Lori Wilde - [Cupid, Texas 02]

by All Out of Love

  “What do you mean?”

  Carol Ann slumped back against the seat, folded her arms over her chest, and gazed with glazed eyes over Lace’s shoulder. “Sometimes I wish I’d never given up smoking.”

  “You used to smoke?” That was a new one on her.

  “Years ago. When I was a teen. Everyone smoked back then.”

  “Good thing you quit. Smoking is terrible for the skin.”

  “Don’t I know it?” Carol Ann put a hand to her cheeks as if checking for wrinkles.

  “Not to mention the lung cancer thing.”

  “I know, but sometimes, you just want a long drag of nicotine to calm the nerves, but don’t worry, I’m not going to walk across the street to the Zip and Drive to buy a pack of Virginia Slims.” Her tone went wistful on “Virginia Slims.”

  “Only because you know everyone in town would be talking about it.”

  “True.”

  “You have to stop stringing me along.” Lace picked up her fork and poked at the eggs on her plate.

  Carol Ann had stopped shredding napkins and was now shredding the toast that Joleen had brought her even though she’d told her to hold the bread. A pile of carb-heavy crumbs piled up on her plate, dusted her eggs. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I couldn’t in good conscience not give you a heads-up.”

  “About what?”

  “The city council held an emergency meeting last night.”

  “About … ?” Talk about harder than pulling hen’s teeth! Where was a pair of dental pliers when she needed them?

  Carol Ann started to say something, blew out her breath, and eventually inhaled deeply. “You know I took over as Cupid’s CPA when Olive Cooksey left town, ostensibly to elope.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, it turns out true love was not why she left town.”

  Lace’s skin tingled as creepily as if fire ants were crawling all over her bare skin. She did not like the direction this conversation was headed.

  “Olive Cooksey embezzled five hundred thousand dollars from the town of Cupid.”

  “Five hundred thousand!”

  “Shh!” Carol Ann plastered her index finger to her lips.

  Lace lowered her voice. “How in the world was she able to embezzle that much?”

  “She was very good at cooking the books. The best I’ve ever seen, but of course it was a house of cards. Once I started looking into why we didn’t have enough funds to cover the city payroll …” Carol Ann trailed off, shook her head.

  The sick feeling settled into the pit of Lace’s stomach and pushed against her lungs. “What does this mean?”

  “The town is facing drastic cost-cutting measures. We have to keep the schools going, obviously, sanitation, water, fire, police, all the essentials, and even that is going to take some mighty juggling on my part.”

  “That means all the nonessentials have to be lopped?”

  “The library, the visitors’ center, after-school programs, the—”

  “Botanical gardens.”

  Solemnly, Carol Ann nodded. “I’m so sorry, Lace.”

  Lace sat there, staring at the grease congealing on the sausage on her plate, trying to absorb the information. Poof! Just like that she was out of a job. All her plans for the garden up in smoke. “When is the city council going public?”

  “We’ve called outside law enforcement. Once they give us the go-ahead, the mayor will hold a press conference, so you absolutely positively can’t tell anyone about this until then.”

  Lace nibbled her bottom lip. “Maybe we could consider charging admission if it would save the gardens.”

  Carol Ann was shaking her head. “It won’t be enough.”

  She knew that. She was grasping at straws.

  “Where is Shasta going to go?” Lace wasn’t worried about herself. Her parents would float her a loan until she found another job, but Shasta had nothing to fall back on.

  “Hopefully we can help her find a job or get back to where she belongs.”

  “What about Manuel?”

  “He’s old enough to retire.”

  “What about the plants? Without someone to look after them they’ll die.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lace thought she just might throw up at the thought of the gardens going untended. “What about the Cupid fountain and the letterbox? It’s part of our town history. It brings in tourists. We can’t just do away with it.”

  “The city council recommends moving the fountain and the letterbox to the courthouse square, but try not to despair. As soon as the town recovers from this crisis, they’ll open the gardens back up again.”

  “It will be too late and you know it.”

  “There is one hope.”

