Crazy Little Thing Called Love (9 page)

By the time she got back to the ranch house
the night before he’d been in bed. When she woke up he was already
out in the barn working with Lucy and the stud from Fort Worth.
She’d demanded answers, had stood her ground, even yelled a little
but he’d given her that disapproving scowl, told her they’d talk on
Sunday and that he was busy. Damn the man.

“Honey, you did so good!” Woody’s wife
appeared, taking his arm and pulling him away from Blue.

She tried not to roll her eyes. It wasn’t
like she was trying to steal the man. She didn’t want him but
apparently being single meant she might pilfer husbands. She’d
noticed more than one of the groomsmen’s wives clutching their men
a little tighter when she was around. Like she was that desperate?
Hardly!

Her chest squeezed again, reminding her that
she had a full night of loneliness to look forward to. All around
her the couples were pairing off again. Even the crazy cat lady
Anna Louise Sanchez seemed to have a date for the big event. She
was one of the only women in attendance flying solo which was just
peachy since they’d started taking pictures and she was standing on
the outskirts all alone.

After the pictures, as they made their way
over to the reception hall Molly grabbed her in a tight hug, “Oh
you just look so pretty Bluebell.”

“Thanks.” She flashed her real smile, “You
look beautiful Molly. Truly. Congratulations.”

She meant every word. Molly was practically
glowing. It would have been obvious to a blind man that she was
happy and in love. Blue wished her all the best in the world.
Everyone deserved that kind of happiness.

“I just know we’ll be hosting your wedding
next.”

She barely managed to keep her smile in
place, “Uh huh.”

Molly wasn’t trying to be mean but it still
felt a little like a knife in her back. Her wedding next? Yeah and
Mr. Right was just going to magically appear and sweep her off her
feet. She’d have to look out for the flying pigs and magic pumpkins
too.

“I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Me too.” She nodded, “You better get back to
your new husband. I’m going to go find my seat.”

“Oh! Husband!” Molly squealed and engulfed
her in another hug before skipping away.

Blue watched her go and prayed for strength.
She headed to where the bar was set up and ordered a glass of wine.
It came in a clear Dixie cup and she wasn’t altogether sure it
hadn’t come from a box originally but she tipped it to her lips and
savored it like it was Bordeaux.

“Good lord you look just like your mama.”

She turned and came face to face with an
older woman with white bouffant hair and bright blue eye shadow.
Mrs. Roberta Higgins had been her high school English teacher and
she’d always looked like a poster child for bad makeup and
seventies garb. Today she was dressed in a multi-colored ball-gown
with enough bracelets on her arm that the jingle sounded like a
herd of buffalo.

“It’s the hair.” She kept her smile up and
returned the hug the woman insisted on giving her, “It’s nice to
see you Mrs. Higgins.”

“The whole weddin’ I couldn’t stop staring. I
would’ve sworn Liza Beth had come back to grace us with her
presence.”

Well at least the woman hadn’t been staring
because she was falling out of her top. Still, the constant
reminders that she looked like her mother made her chest clench for
a whole other reason. She barely remembered the woman but
everywhere she turned in this town somebody had a story to tell or
a comment to make. She wasn’t Liza Beth Montgomery Carter and she
never would be. She didn’t need any more reminders than that.

“It’s just me ma’am.” She tried to change the
subject, “Where’s Mr. Higgins?”

“He’s around here somewhere, probably hitting
on the hot young things.”

Blue swallowed a giggle. Hearing an eighty
year old women say hot young things was funny enough, the idea of
old man Higgins actually trying to flirt with one of them was
hilarious.

“He got himself a Viagra prescription and I
swear I can barely keep up.”

And funny turned to disturbing just like
that. She desperately searched for a way out of this suddenly
frightening conversation. Old people with Viagra prescriptions was
not a respectable topic of conversation, even Blue knew that
much.

“How’s Gary? I don’t think I’ve heard
anything about him since we graduated high school. He went to
Oklahoma didn’t he?” She asked about the woman’s grandson at the
same time she signaled the bartender for another cup of wine.

