Monday morning dawned with gray skies that looked like they could spit out a blizzard at any moment. The wind barely stirred the bare tree limbs and the temperature hovered around the thirty-degree mark. Lucy and Pearl scurried from one warm room to the next, cleaning the twelve rooms that had had guests the night before.
They’d have had one room each if the Wichita Falls shelter hadn’t called at three in the afternoon and asked for ten rooms for a busload of women and children on their way to relocation south of Dallas. Pearl and Lucy had gone together to the grocery store a mile up the road and put together a food bag for each room. Luke signed a voucher and Pearl gave them the rooms for half price again.
After the women were settled in their rooms, Lucy offered Luke coffee and he told her that he’d be in Henrietta the next Wednesday.
“Reckon you could get away to go to a movie with me? Maybe we’d get some dinner beforehand?” he’d asked. She’d been walking on air all day and singing as she worked.
“There’s a woman right here in Henrietta who should’ve been on that bus,” Lucy said when she found Pearl in the laundry room.
“Oh?” Pearl raised an eyebrow.
“I see her at the library pretty often. I know the signs.”
“What’s her name?”
“Betsy Walton. She’s beat down like I was, and last week she had a nasty bruise on her cheek. I asked her about it and she said she fell down the porch steps. I’ve used that excuse lots of times. That and I walked into a cabinet door or else bumped my arm on the chicken coop.”
“Lucy, next time you see her you tell her up-front that if she ever needs a place to hide to call you and you’ll come get her. We’ll put her up right here in the motel until she can get to a shelter.”
“You’d do that? Run an underground for abused women?”
“Sure. But it’s not just me who’d do it. You would help with it too.”
“You are a good woman, Pearl.”
“That’s debatable, but you tell her. It might give her the courage to get out of that mess.”
“I will, and thank you.”
Pearl’s cell phone rang. She backed out the door, pulling a cart with one hand and answering the phone with the other.
“What’s going on with you this morning?” Wil asked.
“I’m cleaning rooms. We had another busload of women who needed relocation last night. They’re all gone and Lucy and I are working on rooms. You?”
“Just finished all my chores. Jack and I are about to get into the new tractors and do some plowing. Want to come run your little girl tractor over the ground this afternoon?”
“It’ll take all afternoon to set things in order here.”
“Then I’ll see you this evening. Pick you up at six thirty?”
“I’ll be ready.”
At six fifteen he called to tell her that Digger had been poisoned and he was at the vet’s with him. “I’m sorry, Red. I’m taking him home but I have to give him medicine all night.”
“Want me to come help out?” she asked.
“I’d love for you to, but there’s no need in both of us losing sleep,” he said.
“Who would have done such a thing?”
“Can’t lay the blame on anyone. I caught him with a dead rat this morning. I never use poison to get rid of them but someone around here does. Digger goes out huntin’ on his own. He might have run across it half-dead from the poison and chased it down like a squirrel. Vet says he’ll be fine but I’ll have to watch him close tonight.”
“Call me every hour with an update. I’d be worried sick if it was Delilah,” she said.
“I will, and I really, really am sorry.”
“Me too,” she admitted honestly.
* * *
On Tuesday he called at noon to tell her that Digger was begging for something other than water and the vet had said he could have dry food but no table scraps. “Poor old Digger thinks he’s being punished. I told him to leave the rats alone from now on and he wouldn’t be taken off his scraps.”
“I’m glad to hear he’s all right but you sound exhausted.”
“I am. Jack is doing chores. I’m going to take a nap. Want to get some supper later this evening?”
“Can’t. Lucy has a book thing at the library this evening. She’s all excited about it and I wouldn’t disappoint her for the moon. It’s the first social thing she’s done since she moved in a month ago.”
He yawned. “I’d really like to talk longer but I’m brain-dead. I’ll call soon as I wake up. Love you.”
“Me too. I miss you.”
“Fate is messin’ with us, darlin’. But it’ll get tired when it sees we mean business. And don’t forget we’ve got a date Friday night to go to the Peach Orchard for supper.”
She smiled. “Sleep tight.”
