Flo was so amused by that thought she burst out laughing. Johnny quickly joined her.
“It’s not 10,000 dollars,” she confirmed. “But you must have a good amount if you think you can loan me the money to buy a house and land and still have some left over.”
“I’ll even help you decorate and everything,” he said with a grin.
Flo chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. It was a really good idea, come to think of it. She could easily spend more time with Johnny, she had no problem with that. And since she was estranged from her parents, she didn’t care whether they knew the truth or not. She doubted she’d even tell them what was going on. They hadn’t bothered to let her know they had moved to Austin, so close to her, all the way from New York.
Who did that to their only child?
Her parents, unfortunately. She shook her head to clear it of thoughts of her parents.
“Well, I suppose we could do that. I do have some saved, so I wouldn’t need the whole thing from you anyway. And I’d love to have some help decorating and stuff like that. It would be fun. But no manly stuff. I mean, I like manly stuff too, but I don’t want a bear on the floor or a lion’s head hanging on my wall.”
This made them both laugh again.
Johnny’s smile was so big, it made Flo feel a little bad. He really had high hopes that he would marry Marian someday and Flo just didn’t see it in the cards. Even if Marian agreed to marry him, she wouldn’t be a good wife. She wasn’t a one-man woman, at least not from what Flo had seen. And if she was, Johnny was not that man.
Marian was too wealthy for the likes of Johnny. And Johnny had too good of a heart to be with the likes of Marian.
But Flo kept her mouth shut about that. She knew it would sting Johnny deeply if she told him that Marian was not interested in him and that he needed to set his sights somewhere else. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than she usually did when she got blunt with him. Sometimes, his puppy love aggravated her so much she wanted to scream. But she wasn’t his mother or his sweetheart.
So she stayed quiet and agreed to help him win over a woman who clearly wasn’t the commitment type.
“I just hope I can buy it. Some men won’t sell their property to a woman.”
Johnny shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. If you have any trouble, I’ll buy it for you and sign it right over to you.”
Flo felt a warmth surround her heart and fill her chest. She gazed at him, tilting her head to the side. “You’d do that for me?”
Johnny looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Of course. How is that different from giving you the money you need to buy it? I don’t want it. Lord knows I have enough land to take care of.” He lifted one hand and swept it around him.
He stood up abruptly, startling Flo.
“What’s wrong?” she said in alarm.
“I’ve been sitting here for almost an hour. I gotta get to finish planting these trees. I want it done today and I’m anxious for it. You want to help me?”
She grinned, standing to look up at him. “I’d love to help you, Johnny. Of course.”
She followed him back to where he’d been working and watched him as he began to dig another hole. There was only one shovel so she prepared to hand him the sapling when the hole was done and pat down the dirt around it with him.
He was a good-looking man. Flo didn’t understand why Marian didn’t return his affection. She’d thought a few times about how she would react if he turned that attention on her. Flo wasn’t pining for Johnny but if he offered, she wouldn’t turn it down.
If it was real.
The scheme they were about to pull probably wasn’t going to work in Johnny’s favor. They might make Marian jealous but Flo was fairly certain it would only lead to pain. Deception usually went that way. And she’d never been under the impression that forcing someone to be jealous worked in any kind of positive way.
But she wanted Johnny to be happy. And right now, watching him dig a hole, with a smile on his face and a tune on his lips, she knew she’d at least given him some temporary happiness. Even if it was really only false hope.
She handed him the sapling when the hole was deep enough and knelt down to help him push the dirt over the roots. She could feel how excited he was. He was such a good soul. It hurt her heart that he felt he had to play at deception to win a woman’s heart.
It should never be that way.
Good guys always seemed to come in last.
And Johnny was a very good guy.
Chapter 4
“Well, let’s see it!” Mrs. Fitzpatrick shook her head so that her long auburn hair swept from one side to the other. She lifted one hand, lightly snapping her fingers in Flo’s direction. “Let’s see it, let’s see it!”
Flo grinned but held in a sigh. Mrs. Fitzpatrick was such an energetic woman. Flo wondered if the woman had been demanding and loud as a baby, too.
Flo thought she probably had been.
She held up her hand to display the ring Johnny had given her the day before. Johnny had made a semi-big deal of it, getting her to meet him at the corner restaurant in Austin on the main street where Marian and all her friends regularly walked and congregated. He sat her down at a table next to the window. They ordered their food. The moment Johnny saw Marian through the window he pulled the ring out and gave it to her, asking her to marry him.