  Lace squeezed her hands together in her lap. “What’s that?”

  “We could raise the money through private donations to keep the nonessential services going.”

  Lace groaned. “That’s a daunting task. I don’t even know how to go about something like that.”

  “No, but your cousin Melody does and she’s coming in earlier than expected. Her flight is landing in El Paso at nine. She’s renting a car and should be home before noon.”

  Chapter 9

  Prickle: a small sharp outgrowth, usually more slender than a thorn.

  “THE solution is simple,” Lace’s cousin Melody announced that same afternoon, as she and Lace lay buried up to their necks in a mud bath at the Cupid Mineral Springs Resort and Spa. Melody preferred the elegance of the mineral springs to Junie Mae’s LaDeDa, which was little more than a couple of massage tables in the back of her hair salon.

  “I’m glad you can see it, because I’m blind about how to fix this.” Normally, Lace was not much of a spa girl, but the first thing Melody had said when she told her about her troubles was, “Let’s hit the spa, I think better when I’m relaxed. My treat.” Lace had picked the mud bath over other treatments, because hey, if she had to take time away from the garden, at least she was in dirt.

  The lavender that had been added to the bath masked the mineral-heavy smell of volcanic ash. The attendant had wrapped their hair in white towels and placed cucumber slices on their eyes. Lace had already taken off the cucumbers and vaguely considered eating them. She was hungry, since she’d been too distressed after Carol Ann’s news to eat breakfast, but now her appetite came roaring back. Nah, if she ate them, it would probably earn a stern look from the attendant and a sigh and an “Oh, Lace, really?” from Melody.

  One Halloween, when Lace was seven and Melody was nine, Gram had taken all four of her granddaughters trick-or-treating. Natalie went as a policewoman, Zoey as a bandit. Melody had been dressed as a princess, resplendent in pink chiffon. Carol Ann had ordered Melody’s costume from a specialty store in Houston. Lace’s mother had made her a lacewing costume because they were her favorite insects, mostly due to the fact they shared her name. Unfortunately, no one else had known what she was.

  Afterward, the four cousins had sat in Gram’s kitchen going through their loot, Melody primly extracting the “good quality” chocolates and leaving behind the “pure poison” like Nerds, Laffy Taffy, and Smarties. Lace had scooped up her cousin’s leavings, dumped them in her bag, and then opened a box of Nerds and stuffed the entire contents in her mouth.

  “Mmm, I lo … lo … love … poison,” she stuttered, spitting Nerds onto Melody’s princess costume.

  Melody had leveled her a look of utter disgust and said, “Oh, Lace, really? You are such a pig.”

  Lace pushed the memory aside, slapped the limp cucumber slices back over her eyes, and slipped lower into the mud bath.

  “All you have to do,” Melody said, “is throw a dinner party. A thousand dollars a plate.”

  “Whoa! That pricing might work in New York City, but this is Cupid.”

  “Which is why I said a thousand instead of two thousand a plate.”

  “That’s delusional.”

  “It’s not. Five
hundred guests at a thousand dollars apiece will net the same amount that Olive Cooksey stole from the coffers.”

  “Five hundred guests? There’s no venue in Cupid that will accommodate a dinner party of five hundred people.”

  “Sure there is.”

  “Where?”

  “Michael and Mignon’s vineyard. They host big wedding parties there all the time.”

  “Not five hundred people big. Where are we going to get enough tables and chairs?”

  “The community center, the library, the high school, churches.” Melody ticked off the options on a mud-coated hand.

  “Let’s say that by some miracle we get five hundred people to show up. How much is it going to cost? A thousand dollars a plate won’t be pure profit.”

  “You get sponsors to pay for the meals,” Melody said like it was the easiest thing in the world.

  “I’m not an outgoing extrovert who knows how to schmooze,” Lace said.

  “Lucky for you, I am.”

  “That’s nice of you to offer to help, but what happens when you head back to New York and I’m left trying to pull this off?”

  “Didn’t Mother tell you? I’ve taken a six-week vacation.” Melody sounded wildly cheerful.

