A Match Made in Texas (3 page)

The mayor scratched his head. “Well, I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

“Of course it is.” He thumped the mayor on the back. “Why, with your leadership skills, I don’t doubt for a second that the political leaders of your party will be beating down your door come the next gubernatorial election.”

The mayor’s eyes brightened as he took the bait. “Are you tellin’ me that I could be the next governor of Texas?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” Josiah eased back a little so as not to prematurely jerk the hook from the man’s mouth. “Of course, you’ll need to prepare for such an endeavor. Gubernatorial races are demanding and cutthroat.” He gave the mayor a once-over. “You’ll be spending a lot of time in front of a camera, so you might want to think about losing a few pounds. And you’ll need to come up with a slogan. Something snappy that catches people’s attention.”

The old man at the end of the counter, who Josiah had thought was sleeping under his straw cowboy hat, snorted before he got up and shuffled to the door. “I’ve had about enough of these shenanigans.”

Josiah waited for the door to close behind the old coot before he continued. “Let the naysayers spend the rest of their lives trying to dissipate people’s dreams with the vile venom of their negativity.” He looked around the diner at all the confused faces. “But I’m here to tell you that God has a grand plan for each and every one of you. And all it takes to open His abundant gift is a little faith.” He looked over at the waitress. “Let’s take you, for instance, Miss Dean. What is a beautiful, intelligent woman like you doing working as a waitress? Do you really want to spend the rest of your days in a dinky little diner serving food? Or do you want to open the grand gift that God has for you and enjoy it to the fullest?”

Her beady eyes brightened. “And just where do I find this gift?”

He leaned in closer and tapped her temple. “Right here. The gift is waiting right in here. All you have to do is dream it. Do you want to be a ballet dancer? A painter? Or discover the cure for cancer? Anything you want to do, you can do. It’s all within your grasp.” He pointed to the hussy with the fine breasts. “What is your dream, sister?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “To have me another weddin’.”

After being married three times, the last to a she-devil who exposed his misspending, it was a struggle for Josiah to remain positive. “Weddings are the beautiful union of two halves into a whole. But sometimes we let our own desires choose a half that is completely wrong for us. I tell you, sister, it is time to release your fleshly desires and look to the heavens for your rightful mate.” He glanced around at the crowd. “Can I get an amen!”

There was only a brief pause before the diner rang out with the type of affirmation that had always been music to Josiah’s ears.

“Amen!”

An hour later, Josiah was back in his Cadillac and cruising down Main Street. The diner sermon had been one of his best. He had used every trick he’d learned growing up with his revival preacher daddy and a few that he’d picked up during the years spent as a used car salesman. The idiots of Bramble, Texas, never knew what hit them and were now under his spell. Of course, he wasn’t sure how he’d use them. But over the years, he’d learned to build bridges rather than burn them. The townsfolk would come in handy sooner or later.

Even if only to boost his television audience.

Once he had a television audience to boost. Which was exactly what he was doing in Bramble.

He turned down the residential street and glanced at each address until he found the one he was looking for. It was a neat little clapboard with a cluster of bright flowers growing along the porch. He was halfway up the front pathway before he realized that the flowers were plastic.

Although the artificial flowers didn’t surprise him as much as the man lying in the middle of them.

Josiah glanced up at the sky. He didn’t actually believe in God, but lately he’d started to wonder if someone up there didn’t have it out for him. First, Catherine told the fraud story to the newspapers, and now he had found a dead man in a plastic flowerbed. Only a fool would think it was a mere coincidence.

And Josiah was no fool.

The curtains in the front window fluttered, and before he could make a run for it, the door flew open and a scary-looking woman in an ugly purple hat came racing out in a housecoat and slippers.

“Reverend Jessup?” She clutched her hands to her chest and stared at him in stunned awe, the grapes on her hat quivering with her contained excitement. “My prayers have been answered.”

