Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything (28 page)

She quit fiddling with her keyboard and glanced at the clock again. “Who?”

“A local cop. Bubba Appleby.”

“He's an Appleby?”

“Right. Posie and Poppy's younger brother.”

She wrinkled her nose. “His name is really Bubba?”

“That's what his friends and family call him. He's kinda cute. Okay, he's really cute. Have you met him?”

“I don't know any cops. Did he go to Alamo?”

I had forgotten that Gracie knew the university crowd more than the townies. When I considered whether Appleby had the brains to attend the local college, I said, “I doubt it.”

She put her chin in her hand and sighed. “I saw Rico this morning, going to the saloon. I think he might have waved at me.”

That made me feel even guiltier for dancing with her would-be Romeo at the roadhouse, so I grabbed Fred up into my arms and headed for the door. “Well, thanks for the directions. I'll talk to you later!”

“Bye-bye!”

I hustled out the door and headed for the parking lot. Fred licked my face and was happy to find us back in the Lexus. He sat up in the passenger seat to watch the world go by. I started the car and had put it into reverse to back out of my parking space when another car whipped up behind me and pulled into the handicapped space right by the door to the law office. I waited to see who was in such a rush to see a lawyer. And I couldn't help it—I wanted to see if the driver really deserved the handicapped space.

To my surprise, President Cornfelter got out of the car. He looked far from handicapped. He had another bunch of flowers in his hand—the kind from the supermarket checkout stand, wrapped in cellophane. Big spender. As I watched, he went into the office and disappeared.

Fred made a noise in his throat—not a whine or a growl, but a noise of puzzlement.

“I know,” I said to him. “Who is President Cornfelter taking flowers to? There's nobody in the office but Gracie.”

I thought of the way Gracie had been watching the clock.

Had she been expecting President Cornfelter?

To Fred, I said, “That's impossible.”

He looked at me with his ears pricked up.

“There's no way Gracie is dating a man that age.”

But that didn't mean President Cornfelter wasn't smitten with Gracie. Was he bothering her?

To Fred, I said, “I think I better go back inside. I'll leave the air conditioner running for you, okay?” I lowered the windows a few inches to be on the safe side.

A minute later, I let myself back inside the building and slammed the door to give Gracie some warning. From the vestibule, I called, “Gracie? Did I leave a dog leash in here?”

By the time I reached her desk, she was sitting at her keyboard, smoothing her hair and acting as if nothing was amiss. One of the office doors that had been standing open minutes earlier was now closed. I guessed President Cornfelter was hiding behind it. His flowers lay on the desk, still in their cellophane wrapping.

Gracie's voice was pitched just a tad too high. “I didn't notice a leash. Are you sure you left it?”

Her lipstick didn't look as precise as it had a couple of minutes ago, and she didn't meet my eye. If she'd been afraid, she could have signaled me somehow, but she wasn't in distress. I could see that.

“My mistake.” I said, “I must have left it in the car.”

She gave me a fingertip wave. “Bye!”

A moment later, I was back in the car with Fred, stunned. “I don't believe it,” I said to him.

He gave a dog snort and shook himself all over as if ridding himself of a distasteful idea.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Cornfelter is a creep. Is Gracie so desperate for a boyfriend, she'll date even him?”

I drove out of the parking lot, still trying to get my head around Gracie and President Cornfelter. What kind of horndog romanced Honeybelle Hensley and later took the same cheap flowers to a paralegal half his age?

According to Gracie, Ten's ranch lay out of town on the Boone Parkway—a glorious name for a dusty two-lane road that started out with a row of mobile homes planted in a cotton field. Then came a large garage surrounded by pickup trucks. I slowed down as I reached Miss Patty's pie shop—an old gas station converted to a picturesque bakery with cheery paint and a drive-up window. A hand-lettered sign stuck in the ground out front announced today's special—blueberry pie. After that, the wind blew dust sideways across the road, sending bolls of cotton skittering along in the wake of Honeybelle's Lexus.

At last I reached a pasture where a large, speckled, mostly Brahman bull grazed on thin grass. A painted sign hung on the fence, proclaiming his name.

