Texas Born (52 page)

Jenny stood on the roof, arms outstretched as
the roof gave way under her. The next instant she was gone,
swallowed up by the flames.

Still her wild, shrill, madness-filled
laughter reverberated from within the angrily crackling flames.

And then nothing more could be heard but the
roar of the fire.

The stranglehold the Sextons had held over
the county was no more.

Elizabeth-Anne led the little boy along the
edge of the newly planted lemon groves, holding on to his tiny
hand. Their faces were dappled by the early morning sun filtering
through the shifting patterns of the leaves in the slight breeze.
Insects buzzed about and blackbirds perched quietly on the power
lines that ran along the other side of the highway. Across the
asphalt lanes, barren brown fields stretched to the horizon, and
there that startlingly clear powder-blue sky began, filled with
high puffball clouds.

She walked slowly so that her son had no
trouble keeping up with her. She was dressed in a beige skirt and
an elegant high-necked lace blouse much like the ones Auntie used
to favor, and the boy was wearing a navy-blue sailor suit trimmed
in white. Occasionally a car would roar past on the highway, and
the sudden rush of wind felt warm against their faces. Despite the
early hour, it was already hot out.

Elizabeth-Anne turned around. A few yards
behind them, the three girls were sitting in the back of the big
black car, fanning themselves with newspapers. The top was down,
and Carlos Cortez was sitting behind the wheel. He was driving them
to the train station.

The trunk was tied down to keep it from
flying open; it was filled to overflowing with boxes and
suitcases.

Elizabeth-Anne got down on one knee so that
her face was level with her son's. She coiled one arm around his
shoulders and pointed down the road. 'Take a good look at it, son,'
she said quietly. 'That will one day be yours. That, and a whole
lot more.'

Zaccheus Hale Jr. looked at the complex of
buildings and then up at her. 'It's the tourist court,' he said in
his clear, tiny voice.

'The tourist court,' she repeated softly. She
took a deep breath, shook her head, and squeezed his shoulder
affectionately. 'Zaccheus, Zaccheus. It's not just a
tourist
court
. It's the
Hale
Tourist Court! It's our
lives!
'

'Lookit all the shiny cars, Mama,' he
marveled. 'Have you ever seen so many?'

Elizabeth-Anne smiled. Her swift gaze had
already counted eighteen cars, and she automatically calculated
what eighteen occupied rooms added to her coffers overnight. She
could barely subdue her excitement. 'That's nothing, darling,' she
said. 'You just wait and see! Soon there'll be ten tourist courts
and a hundred and eighty cars! And then a thousand tourist courts
with—' Suddenly she laughed helplessly as her ambitions overcame
her. As she got back up, she lifted him up and held him high. She
let out the same playful groan she always did lately when she
picked him up. 'My, my, but you're getting big and heavy, young
man,' she said in a mock bass voice.

Zaccheus giggled and flung his arms around
her neck. Then, slowly at first, but with gathering momentum, she
began a pirouette at the side of the road.

Faster and faster she spun, until both of
them became a whirling blur.

He squealed happily and she laughed with
delight. Finally she slowed, dizzy and panting, and staggered to a
stop.

Suddenly his face creased into a frown and he
became solemn. 'Why are we leaving, Mama?'

She looked into his eyes for a long time.
'Because your mama has a lot of work to do, darling,' she said
slowly. 'Because she's going to build many more tourist courts like
that one.'

'But why so many? Isn't one enough?'

'Because it's a dream I have, darling. It's
something I have to do. Something I love doing. That's what dreams
are for, you know—to make them become reality.'

Suddenly she felt his hands at her neck.
'What's this, Mama? You wear it all the time.'

She glanced down at herself. He was holding
up the pansy charm Zaccheus had given her so long ago, and it
caught the sunlight, the crystal flashing brightly, the pansy
looking as fresh and velvety as the moment it had been pressed
flat. She smiled as he rubbed the smooth crystal with his fingers.
'It's pretty, Mama.' He looked up at her. 'I want it.'

'Of course you do,' she said, laughing, 'but
I'm afraid your mama wants it too.'

'What is it?'

'A flower.'

'What kind of flower?'

