The Wedding Pearls

by Carolyn Brown

  “Where do I turn?” Branch laid a hand on her knee. “Settle down. Everything is fine.”

  Lola pointed. “Next left, it said on the sign.”

  Sure enough, there was another cardboard sign with an arrow and a note that said five miles back down that dirt road was a yard sale. Branch slowed down to a crawl when gravel started to fly up into the Caddy.

  “Well, lordy Lord, would you look at that?” Ivy glanced toward the southwest. “We was headed away from that so we wasn’t watchin’ it.”

  Tessa looked to her left and there was a bank of black clouds rolling toward them at a fast pace. Suddenly, lightning zipped through the sky and thunder rolled. Branch braked and pushed the button to put the top up on the convertible, turned on the air-conditioning, and told everyone to roll up the windows.

  The first big drops hit the car before he could change his foot from brake to gas, and Lola sighed loudly. “You might as well turn around at the next place you can. They’ll have to cover all their stuff or take it in anyway.”

  “I figure we’re about two miles from it. Maybe it’s in a garage,” Branch said.

  Lola shook her head. “This road is going to get really bad if the rain keeps pouring like this and we might not get back to the paved highway, so we’d better turn back.”

  “Oh, no! No! No! No!” Melody moaned.

  “You wanted to go to the garage sale that bad?” Ivy asked. “I thought you hated them.”

  “No! I don’t care about those silly things. My phone says no service and Jill gets out of classes in half an hour and I wanted to see what she thought of the pictures I sent her and now I can’t text or call or nothin’,” Melody whined.

  “It’s only a few minutes to the hotel and maybe you can get reception there,” Tessa said. “Let me try mine. If it is working, you can use it. Nope, no service here, either. Must be the storm.”

  Melody put her face in her hands. “Why does this happen to me? I’ve been good for days.”

  “God is testing you to see if you can be good when things aren’t perfect in your little world,” Ivy answered.

  The rain got harder and harder and Branch slowed down a little more. Then a loud noise that sounded like thunder caused them to swerve to the left. Ivy rolled over against Melody, who slid into Frankie’s side.

  “What happened?” Frankie yelled.

  “I think we had a blowout, but I see a barn not too far down this lane. We’ll try to make it there and hole up until it stops raining, because we’ll have to take everything from the trunk to get at the spare,” Branch said.

  “An adventure.” Ivy clapped her hands.

  “I told you to stick with me and we’d have good times.” Frankie laughed.

  “Drive right on into the barn. The doors are open and I don’t see a tractor, so I bet we can get Mollybedamned in out of this weather. If it starts to hail, she might get beat all to hell,” Frankie said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll do my best but that looks like it’s pretty narrow.” Branch eased the car up to the doors and held on to the steering wheel so tight that Tessa noticed his knuckles were white.

  “She’s veering off to the side,” he explained.

  Every nerve ending in Tessa’s body stiffened and she could scarcely breathe. What in the hell were they going to do in a strange part of the state with no phone service and trespassing in a barn?

  Frankie’s tone was frantic. “I can feel it. Don’t suppose there’ll be anything to save of the tire.”

  Branch sounded as if he were in a tunnel. “We’re running on the rim right now and it’s slipping in the mud.”

  “I could get out and guide you into the barn,” Tessa offered. Anything to get them out of the storm and into a dry place. Thank God they’d gotten Ivy’s oxygen tank filled.

  Branch shook his head. “Not in this mess. We’re going to get through by the skin of our teeth, but I think we’ll make it.”

  Tessa exhaled long and loudly when he finally parked the car in the dry. The rain sounded like gunfire peppering down on the sheet-iron roof when he bailed out and rounded the backside of the car to unload the suitcases from the trunk. In half an hour they’d be back out on the road and in fifteen minutes more, they’d be safe inside a hotel room.

  Frankie wiped her brow. “I thought she’d lose her mirrors for sure.”

  “I’m sorry, Mollybedamned,” Melody sobbed dramatically.

  “For what?” Frankie asked.

  Melody wiped at the tears flooding her cheeks. “I bad-mouthed her that first day and she’s punishing me for it. Branch said she could if I didn’t apologize. Remember?”

