“Wow! Just wow,” Carlene gasped.
From the time Tilly and Carlene got home from school on Wednesday, Tilly couldn’t wait for her cousins to arrive for their family dinner. She ran back and forth from the kitchen where Valerie and Hope were cooking to the living room window to see if the kids were out there yet.
“Anything I can do to help?” Carlene asked.
“Set the table, please,” Valerie said. “Just the napkin and cutlery. We’re doing buffet style, so they’ll get their plates and drinks right here on the kitchen table.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jace entered the room and her pulse raced. She moved to the next place setting and he went right along with her.
“I like this scene. Us having dinner at our house,” he said.
“Tilly and I are looking at one on Sunday. That little yellow brick not far from the school. It’s for sale and the price is good,” she said bluntly.
“You said you’d stay until—” he started.
“I said I’d stay if this one wasn’t right. I need to look at it,” she answered before he could finish the sentence.
“Can I go with you?”
“No, it needs to just be the two of us,” she whispered.
“I hope you hate it.”
Kasey, Nash, and the kids came in through the kitchen. Emma barely stopped long enough to hug her uncle Jace and then her red braids flew out behind her as she ran to find Tilly.
“Whoa! Take off your coat,” Kasey yelled.
“I got it,” Lila said. “Need help with the other two?”
“Nash has got them corralled,” Kasey said. “They’ve all been pretty excited about tonight.”
“Where’s Henry?” Hope asked.
“He’s bringing over the work truck. Said he might want to go for a drive after dinner,” Kasey said.
Hope raised her voice above the children’s giggles. “Hey, Carlene, when I came by on Sunday, I lost an earring. I think it’s probably up in Tilly’s bedroom. Think you could help me search for it?”
“It should be right around the bed if it’s up there,” Carlene said as they started that way. “Was it expensive?”
“A half-carat diamond stud,” Hope answered.
“Oh my!” Carlene gasped.
They were halfway up the steps when Hope whispered, “Don’t panic. I didn’t lose my earring. I just said that so I could get you alone. We need to talk.”
That was scarier than the thought of a half-carat diamond sunk down in the plush carpet. “About?” Carlene asked.
“Wait until we get to the bedroom and shut the door,” she said. “It’s personal.”
Carlene’s mind spun around so fast that she couldn’t latch on to a single thought. When they reached Tilly’s room and shut the door, Hope sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. Carlene shoved a stuffed Olaf from Frozen off onto the floor and sank down in a ladder-back chair.
“Is this about Tilly? I’m not going to ask Jace for support. I’ve raised her on my own for…”
Hope shook her head. “There’s no doubt about that, child. This is about me, not you, and certainly not my great-granddaughter.”
“Are you sick?” Carlene’s heart took a tumble. Jace would be devastated if Hope was terminally ill.
“I hope not!” Hope giggled. “Okay, the only way I know how to do this is to spit it out. I’m worried about all this change in my life and in yours. I loved my husband, but I’m not sure I was in love with him, and now I could have a shot at a second chance with the man I was in love with and you’re in the same boat and I thought maybe we could talk.”
“You’ve always been a strong woman, Miz Hope. I can’t imagine you not taking the bull by the horns and spitting in his eye.”
“Thank you, but I don’t feel so strong right now.”
“You’ve got what Aunt Rosalie called the what-ifs. What if the family is against your decision to be more than friends with Henry? What if you are tarnishing the beautiful marriage you had with Wes if you got involved with Henry?”
Hope patted her hand. “You are a wise kid. Have you been plagued with these what-ifs too?”
“More than you’ll ever know.”
“You are young.” Hope left her hand on Carlene’s. “I’m past seventy. Maybe I’ve wrung all the good out of my life that is possible and Henry and I should just be friends.” She looked down at her body. “Gravity has taken over every bit of this thing. What used to be tight now sags. I don’t want him to see me like this. In his memory I’ve still got perky boobs and a smooth butt.”
“And in yours, he’s still got a broad chest with black hair on it and no wrinkles in his face, right?” Carlene said.