“Oh Gary is just wonderful dear, thanks for
asking. He’s working in Tulsa these days. He married one of those
Okie girls, such a sweetheart, and they’ve got three babies
now.”

Three? Jesus! Gary had always been a horn-dog
but three seemed like a lot of kids for a twenty-eight year old.
Then again, who was she to judge? She was just the loner loser with
no date and no prospects on the horizon. The bartender refilled her
cup and she took a long gulp.

“How’s your daddy doing?”

“Fine.”

It wasn’t a lie if she didn’t know it wasn’t
true was it? He seemed fine. He seemed like his same old hard
headed, strong silent type self. A little bit thinner but he hadn’t
slowed down. Right now he was probably out in the barn working
himself to death. Death. A shudder ran down her spine and she
pushed it away.

“Are you married?”

And there it was. Fate’s favorite topic of
conversation. She shook her head, “No ma’am.”

“Well bless your heart. You got a
boyfriend?”

“No.” She tipped the wine glass to her lips
again. She’d managed to make it through nearly a full hour without
anyone asking her that question or saying bless her heart when she
answered in the negative. The wedding ceremony had taken over half
an hour though so really it was more like twenty minutes. “I travel
a lot for work so I haven’t really had the time for a man
recently.”

“Time? Honey, you make time when the man’s
worth it.”

Wasn’t that the truth? The thing of it was
she’d never met one worth much of anything. She didn’t have
ridiculously high standards or anything she just hadn’t found one
that could hold her attention outside the bedroom that also
happened to be good inside it. And at twenty-eight years old she’d
learned over the years that sparkling conversation was one thing
but if a guy couldn’t get the job done naked too it just wasn’t
worth it.

“Guess I just haven’t found Mr. Right
yet.”

“Well, you know there are plenty of eligible
men in Fate Bluebell. We grow ‘em strong and right. A lot of girls
these days are going off to the universities to find themselves a
partner when all they really need to do is look in their
backyard.”

Oh it just got better and better. Now Mrs.
Higgins was going to play matchmaker. Like a half dozen others
hadn’t already offered her the same service? She’d barely avoided
Molly’s mother when she tried to set her up with Dickie Tavern.

“You know that Dickie is single again.” Mrs.
Higgins offered, “He and that Willis girl broke off their
engagement when he caught her with the Swan’s man, bless his
heart.”

Bless his heart indeed. She was tempted to
search out poor Dickie just to have something else for the gossips
to talk about. She’d heard the story of how Dickie came home from
work early to find his beloved going heels to Jesus with the Swan’s
man at least as many times as she’d been asked why she wasn’t
married yet. Seemed she might owe a bit of thanks to the one man
that had taken some of the wind out of the Bluebell Montgomery
Carter’s back in town and still single sails.

“You know, I think I’m going to see if Dickie
wants to grab a drink. Thanks for the tip.” She grabbed for her
wine glass and slipped away from the slightly stunned look on Mrs.
Higgins face.

She had no idea if Dickie was even in
attendance but he’d provided her with an escape route so she sent
him a silent thank you and tried to blend into the crowd that had
gathered around the dance floor. Odds were good he was here
somewhere. It seemed Molly had invited about ninety percent of the
town and the other ten had shown up for good measure too.

The newlyweds were just gathering for their
first dance as husband and wife as Kenny Chesney’s “you had me from
hello” boomed through the overhead speakers. They were staring into
each others eyes as the lights dimmed and played over the
glittering chandelier casting rays across Molly’s white dress. It
was a really pretty moment to watch, to see two people deeply in
love, committing themselves to one another for eternity.

All Blue could wonder was if they realized
they were dancing to a song written about a movie that had stared
the singer’s future wife of all of four months. It probably made
her cynical but she couldn’t help it. She was twenty-eight and
alone in an awful tangerine dress in a rec center in Fate
Texas.

When the song ended, Molly stepped away from
her husband to dance with her father to “Butterfly Kisses” and Blue
couldn’t watch any more. She retreated to the vacant bar for a
refill on her wine. Molly’s father looked at her with such love and
adoration it was hard for a girl that had never seen that kind of
look from her father to watch. She drowned her sorrows in her third
mini-cup of wine and tried to figure out how many ounces the
bartender was pouring because she wasn’t feeling a damn thing but
melancholy so far.

