Authors: Carolyn Brown
She jerked her eyelids open, half expecting him to be standing beside the bed with that look of incredulous wonder in his big blue eyes. But he wasn’t, and she shut them again; but it was a long time before she fell asleep.
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HILDA HAD BREAKFAST ON THE BUFFET IN THE DINING room when Jim, Mary, and Milli, carrying Katy on her hip, all arrived at nearly the same time. “Now I want to hear more about this business of the dance last night. I was too tired to ask questions, but me and Slim got so excited this morning, why, we was like a couple of kids. Did Amanda leave before the dance or in the middle or what happened? I bet she just about went into a rigor when she heard about the way Alice set things up.”
Mary heaped her plate high with hotcakes and grabbed a cup of coffee. “Never came to the dance. The lawyer told her the conditions and she called it quits right then. Lawyer’s wife said Beau saw Milli out the window and muttered some things to Amanda that set her off in a tizzy. She threw his ring on the floor at his feet and stormed out. Said she was the best thing that ever happened to him. The lawyer called his wife to come on to the party and she told Ilene Spencer, since they’re friends, and then Ilene told me.”
“I told you she wouldn’t sign a paper like that. Be cuttin’ her own throat,” Hilda declared.
Milli yawned and wished for just one day she didn’t have to listen to Beau this, Beau that, and Beau everything. It was hard enough to get off an emotional roller coaster without hearing his name every five minutes from daybreak until dark.
Jim winked at Milli. “I do believe that Beau was struck with old cupid’s bow last night. He didn’t let you out of his sight but twice, and that’s only because you had to go to the little girl’s room.”
“Oh, Poppy, Amanda had just broken their engagement and he only needed someone to dance with so everybody there wouldn’t be feeling sorry for him.”
Jim chuckled. “Sure, darlin’. You don’t believe that lie and neither do I. When’s he coming over here to see you? I didn’t think he was even goin’ to let you drive away last night. Began to think we was going to have to send for a preacher right then and there.”
“Beau isn’t coming over here today. If he’s not going to church, he’s got work to do. And alter church I’m taking Katy for a long walk around the ranch,” she declared.
The words were scarcely out of her mouth when Beau knocked on the sliding glass patio doors out onto the balcony. He slid the door open when Jim motioned to him to come on inside.
“Mornin’ folks. Thought I might talk Hilda out of a biscuit this morning.”
Hilda pointed toward the buffet. “Help yourself. Biscuits, sausage, gravy, and pancakes. Take your choice. And just to clear the air right now, I’m not sorry that hateful woman broke off your engagement. Even if you think it’s the end of the world today, you’ll see better in a few weeks. Just count your lucky stars and realize there’s an angel on your side.”
He nodded, picked up a plate and helped himself, and pulled up a chair beside Milli. “Yes, ma’am, I can sure believe there is an angel taking care of old Beau. I was wondering if it would be all right if I kidnapped your granddaughter this fine Sunday morning after church services. Thought we might take a little picnic lunch over to the park in Sulphur and get our feet wet in the water at Little Niagara. It’s colder’n snow, even at this time of year, but…”
“Don’t ask me,” Jim grinned. “Milli’s free, part white, and well past twenty-one. I think she can make up her own mind about spending the afternoon with you, so ask her, not me, son.”
He turned his head so he could see her and his heart skipped two beats. She was beautiful in a faded T-shirt and a pair of cutoff jean shorts with frayed edge. He didn’t intend to ever let her out of his sight again, at least not for more than a few days. “What do you say, Milli?”
“Sorry, Beau. I’m in and out all week with the ranching business. Sundays I devote entirely to Katy. We go to church, and afterwards I play with her all afternoon.”
“I was plannin’ on takin’ Miss Katy with us to the park. She’ll love the Nature Center. There’s bugs and snakes and all kinds of things. And we can take a blanket for when she runs her little legs off and gets sleepy. Maybe we’ll forget Little Niagara and take her to the creek that runs through the park. The water is shallow there and the sun warms it up so she won’t freeze.” He slathered butter on the biscuit and popped a crusty chunk into his mouth..
“Oh, all right. But she’s demanding, and you’ll probably be ready to throw us both in the river before the day’s out.”
“Wonder where she gets that demanding business?” Mary teased.