“What if I’ve forgotten how to…” She hesitated and looked up at the ceiling.
“I reckon it’s like riding a bicycle.”
“Never did learn to ride one. Had horses in my youth that I could ride and then we traded them in for a four-wheeler.”
Carlene scooted over closer to Hope. She draped an arm around her shoulders and said, “I have stretch marks and I’m scared to death of letting Jace see me. And I’m afraid that this is just a passing fancy that will end in hard feelings between us. Tilly doesn’t need that.” She took a deep breath. “Jace was my first love and…” She paused.
“And since then?” Hope asked.
Carlene shook her head. “Then there was a baby. No man wants to date a woman with wet spots on her shirt from leaky breasts.”
“And after she was weaned?”
Carlene inhaled deeply and let it out very slowly. “It was too complicated. I went out with a few guys but why start something with no future? I’d made up my mind to keep my baby and bein’ both mother and father takes a lot of time and energy. It doesn’t leave much time for flings or even relationships. And thinkin’ of her with a stepfather didn’t sit too well with me.”
Hope nodded along with every sentence. “I’m wondering how a stepfather will sit with Valerie. I’m probably too old to even entertain such things.”
“Age doesn’t have much to do with it.” Carlene hugged her. “I know that Jace has had other women, and…” Another long pause. “There is chemistry but now I’d always wonder if he wanted a relationship with me so he could have Tilly. It’s very complicated.”
“You kids use that word a lot but I guess in this situation it’s justified. Thanks for the visit, Carlene.” She pulled a diamond earring from her pocket and dropped it on the floor.
“Would you look at that? We found it.” Carlene smiled.
“Sometimes all a diamond has to do is sparkle a little bit for us to find it.”
When Hope called on Tilly to say grace, the child bowed her head and said, “Father, bless this food and all the folks who put it on this table. Thank you for Jace because he saved Jasmine. And thank you for giving me and Mama this nice place to stay and for givin’ me some new cousins and aunts and uncles and grandmas. Please tell Mama not to make me eat brussels sprouts even though we have company. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
“Jasmine?” Lila whispered for Jace’s ears only. “Is that the cat?”
“Yes.” He whispered.
“Jace saved her from drowning and that makes him a hero. I thought she’d die and go to heaven for sure,” Tilly piped up from across the table.
“I got a daddy in heaven,” Emma said seriously.
“I’d like to know what’s wrong with brussels sprouts?” Henry changed the subject. “I was thinkin’ about maybe making an ice cream flavor like that.”
“Yuk!!” Emma and Rustin said at the same time.
“Go ahead and make that for the old people, but I’m always goin’ to buy Creamsicles,” Tilly said. “You goin’ to buy a nasty old green popsicle, Jace?”
“No, thank you. I’d rather have an ice cream sandwich,” he answered.
“Mama likes those too,” Tilly said. “Did y’all have an ice cream truck in Happy when you was kids?”
“No, but we did have an old hand-crank ice cream maker that we still get out on the Fourth of July,” Jace answered.
That brought back a memory of a bunch of kids who borrowed the ice cream freezer to take to Henry’s old barn the spring before Jace and Carlene graduated. They made frozen daiquiris in it and every kid there was more than a little drunk when they went home.
“Daiquiris?” Carlene leaned over and whispered.
“Back of my truck afterward,” he said softly.
She blushed and he thought it was adorable.
The evening went by fast, according to Tilly. But to Jace’s way of thinking, the hands on the clock above the mantel had gotten stuck. He loved his family, but he liked spending his evenings with Carlene and Tilly much better.
Tilly covered a yawn with the back of one hand and waved good-bye to her little cousins as they pulled away from the driveway. “Mama, I’m tired. I’m going to get my bath and read a book to Rella and Olaf. I like my cousins but I miss bein’ the only child when we have family around.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Jace said. “Maybe I could read a story to you and Rella and Olaf and tuck you in tonight.”
“You can read me a story, but Mama has to tuck me in,” Tilly said.
