Getting Lucky (11 page)

   Julie bypassed the refreshment stand and went to the bathroom, where she put the lid down and sat on the potty. Luckadeaus must reproduce like rabbits. Everywhere she turned there was another one. She leaned her head against the cool metal wall. Did she believe in fate? It had to be either that or the worst damn luck in the whole state of Texas. She remembered her sister coming to Jefferson, Texas, to visit back in the middle of the summer.

   Sally had been all excited about a job five hours away from Jefferson. "Hey sis, I met a lady at a party this past weekend in Dallas. She was a friend of a friend of a friend, etc. Said there's a last-minute kindergarten job in Saint Jo, Texas. You've been sayin' you want a fresh start before Annie starts to school. You ought to drive over there and look at it. I'll watch Annie for you."

   Julie tried to remember if she'd even shown Mamie a picture of Annie before Mamie told her about the prop erty. Yes, she had. She remembered taking it from her wallet. Mamie had known from day one! That's why she wanted her to buy that property. She'd figured Annie was Griffin's child.

   Julie stood up. "I don't believe in fate. I don't. I don't."

   Milli and Jane were just coming in the door when Julie swung open the wooden stall door.

   "Hello, again," Julie said.

   They both nodded and ignored her.

   She quickly washed her hands and started out the door.

   "Wait a minute. I want to talk to you," Milli said. "Griffin says you had this fling with Graham before he went to Iraq. Griffin is a good man and we won't have you hurting him."

   "Darlin', you got nothing to worry about. I don't want a damn thing to do with any Luckadeau. Him. You. None of the family. I didn't even know there was but one of them. So don't be getting up in my face about Griffin. Trust me, he's safe and there is nothing to talk about."

   "I don't trust you at all. We all love Griff and I personally wouldn't trust a schoolteacher as far as I could throw her. He's been hurt once. Just stay away from him," Milli said.

   "What got up your ass about schoolteachers?" Julie smarted off.

   "I have my reasons. You just stay away from Griff," Milli told her.

   Julie nodded. "Like I said, you got absolutely nothing to worry about, lady. Now if you'll go out there and tell him to stay away from me, I'd appreciate it. I'm not interested in anything he's got and I'm damn sure not out to jerk his world out from under his sweet ass, so don't waste a single second thinkin' about me or Annie."

   She marched out of the ladies' room, searching for Mamie. She didn't care if she had to hitchhike back to Saint Jo, she wasn't spending another minute under the hateful stares of the female Luckadeau population. Fate did step in at that moment and save her from walking home. Mamie had spilled beer all over the front of her blouse and was headed home to change. Annie threw a pouting fit but Julie held her ground and Mamie took them home.

   Late that night Julie sat with her legs drawn up to her chin watching the moon from her bedroom window.

   "I wouldn't trust me either if I were Griffin," she whispered.

   She vowed she'd avoid places where he might be from that time on. She had to be in church with him, but she could sit across the sanctuary in another pew other than right behind him. She had to see him when he brought Lizzy to school. Other than that, she'd be careful.

   Rodeos were the first place she'd avoid.

   Mamie had said they were going to a regatta the next Saturday. Right there in the middle of northern Texas there was the Nocona Sailboat Regatta at the Nocona Lake and Mamie wouldn't take no for an answer when she said they were going.

   At least she didn't have to worry about Griffin being there. A bull rider damn sure didn't sail.

THE COMMITTEE MEETING OF THE TOURISM GROUP MET on Sunday afternoon on the lawn in the center of the town square in front of Molly's. At two-thirty that hot September afternoon Mamie stepped up into the gazebo and called the meeting to order.

   "We are here to discuss putting plans in motion for a holiday theme somewhat like the one we have on the Fourth of July. We need to make our decisions now so I can contact the vendors who are eager to come back with their fall merchandise," she said.