Jasmine poked her head in the door of the room where Pearl was making beds. “I’m off to Chicken Fried to talk serious money. I’ve got enough for a down payment and I’m hoping the bank will finance the rest.”
“Come in and help me make this bed while we talk. I’ve got an idea,” she said.
Jasmine grabbed a fitted sheet from the maid’s cart and stretched it over the side of the bed closest to the door. “Okay, talk.”
Pearl worked the corners down over the mattress on her side of the bed. “How much you got to put down on this café?”
“Twenty percent. I think the bank needs at least that much, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right. But don’t go to the bank for a loan. I’d like to invest in the café. Aunt Pearlita left me quite a bit of money. It’s drawing savings account interest, and I could loan you the eighty percent you need at one percent less than a small business loan. You’d have a deal and I’d be making twice as much as what I’m getting now on it. Interested?”
“Hell yeah! How did she make that much money on a little bitty motel?”
“I don’t think it all came from the motel. There was her husband’s insurance money from the railroad and some wise investments on her part through the years. But when she thought she was nearing the end of her life, she liquidated it all and put it in a simple savings account so I could get to it easily,” Pearl answered.
“You got that much money and you’re making beds?”
“Well, you’re going to be making money hand over fist and you’re going to be cooking.”
Jasmine laughed. “Are we both crazy?”
“Probably. I’ll call my lawyer and you tell them over at Chicken Fried that you’re going to be ready to move in the apartment as soon as possible.”
Jasmine hugged Pearl tightly. “I won’t ever be late on a payment, and you can eat there free anytime you want.”
Pearl giggled. “No, I can’t. That’s no way to make money.”
* * *
On Wednesday Wil called at six o’clock and woke her up. “Guess what? Austin is pregnant.”
“What?” she asked groggily.
“Austin is pregnant. Rye is calling everyone he knows, he’s so excited. Aren’t you happy?”
“I’m half-asleep and Austin is probably going to call me herself as soon as she gets off the phone with her mother and aunts.”
“Well, go back to sleep, grumpy pants. I’ll be happy enough for both of us.”
The phone line went dead and she tossed her cell on the floor. Go back to sleep? Was he crazy? She had to get up, take care of checkouts, go to the bank with Jasmine who was moving in the apartment above the café over the weekend, talk to Lucy about how her book discussion went, and clean rooms.
“Go back to sleep indeed!” She fussed all the way to the bathroom. It was time for her and Wil to have a “sit-down,” as her grandmother called it when Pearl was a little girl and in trouble. No television. No sex. No kisses. Nothing but talk. She was in love but she didn’t know where he stood. He’d said the words, but would he run away and leave her holding nothing but a fistful of memories and a broken heart? The Peach Orchard could wait. She and Wil were going to have a serious talk on Friday night. Saturday would bring one of two things: misery or happiness.
She heard from Austin that morning at nine when she was checking out the last customer. By then she’d had four cups of coffee, three doughnuts, and had worked up some excitement for her friend.
“I’ve been sick as a dog three mornings in a row but I thought I had the flu. The pregnancy test says different. Rye is dancing around like he did this all by himself, and the whole O’Donnell clan is ready to put a diamond crown on my head. It’ll be the first grandchild. God, it’s going to be spoiled.” Austin bubbled on and on.
“Couldn’t be any worse than we were.”
“Your turn next.”
“Bite your tongue, woman.”
“I hear things are going well with you and Wil.”
“Yes, they are, but that’s hardly enough to make it my turn next. You’ll have three and working on a fourth by the time I get around to kids.”
“We’ll see. Got a beep. It’s Mother. She’s already thinking pink nursery. This is the fifth time she has called this morning. She thinks I need to come to Tulsa for the next eight months and go to the specialists up there. Ain’t that a hoot? I’ve got a ranch to help run and a watermelon crop to put in the ground in the spring. Pregnancy ain’t goin’ to slow me down one bit. See you later. Let’s do lunch on Saturday.”
Pearl laid the phone on the counter and looked up at Lucy, just coming in the door. “That was Austin. Everyone is walkin’ around on clouds because she’s pregnant.”
“Must be nice. She and Rye been married long?” Lucy asked.
