Blame It On Texas

by Kristine Rolofson

  Blame it on Beauville?

  This small Texas town has sure seen its share of romances! Elizabeth and Jake fell in love in Blame It on Cowboys (Temptation #802).

  Then Jess fell in lust with Lorna in Blame It on Babies (Temptation #819).

  What’s going to happen now that Kate has come home to Beauville—and has to face her high school sweetheart? Rumors are flying fast and furious. And the whole town is watching for what unfolds next….

  The tale continues in…

  KRISTINE ROLOFSON

  The author of nearly thirty bestselling books for Harlequin, Kristine lives in Rhode Island. Married and the mother of six, she began writing when two of her children were only in diapers. She also worked as a secretary, seamstress and waitress, but her passions have always been writing and travel. Known for her Western heroes, sense of humor and strong female characters, this talented author gathers readers wherever she goes.

  Kristine enjoyed creating the fictional town of Beauville and the host of characters who play out their lives there. Look for her next outstanding miniseries in Temptation beginning August 2001. Montana Matchmakers is about a small town in Big Sky Country that holds a matchmaking festival each year. Enjoy!

  Books by Kristine Rolofson

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  653—THE BRIDE RODE WEST

  692—THE WRONG MAN IN WYOMING *Boots and Booties

  712—THE RIGHT MAN IN MONTANA *Boots & Booties

  765—BILLY AND THE KID

  802—BLAME IT ON COWBOYS *Boots and Beauties

  819—BLAME IT ON BABIES *Boots & Beauties

  HARLEQUIN PROMO

  MY VALENTINE

  A TOUCH OF TEXAS

  TYLER BRIDES

  KRISTINE ROLOFSON

  BLAME IT ON TEXAS

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “BIG NEWS,” MARTHA announced into the phone. She cradled the receiver between her shoulder and her chin and hoped her daughter appreciated the effort. Kate never seemed to be overly interested in the goings-on in her hometown now that she lived in New York City, but Martha continued to keep her up with the news. Since the girl had spent more than a few hours at the drive-in with her friends when they were all growing up in Beauville, Martha knew Kate might find this worth listening to.

  “Good news or bad news?” her daughter asked, sounding cautious.

  “I’ve got the paper ready right here,” Martha said. “I’ll read it to you.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  Martha ignored the request. She was better at reading than telling and maybe this way Kate wouldn’t ask questions her mother couldn’t answer. “The former site of the Good Night Drive-In will soon become a senior citizens’ residence,” Martha McIntosh read aloud.

  “What? The drive-in’s gone?”

  “It sure is.” And good riddance, too, Martha added silently. She’d watched the digging with more trepidation than most, but now that the concrete was poured she’d decided this was for the best. Her daughter’s complete attention caught at last, Martha repeated the article’s first sentence and added a few more details. The article was on the front page of the Beauville Times, but tucked down at the bottom, on the left, beneath the weather predictions and beside an article about the town council passing the school board’s budget. “There’s a nice drawing here, too. It’s going to be real nice. They started construction this week and they’re moving right along.”

  “That’s so sad,” Kate said.

  “That old place was an eyesore, honey. And we could use something nice to look at, like the Good Night Villas. I thought Gran might move into town and into one of the apartments.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Martha echoed, running out of patience. You’d think a twenty-seven-year-old woman would understand that an elderly woman shouldn’t live twenty miles outside of town. “She’s almost ninety, Kate. She needs taking care of.”

  “Does she want to move?”

  “She’s thinking about it,” Martha hedged. If Gert Knepper had wanted to move off the Lazy K, she would have packed up her things and driven her truck to town. It didn’t matter that she’d lost her driver’s license twelve years ago or that she could have all the help she needed by picking up the telephone and asking for it, Gert did things on her own. When she decided to move, she’d appear on the doorstep with her suitcase.

  “Right,” Kate laughed. “I can’t picture her anywhere but on the ranch.”

  “These apartments or condos or whatever they’re called are going to be very nice. Carl said—”

  “I guess I can’t picture retirement ‘villas’ in Beauville.”

  Martha thought they sounded lovely, with everything new and clean and on one level. Carl Jackson was building them, on land he’d inherited from his father. Old Man Jackson had owned most everything in town once upon a time. He’d roll over in his freshly dug grave if he knew his son had become a land developer. “I’m thinking of buying one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I might be ready for a change.” She could picture Kate frowning into her coffee cup. She’d heard the beep of the microwave a few seconds before. Kate was a caffeine addict, and these Sunday morning phone calls were usually punctuated by the sounds of Kate grinding beans, pouring coffee or reheating cups of the stuff. Always on the move, that one. Couldn’t even sit still long enough to talk to her mother without reaching for some stimulation. Martha worried about her, wondered what she did for fun, wondered why she liked the city and her big important television job. Wondered if she’d find a nice man and have babies and bring them home to Texas on holidays so Martha could fuss and cuddle.

