Shine On Oklahoma

by Maggie Shayne

  More a too-good-for-the-likes-of-Kendra-Kellogg kind of a town.

  She wasn’t comfortable here. Never had been.

  She pulled off Main street and into the parking lot that the OK Corral shared with the next business, Armstrong’s Garage. She tried to remember the name of the guy who’d owned it when she was a kid and came up blank. Not Armstrong. It had been a long time.

  A black van with a batman logo on the side pulled in beside her. She frowned at the design for about ten seconds before she got it. It was a V, not a bat. Vet Mobile. Cute. Then Doc Sophie pulled in and then a pickup truck. The woman who got out was older—how much older, it wasn’t possible to say. Her hair was long, curly, and black with silver strands. She was short and curvy, and not someone Kendra would ever think about conning. You learned early on in the confidence game how to read people. If you didn’t, you were doomed. Kendra would not bet against this one, not on her life.

  Another car pulled in, and Allie Wakeland got out, belly leading the way. They all hugged, Sophie and Emily and Allie, and the lady. And then they all turned her way, arm in arm, smiling.

  Kendra said, “Um, good morning?”

  “Morning!” they broke like a football huddle, the ruler coming forward with her hand out. “Vidalia Brand,” she said. Oh, that made sense. The matriarch. “I’m glad you’re here for the birth of your niece. Sisters need each other at a time like this.”

  Allie had come up to stand beside her, and Kendra thought it was a deliberate move, like she was saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll be your ally.”

  And then another woman, a sunshine blonde, came trotting along the sidewalk with a big pink and white striped cardboard box.

  “That’s Sunny Cantrell,” Allie said when the walking ray of sunshine got close enough.

  “From the bakery, right?” Kendra asked.

  Sunny nodded. “Nice to meet you, Kendra.”

  “Sunny’s doing baby shower cupcakes,” Vidalia Brand said. Then, “There’s food in the truck girls.”

  Kendra got swept into the tide of grown women scurrying to obey the alpha, while Vidalia unlocked the saloon to let them all in. Soon she was carrying a covered Tupperware platter and heading into the dim interior of the OK Corral. It was a much more downscale bar than The Long Branch, obviously meant for the locals, not the tourists. Rich wood tones were everywhere, from the bar to the racks behind it, to the woodwork to the flooring. There were tables and booths, a kitchen in the back for bar food, and wagon wheel light fixtures lining the ceiling.

  Vidalia removed the chairs from on top of a big round table and gave it a wipe down. Then they unloaded the food and Kendra sniffed the air. “Am I dreaming or do I already smell coffee?”

  “I set the auto-timer,” Vidalia said. “Should be fresh and ready.” The others had scattered, returning quickly with plates, silverware, cream and sugar, and blessedly large coffee mugs. And then they sat around that table and dug in. Vidalia moved around them, pouring their mugs full before sitting down herself.

  Kendra sat there a second. “I did not expect a full-blown breakfast.”

  “This family’s big on food,” Doc Sophie said. “They’re all gonna be on cholesterol meds by sixty.”

  “Fortunately, I don’t believe in age,” Vidalia said. “Or prescriptions.” She speared a sausage link with her fork. All the food was piping hot and abundant, including the gooey cinnamon buns Sunny had brought from the bakery.

  The chit-chat was friendly, but minimal for a while, because they were all too busy eating to talk.

  “So,” Emily began when the eating had begun to wind down. “I made you a copy of everything we’ve agreed on so far.” She handed a folder across the table. It had printed pages with holes punched. Wow. Efficient. “That doesn’t mean any of it is carved in stone. You’re running the show now, Kendra.”

  Vidalia got up and started clearing plates, and when Emily rose to help, she held out a hand. “No, no, you plan. This won’t take a minute.” She was as good as her promise, whisking away everything but the coffee mugs and returning with a fresh pot to refill them.

  “Yeah, well…to be honest I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m sure whatever you’ve got started is fine.” Kendra was running her fingertip down a bulleted list:

  Date: November 20th

  Time: 3 PM

  Place: The Long Branch dining room

  Catering: Chef Ned

  Cake: Sunny (cupcakes)

  Menu: To be determined.

  Invitiations:

  Her finger stopped there. “It doesn’t say anything next to invitations.”

  “Oh, the invitations! They arrived yesterday. I tucked ‘em away.” Vidalia hustled behind the bar and came out with a box, set it in front of Kendra and took off the lid. “They need to go out today, if possible. But we don’t have a complete guest list yet.”

  Kendra unfolded blotter paper to see a stack of invitations laid out flat. The front showed a cartoon baby princess riding a unicorn with sparkles and glitter all around her. Of course it did. God, she loved her sister, but pregnancy sure gave her girlie side a shot of rocket fuel, and apparently her friends all knew it.

  They’d probably seen the nursery.

  “We’ve been trying to figure a way to get a list from Kiley’s side of the family without giving away the surprise,” Emily said.

  Kendra’s head came up. “Kiley’s side?”

  “Your side,” Sophie clarified. “Now that you’re here, you can fill in the blanks. It’s co-ed, so Rob and the guys can attend, too.”