“Six months or so. She inherited her grandmother’s watermelon farm. Came down to Terral from Tulsa. Tulsa is a huge place and Terral is smaller than Henrietta. She only meant to clean out the house and sell it but fell in love with the rancher across the road. He was in love from the minute he laid eyes on her and it didn’t take her long to fall for him either.”
Lucy leaned on the counter and braced her chin on her forearm. “Does he treat her right?”
“Like a queen,” Pearl answered.
“That’s wonderful. The world needs men like that. Betsy came to the book discussion last night. Her husband works nights so she was able to come without him knowing. We had a talk. I told her what you said. She thanked me but said he wasn’t always mean. Just when he was upset. I’ve used that line before. She’ll get tired of it one of these days.”
“When she does, give her a room until we can find her a place. But for now you’ve got to get in my closet and find something spiffy to wear on your date with Luke. I’ll polish your nails when we get done and you’re going to knock his socks off.”
Lucy giggled. “You think I could borrow that plaid skirt and the sweater? I’d feel real special in it.”
“With your hair and eyes, it’ll look better on you than it does on me. Luke won’t be able to keep his eyes off you.”
* * *
On Thursday Pearl and Jasmine spent most of the day with the bankers again. Then in the evening Lucy managed the lobby while she and Jasmine took both trucks to Sherman to load up the bare necessities for her to move into the apartment on Friday. It was past midnight when they got back to the motel, and both of them had no trouble sleeping that night.
Pearl hit the floor running on Friday. They’d only had three guests the night before so Lucy took care of the rooms and checkouts while Jasmine and Pearl drove to Ringgold. The apartment had been emptied and cleaned so recently that it still smelled like disinfectant. They moved in a bed and Jasmine’s clothing. The rest would be arriving in a moving van on Monday, the day that Jasmine officially took over the restaurant.
The sun was a thin glimmer on the western horizon when Pearl drove into the parking lot at the motel that evening. She dialed Wil’s cell phone number and asked him if they could stay in that night. Maybe he could pick up hamburgers at the Sonic and bring them to her place because she wanted to talk.
“About what?” he asked cautiously.
“Us,” she said.
“I guess we really should. Has the fire burned out?”
“We’ll talk about it tonight. Don’t forget the burgers and I don’t want onions,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Fries and a chocolate malt?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Six o’clock?”
“That’s fine.”
“Want to give me a hint?”
“No.”
“Sounds serious,” he said.
“It could be.”
* * *
Wil showed up at five o’clock and slumped down in a recliner while she checked in guests. He looked at a magazine for a few minutes, then laid it aside and fell asleep, his head thrown back and his feet propped up.
After the guests were taken care of, Pearl sat down in the other recliner and watched him sleep. In that moment, sitting there beside him while he slept, she realized that she was truly in love with the cowboy. It wasn’t a love like she’d had in high school with Vince and not even like what she’d thought she had with Marlin. And it damn sure wasn’t like that rebound rebellion streak she had when she and Wyatt eloped on a whim after splitting a bottle of bourbon. It was a mature adult thing that consumed her body, soul, and mind. Parties didn’t matter anymore. Dating wasn’t so important. She wanted to wake up to this man’s love forever.
He awoke with a start and grinned. “Did I snore?”
“No, but you did forget the hamburgers.”
“Shit! I’ll go get them.”
“No, we can eat grilled cheese sandwiches and noodle soup out of a can. I’m turning on the NO VACANCY light and we’re going to have—”
“A heart-to-heart?” he asked.
She nodded, stood up, and started across the floor with him right behind her.
“Do I go first or do you?”
“I’m going first, Wil,” she said.
He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. “If you are going to tell me to get lost, just spit it out before you make supper,” he said.
“How would that make you feel?”
“Like shit. I told you I love you, Red. I don’t say that when I don’t mean it. But it scares the hell out of me. What if in ten years you get tired of me and want to go back to your parties and all those guy friends?”
“Let me tell you why I’m the way I am,” she said as she heated soup and made sandwiches. She told him about Vince and how his mother had blamed her for Vince’s rebellious streak. And how that she’d feared Wil’s mother not liking her would cause the same problems.
