Fannin's Flame (11 page)

“Mason, don’t freak out here. It’s a baby,” Fannin said. “We can handle this.”

“Fannin,” Kelly said, “be easy.”

“I’m trying to. But look at him. He’s shaking like a leaf in a storm. I’ve never seen his hands tremble like that. Well, once before, but that was many years ago.”

Kelly looked up at him. “Let’s just go pack the truck.”

“Mason, we’ll be right back.”

Mason nodded and slowly went up the stairs.

Fannin and Kelly looked at each other. “I don’t think he’s with us,” Kelly said. “He acts like that’s his baby being born.”

“Well, sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Come on.”

Mason approached the stairwell, dreading each stair. By the look on Fannin’s face when he’d called Brian, Mason knew with sickening clarity that something had gone terribly wrong. He didn’t need further information to understand that Mimi was in trouble.

He walked into her room and took a seat next to her. Helga nodded at him and left the room, indicating she needed more ice and towels. Mimi turned to look at him.

“You’re back,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I feel calmer when you’re here.”

“Funny you don’t have that same effect on me.”

She tried a wry smile. “I never did.”

“No.” He stared at her, seeing her fragility for the first time. “Mimi, I want to take you to the hospital. You need to be examined by professionals.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to leave my father on Christmas Eve, Mason. What if it’s his…last Christmas?” she said softly. “I would regret
that forever, Mason. You of all people should understand that.”

Oh, boy. “Okay, let me think, Mimi. Why won’t you let me call Doc Gonzalez?”

“You can if you want to. I just don’t think there’s a need yet. I read that first babies can take a couple of days to arrive. Truly I’m not being stubborn. There’s just nothing really happening yet. I have an occasional pain and that’s it.”

She moaned and turned onto her side. He waited, helpless.

Moments later she rolled back over, her eyes closed. “See? That’s all that happens. I get a pain, it’s a bit worse than a cramp, and then it goes. I really believe I’d be feeling more than that if the baby was on the way.” Her eyes opened to meet his gaze. “I’d go if it wasn’t Christmas Eve, but I’m pretty sure this is nothing.”

Mason checked his watch to time the next nothing contraction. “We couldn’t get ahold of Brian.”

Her gaze didn’t change. “I didn’t expect you to be able to. He has a big case he’s working on.”

They stared at each other, and for a moment Mason thought he saw the old familiar belligerence in his friend’s eyes. “I’m going to be an uncle,” Mason said. “I can hardly believe it. My little Mimi, a mother.”

“I’m not your little Mimi, anyway. I’m big as a barn.”

“Yeah. But I kinda like your waddle.”

“You will pay when I am able to retaliate,” Mimi told him with a smile. Then she rolled onto her side, hiding her face from him as another contraction hit.

Mason checked his watch. Five minutes.

“Damn it,” Mimi moaned.

“What?” Mason demanded, his blood pressure elevating.

“I think I just wet the bed.”

“Wet…the bed?”

“Mason, you have to leave now. Get Helga and ask her to bring fresh sheets.”

Mason blinked. “No, Mimi. I’m taking you to the hospital
now.
”

“I won’t go, Mason. I’m not leaving my father.”

“We’re going.” He went to move her from the bed himself, but she was curled up into a tight ball and he had no idea how to move her. “You did wet the bed, tiger.”

“Not funny, Mason. One day when you’re incontinent, you’ll hear that word again.” Mimi blew breaths like she was blowing out birthday candles.

“Uncurl so I can lift you.”

“No.” She blew more breaths. “I don’t feel like being jacked with, either, so get out.”

Whew. Crabby. He thought that was a sign of imminent danger. “I’m calling Doc.”

“I don’t care what you do!” Mimi yelled.

Mason went into the hallway.

“Son,” the sheriff said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Quit badgering my daughter.”

“I think she needs trained personnel, sir.”

“She wants to do it the way she was born. We didn’t have all that fancy nonsense back then. Relax. It’ll be fine.”

“Sir, she could have painkillers. She could have nurses, and people who know what they’re doing.”

“You’re just making her mad, Mason. She says she’s not going. Have you ever known Mimi to change her mind?”

A squeal came from Mimi’s bedroom. Mason’s hair stood straight up. “No, sir.”

“It’s best not to fight with her right now, then. You gotta work with the cards you’re dealt.”

He didn’t want to play this particular game. Mason wanted someone else to deliver Mimi’s child. He wanted to be a muss-free uncle. Antiseptic and next door. But they were tough, annoying country stock, and they were going to do it their way. Which he understood because he was the same way. “Yes, sir,” he said, and returned to Mimi’s room.