For a moment her face grew strangely pensive.
Then she smiled radiantly. 'It's called a love flower.'

'A love flower,' he repeated, and for a
moment he digested that thoughtfully. 'I love your love flower,' he
said finally. His face brightened. 'May I have it?'

'Not yet, darling.'

'Perhaps tomorrow?' he coaxed hopefully. 'Or
next week?'

She shook her head. 'I don't think so,
darling. It's for a girl. Maybe one of your sisters will eventually
get it. But when you're old enough, you'll have that.' She nodded
toward the tourist court.

'I love you, Mama.'

'And I love you too, young man.'

'Someday I'm going to marry you.'

'Oh-ho! You are, are you?' She looked at him
closely, and the breath suddenly caught in her throat. She felt a
stifling wave of heat, and a thousand pinpricks rippled up and down
her arms and tingled at the nape of her neck. For an instant the
present merged with the past. For the first time she noticed just
how much like his father little Zaccheus looked. Her heart skipped
a beat and then pounded on heavily. For a moment the most intense
joy and the deepest sorrow she had ever felt washed over her and
merged, bittersweet and painful, a feeling so tremendously powerful
that she did not know if she could survive it. What was it that had
made her aware of the resemblance? The sun? The shadows? Or was it
simply an illusion?

She inspected him more closely, stroking the
blond curls out of his eyes. No, it was not an illusion; she could
see that now. He was Zaccheus' son—a miniature Zaccheus, right down
to his earlobes. His eyes, his lips, it was all there, an eerie
reincarnation. Looking at him now, she realized, must be like
looking at the mirror image of his father when he had been the same
age.

Strange that she should notice that only now.
Why hadn't she seen it before?

She smiled as she carried him back to the
car. Carlos Cortez saw them coming and got out. He held the door
open for her and she climbed in, putting Zaccheus on her lap.
Cortez walked around the front of the car, got back in on the
driver's side, and slammed the door shut. He looked over at her
questioningly.

Elizabeth-Anne paused for a moment. Dozens of
conflicting emotions were bombarding her from all sides, now that
she was set to leave Quebeck. Here she had lived through good times
and bad, happy times and sad. Here she had had to fight against all
odds to achieve her dream, and here she had triumphed in no small
way.

'Well?' Carlos Cortez said finally. 'You want
to leave or stay?'

She looked at him for a long intense moment.
Then quickly, as though she was afraid she would change her mind at
the last minute, she inclined her head in an affirmative nod.

'Which is it?'

'We leave,' she said firmly.

'Dallas?' he asked. 'As planned?'

She shook her head. 'Where's the single
largest concentration of population in the country, as well as the
finest network of highways?'

'The East Coast. New York.'

She nodded.

'Well?'

'New York,' she said. 'Of course.'

He eyed her strangely and then his lips broke
into a wide grin. She heard the engine under the hood cough to
life. The gears meshed, and the gravel crunched under the tires as
the big car slowly began to nose forward. Carlos twisted around to
look back over his shoulder, and he swung the car around in a
circle. They headed in the opposite direction, surging past the
Hale Tourist Court and then picking up speed.

Elizabeth-Anne did not once look back. She
sat erect and proud as the tourist court was left behind.

Am I sad, now that I have truly decided to
leave?
she asked herself.

She frowned momentarily. No, strangely
enough, she did not feel saddened at all. She felt . . . Yes!
Liberated. It was simply a matter of knowing that the Quebeck
chapter of her life had drawn to a close. Auntie was dead and
buried. Zaccheus was gone. Jenny and Tex no longer stood in her
way. The rooming house was sold, and so was the new caf6 she had
built on the ruins of the one that had burned down. There was
nothing left here but the ghosts of the past. Good ghosts and bad
ghosts, but ghosts all the same. Ghosts and the tourist court. She
would have to come back here now and again to check up on it, but
for the time being it was being run efficiently by trusted help,
with Rosa in charge. Yes, it was indeed high time she moved on. She
realized, finally, that she did not need to stay here in order to
be close to what she and Zaccheus had once shared. She had those
treasured precious years locked away in her mind, and she could
recall them instantly at will, reliving them in her memory whenever
she so pleased. Besides, she always had the children. Because of
them, wherever she would go, no matter how far and wide she
traveled, Zaccheus would always be beside her, invisible but alive
in her heart.