  “That would be a pretty big change,” she said. “What does Gran think of all of this? How is she feeling?”

  “You’ll see for yourself at the party. You’re still coming, aren’t you? They’re not going to make you work on your vacation again?”

  “No,” Kate said, but there was some hesitation in her voice that made Martha nervous. She knew all too well how Kate’s fancy New York City boss expected her to be on call. “Are you sure Gran’s okay?”

  “That old gal is as stubborn as ever,” Martha said, wondering how on earth Gert could live out on the ranch much longer. Sometimes Martha had nightmares about her mother falling down the stairs or tripping over a cat. Gert looked tough, but at that age she had to be fragile. She should be pampered, should sell the ranch that no one in the family wanted to live on but Gert and use the money to take care of herself. “I tell her all the time she could live like a queen here in town if she’d just sell out.”

  “I’m not sure that’s what she wants.”

  “The Foresters left and went back to New Mexico.”

  “She told me. She said she put an ad in the paper to get more help. Did she find someone?”

  “She did, but I have my doubts.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you remember the Jones family? You went to school with some of the boys, didn’t you?” Martha didn’t wait for an answer. Of course Kate remembered the Jones boys. Everyone knew that family and th
e trouble they’d gotten into. One of the boys was in prison. “They were a wild group of kids.”

  “What about them?”

  “She hired one of them to help her out. He and his son moved in last week.”

  “Which one?”

  “What?” Martha tore her gaze away from the front window. She could have sworn she saw Carl’s white Cadillac pass by the house. She wondered if he would stop in and say hello, maybe take her for a drive the way he had last Sunday after church.

  “Which one?” Kate sounded as if she was gritting her teeth.

  “Not the oldest, but the other one. Dustin.”

  “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just a spill.”

  “Run cold water over it. Are you burned?”

  “Not really. It mostly went on my robe.” She laughed softly. “You’d think I’d learn not to do ten things at once.”

  “You and your grandmother are so much alike, always busy,” Martha said. She watched as Carl put his Cadillac in reverse and guided it into a parking spot in front of her house. “I’d better get going,” she added. “I’ve lots to do today.”

  “But Mother,” her daughter said, “we haven’t talked about Gran’s birthday party.”

  “Later,” Martha told her. “I’ll call you later.” With that, she hung up. He’d promised to take her to see the latest developments on the condos. He’d also promised frozen margaritas and more than a little flirtation.

  Martha loved being retired.

  “YOU COULD HAVE warned me,” Kate said, sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee. She pushed aside the New York Times, all eighty pounds of it, in order to have more room on the table. “Mom started talking about the Good Night Drive-In and all I could think of was what we were doing there with our boyfriends when we should have been watching the movies.”

  Emily’s Texas drawl was still as strong as ever, even through the phone. “I meant to,” she said. “I was gonna mail you the newspaper, but I was afraid you’d think you were growing old and get all depressed and lose your fancy job and become one of those New York City bag ladies.”

  “Very funny. Don’t you think it’s depressing?”

  “Honey, depressing is being pregnant for the fourth time in nine years. Sex at the drive-in with Dusty Jones was a hundred years ago.”

  Kate didn’t want to think about sex. Or having babies. Or Dustin Jones, the one boy her parents had forbidden her to date. The one her grandmother had hired to take care of the Lazy K. “My grandmother just hired him.”

  “Hired who? I mean, whom?”

  “Dustin.”

  “No kidding?”

  “He and his son are living out on the ranch.”

  “I didn’t know he got married.”

  “He got Lisa Gallagher pregnant that summer before college.” The summer from heaven, Kate remembered. The summer she’d made love to Dustin Jones in the back seat of his ’72 Buick. “I don’t think they ever got married.”

  “No, they didn’t, but I’ll ask George. He’ll know. I wonder what happened to Lisa. I always thought she moved to Dallas.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kate lied. Of course it mattered. After all these years she damn well wanted to know what happened after she left town.

  “I thought he was working for Bobby Calhoun out at the Dead Horse Ranch. But I never heard he had a boy with him.”

  “My mother seemed pretty sure. I can call my grandmother and find out if it’s true. If she answers the phone.” Gert generally disliked having to stop what she was doing to talk to “some darn salesman.”

  “I’ll see you in two weeks, right? You’re coming home to help blow out the candles?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Kate declared, though she wondered if she could stay the entire two weeks as she had originally promised. There was a whole team of scriptwriters for the show, but that didn’t make her workload any lighter.

  “What’s going to happen next on Loves of Our Lives? Is Harley pregnant with Dan’s baby or Christian’s?”

  Kate laughed. “You know I can’t tell you.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have the baby and miss finding out.”

  “When are you due?”

  “In two weeks. Right now. Yesterday.”

  “And?”

  “Not an ache or a pain anywhere, Kate. Plan to spend some time over here, will you? You and George can gripe about progress and teenaged memories. He doesn’t like the idea of his drive-in destroyed for a nursing home either. He says it makes him feel like an old man.” Emily and George had dated since they were fifteen, married at twenty and become parents at twenty-two.

