Oklahoma Starshine

by Maggie Shayne

  Emily dreamed she was home again. She’d finished another year of college, of striving and working and being younger than everyone else at school and trying to live up to her father’s expectations.

  He’d never gone to college. Neither had her mother. But she was a genius, according to her test scores. And her father’s every hope was riding on her small shoulders.

  But coming home that summer, she almost didn’t want to go back. The little white cottage was so beloved and so familiar. The green lawn and all the pockets of color her father tended so lovingly. He was groundskeeper for the wealthiest family she knew, after all. He was very good at what he did. A genius in his own right, though he couldn’t seem to hear that when she said it to him.

  That summer. God, it had been so good.

  In an instant, she was back there, sneaking over the fence out behind the McIntyre’s sprawling mansion, onto the short, green grass her father kept groomed to perfection. She could feel it, cool on her bare feet, and hear the other girls giggling. Her old high school friends, Britt and Taffy and Sue. They all wore bikinis and carried towels and wine coolers as they tiptoed through the darkest part of the McIntyre’s lawn, stepping carefully to avoid the sprinklers. She knew where the motion-activated outdoor lights were and guided them around those areas.

  She smelled the chlorinated water before they got close enough to see it. It was lit from beneath with soft white lights along the bottom. They made the water seem even more crystalline blue, like an aquamarine. The area around it was tiled, tiny ceramic squares, also blue with darker blue to create patterns and swirls.

  Strategically placed palm trees flanked a poolside bar. A towel warmer stood beside it, plugged in 24/7. They slipped silently into the water, her girlfriends, and immediately started splashing and laughing, their voices high pitched and squeaky.

  “Shhh! We’ll get caught.”

  They didn’t even seem to hear her. Sighing, she sank onto one of the lawn chairs, cracked a wine cooler, drank it. She wasn’t in the mood for swimming. She wasn’t in the mood for them.

  She wanted Joey. She was in love with him. She knew she was. And he was in love with her, too.

  And then the dream shifted, and she was in her home, later that same summer, seeing the disappointment, the utter devastation in her father’s eyes as she told him what she’d been dreading telling him.

  “I’m pregnant, Daddy.”

  He’d been very still for a long moment, just a slight twitch in his jaw. So strong, her father. Short in stature but stocky and powerful. And his first question had been a predictable one. “Who?”

  “Joey McIntyre,” she said.

  His face had darkened, and it seemed a black cloud moved behind his eyes. “That spoiled little shit. He’s a player. How could you fall for his—”

  “It wasn’t like that. We…we’re in love, Daddy.”

  “Love?” He’d rolled his eyes. “Do you know how many girls he’s seduced, just this year alone? His brothers joke that he’s trying to set some kind of a record. He’s no good, Emily. What do you think he’s going to do when you tell him, eh? You think he’s going to marry you or something?”

  She blinked, stunned by the venom in her father’s tone. “I thought you liked the McIntyres.”

  “Like them? I work for them. I have to get along. I don’t like them. They’re rich, Emily, and the rich are not to be trusted.”

  “You’re wrong. Joey’s different.” She shook her head so hard she hurt her neck. “I shouldn’t have told you. I should have talked to him first.”

  “Why didn’t you? If you’re so sure he will do the right thing by you, why didn’t you, Emily?”

  She lowered her eyes. “You’re upset—”

  “Upset? I am devastated. You have a future, a career ahead of you, a plan for your life, daughter. How can you throw that all away over a summer fling with a rich playboy who values you less than a common whore?”

  “I’m not a whore!”

  “But you acted like one. And you let him treat you like one.” He lowered his head, shook it slowly. “I have to go to work.” He closed his eyes, then opened them again and, moving closer, ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it back from her face. “Don’t do anything yet. Give me some time to process this. I promise you, I’ll take care of everything. When I come home, we’ll talk again. We’ll figure out what to do together, all right?”

  He walked away.

  Someone was tickling her face, and Emily opened her eyes to see her precious angel grinning down at her and wiggling her fingers on her cheeks. “Mornin’, Mommy.”

