Authors: Carolyn Brown
His nose flared at the old table and the smell of vinegar still in the house.
“Care for a glass of sweet tea or a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you. I’ve got another appointment back in Wichita Falls at noon. I’d like to take care of this quickly,” he said.
The expression on his face when he looked at her overalls and the dye on her fingers said it all. He thought Granny had been crazy to leave all her earthly belongings to her redneck granddaughter.
She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. “I’m sure we can.”
“I am Glen Rushing. I’ve handled Verline Lanier’s affairs since she got sick. She wanted me to arrange things so there would be a minimum of fuss for you when she was gone. I thought you were in the oil business in Tulsa.”
“Did Granny tell you that? That’s what she would have liked for me to be,” she said.
The man rubbed her wrong. It wasn’t his business if she lived out of the back of a rusted out pickup truck with a leaky hooch over the bed and counted it a good day when she had bologna sandwiches. Not that she did any of that, but if she had, it wasn’t his concern.
He popped open his briefcase with a flourish and brought out several papers. “For the record, I don’t usually make house calls. Especially on Saturday, but Mrs. Lanier made me promise I would come see you the day after the memorial. Now to begin with I need you to sign this paper saying that you will take over her business transactions. That includes the farm and the wine business.”
Austin was shocked to know that there was a wine business. She picked up the papers and began to read. In the fifth grade they’d timed her at four hundred words a minute with perfect retention so it didn’t take long. The farm, all one thousand nine hundred and twenty acres, and all the equipment, house, personal belongings, and the crop with any other of Verline Lanier’s earthly possessions was willed to Austin Lanier along with the wine business. It took her twenty minutes to read every single paper he put in front of her and sign them. He left a sheaf of original documents for her with instructions that she would probably be wise to put them in the bank deposit box at Verline’s bank in Ryan. He turned over the stock portfolio that Verline kept with a company in Wichita Falls and the bank statements for the past six months with enough zeroes to stagger Austin.
“And that concludes our business, Miss Lanier. A bit of advice that I hope you won’t take the wrong way.” He scanned her from bare toes upward across the overalls and chambray shirt. “If you use this wisely it will support you, your children, and your grandchildren. Mrs. Lanier worked hard to leave this to you. Don’t squander it.”
“I’m sure I’ll take care of things just the way Granny told me to.”
“One more thing.” He snapped his briefcase shut with a flourish and popped up like a wind-up toy from the chair. “Did you really read those things or can you not read and you were putting on a show for my benefit?”
“That is a rude question that I have no intention of answering. Good day, Mr. Rushing.” She marched to the door and held it open for him.
“You’d be so proud of me, Granny,” she said when he was gone. “I didn’t pepper his better-than-thou ass with rock salt.”
For the second morning Austin awoke to the sound of pots and pans rattling in the kitchen. The aroma of coffee and bacon blended and floated down the hall, past the bathroom, under the door, and to her nose. She opened one eye enough to see the clock and shut it quickly against the bright sunlight flowing in the window beside her bed.
“Déjà vu,” she mumbled and sat straight up in bed, her eyes popping wide open. Was this like that movie she’d seen when she was thirteen?
Groundhog Day
with Bill Murray. In the movie Bill Murray’s character had to relive Groundhog Day every single day until he finally did what he was supposed to do.
Did Terral have some kind of weird power that would keep her on the watermelon farm reliving yesterday every single day? Dear God, was she going to have to dye Easter eggs and put up with that egotistical lawyer every single day?
“If that’s the case then today I’m going to shoot him in the hind end with the rock salt and I’m going to throw all the eggs at Rye. Wait a minute… that means I get to kiss Rye every day, too. I’m not sure my hormones can take that every day until I get things done the right way,” she kept muttering as she peeked out the door to hear Rye whistling in the kitchen. She belted a pink silk robe over her pajamas and padded up the hallway hoping the whole time that the stove wasn’t filled with pots of boiling eggs.