   Julie stood on the fringe of the crowd of maybe forty people. Some had brought their lawn chairs, but she and Annie stood to one side of the gazebo. She was there to support Mamie, although after her stunt concerning the rodeo she'd had second thoughts about it. Mamie had admitted on the way home that she had indeed known that Griffin would be at the rodeo but in her opinion Julie needed to see more of him, not less. And that she'd wondered about Annie when she saw her picture. Her opinion was that Julie should be his friend since he was Annie's biological uncle, and they should work together for the girls' sake. Julie had set her straight when she told her that Annie was a Donavan and would never fit into that Luckadeau bunch.

   Mamie had told her to look at Annie's hair. She was a Luckadeau no matter what name was on her birth certificate.

   "This is an open forum. Does anyone have anything to say?" Mamie asked.

   Julie had plenty to say now that she'd slept on the idea, but it had nothing to do with a hoorah for the winter holidays. Most of it had to do with the sleepless night she'd had and the grumpy mood she'd awakened in that morning. Griffin had haunted her dreams. It was definitely him and not his brother. Griffin had hair in her dreams. Graham never did. The few times she dreamed about Graham he'd been leaving the hotel room, closing the door behind him. When she dreamed about Griffin, she awoke in a sweat, aching for a man's arms around her.

   "I've got two bits to put into the pot," Clarice left her chair and marched up to the gazebo.

   Julie looked at the older woman and guessed by the way she was walking and the tilt of her chin that she must be the head she-coon of Saint Jo. Maybe of all Montague County. Hopefully, she'd be for the idea and not against it.

   Mamie stepped aside and let her have the soap box.

   Clarice took control instantly with a dirty look toward Mamie. "I'm against this silly notion. We've had the Fourth of July festival for as long as I can remember and that's a long time. It brings in people and money but it also brings in riffraff and bad things. I'd be for canceling it in a heartbeat. I damn sure won't vote for any such tomfoolery around the holidays. We've already got more dope in Montague County than we need and that's the kind that comes to these things. Y'all are crazy as hell if you think it'll bring money into the town. We'll lose things out of our stores and our homes with all that foreign trash coming in here. We'll lose money because the jail will be full of shoplifters and drunks, not to mention drug dealers. It'd be a perfect place for them to snatch away the kids or to sell them dope. No, I vote that this damn crazy idea be abolished." She clapped her hands together in a dramatic gesture and snapped her mouth shut.

   "Well, that's negative," Julie muttered.

   Clarice squinted at her. "What did you say? You got something to say about me you just march up here and deliver it. Don't be mumblin' under your breath."

   Julie stepped right up into the gazebo with Clarice. The woman wasn't nearly so intimidating when she was standing beside her. She had dyed hair the color of a black stove pipe, wore a long-sleeved black polyester pantsuit in the middle of the summer, and her nails had recently been done in a bright red enamel to match toenails peeking out from her black sandals. At least all of her nails but the thumbs—they were shiny gold.

   "Now what did you say?" Clarice glared at her.

   Julie already had a chip on her shoulder labeled Luckadeau. She didn't give a royal damn if the one on the other shoulder bore Clarice's name. The woman had no right to look at Mamie like that or to talk down to Julie, either.

   "I am the new kindergarten teacher in Saint Jo. I came to this place because it's small and a nice place to raise my daughter, Annie. But anyone can see that the town is about to dry up and blow away. Without some planning it's going to be listed on the ghost town registry for the state of Texas. It needs money put back into it. Shops need to be reopened around this square, empty buildings filled up again. It can still be a small town and have small-town charm, but it doesn't have to be a trashy small town. Let's get behind Mamie and support this idea. Folks might see what I did if they come around for a parade or a festival. They'll see potential for growth and could come back and invest in opening a store or putting in a café."

   "I disagree," a masculine voice said from the back.

   Julie would recognize that voice anywhere. She looked out over the tops of people's heads and saw Griffin holding Lizzy's hand. Annie was tugging against Mamie's hand trying to get to her friend. Couldn't she go anywhere that Griffin didn't show up? Next thing she knew he'd be sitting at the end of her garden when she went out to hoe the weeds. If he was, he'd better get ready for the business end of the hoe to be applied to his hard head. Her crazy heart threw in an extra beat but then her temper set it to beating right on time. How dare he show up at their meeting and disagree with Mamie?

