Calamity Jayne Heads West (3 page)

“Good morning, Tressa.” Donita Smith greeted me with a coffee cup in one hand and a coffeepot in the other. She had a full steaming cup of java in front of me before my butt hit the cushioned stool top. You just don’t get that kind of service in the big city. Shecocked her head and looked at me. “I’m thinking cin-namon roll today,” she said. “Right?”

“How do you do it?” I asked. “You missed your call-ing, Donnie. You should be forecasting the weather or betting on the ponies. You’re way better than Psychic Sonya, the State Fair Seer.” Although Psychic Sonya had predicted powerful sexual tension and long-term sexual frustration for me last summer (ya think?) her promised worth-waiting-for resolution hadn’t materi-alized. What a shocker.

“I don’t just sling hash back here, you know. I’m a keen observer of human nature,” Donnie said. “You have that cinnamon roll look in your eyes. I’ve seen it before.”

I brought my coffee cup to my lips and took a care-ful sip. “What makes my cinnamon roll look different from, say, my hot beef sandwich with ’taters and gravy look?” I asked, curious.

“A bubble of drool in the corner of your mouth,” Donita said.

“Good to know,” I said. “Good to know.”

She laughed. “I’ll just grab your cinnamon roll. Nuked, right?”

I nodded. “If it isn’t too much trouble. And don’t forget the little cup of butter on the side,” I reminded her. “Or does that show on my face, too?”

“Cute,” Donnie said, and headed for the kitchen.

I sat and sipped my coffee, and, unzipping my back-pack, reached in to pull out a small notepad to jot down the number of days I needed to pack for and the type of clothing I needed for each of those days. Jeans, T-shirts and hoodies would work for most days, but I’d have to find something for the wedding ceremony that wouldn’t put everyone’s nose out of joint.

I smiled. The Navajo in northern Arizona produced some incredibly beautiful garments. I had purchasedseveral woven saddle blankets, but they were so gor-geous I’d never had the heart to use them. They cur-rently hang on the walls of my bedroom, colorful tapestries of authentic Americana. Maybe I’d dress in traditional Native American attire for the wedding. I shook my head. Taylor, with her dark hair and eyes, could pull it off. Me? I’d look like She Who Has Hair Like Sagebrush and Walks with Saddlebags Barbie. Without Barbie’s hooters. Sigh.

The bell over Hazel’s door jingled as the door opened.

“Tressa Turner! Where you at? I know you’re in here!”

I’d just taken another drink of my coffee when I rec-ognized the person belonging to that voice. My throat completely closed and I began to cough and choke, spewing coffee across Donita’s shiny white counter. My gaze darted to the kitchen and I grabbed my backpack from the back of the stool.

“You stay put. Hear me, girl?”

Hear? Mrs. Corder, a block down at the B-Clean Dry Cleaners, who depended on closed captions for televi-sion viewing enjoyment, could hear. I got to my feet, prepared to creep around the counter and hightail it out the back.

“Don’t you go tryin’ to sneak out through the kitchen, ’cause I got Mick posted out back. And I told him to sit on you if need be so you wouldn’t get away. We need to talk, Miss Tressa.”

“Son of a—” I caught the good reverend’s eye on me before I let loose with a naughty word that was sure to inspire a sermon in the near future on the importance of being pure of heart, mind and mouth. You see, I’d spent the last two months trying to elude the persis-tent pit bull that now appeared to have me cornered.

Marguerite Dishman, better known as Aunt Mo,was a very nice lady who had a very devoted nephew who, when he thought his beloved “Ahnt Mo” was on her deathbed, wanted her last hours on earth to be contented ones. So the nephew, Manny Dishman/De-marco/ da biggest guy I’ve ever seen (Manny has used several surnames I’m aware of—and probably many others I’m not.) had wanted to give his aunt a very special send off—give her something she’d wanted very badly: A mate for Manny. (Sounds like the title of a romance novel, doesn’t it?) Being the giving, caring person I am, I’d agreed to pose as Manny’s girl-friend/ fiancée for a one-time, one-act performance, to put a smile on an old lady’s face as she drifted off into the glorious hereafter. But neither Manny nor I had banked on Aunt Mo’s miraculous recovery, and I sure as heck hadn’t banked on having to perpetuate the
aren’t they the cutest couple?
charade to keep Aunt Mo from relapsing.

Aunt Mo wintered in Arizona, so I’d managed to successfully avoid situations that required stealth, sub-terfuge and messy explanations. That was, until Aunt Mo returned to Iowa in early spring and began a per-sistent campaign to pin me down on a wedding date. Things had gotten a little hairy.

