Trouble in Texas (33 page)

“Oh, that’s real nice, Mama,” Harriett said. “We almost die trying to save you and
that’s the thanks we get.”

“Good Lord, Harry, would you stop being so dramatic—”

Elizabeth slipped out the door before Minnie could finish. A smile tickled the corners
of her mouth as she walked down the hallway. Most people might be upset that their
family members couldn’t seem to get along, but Elizabeth was just happy to have a
family. A family who loved one another regardless of the way they verbally sparred.

She found Brant in the waiting room. One of the firemen who had responded to Baby’s
call had loaned him a t-shirt, and he wore the navy shirt with a pair of pale green
scrubs and booties. Most men might look scruffy in the mixed clothing. Brant just
looked hot and endearingly rumpled. The complete opposite of what she must look
like in the hospital gown she wore over Miss Hattie’s tattered satin dressing gown.

Brant was still talking on the phone, with his back to her and his head cocked down.
When she touched his arm, he turned and his gaze ran over her from head to toe. Funny,
but he didn’t look like he thought she looked horrific. In fact, his eyes sparkled
with something that looked a lot like relief. But he glanced away so quickly she couldn’t
be sure.

“Listen, Beau,” he said. “I’ll keep you updated.” He pressed a button and lowered
the phone. “How’s Minnie?”

“As ornery as ever,” Elizabeth said. “She’s already talking about rebuilding.”

Brant grinned. “Well, rebuilding may not be the right word. The fireman I talked with
said that the sprinkler-system on the main level kicked in once the fire came up the
elevator shaft. It sounds like we’ll just need to deal with the damage done to The
Jungle Room and some smoke and water damage.”

“ ‘We’ll?’ ”

Brant’s gaze shifted away. “I was thinking that maybe I would stick around for a couple
weeks.” His Adam’s apple slid up and down as he swallowed hard. “I mean, if you want
me to.”

There was nothing that she wanted more. Unfortunately, a couple weeks would only be
enough to completely destroy a heart that was already broken.

“I realize that I’m already indebted to you for buying the house and for rescuing
my family from the fire,” she said in a voice that betrayed none of the emotions that
threatened to overflow. “But I was wondering if I could ask one more favor.”

He turned back to her and stepped closer. “Anything.”

She lifted her gaze to his and tried to etch every feature into her memory. The dark,
wavy hair. The high forehead. The deep-set eyes. The strong nose. And the firm mouth
that gave up smiles so infrequently that, when it did, it could brighten an entire
world. Her entire world.

“I want you to leave,” she said in a voice husky with smoke and emotion. “I want you
to leave and never come back.” A tear dripped down her cheek. “Never.”

Brant didn’t know how he made it to his truck that was parked out in front of the
regional medical center. He felt like someone had dropped a three-hundred-pound barbell
on his chest. His heart hurt, and he was having trouble breathing. Not to mention
his blurred vision. He wanted to blame it on smoke inhalation, but if that was the
case, then why had it only started after Elizabeth told him to leave?

Once inside his truck, he turned on the engine. It wasn’t more than thirty degrees
outside, but that didn’t stop him from cranking up the air conditioner. The cold air
revived him enough that he was able to back out. He figured he’d feel better once
the hospital disappeared from his rearview mirror.

He didn’t.

The farther he got from Elizabeth, the worse he felt.

As the mile markers swept past, all Brant could think about was the pain he’d seen
in those amber eyes. A pain that actually had him believing that he’d been wrong.
Elizabeth did love him. Not because he was her first sexual partner, but for some
reason he couldn’t explain. The thought of her love had his eyes burning and his throat
clogged with emotion. Still, he refused to turn around. She would get over him and,
in time, find someone else to love.

Someone who didn’t have a dark cloud following him.

The image of Elizabeth being held by someone else made the pain in his chest tighten
and his foot press harder on the accelerator. He was going so fast that he passed
the old truck that was pulled off on the side of the road before he even noticed it.
But it wasn’t the truck that had him slamming on his brakes as much as the pair of
bootie-covered feet hanging out the open window.

By the time Brant hopped out and ran back to the old Ford pickup, he wondered if he
was too late. Moses Tate looked like a corpse stretched out on the cracked leather
seat with his gnarled hands crossed over the front buttons of his red long johns.
But it only took one shake of his foot to get the old guy’s eyes to pop open.

