“And I had to go on a cruise so they’d have to work together at the lodge,” Etta laughed.
“I’m about ready for another cruise,” Roxie said. “Any of you got a problem we can fix by leaving for a few months or weeks?”
“Don’t look at me,” Jodie said. “I’m just fine.”
A prickly little tingle on his neck let Jimmy know high color was on its way to fill his cheeks and make him look like a sophomore stumbling around on his first date. “So does Kyle figure in your story, Dee?”
“No. My story is pretty simple. I wanted out of this place so bad I thought I’d die so when the first opportunity came along in the form of Ray Suddeth, I grabbed it and eloped. Went to Pennsylvania for a few years and then one day my husband walked in and told me my marriage had been annulled, that I’d never been married all those years. I came home to Roxie. She and Tally, Bodine and Mimosa helped cure me but mostly Jack gets the credit. He and I’d been best friends our whole life and before long we realized we’d fallen in love.”
“Who’re Tally, Bodine, and Mimosa?” Jimmy asked.
“Mimosa is my mother. Tally is my sister, and Bodine is her daughter. And those are stories for another dinner party, or maybe a whole weekend.” Dee laughed.
“You call your mother Mimosa?”
Laughter again.
Dee made a circular motion with her hand. “That’s because, help me out here everyone.”
Everyone chimed in. “God and General Lee have titles. Everyone else has a name.”
“How did you meet Stella?” Jimmy looked across the table at Rance, a tall, dark-haired man who looked like he belonged on one of those old cigarette commercials.
“I ran into her. Or rather she ran into me. She was doing a fancy two-step with a mop and backed right into me.”
“That’s because he came into Brannon Inn, the place my grandmother left me when she died. She was one of the three queens as we call them. Roxie has Roxie’s b and b,” Stella said.
“That stands for Bed and Breakfast or Bellyachin’ and Blessin’s. Tonight, I’m glad to report, is a night of Blessin’s,” Roxie chimed in.
“Etta has the Cahill Lodge which she’s recently turned over to Melanie,” Stella went on. “And my grandmother, Granny Molly Brannon, died of cancer a few months ago so I inherited the Brannon Inn. This arrogant, egotistical man barged right in with his gang of merry hunters and demanded that he had rooms reserved. I thought he was the head of a terrorist gang there to kill me for the food in my freezer.”
“And I thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world but she had this crazy idea that she wanted a lifetime thing and I couldn’t get my mind wrapped around such a commitment with anyone. Actually I wanted a mistress, not a lifetime thing or a commitment,” Rance admitted. “We finally figured out we couldn’t live without each other.”
“So now you know everyone’s love story,” Jodie said.
“All but yours,” he said without looking at her.
“It’s not finished yet but we’re all helping her get it written,” Rosy said.
“Let me know when it’s finished. I’d like to hear it,” Jimmy tried to keep things light. He really wanted to ask if he was somewhere in the story but even with the strange twist of fate, he still adhered to the notion that he’d come to Murray County to get over Jodie, not fall for her. He’d talked to Paul the night before, and Paul had assured him over and over that he should sell the ranch and come back to San Antonio where he belonged. Sitting around the table with Jodie, her family and friends, he wondered where he did belong.
“Okay, let’s grab coffee and dessert and take it to the living room,” Roxie said.
Stella sat down on the arm of the sofa beside Jimmy. “So you found your broken road home, did you?”
“What?” That was the second time he’d heard those words and he wondered if it was something local.
“Don’t you ever listen to country music?”
“All the time,” he said.
“Rascal Flatts?”
He nodded.
“They had a song out a few years ago called ‘Bless the Broken Road.’ Remember it?” she asked.
“Something about . . . oh, now I get it.” He grinned and the dimples deepened. “The singer talks about finding a true love along the broken road and then he says something about God blessing the broken road that led him home to her. So you think I’ve been on a broken road and I’ve come home, do you?”
