Stroke of Fortune

by Christine Rimmer

  Saturday night he had dinner at the club. There were rooms upstairs for the members and for guests—the club also operated as a resort of sorts—so Flynt spent the night there. He was waiting in the clubhouse the next morning, ready to get on the links with Tyler, Spence and Luke.

  Again, Luke didn’t show. But Michael did.

  Flynt played badly. He had a hell of a time keeping his mind on the game.

  Later he ate in the Grill with the men. Spence told them that he’d hired Ben Ashton. The P.I. would have a first report for them in a few weeks.

  After the meal Flynt returned to the ranch—though he was under no illusions that anyone there would be glad to see him. Except for Lena. She smiled and laughed and waved her fat little hands at him, totally unaware that no one else in the house wanted a damn thing to do with him.

  But hell. His mother and father and sisters and brother had been mad at him before. It hadn’t killed him.

  Losing Josie, though, that just might. In the day, he couldn’t stop thinking of her.

  And at night, it only got worse.

  He was in his study around four, balancing a few accounts, when Matt buzzed him on the house line.

  “I need to talk to you,” his brother said.

  “Okay. Talk.”

  Complaints followed. A string of them. Problems in the breeding program, fences down, miles of them. Hands that had gone off and got drunk and not come back to work.

  It was all just routine stuff.

  But for some reason, Matt had decided it was all Flynt’s fault.

  “Damn it, what’s eating you?” Flynt finally barked into the phone.

  Matt said something ugly and hung up on him.

  Very carefully Flynt put the phone back in its cradle. He wanted to break something. He wanted a drink.

  Most of all, he wanted Josie.

  Unfortunately it was a none-of-the-above situation. He decided he had to get out of there. He returned to the club, ate in the Grill and again spent the night in one of the big suites upstairs.

  Monday morning he decided he was through living at the club just because his brother was a fight waiting to happen. Flynt went home. He was hard at work in his study when his mother tapped on the door.

  She came in and stood opposite his desk and looked at him with her sweetest, most conciliatory expression. “Flynt, we’re all upset to lose Josie.”

  As if he wasn’t. “Got that. Loud and clear.”

  “We all could see how much you two loved each other and it simply makes no sense to us that you couldn’t work out your differences.” She paused, waiting, he knew, for him to say something.

  No way.

  Eventually she heaved a big sigh and went on. “But honestly, we don’t want to let this drive a wedge between us. Let’s all try to get along, can’t we?”

  “Ma, I am doing my best and that’s a damn fact.”

  “Join the family for dinner tonight, won’t you?”

  He should have said no. But he never could refuse his mother when she gave him that pleading look she was giving him right then. “I’ll be there.”

  She thanked him and left.

  That night both Cara and Fiona ate elsewhere. There were just the four of them: Ford, Grace, Matt and Flynt.

  His parents put some real effort into making the whole thing bearable. They talked of the weather, of how well that remodeling project in Corpus was going.

  Matt scowled and glowered and muttered one-syllable answers to any questions directed his way. Flynt tried not to get into it with him. He honestly did.

  Somehow they made it through the soup and the salad. The maid had just set their T-bones in front of them when Matt looked over and asked, “So, Mr. President, you gonna hang out at the club for the rest of your life, wheeling and dealing and practicing your sand wedge—or you think maybe I could get a little damn help around here now and then?”

  It was enough. Way more than enough.

  Flynt threw down his napkin and stood. “You want a piece of me, Matt?” Grace gasped. Flynt ignored her. “Is that what we’re dealing with here?”

  Matt shoved back his chair.

  Ford said, “Now, boys…”

  Flynt hardly heard him. He’d gone past the point where a “Now, boys” could stop him. His blood seemed to pound, hot and insistent, through his veins. “Come on. You want it, you got it.”

  “Not in the house!” Grace cried. But the two of them had already stepped free of the table.