“Good morning, sleepyhead. I thought the smell of coffee might wake you. I made banana nut pancakes this morning. Have a seat. I just poured up the last of the batter. We’ll be ready to eat in five minutes.” He set a cup of coffee before her, kissed her on the forehead, and went back to the stove with his lips tingling and his thoughts going in all kinds of indecent directions and a sudden tightening in his jeans that almost made him groan.
Get a grip, cowboy. You’re moving way too fast here.
“Thank you and good morning. Do you make breakfast here every morning?” The red-hot kiss on the forehead sent her into a whirlwind of a tailspin for a moment but she regained control by concentrating on the breakfast. She was grateful for pancakes and not sausage gravy and biscuits and even happier to see an empty stove.
“No, ma’am. Granny and I only had breakfast together on Saturday. Every other day she was busy raising watermelons and I was busy taking care of a cattle ranch. Except on Easter weekend. We had breakfast both days then because this morning we have to get down to the community center by eleven o’clock and get the eggs hid. We take care of that while all the kids and their parents are in church. Then at one o’clock they all line up. Everett rings a cowbell and the fun begins.”
That little robe that barely came to her knees was plumb sexy. Pink was definitely her color. Not black.
“Are you going to put on a pink Easter bunny outfit?” she asked. Now wouldn’t that be fun to unzip that fuzzy bunny outfit and run her hands down over all those muscles that bulged his shirtsleeves. And then when she got even further…
That’s enough, Austin Lanier!
He wore jeans, but instead of a knit shirt he had on a bright yellow plaid western cut shirt. His hair still needed a cut and there was a definite mark across his forehead where his hat had kept the sun from tanning the inch of skin right below his hairline. And he still wasn’t an old man. Why in the hell had she gotten that idea fixed in her mind so firmly anyway?
Rye set the platter of pancakes on the table. “Dig in, and the answer to that question would not be
no
, but
hell no
.”
She piled pancakes high on her plate and looked around for the butter container. Rye handed her a small white pitcher with flowers on the side. She recognized it immediately as the one her grandmother always put milk in when she served coffee to guests.
“I melt the butter, the real stuff, not margarine, in the microwave and then add warm syrup to it. That way you get both together.”
She rolled her eyes with the first bite. “Granny didn’t teach you to make these, did she?”
“No, Momma did. This is our traditional Easter breakfast.”
“She’s only… what did you say… seven miles south? Why are you not there for Easter breakfast?”
“Because we hide eggs this morning?”
And I wouldn’t miss the fun of hiding eggs with you for anything. Besides, I know how to make banana nut pancakes and I love the way you roll your eyes when something tastes good.
“You got a mouse in your pocket? We, as in you and I, are not hiding eggs. I’m working all day in the garage. I spent yesterday afternoon out there and didn’t even make a healthy dent. I’ve got seven huge black plastic leaf bags full of nothing but old medical statements, receipts for electric bills dating back to the fifties, and gas receipts for the vehicles when the price was thirty cents a gallon.”
“History is relegated to the trash heap. What a waste.”
“I haven’t thrown it out yet. You want to haul it over to your place and preserve history?”
“No, thank you!”
“Speaking of trash heap. What do I do with all of it?”
“We can make a burn pile or you can call for a roll-off Dumpster to be parked in the backyard. When it’s full they’ll come haul it off and bring you a new one if you need it.”
“Is there one in the phone book?”
“Not the Terral book. You would probably have pretty good luck finding one on the Internet maybe out of Wichita Falls or Nocona.”
“I haven’t had time to open my laptop, but Granny didn’t have…”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, she did. Her computer is in the wine cellar. About all she ever used it for was the wine business, but she’s got a wireless connection and she was pretty damned good with the computer.”
“Wine cellar?”
“Yes, the wine cellar. Surely you knew that she made wine. It’s known all over the south and from coast to coast. You’ve never bought a bottle of Lanier Wine?”
“First time I knew anything about wine was yesterday when the lawyer mentioned it. I thought it was something she invested in.”
“Well, she did invest time and money in it but she loved making it too. I’ll show you where it is if you hide eggs with me and then join me at my folks’ for Easter dinner.”
“I can find it on my own, thank you very much.”