“Have you?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Stella. I really, really do not know but I’m figuring things out. Maybe it has been a broken road and it’s come full circle back to my roots. Who knows? Time will tell.”
Rance pulled up a rocking chair beside the sofa. “It sure will. I’ll tell you one thing. When I came up here from Texas and bought the ranch next to the Brannon Inn, I sure didn’t think I was coming home. But I was wrong. I’ve blessed that broken road that led me to Stella every day since she said she’d marry me. It’s late, darlin’. You about ready to go home?”
“Yes, I am. Hope to see you around Jimmy. Don’t be a stranger. Drop by our place anytime. You don’t need an invitation.”
“Thank you,” he said.
One couple at a time left until there was no one but Roxie, Dee, Jack, Jodie, and Jimmy.
“You kids can stay up until daybreak if you want to but this sweet little old lady needs her beauty rest,” Roxie said with a fluff of her red hair.
“The day you are a sweet old lady has never dawned. They’ll preach your funeral by lying about your age,” Jodie said.
Jimmy gasped.
Roxie laughed aloud. “You’ll get used to her. She speaks her mind. Thank you, darlin’. If they don’t lie about my age, you march up the aisle and call the preacher a damn liar to his face. Lord, I’d rather miss getting my mansion in heaven than have everybody in this county know my true age. And if they don’t paint my fingernails red and touch up my hair, you tell them I’ll claw my way up out of the grave and haunt them. I’m not going to let Henry see me with gray hair. When he left me I was a redhead and by damn I’ll be one when I see him again.”
Jimmy chuckled. Roxie’s voice was smooth southern comfort but she looked like a barroom floozy. Yet, everyone treated her like she was the queen.
“Good night, everyone. Dee, you lock the door behind you and wrap Jaxson up when you run across to your place. Don’t you be lettin’ him breathe that cold night air. He’ll have the pneumonia for sure.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dee said.
“So you live close by?” Jimmy asked.
“Right next door in a trailer house. My husband here, the computer whiz, keeps a little pop and beer store for the fishermen.”
“And bread and aspirin,” Jack said good-naturedly.
“We’ve been thinkin’ about building a house,” Dee said.
“You and Jack not living in the trailer. I can’t imagine it,” Jodie said.
“Well, you’d better start imagining. This one little critter has taken over every square inch of space. We’re either going to have to move our bed to the front yard or build something bigger, but Dee, here, doesn’t want to give up the trailer because it was my grandparents’ home.”
“Sentimental, huh?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes, but don’t you tell, Jodie, we haven’t told Roxie yet, there’s another one on the way and we’ve got to have the room,” Jack whispered.
“Congratulations!” Jodie jumped up and hugged Dee.
“How old is your son?” Jimmy asked.
“He was a year old in December. I want six or eight so we’re planning anywhere from eighteen months to two years between them. I suppose it is time to let the sentimentality go and build something bigger or else make Roxie an offer on this monstrosity,” Dee said.
“Don’t build. Move in here. It doesn’t have to be a b and b. It can be a house with lots of kids and laughter. Another generation of all of us growing up here, like Laure
n is in Brannon Inn and my nieces are at Cahill Lodge,” Jodie said.
“See, I told you.” Jack wrapped a blanket around a wiggling toddler and headed for the door.
“Makes sense,” Dee said.
Jimmy looked at Jodie. “We’ve got an early flight tomorrow morning. You’ll be ready at eight?”
“Hey, I’ve got one question,” Dee said.
“When did you go to school in Sulphur?”
“Two days in kindergarten. School had just started and my dad died. We moved away but we actually lived here about six weeks.”
“I see. And you are Jodie’s age?”
He wasn’t about to go to confession right here about the reason he’d wanted Jodie to go with him on this trip. “That’s right.”
“Were you in my room in kindergarten?” Jodie asked.
“My teacher was Mrs. Smith. She had gray hair that she wore all wavy and wrinkles around her eyes. She—”
“That was my teacher. I wonder why I don’t remember you,” Jodie said.