  Matt came at him, fast. Flynt crouched down to meet him, butting him in the midsection with his head. Matt let out a hard grunt and grabbed on.

  They went down to the rug, rolling, trading punches, bumping into the furniture, sending breakable things like lamps and vases crashing to the floor.

  Matt got the upper hand. He rolled on top and sat up and Flynt took one on the jaw and another one hard on the cheekbone.

  Looming above him, Matt glared down. “You damn, stupid fool. You got it all and you toss it over. The only thing standin’ between you and what you love is you. I’d give my right arm to be in your boots, you know that? And if I was, you can be damn sure I wouldn’t throw it all away. If I was you, I wouldn’t—”

  Flynt didn’t want to hear it—mostly because it rang all too true. He gave a heave with his midsection. It worked—at least to a degree. Matt flew forward on top of him and then they were rolling again.

  Ford was shouting. Grace, too.

  “Stop, now!”

  “You boys, you stop right now!”

  Flynt gained the top position. He reared up on his brother and he gave him two hard jabs, a left and a right.

  Matt grunted twice. He had blood on his face and in his hair, not only from the blows Flynt had delivered, but from the bits of broken china and glass they were rolling in. Flynt knew he looked about the same.

  Not that he cared.

  He cared for nothing. Not anymore. There was himself. There was his adversary. There was the next blow.

  He brought back his fist to deliver that blow.

  Two sets of strong arms stopped him.

  Someone must have run out and called in a few of the ranch hands.

  “Easy, now. Easy does it,” one of the hands muttered.

  It took three of them to pull him off Matt and another two to hold Matt back from jumping him again.

  Ford stepped between them. “All right, boys. You’ve had your fun. It’s over. Calm down.”

  Matt and Flynt agreed to pay for what they’d broken. Then they made up, more or less.

  Matt admitted he was out of line. “I’m kind of on edge lately, you know?”

  Flynt accepted his brother’s apology. The thrill of the fight was behind them. Now came that dust-and-ashes feeling, that time when a man wondered what the hell it had even been about.

  Grace wanted to herd the two of them to the big bathroom off the kitchen and patch them up the way she used to do when they were kids.

  Flynt shook his head. “Thanks anyway, Ma.” He looked around at the mess they had made. “I’m damn sorry about this.”

  “Now, now,” said Grace. “They’re only things…”

  He made his excuses and he got out of there, climbing the stairs, headed for his own wing. When he got there, he should have gone straight to his bedroom suite, stripped off his clothes and got himself into the shower. But he didn’t. He entered his study and he shut the door.

  Then he took a key from his desk and went to the cabinet next to the credenza. He kept the scotch in that cabinet, for the occasional meeting when someone wanted a drink.

  There was no meeting now. He was alone. With that gray, bleak dust-and-ashes feeling.

  Alone and finally admitting that he’d fought this battle long enough. That he was tired all the way to the bone, plain wrung-out with fighting—both his brother and the hell inside his own mind—and he wanted a damn drink.

  He deserved a damn drink.

  He stuck the key into the lock and gave i
t a turn. And then the cabinet was open and the Chivas was right there in front of him. He reached for the bottle and grabbed a short glass from a shelf. He poured out three fingers, then splashed in more.

  “For good measure,” he said aloud to the silent room.

  Nobody answered.

  What a surprise.

  He set the open bottle on the credenza and brought the glass to his mouth. The smell of it filled his nostrils—strong and sweet, with the promise of comfort. Of that slow, drifting feeling, and then, sometime later, a welcome oblivion.

  He put the glass to his lips.

  And he heard his brother’s voice.

  You damn, stupid fool. You got it all and you toss it over. The only thing standin’ between you and what you love is you….

  Flynt blinked, pulled the glass away just enough that he could look into it.

  Josie’s face.

  Oh, yeah. He could see her. Looking at him the same way she’d looked at him a year and a half ago, that morning when she finally doused him with ice water and told him off for hiding from his life—and his guilt—in a bottle.