  Kendra thought of Uncle Willie and Fat Carl and Miss Dolly. And she thought of Jack, too. He should be at this thing. It was for his first grandchild, a baby girl named after the only woman he’d ever loved, their mom.

  And yet Kiley didn’t want him to know, and it wasn’t fair, and the fact that he could end up dead almost any time now made it feel even worse.

  She wouldn’t let him die without knowing, she decided it for sure right then. Maybe she could get him out of there in time. Maybe she could convince Kiley to let him come to the shower. But at the very least, she was going to let him know.

  Dammit, Kiley needed to remember who the hell she was. She was not one of these too-good-to-be-true country gals, pretty and smart and honest and kind. They probably had perfect houses and perfect husbands and perfect lives and perfect kids.

  She pictured her sister in that pretty little farmhouse, the flowerboxes, the business she’d started, the happy kitchen, the amazing husband.

  Yeah, maybe she was. Maybe she was. That part of her had come from their mother, who Kiley had idealized in her mind.

  But she was also the daughter of Jack Kellogg. She was the notorious Kendra Kellogg’s twin. She’d been raised by hucksters and scammers and petty criminals. She needed to respect that part of her heritage.

  Kendra couldn’t invite anyone from their childhood, though. Not if it would ruin the shower for Kiley.

  Then she remembered the soft smile in her sister’s eyes when she’d mentioned Miss Dolly, and how she’d said she missed having her family around. It might be okay. “I do have one name we can add to the list,” Kendra said.

  “Oh good!” Sunny handed her a pen. “Jot down the name and address.”

  “Kiley’s gonna be so surprised,” Allie said.

  “Yeah,” Kendra said. “Surprised.” And she knew it would either make her sister’s day or ruin it. She bit her lip, but in the end, thought the potential payoff was worth the risk. She would make it her personal task to ensure Miss Dolly behaved herself.

  #

  Dax had invited Kendra to come out to lunch with him, and she had agreed eagerly. She had a lot of talking to do and not much time to do it in, and she’d figured out how to use the planning to ask questions.

  They sat in the clearing next to the waterfall, with a picnic spread out on the ground—red-and-white checked blanket, wicker basket and all. She was sure Dax had help putting it all t
ogether. Probably from her sister. Cold fried chicken, extra sharp cheese, root beer in glass bottles. Root beer always tasted better from glass bottles.

  “You said your mom and the lawyers are coming out,” she said. “When are they arriving?

  “Why?” he was instantly suspicious.

  She’d hoped he might be starting to trust her a little bit. No such luck. It made her angry that he assumed she was up to something, but that didn’t make much sense, since she was, in fact, up to something.

  “I want to invite her to Kiley’s shower.” She tipped her head. “I could hardly come up with anyone from our side of the family. Not that she is, really, but you work with Rob, so I figured….”

  “Oh.” He blinked, and then his features relaxed again. “I think she’d love to be invited. When’s the shower?”

  She made a face. “This weekend. Short notice, right?”

  “Mom’s arriving tomorrow. I bet she’d be grateful for an excuse to stay a while.” He gave her a gentle smile. “She’s gonna be so happy to see you again.”

  She’d tried hard to avoid meeting Dax’s mother when they’d been fake-dating the first time around. But eventually she had. Caroline was as petite and luminescent as a Christmas elf. She smiled with her whole being, and her big brown eyes contrasted with her platinum-or-maybe-silver short short hair in a way that could make curmudgeons want to hug.

  “Even though I screwed her only son over and came between him and his old man?”

  “What came between me and my old man was my old man.” He put a hand over one of hers. “She was pretty pissed when she found out about your kidney scam, Kendra, I gotta be honest about that. But we’ve talked about it a lot since then, and she’s over it.”

  Kendra frowned at him, trying to read his face, which was usually easy to do. He averted his eyes this time. “Why is she over it? What did you tell her about me?”

  “You want that last piece of chicken?” He reached for it as he asked the question.

  She snatched it before he could, and shook it at him. “You didn’t give her my motherless -child, daddy-in-prison, ward-of-the-state sob story, did you?”

  “I want to hear more about your boyfriend turned stalker,” he said. “You said he was the reason you let everyone believe you’d died in that fire.”

  She took a big bite of the chicken, chewed it slow, then chugged some of the root beer to give herself time to think. “It wasn’t a big deal. I hate talking about it.”

  She handed him the rest of the chicken leg. He took it from her, but set it down instead of eating it, and leaned back on his elbows, watching her, waiting for her to fill in the details.

  She heaved a giant sigh. “He was a mark I never should’ve messed with. Had whatever gene it is some men have that makes them control freaks when it comes to women. When he realized he’d been had, he started parking outside my place to watch me. Followed me around, stole my cell phone, a bunch of shit like that.”

  Dax sat up slow, riveted, his face searching hers.

  “He dragged me into his car one day. Had a gun. Told me it was over. That he was going to end us both. I put on my seat belt, jerked the wheel and stomped on his gas-pedal foot. We hit a tree. Then while he was seeing little birdies from the impact, I got out and ran for it. The fire at the halfway house happened that night. They identified another girl who’d been there visiting as me. I figured it was best to stay dead, given the asshole was still alive and still bat shit crazy.”