  So cheerful in fact that Lace didn’t trust her glee. Something was definitely up with her cousin. “How come you’re taking six weeks off?”

  “I had scads of vacation time built up. I had to take it or lose it.”

  “As much of a workaholic as you are, I’m surprised you didn’t opt to just lose the time.”

  “Pot. Kettle. Black.”

  “Which is why I can’t imagine you not working for six weeks. I know I couldn’t do it,” Lace commented.

  “So see, you’ll actually be doing me a favor if you let me put this event on for you.”

  Lace sat up, the cucumber fell off her eyes, and she stared over at Melody in her pit of mud. “What is going on?”

  “Nothing.” Melody laughed gaily, but the sound was forced. “Can’t I do something nice for you?”

  “For the last five years that you’ve lived in New York, you’ve only come home twice a year, at Christmas and on your mother’s birthday. Why the sudden Cupid love?”

  “It’s not sudden. I’ve just reached the age where I’m revaluating what I want in life.”

  “The only thing you’ve ever wanted is to be the Princess of Madison Avenue. You’re well on your way, why would you stop now?”

  “I’m not stopping. It’s just …” She paused. “I needed to take some time, okay?”

  “Okay.” Lace eased back down into the mud.

  “So anyway about the event—”

  “You do know the entire population of Cupid is just over three thousand, right? I don’t know where you expect to round up five hundred people who can afford to pay a thousand dollars a plate.”

  “Which is why we must cast a wider net. We’ll need to draw from all around Texas—Houston, Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio, Austin.”

  “Why on earth would they come to Cupid?”

  “For a Labor Day celebration. We’ll make a weekend-long event of it. Organize a stargazing tour at MacDonald Observatory. We’ve got the caverns and the mineral springs, and the lake and dove season opens September first, so there’s something for hunters.”

  “Who generally aren’t the kinds of men who will pay a thousand dollars a plate for dinner even if they have the money.”

  “Not just dinner,” Melody said, “but an event, a celebration. Music, dancing, gourmet food, including exotic game, and a chance to mingle with a big sports celebrity.”

  “What sports celebrit—” Lace broke off, sat back up. “Oh no. Not Pierce Hollister.”

  Melody sat up too, plucked the cucumbers from her eyes. She had a swatch of mud across her right cheek. “I know you have a painful history with Pierce, but Lace, he is the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.”

  “Who currently happens to be on the disabled list.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s a big celebrity. In fact, his injury makes him even more desirable. Emotion. Conflict. Suffering. The struggle back. Pathos sells!”

  A heavy feeling settled in Lace’s stomach. She knew her cousin was right.

  “It’s the only way you’re going to draw a big crowd willing to pay a thousand bucks a plate,” Melody went on. “Not only that, but think of all the money an event like this will funnel into the local economy. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” Damn that Olive Cooksey’s thieving hide.

  “I’m willing to do all the legwork. You only have to do two things.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Show up at the big dinner with a date and do a little glad-handing.”

  “What else?”

  “Ask Pierce to headline the event, and since he’s recuperating it shouldn’t be that hard to convince him.”

  No indeed, the hard part was going to be driving up to the Triple H and asking him to do her a favor. She could already see his smug smile and audacious wink.

  The big question was why did she suddenly feel so excited about the prospect of seeing him again?

  THE NEXT MORNING Lace worked up the courage to call the Triple H and ask for Pierce.

  “He and Mr. Malcolm are moving the herd down from the mountains. He’ll be gone all day and he’s out of cell phone range,” the housekeeper told her. “May I ask who is calling?”

  “It’s not important. I’ll call back later.” She was half relieved he wasn’t there, half nauseated that she wouldn’t be able to get this over with.

  “Sugar,” the housekeeper said. It came out shooger, slow as maple syrup and false as artificial sweetener. “Can I give you a word of advice?”

  “Sure,” Lace said, wondering where this was leading.

  “Young ladies call here all the time. He never calls ’em back. A man doesn’t respect a woman who throws herself at him.”

