She hugged the dress close to her heart. “Stop it, Camillia Torres! Maybe she’s a different woman when she shucks out of those clothes and takes him to bed. She probably knows a whole hell of a lot more than I did - or do. I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts, she’s been around the block more than one time. The only experience I’ve got is a single time in the back of a trailer, and Beau was drunk.”
She took the dress from the bag, slipped it off the hanger, and put it on, with a pair of light tan kid sandals that laced up to mid-calf.
Granny already knows, but she won’t say anything. I can tell by the way she keeps bringing up his name and insisting I go places where he’ll be… just like tonight. I don’t want to be at that party. But then, what the hell. Maybe that goodlooking, darkhaired man will be there again. The one who looks like Matthew and probably is about as trustworthy as a tornado. At least I can dance with him, flirt a little, if I still remember how.
Katy held up her hands to be picked up. “Mommy.”
She kissed the baby all over her face, relishing in the innocent giggles. “I’m going to do it. And before the night is over I’m telling him I was the girl… Camillia… not Amelia. He’s already engaged to Amanda, anyway, and it won’t matter. At least he won’t keep asking me where it was he met me. But he won’t ever know you belong to him, my precious baby.”
Amanda threw her suit and panty hose on the floor of her room in her father’s house. Pauline, the maid, would send them to the cleaners tomorrow. She chose a black column dress with gold buttons down the front and a pair of black highheeled shoes for the party. Tonight she would break Anthony’s heart into a million pieces and leave him an emotional wreck when she told him she didn’t want to marry him, so black seemed appropriate.
She and the handsome doctor had driven to Dallas for supper on the top floor of the Loews hotel. He’d asked if he could see her again and she’d agreed. Now the next job was to get rid of excess baggage - called Anthony Luckadeau. By Christmas she intended to be Mrs. Dr. Jason Orbach.
She prowled through a jewelry case of earrings. “Just gold studs. And maybe a herringbone bracelet. That’s enough for a funeral.”
Her heels made a rat-a-tat-tat down the hardwood staircase and her father looked up from his paper when she reached the huge living room at the end of the stairs. “My, oh, my, don’t you look classy this evening. You look more like your mother every day.”
She kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you, father. I’m driving the Lincoln tonight. I won’t be late, though. This is the last time I’m seeing Anthony Luckadeau.”
“Didn’t he ask you to marry him?”
“Yes, he did, but he’s not the first one, is he? Daddy, he is a good man. He is absolutely boring. No imagination: dinner at a steak house and a movie a couple of times a week. I think I deserve a little more than that, don’t you? I’ve got someone I really think you’ll enjoy meeting next week. I’m not going to tell you about him. I want it to be a surprise. Ta-ta.” She waved goodbye from the door.
Beau waited on the porch, hoping it was the effects of the concussion causing the heavy feeling in his chest. The lawyer waited in the study and as soon as Amanda arrived, they’d review the conditions of a prenuptial arrangement set down in writing before Alice went to the nursing home.
He watched the big Lincoln pull up in the circular driveway. The weight in his soul didn’t disappear when Amanda waved. He crossed the porch and opened the door for her.
“Hello, Anthony. I think we better have a talk before everyone arrives for the party.”
“Yes, we are going to. Aunt Alice’s lawyer is waiting in the study, and we’ve got to talk about the way she set up this ranch. Just keep an open mind, Amanda, and remember that it’s just an agreement. We won’t ever need to think about it, anyway, because we aren’t going into this marriage with a divorce looming at the end. We’re going into it with thoughts of celebrating our fiftieth wedding anniversary right here on the Bar M. Maybe we’ll even have the band play our song again and you’ll knock everyone dead with your good looks even when you are near eighty. You look beautiful tonight, darlin’.” He tried to convince himself with words.
Her lips made a firm red line as she jerked her head around to face him. “What are you talking about?”
He kissed her cheek and she saw the staples on top of his head. “Haven’t seen you in a week.”
She shivered. “Don’t bend down and show me those horrid things on your head.”