I’d pretty much kept news of my faux fiancé on the down low, with my sister Taylor and my boss Stan be-ing the only people besides Manny, Mo, and me (now that sounds like the name of a TV sitcom) who knew of the little coil in which I found myself. Unfortunately, Aunt Mo had crashed my friend Kari’s wedding recep-tion two months earlier, and discovered me swapping spit with Ranger Rick Townsend. When I’d threatened to pull the plug (no pun intended) on the whole farce, Manny had promised to break the news of our breakup to his aunt, explaining that we’d mutually agreed to call off our engagement but remainedfriends. Unfortunately, having given his promise, Manny had left town unexpectedly, leaving me in limbo. Not sure how Aunt Mo would react to being scammed by her nephew, the boy she’d raised from a pup, there was no way this cowgirl was gonna spill any beans. Not unless it involved digging into a chili dog.

I sank back onto my stool and found myself wishing Reverend Browning knew of the charitable act I’d per-formed out of the goodness of my heart that now put my butt on the line—and in Aunt Mo’s line of fire. I really could have used a few brownie points with the big guy upstairs.

Aunt Mo joined me at the counter. She didn’t bother to try and maneuver her girth onto a stool top the size of a medium pizza from the Thunder Rolls Bowling Alley. Aunt Mo was a large, sturdy woman.

“Booth!” she barked. “Now!” She pointed to a cor-ner booth where an older couple stood to leave.

I picked up my coffee cup and backpack and fol-lowed in Aunt Mo’s wake like a well-trained pet. (Okay, so I don’t actually know any well-trained pets. This is pure speculation on my part.)

Aunt Mo took the far booth against the wall, and I looked on as she slid along the bench, shoving the table away to make extra room for her midsection, just the way her nephew did to assure adequate clearance for his own bulk. In his case, it was all muscle.

“Sit!” Mo said, nodding at the bench across from her.

I planted my fanny without spilling a drop of coffee, saying, “It’s good to see you again, Aunt Mo.”

“Don’t you bullshit me,” Aunt Mo warned. “You’ve been avoiding me like I do them young men dressed in suits that come knockin’ on your door and want to sit on your couch and talk about God.”

I winced, praying Reverend Browning hadn’t over-heard.

“I’ve been busy,” I said.

“Busy showing your boobies to that randy ranger,” she said.

I could sense the pastor’s posture shift perceptibly in our direction. “Can’t we just get past that?” I asked, leaning across the table. “I made a mistake. A little too much celebratory bubbly,” I said. “It could happen to anyone.”

“You should know better than to let some sweet-talker ply you with alcohol and grope you. Lord knows where that dirty dancin’ display would’ve led if ol’ Aunt Mo here hadn’t crashed the festivities.”

I bit my lip and tried hard not to feel bitter toward the woman. I’d often wondered that very same thing myself. Ranger Rick had been about to give me the mother of all birthday kisses, and I’d been primed and puckered. In my sex-starved, lusty little mind’s eye, what followed involved champagne, birthday suits and lots of cake and frosting. And maybe a noisemaker or two—but that’s way more information than you need.

I shook my head Etch-a-Sketch style to erase the erotic images. Restless movement from the nearby table told me the pastor was getting an earful.

“I think it’s about time Aunt Mo, Manny and Tressa had a heart-to-heart,” I said, then winced, remember-ing the cardiac issues that had instigated the fake fi-ancée scenario in the first place. “I’m leaving for a wedding in Arizona in a few days, but when I get back, we all need to talk,” I told her.

Aunt Mo got a big, broad smile on her face. Like I do when I walk into Calhoun’s Steakhouse so hungry my navel’s rubbing my backbone and I learn someone else is picking up the tab. Mo clapped her beefy hands together in front of her and held them to her ample chest. Like I do when I open my bank statement and discover I’m not overdrawn.

Donnie appeared tableside as Aunt Mo raised her hands toward the heavens. “Hallelujah!” Aunt Mo yelled, and I looked over at Reverend Browning. He stared at Aunt Mo. “Praise the Lord! Hand over a hunk of that cinnamon roll! Aunt Mo’s gonna cele-brate! Celebrate good times! Come on!” she sang.

I frowned, getting an ohmigawd-what-now feeling.

“What are we celebrating?” Donnie asked, setting my cinnamon roll on the table and shooting me a questioning look as the front door opened and the bell greeted Hazel’s next hungry customer.

I blinked a couple of times—my personal sign lan-guage for “I’m clueless.”