“Fair enough. You just call me when you get finished with your bath and I’ll come right on up,” Jace said.
She turned around halfway up the stairs. “If there’s any more spiders in my room, will you kill them for me?”
“Of course I will. I’m the biggest meanest toughest spider killer in the whole state of Texas,” he said.
She went on up the stairs and he turned to find Carlene leaning on the doorjamb with a big smile on her face.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re doin’ good on the friendship thing,” she answered.
The sparkle in his eyes lit up the whole room. “She’s a good kid. You’ve done an amazing job, Carlene.”
“It’s been tough staying on the parent side of the line and not stepping over onto the friendship side. But the way I figure it is that she’ll have lots of friends in her lifetime. Some will be there forever. Some will be gone tomorrow. But parenting goes beyond that.”
Jace sat down on the third step and stretched out his long legs. “I’m all right to be her friend for now but I’m finding that I do want to step over the line into parenting someday.”
Carlene sat on the second step but her legs didn’t reach as far as his did. “Just don’t rush it. Anything worth havin’ is worth waiting for.”
Carlene didn’t know if she was giving advice to herself or to Jace. Miz Matilda Rose was independent—of that, Carlene had no doubt because she’d raised her to be that way. She had no idea whether Tilly would accept Jace as a father, but she did know her daughter wouldn’t be pushed into anything.
“I guess Granny and Henry are proof of that waiting thing,” Jace said. “Did she really lose an earring?”
“Why else would we be in Tilly’s room searching for it?”
“Because she wanted to talk to you about all this.” He waved a hand to take in the whole universe.
“Tilly’s room is like Las Vegas.”
“What’s said there stays there, right?” he asked.
“You got it,” Carlene said. “What did you and Henry talk about at the barn when you went out there after dinner?”
“What’s said in the barn stays in the barn.” One of those impish grins covered his face that reminded her of Tilly. Their daughter might look like her aunt Kasey, but she sure had her daddy’s mannerisms as well as his height and his eyes.
Our daughter, Aunt Rosalie’s voice in her head said with a giggle. You always told me that you weren’t sharin’ or tellin’. And here you are after only a week doin’ both.
You didn’t leave me much choice when you sold the house and left that damned Christmas tree to dry up in the corner, Carlene argued.
“Who are you fightin’ with?” Jace asked.
“I didn’t say a word,” she protested.
He nudged her on the shoulder. “Not out loud. Was it Granny?”
She pushed back. “I’m fine with Hope. I’m fine with Valerie and Kasey and Lila.”
“Then who?”
“Aunt Rosalie,” she said honestly. “Sometimes I get so mad at her for dying and yet still poppin’ into my head with her sass.”
“What happened when you told your dad about the baby? Did she draw him closer to you and did y’all finally have a decent relationship?”
“Far from it. He was disgusted with me and they shipped me off to live with Belinda. I went to college and she helped me with the baby,” Carlene said.
“I’m so sorry, darlin’.”
She shrugged. “Like I told you before, I was the accident. They only wanted one child and Belinda was the glory girl. I had a nanny for the first several years of my life and then Daddy was sent to Amarillo for three years. Mama decided that we’d live in Happy because Aunt Rosalie could help keep an eye on me. I was too old for a nanny and too young to be left on my own when they had business trips and job stuff to do, but you probably remember me whining about all this when we were dating.”
“How is he with Tilly now?” Jace twirled a strand of her hair around his finger.
“He didn’t speak to me for six months. When Tilly was born, though, he did come to the hospital, and he told me that he would pay for my education if I stayed in college.”
“That was a start, right?”
“No.” Carlene shook her head. “I told him that I’d take out loans, get scholarships and grants or whatever it took but I’d made my bed and I’d lie in it and I didn’t need his help. I paid off my student loans last May. Daddy has come around somewhat. He likes Tilly in small doses and tolerates me. But Belinda has been my rock for the past ten years.”
“I would have married you,” Jace said.