  He blinked again.

  Her face was gone.

  But still, he stared into the amber depths.

  So, he thought, is this what it’s come to, then? Now I go back to drinking my life away in order to bear the damn mess I’ve made of everything?

  What had she said, a week ago, when he told her he wanted her out of his life?

  That he couldn’t go back. He only had now. And if he didn’t live now, he might as well be in the grave with his dead wife and lost baby.

  Evil, she’d called it. To let himself love her only for duty’s sake.

  Right then it came to him. The question that turned his whole world around.

  What good did it do the dead? What would Monica and the baby get out of it if he wasted the rest of his life as a damn drunk, if he loved no one, gave nothing, brought no new life into the world?

  Flynt set the untouched glass gently down.

  Maybe, he thought, the only thing a man could do for the ones that were gone was to live the life he had left fully and well.

  Seventeen

  Flynt Carson went after his woman the next day. He hardly slept the night before. He tossed and turned, fighting the urge to go to her sooner.

  But he figured he’d done enough chasing after her in darkness.

  It was time he declared himself in the bright light of day.

  He had a big doubt inside him, gnawing away like a mean rat—that she wouldn’t take him back, wouldn’t give him one more chance.

  The truth was, he couldn’t blame her if she turned him down. He’d put her through hell and she deserved better than the likes of him. If she sent him packing, he’d live through it.

  Somehow.

  But he wouldn’t lose her for lack of trying.

  He went to Alva’s house first. He waited on her sagging front porch, his heart pounding hard and his palms wet, for someone to answer his knock.

  Finally Alva pulled the door back. She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “She’s not here.”

  Flynt rarely wore a hat, except when he worked the ranch alongside his brother, but he wore a straw Resistol that day. He knew he needed to have his hat in his hands. “Please, Mrs. Lavender.” He turned the hat by the brim as he spoke. Every nerve he had was singing, calling Josie’s name. “I know I’m not good enough for your daughter, but I love her. And you could say I have seen the light.”

  “What happened to your face, Flynt Carson?”

  Yeah, all right. He was a mess. Cuts on his neck and his jaw from rolling in broken glass, a black eye and a goose egg at the high point of his right cheek. “I ran into a door.”

  Alva smiled then. “Maybe a couple of doors.”

  “That’s right, ma’am. Maybe even three or four. I’ve got to pay more attention to where I’m going, and that is a fact.”

  Alva peered at him closely, as if making sure of something. And then she said, “Try the Mission Creek Café.”

  When Flynt walked into the Mission Creek Café, Josie was serving toast and tea to Mavis, Anna and TildyLee, three sweet little ladies who came in every Tuesday at ten.

  They liked having Josie wait on them because she always took time with them. And she never ran out of patience when they got their orders confused, which, somehow, they always did.

  “No, now, Anna, that English muffin, I believe, is mine. You had a blueberry muffin, didn’t you?”

  “TildyLee, I did not. That English muffin is mine. You had wheat toast. And the sourdough goes to Mavis.”

  Mavis let out a little chirp of outrage. “No, it does not. I didn’t have sourdough. I don’t even like sourdough.”

  “Well, then, why did you order it?”

  “I didn’t order it.”

  “Mavis Letha Enderberry, you know that you did.”

  Josie stood by the table, holding all three orders, letting the ladies get the arguing out of their systems. Eventually she’d serve whatever they still wanted—and go back for replacements of whatever wouldn’t do. She had a feeling the sourdough was out of there. And maybe even the wheat toast. The only sure thing right then was that both TildyLee and Anna wanted the muffin.

  She was vaguely aware that the door to the street opened. She heard the bell warning them a new customer had entered.

  And then she heard nothing.

  A kind of stillness.

  It was as if everyone in the café—well, except for the three ladies arguing over their muffins and toast—had turned to stare at whoever had just come in.

