Blame It On Texas (7 page)

“My mom drank too much beer,” Danny said. “The policeman said—”

“Danny,” Dustin interrupted, giving the boy a look he hoped would stop him from saying anything further.

“Well, she did,” the boy said, lifting his chin as if daring Dustin to argue with the truth. “
Lots
of times.”

“Let’s see what’s in this pretty package,” Gert said, diverting the child from any more revelations. “How did you know I like pink?” He shrugged. Gert lifted the package to her nose. “Ooh-wee, this smells good.”

“Roses,” the boy announced.

“Roses? Well, how nice. I’d better open it up.” She untied the bow and the tissue paper fell apart to reveal three bars of pink soap. Until Danny had spotted those in a Marysville gift shop, Dustin had had no idea that soap could be so expensive. Still,
it wasn’t much of a gift, not after what Gert had done for them. But Danny had insisted—the rose soaps or nothing.

“Do you like it?” Danny leaned over and helped move the tissue away so Gert could see the soaps, individually tied with pink satin ribbons.

“My, my, how beautiful. And these are too pretty to use,” she declared. “But I think I will anyway, first thing tomorrow morning when I take my shower.” She gave him a big hug and kissed his cheek. “Thank you so much, Danny.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And you, too, Dustin,” Gert said. “Thank you.”

He opened his mouth to tell her it was nothing, but the kitchen door opened and he had to move out of the way or get hit with a load of shopping bags.

“Here,” he said, reaching to take them out of Kate’s arms. He should have known she would still be around somewhere. He couldn’t be that lucky. “Let me take those.”

“I’ve got them,” she insisted, refusing to relax her grip on the bags she held in front of her like a shield. “If I let go of one I might let go of all three of them.”

He backed off, but he didn’t like doing it.

“Sit down, Dustin,” Gert said. “You don’t need
to hover by the door like that. We’ve plenty of room around the table.”

“Here, Daddy,” the boy said, pointing to two empty chairs beside each other around the old oval table. “You sit here and I’ll sit here.”

He’d look like a fool if he refused, but he watched Kate navigate toward her grandmother and set the bags at her feet.

“There.” She smiled down at Danny. “I’ll bet you came over to have more cake.”

“And to give me a present,” Gert said, holding one of the soaps up. “Smell. Isn’t that nice?”

“Mmm,” she said. “Rose?”

“Yep,” his smitten son declared, staring up at Kate with an eager-to-please expression. Dustin pulled out a chair at the table, when he really wanted to grab the boy and run for the bunkhouse.
Careful, boy,
he wanted to say.
She’s the kind of woman who’ll smile at you one day and break your heart the next.
“Oh,” he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a crumpled envelope. “I forgot this.”

“Oh, my,” Gert said, taking the envelope. “I just love getting birthday cards.”

“You must have a lot,” the boy said, climbing on a chair and leaning forward to watch Gert.

“Coffee’s just about ready,” Martha McIntosh announced. “Kate, do you want some too?”

Kate began unpacking one of the shopping bags. “Yes, thanks.”

Dustin walked over to the table and took a seat. Trapped, that’s what he was. A man surrounded by three generations of women determined to celebrate a birthday for as long as possible. He watched Kate pile gifts at Gert’s feet, while Danny and Gert exclaimed over the mounting pile of presents.

“You’re gonna open ’em now, right?” Danny asked.

“I sure am. And you can help me. You know where I keep the scissors,” Gert said, and Danny scrambled off the chair and hurried across the room. He dug the scissors out of a drawer by the telephone and hurried back to Gert. “Thank you,” she said, and cut a fistful of purple ribbons tied into a curly knot on top of a white box. “What do you suppose this is?”

Dustin glanced toward Kate, who looked as intrigued as Danny did. Her hair was lighter, though not as long as it was in high school. Her pink top and blue shorts showed off a figure that had only improved over the years. She looked as if she worked out in one of those fancy New York City gyms. He wondered if she had a lover, if they jogged together in Central Park and drank coffee in those restaurants with tables that lined the sidewalks.

“What do you take in it?”

Dustin turned as Martha set a cup of coffee in front of him.