“About time you got here, son,” he said. “I’m pert near starvin’ to death.” He took
his time sitting up, his aged bones popping and cracking. “Darn ornery hen kickin’
me out of her hospital room after I saved her life. First, she gets mad at me for
askin’ her to get married, then she gets mad at me for tryin’ to take care of her.
After survivin’ three wives and a live-in girlfriend, I still can’t figure women out.”
He opened the door and eased out. “It ain’t the battery, but it might be the fuel
pump.”

It turned out to be the gas pump. Moses’ pickup was completely empty. After figuring
out the problem, Brant got back in his truck where Moses was sitting in the passenger’s
side, sipping from a silver flask.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Moses said when Brant told him about the empty tank. “I thought
for sure I filled
up day before yesterday.” His eyes squinted. “Or maybe it was last Wednesday, right
before I stopped off at the library to read the paper.”

Just the mention of Bramble’s library had Brant’s chest hurting again. He tried to
ease the pain by taking a deep breath, but it didn’t seem to help.

“You ever been to the library in Bramble?” Moses continued. “It’s got about the most
comfortable couches a man would want to sit in—except for Miss Hattie’s, of course.
And besides the couches, we got us a real sweet librarian.” He glanced over at Brant,
who now couldn’t seem to breathe at all. “You know Ms. Murphy? She looks a little
like that fan dancer at Miss Hattie’s that you’re so taken with.”

Brant’s gaze swept over to Moses, and the man grinned from ear to ear, revealing his
pink gums. “I might not remember what day I put gas in, but I can still see.” He shook
his head. “I never figured Ms. Murphy for a dancer. Last time I saw her dance was
at your brother’s weddin’ right after she caught that bouquet.” He shook his head.
“Seein’ as she’d always been the old maid, it surprised the entire town. ’Course,
nobody wants to be alone. And that little gal has been alone far too long. It’s nice
to see she finally found someone to love her the way she deserves to be loved.”

“I don’t—” Brant tried to squeeze the words out, but without air, they stuck in his
throat.

While he worried about dying from lack of oxygen, Moses kept right on talking as if
nothing was wrong. “ ’Course, the townsfolk ain’t gonna be real happy about it. They
were thinkin’ it was the other Cates boy who Ms. Murphy fancied, not the one who tried
to shut
down Dalton Oil. But if you can survive Minnie and the hens, I figure you can survive
the town of Bramble.” He finally glanced at Brant. “You okay, boy? You look a little
peaked.”

“I can’t marry Elizabeth,” Brant gasped out.

Moses looked confused for only a second. “Cold feet? Can’t say as I blame you. I had
cold feet every time.” He held out the silver flask. “Here, take a swig of this. It
will help.” The fiery whiskey did help, and Brant took more than one swig as Moses
continued to ramble. “Marriage is a scary proposition. You’re promisin’ to cleave
to one woman for the rest of your life.”

“Then how did you end up with three?” Brant asked.

There was a long stretch of silence while Moses stared out the windshield. “I lost
all three. One to influenza. Another to cancer. And the last I just outlived.”

“But how did you survive?” he asked. “Didn’t you love them?”

“More than my life,” Moses said. “But you can’t make choices on whether or not it’s
going to cause you pain down the road. You’ll miss a lot of love and joy that way,
son.” He studied Brant. “So do you love Ms. Murphy, or don’t you?”

Brant took another deep drink of whiskey and waited for the burn to fade before he
voiced his worst fears. “If something were to happen to her, I wouldn’t be able to
keep on living.”

Moses snorted. “Well, if you can’t live without her, what the hell are you doin’ sittin’
here?”

Brant looked over at the old man. He didn’t know if it was the whiskey or the question,
but suddenly the light went on. If he couldn’t live without Elizabeth, what was
he doing sitting there? He didn’t know what was going to happen next week, or next
month, or next year. But suddenly he realized that it didn’t matter. The weeks, months,
and years would all be empty without Elizabeth. Without Elizabeth, his life really
would be cursed.

Once the realization hit him, Brant only sat there for a second more before he popped
the truck into drive and laid rubber, making a U-turn in the middle of the road. Moses,
who didn’t have on his seatbelt, slid halfway across the seat. But the old guy didn’t
seem to be too upset by Brant’s crazy driving.

