Southern Hearts (Southern Love Series) (13 page)

"
They remain friends and thank their families for
their continuous support for all this time. Reports circulated early this month
that Austin McBride allegedly had an affair with twenty-seven-year-old chef
Farrah Rue, who was the caterer for their wedding.
"

Austin swished around the Jack Daniel's in his glass as he
watched the breaking news on the entertainment channel regarding his breakup
with Rebecca. He knew people were speculating about their breakup, but he
didn't care. It felt like a ton of bricks was lifted off him. He looked at his
phone for the third time that night. He had to beg and plead with the fire
marshal to give him Farrah's number. The man finally gave it to him after
Austin gave him his season Dallas Cowboys tickets. He'd called Farrah over ten
times, and she wouldn't pick up or call him back. Turning off the TV, he sat in
the dark, quiet room, staring absently at his phone's bright screen.

Picking up his cell phone, he called Shane and was
surprised when his cousin answered the phone. "I just want to know how
Farrah's doing," he said.

"Farrah is okay. She needed this vacation to get away
from her problems," Shane replied.

"I broke up with Rebecca. Everything was a lie,"
Austin said.

"Please give her time, cousin," Shane pleaded.
"Farrah needs to do some soul searching."

Austin could hear noise in the background. "Where are
you?"

"I'm at the airport." There was a pause before
Shane continued. "She still loves you."

"I need to see her," he said through clenched
teeth.

"She doesn't want to see you, and I'm not going to
tell you where she's at!" Shane yelled.

"Shane!" Austin shouted.

"Farrah will contact you when she is ready; just give
her time. That's all I ask. I know you care about her."

"I love her!" he shouted.

"Then give her time—and yourself time—to sort your
feelings out," Shane quickly said. "I have to go, but I will keep in
contact with her and relay information to you."

"Shane!" Austin called out to dead air. That
bastard had hung up on him.

Austin was about to put the phone down, or maybe throw it
across the room, when he saw Shane had sent him a text message. He opened it
and stared at a picture of Farrah in a metallic silver, two-piece bathing suit.

He thought about the feelings he'd had from the first time
he had seen her face, and he knew she was the one.

He needed to let her know that he was going to make
everything better. He had to show Farrah that she was the only woman for him.
She was the woman he had been searching his whole life for.

Austin stood up and picked up his guitar. He hummed out a
few different tunes before writing a whole new song. He would call it
"Complete."

"I realize you are the woman I need by my side

"She encouraged me and loved me

"I am meant to be with her and I can't live without
her

"My momma told me if I ever found that woman who I
would lay my whole life down for, I had to make sure

I didn't let her go."

Austin wasn't afraid to pour his heart out in each and
every song he wrote. He wasn't afraid to let his fans know that he'd cried
because he missed the woman he loved.

"If I could take back the pain I caused you, I
would."

***

New Orleans, LA

Farrah sat in the rental car, looking at the old yellow
house she'd stayed in for a year until she graduated and moved to New York to
attend culinary school. Twisting the gold necklace around her neck, she knew
she couldn't sit in the car all day even if she wanted to. She opened the car
door and stepped out into the hot, humid New Orleans weather. Farrah made the
trek up to her grandmother's front door and rang the doorbell.

"Child, is that you?" Mona Rue said as she peered
through the screen door wearing a sundress.

"Hi, Nana." Farrah could see the disapproval in
her grandmother's eyes. "I wanted to see how you are

doing."

"I'm doing well." Mona coughed. She made no move
to let Farrah inside the house.

"I was wondering if we could talk, Nana," Farrah
said. She was beginning to feel like a stranger.

"Come in," Mona said reluctantly as she held the
screen door open for her.

Farrah nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a car
alarm blaring in the distance. She remembered as a teenager that her mother
didn't want her hanging outside due to the crime rate in Uptown. Since
Hurricane Katrina, crime in Uptown had escalated. When Farrah made her first
profit off Southern Rose, she had offered to move Mona to a retirement
community in Dallas, but Mona was a stubborn woman who didn't want anyone,
including her own grandchild, to do anything for her.