She’d said yes, of course, and did so, laughing and giggling like it was completely unexpected. He’d given her a gentle quick kiss on the lips, which surprised her and probably everyone watching.
Flo was so caught up in what they were doing that she didn’t notice Marian’s reaction or if she’d even seen what happened. She hoped someday a man would really propose to her and that she would feel the same way then.
Something about the way Johnny looked at her in that restaurant made Flo wish it was all real. She wanted to be in love. She was 26 years old and according to many, she should already be married. Moving to Austin at 18 years old had made it difficult.
She didn’t fall in love in an instant. It took time. And since she and Johnny had struck the deal earlier in the week, she’d realized she had spent so much time with him that she hadn’t sought out the attention of any other men. There were plenty in Austin.
But she’d never really noticed. She was too busy working, saving money and setting goals for herself that didn’t have to do with marriage and children.
“Oh, my!” Mrs. Fitzpatrick showed the proper amount of enthusiasm for Johnny’s mother’s diamond ring. “You’ve done well for yourself. I sure do like that Johnny Mason. He and his father are good people. I will throw you an engagement party. And we’ll have some girls over for a party just for you, to celebrate, no men allowed.” The woman put on a stern face and wagged one finger back and forth to show her sincerity.
Flo laughed. She did like her employer very much.
“Thank you, Mrs. Fitz, but you don’t have to do that.”
“Nonsense! You have always been such a good house-girl for us. I won’t have it any other way, so you just sit back and enjoy it, all right?”
Flo shook her head. “Okay, thank you so much. So kind of you.”
She followed the woman into the house. It was a rearranging day for Flo, the one day a week when Mrs. Fitzpatrick insisted they move all the furniture in one of the rooms and change out the paintings on the walls. The lady seemed like she was never satisfied with her own decorating choices. Flo thought there might be another reason for the constant redecorating and rearranging.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick was an eccentric.
Even at her reasonably young age of early forties (Flo was never sure exactly how old the woman was), she was obviously a little bit off her rocker. Flo enjoyed talking to her because she always had things to say that sounded intelligent but consisted of strange concepts.
She often told Flo that the house was haunted and she had to keep moving things to satisfy the ghosts. She sometimes wandered the h
alls at night, passing Flo’s room several times in the span of an hour. Never stopping, looking in or checking on Flo. Just walking past, a tall candle in the candleholder she carried in her left hand.
“What are we going to move today, Mrs. Fitz?” she asked, following the woman down the long east side hallway. The library was on this side of the house. Flo felt a bit of apprehension at the thought that they would have to rearrange the library. That was a very long, time-consuming, aggravating job. The last time, they had been in the room three days before it was finished.
That was two months ago. Surely it wasn’t time to do it again.
Her heart sank when Mrs. Fitz stopped at the door to the library. “I thought we’d move some books around in here today. What do you think?” She turned to smile at Flo but must have seen the horrified look on her employee’s face because her smile disappeared and her thin auburn eyebrows shot up, wrinkling her otherwise perfect skin. “Oh dear, I don’t like that look. I suppose we don’t have to do the library this time. The study was next on my list anyway. I’m sure…” She glanced around as if they were surrounded by people listening in. She leaned toward Flo and murmured. “I’m sure no one will mind. You don’t think they will, do you?”
Flo immediately shook her head, giving the woman an affectionate look. “No, ma’am. I don’t think they’ll mind. I sure hope not anyway.”
Mrs. Fitzpatrick gave her a wide-eyed look. “Yes, me too. But let’s do the study. And if I feel like… they might be upset with me, we’ll have to do more rearranging tomorrow. Is that all right with you?”
Flo wanted to laugh. Her employer was asking her if it was all right. She smiled but didn’t laugh. She didn’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings. “Yes, ma’am. Whatever you want to do. I serve at your pleasure.”
Mrs. Fitzpatrick gave her a gentle look, grabbing her arm and squeezing softly. “You are such a good girl, Flo. Your Johnny is such a lucky man. I remember when my Fitzy proposed to me. I was over the moon with happiness. I don’t think I’ve ever come back down from that.” She smiled so wide Flo was envious of her perfectly straight, white teeth. She obviously used the best of pastes to keep those teeth as shiny and white as she could. It just enhanced her beauty all the more.
The two women walked down the hall to the next door, which was the study. Flo knew it would be harder work because the paintings on the walls and the furniture in the room were heavy, while the books in the library obviously weren’t. But there were just so many of the books. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized there were some big, heavy books in there, too.
