Trouble in Texas (16 page)

Brant’s gaze moved over to Beau, who was reclining back on the porch swing, eating
what appeared to be oatmeal cookies with raisins.

“Don’t look at me,” he said around a mouthful of cookie. “I wanted to hire professional
gardeners.”

“And I told you, Beauregard,” Minnie said with a shake of a gnarled finger, “that
I’m not having some untrustworthy, ham-handed workers destroyin’ Miss Hattie’s lilacs.
Those plants are delicate and need a gentle hand.”

Beau held up a hand filled with cookies. “And you think these hands are gentle?”

“He’s got a point,” Brant said. “Beau is a bit of a klutz
with everything but women. He broke more of our mother’s china and lamps than all
the brothers put together. Besides, I didn’t fly all the way out here to weed a garden.
I’m here to read Miss Hattie’s journals.” He held out a hand. “I’m sure Elizabeth
won’t mind.”

Minnie shook her head. “You’re not gettin’ them until Lizzie gets here. There’s hen
protocol to consider.”

“I’d give it up, Brant,” Beau said as he rolled to his feet. “If I’ve learned anything
in the last week, it’s that there’s no getting around the hens when they set their
mind on something. Point me in the direction of a hoe, Miss Minnie.” Beau laughed
at his pun. “I’m your humble servant.”

The smile that settled on Minnie’s face left little doubt in Brant’s mind that his
brother had wiggled his way into the woman’s heart. And for that reason, and the fact
that he couldn’t wrestle an old woman for a diary, Brant accepted his fate and followed
Beau around to the barn.

Doc Connelly turned out to be right. Gardening was soothing. There was something about
uncovering a tiny rosebush beneath a sea of weeds, or sculpting a lilac bush into
a smooth rounded shape, that eased the tight knot in his stomach and the tension in
his shoulders. Long after Beau had quit and stretched out in the hammock beneath one
of the cottonwoods, Brant kept working. By the time the sun had started to ease behind
the horizon, Miss Hattie’s garden had started to appear.

“Damn,” Beau breathed after waking up from his nap. “Who would’ve guessed that something
this beautiful was under all those weeds? Although I don’t know how it will fit into
my man-cave concept, and I don’t think the hens will let me cut it down.” His eyes
lit up. “Maybe we
could do the shooting range right inside the garden—you know, have moving targets
pop out from all the bushes.”

Brant shook his head as he leaned down to pick up the old set of hedge clippers. “And
maybe we could leave it as a garden. And instead of a cigar room, patrons could sit
out here and smoke.”

Beau looked thoroughly disappointed with the idea. “Yeah, maybe. But in winter, it’s
going to be damned cold. Of course, we could get some of those space heaters, I guess.”

Brant didn’t really care how Beau worked it out. He just didn’t want the garden destroyed
for some stupid shooting range.

“Supper’s ready,” Baby called from the back door. “I hope you like pot roast and mashed
potatoes.”

Beau didn’t even wait for the back door to close before he started toward the house.
“Come on, I’ll help you clean up the tools after dinner.”

But Brant had never been one to leave a job unfinished, so he waved his little brother
on and gathered up the tools to take back to the barn.

The barn was as cluttered as the attic, except in here the antiques were larger. An
enormous amount of furniture filled one side of stalls, while an old tractor, a flatbed
wagon, and a couple classic cars filled the other. One of the first Harley motorcycles
ever made sat amidst a pile of old bicycles. A moonshine still was right next to a
popcorn machine. What Brant
didn’t
see were trunks, and he couldn’t help but wonder where Minnie had found the journals.

He had just put the tools back in the tack room when he heard the distinct sound of
a car backfiring. He didn’t
know why he hurried out of the barn and around to the front of the house, or why he
felt so disappointed to find a beat-up Grand Prix with four bald tires rather than
Elizabeth’s Ford Escort.

The door of the car creaked open, and a young girl stepped out; a young girl who looked
like she was going to prom. And not just any prom, but Brant’s in the early nineties.
Her brown hair was piled high on her head, and she wore a black velvet dress that
was too small for her body. She was talking to someone, although whoever it was had
to be lying down in the back of the car because Brant couldn’t see them.

“Head up and shoulders straight, Starlet. Smile, but don’t giggle nervously. And remember,
you’re only as good as you—” She looked up and released a startled yelp when she saw
Brant.