  “Teach you to not be mean to her, won’t it?” Ivy crawled out and stretched, then picked up Blister and set him down on the dirt floor. “Now you might have to sleep in a barn.”

  Melody’s quick intakes of breath made them all turn toward her. “I can’t, Aunt Ivy. I’m, like, afraid of spiders and mice and bugs and what if there’s bats in there and they bite me? I could, like, turn into a vampire.”

  “You’ve been reading too much of that shit that is on the market now,” Ivy said. “Frankie, that tire is ruined. But at least we’re in the dry and Branch can get the spare out and—”

  “Sorry, ladies, the spare has gone flat,” he said from the back of the car. “Looks like we’re here until this rain slacks up enough I can walk down to that garage sale place and ask for help or the use of their landline phone.”

  Frankie opened the back door of the car and slid into the seat where she always sat. “Hey, we’ve got food and me and Ivy can sleep in the car if we have to stay here. I see some horse blankets over there on the stall that y’all can spread out for beds and we’ll be fine.”

  “What if they have fleas in them?” Melody screeched.

  “Hush, child. We’ll make do with what we’ve got. You can always sleep in the trunk. We’ll even leave the lid up for you,” Frankie said.

  Melody wrapped her arms around Frankie. “Thank you. I might not die if I can at least have, like, that much.”

  “Looks to me like a farmer keeps hay in here, so hopefully, he’ll come to feed sometime soon,” Lola said.

  “We have no technology, no tire, and we’re stuck in a barn. Isn’t this grand?” Ivy said. “Start the car and put the top down, Branch. When it’s all the way down, you can turn off the engine. I’m calling the front seat as my bed for the night.”

  Frankie pursed her mouth into a thin line. “I knew you’d do that and I forgot to say it first. But then you have to deal with the steering wheel and I get the whole backseat to myself.”

  “Don’t put a thing back in the trunk and, like, leave the lid up. That is mine.” Melody opened her suitcase and took out two books. “I’m going to read as long as there is light.”

  “Are those vampire books?” Ivy stretched out on her back on the front seat, feet toward the steering wheel. “I need a pillow, Branch. Can you rustle up one for me?”

  “Just use that ratty old bathrobe in your suitcase. You can roll it up and make a pillow out of it,” Melody said. “I’m using my denim jacket.”

  “Smart kid when she’s not being a smart-ass,” Frankie said. “Branch, darlin’, get out my robe, too.”

  “Am I on the clock?” he asked.

  “Until you get our fake pillows out, you can be on the clock.” Frankie nodded.

  Branch took stock of the barn after Ivy and Frankie stretched out for a nap and Melody was safely curled up in the trunk with a book in her hands. Half a dozen horse blankets hung on the stall. The barn was full of small bales of hay, which meant the farmer might not come around for a couple of days if he was feeding big round bales. This could easily be his winter supply and he wouldn’t have a reason to check on things.

  He left the stalls and wandered toward the other side of the barn, found a tack room with more blankets on a shelf, along with a bulb hanging from the ceiling. When he pulled the cord, it lit up the room.

  “That shoul
d make Melody happy. She can read all night if she wants to and she can sleep on the table if she is too cramped in the trunk,” he muttered.

  “Hey, what did you find?” Tessa said from the doorway.

  “The tack room, with light and a big table.”

  She motioned toward two plastic shower curtains hanging on a wire. “What is behind that?”

  He jerked one aside to reveal a toilet and a small wall-hung sink. “Guess it’s a bathroom with running water and a flushable toilet. We’ve got a five-star hotel here, Tessa.”

  Lola rushed into the room. “Someone loves me for sure. You two get out of here. I need that thing right there. Is there toilet paper?”

  “Don’t look like it, but there’s those napkins in the car. Want me to get them for you?” Tessa asked.

  “No, bring the box of tissues in my knitting bag. They’ll work better. And thank you. Now go!” Lola pushed them out the door and closed it behind them.

  “Let’s go explore the loft, Branch.” Tessa said after she’d taken the tissues to Lola.