  Lace bit her tongue to keep from telling the housekeeper that she was certainly not throwing herself at him.

  “Do you have any idea how many women are trying to become Mrs. Pierce Hollister?” the housekeeper went on.

  “Couple of dozen?” Lace guessed.

  The housekeeper laughed. “Shooger, more like a couple of thousand. It’s gonna take a one-in-a-billion gal to catch the likes of Mr. Pierce. Are you one in a billion?”

  “Rats, I’m only one in nine hundred and ninety-nine million. Damn the luck.”

  “Well, you do have a sense of humor. I’ll grant you that. Go ahead and give me your number. If he’s interested, he’ll call. If he doesn’t call, well, shooger, you have to face the truth. He’s just not that into you.”

  Apparently, the woman had been watching too many Sex and the City reruns. “How will I ever live?” Lace quipped.

  “You’ll find a nice man just right for you—”

  “Thank you for your time,” Lace said, and hung up before she said something snarky she might regret.

  She slumped back in the wooden swivel chair. From the window of her office in the botanical gardens, she could see stoop-shouldered Manuel putting fresh mulch around the scarlet Anisacanthus linearis. His face was as familiar to her as her grandfather’s. He’d worked at the gardens for over twenty-five years. As a child, whenever she’d wandered over to the gardens from her parents’ livery stable across the road, Manuel would pluck a pack of Trident cinnamon gum from his front shirt pocket, give her a piece, and take one for himself. They would chew in companionable silence, as he’d tell her the common names of the plants in both English and Spanish. Miss Winnie was the one who’d started teaching her the Latin names and she’d learned there was a method to the nomenclature.

  Lace sighed, stretched, and got up to pace. Melody’s plan had better work. If the gardens closed, it would be the end of an era.

  Yeah, well, before her cousin’s grand scheme could work, Lace had to do her part.

  It would be so easy to go in
to the garden, spend her time happily digging in the dirt, put off asking Pierce to headline the fund-raiser for another day, but the sooner she got the ball rolling, the better. Pierce might not be within cell phone reception range, but she knew where the Hollisters pastured their cattle in the grasslands that grew up the gentle slope of the Davis Mountains. When she was a teenager she’d ridden up there often enough, hoping to catch a glimpse of Pierce when he and Jay helped Abe herd cattle to earn date money.

  Lace pushed back from her chair, called to Shasta to hold down the fort, and walked across to Bettingfield Stables to saddle her quarter horse, Peony. Twenty minutes later, she was galloping out of town, headed up the mountain.

  The temperature was a good ten degrees cooler up here than it was in town. The late morning breeze stirred in her face. The skies were clear, the altitude crisp and dry. Confronted with Peony’s hooves, feeding jackrabbits broke and scattered, their long ears folded back flat against their heads. A small red-tailed hawk circled overhead, looking for lizards and rodents easier to tackle than the big-footed jackrabbits, and finally came to land in the bare branches of a dead piñon pine with a soft whapping of his wings. The sound startled Peony, who sparked and jumped over a prickly pear.

  As she rode, Lace scanned the terrain, cataloging plant life. To her, the sweeping landscape of the Trans-Pecos was the most beautiful in the world. Any old plant could grow with unlimited rainfall, but in this spot only the hardy thrived. When she was a girl, she’d ride the country, pretending she was a Native American maiden. Once she was out of sight of civilization, it could have been a hundred and fifty years ago, until a plane flew overhead and ruined the image. She loved it here. The place was in her heart, her blood, and her soul. If she could not save the gardens, she’d have to leave home in order to make a living.

  It took her over an hour to reach the Hollisters’ grazing land. Here, there were no fences. Since Pierce’s housekeeper had said they were driving the cattle down, Lace picked the southwesterly route to the Triple H. She’d traveled less than a mile when she spied a roll of dust in the distance and through it, horsemen loping along behind a herd of longhorns. She spurred Peony faster and when she got nearer, spied three Blue Heeler cattle dogs keeping the herd in line.