Blame It On Texas (25 page)

You couldn’t be too careful these days, Martha thought, looking out the window of her corner apartment. It was a nice place. Carl had seen to it that she had one of the larger units with a view of the back acreage. He’d sulked a little bit when she’d refused to marry him—he’d sure wanted to move in to the house on Apple Street—but he’d accepted her decision to sell the house to Emily. She and George and their growing family could use the space.

Martha had grown tired of cleaning all those rooms. Her spacious one-bedroom villa, with its panoramic views and ivory wall-to-wall carpet suited her just fine. Living alone suited her just fine, too, but sometimes she let Carl spend the night. Just for fun.

She glanced at her watch. Mother would be waiting for her. And Mother didn’t like to be kept waiting these days.

“H
OW MANY DAYS
?” Danny asked, watching Kate take another batch of sugar cookies out of the oven.

“Until Christmas? Nineteen,” she replied, accustomed to the question Danny asked daily. “In nineteen days we’ll open presents Christmas morning, with Grandma Gert and Grammy, right here in our house.”

“Our house,” he whispered, smiling up at her with such joy that Kate immediately choked up. She felt that way often these days, as the baby grew bigger and the boy more affectionate and her husband more protective. She managed to slide each cookie off the tray and onto a cooling rack before Dustin came downstairs and entered the kitchen.

“Are we ready?” He tousled Danny’s hair and gave Kate a hug. “Mmm,” he said. “You smell like vanilla.”

“Mom’s makin’ sugar cookies,” Danny said, “for the party at school. We’re gonna decorate them tomorrow.”

Dustin’s arms tightened around her and he rested his chin on the top of her head. “You okay?”

“Never better,” she managed to say, though her husband looked down and his gaze softened at the tears she was trying so hard to hide. “We’re going to be late.”

“Gert will wait for us,” Dustin said.

“I’m not so sure. She’s a big star now.” Kate shifted sideways so she could snuggle closer to her husband. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere but on the ranch. She never missed her life in New York; instead, she submitted story concepts, via e-mail, to her boss. Two had been accepted this fall, meaning she and Dustin would be able to start on the new horse barn, and Danny’s college account had begun. But she was happy letting Gran take the stage as the writer in the family. “Gran loves the attention.”

“As long as she doesn’t get too big for Beauville,” he said.

“Please don’t say the words ‘too big’ around a very pregnant woman,” Kate told him, and hugged her husband even tighter. “Or I’ll never get in the back seat of a car with you again.”

T
HE MEMBERS OF THE
newly formed Beauville Book Club gathered together for the December meeting in the Good Night Villas’ library. It was actually the southwest meeting room, but the members of the book club liked to refer to it as the library on the days they met.

Gert fiddled with her notes.

So far she’d taken all this hoopla in stride, selling her book to a Texas publishing house, moving to the Villas and even signing a television deal with The History Channel.

But speaking in front of all these gabbing women, women who couldn’t sit still for more than fifteen minutes without having an opinion, was something else all together. So Gert gripped her notes and walked over to the window that overlooked the west end of the Villas’ property.

After the well had been filled in, she and Martha had covered the top with some pretty flowers. Gert liked being close to Hank this way. At least she knew he was safe and she felt better knowing where he was buried.

Gert liked looking after him.

Irene Bennett called the meeting to order as Kate, Dustin and Danny slipped into seats in the back. Jake and Elizabeth, bless them, were in the second row. They must have gotten a sitter for little Nancy, which was a good idea. Gert didn’t know if she could talk loud enough to compete with that happy little girl of theirs.

Martha waved to her, gesturing that it was time for her mother to go to the podium. She’d finished stacking the copies of
A Woman Remembers
on a nearby folding table. Irene was pretty long-winded, though, so Gert didn’t rush. No one could make a ninety-one-year-old woman hurry across a room, no matter how loud the applause.

“Thank you,” she told her audience. “I’m real pleased to have my books here. And I’m real pleased to see my family.” She took a deep breath
and read from the notes she’d tucked inside a copy of her book.

“From the Comanche raids of 1850, to the Civil War and later, when the railroad came, my family was here. Here fighting to survive and prosper, to raise their children and build a town. Somehow they managed to survive, despite all the hardships thrown their way.” Gert paused and looked for the faces of her own family.
My, my, this might be fun after all,
she thought. She opened her book and turned to page one. Holding one gnarled finger on the page, she cleared her throat and then began to read, “I blame it all on Texas…”

ISBN: 978-1-4603-1150-9

BLAME IT ON TEXAS

Copyright © 2001 by Kristine Rolofson.

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