“Why, we’re celebratin’ the fact that Tressa here is fi-nally ready to set the date!” Aunt Mo said in a loud, booming, praise-the-Lord-and-pass-the-sweet-roll voice. I stared at her in horror, and not just because she was consuming my cinnamon roll at an alarming rate. I felt my lower intestine twist and knot. The coffee I’d swilled turned bitter in my gut.

“Date? What date?” Donnie had to ask.

“Why, her wedding date, of course!” Aunt Mo shouted to the rafters. “To my nephew Manny. As soon as she’s back from vacation, we’re gonna be plannin’ ourselves a wedding!”

“Uh, excuse me, ladies, but may I be among the first to congratulate the bride?”

I turned to find Ranger Rick occupying the booth bench behind me, his facial expression one with which I had become quite familiar. I was
so
screwed—and without even a kiss.

I let loose with a very naughty word guaranteed to earn me a visit from the good reverend before next Sunday’s service. Good luck, preacher man. Arizona, here I come!

CHAPTER THREE

“Good afternoon, and welcome to Northwest Airlines Flight 111 Minneapolis-St. Paul to Phoenix. We hope you enjoy your flight with us.”

I cast a sidelong look to my left, at my sister Taylor who was busy adjusting the vent above her to direct the air flow right at her face as we got ready for takeoff.

“Guess the gingersnaps aren’t workin’ for you, huh?” I said, noting the pallor of her face and the tiny beads of perspiration collecting above her upper lip. “You should’ve gone with the Dramamine,” I added, shak-ing my head at my sister’s stubborn insistence on us-ing a natural remedy to combat her airsickness.

As luck would have it—luck in the form of two manipulative matchmakers with a penchant for mischief-making, that is—Ranger Rick Townsend’s seat assign-ment was smack dab between Taylor and yours truly. I’d been given an aisle seat on both flights, but follow-ing Taylor’s third time crawling over my legs to go ralph in the john on the earlier flight, we’d mutually agreed to swap seats on this one.

“I’ll live,” Taylor snapped, still fiddling with the air control. “Is this thing even working?” she asked, mov-ing the doohickey around some more. “I can’t feel anything coming out.”

“Here, let me see if I can help,” Townsend offered, and I found myself watching his long, tanned fingers as they reached up to twist the knob this way and that to turn on the air—imagining those fingers reaching over to turn on Tressa.

I shut my eyes. Oooh. Baby. Oh. Right there. Oh. Yes! Yesss!

“Yesss!”

I opened my eyes to find Taylor and Townsend look-ing at me.

“—terday, all my troubles seemed so far away,” I warbled, thinking it was probably a very good thing I was taking a vacation. I was in serious danger of crack-ing up.

Townsend raised an eyebrow and went back to ad-justing Taylor’s air flow.

I shook my head. I was so in a world of hurt here. Just sitting next to Townsend, thighs touching now and then, arms brushing occasionally, made every nerve ending in my body snap to overload status. Ob-serving the strong cords of his tanned neck tense andthe way his shirt tightened across broad shoulders as he reached overhead made my temperature head up, up, up and away! I started to fan myself.

“You okay, Tressa?” Townsend asked, settling back in his seat after he’d finished aiming Taylor’s blast of re-circulated air back at her face.

I shrugged, always somewhat insecure when it came to Rick—especially when Taylor was within the same field of vision.

“Me? I’m what you call your low-maintenance trav-eler, Townsend,” I told him. “Strictly no frills. Why? Don’t I look all right?” I asked, thinking the pink and white T-shirt that read “Barn Diva,” blue jeans, and slouch boots made the perfect traveling ensemble. Tay-lor, on the other hand, had opted to wear a denim skirt with a lightweight black blouse and matching black flip flops. Despite the deathly pallor of her face, she looked stunning. In an anemic, I-need-a-transfusion sort of way.

“You look a little flushed is all,” Townsend said, set-tling his long, manly body back in his seat and easing his dark head of hair against the seatback as his gaze roamed my feverish face. “Tell me, T. Is it my close proximity that has you all hot and bothered?” he asked with a grin that sent my mercury into the danger zone.

“Actually, it’s the hot sauce I drizzled all over my Mexican sampler from Taco Time at lunch,” I told him, and heard a short intake of breath from the oc-cupant of the aisle seat. Apparently, Taylor wasn’t up to thinking of belly burners and nachos with jalapeño cheese sauce. “
Muy caliente
,” I added.

“Right,” Townsend said with a nod. “Right.”

