“Depends on what you mean by help me.” Wil’s deep voice sent a delicious tremble down her back. “What have you got in mind?”
“If you want phone sex you better call one of those 900 numbers that charge you seven ninety-five a minute.”
“I don’t want phone sex. I want the real thing. Can I come over?”
“Hell, no!”
He chuckled. “So now that we got that idea nixed, how was your day? Did you get Jasmine settled in and is she really interested in buying a café?”
“My day was busy. Yes, Jasmine is settled into the last room on the east wing and yes, she is interested in the café. She loves to cook. Always has. She should’ve been my momma’s daughter instead of me.”
“You can cook and do a damn fine job of it.”
“Yes, I can cook. But I don’t love it like she does. Where are you?”
“In the barn wrapped up in a quilt with an old pregnant cow that won’t get on the ball and deliver her calf. Jack was wrong when he thought she’d calve tonight. Every song that played all day on the radio reminded me of you, Red. I miss you so bad. Are y’all really going to Chicken Fried tomorrow?”
“Yes, we are. For lunch. Why?”
“I’ve got to be over that way to see about a tractor. I might stop by for lunch just to see you since you won’t let me come over and take a look at the little freckle on your fanny.”
“Wilson Marshall!”
“Gotcha! Good night, Red. Sweet dreams.”
Chapter 21
“I already love it,” Jasmine said when they parked in front of the Chicken Fried café. It was a two-story white frame building that had started out as a home in the thirties for the family who owned a car dealership right next door. In the sixties a couple bought it and put in the 81 Diner. That folded in the early seventies and they rented it out as a home for ten years before selling it in 1981 to Dottie Jones who turned it into a café again. When her husband died in 2000, she had renovations done on the upstairs and created a living space. Now she was seventy and needed a hip replacement. The stairs were difficult for her to climb and she wanted to retire. But no one wanted to buy a café out in the middle of nowhere.
“It is cute, but I wouldn’t want to cook for a living,” Lucy said from the backseat of the Caddy. “Have you eaten here, Pearl?”
“Few times with Gemma. She’s Rye’s sister who owns that beauty shop.” She pointed to the small building next door.
Jasmine beat them to the porch and sat down in one of the six white rocking chairs. “I like this idea. Sit and visit a spell instead of fast food and run. You got any idea what they’re askin’ for the place?”
Pearl shook her head. “It’s been for sale for a long time so I’m sure it’s negotiable. Dottie wants to move down to Beaumont and live close to her daughter and grandkids, so she might take a reasonable offer. And she needs hip surgery. She does the cookin’ and hires a waitress.”
“Would you change the name?” Lucy asked.
“No. I think Chicken Fried is cute. I even like the sign.” Jasmine pointed to the stenciled letters on the plate glass window. She could see inside and there were only two tables left. A waitress hustled from the dining room to the kitchen but took time to stop and talk to the customers. The whole atmosphere was laid back and country.
“It’ll be more work than making brownies in an Easy Bake Oven,” Pearl said.
“Momma will hate it,” Jasmine said.
Pearl led the way inside. “My momma hates the Longhorn Inn.”
“Sit anywhere,” the waitress called out. “Menu is on the table. I’ll be right with you.”
Covered with red and white checked oilcloth, each table had a lazy Susan with a sugar shaker, artificial sweetener, salt and pepper shakers, hot sauce, ketchup, and paper towel dispenser in the center. The laminated menu was printed on one sheet of paper and stuck between the hot sauce and sugar shaker.
Jasmine picked it up and studied it. Each day there was a lunch special. That day it was turkey and dressing, green beans, mashed potatoes, and choice of cranberry or tossed salad. If a person didn’t want the plate special then they could order burgers, grilled cheese, or chicken fried steak, which came with a choice of mashed potatoes or fries, vegetable of the day, and a tossed salad.
She liked the setup but was already thinking about what desserts she’d offer to go with the lunch special. Hot yeast rolls would be a given, so one day she’d make iced cinnamon rolls. Another she would offer a choice of three or four pies.