   "Then by all means step right up here and tell us why," Julie said.

   He made his way to the gazebo, filling the small space left with his large frame. He looked out over the crowd for a second before he began. Although no one else knew, he was trying to control his thumping heart. One look at the woman and all he wanted to do was take her home to his bed. He hadn't been so intrigued by a woman in his whole life. Not even his ex-wife, Dian, was in every waking thought and haunted his dreams at night, too.

   Finally, he spoke. "Saint Jo won't ever be a ghost town. Don't let this new citified schoolteacher tell you anything like that. She came from a bigger town and if she don't like the way we do things, she can go back to it. Our little town can only support one festival a year. We have to hire extra help to pick up trash and we have to bring in the porta-potties for that day. It'll just be an extra expense to have another festival," Griffin said.

   Julie popped her hands on her hips and debated with him, "In Jefferson, the town was about to dry up and blow away, somewhat like this one. But the merchants rallied around and now it's one of the best little bed-and-breakfast and tourist towns over near the Louisiana border."

   "You like it so well, then go back there and help them keep it that way," Griffin looked down at her. That was his biggest mistake of the day. He should have kept his eyes on any old rancher in the crowd and never looked at her. One look into those daring green eyes had him ready to pay for the whole festival himself if she wanted it. But he'd taken his stand and no woman was going to lead Griffin Luckadeau around by the nose ever again.

   Julie shot him her meanest look. He was making it personal and trying to knock her out of the saddle every time she put a foot in the stirrup. She inhaled deeply. The policeman standing back there with a toothpick in his mouth would take her to jail if she picked up the nearest empty lawn chair and bent the aluminum frame over his head, but that's what she wanted to do.

   "I've stated my opinion. I rest my case. I'm supporting Mamie. Those naysayers who think it's a bad idea should go on home. The rest of you stay and we'll put our ideas together for the festival. It won't hurt to try it one year. If it puts everyone in the red, then cancel it another year," she said.

   "I'd be willin' to give it my vote for one time," Everett Mason said from the front row.

   "Everett, you old fool. You came here to side with me," Clarice said.

   "And I do. I think it's tomfoolery, but let these foolish youngun's try it their way. Time it's over and they're having to dig in their pockets to pay for this crazy idea, they'll be running back to us with their tails between their legs," he said.

   Clarice glared first at Julie, then at Mamie who was keeping an eye on Lizzy and Annie. "You'd think Griff's word would be more important than these two. Mamie just wants to get people in her store. This schoolteacher ain't got the sense the good lord give a piss ant. Griff was born and raised here. He knows how things has been done and how we need to keep them the same."

   Julie had had no intentions of getting into the middle of a city argument. How in the hell had she gotten so entangled in it that she'd already made the big-shot woman in town angry?

   "Do we vote or what?" Clarice asked.

   "No, we don't vote," a lady said from the middle of the crowd. "Clarice, this ain't London and you ain't the queen of England. You might have had the title for queen of Montague County, Texas, back when we was young and full of piss and vinegar, but we're old. It's time to let these young folks have a go at the business."

   Clarice's face was a picture of rage. "You shut up, Alvera."

   Alvera made her way to the gazebo from the outer fringes of the group.

   Julie didn't know whether to run for her life or stay and take a chance of getting scratched when the claws came out, because a cat fight was definitely on its way. Either way she could have kissed the woman making her way toward the gazebo. Their bantering had made her forget about Griffin. Alvera wore jeans that were an inch too short and too baggy in the hind end. Her T-shirt was faded and her gray hair cut in a short cut that required very little upkeep. She was almost six feet tall and her face was a study in angles and wrinkles. Clarice had to be on mind-altering drugs to stand there and argue with a force like that.