“I have no doubt about either one, but pregnancy won’t hold a marriage together. I wasn’t ready, and besides, I’d have always wondered if that’s the only reason you married me and you could have come to resent me and Tilly.”
“Hey, Jace, me and Gator and Rella are ready for you to read to us,” Tilly yelled.
“Duty calls.” He brushed back Carlene’s hair and kissed that soft spot right under her ear. “And, darlin’, we won’t ever know now what might have happened if we’d married young, but one thing I do know, I’d be tuckin’ her in tonight as well as reading a story to her.”
Carlene stayed on the step but she could hear his deep voice reading the first chapter of Harry Potter to her. She wondered why Tilly had chosen that book—she’d heard it read more than once.
Her phone pinged and she found a text from Belinda: Call me.
She quickly hit the speed dial and her sister picked up on the first ring. “How did the dinner go?”
“Went fine. It’s kind of scary how well these people are accepting me,” Carlene answered.
“They have to take the cow if they want the calf,” Belinda laughed. “Dad and Mom are settled into their new place and have invited us to come out and spend spring break with them.”
“Shall I pack my evening dresses?” Carlene’s laughter had a bitter edge.
“We could take Tilly to Disneyland and do some fun things,” Belinda said.
“Or I could stay here and go to Kasey and Nash’s wedding. I wouldn’t be surprised if they invite Tilly to do something, like maybe sit at the guest table.”
“Be careful. You’ve had enough heartaches,” Belinda told her. “I hear a voice in the background. Where are you?”
“Right now I’m sitting on the stairs and Jace is in Tilly’s room reading Harry Potter to her. I’ll go up and tuck her in for the night after he finishes the chapter,” Carlene said. “Did Daddy ever read to you?”
“Of course he did, when he was home. If not, then my nanny read to me,” Belinda answered. “I read to you, remember?”
“I do.” Carlene answe
red. “And I loved it, but then you joined the service when I was only eight.”
“You could read by then, so it wasn’t a big deal,” Belinda said. “Did Aunt Rosalie read to you?”
“Lord, no!” Carlene giggled. “She did make cookies and shovel out advice in bulk. I ate the cookies and ignored the advice, as you well know.”
“Then pull up your big girl panties and thank God that life taught you how to stand on your own two feet and not depend on anyone to take care of you,” Belinda scolded.
“You took care of me.” Carlene shut her eyes and visualized her tall, dark-haired sister who looked like their father.
“No, honey, I simply gave you a place to live until you could get your own apartment. You weren’t always wise in your choices but you were damn sure big enough to accept the consequences. Enough of this heavy conversation. How are you and Tilly settling into ranch life?”
“No problems. You should come visit us. We’re looking at a house to buy next Sunday and there’s one for rent coming up the middle of next month, so ranch life might not last long.”
“I just might do that before I’m shipped off to Germany. Want to go with me? I bet you could get a teaching job on the base.”
“Oh no,” Carlene gasped. “When?”
“Mid-April. I could find a place for you by the time you finish up the school year there. Think about it. Good night.”
“You can’t throw that on the table and then hang up,” Carlene snapped.
“Yes, I can and I will,” Belinda said, and the phone went dark.
“Mama, it’s your turn,” Tilly called out.
She put the phone in her pocket, tucked her feelings away inside her heart, and went to tuck the covers up around Tilly’s chin.
Chapter Fourteen
Hope dropped Henry at the airport, then cried all the way back to Happy, where she went to the cemetery instead of the ranch. Wes’s tombstone was a huge chunk of gray granite with his name engraved on one side and hers on the other.
She sat down in front of it on the icy-cold ground and traced her name with a forefinger. Sighing when she reached the last letter, she reached up to her neck and touched the little gold locket. One decision made when she wasn’t even old enough to order a shot of whiskey had determined her whole life. She couldn’t leave her family or the ranch. Henry wouldn’t stay and fight their opinion of him. She’d made the decision to stay and he’d gone. Then when he came back more than twenty years later to take care of his mother, they just steered clear of each other as much as possible.
Luckiest Cowboy of All--Two full books for the price of one Page 16