“I see wheels turning in your head,” Lucy said.
“It’s a perfect size. I’d just need one waitress and I’d do the cooking,” she whispered.
They were so engrossed in the menu that they didn’t see Martha Jane Marshall until she was standing right beside Pearl and said, “Hello, may I join you ladies?”
Pearl was so startled that she nodded.
Martha Jane wore jeans, a red sweater, and cowboy boots, and her hair had that fresh done look and smell. “I just came from Gemma’s. Got a perm and my eyebrows waxed so that’s why I look like I’ve been crying. Thought I’d stop in and have a hamburger since Jesse is off at a sale.”
Pearl made introductions as Martha Jane settled into the fourth chair. “These are my friends. Lucy, who works at the Longhorn Inn and Jasmine, who might be interested in buying this place. This is Martha Jane, Wil’s mother.”
“I can see that,” Lucy said. “He has your pretty brown eyes.”
Martha Jane smiled. “Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Pearl, I owe you an apology. I’m sorry for that comment that you heard as you were leaving the house the other day. I hope you don’t hold it against me.”
“Accepted, but what is it that you’ve got against red hair?” Pearl asked.
“It’s something I never told anyone else. Even Jesse doesn’t know part of it. But I wouldn’t stand in the way of my son’s happiness for anything in this world. Jesse was in love with a red-haired girl before I came into the picture. She taunted me horrible when me and Jesse started dating and said that she could have him back anytime she wanted. The day I married him she showed up at my house that morning and claimed that he slept with her the night before. After we were married she told everyone that the illegitimate son she bore was Jesse’s child. She was a thorn in my side until she moved to California. I still pray every day that she never comes back to Texas.”
“Wow! I wouldn’t like redheads either,” Pearl said.
“Thank you!”
“Why didn’t you snatch her bald-headed and then slap her for not having any hair?” Pearl asked.
“I wasn’t as brazen then as I am now.”
“Too bad,” Jasmine said.
The waitress stopped at their table with a pad and looked at Martha Jane first. “You decided?”
“Yes, I want a hamburger with mustard and no onions. Fries and Diet Coke. And I’ll take the bill for this table today,” Martha Jane said.
The waitress looked at Jasmine.
“Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and sweet tea.”
“I’ll have the same,” Lucy said.
“I want the lunch special. What’s the vegetable of the day?” Pearl asked.
“Green beans with chunks of potatoes and ham.”
“Sounds good. Sweet tea, please.”
The waitress wrote the orders on her pad and disappeared toward the kitchen.
Pearl touched Martha’s hand. “You don’t have to pay for lunch.”
Martha held up a palm. “My treat. I insist.”
“You insist on what?” Wil asked from two feet away. He pulled a chair away from another table and pushed it up close to Pearl. “I didn’t know you were having lunch with my mother.”
“Neither did I.”
Wil leaned across the space and kissed Pearl softly on the lips. “Hello, darlin’.”
She always looked fantastic to him whether she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt to clean motel room
s or all dolled up for a New Year’s party, but that day looking at her made his mouth as dry as if he’d just crammed it full of sand. She wore faded jeans, a Western shirt with pearl snaps left open over a soft light green T-shirt. And she had on scuffed up cowboy boots. This was his favorite version of Red and he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
She reached under the tablecloth and squeezed his thigh.
He shot her a sexy grin.
“It wasn’t planned. We just happened to be in the same place at the same time. What brings you to Ringgold today?” Martha asked.
“Chicken fried steak,” he said.
The waitress came right over. “Your regular?”
He waved his hand around the whole table. “That’s right. Put it all on one ticket and I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you.” Martha Jane smiled.
“But—” Pearl raised a hand and started to argue.
Wil grabbed her hand and held it tightly in his lap.
“So what is your first impression, Jasmine?” he asked.
“That I want to start to work tomorrow,” she answered.
“It’s gettin’ up early and working hard,” he said.