“Just black, ma’am. Thank you.” He hated himself for sounding like the hired help, but that’s what he was. And that’s the way Kate’s mother eyed him. Did the woman know he’d made love to her daughter for one short summer so many years ago? Probably not, or she wouldn’t have invited him to stay for coffee.

Cake appeared for everyone, plus a glass of milk for Danny, who watched as each present was unwrapped and exclaimed over. And the women were careful to include the boy in the impromptu party. How did women—some women—understand all of this, anyway? How did they know that a little boy had probably never been to a birthday gathering like this one? He sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee, despite that it burned his tongue. He ate cake—two pieces, even—and tried not to look at Kate too often.

She was still beautiful, of course. It was natural to be attracted to her, as he would be to any beautiful woman who smiled at Danny and made the boy feel part of things. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been with a woman, couldn’t imagine anyone in Beauville he’d want in his bed. In his life.

And now here was Kate, the only woman he’d
ever loved. He’d been young and foolish, but he’d been in love just the same. And seeing her again could still tie his tongue in knots.

“It’s time for bed, Danny,” Dustin said, once the gifts were opened and the boy had stuffed all the wrapping paper in a garbage sack. Gert, frugal as ever, insisted on keeping the ribbons and bows, so Danny stuffed them into a deep drawer filled with string and assorted other things the woman figured she might need some day.

“Aww,” the boy groaned. “Really?”

“Yep.” Dustin scraped his chair back from the table and picked up his empty coffee cup to set in the sink. It was long past time to leave this house full of women and take the boy home to bed.

CHAPTER SIX

“M
OTHER, ARE YOU
sure you don’t want to come back to town with us tonight?”

“I’m sure.” Gert felt a little stiff after sitting at the kitchen table for so long, but she tried not to let on. Any complaint or sign of weakness would bring Martha down on her with that relentless worrying of hers. She shuffled into the sitting room, which used to be the dining room during the days when there were people to feed every day and night, and settled herself in her favorite overstuffed chair. “I like my own bed, Martha. You know I do.”

“I know.” Martha exchanged a look with Kate, who only smiled and sat down on the old maroon sofa.

“Your kitchen is all cleaned up, Gran,” she said. “But I’ll come out tomorrow and see what else you need to have done around here.”

“It’s your vacation, honey. You don’t need to be working out here.” But she knew Kate would come out anyway. The girl loved to clean, always
had, but Gert had other plans for her granddaughter. If you wanted to write a book and your only granddaughter was a television writer, well, how lucky could an old lady be?

“I want to,” she insisted. “You know I like to be out here. It’s a chance to get the city out of my system.”

“But your friends—”

“Will see plenty of me. I’m going to call Emily first thing tomorrow and see how she’s doing. Make a cleaning list, Grandma, and I’ll work my way through it.”

“Cleaning. Now that’s a good idea.” Martha plopped on the couch and patted her daughter’s knee. “Your grandmother has never been much for throwing things away and I’ll bet there are some closets upstairs that could use a good going through.”

“Closets,” Gert muttered. “I don’t care much about what’s in those old closets. Tell me about the show, Kate. Is that nasty redheaded nurse going to kill someone else this week?”

Kate laughed. “I guess you’ve been watching the show. Lillian is a pretty frightening villain, isn’t she?”

“You need a cowboy or two on that soap opera of yours, Katie.” Her granddaughter hadn’t fooled anyone with that I-hardly-know-Dustin-Jones attitude. Why, the young man could hardly take his
eyes off her the entire time they were all in the kitchen eating cake. Gert watched Kate fidget with a crocheted pillow. “Have you ever thought of that?
Loves of Our Lives
could use some Texan men, to show those silly women in Apple Valley what real men are like.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Kate promised. “The head writer might be leaving, so there could be some changes. It’s going to be a nerve-wracking summer on the show.”

Changes. Gert wanted to tell her beloved Kate that changes were part of things, part of life. Of course, a woman could always dig in her heels and refuse to budge, or she could change right along with everything else. “How do you like my new ranch hands?”

“Hands?” Martha repeated. “You hired someone else?”

“The boy,” Gert sighed. Her daughter didn’t have much of a sense of humor, all things considered. Edwin sure had been funny, though, in his own way. She sure missed him, missed him teasing her about things. “Little Danny. Isn’t he something?”