Beau finished the last of his breakfast. “Fine breakfast, Hilda. Pick you up here in about an hour, Milli, and we’ll go to church with Jim and Mary. Rosa’s fixing lunch at the ranch for us and a picnic supper to carry along to the park, so you could bring a change of clothes and we can go from the Bar M to the park. See y’all later.” He planted a kiss on Milli’s cheek and was out of the door before she could disagree with him.
Hilda plopped down in the chair he’d just vacated. “Well, did you ever? I ain’t never seen that boy’s eyes that blue. He’s just plumb in love with you, girl.”
Milli fought back the urge to hold the kiss safely on her flaming red cheek. “Oh, posh. A person don’t fall in love with someone in a single night. He’s just on the rebound from a bad affair with Amanda. Come on, baby girl; let’s go get you ready for church.” She gave a small prayer of gratitude that Katy had been sitting in her lap and Beau couldn’t really see her.
Beau drove up in the yard at 10:15 in his shiny black, club cab pickup truck. From the window in her bedroom, Milli watched him crawl out and shake the legs of his freshly-starched black Wranglers down over the tops of his spit-shined black eel boots. His broad shoulders and big upper arms stretched the fabric of a white westerncut shirt. She wanted to meet him halfway to the house and drag him upstairs to her bedroom.
“Stop it,” she commanded her sinful thoughts and checked herself in the cheval mirror one more time. She was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Anyone would swear she was a teenager and this was her first date.. She dabbed a bead of sweat from the top of her upper lip and reapplied powder.
“Milli, we’re going to be late,” her grandmother called from the bottom of the staircase. “Beau is here and we need to be going.”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Lord, I know he’s here. Every fiber in my body knows he just arrived.
She picked Katy up out of the crib. “Let’s just hope he can’t see past the end of his nose when he looks at you, girl. There’s got to be at least a gazillion blond-haired, blue-eyed men in this part of the country so… stop it right now, Katy Scarlett Torres. Don’t you dare smile like that. When you do, you’ve got dimples as deep as his,” she scolded but Katy kept smiling.
He looked up and didn’t take his eyes from Milli as she carried Katy down the stairs. Milli wore a red and white gingham-checked sun dress with thin straps and white kid sandals. A gold chain around her neck held the Lazy T diamond charm her father had given her for graduation from high school and gold stud earrings glittered when her long hair bounced. Katy peeped out from the brim of a blue and white checked bonnet that matched her romper, and Beau could see blonde curls wiggling out from the back of the bonnet.
“Don’t you ladies look beautiful. Hello, Katy. My, you’ve got the bluest eyes in the whole world.” He opened his arms and to Milli’s surprise, Katy reached for him. “Now, if your momma will get your car seat from her truck, I’m sure we can get you fixed right up in old Beau’s truck.”
Milli looked over her shoulder to find Mary and Jim looking like two Cheshire cats who’d dined on sautéed canary in wine sauce. Well, she hoped it didn’t give them a case of indigestion when they figured out everything wasn’t going to go just as they planned. She and Beau were as suited to each other as a church deacon and a two-bit harlot. Every time they were together - except at the dance just last night and the disastrous time when Katy was conceived - all they did was fight. And after today, Beau would bring her home and scuttle his tightfitting Wranglers right back to the Bar M, never to return again. When Katy slobbered all over his freshly starched white shirt or used that big silver arrowhead slide on his bolo tie for a teething ring, he’d be ready to haul her back to Jim and forget all about the drunken night of ecstasy. By the end of the day, Milli wouldn’t be his angel or lady or anything else: her halo would be replaced with a set of horns and a pitchfork. He might even consider dropping down on his knees and begging Amanda for a second chance when Katy got through initiating him into the ways of a fourteen-month-old baby.
He held the door open with one hand and cradled Katy next to his shoulder with the other one. “And here comes Katy’s saddle for this bronc. Put it right back there in the back seat, Mommy, and we’ll rope her in. And now, Miz Milli, let me help you in, and we’ll be off to church. Katy, you got to sit right beside me and promise to keep me awake in church. Sometimes those preacher men get to droning on and on and I kinda fall asleep.”
“You’re pretty good with kids for a bachelor,” Milli said as they drove toward Ringling to the little Methodist church her grandparents had attended forever.
“I like kids. Got a whole passe! of nieces and nephews and I’m their favorite uncle. I’m the baby of six kids… all boys. We haven’t got any nieces. Us Luckadeaus have big families and we don’t throw very many girls. Six boys and twice that many grandsons. Momma keeps praying for a girl, but so far her prayers haven’t made it past the ceiling. Guess someday I’ll have a whole backyard of boys, too.”