  He followed her up the ladder and into the loft, where she plopped down on the hay-covered floor and propped her back against a bale. “Doesn’t that smell fresh? Nothing like it in the world.”

  “The way that sky looks, this could last all night. We’re lucky to have found a barn,” Tessa said.

  He sat down beside her and leaned back on the same bale. He covered her hand with his and laced his fingers with hers. The silence between them didn’t need to be filled with chatter as they watched the rain falling so hard that was all they could see. Then suddenly her head bobbled and he gently tipped it over until it rested on his shoulder. With his cheek against her hair, he, too, fell asleep.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Water dripping on her outstretched hand woke Tessa the next morning. She didn’t move a muscle, only her eyes darting around to take in the strange surroundings. Far up above her was a gray corrugated metal roof. A ray of sunshine slipped through a crack in the boards behind her head, sending a sliver of yellow across a gate at her feet.

  A tingle in her left hand said someone was touching her. Her eyes shifted slowly in that direction to see exactly whose hand she held. This had to be a dream. She’d wake up any second and find herself at home in her bed with the smell of coffee floating through the apartment as her preset pot gurgled away.

  “Takes a minute,” a deep drawl said.

  She turned her head and Branch’s mossy-green eyes locked with hers. The whole storm and day flashed through her mind in a series of black-and-white pictures. “It’s not a dream, is it?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “I’d kill for a cup of coffee.”

  “I’d help you bury the body.” He grinned.

  “How come water is dripping through the roof if the sun is shining?”

  “Wouldn’t know, but it’s time for me to get going to find some help so we can get out of this five-star hotel,” he said.

  “Don’t go just yet. No one else is awake and it’s so peaceful here.”

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles one by one. “Maybe that will keep your clumsiness at bay until we can find toothbrushes and coffee. Wouldn’t want you to go too long without kisses of some kind.”

  An aura filled the stall where they were sleeping unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It was warm like summer rain, yet sparkling like the glitter of the raindrops falling from the rusty old tin roof.

  She turned so that they were lying face-to-face. “I’m so glad I came along on this trip.”

  “Me, too.” Branch’s soft drawl was even sexier than normal. “I like waking up in a horse stall with a beautiful blonde.”

  “I like waking up next to the sexiest cowboy on earth.” Her gaze met his.

  “Do you always speak your mind?” He kissed her on the tip of the nose.

  “Not until this adventure started, but something strange happened when I made up my mind to go. It must be some of Frankie’s DNA coming through.” She smiled.

  He kissed the corner of her mouth. “I like it. Don’t change when we get home.”

  The gate swung open and both of them looked up, expecting to see either Frankie or Ivy, but instead it was a gray-haired man wearing bibbed overalls and scuffed-up work boots. He removed his cap and scratched his head.

  “Good morning,” Tessa said.

  “Who in the hell are you and what are you doing in my barn and who’s them dead people in that car out there?”

  Branch sat up with a start. “What do you mean dead?”

  “Got two in the trunk and one in the front seat and one in the back. I didn’t stop long enough to see if they was still breathing, but they looked pretty dead to me. Wasn’t moving a muscle and then I heard y’all talkin’ back here. Did you kill them poor people for that car?”

  Tessa jumped to her feet and pushed past him. “They aren’t dead. They’re asleep. We had a flat.”

  “We had a blowout about the time that rainstorm hit and we took refuge here, sir.” Branch went from a sitting position to standing. “We’ll be glad to pay you for the use of it. And I’d appreciate it if I could use your phone and call for help. We lost reception on our cell phones.”

  The farmer tucked his hands in the bibbed section of his overalls and rocked back and forth on his heels. “Ain’t got no reception for them gall-durn things out here, and me and Mama ain’t got no use for a telephone. Folks want to talk to us, they know where we live.”

  “I’m Branch Thomas and we’re on a road trip. How would I get some help with that tire? My spare is flat, too,” he asked.