“What? You don’t believe me? Check my breath,” I offered before I realized just what liberties that invita-tion included.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Townsend said, turning my face in his direction, his fingers on my chin. I blinked twice,fixed my gaze on lips that promised a hot time on the old silver bird today, ran my tongue across my lips be-fore parting them slightly, closed my eyes and waited.

The fingers at my chin moved to my heated cheek and gave it a tender tap.

“Nope,” Townsend said. “Nope.”

I opened my eyes, shooting Townsend a what’s-the-deal-Lucille look.

Townsend smiled and shook his head.

“Nope. I can’t do it,” he said, and dropped his hand to our shared armrest. “It wouldn’t be right.”

I looked at him.

“Can’t do what?” I asked. “What wouldn’t be right?”

Townsend sighed. “It wouldn’t be right to fool around with an engaged woman,” he said. “I’d feel . . . dirty,” he added with a little shake of his broad shoul-ders.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Funny,” I said. “But aren’t you on the wrong plane? This plane goes to Phoenix. The bird to Vegas and your stand-up gig in the Carp Cop Casino was sched-uled to depart from the go-straight-to-you-know-where gate.”

“What? No layover?” Townsend said, and winked at me. “Sweet.”

I shook my head.

“You know something, Townsend?” I snapped. “You’re more like your grandfather than I realized.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said. “And, by the way, you’ve got more than a token dose of my fu-ture step-grandmother in you.”

Step-grandmother? I shuddered and closed my eyes. This was not happening. It was just a bad, bad dream, I assured myself. A product of too much red meat. Not enough fiber in my diet. A psychotic break. How else could I explain the fact that in a mere matterof days Ranger Rick Townsend, my childhood archen-emy and bestower of nicknames harder to get rid of than denture cream on the bathroom faucet, and I would be . . . gulp. Stepcousins?

“Just think, Tressa. You and I will be cousins,” Townsend said, parroting my thoughts. “Kissin’ cousins,” he amended, with several Groucho Marx lifts of his eyebrows. “Naughty, naughty,” he said. “But, also intriguing as hell. In a let’s-keep-it-in-the-family sort of way.”

“That’s just sick, Townsend,” I told him, all the while Sinner Tressa on my loony left shoulder reminding me that forbidden passion, like Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra, was the hottest of ’em all. Saint Tressa on my radical right cautioned me to re-member that those relationships didn’t exactly end up in happily-ever-afters. Party pooper.

“What? Don’t tell me you’ve never considered how this marriage alters the family dynamics,” Townsend remarked. “How it changes the status quo.”

I turned to look at him. “Have you been reading back issues of Taylor’s
Psychology Today
?” I asked. “Or has
Field and Stream
strayed way far afield?”

He smiled. “You can’t avoid the inevitable for much longer, Tressa,” he told me. “We’re gonna be family. Just think of all the birthdays, reunions, graduations—”

“Funerals,” I interjected.

He gave me another wicked grin. “You can run but you can’t hide,” he warned.

“Speaking of hide-and-seek and other children’s games, your nephew is a rather, uh, interesting child,” I said, deciding to change the subject to something safer. Marginally so. Townsend’s ten-year-old nephew was a terror on Nike’s treads. A carbon copy of his Uncle Rick at that age, Nicholas Townsend gave me flashbacks to a childhood filled with Townsend trickery, prepubescentpranks, and an adolescent array of one-upmanship. And that was just grade school. “He definitely exhibits Townsend-specific traits,” I said, eyeballing the little twerp who had lifted my backpack at the airport and pil-fered from my candy stash, replacing the chocolate with a pack of sugar-free Sen-Sens breath fresheners he’d begged from his great granddad Joe.

“Hmmm. Let’s see. The Townsend charm?” Rick suggested. “Athletic prowess? The outstanding good looks? Sex appeal?”

“Humility,” I noted. “Seriously, the lad seems a little hyperactive. Did he skip his meds this morning?” I joked. On the flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul, the pint-sized poster child for birth control had peppered me with questions about the ordeal of a year ago when I’d been out to earn my merit badge for discovering dead bodies.

What did they look like? Was there a lot of blood? Did they
stink? Were you scared? Did you puke?
The kid was relent-less. I’d finally stuck earphones on to tune him out.

Townsend shook his head. “When’s the last time you were around kids, Tressa?” he asked. “They’re all like that. Full of spit and vinegar.”

Full of Townsend genetic material was more like it. The little urchin should be wearing a warning sign around his neck:
Danger! Frequent exposure likely to cause
intense irritation.

“Well, whatever it’s due to,
Uncle Rick
, it’s extremely annoying,” I told him. “You’re his uncle. You should talk to him. Tell him he’s being an obnoxious little ass—uh—nine adolescent. It’s your duty as his uncle to steer him in the right direction.”