  “Morning, Matilda.”

  “Is it breakfast time?”

  She noticed then, the smell of bacon and fresh coffee floating on the air. “It sure smells like it. Let’s hurry, huh?”

  “Okay!” She bounded out of bed, and Emily had little choice but to follow. And yet the dream stayed with her. That summer. That beautiful, hot, passionate summer she’d spent madly in love with Joey McIntyre. The crushing disappointment she’d felt when her father had handed her a pile of money and told her everyone agreed it would be best…

  Her heart had been completely demolished.

  Maybe by a lie. Maybe by two old men playing games with the lives of their children. And not even asking what those children wanted or needed. Just making decisions, moving pieces around on a chessboard.

  Breakfast smelled so good they decided to eat in their jammies. Emily pulled a pretty pink robe with a ruffled edge around her and shoved her feet into matching slippers. Tilda wore her own perfectly matching ones. She loved being “twins” with her mamma. Each set had come with a pink headband that had a big purple flower attached, and Tilda insisted they wear them as well.

  They headed down the stairs, and started for the sunroom where breakfast was usually served, only to stop short when they saw Joey carrying a tray full of food from the kitchen through the huge dining room toward the double doors.

  “Oh, good, you’re up! Can you open the doors, for me, princess?”

  Emily stood there blinking at him. He noticed, and then looked her up and down and smiled while Tilda ran ahead to open the doors.

  Ida Mae came from the kitchen behind him, that giant silver coffee pot on its matching tray with all the fixings. She stopped, eyeing Emily, then Joey. “Um, he was insistent on making breakfast for you girls this morning,” she explained, correctly reading Emily’s expression as less than overjoyed. “I’m sorry if it’s not all right.”

  “It’s not,” she said. And she said it flatly but quietly, so Matilda wouldn’t hear and get upset. “The last thing I want is company before I’ve even had coffee or a shower.”

  “Put the food down and go, Joseph,” Ida Mae said. “I’m very sorry, Emily, believe me I don’t usually—”

  “But I cooked.” Joey looked like a puppy who’d been unexpectedly kicked.

  “Come on, Daddy, this door’s heavy.”

  He sent her Tilda grin, then looked at Emily again. “I’m sorry. It’s not Ida Mae’s fault. I bulled my way into her kitchen. I’ll be out of here in ten minutes, okay?”

  “No. It’s not okay. You’re overstepping.”

  He nodded hard. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m…I guess I’m trying too hard to make up for lost time. I could hardly bring myself to leave here last night.”

  “Daddy!”

  “I’ll just put the food down and go,” he whispered, and he hurried through the door Tilda was struggling to hold open, and then set the tray down on one table and started unloading it onto another.

  Emily sighed, shook her head, and looked at Ida Mae.

  “He really was kind of insistent,” she said.

  “He’s insistent. I’m a paying customer.” She softened. “He can’t just come around any time he feels like it, all right? This is…a complicated situation.”

  “Understood. I didn’t know…you know, where things were between you.”

  Em took the coffee tray
from her, then turned and carried it out. Ida Mae headed right back into the kitchen, and Emily felt a little bad for being upset with her, but for heaven’s sake.

  In the sunroom, Joey was placing a plate of food in front of Tilda. Then he took the cloth napkin, shook it free of its folds, and laid it over her lap like a waiter in a fancy restaurant.

  When he saw Em, he moved fast to pull out her chair.

  Scowling, she walked past him and set the coffee tray beside the breakfast tray on the second table. As she did, she noticed that the tray he’d brought out had three breakfast plates, not two. Hell.

  She turned over one of the two coffee cups and filled it. And then, sighing, she turned over the other and filled that, too. She added cream and sugar to her own and went to the chair. Joey was still standing behind it, one hand on its back. He pulled the chair out for her as she sat down, and then whisked her plate from the tray and set it in front of her.

  Bacon, perfectly cooked eggs, their yolks sunny and soft, a thick slice of toast with butter already melted over it. “Looks delicious,” she said.