Above all
, she told herself,
I have
the children.

They mattered, and the tourist courts she
planned on building mattered. The tourist court here was but the
beginning. The beginning and, in a way, the end too. The end of yet
another portion of her life. Yet it was also the means to achieve
yet another splendid chapter. That was what life was—an endless
series of rich, adventurous chapters unfolding before her. No,
Quebeck was no longer important. What
was
important was the
future that loomed large and bright and glorious on her horizon.
She could see that plainly now. Despite all the pain she had had to
suffer in the past, she had been born, she decided suddenly, under
the luckiest of lucky stars indeed.

Her eyes gleamed with aquamarine
anticipation.

How many other people had so much waiting for
them down the road?

The saga continues. Keep reading for a sneak preview
of LoveMakers, the second volume, which will soon be available as
an e-book.

From: THE FORBES FOUR HUNDRED

Fall 1982

Elizabeth-Anne Hale

Inheritance, real estate, hotel business.
N.Y. 88. Twice widowed. One daughter (two daughters, one son
deceased), one grandson, one great-granddaughter. Current matriarch
of America's most powerful hotel family. Born in Texas, orphaned as
a child. Strongminded, dominates family business. Now over 411
hotels, 695 motels worldwide. Sold 100 hotels for reported 520
million 1979. Made first fortune during 1929 Crash. Lives in
penthouse of privately owned hotel, is driven around in 1921
Rolls-Royce (also inherited). 'Fortunes are easily made if you live
to be my age.' May be the world's richest woman. Minimum net worth
is 1.9 billion.

QUEBECK, TEXAS:

August 14, 1985

The big Lincoln Continental ate up the
asphalt miles between Brownsville and Quebeck. Seated beside her
husband on the maroon leather seat, Dorothy-Anne Cantwell stared
out the windshield with a blank expression on her face. Everywhere
she looked she saw the wide open spaces of Texas, expanses of
irrigated fields and citrus groves dotted with occasional,
monotonous little towns. Not even towns, she thought, just clusters
of sad houses, peeling and dirty and baked by decades of harsh
sunlight. The sky, heavy and gray, loomed oppressively over the
landscape. Traffic was light and they saw only an occasional car or
truck. The landscape was monotonous and hypnotic. And it was worlds
away from Manhattan.

She glanced sideways at the big urn on the
seat beside her. It was not the usual crematorium urn, somber and
plain and poured from a mold. This was one of a kind, the sterling
silver intricately hammered and fashioned in a Rococo pattern of
auricular scrolls and hand-rubbed to a high gloss finish. The sides
flared out into twin handles terminating in delicately fluted ivy
leaves which were repeated in swirls around the leaf-footed
base.

Buccellati had done themselves proud.

Slowly, she reached over to touch the urn.
She half expected it to radiate the warmth of her
great-grandmother, Elizabeth Anne Hale, but the metal felt smooth
and cold. The urn weighed at least seven pounds, but the handful of
gray ashes in it was weightless.

Only three days ago, her great-grandmother
had been alive. They had talked and she had smiled at Dorothy-Anne,
kissed her. Only three days ago.

Now she was ashes.

Dorothy-Anne turned away, her eyes blurring
with tears. She found the dampness soothing to the grittiness three
sleepless, grief filled days had left in her eyes, but she knew she
couldn't give in to tears. If she wept now, she wouldn't be able to
stop for a very long time. And, first, she had a job to do.

She felt a stirring within her belly, and,
wiping her eyes with a knuckle, she carefully shifted the weight of
her body, swollen with the baby she carried.

If only Great-Granny had lived long enough to
see this child, she thought sadly. The baby was due in just three
weeks. Closing her eyes, she felt for the movement within her womb:
a sharp kick, then another, followed by an ever-so-slight shifting
of the child. Usually, the kicking filled her with a warmth and
closeness for the child. But, now, in her exhaustion, her body
seemed strangely alien and dis-attached. She felt her baby move,
but wondered if it was in someone else's body.