“Never doubt it.” He moved up a step and held out a hand. “You must be Wilma Tate.” Instead of shaking it, she genuflected and placed a moist kiss on the back of his hand. He smiled and subtly wiped it off on his pants as he nodded at the man in the flowerbed. “I think we need to call an ambulance—or perhaps the sheriff.”

The woman looked down at the man, who had his face planted in the dirt and an armful of plastic daffodils, and scowled. “No need to call the sheriff. That’s just my good-for-nothing husband, Elmer.”

Josiah waited for more of an explanation, and when it didn’t come, he asked, “Is he all right?”

Mrs. Tate shook her head. “The man has been under the spell of that devil alcohol ever since we got married. And nothin’ I do or say will keep him from it.” She looked over at Josiah and got excited all over again. “Is that why you’re here? Did you get my twenty dollars and prayer letter and decide to come pray for him in person?” She climbed down on the step next to him and grabbed his arm. “I knew you weren’t a swindler. I knew the money I sent you went for prayers.”

Josiah patted her hand. “That’s exactly why I’m here. Together we can pull your husband from the jaws of inebriated destruction.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out the folded piece of pink stationery. “But first, I’d like to talk with you about this other letter that you sent me.”

She took the paper from his hand and unfolded it. Lifting the glasses that hung on a chain around her neck, she held them up and only had to glance at the letter before she nodded. “It’s shockin’, ain’t it? That kind of sin right here in the fine state of Texas.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken, Mrs. Tate. Their website shows a legitimate bed-and-breakfast.”

She leaned closer. “That’s exactly what they want you to think. But I know better.”

A flicker of excitement sparked to life inside of Josiah. And for the first time in more than a year, he felt as if his luck was about to change.

“So you’re saying that the bed-and-breakfast is only a front for a…”

“Whorehouse.” Mrs. Tate finished his sentence with a superior tone in her voice that would do any churchgoer proud. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Reverend Jessup. And you’ve gotten here just in time to snuff out the pure wickedness of Miss Hattie’s Henhouse.”

His wife’s vehement words roused Elmer, and he sat up. His thinning hair was mussed, his eyes red, and one cheek had the imprint of a daisy. He weaved a little before he echoed his wife.

“Wicked Mis-sh Hattie’s Henhouse.”

Josiah smiled.

Amen
.

Chapter Three

“W
ELCOME TO THE
H
ENHOUSE!”

The woman who popped out from behind the lilac bush was so scary looking that, for a second, Bri thought about jumping back in the car and locking the doors. But before she could even close her fingers around the door handle, the woman hurried over and shoved her out of the way with her massive, tattooed body.

“Don’t you worry about the luggage, that’s what ol’ Olive Washburn is here for.” She moved around to the back, her big work boots thumping against the brick driveway. “Although I can’t figure out how you fit anything into this speck of a car.”

“You’re the new bellman—person?” Bri watched as the woman lifted the hatch, displaying the tattoo on the underside of her muscular arm. While the others were too convoluted to distinguish, this one appeared to be of a naked cowboy wielding a six-shooter. But before Bri could lean closer to get a good look at his impressive gun, the woman lowered her arm.

“Yep,” Olive said as she started pulling out suitcases. “And van driver, toilet fixer, and anything else Miss Minnie needs me to do.” She took out the last bag. “Well, I’ll be an armadillo’s uncle. You sure managed to get a lot in this teeny back end. Are these your initials?” She tapped one of the gold Louis Vuitton emblems with a finger that had a thick line of grease under the nail. “I knew a Louise Varner once. You wouldn’t be related, would you?”

“No.” Bri reached out for the bag, then jerked her hand back when the handcuffs swung into view.

Olive’s eyes narrowed for only a second. “It’s probably a good thing you ain’t related to Louise. She was in the stir with me for killin’ her old man. And mean drunk or not, I figure he didn’t deserve rat poison Spam hash.” She manhandled the suitcases until she had all five hooked over her shoulders or held in her hands. Then, as if she was carrying no more than a clutch purse, she started for the porch.