“Been doin’ that my whole life at something I didn’t even like. I’m goin’ to talk to the owner after we eat and see if I can set up an appointment to go over the books and then I’m going to make an offer. My momma is going to pitch a fit but it’s what I’ve always dreamed of doing.”
“Why would your momma pitch a fit?” Martha Jane asked.
“Because her daughter wasn’t supposed to be a cook,” Jasmine said.
“Your momma disappointed in you?” Martha Jane looked at Pearl.
“Probably.”
“How about you?” Martha Jane shifted her eyes to Lucy.
“My momma is so busy tryin’ to take care of kids and grandkids that she don’t have time to think about what I do for a livin’,” Lucy said.
“Well, I wish I’d had all y’all’s sass when I was your age,” Martha Jane said.
The waitress brought a burger and fries on a heavy white stone plate in one hand and two chicken fried dinners lined up the other arm. She set them before Martha, Jasmine, and Lucy and went back to the kitchen for the other two plates which she set in front of Wil and Pearl. One more trip brought their drinks.
“Anything else I can get you folks?” she asked.
“We’re good,” Pearl said.
“Then I’ll leave the ticket with this good lookin’ cowboy and y’all can fight him over it.” She handed it to Wil and was off to take orders from another couple who’d just arrived.
“God, this is good. Think she’ll give me the secret to making chicken fried like this?” Jasmine said between bites.
“Buttermilk,” Lucy said.
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Buttermilk. First you roll the steak in flour, then egg and buttermilk whipped together, and then back in flour. Then you get the grease really hot and only turn the steak one time. Turn it anymore and it’ll be soggy. Trick is to fry it fast but get it done without losing the breading.”
“You sure you don’t want to work for me rather than clean rooms at the motel? I’ll pay you more than Pearl pays you.”
Pearl slapped Jasmine on the arm. “Some friend you are. Stay at my motel and steal my friend.”
Lucy shook her head. “No, ma’am. I’m happy right where I am. I’ve had my share of hot kitchens and a man who didn’t appreciate a single minute of all the hard work.”
“Oh, you are divorced?” Martha Jane asked.
“You could say that,” Lucy said softly.
“And you grew up with Pearl?” Martha Jane asked Jasmine.
“I did. My momma and hers are best friends. She is two months older than me. Her birthday is two days after Valentine’s and I was born on Easter. Of course mine hasn’t been on Easter but a few times, but we always had a big pink party on her birthday.”
Wil had to let go of Pearl’s hand to eat his lunch but he kept a thigh snug against hers. So her birthday was only three weeks away. He filed that information away. Later he’d plan something special for her birthday. Maybe a quiet dinner for two with watermelon wine, rose petals, and satin sheets.
“I’m going over to Nocona to look at a good used tractor. Rancher over there has three for sale. I’m thinkin’ about buyin’ one. Want to go with me?” Wil asked Pearl.
“I’m driving,” Pearl said.
“No, I am driving,” he argued.
“I meant I drove over here in the Caddy.”
“Go on. I’ll drive the Caddy back to the Longhorn when I’m finished talking to the owner. I promise I won’t hurt it,” Jasmine said.
“And I’ll tattle if she goes too fast or takes any stupid chances,” Lucy said.
“I don’t know much about tractors, except how to drive them,” Pearl said.
Martha Jane turned her head so fast that her neck popped loudly. “You know how to drive a tractor?”
“Sure she does,” Jasmine said. “Her father works at Texas Instruments, but he’s also got this big old cattle ranch over south of Sherman. He made her plow fields every spring and summer. Her mother about died at the thought of her baby girl out there on a tractor but John said it was good for her. One summer he made both of us work a whole week in the fields as punishment.”
“What did you do?” Lucy asked.
“We got into Daddy’s good bourbon and then filled the bottle up with water so he wouldn’t miss the liquor,” Pearl said.
“John Richland is your father?” Martha Jane said slowly.