It occurred to me that this amounted to the blind leading the blind. Knowing Townsend, he’d probably tutored his nephew on the finer points of ticking Tressa Turner off before we even boarded the aircraft. After all, Townsend was “da man” when it came to messing with my head.

“Oh? So, you think I’d be a good role model for kids now, huh?” he asked. “That’s a new one.”

I gave him a fake smile.

“Maybe I’m just curious to see what kind of father ma-terial you’d make,” I said, batting my eyelashes. “That’s important to women, you know. All the magazine sur-veys cite that as a major consideration when women se-lect a mate,” I told him. Personally, that requirement would be further down my list, behind great kisser, great body, great in bed and great sense of humor. Oh, and lover of dogs and horses, holder of a good job, and possessor of his own teeth—not in a container on the nightstand. Same went for the hair.

Okay, so maybe I sound a tad shallow here. It’s a Mr. Right wish list, for crying out loud. Tell me yours says
Wanted: Flabby fellow with Trump’s hair, healthy gums and
scalp, who is not allergic to dogs or horses, and whose idea of
heavy reading is the comic section of the paper.
Get my drift?

“Since when is Calamity Jayne concerned with the proper care and rearing of children?” Rick asked.

“Since I’m hoping to be Auntie Tressa soon,” I told him.

My sister-in-law, Kimmie, had been trying for well over a year to convince my obstinate oaf of a brother, Craig, that he was ready for fatherhood. He was drag-ging his feet more than I do when it’s time to clean out the gutters. Or time to try on last year’s swimwear. I was becoming frustrated. Uh, I mean Kimmie was be-coming frustrated. She refused to get pregnant until Craig was onboard with their joint life plan, so she’d undertaken a campaign of enforced celibacy several months back to give the couple some clarity on the is-sue. I hadn’t inquired how that was working for them, but last I’d heard Craig was spending a lot of timeworking out at the Rec Center. Followed by long, cold showers.

“You could help out there, too, you know,” I told the ranger.

He looked at me.

“I can help you become an aunt? Uh, that’s not what I meant by keeping it in the family, Turner,” Rick said.

“And that’s not what I meant by helping out, you daft, daft man,” I told him. “You’re Craig’s best friend. You can talk to him. Encourage him. Tell him how cool it would be for me to become an aunt—I mean, for him to become a father. Convince him what an absolutely awesome experience fatherhood could be.” I looked across the aisle at Townsend’s nephew, finger disappear-ing up one nostril. “And whatever you do, Townsend, whatever it takes, don’t let Nick near Craig,” I warned. “That’ll set us back a good twelve months.”

“You worry too much, Tressa,” Townsend said. “Re-lax and let nature take its course,” he advised.

Relax. Right. With all men’s compasses set for fun and games? Booze and belching? Fat chance, bucko.

“Did I hear my name?”

Nick Townsend, finger now removed from nose, looked down at us.

“Tressa was just commenting on how much you re-mind her of me when I was your age,” Townsend, ever the diplomat, explained.

“Cool,” Nick, the miniature space cadet, said, obvi-ously mistaking his uncle’s words as a compliment. “Dad wants to talk to you,” he told Rick. “Something about a deer party,” he added, sneaking a quick peek at Taylor, who had her head back and her eyes closed. The kid forced his gaze away from my sister and over to me, realized I’d caught him making goo-goo eyes at Taylor, and flushed crimson.

Townsend men.

Rick looked at me.

“Stag party,” he translated for my benefit. “We thought we’d better do something to commemorate Granddad’s final days as a free man,” he explained. “By the way, what are you doing for your grandma?” he asked.

“Running away. Far, far away,” I told him. “I’m leav-ing it up to Aunt Kay,” I elaborated. And me? I planned to be unexpectedly stranded at the top of the Snow Bowl at the appointed hour of the fun and fri-volity. Snow or no snow.

Townsend stood and slid his long length past Tay-lor’s legs, and his nephew took his seat. I groaned and focused my attention out the aircraft window, savoring several seconds of silence before the mouth-o-matic next to me started up and took off.

“What’s wrong with your sister? Doesn’t she like to fly? Is she afraid? How old is she? Does she have a boyfriend?”

I sighed and bowed to the inevitable.

“Taylor suffers from motion sickness. Planes, trains, automobiles.” We’d see how she fared on a seafaring vessel. “She’ll be twenty-two on her next birthday, and nope, she doesn’t have
a
boyfriend,” I said.

“Sweet!” the pint-sized Casanova reacted.