Nothing had changed. He was making the biggest mistake in his whole life and there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it. Like a little boy with his feelings hurt, he wanted to go out behind the barn and cry. But even that wouldn’t fix the problem. He’d given his word; he’d stand by it.
“Sorry. Let’s go talk to the lawyer. Folks will be arriving soon.”
Beau sat down in a burgundy leather chair on one side of the desk where the lawyer had strung papers in several piles. Amanda perched on the edge of a matching chair and wondered how in the world she was going to get out of this gracefully. If she could get it taken care of before long, maybe she could drive by the hospital and say hello to her doctor before she went home.
The lawyer turned the papers around so she could see them. “This is really very simple. Alice Martin deeded everything she had to Anthony Beau Luckadeau, but with the stipulation that if he ever married, the bride must sign an agreement that the ranch would not be part of the marital properties. In other words, if the marriage ends in a divorce, the ranch remains solely the property of Anthony Beau Luckadeau and his descendants, and can never be sold. It must pass from generation to generation. I have the papers right here…”
Rage boiled up out of Amanda like smoke and fire from the center of an active volcano. She’d already spent her half of the ranch sale proceeds in a thousand imaginary ways, and now this pompous, bald-headed lawyer was telling her she would have to sign a prenuptial agreement. “Do you mean that if we divorced I could not have my part of this ranch?”
Beau patted her hand. “Now Amelia, it’s just paper. We won’t ever get a divorce.”
“Don’t you dare call me by your mother’s name, you idiot! You knew about this all along, didn’t you?”
He looked at her incredulously. “My mother? I’m sorry I called you Amelia. But that’s not my mother’s name. Momma is Joann. Why did you think Amelia was her name?”
She pointed her finger at his nose. “Do you mean to tell me there’s another woman in your life whose name is Amelia? You’ve got a woman you whine for when you’re sick and you expect me to sign an asinine agreement like this? You are crazy, Anthony Luckadeau. Just plain crazy.”
“Amanda, darlin’…” he stopped mid-sentence, his eyes fixed on the apparition getting out of a red and white pickup truck. She wore the same lace dress and her hair was piled high on her head, just like that night. He remembered taking the pins out one by one until her hair cascaded down her back.
Amanda wrenched off her engagement ring in a dramatic movement, and threw it on the floor at the toes of his boots. “I wouldn’t marry you if you promised me this whole ranch on a silver platter. You can take this ring, and go straight to hell with it. I’m the best thing that ever happened to you, and you’re too damned stupid to know it. So don’t be calling me and begging me to come back to you when you finally wake up and realize what you’ve lost. Goodbye.”
He didn’t hear a word she said as he continued to look past her. Buster was talking to the ghost-lady as if it was a real person, but Beau knew she would fade in a vapor in a few minutes. Sometimes when he was in the barn she would appear for a few seconds, but then, poof, the vision was gone. Once when he was driving to town she had appeared on the highway right in front of his truck and he’d slammed on the brakes so fast he left a trail of black skid marks a quarter of a mile long, but she disappeared then, too.
“My God, Anthony, I didn’t mean to affect you so badly. You look like you jus
t saw a ghost,” Amanda said.
His voice was scarcely more than a faint whisper. Too much noise and the lady would disappear in a wisp of fog, smoke, or dust. “Go on, Amanda. I don’t really give a damn right now what you do. I’m sick of your whining ways and listening to you. Just get out of here.”
“Whining ways! You’re a pitiful excuse for a man. God, what I saw in you, I’ll never know; Goodbye. I hope you rot in hell.” She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and stuck her nose in the air with a sniff of disgust. She stomped her right foot so hard it broke the heel off her shoe.
Beau never took his eyes from the window. Any minute he was going to start slobbering if he didn’t shut his mouth. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was drunk, but he didn’t touch liquor of any kind. He wouldn’t even have a glass of wine with her when they went out to dinner. It must be the accident. It really had affected something in his brain. Suddenly she could see a lifetime taking care of a man in a wheelchair with a bib around his neck and a blank look in his eyes. The mental vision caused her to run from the room and leave nothing but a streak of dust in her wake as she and the Lincoln left the Bar M.
