woman young enough to give him children. He says he doesn’t want children. He wants me.”

  Trey was incensed. “The hell he does. What’s gotten into him, anyway? I always thought he was a good man.”

  She scowled at him. “Harley is a good man. And I think you need to stop and listen to yourself.”

  Trey’s mouth fell open. “What does that mean?”

  “Just that you’re making me sound like I’m a shriveled old prune of a woman that no worthwhile man would take a second look at. Well, for your information, I might not be a raving beauty, but I can still be sexy!”

  Her sassy retort caused Trey to put down his spoon and study his grandmother with sudden dawning. “Granny, are you—why, I’m getting the impression that you might have some feelings for Harley. Do you?”

  She cleared her throat and reached for her tea. “I guess I do. In a way. He makes me feel young and pretty and worthwhile. But—I believe he’s mixed up about wanting to marry me. And anyway, I need to think on it some more before I say yay nor nay.”