“It was a long time ago,” he said. “Need a ride home?”
“No, I brought Daddy’s truck.”
“Then goodnight and thanks for a really nice evening,” Jimmy said. He let himself out the door.
Thinking about the way he felt so comfortable around the table that evening, he didn’t even see the lights in his rearview mirror. Not until he parked the rental car and was stepping up on the porch did he realize someone had been following him. He had the key in the lock when he heard the car door slam and turned around.
“Come on in, Jodie,” he said.
She stepped inside the living room, and he shut the door behind them. “I wanted to talk to you alone before we leave.”
“You going to leave me hanging high and dry and not keep on with the tour?” he asked.
“I thought about it but I gave my word I’d judge those events and I don’t want to leave those folks in a bind,” she said. The place didn’t smell unused anymore. The aroma of his shaving lotion, fresh apples and bananas on the kitchen cabinet, and a vanilla candle burning on the fireplace mantel gave it life.
Aggravation flared in Jimmy instantly. “You’d leave me but not them?”
“I didn’t come here to fight with you.”
“Why did you come, then?”
“I want you to know that kiss we shared the other night. It was just a spur of the moment thing, a . . .” she stammered.
“A mercy kiss because it had been a long day? I don’t need your pity, Jodie.”
“Oh, forget it. I didn’t want things to be all awkward and weird between us the next six weeks because we’d shared a couple of kisses,” she said.
“I’ve kissed women before and it wasn’t awkward or strange afterward. Why should this time be any different?”
“Because . . .”
Her eyes narrowed. So he hadn’t felt the same way she did. Maybe it truly was a mercy kiss and the others were just products of the moment. She took two steps forward, hooked her hand behind his neck, and planted a passionate kiss on his lips. The tingles were there; the earth stood still; every nerve in her body stood on edge.
“Because it is different, and I refuse to live in tension for six weeks,” she said and marched out of the house.
He touched his lips to see if they were as hot as they felt.
“Well, congratulations, because I’ll be in tension the whole time,” he whispered.
Chapter Fourteen
Rain fell in a soft mist the next morning when Jimmy awoke. He wanted to pull the covers up and stay in bed another hour or two, but he doubted if a phone call to the Dallas airport would hold a flight on that excuse. Sitting on the side of the bed he propped his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. The book was finished. In five days he’d put in all the finishing touches, polished the prose one more time, checked all the grammar, and printed it. Yesterday afternoon, on the way to dinner at Roxie’s place, he’d put it in the mail.
The ranch had given him solitude and quietness to finish the job. Or was it his grandfather’s spirit still lurking around, trying to lure him back to Murray County where one side of his family lived? Now it was off to six more weeks of newspaper and magazine articles about rodeos and bull riding.
And Jodie Cahill.
With a moan, he trudged into the bathroom and shaved. Afterward he finished packing and toted his luggage out to the rental. His things took up the entire trunk. Jodie would have to put hers in the back seat, but then she traveled lightly. He was the one with the baggage.
“Both mental and physical,” he mumbled.
He sat for a long time looking at the small white frame house. What would his life have been like if his father hadn’t died here? Would his mother in her discontentment finally given up hope and left him? Questions that had no answers plagued him as he backed up and headed off the property.
The cell phone in his shirt pocket started to ring before he’d gone a mile. He figured it was Jodie since it was already eight o’clock and he was doomed to be ten minutes late.
“Hello, I’m on the way,” he answered.
“Well, that’s good news.” It was Cathy’s voice on the other end.
“I thought you were Jodie,” he explained.
“I expected as much. I called to tell you that we’ve given you your five days to pout and whine and check out the life of a farmer. That’s all you get.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just what I said. It’s over, James. Grandmother won’t do the calling, neither will Lorraine, but I will. I know what’s best for you. Always have. Always will. I’ve booked you a flight from Dallas to San Antonio. Your little bull rider can go on to Orlando because she has to claim her vehicle. It’s her decision whether she does the rest of this tour. You aren’t going to join her no matter what. You are coming home and giving up this crazy writing notion. The firm needs you and you will step up to the plate and do what is required.”