Helga had the bed changed and Mimi in a fresh nightgown. Mason sat down in a chair by the window, looking at his friend.

It was a mistake. The whole thing was a comedy of errors. This should be his child. Mimi should be his wife.

But those thoughts were the wrong ones to have. The past couldn’t be changed. Wasn’t that what drove
everybody on the planet? People made choices, and then they lived with those choices.

He closed his eyes and waited.

F
ANNIN AND
K
ELLY WENT
into the main house on the Jefferson property. All the brothers were perched in the den. “What’s happening?” they demanded.

“Nothing yet,” Fannin said. “Just some aches and pains. And some groaning.”

“Mason’s?” Archer wanted to know.

“Exactly. We need to get a truck ready for riding.”

“Mason just called,” Bandera said, “and he said not to knock yourself out. Mimi’s definitely not leaving.”

Fannin frowned. “That’s a turn of events. He looked like he might drag her when we left.”

“Nope,” Bandera said. “Think we’re in for some real drama.”

Kelly sighed. “I’ll make some hot tea for you while you wait. Anybody want some, before I go back over to help my mother?”

The brothers’ expressions guiltily slid away from her.

“We can get it ourselves. Thanks, Kelly,” Calhoun said.

Since when did this bunch not want to be waited on?

“Sit down, Kelly,” Fannin said. “You’re off duty for the holidays. We’re hitting the restart button and taking care of ourselves for a few days.”

She pursed her lips. “Then I think I’ll go upstairs and freshen up. If my mother calls, somebody please get me.”

Hurrying upstairs, Kelly unlocked the bedroom door—she’d swiped a key from Helga’s hiding place as her mother instructed—and went inside. Almost everything was wrapped.

Everything except for her mother’s present to Fannin. Pulling the blinds down so there’d be no repeat of the earlier incident—although she didn’t think even Fannin would be so stupid, but you could never tell—she turned on a lamp that threw a soft glow into the room.

Kneeling, Kelly pulled a sweater out from underneath the bed. Her mother had knit the sweater, using deep shades of blue, green and red. It was a lovely sweater. Helga had explained that Fannin needed one because all of his had holes. Helga had been very touched when he offered to take her out to the movies, knowing he didn’t usually go anywhere except maybe Lampy’s or somewhere in town.

She didn’t like him, she’d emphasized to Kelly. All of the boys were bad except Mason. But Fannin needed a new sweater. Smiling, Kelly placed the sweater in a box and wrapped it. She could understand why the men resented Helga’s mothering—and she could understand why Helga was annoyed by the men. It was such a shame that the relationship hadn’t worked out, because it was one with benefits on both sides.

A knock at the door had her shoving the present underneath the bed. “Yes?”

“Kelly, it’s Last.”

Her eyes widened. “Have you heard from Mason? Is it Mimi’s baby? Does mother need me?”

“No. We’d like to talk to you for a minute. If you don’t mind.”

She frowned. “We?”

“Archer, Calhoun, Navarro, Bandera, Crockett and me,” Last said.

That was quite a roll call. “Can I meet you downstairs?” She didn’t want them anywhere near the presents.

“Sure.”

Swiftly, she stuck a bow on Fannin’s package, took a last mental count of everything her mother had asked her to do, then scooped up Joy. “Let’s go see what those mean old men want.”

Downstairs, she found the brothers in chairs, obviously waiting for her. Their hair was slicked, their shirts were straight. Not a boot was on a table. “You wanted to see me?”

They all stood. Kelly gasped. “Well, sit back down, you’re making me nervous.”

They sat, and she sat with Joy in her lap.

“Kelly,” Last said. “We owe you an apology.”

She blinked. “For?”

Last’s ears turned a little pink. The other brothers shifted in their unusually stiff seating arrangements. “We never liked your mother.”

“I know.”

“So we were all for not liking you,” Archer explained.

“Oh, I see,” Kelly said.

“And we definitely didn’t want you, you know, getting involved with Fannin, although we could see that he pretty much had his mind set on pursuing you. And Fannin’s odd that way. Once he starts something, he tackles it with ferocity,” Calhoun stated. “We’ve got a bounty bull in our pasture that in no-wise needs to be here to do the job. A syringe would have done just fine—”

“Wait,” Crockett interrupted. “Let’s not tell fifty stories here, okay? The point is, we determined to keep you and Fannin apart.”

Kelly’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s all right.”

Archer coughed. “It is?”