“Where do you think his mother is?” Kate asked, and Gert suspected there was more to her question than she was willing to let on.

“Dustin didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I think Dustin said Danny was going into third grade here in
the fall,” Gert mused, wishing she knew what was going on in that girl’s head. “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“He sure likes cake.” Martha looked at her watch. “We should let you get to bed, Mother. You’ve had quite a day.”

“A good day,” Gert reminded her, but truth to tell, she was tired. But she had a few more things to discuss with the girls before they left. “Did I tell you I’m writing a book?”

“About what?” Kate asked, sounding interested. Almost as interested as she’d been in Dustin’s boy.

“About my life. Beauville. Texas. Everyone keeps telling me that I must have a lot of stories to tell.”

“Oh, Lord,” Martha moaned. “Whatever for?”

“I’d like to be rich before I die,” her mother said. “And I sure would like to meet Katie Couric.”

“What does Katie Couric have to do with the price of beans?”

“She’s the cute little gal on TV.”

“I know who she is, Mother. I want to know what she has to do with your writing a book.”

Kate began to laugh. “Gran, do you want to be on television?”

Gert nodded. “I sure do.”

“If you’d come to New York you could be an extra on the show.”

“I’m not fancy enough for that, Katie. I want to be like those old women who were on TV a few days—or was it weeks—ago. They’d made themselves a bunch of money, just talking about their lives and giving advice.”

“It’s a good idea,” her granddaughter declared. “I would think your stories would be very interesting.”

“You can’t even type.” Martha hesitated. “Can you?”

“Enough. Maybe I’ll get me a computer.”

“A computer.” Her lips pursed with disapproval.

“That’s what I said, Martha. A computer. One of them little ones like Kate carries around. So I could put it on the kitchen table.”

“I brought my laptop with me,” Kate said. “I can teach you how to use it.”

“Don’t encourage her. The attic is already filled with scrapbooks and letters and heaven only knows what else. I suppose some things could be donated to the county historical society someday,” Martha said, still unenthusiastic about book writing and television appearances.

“
Someday
meaning after I’m dead and buried?” Gert didn’t like the idea of strangers looking through her personal letters, and there were a few
secrets here and there that folks in town wouldn’t like made public. Come to think of it, though, things like that might spice up the book a little bit. Make it more interesting than dust storms and recipes.

“I’m not sure writing a book guarantees you’ll be on TV,” Kate said, but she looked like she was enjoying the conversation. Gert bet the girl didn’t do a lot of smiling in New York City. Too much stress, that’s what everyone said about living in the city. The girl needed more clean air and good hearty food. “We’ll have to go through those things upstairs. For ideas.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Martha said, rising from the couch. “What’s in the past should stay in the past.”

“Why, Martha, are you so goldarned upset?”

“Mom?”

“I’ve had enough of this talk. And I don’t think anyone should be writing anything about family secrets.” Martha didn’t look at either one of them. Instead she stalked out of the room.

“Gran didn’t say anything about family secrets,” Kate called after her. Gert could have told her that wouldn’t work. When Martha was in one of her fusses, there was no talking her out of it. Sure enough, Martha returned to the living room and kissed Gert goodbye, but she didn’t look happy.

“I wish you’d change your mind,” Martha said.

“About writing a book?”

“About coming home with us.”

“I’m staying here,” Gert declared, “until I sell the place or the hearse comes to take me away.”

“Gran,” Kate said, making a face at her. “I’ll be back in the morning, so have a list ready for me. That is, unless the hearse beats me out here.”

Gert chuckled. “Go on, both of you. Thank you again for a lovely day.” She took Kate’s hand and whispered, “You won’t forget to bring your computer tomorrow?”

“No. Go to bed.”

“I will,” she promised, wishing Martha wasn’t leaving in such a snit. What secrets would her daughter want to keep private, anyway? Martha Knepper McIntosh had never done anything wrong in her life.

Unlike a lot of other folks around here.

“S
HE REALLY SHOULDN’T
stay out here alone anymore, should she?” Kate turned the car around and headed away from the ranch house. She drove slowly, reluctant to leave her grandmother on her own.