Bri glanced out at the highway, then back at her car.

“Do you think I could park my car in the barn?” she called after the woman. “It’s my grandmother’s, and I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

Without turning around, the woman yelled back. “Seein’ as how it ain’t bigger than a minute, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Bri released the breath she’d been holding ever since spraying the sheriff with mace. She didn’t know how she had gotten to the Henhouse without being pulled over. The sheriff might not have gotten her license plate number, but in west Texas, a Smart Car stood out like a fly in the salad of beat-up trucks and American-make SUVs. Of course, hiding the car wasn’t going to keep her from getting arrested. Not when her description had probably been broadcast from one side of the state to the other.

And if that was the case, then why wasn’t she more terrified? Instead, her fear was muted beneath a healthy dose of giddy excitement. Obviously, she belonged in a mental ward. There was something very wrong with a woman who enjoyed being scared out of her wits.

“Hey!” Olive’s gruff voice caused Bri to jump. “You think you could hold the door?”

Bri didn’t want to hold the door. She wanted to hide her car. But seeing as how the woman was lugging her suitcases, she couldn’t very well say no. She hurried up the front steps, then froze when she saw the blob of matted fur in the middle of the porch.

“Dad-blame it, Jiggers!” Olive scowled. “Instead of sleepin’ all the time and gettin’ in people’s way, you need to be out in that barn workin’ for your Meow Mix. You’re still on probation after you peed in Miss Hattie’s bed.”

A cat that was the size of a small lynx got to its feet and stretched before it sent Bri a hostile look and released a low growl.

“Don’t mind Jiggers,” Olive said. “He’s had a bad disposition ever since Starlet ran over his tail.” Bri finally noticed the crooked tail that hung like the letter L from the cat’s behind.

Bri carefully stepped around the cat and opened the door. “So Starlet still lives here? I thought Brant said she was moving to Nashville to pursue her singing career.”

“She is, but not for a few weeks. The poor girl is scared witless about livin’ in a big city, and I can’t say as I blame her. Once, in Nashville, I got tossed in the pokey for just stealin’ a six-pack of Diet Coke.” She shook her head as she stepped into the foyer. “An unfriendly lot, them Nashville folks.” Since Bri didn’t know how to reply to that, she kept silent as she followed her inside.

Miss Hattie’s might look like a pretty farmhouse on the outside, but on the inside, it was decorated as richly as any five-star hotel—a nineteenth-century hotel. An antique chandelier hung from the ceiling, hundreds of crystals dripping from the delicate bronze frame. A thick Oriental rug ran the length of the entryway, the deep red plushness cushioning Bri’s feet as she walked toward the elevator that was located behind the massive staircase.

Bri had only been to Miss Hattie’s twice since her brothers had purchased it. Even though it had been turned into a respectable bed-and-breakfast, Bri’s mama was leery of having her only daughter stay in the same rooms that prostitutes had “entertained” in. Mary Anne Cates was convinced that her baby girl was a virgin. And she wanted to keep Bri that way.

As did the rest of the Cates family.

Never one to disappoint, Bri kept her sex life to herself.

Until now.

Now her sexual exploits were on the Internet for all to see. And what was really annoying was that she was being blamed for something she hadn’t even done. Of course, what she
had
done would make her family even more upset. Which is why she chose to keep her mouth shut and allow Brant to exile her to Miss Hattie’s.

And after assaulting an officer of the law with mace, she might have to spend the rest of her life in west Texas, surrounded by nothing but mesquite and a bunch of old women who referred to themselves as hens.

As if Bri’s thoughts had conjured them up, three women appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. There was Baby, who, despite the thick glasses, looked like an older version of Marilyn Monroe with her short platinum hair and pouty-red lips. She wore a fifties-style, off-the-shoulder blouse, black slim-fitting pants, and a pair of bright red vintage high heels that Bri instantly coveted. Unfortunately, bright red stilettos didn’t belong in a demure young lady’s wardrobe.