Farrah looked around the tiny but tidy three-bedroom house.
She sat down on the sofa, which was covered in plastic. She didn't know why she
felt so nervous and uneasy around her grandmother. Maybe it was because she knew
how judgmental the woman could be. No matter what she did in life, it was never
enough in Mona Rue's eyes.

"So, you are knocked up?" Mona's voice was full
of disapproval.

"Yes," Farrah said.

Her grandmother always had a way of sensing when a woman
was pregnant—and telling her about it. Farrah didn't understand how Mona knew
about her pregnancy, because it wasn't like she was running around town telling
people.

"You're pregnant by that white man?" Mona spat.
"You telling me you laid down and had unprotected sex with a man who was
getting married to another woman?"

Farrah bit on her bottom lip so hard she thought it was
going to bleed. She could only smile and nod her head. She was fearful she
might say something to her grandmother that she would later regret.

"Everybody in my church talking about how my slut of a
granddaughter wrecked a relationship, same as her mother!" she yelled.

Farrah felt numb and in shock as she looked over at her
grandmother. Straightening her posture, she looked her grandmother directly in
the face.

"No disrespect, Nana, but I didn't come here to hear
what you or what the congregation at Shiloh Baptist Church has to say about
me."

"Lord, please help this rude child who is sitting in
my house talking back to me." Mona shook her hands up in the air.

"It was a terrible mistake coming here, Nana. I just
wanted to see how you were doing." Farrah stood up to leave but stopped.
"Actually, Nana, I wanted us to have a better relationship, but I see
that's not going to work."

"Do you know why your father killed your mother?"
Mona said as she started to cough abruptly.

"They always fought, Nana. It was nothing new,"
Farrah said as she walked to the front door.

"My son found out you weren't his daughter. Your
mother told him to get out the house he bought with his hard-earned money after
he told her another man had approached him and let him know that the daughter
he had been raising for seventeen years wasn't his child."

Farrah stood there in shock. "That's a lie! My momma
wouldn't do that!"

"Your whore of a mother pushed my son over the edge.
She went and slept with a married man, and now you following in the same
footsteps as your mother!" Mona screamed.

"Who is he?" Farrah's voice was more of a
whisper.

Mona sneered. "Claude DeCuir. He owns a few businesses
in the area."

Farrah's bottom lip trembled. "I will see you later
today."

"Farrah!" Mona called out.

"Yes, ma'am?" Farrah said and looked back.

"You are not my grandchild. Every time I look at you,
I see the mistake my son made with your mother. He should have married Valerie
Williams, the woman who gave him a son."

"Nana, I didn't come here to fuss or argue with you.
You're the only family I have left."

Farrah wanted to run to her grandmother and ask her why.
Why was she saying these awful things?

"Farrah, I'm not your blood." She sat and lit a
cigarette. "I'm done with you. You ain't no blood of mine!"

Mona yelled and started coughing.

"Blood or not, I still love you, and nothing can
change that," Farrah said through clenched teeth. "Not even you."

Farrah made a U-turn and went to the kitchen, where she
fixed Mona a glass of water for her coughing spell. Kneeling down, she handed
her grandmother the glass of ice water.

"Every time I see your face, you remind me of your
no-good mother, who ruined my son's life the day she walked into it," Mona
said as tears ran down her wrinkled face.

Farrah kissed her grandmother on the cheek and walked out
the door. She didn't know how she made it to the car without falling apart, but
she did. When she got there, she cried and cried until she couldn't cry any
more.

"God, why?" she asked. "Why?"

Farrah took one last glance at the house where she was
practically raised. Tearing her eyes away from the house, Farrah drove away
from the painful memories and words that tore her heart apart.

***

"Farrah, wake up. I done killed your momma."

"What, Daddy?" Farrah slowly rose from her bed.
She looked at her dad, covered in blood. "Momma!" she screamed as she
pushed past her father.

Farrah ran down the hall, following the blood trail. She
could hear moans coming from the kitchen.

