Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything (36 page)

“Regret!” Mae Mae shouted, fighting against him. “There's somebody here who'd better regret! We thought you were
dead
! How could you
do
such a thing?”

“Well, I
wrote
you.” Honeybelle's voice rose, too. “I told you everything. Told you I'd be back in two weeks! Okay, we decided to stay a few extra days, but—here I am! Isn't anybody happy for me?”

Happy
wasn't my first thought. I couldn't get my brain to accept all the emotions I was feeling. Stunned, amazed, and dumbfounded all qualified. Mae Mae had a lock on furious.

“Miss Ruffles chewed up the letters,” I said to Honeybelle. “We never got them.”

At that moment, Mr. Gamble walked in the back door, carrying Honeybelle's suitcases.

I said to her, “You had Mr. Gamble pretend you were dead?”

“It was the best idea!” She was alight with pleasure. “After that awful Hannibal Cornfelter marched up to my car that day and practically said he was going to light a stick of dynamite and throw it at me for declining to fund his ridiculous stadium, what was I supposed to do? Stay here in Mule Stop and put my life on the line? I thought if I died right on the spot, he'd feel terrible, and that's when I had my stroke of genius. Mr. Gamble and I had been talking about going on a vacation, so Shelby Ann drove me over to his funeral home, and we decided on the spot, the three of us, to seize the day, take a trip. It was your idea, Sunny.”

“Mine?” I cried.

“Yes, you urged me to see the world. So I did! Shelby Ann and I went first, and Mr. Gamble caught up with us the next week. I thought everybody in Mule Stop needed to see what life would be like without Honeybelle around.” Two spots of pink bloomed on her otherwise suntanned cheekbones as she grasped how little we seemed to enjoy her story. She was quite wounded that we weren't delighted by her plan. “Besides,” she added, “I got a rather unsettling communication from the government. Why they get worried about flower gardens when there are so many problems in the world, I don't know, but they wanted to come investigate me, if you can imagine. So I thought it might be a good time to, well, get out of Dodge and let things cool down a bit. Nobody has come knocking, have they?”

“About that,” I began.

Mr. Carver put an end to my explanation by fainting dead away. He fell over like a sack of potatoes, and Ten barely caught him. It took a while to get him up off the floor and into the living room, but the Blues Brothers helped. Ten called for an ambulance; I patted Mr. Carver's wrists and talked quietly while he came around again. Then we all helped the paramedics make poor Mr. Carver comfortable. The storm eased as if Honeybelle's homecoming had placated the gods. I tried to calm down Mae Mae, who had begun to pace up and down the dining room, swinging her skillet. Mr. Costello made more coffee, and Ten went out to check on his animals, and Fred took a nap under the table while the tumult raged around him. Miss Ruffles dashed between me and Honeybelle, not sure where she wanted to be.

“Somebody has to break the good news to Hut Junior,” I said to Ten. “He doesn't know his mother is alive.”

“I guess that's my job,” he replied, looking grim. “I'm going to have to talk with my dad, too.”

Ten took the phone outside to the porch, where the storm had settled down to a light, muddy rain. Fred followed him.

The Blues Brothers came over and shook my hand with obvious regret. Mr. Costello said, “I guess all the excitement of your boss lady coming home means you're not coming into money anytime soon?”

“That's right. You'll have to tell your boss he's out of luck. I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

Mr. Costello smiled. “It's okay. This trip was a change of scenery for us. We're thinking we might come back sometime for a vacation. Maybe catch a rodeo. We already like the barbecued ribs.”

“Thank you for your help,” I said. “Just knowing you were around was sometimes a nice comfort.”

He finally released my hand. “You're a good kid, Stretch.”

“Yeah,” said his partner. “It's been a pleasure watching you.”

Costello elbowed him. “Be nice to her. She's had a hard day.”

I showed them out, and they waved cheerfully at a somewhat startled Ten as they walked across the backyard, heading for their car.