“And who died and made you lord and master?” Jimmy asked brusquely.
“Don’t get snide. You’ve had your time to brood and you know I’m right. I’ve called the decorators for your office. It’s next to mine by the way, and I’ve hired two secretaries for you. One is window dressing. The other is a veteran who’ll take care of things.”
“No.”
“What does that mean? You want to hire your own secretaries? Well, then get your rear end back home and you can fire the window dressing and hire whomever you please.”
“No, I’m not coming back and doing your bidding,” he said.
“Do you know what the consequences are?”
“I’m sure you are about to tell me,” he said.
“Yes, I am. Your expense account is shut down. I will not be available to book flights, make reservations or take care of you, darlin’. You will have to live totally on what you can make with your little hobby and what’s in your checking and savings accounts.”
Thank God you don’t have access to that, he thought as he pulled up into the yard and Jodie came out, toting two suitcases.
“I’ve always paid back my bills on my expense account whenever I got paid for my writing,” he said.
“Well, as of this minute, you’ll pay as you go if you want to run around playing instead of doing some real work,” she said. “Don’t be a fool, James. You’ve been spoiled long enough. It’s time to grow up.”
“I guess it is,” he said.
“Then I can expect you back here by mid-afternoon?”
“Not under those conditions. I think I’ll finish this circuit and decide then what I want to do with the rest of my life,” he said.
“James Moses Crowe, you are a fool.”
“Maybe, but it’s my decision.”
She slammed the phone down so hard that he held his ear for a moment.
He was still thinking about the conversation when he got to the farm. Jodie opened the back door of the rental and tossed her suitcases i
nside. “I’ve got a couple more things but I can get them. We’re running a little late. You have trouble waking up?”
“A little,” he admitted.
She was back in a moment with the rest of her things.
“That’s more than you brought home,” he said.
“So? My friend, Jimmy Crowe, travels with more and it doesn’t weigh him down,” she said with a brilliant smile.
“So today you aren’t cranky?”
“Today I’m in a good mood.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m grouchy,” he said.
“Want to talk about it?” She held her breath. Was it last night’s kiss?
“No, I do not.”
“Then stew in your own juices. I’m in a lovely mood and no one can ruin my day,” she said.
It lasted until they reached the airport. Everything went fine until they were cleared to board the plane. They were shown to their first class seats and were getting settled in when Deanna appeared in the doorway, a smile on her face and diamonds on her ears and fingers. She wore a powder blue suit with an ultra short skirt and fitted jacket, carried a coat to match. Her three-inch spike heels and leather handbag matched perfectly. Even the carry-on tote she had slung over her shoulder was powder blue and bore her initials in gold.
The flight attendant about fell all over himself helping her get the tote bag into the overhead compartment. He held her coat while she slid into the seat right beside Jimmy.
She patted Jimmy on the leg leaving her hand on his thigh a moment longer than necessary. “Hello, James, darlin’. Surprised to see me?”
Jodie was speechless. Jimmy’s face registered pure shock but maybe he knew she was coming and didn’t know how to tell Jodie. He’d hardly spoken three words to her after he’d said he was grouchy and she’d let him have his space. Now she wished she’d pried everything out of him.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
Jodie realized in that moment that he hadn’t known anything and was as stunned as she was. One thing was for sure—this was not a coincidence. It was a preplanned attack and Jodie didn’t like it one bit.
“I’m on my way to New York to do some shopping. Just a little layover here in Dallas that didn’t amount to much, one in Atlanta for an hour, and then I’m off to New York. You will have to entertain me in Atlanta. An hour will give us time to have a drink and catch up. I’ve missed you.” She squeezed his thigh.
To Hope Page 15