  He was upright now, food forgotten. He looked like he wanted to hug her, the big angel.

  “And what about now?”

  “I don’t know. It’s no secret I’m alive. It made the news, the mistaken identity angle, you know? But I haven’t seen or heard from him again.”

  “That’s…a lot to have hanging over your head.”

  “I’ve put it behind me. Frankly I think news of my death probably smacked him upside the head a little bit. He was questioned about the fire by the cops, while the cause was still undetermined. Turned out it was accidental, but that might’ve given him enough of a scare to make him leave me alone.” It was enough with the heavy stuff, she thought. “So, it’s your turn to answer my question. You told your mom my sob story, didn’t you?”

  He nodded slow. “I did.”

  “Hell. I hate pity.”

  “You’d rather she go on hating your guts for breaking her only son’s heart? Trust me, this is way better.”

  “Baaaaah.” She started picking up the dishes. Dax snatched the remainder of the chicken leg before she grabbed his plate. She put everything in a plastic bag and tucked the bag into the picnic basket. “So now what?”

  “Now, we enjoy a few minutes of bliss before my mother and the lawyers descend and the baby shower planning resumes.”

  “Bliss, huh?”

  “Yep. Big Falls bliss. It’s the best kind.” He took the picnic basket to his car and put it in the back seat, then returned to the blanket while she sat there, watching him. He stretched out on his back, hands behind his head. “Perfect. Come here. Stretch out beside me, right here.” He patted the blanket beside him before returning his hand to its spot, where it served as his pillow.

  She scooted closer and stretched out, but she kept her knees bent up, and only lowered herself as far as her elbows.

  “Aw, come on now. Lie back or it’s all wrong. What are you, afraid I’ll pounce on you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Afraid I won’t?” He asked it with a wiggle of his brows that made her laugh and give in. She lay down, putting her hands behind her head, and straightened her legs out, crossing them at the ankles.

  The new position put the thundering waterfall directly into her line of sight.

  “You’ve barely noticed the falls since we’ve been here,” he said. “All you’ve been seeing is the whirlwind going on inside your head.”

  “I noticed the falls.” It would’ve been impossible not to hear their roar. But he was right, it had only been background noise. She hadn’t really looked at the waterfall. She looked now. The water wasn’t just one color, but a hundred. Dark slate gray here, crystalline there, frothy and white somewhere else. And the way the sun hit the cascade created a rainbow in the air in front of them. Had she really been having lunch under a rainbow for the past hour and not even seen it?

  She took a deep breath and let her muscles unclench a little bit. Her head relaxed back onto her hands, and she gazed at the rainbow and thought of how her sister had always believed in angels and fairies, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, and how she used to tease Kiley over it. Kendra had never believed a word of it. She’d seen it all as a con that parents played on their kids. In her mind, her father’s voice repeated one of the gems of parental wisdom he’d shared over and over with his daughters.

  There are two kinds of people in this world, girls. Players and marks. People who don’t know that are always marks. People who do know it, well, they get to choose. Do you want to be the girl crying in her pillow ‘cause she got taken, or the one walkin’ away with a wad of cash, whistlin’ Dixie?

  There was a third kind of person though. The kind who walked away with a wad of cash and sobbed into her pillow. Kiley had been one of those. But only for a little while. Eventually she’d chosen to be neither a mark nor a con. She’d chosen to be a good person who knew the score. She was street tough and savvy. And she knew how to run a game. She was also a happy wife, a business owner, a local hero and about to be a mamma.

  How the hell did she do that?

  “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “You’re in your head again,” Dax said. “If that waterfall can’t keep your attention, there must be something more than baby shower planning on your mind.”

  “Yeah.” She looked at him. His blue eyes were deep and full of tender strength. She’d always loved that about him, that sense of power, and of his kind soul holding its reins with easy confidence. There was something comforting about that
.

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  She pursed her lips. Time to launch. She needed him to keep the track, and stop poking around in the books. Deep breath, look him in the eyes and lie like you mean it.

  “I’ve got this idea. I mean, it’s …like the greatest idea ever. But I’m afraid if I tell you, you’ll think I’m trying to play you again.”

  He rolled onto his side toward her, studied her face like if he looked deep enough into her eyes, he could see her thoughts. “But you’re gonna tell me anyway.”

  “I think I have to. I told myself I was gonna be honest with you this time, Dax. If I didn’t tell you, that wouldn’t be honest.” She sighed and lowered her eyes, then met his again, and gave a deliberately tremulous smile.

  He seemed mesmerized by her lips all the sudden. She tipped her chin a millimeter, to tell him yes, and he kissed her just like she knew he would. He kissed like a man who loved kissing. She loved the way his thick lips moved sensually over hers, parting and closing in ultra-slow motion.

  Her brain melted, every thought just drained away. This was what could shut off the maelstrom of thoughts always swirling inside her mind. This. Nothing else, not a horseback ride or a waterfall rainbow or her sister’s cold fried chicken, could smother her brain into silence the way Dax’s kiss could.