HELLRAZOR

WORLD CHAMPION BUCKING BULL

As I turned, the bull looked up from eating and stared at me with menace. I was glad to put him in my rearview mirror. I bumped the car on a tar and chip road for several hundred yards.

The ranch buildings came into view. First I saw a low, faded clapboard one-story house that must have stood on the property for a hundred years. It had a long, crooked front porch that featured a picnic table and a wooden swing, painted blue, on chains. The roof was new—bright red tin. A single tree shaded the house but looked as if it had been struck by lightning a long time ago. Only a lopsided half remained—a magnificent curve of graceful branches that sheltered the house.

Stretching away from the house was the land as I had never really seen it before. Wide and sun baked, but not colorless. Far from it. The shades of gold seemed endless, punctuated by splashes of blue flowers—bluebonnets, I guessed. The vastness made me suddenly think of the native people who must have traveled this land for centuries. They must have dwelled in a place as long as it could sustain them, then moved on without inflicting change on the landscape. This endless prairie seemed untouched by anything but earth, wind, and very little water, which magically produced an astonishing beauty.

I had been determined to learn the town and the university to find how I might fit in, but here was the Texas I had not yet allowed myself to know. The horizon cut the vivid azure sky so distinctly I could have hung my heart on it.

I tried to think of something wise my mother might have said about land, but I couldn't. She had loved her butterflies and the adventure of discovery, but I had never heard her speak of any connection she felt to a special place. Maybe she had never been emotionally rooted to earth and sky the way I was suddenly aware of. Had she missed this feeling?

I saw a lone butterfly dancing over a flower by the edge of the drive. It fluttered one moment but seemed to disappear the next. I watched carefully, but it did not reappear. Perhaps I had imagined it.

As beautiful as the scenery was, I had a hard time picturing someone like Poppy Appleby enjoying her newlywed status in such a wild and remote place.

Across the driveway were several corrals and a pole barn with a very old tractor sitting in its open doorway. In one corral, several horses swished their tails under the shade of another big tree. I recognized Hondo by his spots. Ten's Jeep was parked in the shadow of the barn.

Out in the pasture sat a livestock trailer with its gate down, as if awaiting an animal.

In another corral, Ten worked a young chestnut horse on a lunge line. The horse reared up on his hind legs and batted at the rope, trying to escape. Ten pulled him down and got him cantering again, but the horse bucked with every few strides and shook his head as if objecting to the exercise. Ten steadily held the line in one hand, and with the other he wielded a long, thin whip with a small flag on its tip, gently flicking it behind the horse to keep him moving. The young horse fought the line, occasionally throwing his weight against it, but Ten coaxed him back into a canter every time.

Ten looked happy to be doing battle with a large, angry animal.

Ten also looked good in his dusty jeans—a thought I tried to wash out of my head as soon as it arrived.

From the backseat, I grabbed the container of Mae Mae's frozen étouffée. I left the car door open on the off-chance Fred woke up and wanted to take a tour of the place. In the searing sunlight I went over to the fence. I balanced the container on the top of a fence post and climbed up to hang on the top rail to squint into the sun. The ranch smell was different from the smell of farms in Ohio—drier, certainly. The angle of the sun was sharper in Texas, too. But the chirping of swallows in the barn sounded the same. Ten's voice—quietly reassuring as he talked nonsense to the horse—sounded like every other person who worked well with animals.

After about ten minutes, the chestnut was sweating and calmer. Ten eased up on the line, and the horse immediately slowed to a tired walk. Ten drew him nearer and gave his long neck a rub before unclipping the line and turning him loose. The horse swung his head to bite Ten, but he missed and trotted away to the other side of the corral.

Ten ambled over to me. Wearing those delicious jeans.

Unaware that my impure thoughts were roaming around his pockets, he tucked his sunglasses into his shirt and used his teeth to pull off his gloves. “When are you going to learn to wear a hat?”

I realized my skin was prickling as if more freckles were bursting out before his eyes. “I'll remember one of these days.” I shaded my eyes with my hand. “You were having a good time out there. You must like animals that can break you into little pieces.”