She would rather sit on the floor and push furniture with her legs, which were much stronger than her arms, than pick up those big heavy books and move them from one side of the room to the other.
“Where did Mr. Fitz propose to you?” she asked as they went in.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick stopped just inside the door, gazing around with wide green eyes. “Let’s see, where to begin.” She spoke in a soft tone, mostly to herself. Flo waited for the woman to gather her thoughts. There was a long pause. Flo was used to that happening. It was Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s contention that she was “listening to the house” when she went off into space like that. And Flo just waited patiently. She would return to reality soon enough.
As predicted, the woman sucked in a sharp breath and her eyes sharpened. She looked at Flo, saying, “I’ve never told you that story? Oh dear, I am not quite myself today, am I?”
I think you are quite yourself today, Flo thought, but didn’t say it out loud. “No, you never told me the story. I’d love to hear it.”
One of the reasons she wanted to hear it was because Mr. Fitz was much like his wife but not as looney. He knew there were no ghosts in the house. Flo had never encountered one, never heard one, never seen one. So she suspected it was all in Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s head. She believed in the spirit world, just like her employer did. But she doubted there were any spirits in the Fitzpatrick mansion. There was no evidence of it.
“First I want to move everything to this corner of the room.” The woman walked into the room, spreading her arms out and indicating it would all be put to her right, where the windows ran from the ceiling to the floor for half the length of the room. The long, purple drapes with gold tassels kept the outside from looking in. Flo sometimes wondered why they would want windows that big if the lady of the house didn’t want to be seen.
“All right.” Flo moved to pick up one side of a settee and drag it to the corner. As Mrs. Fitzpatrick helped with other smaller furniture, she talked.
“Mr. Fitz and I were on a trip together. That’s how we met. My mother put me on a cruise around the world. I was tired of traveling by the first month but she made me go. She… thought I would drive her to an institution if I stayed with her.”
She must not have been a tolerant woman, Flo thought, feeling sorry for her employer.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick stopped walking in the middle of the room, holding a small table she was moving to the corner. Flo suspected she was lost in her mind again until the woman sighed.
“Oh, he was so handsome! I just knew the moment I laid eyes on him that he would someday be my husband. Of course, I didn’t get my hopes up. Momma always said there was something wrong with me and that no man would ever want someone like me.”
Flo felt a stab in her heart, hearing that a young woman could be told such a thing by her own mother. “Oh, Mrs. Fitz!” she exclaimed. “How cruel!”
The woman seemed to come out of her daze to glance over at Flo. “Oh it’s all right, honey. I found my husband, didn’t I? And he loves me very much, don’t you think?”
Flo nodded, setting the end of the settee back on the ground and leaning on the arm rest to catch her breath. “Yes, ma’am,” she said firmly. “He really does love you very much.”
Mrs. Fitzpatrick gave her the smile of a child and sighed softly. “Yes, he does.”
Chapter 5
Flo was nervous for probably the first time in her life. It was the day of the festival, the day that she and Johnny would let everyone in attendance know about their “engagement”. She had never been in an actual physical fight and wondered if Marian would be angry enough to do that. It didn’t matter if she had a lot of money. Marian’s attitude was one of a brash, entitled brat. Flo had little doubt that if she wanted to throw a punch, she would, whether it was unladylike or not.
Flo did not want to fight. She couldn’t predict how the woman would react.
She’d gotten dressed and ready to meet Johnny at the festival in the Austin Town Square at 10:00, which was Johnny’s favorite time of day. He’d always told her the time between 10 and 11:30 was the best part of the day by far. And he had solid reasons for it.
She rode out to Austin on Journey, her pure white Mustang, a gift from the Fitzpatricks after serving for them for a year. He was her animal best friend. She loved him as if he was a pet.
All she had to do was have fun. She’d had fun with Johnny at every festival and party since she came to Texas. Why should today be any different?
Flo chided herself. Of course today would be different. They weren’t engaged, real or not, every other time she’d attended with Johnny. She hoped she didn’t make herself look stupid in front of everyone. She’d had only one beau in the past, just before she left New York.
It had only lasted six months and she was certain by the time she left that the relationship was going nowhere. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been interested in marrying her. She didn’t want to marry him. He was a cold and calculating banker. He reminded Flo of Marian’s father, Andrew. Flo couldn’t have been paid enough to marry a man like Mr. Voorhees.
True Love Leaves no Doubts: An Inspirational Historical Romance Book Page 3