She looked out the window to hide the grin twitching the edges of her mouth. “I see. That’s a lovely belt buckle. You ride bulls?”
“Yep,” he nodded. “Do a little bull riding and bronc busting. You barrel race?”
“Yes, and also a little bull riding.”
“You’re shi… kidding me.” He cleared his throat. “You really ride?”
“Did before Katy was born. Haven’t since then. Picked up a few bucks and a lot of bruises. Eight seconds is a long time to sit on the back of a ton of pure mean hell, ain’t it?”
“It sure is. Don’t know many women who’ll try it.”
“Probably not many out there with two older brothers and who has got a chip on her shoulder trying to prove she is just as mean and tough as the boys.”
When they reached the church, Milli tried to start for the nursery with Katy, and Beau balked.
“But why does she have to go to the nursery?” He argued as he held the baby close to his chest. “She’s Plenty old enough to sit beside me, and I’ll take her out if she gets fussy.”
“Oh, Beau, it’s for her own good. She can play in the nursery and she’ll be bored to tears up here,” Mary agreed with Milli.
He might have lost the battle but he didn’t have to concede the whole war. “Then can I go to the nursery? Sometimes I get bored, too. And I’d rather play with the baby. Oh, all right. Don’t look at me like that. If she can’t stay in the sanctuary to keep me awake, then I get to carry her down to the nursery.”
“Deal,” Milli agreed.
During the Sunday sermon, he draped his arm over the back of the pew and thought about Milli. Buster had been fairly well floating around on a cloud all morning long. The rest of the ranch hands kept coming around to congratulate him on roping that filly from the next ranch. Mercy, but not a one of them had made this much to-do over Amanda. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t remember even one of them congratulating him with a smile on his face after he’d proposed to the girl. Mostly it was a serious handshake and a wish for happiness.., kind of like what he did that time when his cousin was about to mess up really bad and marry that horrible woman.
Milli fought back one of those delicious shivers when his hand touched her bare arm. No one had ever affected her the way he did. She could sit on the hard, wooden pew for hours and smell that wonderful aroma that was Beau: a strange mixture of a woodsy shaving lotion, freshly laundered and ironed shirt, and peppermint gum. She thought about taking his hand and leading him back to the Sunday school room, but she didn’t know how good she was at dodging lightning bolts - or seducing a sober man, either, for that matter. He’d been drunker than a cooter’s owl the night she’d spent in his arms in the back bedroom of a trailer. She fanned herself with the church program just thinking about those kisses that had turned her knees to jelly and caused her to drop her dress to the floor. The preacher said something about forgiving and forgetting, but she didn’t want to forget one moment of that night.
Finally services were over and Milly and Mary went to the nursery.
“Mommy, mommy, look at the kitty,” Katy sing-songed and pointed toward a stuffed black and white cat she had put into a toy cradle and covered with a blanket.
“Lovely child,” the nursery attendant said. “And she’s the absolute spitting image of her father. All those blonde curls and blue eyes. I know he must be really proud of her.”
Milli almost swallowed her tongue. She tried to deny the statement but she couldn’t stand right there after Sunday services in a church house and lie any more than she could have seduced Beau in the Sunday school room.
“Oh, hello, Sarah,” Mary smiled brightly. “I see you’ve met my granddaughter, Milli, and her daughter, Katy. They’re staying with us this summer while Jim is recuperating from surgery.”
Sarah nodded her head until all three of her chins wobbled up and down. “Lovely child. I was just telling Milli that Katy looks just like her father. When he carried her in here, I thought to myself, ‘Sarah, there’s one man who couldn’t deny his daughter,’ and he’s such a good daddy. Stayed here with Milli and Katy until the child was comfortable with me. Most fathers just let the mothers bring them down here and drop them off. Some of them I’m not sure who they belong to, but this baby sure is like her daddy.”
“Well, she may look like her father, but she’s got her mother’s temper,” Mary winked mischievously at Milli.
Milli finally exhaled as she carried Katy down the hall, with Mary right behind her. “That was scary.”
Mary shook her head. “She’s not blind, and there will be others who say the same thing when they see the two of them together. Just what do you intend to do about this lovely child looking so much like her father? It’s not a matter of me or your Poppa telling it, either.”