Getting Lucky (25 page)

   Julie took a deep breath but Griffin touched her hand to stop her from speaking. The warmth of his fingertips on her palm sent tingles flying up and down her arm.

   "Let me, please. Annie, I would just love to be your father, but I'm not. I'm sure Julie would love to be Lizzy's mother, but she's not. When I was born, I had a twin brother and we were wonderful friends, just like you and Lizzy. Then we grew up and my brother, who was named Graham, went to the war over in Iraq. That's way, way far away," Griffin explained.

   "Even more than California?" Lizzy asked.

   "Even farther than California. My brother got killed over there in Iraq right after he got there."

   "He's dead? Like great-granny Bessie? He's got a grave and a piece of rock on it and all that stuff and they put him in the hole and put dirt on him?" Annie asked. She'd been to one funeral in her five-year life span and it had had a profound effect on her.

   "That's right. That's exactly what they did. But before he died, he was your father," Griffin said.

   "So I did have a daddy but I don't now? That's why you said my daddy was dead, right, Momma? But why didn't you tell me about Griffin and Lizzy?"

   "That's right. Your daddy is dead and I didn't tell you about Griffin and Lizzy because I really didn't know about them until we moved to Saint Jo. Your daddy, Graham, didn't tell me he had a brother and that his brother lived in Saint Jo."

   Annie accepted it all with a single word: "Okay."

   "Does that make Annie kin to me?" Lizzy asked.

   "That makes Annie your cousin," Griffin said.

   "Well hot damn!" Lizzy squealed.

   "Lizzy!" Griffin chided.

   "You say it all the time. Come on, let's go play in the backyard again. Now we're cousins—can you believe it, we're kin folks like Tim and Richie! Wait 'til we go to the party at Granny Nellie's. I'm going to tell them I've got a cousin and if they play with those mean girls that called me a skunk, me and you can whip those girls' asses."

   "Lizzy!" Griffin raised his voice.

   "Okay, okay. I won't say bad words no more."

   Chuck ducked his head. "Can I be their cousin, too?"

   Julie gathered him into her arms. "Of course you can. Actually, you can be their brother if you want to. Don't you think you look like me with that red hair? Miz Alvera and that woman today thought you were my son."

   He grinned. "I'm your cousin, too, and I'll help you whip anybody's ass who calls either one of you a skunk."

   "Chuck!" Griffin shook his head.

   "Well, I damn sure will. I'll throw them down on the ground and I'll hit them until they say they are sorry," Chuck said.

   "No more bad words or the bunch of you are going to play in your rooms all day alone," Julie said.

"Yes, ma'am," Chuck said but the grin didn't fade.

   "Momma, will you be watchin' out the window when we go out and play? That mean woman won't come back, will she?" Annie asked nervously.

   "The police are making sure that woman has gone back to California and I will watch out the window," Julie said.

   They ran together, hand in hand, back out to their jungle and began to play as if nothing had happened. Their world was back to normal; hopefully it would remain that way for the rest of their lives.

   Julie and Griffin sighed at the same time.

   "That went fairly well," Julie said. "Thank you."

   "Yes, it damn sure did and we've got to stop cussin' if we expect the kids to quit," he said.

JULIE OPTED NOT TO READ THE GIRLS THE STORY OF
Sleeping Beauty
that night or let them watch
The Little
Mermaid,
either. Both had a scary witch and neither Annie nor Lizzy needed to be reminded of the day's events. So she picked up a book about a kitten and how it loved to play in the backyard with its friends, a squirrel and a mouse. Then one day the kitten's other friends came to play and made fun of him because he should be eating the squirrel and the mouse, not playing with them. The children's eyes were fluttering when she said "the end," and Griffin carried Chuck over to his bedroom while Julie took Annie to hers.

   She made sure the front door was locked and then went across the foyer, dining room, and kitchen and out into the backyard. Everything was still and quiet. It was too cold for the frogs and locusts to be putting on their evening performance. A north wind knocked the bare tree limbs against each other, but it wasn't much of a melody. She pulled her fuzzy robe tight around her chest and dug her toes deeper into her fluffy house shoes. Inside a warm bed and a good book were waiting, but Julie needed to be out of the box called a house so she could think. She sat down on the porch swing, pulled her legs up under her, and buried her chin in the soft collar of the robe.

   Griffin made his retreat to the den after he'd tucked all three kids in one more time. Strange how he'd begun to think of them as that. The kids. Not Annie and Lizzy or Chuck or even one or the other. But in two weeks they'd become
the children
and when Annie went missing, the way his heart and mind went completely wild, it was as if she was really his child.

   He heard a noise on the back porch and slipped out to check it, his pulse thumping as he wondered what exactly he would do if he found Dian back on his prop erty with intentions of stealing Lizzy again.

   He stood in the shadows for several minutes looking at Julie. She'd handled things well that day and she was a great mother. But it wasn't those qualities that flushed his system with desire every time he looked at her. She was a damn fine-looking woman and sexy as hell, even in a robe and house shoes. It would be so easy to fall in love with her. That four letter word jerked him back to reality.

   "Cold to be sittin' out here," he said from the shadows not five feet from her.

   She jumped and set the swing to moving again. "You scared the hell out of me, Griffin."

   "Then you should be an angel," he teased.

   She pulled her knees up tighter under her chin and shiv ered when the north wind found its way inside her robe.

   "Want to talk about today?" he asked.

   "I thought we already had."

   "We talked around it for the kids' sake. It's been on my mind all day, Julie. Out there, getting things ready for the winter sale, all I could think about were those words Dian said."

   "What sale?"

   "We have a little cattle sale coming up. I've been

deciding which cows to sell, which ones to keep, that kind of thing, but that's not what I want to talk about," he said.