I went back inside, and Miss Ruffles jumped up on my leg. She wagged her stub and nuzzled my hand, then successfully herded me out of the kitchen to the staircase. We sat on the bottom step together, listening to various battles raging around the house. Miss Ruffles nudged me until I pulled her close and hugged her. I was ridiculously happy to have her back.

“Well, Honeybelle, darling,” Mr. Gamble was saying in the living room, “I thought I'd move in here with you now that we … that we're—”

“Good heavens, what exactly do you think we are?” Honeybelle demanded. “I wanted a
fling,
not a husband!”

When the doorbell rang, I got up and opened the door to Hut Junior and Posie, both of them white-faced with anger. Their sons were not with them.

Hut Junior stepped close to me, jaw thrust forward. “Did you know about this?”

“I had no idea.”

“Because if I find out you knew my mother was alive and didn't tell us—”

“Hut!” Posie grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Look at her face. Of course she didn't know.”

He brushed past me, heading toward the sound of his mother's voice.

Posie looked as if she'd been crying hard. Her makeup was gone; her eyes were red and swollen. To me, she said, “I'm very sorry about all of this. We had no idea Honeybelle was alive. None of us knew.”

I didn't say a word but met her gaze steadily.

“All right,” she admitted. “Maybe Trey knew. He and his grandmother thought this was a great idea—a big joke, he tells me. But when her plan backfired for him—when his father said we were moving to Dallas—Trey took the dog.”

“Why?”

“With the dog gone, Trey thought Hut would get the company and we'd stay here in Mule Stop.”

“But—”

Posie knew my question before I could ask it. “Honeybelle has never understood Hut. She wanted him to follow his dream, become a musician—but that was her dream, not his. He really wants to run the company, build it into something great. Music is his hobby, not his passion. Trey thought he was helping his father get what he wants.” Posie looked down at Miss Ruffles with distaste. “I had just learned Trey took the dog when I saw you downtown last Saturday night. You were already searching for her then, weren't you? You looked frantic.”

“She was in the car with you.” I couldn't keep the accusation from my voice.

“Y-yes, I had just picked them up. Trey was dragging her into his friend's truck when I … well, I took them in my car and … and I insisted he return her to you immediately.”

“But he didn't,” I said. “You could have driven over here right away and dropped her off, but you didn't do that.”

“No, I said he'd have to do it himself—return the dog and apologize. I thought he did so the next day—that's what he told me. He's just a boy. He wasn't thinking things through. He was impulsive, and it backfired. When I saw you with a dog later in the week, I assumed it was Miss Ruffles—that is, I assumed he had obeyed me and brought her back here. Only tonight, he tells me he didn't do that.”

“So Trey knew all along? That Honeybelle was alive?”

Posie closed her eyes and nodded. “She swore him to secrecy, but that's no excuse. It was a vile, horrible dirty trick for her to pull on her family. I don't care if she wrote a hundred letters that were accidentally destroyed. She put her son through hell. And making Trey a part of her lie was just as bad—maybe worse. Hut was in terrible grief. We all were.”

“You, too?” I asked tartly.

She had the grace to blush. “I felt sorry for my husband. She's his mother, after all.”

“For you, it was all about the roses, wasn't it? The yellow rose that came from your family.”

“She stole it,” Posie snapped. “Honeybelle stole it from my grandparents' property, and when they found out and confronted her, she paid them a pittance for it. They took the money because they were poor people. But Honeybelle had no right to take it in the first place. She had the audacity to enter it in the flower show last year—and claim it was her very own. But I knew where that rose came from. She refused to discuss it with me. She didn't deserve to be president of the garden club.” Posie stopped herself and finally said, “What she did—taking my grandmother's precious rose—was wrong. It showed she was capable of taking whatever she wanted. Running away like this—surely it shows she has no care for the feelings of other people.”

“I think she'll soon understand what she did was wrong, and she's going to be punished in a big way,” I said, thinking of Miss Simpkins and her band of helpers who were dismantling the rose garden and testing every leaf and kernel of soil. Honeybelle was going to have to explain where all her precious roses came from—and maybe she'd have to explain herself to a court, too. But I didn't say so to Posie. She had her own issues to untangle.