The lawyer turned to see what was capturing Beau’s attention. “Pretty woman.”
“You can see her?” Beau bent down to pick up the ring at his feet but didn’t dare blink.
The man laughed. “Sure, I can see her. I’m not blind, son. The one who just stormed out of here wasn’t bad looking, either. But that one out there would make a man do a double take. I guess the engagement is off. Don’t worry, though. I don’t think I could stand bein’ married to someone that hot tempered, so maybe this prenuptial thing of Alice’s is a blessing. Evidently, she wasn’t the right one for you after all. I’ll gather up my things and get on back home.”
“Stay around,” Beau said absently. “We’re having a party here tonight. With or without Amanda. There’s enough food to feed an army of hungry men, and you’re more than welcome. Call your wife and tell her to come on out, too.”
The lawyer reached for the phone. “Well, that’s mighty fine of you. Maybe I will do just that.”
Beau laid the ring on the desk and started toward the door. “Excuse me.”
The band struck up the first notes of “A Picture of Me Without You,” by Lorrie Morgan, as Milli entered the barn to find only a few people already at the party. Granny and Poppy had laid claim to a table on the edge of the circular dance floor. The lady singing for the band did a pretty good imitation of Lorrie as she crooned into the microphone, expecting to see Beau and his fiancée enter the barn any minute, and then she was supposed to break into a very different song. They were going to dance a slow waltz and then Beau was going to take the microphone and make a speech. Then the real dance would start up.
Jim Torres wiped his brow in mock shock. “Whooo! What happened to my country granddaughter? You look like one of them city women or one of them models.”
Milli tried to smile but couldn’t. “Thank you, Poppy, but you are looking at me through those grandfather’s rose-colored glasses. I feel out of place without my jeans and boots. I don’t know whatever made me put this on to begin with.”
Beau was suddenly so close to her that she could smell his aftershave and feel his breath on her bare neck. “Amelia? Amelia Jiminez?” He held his breath, fully well expecting the girl to turn around and tell him to drop dead.
Jim laughed. “No, not Amelia Jiminez. Just Milli. Camillia Torres. Her mother was a Jiminez… Angelina Jiminez from down in the valley, before she married my son.”
The pieces fit snugly into place and he swallowed three times before he could speak. She’d been right next door all that time and she must have known from the first day who he was, and yet she hadn’t said a word. He should wring her neck, but if he put his hands on her slender neck it wouldn’t be to hurt her. His heart told him he was looking at a woman who just fell into bed with him on a whim, then ran away before he awoke. His body said it wanted more of what it remembered from that night in Texarkana.
Milli turned slowly to face him. “Hello, Beau. I think we met a long time ago, didn’t we? Only a few people call me Camillia. I guess it does sound like Amelia, doesn’t it?”
He was afraid to blink. “You’re real. You’re not adream?”
“I’m real. I’m Milli Torres, your neighbor’s granddaughter. Small world, ain’t it? Where is your fiancée?”
“She broke up with me. Refused to sign the agreement about the ranch and.., why didn’t you tell me you were…?”
“Well, praise the lord!” Mary exclaimed. “That girl wasn’t the right woman for you Beau. I don’t mean to be ugly, but she was bad news.”
“It don’t matter,” Beau tried to drink in every detail of Milli’s face.
“I’m sorry about your engagement,” Milli lied.
“I’m not. Could I have this dance, Milli?” He touched her hand and sparks flew.
“Well, would you look at that?” Mary said. “You know, I believe that boy is thunderstruck. I guess they’ve met somewhere before and he just now realized it.”
“And I think I smell a rat,” Jim said. “You’ve known all along, haven’t you? And… oh, my lord, that’s who it is? Now why didn’t this old monkey-assed, mindless fool see it before? That boy is Katy’s daddy, ain’t he? You figured it out the first day and that’s what you was talking about.”