"Oh, God, what did he do?" Farrah grabbed the
cordless phone. "I need help! My dad stabbed my mom, she's bleeding
everywhere." Farrah applied pressure to her mother's wounds, but there
were too many, and she was bleeding heavily.

"Farrah, my baby girl!"

"Momma, please!" Farrah could see the light in
her mother's eyes becoming dull. She yelled into the phone.

"She's going to die if you don't come quickly."

"I love you, Farrah," her mother said.

"Tell me what to do. She's stopped breathing!"
Farrah screamed to the dispatcher before a loud pop made her jump.

Farrah woke up in a cold sweat, her breathing hard. She
recalled the night her parents had died. Turning the light on, she sat up in
her bed. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly as she tried to slow down her
rapid heart rate. Grabbing the cordless phone, she called the one person who
could understand her.

***

Austin raced down the ladder from the barn's loft when Hank
yelled up to him that Farrah Rue was on the phone.

"Hello," he said breathlessly.

He was greeted with silence, but he could hear her
breathing on the other end of the line.

"Farrah, baby, talk to me," he pleaded. "Are
you okay?"

"I'm okay, Austin. I think I just needed to hear you
voice."

"Don't hang up." Austin took off his gloves and
sat down on the bale of hay in the barn. "Just listen to me." When
Farrah didn't respond to him, he continued talking. "The first day I looked
into your eyes, I knew there was something between us. My mother always said
that I needed a woman who could cook and who would keep me grounded." He
paused, wiping the sweat from his brow. "I found that woman the day I met
you. I found the woman who brings out the best in me. Farrah, I want you to
marry me and be the mother of my children."

"Austin—"

"No," he interrupted her. "Being around you
made me realize how wrong Rebecca and I were for each other. If you tell me
right now that you don't want me, well, I won't accept that, baby, because as
long as I'm here on God's green earth, I'm going to show you that I could be
the husband and friend you need."

"Austin! I'm pregnant," she interrupted.
"How do you feel about that?" she asked.

"Happy, blessed, excited," he rambled until he
realized that Farrah didn't say anything. "How do you feel about it?"
he asked.

"Scared, nervous, and ecstatic," she replied.
"When is your wedding?"

"Farrah, didn't you listen to anything I just
said?" he asked softly. "I'm not getting married to Rebecca. And she's
not having a baby. She was lying. There will be a wedding, but only you
marrying me," he said.

"I'm sorry," she replied. "Austin, I need
time to figure things out." She disconnected.

"Shit!" he yelled as he hung up the phone.

"Trouble in paradise?" Hank said as he stood against
the wall. "Hank, not now," Austin grumbled. He snatched his gloves
up.

"Give Farrah a break. You are grown-ass people who had
an affair and fell in love. I knew that deep down Farrah didn't expect you to
leave Rebecca. Shit, I didn't either. Rebecca was on you like white on rice.
Even Ray Charles could see that Rebecca didn't love you, only the green that
you had coming out of your ass." Hank smirked.

"It took me a minute to close one door and open
another," Austin said as he brushed the sweat off his forehead. He had
been working hard on the farm, trying to keep his mind off Farrah.

"Did you know that Farrah had been here for three
years?" Hank smiled. "Your mother loved Farrah's restaurant, would go
there just to get a bite of pecan pie. I don't even know that Farrah realizes
Charlene was your mother."

Austin sat down on the bale of hay.

"When you met Rebecca, your momma already had someone
else in mind for you. Who do you think started the routine of eating Sunday
dinner at Southern Rose? Charlene was hoping that she would have the chance to introduce
you to Farrah, but it didn't come."

A smile slowly crept across Austin's face. His mother had
wanted him to be with Farrah from day one. Maybe she was still pulling strings
for them up in heaven.

***

"There is someone I want you to meet,"
Charlene said happily.

Her smile faded when Austin walked through the front
door holding hands with a woman. "Mom, I want you to meet Rebecca,"
Austin said cheerfully. "Oh," Charlene said and kept a pleasant smile
on her face.