“Certainly. Fannin and I are not…an item.”

“Oh.” Last seemed confused by this. “We thought—”

“That you might be getting a new sister-in-law and mother-in-law you didn’t like.” Kelly spied an extra boot toe peeking around the corner in the kitchen. Clearly, Fannin had not been aware of his brothers’ schemes and he wanted to listen in. “I understand completely.”

“You do,” Crockett said.

“I do.” And that pairing of words brought Mimi’s warning about the one girl who had loved Fannin to mind. “Trust me,” she said. “Apology accepted and
no hard feelings. But don’t worry about it anymore. Fannin and I would never, ever, under any possible circumstances, get
married.
”

“W
ELL
,
THAT WENT OVER
like a lead balloon,” Last said after Kelly went back upstairs. “Trying to do the right thing sucks.”

“And I don’t even think she had PMS,” Archer said. “She took us not wanting her and her mother in the family pretty calmly.”

“Yeah, that was weird,” Calhoun agreed. “Most girls would cry or have histrionics of some type.”

“So much for our Christmas conscience,” Crockett said. “That was a dumb idea, Last.”

“It was not! Confession is good for the soul, particularly on Christmas Eve, you know, right before the heavenly birth and all that,” Last said in defense of himself.

“Speaking of birth, I’m going to ring Mason’s cell. Surely he’s ready for a dose of painkillers now.” Navarro dialed up Mason. “Hey, bro.”

Fannin left his position of stealth to step into the room. None of his brothers noticed him. He was furious that they had conspired against Kelly and him. But he was happy they had tried to do the right thing by being honest.

He wished he hadn’t heard Kelly say she and he would never get married. Somehow that seemed to flip his determination switch to a higher level.

“Dude, that doesn’t sound good,” Navarro said.
“It’s starting to snow outside. The flakes aren’t big, but the roads may get weird. If you think her contractions are three minutes apart, don’t you think it’s time to hit it, ol’ man?”

Navarro listened for a minute, then said, “Well, we’ll all be here. Call us.”

He hung up, looking around the room. “Mimi won’t go to the hospital, and Mason agrees with her. He should be visited by the men in white coats.”

“So now what?” Fannin demanded.

“Mason thinks Mimi might change her mind when the contractions get to about two minutes apart. He says he’s lost a pound from sweating, and she’s about torn his fingers down to his knuckles.”

“Does he want us over there?”

“He specifically said none of us, not even Kelly, are to come near the house. He said Mimi’s so wild right now that if she even hears a pin drop, she screams. Helga’s got her calm again, but he doesn’t want to jinx it.”

“Oh, God,” Last said, turning pale. “Poor Mason.”

They all turned to Last, realizing what had him so spooked. There had been a thirteenth Jefferson brother due—the final one, his mother had promised, she wanted a baker’s dozen—but something had gone wrong. Last had found his mother in bed, asleep he thought, but when he couldn’t arouse her, he’d run to the fields to get Maverick.

Maverick’s beloved wife was gone.

“It’s okay, Last,” Fannin said. “Don’t freak. Someone yell for Kelly. Let’s all have a round of schnapps while we wait on the main event.”

“I’m going out,” Last said.

“On Christmas Eve?” Navarro asked.

“Yeah.” Last backed toward the door. “I gotta get…get some air.”

Fannin frowned as his little brother left. “I should have seen that coming.”

“How could you?” Crockett demanded. “He’s the family philosophe. We count on him to be level-headed.”

“And we all know he desperately wants children in this house. But that he’s not going to put any here himself. Kelly!” Fannin hollered up the stairs. “You know,” he told his brothers, “as soon as Christmas is over, I’m starting a serious new search for Maverick. There’s some new databases we can check. New technology. And I’ve even thought about putting Hawk on the job.”

Hawk was an amazing tracker. They didn’t know much about him, but he’d performed Native-American marriage ceremonies for Ranger and then Tex. He was a pretty cool dude as far as the brothers were concerned.

“Hawk might have some ideas,” Crockett said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because none of us wants to be disappointed again,” Calhoun said, “and it’s Christmas so we’re getting frickin’ maudlin.”

“You bellowed?” Kelly asked, entering the room.

Fannin waved a bottle at her. “Join us for schnapps.”

“I think I’d better keep a clear head in case Mama needs me,” Kelly said. “Maybe some hot cocoa.”

The men all stared at her. Fannin set the bottle down. “Cocoa,” he said slowly, “is what we all need.”

“I could make us some,” Kelly offered.

“I’ll help you,” Fannin said, walking toward her.