“Darlin’, Vince was eighteen and out sowing wild oats. I’m past thirty and I love my mother, but she doesn’t have that kind of sway or control over my life. Besides, I think she’s over her red-haired spell,” he said. “Come here.”
She put the sandwiches on a plate and carried them to the table. He pulled her down in his lap.
“I love you, Wil,” she said.
He ran a rough hand down her cheekbone. “Forget the food. Let’s make love. I’ve missed touching you and holding you. I even missed our afterglow.”
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and shut her eyes. He tangled his fingers in her red hair and pulled her closer to him. The kiss started off sweet and gentle but progressed into a hot desire that had to be fed with more and more passion. He stood up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her to the sofa and they tumbled down together without ever breaking the kisses.
“This sofa is too narrow but there’s lots of floor,” he muttered.
“There’s a big bed right down the hall. Please stay with me tonight. Hold me all night and wake up with me tomorrow morning.”
“Remember what you said about life being mostly chaos?” Wil said.
“I do, and the only time the world is right is when I’m in your arms.”
He buried his face in her hair and said, “Me too.”
He stopped at the bathroom, removed all her clothes as well as his, and opened the shower door for her. “I’ve been working most of the day and didn’t take time for a shower. I was afraid you were going to tell me to ‘hit the road, Jack’ so I just came from work to the lobby. Before we go any further I need to clean up.”
“Me too,” she said.
The shower had not been built for two people but they managed, skin bumping skin, her butt arousing him to the ready stage when she backed up for him to wash her hair.
“I really do love you, Red,” he whispered into her wet hair.
“And I love you,” she said.
He finished soaping her whole body and rinsed her before shoving her out of the shower. “Wrap up in a towel. I’ll be out in a second.”
“Maybe I want to give you a bath,” she said.
“Darlin’, if you did, well, let’s just say it would be fast food rather than grilled steak,” he said.
She laughed and wrapped a towel around her body. By the time he finished and dried, she was in the bedroom, dressed in a black lace teddy complete with a thong to match.
His eyes widened.
“Do you like it?”
“Wow! Do I get to unwrap it like a present?”
“Depends on how fast you can unwrap a present. Just lookin’ at you standing there like a marble god is making me hot as hell.”
He swept her up and carried her to the bed and very, very slowly unwrapped his present. “I was so afraid you wanted to go back to your fast life,” he mumbled.
“Fast food or grilled steak? Hmmm.” She reached out and touched him.
He groaned.
“I’ll take the grilled steak.”
He slipped the thong down and stretched out on top of her, smothering her with kisses so hot that she felt as if she were the steak on the grill.
“I want some jalapeño poppers for an appetizer.” She giggled.
He raised up and looked into her green eyes.
“That means fast and hot. Please make love to me. I’ve been ready ever since we stepped into the shower.”
He kissed her and slipped inside her at the same time. Life would always be as hot as a pepper with Red.
* * *
She awoke at eight the next morning to the aroma of bacon and coffee wafting down the short hallway and through the crack in the bedroom door. Wil was gone and she was hugging a pillow, which wasn’t nearly as comforting. She pushed back the covers, crawled out of bed, and padded barefoot to the small kitchen where she found him cooking breakfast.
“I was going to bring it to you in bed.” He turned and kissed her on the forehead. “Did you sleep well?”
She wrapped her arms around him and snuggled up to his chest.
“Will you marry me?” he said quickly.
She gasped. “Say it again.”
“Will you marry me? I don’t have a ring but we can remedy that anytime you want to go with me to a jewelry store.”
“When?”
“Say yes and you can decide,” he said.
“Yes,” she whispered and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled his lips to hers, and kissed him long and hard.
“Did you really say yes?” he murmured softly into her ear.
“I did. I love you, Wil Marshall. When I thought about talking to you seriously about us, I was scared to death you’d tell me that you weren’t interested in a long-term relationship.”
He tipped her chin back with his fist and kissed her with so much passion that she was convinced their love was much, much more than a flash in the pan.
* * *
Pearl didn’t care that Valentine’s Day was on Sunday. It was going to be her wedding day from the time that Wil proposed in her kitchen. So at a few minutes until two on Sunday afternoon she was settling a ring of white roses and lace around a burst of springy red curls on top of her head.