“Oh.” She held a hand to her ample chest. “You scared me. I didn’t see you standing
there—” She paused and her eyes narrowed. “Are you a john?”

Brant bit back a smile. “No, I’m a Brant. And you are?”

“Starlet.” She held out a hand as if she expected Brant to kiss it. Instead, he gave
it a quick shake as she continued. “Starlet Brubaker, but my Auntie and Uncle Bernard
just call me Star on account of the fact that I’ve won every talent show there is
in Mallory County.” She flapped a hand. “I can sing any show tune you name. You want
to hear me sing a song from
Funny Girl
? People say I sound just like Babs.” She took a deep breath and started to belt out
the song. The noise that came from Starlet’s mouth sounded nothing like Barbra Streisand.
In fact, it sounded a little like a calf during branding.

“What the hell is going on?” Beau came out the front
door with a biscuit in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. “It sounds like
you’re killing a—” He stopped when he saw Starlet. Brant didn’t know who looked more
surprised: Beau, that a young girl could make that kind of a noise, or Starlet, who
looked as if she’d just run into her favorite teen idol.

She stopped singing in mid-note, and her brown eyes glazed over. Since most women
reacted that way to Beau, Brant wasn’t surprised. The only one who didn’t seem to
be caught up in his brother’s good looks was Elizabeth.

Which made Brant more than a little suspicious of the woman.

“Pardon me,” Beau said. “I didn’t know we had company.” He popped the rest of the
biscuit in his mouth before wiping off his hand on his jeans and holding it out. “Beauregard
Cates.”

Starlet’s eyes only got bigger as she stared at his offered hand and tried to stammer
out a reply. “Umm, I-I…”

“This is Starlet Brubaker, Beau,” Brant said, unwilling to waste any more time. “Starlet
was just about to tell us why she’s here.” When she continued to stare at Beau, Brant
stepped in front of her.

Once she could no longer see Beau, her trance ended. Although she still looked a little
loopy. “Huh?”

“What are you doing at Miss Hattie’s?” Brant repeated.

“Oh. Well, I’m here because I was invited.” She lifted a hideous pink purse off her
shoulder and dug through it until she pulled out a lavender envelope with writing
sprawled across the front. She handed it to him.

“I got it a couple weeks ago, but I had to put in notice
at the Putt-Putt and come up with a good lie to tell my aunt and uncle. They would
skin me alive if they knew I was here.”

Brant pulled out the card. The scent of lilacs filled the air. And even before he
started to read the dark script, he knew it wasn’t going to be good.

As the descendant of the famed Starlet O’Malley, you are cordially invited to Miss
Hattie’s Henhouse, where you will have the honor of being inducted as a hen as soon
as you complete the proper training and pass the final exams. Please read the list
of henhouse rules attached and…

The rest of the invitation went unread as Brant crumpled the cardstock in his fist.

“I’m going to wring that hen’s neck.”

The hen Brant was referring to sat at the window of the library watching as he strode
up the porch steps and banged through the front door.

“He’s really mad, Minnie,” Baby said. “Maybe we shouldn’t have brought him back by
forging Miss Hattie’s journals.”

“We didn’t forge anything.” Minnie wheeled her chair around. “The journals are real.
They just aren’t Miss Hattie’s. Besides, how else were we going to get Brant here?
Brant is the key to getting Elizabeth to discover her henness. Without him, we’ll
lose her. And it won’t matter if we locate all the other hens. Miss Hattie’s won’t
be Miss Hattie’s without the head hen.”

“But Elizabeth doesn’t even act like she likes him—or us,” Baby said.

“Oh, she likes him, all right,” Minnie said. “And as for liking us, we’ll grow on
her. We always do.”

“But how are we going to get them together? No matter what you said to Brant, Elizabeth
won’t care anything about reading Miss Hattie’s journals.”

A door slammed somewhere in the house as Brant called Minnie’s name.

Minnie thought for a moment before she smiled. “Maybe we don’t need to bring Elizabeth
out here. Maybe all we need to do is send Brant to her.”