“I appreciate a challenge,” he agreed with a grin. “Stick around. In a little while I'm going to lure my bull into a trailer.” He pointed at the vehicle parked out in the pasture. “We've got the Junior Rodeo later this week, and he's the main attraction. Getting him loaded up is the ultimate test.”

“You like the danger,” I said.

“Don't start. I've heard all the lectures before.”

“Who's lecturing?”

“My mom, my dad. Poppy.”

“You look like you know what you're doing. Here, I brought you some dinner from Mae Mae.”

His eyes lit up, and he reached for the container. He unscrewed the lid and took a peek. “Give Mae Mae a big kiss from me.”

“I'm getting along with her better now, but we haven't reached that stage.” I threw caution to the wind. “What are the chances Mae Mae could be your fiancée's next big television star?”

“She sure has the right cooking skills.” Ten screwed the lid back on the container.

“And a big personality, too. Did you mention Mae Mae to her?”

“To Poppy? Not me. She said you brought up the idea. I might have chimed in, that's all.”

“Well, thanks. Poppy dropped by this morning to propose an audition. I think Mae Mae's really excited about it.”

“Mae Mae deserves something good.”

“Thank Poppy for me.”

“Thank her yourself.”

Even though Poppy and I seemed to have reached a détente, I said, “It might be heard better, coming from you.”

Ten glanced up at me on the fence, then focused on placing the container carefully back on top of the post. “Maybe you're right.”

“Listen,” I said after a strange second slipped by, “I appreciate the help on the restraining order thing. I should probably get another lawyer, though, considering you're already working for the Hensley family, right?”

“You're right again,” he said. “I know all the lawyers in town. Let me think about who could help you. Somebody will be the right fit.”

“Someone who can put me on a payment plan. I'm not exactly rolling in money.”

“Not yet,” he said, voice loaded.

I had a feeling my inheritance from Honeybelle was in big jeopardy, but I didn't say so. “I don't suppose you heard anything from your future in-laws at Sunday supper? About the order against me or Miss Ruffles, that is?”

“It didn't come up, and I didn't ask,” Ten said. “There was a lot of wedding talk, which I tend to tune out.”

I smiled. “That's how you end up wearing a powder blue tuxedo with a ruffled shirt, you know.”

“I trust Poppy to make the right decisions.”

“That's nice,” I said. “Trust is … nice. You've known each other a long time?”

“Since kindergarten.” Ten lifted a loop of rope from the gate and let himself out of the corral. “Junior high trip to Dallas, senior prom, all that. She went off to college out east, though, and I went to A&M, so it wasn't until these last couple of years that we got together again. She came around when I … when I needed somebody. She was great. Really helped improve my outlook on things so I could get back on my feet.”

With a nod, he pointed out a field where a patch of grass had been blackened by a bonfire. It looked like the kind of spot where he dragged branches and scrap wood to burn; a brush pile was stacked there, ready for a match. The wood leaned against the frame of a wheelchair. Its seat was burned away, and the rubber wheels were long gone, but the structure of the chair had been left to hold the wood for fires. To me, it looked like an act of rage had first parked the wheelchair there, and someone took satisfaction in seeing it in the center of many bonfires thereafter.

It was a kind of monument to his recovery from whatever bull-riding accident had injured him so badly. I didn't say that, however.

Instead, I climbed down from the fence and faced him. “So you were friends first. That's supposed to be good for a marriage.”

“We were never friends,” he said in a tone that surprised me. “Maybe that will change once she moves out here.”

“She's moving here?” I glanced at the ramshackle house, thinking back to when I overheard Posie talking to Hut about her plans to move into Honeybelle's mansion and to pass her own home along to Poppy and her new husband.

“Sure she's coming here,” Ten said. “After the wedding.”

Over by the house, Fred jumped down from the car and stretched stiffly. Awake from his nap, he spotted us and waddled over to me with the slow gait of an old animal with a bad case of arthritis. I gave him a pat, and he stretched his neck to touch his nose to Ten's knee for a tentative sniff. I held my breath.