“I still wish you would have got a real wedding dress with a train from here to Savannah. This looks so plain,” Tess fussed as she buttoned the sleeves of the ivory lace sheath dress with long fitted sleeves. “And what happened to my daughter being an entrepreneur who was going to turn that old motel into a work of beauty?”
“I’m still a businesswoman. Lucy is running the motel for me and we’ll have weekly visits about things. But we’ve decided that the Honeymoon Inn is already quaint and romantic just like it is, so we aren’t making so many changes. And I’ve realized that I really miss ranchin’, Mama. I miss driving a tractor and petting new baby calves and I miss—”
“Oh, hush! If your daddy hears you talkin’ like that he’ll never let me hear the end of it. But I really do wish you would’ve bought a nicer dress,” Tess said, changing the subject.
“You got to have the wedding where you wanted, invite all the people you wanted, and do everything the way you wanted, Mama. You can overlook my dress.”
“I think you are beautiful,” Lucy said.
“And so are you,” Pearl told her.
Lucy wore a bright-red velvet dress in the same style as Pearl’s and carried white roses. Jasmine and Austin wore identical dresses and carried the same white rose nosegay bouquets.
The wedding planner stuck her head in the dressing room and said, “Mrs. Richland, the usher is ready to seat you.”
Tess kissed Pearl on the cheek. “That’ll be one of Wil’s handsome nephews. You really are beautiful, Katy Pearl, and I’m glad you are marrying Wil. He’s a good man.”
“Mama, I’m in love with him,” Pearl said.
“I can see that, darlin’.” She shut the door softly behind her, leaving Pearl with the girls.
Austin hugged her and said, “Jasmine is next. Maybe Ace?”
“Don’t you be siccing Cupid on me, or Ace neither. After all those years with Eddie Jay, I may never get married. Lucy can be next.”
“Hell no!” Lucy said emphatically. “I’m going to run the motel for Pearl and be happy dating Luke for a long, long time. I’ve inherited her apartment and Delilah is going to live with me. And I’ve hired Betsy to help me with cleaning. She’s going to live in my old room. Her husband left her high and dry for another woman after he’d whooped on her for five years. I’m not about to be next in line.”
Pearl was still laughing over Lucy’s newfound freedom of speech when the wedding planner brought her father into the room to escort her to the front of the church where Wil was already waiting with his groomsmen…Dewar, Rye, and Raylen.
“You are perfect today. I’m glad you didn’t wear one of them big dresses. It wouldn’t have been you,” John said. “I have a little present for you from Wil.”
He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket and removed a gold chain with a custom-made pendant of Wil’s ranch brand. He carefully fastened it around her neck.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am that you are going to be a rancher, Katy Pearl.”
“Thanks, Daddy.” Her voice quavered.
“I’m glad you are marrying Wil. He’s a good man and I’m glad to have him for a son.”
Pearl swallowed a golf ball–sized lump. “You are going to make me cry.”
“Can’t have that, can we? It’ll smear your eye makeup, and your mother will never let either of us live that down. Let’s go get this shindig over with so we can go to the reception and eat. If there’s one thing Tess does well, it’s throw a party.” He laughed.
From the time Pearl met Wil’s eyes, there was no one else in the church. When her father put her hand in Wil’s, that old familiar tingle glued her to the floor. When he said his vows and promised to love her not until death parted them but through eternity, she didn’t even hear Austin sigh. When the minister pronounced them man and wife and told Wil he could kiss her, she got ready for a shot of pure old steamy lust to shoot through her body.
She was not disappointed.
“I love you, Red,” he whispered as he held her close after the kiss.
“I love you back.”
The reception was elegant and lavish. Wil and Pearl danced their first dance as a married couple to an old George Jones tune, “I Always Get Lucky with You.”
“I do,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Get lucky with you,” he answered.
“I thought you were a red-hot cowboy the first time I met you, and I haven’t changed my mind, so I guess I’m the lucky one,” she said.
“I’m glad to be Red’s hot cowboy.”
She smiled up at him. “I didn’t say it that way, but I like it. And don’t you ever forget whose cowboy you are. I do not share!”