   "I see." She'd heard of cattle sales. That meant the trucks would arrive and load up whichever cattle were being culled and they'd drive away with them.

   "I never knew about Graham and Dian and now I feel angry and guilty at the same time," he said.

   "Why? Graham was a big boy. No one put a gun to his head and made him enlist," she shivered and wished he'd put his arm around her so she could be warm.

   "It still makes me mad. He should be here today helping me and enjoying life."

   "If he were here, would he be enjoying life? I don't think he liked ranching, did he?" Julie asked.

   "Honestly? No, he didn't. He loved sailing and the four years we were in college he hated coming home on weekends. I could hardly wait until Friday noon. He could hardly wait until Sunday after church when we could go back. He should have been a professor." Griffin wondered how Julie had figured that out after only meeting Graham the one time.

   "Then what makes you think he'd be enjoying life if he were here?" Julie asked.

   Griffin thought about that. She was right, but it damned sure galled him to admit it. Graham never did like the ranch, hated getting his hands dirty, and the day his parents turned the ranch over to them, he'd gone to Wichita Falls and come home so drunk he could barely stagger up the stairs to bed.

   "And if Graham had stayed," Julie went on, "what would have happened between you and Dian? She had a heat for him and he liked women. Would you have given him the ranch and your wife?"

   Griffin stared at the stars sparkling through the tree leaves. Somewhere a lonely coyote howled, beginning the winter opera with a raspy solo. She was right and it was well past time after six years that he admitted his brother would had been miserable on the ranch. Just because Graham was dead didn't mean Griffin had to give him a halo and wings.

   "Anyone ever accuse you of being outspoken?" he asked.

   "Goes with the red hair and the Irish name. You don't have to answer those questions, Griffin. Just don't make your brother into an angel because he's dead. And don't believe for an instant that your ex was telling the whole truth. She was trying to hurt you today. She probably knows how much you and Graham loved each other. Besides, if he was mourning so much for her, why did he pick me up the very next night?"

   "Dian always had a flare for the dramatic but looking back, it all makes sense, and I think there was a core of the truth in her story. I just wish he would have talked to me. Somewhere along the way we lost communication," Griffin said.

   "About the time your folks moved away?" Julie asked.

   Griffin nodded. Julie should have been a psychoana lyst or at the very least a grief counselor. He should have had these talks years ago and put it all to rest then. If he had, then maybe he would already have moved on.

   "I have a sister and a brother, Eli. You met my brother. My sister, Sally, lives in Louisiana. Teaches down there and loves it. We talk on the phone weekly, but it's not like it was when we taught together in the same school," she said.

   "You were a teacher in another school?"

   "Well, I damn sure wasn't a waitress or a hooker. What did you think I was when I met Graham? You did! I can tell by your face that you thought I was something low class. Do you always jump to conclusions?"

   "Don't yell at me. Why'd you quit one job and come to another?" he asked.

   "My Aunt Flossie died and left me some money. I bought the Lassiter place and moved up here to get away from the town where Annie was born," she explained. Might as well tell him all of it, now that she'd started.

   He sat down on the opposite end of the swing. "Go on."

   "I love kids. Wanted a houseful, but it didn't work out that way. Now I'm too…" She stopped a word short of admitting she was old.

   "Old?" He finished for her. "How old are you really? Thirty? That's not old. Julia Roberts is still having kids and she's a lot older than you."

   "I'm thirty-four and it took six years to get Annie," she admitted.

   "It took one night to get Annie," he said.

   "Okay, point taken. Jefferson is bigger than Saint Jo. My father is a preacher there and has been for a long time. Can you imagine the gossip when I brought Annie home with that white streak in her hair and my husband divorced me on grounds of adultery? I couldn't fight that at city hall, so I quietly signed off. He got to keep everything. I got my maiden name and sole custodial rights to Annie. It didn't work. Everyone thought she was a bastard, anyway. So I moved to where no one would know us or the circumstances of her birth. Guess what? That didn't work, either."

   "Thirty-four isn't old, Julie. It's not old at all. It's been a long day and tomorrow comes early. I'm going to bed. Thanks for listening to me and for the honest opinions," he said gruffly.

   "You are welcome," she whispered. Shock of shocks! Griffin appreciated her honest opinion about his brother. Graham, who'd been raised to angel status because he died, who'd always been the outgoing extrovert. She hadn't said anything that wasn't the truth according to what she'd understood.

   The longest walk Griffin ever took was from that swing up to his bedroom. He slung himself back onto his bed and stared holes into the ceiling. It might be best if Julie did move out of the ranch house after the holidays. If she weren't right there all the time, maybe, just maybe he could move on with his life now.

   She sat on the swing a while longer. When she stood up, her leg had gone to sleep so she had to stomp the feeling back into it. She stumbled into the house, locked the door, and went to the kitchen, where she ate a piece of leftover coconut pie before going up to bed. The day had held too much excitement. She hoped the next thirteen days of Christmas vacation were so boring that she was ready to go back to school when they ended.

   Julie sautéed several rump roasts with onions, put them in the Westbend cooker, set the temperature on three hundred, and went about making a triple recipe of yeast bread. She rolled forty potatoes in aluminum foil for the oven. While she was washing romaine lettuce for salad, Lizzy and Annie wandered into the kitchen.

   They wore their flannel pajamas. Their hair was tangled and in their eyes. They sat like zombies at the kitchen table—both of them so much like Griffin Luckadeau, it wasn't even funny.

   Griffin stumbled into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. "Where's Elsie? Please don't tell me she's sick."

   "I gave her the day off. I'm cooking for the hands today," Julie said.