I said, “What about the restraining order?”

She looked embarrassed all over again. “After Trey took the dog, I thought … well, I didn't want you coming around our home, making trouble. I thought he'd returned the dog by then, truly, I did. But—”

“I get it,” I said. “Look, we have Miss Ruffles back now, and that's what I care about tonight. What you decide to do about your son, that's up to you.”

Posie straightened her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to join my husband.”

At that moment, her husband was yelling at his mother, but I didn't stand in Posie's way. She went into the living room and pulled the doors closed behind herself.

I was dizzy with exhaustion. Or maybe lack of food. Miss Ruffles followed me as I went into Honeybelle's office and grabbed a lollipop. Lime. I tore off the wrapper and stuck it into my mouth. The sweetness started melting on my tongue right away, very soothing. Miss Ruffles wagged her stub.

I took her out of the office—the scene of her crime of chewing up the letters that would have explained to us all that Honeybelle was alive and only leaving town because she felt threatened—and we sat down on the staircase again. Miss Ruffles sat in front of me while I scratched her ears. “Everything will all sort itself out,” I told her. “It might take a while, that's all.”

She woofed very softly.

“I know,” I said to her. “I'm not letting you out of my sight, either.”

Fred waddled out of the kitchen and came to us at the other end of the foyer. He sprawled down on the cool floor and heaved an exhausted sigh. He rolled his eyes and me, and his stubby tail thumped.

To Miss Ruffles, I said, “You're going to like him.”

Honeybelle was back, my surrogate mother. Surprisingly, though, I didn't care about the mother part of it. I still missed my own mom, of course, but somehow I felt as if I didn't need either of them anymore. I had come to Texas looking for a way to be a daughter again, maybe, but now that felt like needing a crutch or a safety harness. I had found a place I loved—with heat and dust and endless horizons and wild flowers and dogs with hearts as big as my own. And people, too. People I wanted to be with. I didn't need a mother's hand to guide me anymore. Instead I found myself thinking of having kids of my own—kids I could turn loose in a corral of calves with ribbons on their tails to help them learn to be brave on their own. I could teach them that falling down wasn't the end of the world. That flying on a zip line could be exciting, not scary.

I finished my lollipop while listening to the Hensleys shout at each other.

After a while, Ten found us and came to sit with me on the step. He put his arm around me, pulled me briefly close, and kissed my temple—a light, brushing kiss that felt right between us.

He said, “You don't look so good. I mean, you look great to me.” He smiled, but his eyes were full of concern. “Just upset.”

“Upset, yes. Stunned, even. I'm relieved, too, but … do I understand it all yet? No.”

“I finally got through to my dad. They're in the Atlanta airport, should be home tomorrow. I told him what I know so far. He's furious. Didn't know a thing about Honeybelle's disappearance. He talked to my grandfather, then called me back. Gramps sent them on a vacation because he knew all about Honeybelle's plan.”

“Your grandfather really knew?” I was shocked. “And let us all believe she was dead?”

“Apparently, Honeybelle made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Plus she promised she'd leave letters for everyone important. Except I didn't know anything about all this, so I read her will because the estate file gave those directions. Anyway, Gramps is hiding out in Mexico, under the belief that he's going to be disbarred for helping her cook up her disappearance. He's probably right.”

“So she really faked her own death?”

“She tried,” Ten said, sounding tired. “Looks like Gamble was in on it, too. They took a river cruise in Germany. Had a wonderful time, he tells me. He says they've reached a new stage in their relationship. He's deliriously in love. I almost slugged him.”

I said, “He's going to lose his business, too, isn't he? He surely committed some kind of fraud.”

“Yes, ma'am, he did.”

“What about you?” I asked. “You're not going to get into trouble for any of this, are you?”

“My first client pretending to be dead? I hope not.” He ran the palm of his hand across the bristle of his hair and shook his head. “I can't imagine doing something like this to the people you love.”