  He scratched two days’ worth of scraggly gray beard. “I reckon I can pump up a flat tire enough to get you on in to Perryton, but you ain’t going to get nothing fixed today. It’s Sunday and God-fearin’ folks don’t do business on the Lord’s day. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow mornin’ to get a new tire. Right now I got to feed my cattle and then get ready for church, but I reckon I could take time to pump up that spare for you,” he said.

  “I’ll gladly pay for your time,” Branch said.

  He finally grinned, showing teeth yellowed from tobacco. “God don’t take to people workin’ on Sunday, but feedin’ cows and doin’ a favor for a travelin’ man ain’t work. It’s doin’ what we been taught, to be kind to angels and all that, so you don’t owe me nothin’,” he said.

  Branch extended a hand. “Thank you.”

  “But I reckon if you was to offer to help me with the chores this mornin’, then I could accept that as a kind deed done toward me as well. And my name is Oscar Williams.”

  “Yes, sir, I would be glad to help you.”

  Oscar nodded toward the Caddy. “Your car, and it’s a real beauty, is blockin’ my way into the barn, so we need to load up about forty bales on my pickup truck.”

  “Give me a minute to make a trip to the bathroom and I’ll load them for you,” Branch said. “We don’t have coffee to offer you but I believe there are some doughnuts left.”

  “Done had my breakfast, thank you. You found the bathroom, did you? It’s not much but it serves the purpose for Mama.” Oscar’s head bobbed up and down several times. “She made me put that in when we built the barn. She helps me with the farmin’ and she don’t like to squat outdoors, not since she got that dose of poison ivy in places where womenfolks, well, you know.” He blushed.

  “Yes, sir, I do know. Look, Tessa has wakened the rest of our crew and none of them are dead.”

  Oscar flipped his cap back on his head. “I woulda swore that one with the tubes in her nose was a goner. Might as well throw that spare up under the hay and when we get done we’ll go on down to the house and put some air in it. Probably be back here in an hour if you want to tell your people so they can get around.”

  “You don’t think that man will take Branch off somewhere and, like, kill him, then come back here and, like, shoot all of us, do you?” Melody whispered as the two men car
ried bales of hay out of the barn.

  Tessa had the same fears, but she wasn’t going to say them out loud. “Melody, look at Branch and then look at Oscar. I believe Branch could take him down with a hand tied behind his back.”

  Melody stuck her chin up a notch. “Not if that old man has, like, a shotgun.”

  “I’ve got a pistol in the glove compartment and I know how to use it.” Frankie yawned.

  “You have what?” Melody asked.

  “A .38 Saturday night special pistol in my purse and a Smith and Wesson .40 caliber in the glove compartment. And I have a license to carry a concealed weapon. Lester made me learn to shoot and sent me to the class to get my permit to carry it years ago. I ain’t shot the damn thing in thirty years but I reckon I could take care of us pretty good, so stop your worryin’, kid,” Frankie said. “I’m going to have a warm Dr Pepper and some doughnuts so I don’t starve before we get to the hotel.”

  “Wow!” Melody followed her to the tack room. “That really does, like, make me feel better.”

  Lola fell in behind Melody. “I’m going to finish off the fried chicken and potato salad. I hope they’re still serving breakfast when we find a hotel. If they aren’t, we’re sending Branch for takeout. I want pancakes or waffles and a shower and a real bed and a long nap. How did you sleep, kiddo?”

  Tessa brought up the rear. “Slept fine in one of the stalls. Didn’t know that I wasn’t in a five-star hotel after I went to sleep.”

  After an hour Tessa began to check the time every thirty seconds. They’d been insane to let Branch go off with that man. Who in the devil didn’t have a telephone these days? And what if his name wasn’t Oscar but he’d escaped from a mental institution? What if there were no cows to feed and he’d said that to get Branch away from the women? She didn’t have a license to carry a gun, but she could shoot. Clint and her Cajun cousins had taught her years ago. Was it time to get out the guns and take up hiding spots?

  The next fifteen minutes lasted three days past eternity. Ivy and Frankie argued about what food to toss and what to take with them. Lola hummed as she sat in the middle of the table in the tack room and knitted another pink baby cap. Melody paced the floor with wild eyes and her phone clutched in her hand as if the dead thing could save her life.