  “It is delicious. I make a mean breakfast.” He glanced at her, at the coffee cup she’d filled for him, then back at her, his eyes asking the question.

  “Pull up a chair, Joey. I can’t send you packing without even letting you eat, after all this. But next time, ask me first?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. He grabbed his own plate and coffee, and sat down at the table. “I wanted to ask you about something, and I couldn’t wait.”

  “Maybe you can wait at least until after breakfast, though,” she said, with a meaningful glance Tilda’s way. No doubt his request had to do with her daughter, and she wasn’t going to let him put her on the spot in front of her.

  “Oh, sure. Yeah, it can wait that long.” He looked chastened, but quickly cheered up again and dug into his food.

  She did too, and it was delicious.

  Ida Mae came out after they’d all but cleaned their plates and said, “I have some cinnamon buns fresh out of the oven, but um, I need some help putting the icing on.”

  “Me, me! I can help!” Tilda jumped out of her chair, her plate clean as a whistle. “Can I, Mommy?” she asked, almost as an afterthought, and then she added quickly, “You won’t leave, will you Daddy?”

  “I won’t leave,” he promised.

  “Go ahead, Tilda. But try to get more icing on the buns than in your belly, okay?”

  She giggled and took Ida Mae’s hand, skipping beside her back into the house.

  Then Emily took her coffee mug and leaned back in her chair. “So?”

  He nodded, looking at her. “I should’ve called first. I’ll call first from now on. I was…excited.”

  “Excited?”

  “Rob and Kiley are having a kids’ day over at Holiday Ranch. I only just realized it’s coming right up. Parents pay ten bucks apiece, and the kids get a hayride, cookies and hot cocoa, and they get to make an ornament for their parents for Christmas. All the local kids are going. Kara and Jimmy will be there with Tyler. Maya and Caleb with the twins.”

  She said, “And your father?”

  He lowered his head. “I don’t know if he’ll be there or not.”

  “Then I don’t know if Tilda will.”

  He took a breath, started to speak, then stopped himself and started again. “I talked to him last night.”

  “And?”

  “He admitted he knew you were pregnant and didn’t tell me.” He sighed. “And I’m furious with him about it, but if you look at it objectively, you did the same thing.”

  “He tried to pay me to abort his granddaughter.”

  “No. That’s not how he tells it.”

  Emily leaned forward in her seat. “Really. This, I’ve gotta hear. How does he tell it?”

  He pressed his lips together, looked at her and said, “You’re not gonna like it.”

  “I already don’t like it. So go on, tell me.”

  “He says your father told him you’d already decided and were at the clinic. He said there was no changing your mind, that it was too late anyway. And then he suggested that you ought to be paid for all the trouble. It pissed my father off, but he wrote a check anyway. And then he fired him. Gave him a month to find another job.”

  She listened and got madder with every word. “So your father’s the long-suffering billionaire, taken advantage of by his own longtime employee. And my father’s the opportunistic money grubber.”

  “I’m just telling you what Dad told me.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Joey sighed, seemed to search himself, and then nodded. “I have to say, I do. I can’t imagine my father trying to pay someone to do that. His own grandchild.”

  “And you think my father would try to make his own daughter do that to his own grandchild?”

  “You were his only daughter, Em. He’d been planning your brilliant future since you learned to walk. The pregnancy might’ve seemed to him like a great big obstacle to those plans. One that would ruin your life. So yeah, I think he would. I think he did.”

  She stood up slowly. “I think you should go now.”

  He stood too. “I’m sorry. I know you loved him, but—”

  “Just go.”

  He sighed, lowered his head. “So Sunday…”

  “Get. Out. Now.” Tears were burning her eyes, and she was having trouble catching her breath.

  “I promised Tilda—”

  “Go!”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll pop into the kitchen to say goodbye.” He started for the doorway, then came back. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” He touched her shoulder.

  She turned her back to him quickly, tears brimming by then, and she’d be damned if she would let him see them.

  “I’ll call you later. About Sunday.”

  And then he was gone.