The music played and she turned down a dance
with Woody out of respect for his wife as much as the fear of
further humiliation if she were to fall out of her dress. She
twisted the diamond ring on her middle finger that she’d bought
herself for her birthday. Maybe she should have simply switched the
finger and lied that she’d eloped and her movie star husband was on
location and couldn’t make it. Oh that’d have sent the gossips into
a spin.

As it was, she was just waiting for the
appropriate amount of time to pass so she could duck out of the
reception. She wanted to go home, take off the awful tangerine
nightmare and rub her feet. The four inch stiletto’s she’d donned
had been the only saving grace to her outfit but they were torture
for the balls of her feet.

They were also horribly out of place even at
the wedding. Most of the fine folks of Fate had predictably paired
their dresses with boots or flip-flops. The occasional heel could
be found but nothing bearing more than an inch and definitely not
designer. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her. She’d always been
out of place here.

“If you’re thinking of making a run for it,
I’d wait until they’re distracted by the cake.”

The warm, gravely voice slid across her skin
and her head shot up from where she’d been absentmindedly staring
into the bottom of her wine cup. She got an eyeful of long legs
clad in pressed dark denim, a light blue oxford stretched across a
broad chest. Her gaze continued up and she swallowed hard over the
new lump in her throat as she met a set of jade green eyes.

“Wh… What are you doing here?”

A smile tugged at one corner of his lips, “I
was invited.”

“Of course you were.”

Of course he was! Because the entire town of
Fate had been invited. How had she not considered that Zach West
was probably around somewhere? How had she missed that big body
sitting in the pews when she’d been standing awkwardly at the front
of the church?

“Nice dress by the way.”

She felt his eyes travel down the length of
her body and then back up, slowly. Her breasts overflowed the
tangerine monstrosity and her face flushed with embarrassment.
She’d thought the dress was bad before? The urge to take her
clothes off didn’t come from her body’s intense reaction to the man
in front of her this time so much as the itch to rid herself of the
humiliating object.

“I look like Day-Glo Barbie.”

“If it’s any consolation that dress was made
to be worn badly but you’re giving it a hell of a run for its
money.” He smirked and then motioned to the bartender, “I’ll take a
Shiner.”

Another compliment? She wasn’t sure how to
react to that. She should probably run just like he’d mentioned but
her feet didn’t move. She looked him over. His five o’clock shadow
was gone which lessened some of the bad boy edge but not nearly
enough.

“You get that tire fixed today?”

“Yes, I dropped the Audi off with Bert this
morning and picked it up on my way to the church.”

“Bert had a tire in stock?”

“No I think he sent BJ over to Amarillo to
pick one up.”

He raised one eyebrow as he leaned an elbow
against the bar, “Talk about service, last time I needed a tire the
old bastard made me wait nearly a week until it shipped in.”

“I told him cost wasn’t a problem.”

“Oh I’ll just bet you did.”

His eyes narrowed for a split second and she
felt the old familiar embarrassment creep up her spine. Most of the
people in Fate assumed she was rich. The kids at school had often
called her a trust fund baby though she didn’t really have one.

And she hadn’t been rich, her family had
money but not nearly as much as people thought. Now that she had a
good job and a steady income she could splurge on things like the
Audi but she shouldn’t have brought up money, not in Fate and not
to one of the West sons who no doubt was thinking how his family
should’ve had the money that came from the Montgomery Oaks land
instead.

“Or maybe you walked in there wearing this
pretty little dress…” His easy smile returned as he reached out a
finger and traced a line over her hip, “I know I’d probably drive
to Amarillo to get you a tire if you asked real nice in this.”

Or maybe he wasn’t thinking that, she knew
she wasn’t thinking about it now. Oh, her body practically hummed
and all thoughts of money dissipated. All thoughts in general
dissipated, all of them except how his unexpected touch sent a
tingling warmth through her veins. She fought to make her brain
work.