“Thatta way, son,” he said, as he slapped one saggy knee of his red long johns. “It’s
time to quit messin’ around and take the bull by the horns. And speaking of that,
I don’t care if Minnie has them nurses throw me out a hundred times. I love that stubborn
old hen and have spent way too much time without her. If she don’t want to marry me
now, I’ll just camp out on Miss Hattie’s porch until she changes her mind. ’Cause
this old man ain’t givin’ up without a fight.”

“Damn straight!” Brant toasted him with the flask before taking another swallow. But
he choked on the fiery liquid when he looked in the rearview mirror and noticed the
flashing red lights.

T
HE LIBRARY WAS QUIET FOR A
T
UESDAY.
There were no preschool reading programs planned and no Bramble Elementary field
trips. On days like this, Elizabeth usually ordered new books or did a little cleaning
and reorganizing. But today she just sat at her desk and stared at nothing.

Minnie had been released from the hospital the day before. Since the hens couldn’t
return to Miss Hattie’s until the structural damage had been inspected and the house
was deemed safe for occupancy, they were all staying at Elizabeth’s. The small house
was filled to the rafters with Minnie, Sunshine, Baby, Starlet, and Elizabeth’s mother,
who used the excuse of wanting to make sure Minnie didn’t corrupt Elizabeth any more
than she already had.

But Elizabeth wasn’t buying it. After reading Minnie’s journal, her mother had softened
toward the old woman. She was the one who pushed Minnie in the manual wheelchair the
hospital had loaned her, the one who helped her shower and use the bathroom. They
still fought like a couple of hormonal teenagers, but there was an underlying respect,
on both sides, that hadn’t been there before.

Thinking about her mother and grandmother had Elizabeth glancing up at the clock.
It was only a little after four, a good fifty-two minutes before she could lock up.
Still, she couldn’t remain in the library a second more.

Since the fire, Elizabeth had come to a decision. She had loved being Bramble’s librarian,
but it was time to move on. The first thing she wanted to do was make sure that Miss
Hattie’s was up and running. She looked forward to greeting the first guests and witnessing
their reaction to hen hospitality and history.

But as much as she had come to accept and respect her ancestors, she refused to be
like them. She didn’t want to spend her entire life at Miss Hattie’s. She’d already
been consumed by one job. She refused to be consumed by another. She wanted to travel.
To experience things she’d only read about.

She wanted to live.

And she wanted to love.

As painful as Brant’s departure had been, Elizabeth refused to be one of those women
who let one bad experience ruin their lives. It wouldn’t be easy to forget Brant.
Even now, her heart felt as if it had been used for a piñata, but she would do it.

She had to.

It didn’t take Elizabeth long to lock up and head down Main Street toward her house.
With winter just around the corner, the wind was cold and harsh. She had just stopped
to button up her knee-length coat when she was run into from behind and almost knocked
to the ground. After catching her balance, she turned to find a large cardboard box
with a cowboy hat showing above it and two skinny blue-jeaned legs showing beneath
it.

“Beg pardon,” Kenny Gene’s muffled voice came from behind the box. “But I’m on official
business.”

“What in the world do you have there, Kenny?” Elizabeth asked.

“Ms. Murphy?” His head appeared at the side of the box, and a bright smile lit his
face. “I shore missed you on Saturday. Faith is nice and all, but she don’t know the
library near as good as you do. She sent me home with two Scooby-doo books that I’d
already read. Hey, where were you, anyway?”

“I had some family business to attend to,” she said.

“Oh.” Kenny seemed to remember the box that he held in his hands. “Well, I’ve got
me some business, too. I need to get this honey from Josephine’s to the sheriff and
quick.”

“Honey?” Elizabeth fell in step next to him. “Why in the world would the sheriff need
that much honey?”

He hefted the box up higher as his strides grew longer. “We really wanted tar, but
Phil over at Topper Roofs was plumb out due to the fall roofin’ special he’s been
runnin’, so the sheriff came up with the honey idea. It won’t be hot, or nearly as
sticky, but I guess we’ll have to make do with what we got. Luckily, Nathan had plenty
of chicken feathers. Although he wasn’t real happy when we told him what we was plannin’
on doin’ with them. ’Course, he’s always been a gentle-hearted feller. Even when it
comes to dealin’ with low-down, rotten scoundrels.”