Mary put her fingers over his mouth. “Shhhh, he don’t know about Katy yet. We’ll have to be very quiet and let them work it all out. They don’t need a couple of old meddling fools like us to help them. They’ve found each other. Lord, Jim, look at the way they dance together. Like they was made for each other. And just think about all the fun we’ll have with Katy right next door.”
“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” Jim said with a grin.
“Why didn’t you tell me the first day?” Beau whispered in her ear.
“Because, you were screaming and cussing, and besides, I was shocked out of my mind about how in the hell you got from Louisiana to southern Oklahoma on the farm right next to my Poppa’s,” she whispered back.
“But what about at the Spencers’ barn dance when we danced?”
“You were going to propose to Amanda, remember?”
The song ended and another began. “Don’t go. Dance with me again.”
She nodded and he drew her even closer.
“What happened to you? I got out of bed and you were gone. They told me I’d just dreamed you and you were never there,” he asked.
“And I shouldn’t have been. It was a mistake from the beginning. I was mad at my boyfriend and I was out to get even, so I used you.”
“Did you go home and make up with your boyfriend?” He held his breath as he waited for an answer.
“No, I did not. I guess we just used each other. I knew your girlfriend had just broken up with you.”
“What did happen, then?”
She leaned back and smiled, lighting up his whole world. “The whole thing backfired. How’s your head?”
“You are changing the subject, but that’s all right. I’ve got all summer to show you just how it did backfire. My head is still stitched - or rather, stapled. Was it you at the hospital with me?”
She stepped back and pulled his shoulders down so she could see the top of his head. “Yes bend down here and let me see. They look pretty clean. Here I’ll kiss them and make it all better.”
Buster wandered into the barn, a hangdog look on his face and a shuffle to his walk. Lord, but he hated that uppity Amanda, and to think he might even have to take orders from her was enough to make his butt want a dip of snuff. He was too damned old to quit the Bar M and find another job and besides, this was home. It was where he and Rosa came with their three children when they were in their early twenties to work for Tony and Alice. And the ranch had been good to them. To leave would wrench his heart right out of his chest. To stay would drive him smack dab crazy.<
br />
He stopped dead in his tracks as Milli kissed the top of Beau’s head and then put both her arms around his neck as they continued with the dance. He shook his head violently. Surely he wasn’t seeing what he thought he was. “What the hell?”
Jim motioned toward a chair. “Engagement’s off, praise the good lord above. I ‘spect Beau will make an announcement when everyone arrives. Seems like he ain’t too broke up over it. He waltzed right in here and saw Milli, and was as thunderstruck as any man I’ve ever seen. They’ve been out there dancin’ ever since. Guess he met her a long time ago somewhere. We’ll find out the whole story later.”
Buster threw his straw hat into the air and caught it when it floated back down. “Well, hallelujah. There is a God up there after all. I’d begun to think maybe He had turned off His hearing aid when I prayed. Miss Milli, huh? Well, ain’t the whole evenin’ lookin’ a lot brighter now! Wait ‘till tell Rosa. She’s going to pass little green apples, she’ll be so excited. This is goin’ to be a good party, after all!”
“Yep, it is,” Jim nodded and grinned from one ear to the other. Just wait ‘til Buster found out about Katy. He’d really be dancing around on the clouds. Come to think of it, Buster hadn’t ever even seen Katy. Maybe Jim would just make a point to invite him over one day next week. He’d see just what kind of expression Buster had on his face when he looked at the spitting image of Beau.
Beau kept Milli’s hand in his as he approached the bandstand and reached for the microphone. “Folks. This was supposed to be a party to celebrate my engagement tonight. But things took a strange turn and Amanda and I decided we weren’t cut out from the same bolt of cloth. So she’s gone her way and I’m finding a new way, so we’ll celebrate that instead of an engagement. The tables are ready for supper and the band will keep playing. Those of you who haven’t met Milli Torres, please come around and I’ll introduce you, but don’t any of you fellers ask for a dance. She already promised them all to me tonight.”
Lucky In Love Page 9