“Oh, really! Well, good luck with that. You’ve been here how often since you were how old and you didn’t even know about it. There’s nearly two thousand acres here. Where do you intend to start looking?”
She finished off her breakfast, poured a second cup of coffee, and thought about where her grandmother would put a wine cellar on the nearly two thousand acres of flat land. And where were the grape arbors? She’d never seen anything but fields and fields of watermelons, not a single bunch of grapes. Surely she didn’t buy the grapes to make the wine. That didn’t sound like Verline Lanier at all. She used to say most of her food came right off Lanier property. Her vegetable garden was big enough to feed half the county and she had fenced off a hundred acres down on the southeast corner of the land to raise steers and hogs for her meat. The chicken pen was out beyond the shed where her new truck was parked. Guineas roamed the yard and pastures because they ate ticks and Rascal and his tomcat buddies kept the rat population at bay.
None of that conjured up a vision of a place where she grew grapes or had a wine making business. Maybe there was no business on the property. Maybe she just had an interest in someone else’s winery and Rye was jerking her around.
He refilled his coffee cup. “Figured out where it is yet?”
“No, but I will.”
Even disagreeing with her hadn’t made him want to scoot right back across the road and forget all about his new neighbor. Matter of fact, she was kind of cute with her blue eyes all wide and her brow wrinkled. “Might as well go on and get dressed. Wear something casual. We never get all dressed up for Easter. It’s just the five kids, Momma and Daddy, and my grandparents who live on the same ranch with them. You’ll make a nice even number of ten this year. Course afterwards there’s people dropping in all evening but it’s still casual.”
“I said I’m not going to hide eggs or go with you. Good grief, Rye, I only met you two days ago. Why would I go home to meet your parents?”
“Because Granny did every Easter and it’ll make it easier if some of her kin is there. We all loved her and now she’s gone. And because it’s Easter Sunday and that’s a family holiday and you shouldn’t spend it alone.”
And because the last thing I promised Granny Lanier was that when you arrived I’d take care of you. She said you’d have some difficult decisions to make about the farm and that I was to help you through the tough times. And because ever since I laid eyes on you at the river I can’t get you out of my mind. Add the fact that the kiss yesterday knocked the common sense out of me and I want to spend today with you.
“Oh, all right,” she said. “Now where is the wine business?”
“I’ll show you when we get home tonight.”
She popped her hands on her hips and locked eyes with him. “I keep my word, Rye.”
He touched the end of her nose with his fingertip and grinned. “I would expect you to since you are a Lanier.”
She was sexy as hell and as frustrating as the itch… the seven-year kind with no cure. He wasn’t sure he could get drunk enough to take his mind off her, especially when every time he managed to come in contact skin to skin he thought he was going to spontaneously combust.
“Then show me now,” she said.
He shook his head. “When you see what she’s done you will want to spend hours there, not minutes. We’ve got to hide these eggs and you’ve got to get ready.”
“At least tell me where she’s hiding a grape arbor?”
He ran a sink of dishwater and began the clean-up. “Grape arbor?”
“Wine!” She raised her voice.
Yep, she was cute as a baby kitten when she was angry.
“She didn’t make that kind of wine. Lanier Wine has a watermelon on it. She made wonderful watermelon wine. Ever heard that song, ‘Watermelon Crawl’?”
Austin was stunned. “There’s really such a thing?”
“Oh, yes, and darlin’, hers is high dollar and coveted by the connoisseurs all over the world. She had quite a little business going here. I suppose you’ll have to apply for all the right licenses to run it in your name now, or maybe she’s already taken care of that?”
Austin lowered her voice. “She did. I signed the papers taking ownership and all the legal stuff yesterday.”
“Well, I expect she’s got her recipes hid in the vault.”
“What vault? Dammit, but you are frustrating!”
One side of his mouth turned up. He was glad that he’d frustrated her because she’d had the same effect on him since he laid eyes on her. “That, too, is something for later. Maybe we’ll even share a bottle sometime. Fifty-five minutes until hiding time. How long does it take you to get ready?”
“Casual?” She sighed.