Morning Glory (14 page)

Clara smiled brightly at the older woman. "Good
morning. My, oh my, you're already dressed for
church."

"Got to set an example for the younger set. Actually,
I'm excited this morning. We finished the altar cloth
and we're going to church early to spread it out.
Couldn't sleep thinking about it since we've worked so
long. I smell cinnamon rolls. I love Sunday morning."
Bessie brushed past her.

"See you at the table." Clara went back into her
room. She chose a new dress from her wardrobe: pale
blue serge that matched her eyes perfectly. It had a striped collar and belt to match. Tilly had talked her
into buying it and then insisted she purchase new white
shoes. In a few weeks it would be too late to wear the
shoes, so she'd been wearing them almost every
Sunday. She combed out her long hair and twisted it up
the back of her head into a French roll, fastening it
down with a handful of hairpins. She'd put on a white
straw hat after breakfast.

Tilly parked her car in front of the boarding house
and inhaled deeply when she opened the door. Yes,
there it was. Cinnamon rolls just like Dulcie promised.
Tilly would get up early any Sunday morning, even if
she had been out until the wee hours on Saturday night,
for a plate full of Dulcie's cinnamon rolls. Using the
car window as a mirror, she set her hat at a jaunty angle
and set off toward the house.

"Good morning," she called out through the open
screen door.

Bessie motioned her through the foyer and into the
dining room. "Just in time. Come on in. Dulcie is just
putting the icing on the top. Coffee is ready."

"Where's Clara?" Tilly asked.

"She'll be down in a minute. She's still going into his
room," Bessie whispered. "But at least she's not going
to the bench."

"Well, I've got a feeling she's going to put the gun
back in her purse after church this morning," Tilly said.

"Why?" Bessie asked.

"Good morning," Clara said from the bottom of the stairs. "I figured you'd be here early. You could smell a
cinnamon roll from thirty miles in any direction with
no wind. I believe you could even smell them from
Ragtown on a Saturday night when the liquor is flowing freely."

"Wirt," Tilly corrected her. "They've got a post office
and a school now and they're making an effort to be a
real town. And they're calling it Wirt, not Ragtown."

"It'll always be Ragtown to me. That name suits it
better," Clara said.

"And you'll always be cranky," Tilly smarted right
back.

"Why is she going to be upset when she goes to
church?" Bessie asked Tilly out of the side of her
mouth as Clara went to the buffet to pour coffee.

"Can't tell you now, but she's not going to be happy,"
Tilly said.

At the breakfast table, talk went from the new altar
cloth to Olivia's fellow named Danny and how she was
thinking a winter wedding would be nice to Dulcie's
recipe for cinnamon rolls, even though not a single one
of them ever intended to use it. Not as long as Dulcie
made them.

No one mentioned Briar or the fact that he'd moved
back to Healdton over the past week, so Tilly sat on pins
and needles, figuring she had to tell Clara and not wanting to. She finally decided the time would be right on
the way to church in the car. It wouldn't give Clara near
enough time, but she'd at least know before services.

"Oh, Tilly, darlin', Danny has to work this morning,
so could I beg a ride from you?" Olivia asked just as
Clara and Tilly were leaving the house.

"Not enough room, Olivia," Clara reminded her.
"Tilly had the rear seats removed when she bought the
car, so she can only haul one person. But it's a lovely
morning and only four blocks to the church, so why
don't the three of us walk together."

Tilly fumed.

"That would be lovely" Olivia fell into step between
Tilly and Clara, and kept up a running monologue
about the wonderful qualities of her new beau. To hear
her story, he was Prince Charming from the fairy tale.

The three of them arrived just when the choir began
the first song. Tilly led the way inside and slid into the
back pew without even looking to see if there were
other seats. Then she immediately wished she'd begged
off sick that morning. Right in front of them sat Briar
Nelson, his family and Cecil.

Clara busied herself settling into the pew, picking up
the hymnal and finding the song everyone was singing.
Her alto voice blended beautifully with Olivia's and
Tilly's soprano tones. They were into the familiar chorus of "Abide With Me" when Clara looked up and
noticed a pretty lady in front of her. Her dark hair was
pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. She wore
a lovely white cotton lawn dress trimmed in pink
checks. The look that passed between her and Cecil left no doubt there was something more than friendship
involved.

Clara looked to the next person, a small girl, barely
big enough to see above the back of the pew. She, too,
had dark hair and a little straw hat trimmed with a wide
pink grosgrain ribbon. Beside her sat a man. Clara's
eyebrows drew down in a frown. She knew the man,
had seen him before, she was sure. Suddenly, it dawned
on her. That was Briar Nelson sitting not three feet
from her. It was his scent. His hair.

"And now I would like to welcome a new family to
our congregation," the preacher said as soon as the last
words of the song were sung. "Briar, Judith and Libby
Nelson. Please stand up so the rest of the folks will recognize you after services and can make you welcome."
All three stood.

Clara's heart fell.

The preacher said some other things, but they didn't
sink into Clara's mind. All she could think about was
Briar was back and he'd brought his wife and daughter.

So that's the reason he'd run like a scalded hound
after kissing her. He was a married man. And that's
why he could give such advice about Percy. A huge
anger built a head of steam while the preacher droned
on about the evils of liquor, but she didn't hear a word
he said. Instead, she watched Cecil play with a stray
strand of hair that had come loose from Judith's bun.
Goosebumps rose up on Judith's skin. Clara wanted to slap the woman so hard her face turned crimson for letting another man touch her. Poor Briar. Then she
remembered that he'd kissed her when he was married
to Judith.

What a quandary, he kissed me. She's letting Cecil
touch her neck and evidently liking it. Hells bells, all
this oil is making the whole world crazy.