  #

  Joey got back to the saloon. The only car there was the orange Dodge Charger with its black racing stripes and pugnacious face. It was the kind of car that seemed to be begging cops to pull it over. Noisier than his truck, too, in a purely you-couldn’t-take-me-if-you-wanted-to kind of way. (As opposed to a please-someone-fix-my-engine kind of way.)

  The Long Branch was empty, chairs up on top of tables, floors shining clean, bar gleaming. Joe meandered into the kitchen, found the stash of baked goods supplied fresh every other day from Sunny’s, and got out a fat blueberry muffin for Dax. He warmed it in the microwave while the coffee brewed, then sliced it open just enough to fit in a pat of butter.

  He didn’t know how the big guy took his coffee, so he erred on the side of cream and sugar and hoped for the best as he carried it up the stairs and knocked on Dax’s door.

  Either the zombie apocalypse had begun or that was Dax, moaning inhumanly from the other side.

  The door wasn’t locked, but he had a key anyway. He opened it up and went inside. Dax was in the bed. Sort of. He was fully clothed and lying face down on top of bedding that he’d apparently wrestled with all night. One pillow was over his head, the other one under his face. It was a miracle he hadn’t suffocated.

  “Dax, wake up,” Joey said softly.

  “Don’t yell—”

  “Dax! Wake up!”

  Dax jumped a foot off the bed.

  “That was me yelling. See the difference there?” He put the food on the nightstand.

  Dax rolled over, then slid up until he was sitting semi-upright, looked at Joe, looked around the room, looked at Joe again. “Am I at the Long Branch?”

  “You don’t remember?” Joey handed him the coffee mug, and Dax sat up a little straighter to take it, to sip. He winced as if his whole face hurt. And then Joey said, “You drove here, Dax.”

  He froze halfway through his second sip, lowered the cup but kept his eyes on it. “Are you sure?”

  “Your car’s in the driveway. You staggered through the batwing doors alone, and started yelling for a bartender.”

  He closed his
eyes and swore.

  “The bar was closed for a holiday function, a family thing. There were kids here, Dax. My kid was here.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m… dammit, I’m sorry, Joe.” Then frowning, he lifted his head, met Joe’s eyes. “You have a kid?”

  “Yeah, turns out I do. I’ve known about her for all of three days, and she’s seriously ill. So you can imagine how much fun I’m having, dealing with you right now. This is not okay, Dax. And listen up now, because you need to hear this part. You are not okay.”

  Dax stared at the muffin, but Joey didn’t think he was looking at it. And his face got kind of odd looking. Surprised, almost. And he said, “I’m not, am I?” He blinked and looked at Joey. “Holy shit, Joe, I’m not okay.”

  “It’s all right, pal. You will be.” Joey clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Eat your muffin. Take a shower. Get dressed. Rob needs you with your head on straight. He doesn’t have anybody else to advise him. He loves horses, but you know ‘em. He needs you, Dax.”

  He lowered his head. “It’s hard bein’ around Kiley. She looks so much like…like Kendra. You know?”

  “Well they’re twins,” Joe said. Then he frowned. “We’re talking about the same Kendra who conned you out of a pile of money, cost you your job, screwed up your relationship with your father—”

  “That was already screwed up.” He sighed. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. I’ll get outta your hair—”

  “I want you to stay. I want to help you kick the booze.”

  “I’m not gonna kick booze sleeping over a saloon, Joe.”

  That probably made sense. Joey sighed. “What are you gonna do, then?”

  He seemed, for a long time, to be thinking.

  Joe said, “I can find you a room somewhere else. Maybe Rob and Kiley…. Just stay for today, give yourself some time to figure out what you need to do. Nobody in this establishment is gonna serve you pal, and if you try to help yourself, I’m here, too. I’ll know. And I’ll kick your ass.”

  Dax, who outweighed Joey by fifty pounds, most of it muscle, grinned at him. “Okay, Joe. Thanks.” Then he squinted at him a little. “And I’m sorry…your little girl is sick. I hope things work out okay.”