E
LIZABETH WOKE WITH A START.
She lay there for a few seconds with her heart thumping while her mind tried to figure
out what had awakened her. The answer wasn’t long in coming. A floorboard creaked.
Most women might’ve started screaming at this point, but Elizabeth had never been
a screamer. Especially when this wasn’t the first time this had happened.

On more than a few occasions, her next door neighbor, Elmer Tate, got so drunk that
he forgot where his house was. Which was why, in a town where no one locked their
doors, Elizabeth had taken to locking hers. Unfortunately, tonight her mind had been
so consumed with what she had learned about Brant and William Cates, she had forgotten.

Elizabeth rolled over with the intent of stopping Elmer before he stumbled any closer
to the bed. But before she could say a word, he stepped on Atticus, who must’ve gotten
up for a midnight snack. The cat released a yowl that threw Elmer off balance and
had him tumbling to the bed.

Leaving Elizabeth pinned under a drunk.

“You have to stop doing this, Elmer,” she said as she tried to shove him off.

“Elmer?”

The deep voice stopped her struggles, and her gaze lifted. It was too dark to see
much more than an outline, but she would recognize the thick wavy hair anywhere.

“Who’s Elmer?” Brant asked.

“The neighbor. What are you doing here?”

He rolled off her, and she leaned up and switched on the lamp. The bright light had
her squinting for a few seconds. Once her eyes adjusted, she couldn’t help but wonder
if it would’ve been better to leave the lamp off. With it on, Brant seemed bigger,
closer, and so handsome it took her a moment to find her voice.

“So why are you sneaking into my house, Mr. Cates,” she glanced over at the red digital
numbers on the clock, “at twelve twenty-two at night? Is this tit for tat—I stumbled
into your bed so now you’re stumbling into mine?”

“It only seems fair.” His intense blue-eyed gaze ran over her from the top of her
bed-head to the chenille bedspread that spilled over her lap. Slowly, it moved up
again until it settled on the front of her pink nightshirt. “For some reason, I thought
you would wear one of those flannel nightgowns like my granny’s.”

She swallowed hard and crossed her arms over her chest. “I get hot at night.”

“Which explains the neighbor,” he said. Before her mouth could finish dropping open,
Atticus jumped up on the bed. Brant eyed him balefully. “Jesus, what the hell is that?
A basketball with legs?”

She ignored the question. “So are you going to get to the point of why you’re here,
or not?”

He pulled his gaze away from the chubby orange cat that had flopped down next to Elizabeth.
“Did you think you’d pulled a fast one on me when you saddled me with three crazy
old women?”

She started to deny it, but then realized she couldn’t. She
had
saddled him with a bunch of crazy old women. She’d just hoped that he wouldn’t realize
it until after they closed on the house.

“I didn’t force you to agree to let them stay,” she said. “I believe that was Beau’s
doing.”

“You’re right.” He reached out and scratched Atticus’s head. Always one for a good
scratching, Atticus started purring to beat the band. “But you could’ve warned me
about their plans to reopen Miss Hattie’s.”

Just the sight of his strong fingers gently stroking the cat’s fur had heat flooding
her face—along with other body parts. Needing some space between them, she inched
closer to the opposite side of the bed.

“I thought it was harmless enough,” she said. “Especially now that you and Beau are
buying it.”

“Well, you might want to tell that to the women they sent invitations to—or girls
might be a better description.”

“What girls?” she asked.

“The girls they plan on teaching to be hens.”

“What!” She yelled so loudly that she startled Atticus, and he jumped down from the
bed.

Brant studied her. “So you don’t know about the invitations?”

“Of course I don’t! How could you even think that?”

“I don’t exactly know what to think of you, Elizabeth,” he said. “One minute you’re
telling me you’re a virgin,
and the next I discover you’re entertaining the neighbors.” Before she could defend
her honor, he held up a hand. “But I didn’t really believe you were the brain behind
this harebrained idea. Minnie was trying a little too hard to convince me of that.”
His head tipped, and his gaze narrowed. “Where are your glasses?”

Surprised by the sudden change of topic, it took her a moment to answer. “On the nightstand.
People don’t usually sleep with their glasses on.”

His eyes pierced straight through her for several heart-stopping seconds before he
glanced over at the nightstand. Her glasses rested next to the book she’d been reading,
and he leaned over and read the title. “
Whorehouses of the West
. So did you find anything about my grandfather?”