Pearl nodded. “Don’t tar and feather me and run me out of town on a rail because of my heritage.”
“He’s bought cattle at our sale. Brought your mother to our sale last year. We had a very nice visit at the dinner afterwards. So you are her daughter. I would have never guessed.”
“I look like an ancestor on Daddy’s side and I’m afraid I got her quick temper, too. It’s a sore spot with Momma who is a prim and proper southern lady,” Pearl said.
Wil’s dark eyebrows knit together in a solid line. “A southern lady?”
Pearl patted his arm. “You’ll do fine when you meet her on Sunday. You aren’t going to back out, are you?”
“I keep telling you that I’ll be there,” he said.
She nodded. It wasn’t easy to believe him, but then he’d never lied to her. It was that niggling old thing from her past that kept raising its ugly head to torment her. Vince’s mother hated her enough to send him away. Martha Jane apologized, but how would she really, really feel about a red-haired daughter-in-law?
Pearl nodded. “Just don’t bring up great-granny Richland. She was a McDougal before she married and spoke with an Irish lilt. Daddy said she was wild Irish to the bone and had flaming red hair,” Pearl said.
Wil polished off the last of his steak and pushed his plate back. “Okay, I’ll remember that. You going with me to look at tractors?”
“I don’t think so,” Pearl said.
“Go on,” Jasmine told her. “Lucy already said she’ll keep me in line.”
“Okay, but I need to be back in Henrietta by three for check-ins,” she said.
“I can do that. You get her back by bedtime though,” Lucy said.
***
Wil kept time to the country music coming from the radio with his thumb on the steering wheel as they drove east. The sky was winter blue with only a few wispy clouds on the horizon.
“You think Jasmine will really buy that café?” he asked when they reached the outskirts of Nocona.
Pearl nodded.
“Think she’ll get tired of it in six months and shut it down?”
Pearl shook her head.
“Not very talkative today, are you?”
“Well, you didn’t set the cab on fire with conversation the whole way over here so don’t blame me for the quietness. We’re like a wildfire, Wil. It’s hot as hell and dest
ructive when it’s burning, but it dies out pretty quick. It scares me that we might be just two people who’ve had a helluva lot of wild, hot sex and there’s nothing left.”
He turned right and stopped the truck after he crossed the cattle guard. “You really believe that?”
“I don’t want to believe it but…” She let the sentence hang.
He pulled her across the seat to sit close to him, took her cheeks in his hands, and kissed her all over the face until she was giggling. The final kiss landed on her lips and there was no doubt between them that the fire was a helluva lot more than a flash in the pan. He drove on and parked the truck in front of a barn.
She let herself out of the truck and yelled at the elderly man coming out of the barn. “Hear you got some tractors for sale.”
He pushed his sweat-stained old straw hat back on his head and grinned. “I got three for sale. How many you wantin’ to drive home today, darlin’?”
His striped overalls were worn at the knees and hung on his lanky frame; his boots scuffed and down at the heels; his work jacket had patches on the elbows. He reminded Pearl of a scarecrow set out in the middle of a pumpkin patch to keep the birds from pecking holes in the pumpkins.
“Never know. If they are a buck ninety-nine a piece, I might just take them all three,” she said.
“I reckon they’ll be a sight higher than that but I bet me and you can reach some kind of agreement. You like John Deere?”
“Love that shade of green.” She ran a hand over the biggest tractor like she was petting a horse. “Looks like you take care of your equipment.”
“Honey, my wife, God rest her soul, told me when we married that if I kept my barn and equipment as clean as she kept her house and her cookstove we’d get along fine. We made it sixty years. I’m Farris Smith. Who are you?”
“I’m Pearl. Your wife was a wise woman. Interested in selling her cookstove?” Pearl hopped up in the seat and wrapped her hands around the steering wheel.
“No, honey. My daughter wants it.”
“And I’m Wil Marshall, Mr. Smith.” Wil extended his hand. “I’m the one who called about the tractors. You say you got three for sale?”
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