  Ellie Switzer said, “Oh, my!”

  And Margie Dodd whistled. “Well, what have we here?”

  Josie turned to see what was so interesting—and almost dropped the plates she had in her hands.

  “Careful, dear,” cautioned TildyLee.

  “Whoopsy,” chirped Mavis with a girlish giggle.

  Flynt!

  Her foolish heart seemed to shout his name.

  He looked just awful. All cut up and bruised. He’d been in a fight somewhere, that much was certain. He was headed right for her and she didn’t know what to do.

  Run to his arms? Run away as fast as her feet would carry her? Stand her ground and find out just what he was doing here?

  She ended up standing her ground, but more out of shock than any kind of real choice.

  “Josie,” he said when he reached her and stood looking down at her. He said it as if the whole world was held in her name.

  She gulped. “What?” She made herself glare at him. “What do you want, Flynt Carson?”

  “You,” he said softly. He had a hat—he never wore a hat. But today, he had a hat. And it was in his hands.

  She gulped again.

  Margie appeared at her elbow. “Better let me have those plates.” Margie took the two orders of toast and the muffin and she turned and set them on the edge of the table where the three ladies—all very quiet now—sat. “Work it out,” she said in a tone of cool command.

  “Well, all right,” said Mavis. “I will eat that sourdough.”

  Flynt said, “One more chance, Josie. Give me one more chance. You won’t regret it. I swear that you won’t.”

  She stared up at him, loving him so much, it was a throbbing ache inside her, knowing she was a goner, wondering why it was her destiny to be such a total fool for this man.

  Then he got down on one knee. He caught her hand. And he kissed it.

  Even Margie sighed when he did that.

  “I love you, Josie Lavender. You are the woman for me. I have been blind and I have been dead wrong. And I’ve hurt you, bad. I know I have. I don’t deserve the love of a woman like you. But damn it, just try me again. Marry me. Marry me now. Right away. As soon as we can get ourselves a license. Let’s make the life we’re meant to make, you and me side by side.”

  “Oh,” she said, twin tears forming, escaping, sliding down her cheeks. “Oh, why am I suc
h a sucker for you, Flynt Carson?”

  He put his hat against his chest. “Was that a yes?”

  She bit her lip to stop the flood of tears that threatened to come pouring out. And she nodded.

  He stood and swept her up in his big arms and carried her out of there.

  No one said a word until the door swung shut behind them.

  Then Ellie burst into tears.

  Gus turned to her and shouted, “Get to work! I don’t pay you for blubberin’.”

  Margie Dodd asked the three ladies, “Is everybody happy?”

  TildyLee replied with a sigh of pure delight, “Oh, yes. We are just fine. And isn’t love grand?”

  Epilogue

  Flynt had meant what he said. He wanted them married immediately. But Grace insisted that they must have a proper wedding and a huge reception.

  Both the groom and his mother got what they were after. Flynt pulled a few strings and lined up the club’s ballroom for that Saturday afternoon. Grace, Ford, Cara and Fiona started making calls. Josie was hustled right over to Mission Creek Creations to get herself a wedding dress. Flowers were ordered, a band hired, the menu planned, all in record time. Grace was in her element. She even made time to help Alva pick out a lovely sky-blue ensemble to wear as mother of the bride. And Josie made sure her friends at the café and up in Hurst were invited.

  Saturday at one in the afternoon, Josie and Flynt said their vows at First Church, with Reverend Williams presiding. The ceremony itself was small—just the immediate family.

  But the party after, in the vast upstairs ballroom at the Lone Star Country Club, was an event to remember. It seemed to Josie that everyone in the county showed up.

  To kick off the festivities, Josie stepped out on the dance floor with Flynt for the first dance. It was just the two of them, gliding across the floor under the glittering crystal chandeliers.

  Flynt bent close and whispered, “What are you thinking, Mrs. Carson?”