What was it the preacher had said? Rose Oil was
moving its center of operations to Healdton. Briar was
the president of the company and had bought the farm
adjacent to Tucker's place. The same farm where he'd
brought in his first gusher. He and his family would be
living right there in Healdton. She'd have to cross paths
with them in a town as small as Healdton, see his face
and smile at his wife, be nice to his child.

Briar tried to listen to the sermon, but a prickly sensation on the back of his neck kept his attention elsewhere. He leaned down to whisper something in
Libby's ear when she fidgeted too much and out of
peripheral vision saw Clara right behind him. Sitting
between Tilly and Olivia. Well, now that was a new
twist. Clara must have forgiven the preacher to be back
in church. He remembered Tilly saying something
about her not attending church in ten years. Briar wondered what had been in that letter. He thought about the
kiss again and a deep yearning started down deep in his
soul for what he couldn't have. He'd known he'd probably see Clara in town from time to time. He hadn't
planned on seeing her at church every Sunday.

Clara needed a few days to get her emotions sorted
out. At least a week before the next Sunday services to
brace up her nerves and restore her sass. Slowly, during
benediction, she arose and slipped out the back door
while everyone's head was bowed. She might have to
be a lady, but she didn't have to face the ordeal that day.
When she got home, she went straight to her room.

Tilly plowed up the stairs like an elephant on a
boardwalk just minutes behind her. She threw open the
bedroom door and stomped over to the bed, hands on
hips, anger written all over her face. "Get up out of that
bed and come down to lunch. Dulcie made chicken and
dumplings and the ladies are already talking about
Briar and his family. You will not lay up here and be
the butt of the jokes. You're going to come down there
with a smile on your face and pretend nothing ever
happened"

"No.

"It's not a question, my dear cousin. It's an order.
I'm the only one who knows that he kissed you so get
off that bed and-"

Clara threw up her hands in defeat. "Okay, okay. Just
shut up"

"That's more like it," Tilly said.

"It was a shock seeing him there with his family. Am
I never going to be attracted to a man who's not already
married? I thought my problem with him was that he
was an oil man and I find out that is the least of his
faults."

Tilly motioned out into the hallway and Clara followed. "Just let it all go. Stay out of his room. Forget
him."

Clara stopped dead. "Out of his room?"

"Oh, come on, I know you go in there every morning
before breakfast," Tilly said. "Girl, if you sneezed in
the attic or coughed in the basement, I'd know within
an hour that you were coming down with a cold."

"That's ridiculous," Clara snapped.

"There's my cousin with the fire and stamina," Tilly
told her.

"And there's my cousin who keeps the fire stoked
and the stamina fueled up real good," Clara said sarcastically. "Oh, by the way, thank you."

"You are very welcome," Tilly said with just as much
acid in her tone. "And after lunch I'm taking you to go
out to the farm for the afternoon and evening. I'll bring
you home after supper, up near bedtime. That way you
won't have to spend the whole afternoon listening to
talk about how pretty his wife and daughter are."

"Or thinking about how much his wife was flirting
with Cecil all during the sermon."

"Guess you noticed that, too. I feel sorry for Briar,"
Tilly said.

"Briar?! I feel sorry for her. He's the one out kissing
on other women. Maybe she's got a right to flirt," Clara
said.

Nellie called out from the dining room table. "Would
you two get on in here and find a chair? Rest of us are hungry. We were just talking about that Briar Nelson
and his wife. Cute little girl. Guess he must've liked the
area to bring his business here. We must have all been
real good company. Wonder if he'll bring the little lady
around for us to visit with. Strange though that he never
told us he was a married man. There I was trying to
pawn him off on Tilly or even you, Clara, and him with
a family. All goes to show how well I know menfolks"

"I should hope he'd bring his wife around. I'd like to
get to know her," Olivia said. "When Danny proposes
and we have our own home, I intend to invite them for
supper."

Tilly almost snorted.

Bessie chuckled.

Clara said a silent prayer as she filled her plate with
chicken and dumplings, giving thanks for Olivia for the
first time. That girl did manage, in her inexperienced
way, to lighten the mood around the table.

Lightning zig-zagged across the sky. Thunder
boomed. Rain fell in sheets. Black clouds fluttered
overhead, but they weren't all evidence of a storm.
Some of them were billowing bubbles of smoke from
the fire at one of the Crystal Oil wells. It was a well
owner's worst nightmare, one that had happened in that
very location more than once. Fires. Difficult to contain. Even harder to completely put out. Yet, it seemed
to be the only thing that drew everyone together. Rich.
Poor. Oil man. Townspeople. When fire threatened the
wells or the buildings, everyone worked hand in hand.
The oil men and the townspeople rallied together to put
out the demon fires and to save their town and the other
wells from total destruction.

A tent had been set up at the edge of town for the firefighters to get something to drink or eat or even to
rest for a few minutes. Clara moved from one table to
the next, pouring iced tea, serving ham sandwiches.
Tilly had awakened her from a dead sleep at midnight
and she'd hurriedly gotten dressed in her oldest, darkest skirt and blouse.

She'd done this job before, back in August of 1914.
Twice in one month, oil wells had caught fire. The first
one had been the result of lightning striking Crystal Oil
storage tanks. The fire raged and the rain fell. By morning, so much soot had mixed in with the raindrops that
the house roofs were literally painted black.

Clara had barely gotten rested from that catastrophe
when the next one happened, exactly fifteen days later.
The driving rain made the firefighting equipment near
impossible to move. Electrical bolts danced around
storage tanks like demons, teasing the whole area with
their power. Clara and Tilly worked non-stop that time
for two days in the tents trying to keep the firefighters
fed and rested so they could continue their efforts.