  “At least someone understands.”

  “Honey, the minute we all ran out and bought VCRs, the days of the drive-in were numbered. The Good Night lasted longer than most, I think, just because Mr. Jackson never cared if it made money or not.”

  “I suppose. But it’s still sad.” She took another sip of coffee before continuing. “My mother said she’s thinking of moving into one of the apartments.”

  “Give him the truck, Jennie, and quit teasing,” Emily scolded, then apologized. “Sorry, Kate. They’re little devils this morning.”

  “Where’s George?”

  “At the grocery store. He figures this is all Carl’s fault.”

  “What is?”

  “The Good Night Villas. Every single woman—over sixty, that is—figures the way to Carl’s very single heart is to buy one of those apartments. George’s mother wants to put her house up for sale.”

  “I think mine does, too.” Now she had to worry about her mother being taken advantage of by a real estate Romeo? “Do you think we’ll be like that in thirty years?”

  “Alone and running after Carl Jackson? I hope not.”

  “At least thirty years from now you won’t be pregnant,” Kate teased. “That’s something.”

  “Come home soon, honey. We’ll sit in front of the air conditioner and talk about boys, just like we used to.”

  I could do that, Kate wanted to say. I could pretend I was eighteen and in love and letting a certain young cowhand unbutton my blouse while Last of the Mohicans played on the distant screen.

  “What’s New York have that Texas doesn’t?” It was the way Emily ended every phone call, and Kate usually replied by telling her friend about her latest date or Manhattan meal or Broadway show. Emily loved all of the advantages of city life, but this time Kate didn’t answer the question.

  “I wonder if my mother is serious about moving,” Kate muttered. “She even wants my grandmother to move in there with her.”

  “You’ll be here soon. You can find out for yourself. Hey, you can even see how Dustin Jones turned out.”

  I might not have a choice, Kate wanted to say. Even though I’d rather be run over by a speeding taxi and dragged down Broadway with my skirt up over my head.

  “IF THAT’S MARTHA again, tell her I’m not home.” Gert carried her bowl of oatmeal over to the kitchen table and sat down to eat it. The boy hurried over to the east wall and grabbed the phone off the hook.

  “Hello?” A smile turned up his mouth. “Oh, hi.”

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “It’s my dad.”

  Well, that was all right, Gert figured, giving Danny a nod before she turned back to her oatmeal. She should have put chocolate chips in it, the way she did for the boy. She didn’t bother trying to listen to the conversation and instead looked through the stack of last week’s mail for something to read. The Beauville Times sat there taking up room, so Gert checked through it for the obituaries before she read the headlines.

  The Jackson boy was still determined to build those fancy apartments, she noted. Cattle prices had gone up, but not much. The weather was going to be good. Good and hot, she saw, but heat was the least of her worries. The heat didn’t bother her much, not like that darn air-conditioning folks stuck everywhere. Give her a good fan. Now there was a healthy invention for you.<
br />
  “I remember that summer in ’22,” she said aloud. “Now there was a heat wave,” she told Danny, who had hung up the phone and approached the table. “It was so hot my daddy swore we’d all just dry up and blow to Oklahoma.”

  The boy slid into the chair across from hers and smiled. He sure had a sweet smile, Gert thought. Not like his daddy at all that way, but then boys didn’t always take after their fathers. Sometimes they got lucky and forged their own paths.

  “Did I ever tell you I had a boy like you once?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Always in trouble, Hank was.” Gert figured he’d gotten it from his father’s side of the family, of course. Back in the twenties, the Johnson boys had been hell on wheels. Her father had just about had apoplexy when she’d run off with one of them.

  “Where does he live now?”

  “Oh, he’s been gone a long time. He could never stay in one place for too long.” She tilted her head at him. “I’ll bet you’ve never even been to a drive-in movie, have you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t even know what it is. That’s too bad.” Gert worked on her oatmeal for a moment, then peeled a banana, broke it in half and offered a section to Danny. Another morning ritual, they shared a piece of fruit before the day really got started, before chores. Sometimes she fixed coffee mixed with heavy cream and lots of sugar for the two of them. Sometimes the boy’s father would come in and pretend to complain that his eight-year-old son was too young to be drinking coffee.

  “I saw some women on television the other day,” Gert continued, knowing Danny liked the sound of her voice. He was a funny little guy, this boy. “They’d written a book about the ‘old days,’ Katie Couric said. Now they’re rich and on the bestseller list and everyone’s buying their book.”

  “Cool.”

  “I could use the extra money,” Gert mused. “Why don’t you get us some orange juice?” The boy did as he was told, as he usually did. He got stubborn about taking a shower and sometimes she could hear him yelling about it. That yelp always made Gert smile to herself and remember Hank when he was little and still lovable. And still all hers.