By the time the police arrived it was a zoo. Julie was demanding answers. Griffin was trying to explain. Dian was yelling and kicking at the policeman who had her in cuffs. The other policeman was asking which little girl had been abducted; they both looked alike to him. The officer who'd cuffed Dian brought her back in the back door when Mamie unlocked it and the place took on the ambience of a cat fight in a barroom just before closing on Saturday night. Dian took one look at Griffin and Julie comforting Annie and went up in flames.
"What in the hell did you tell her that bitch was her mother for? You should've at least told her I was her mother, and you got off too damned easy, Griffin Luckadeau. I'm taking her back. I'm her mother and I can do that and you can give me more money or pay child support. Your choice."
"Jim Bob, I have a copy of the papers she signed and my divorce decree. Do you need it?" Griffin asked the chief of police.
"I might. You pressing kidnapping charges against her, Miss Julie?"
Julie glared at the woman. Damn it, but Griffin had the poorest taste in women of any man she'd ever met. He was sexy as hell but he sure didn't have a lick of sense when it came to picking out a woman if his taste ran to the likes of Dian. And he had the audacity to call Julie white trash? She'd have to take that up with him later.
Julie nodded. "You bet your sweet ass I am. Put her in jail until we sort this out."
"You are my momma?" Lizzy peeked out from behind Griffin. She'd always pictured her mother as the lovely lady in the picture that sat in her room. She wore a white wedding dress and carried pink roses. That woman looked like one of those pictures on the front of scary movies at the movie rental over in Nocona. Those ones that her Daddy said they could not rent.
Dian looked at the child, and back at the one in Julie's arms. She opened her mouth and gaped like a fish out of water. "You son of a bitch. No wonder you let me go without a fight. You had another woman pregnant at the same time. How much difference is there in their ages?"
"Two days," Julie said. "Not that it's a bit of your business."
"Annie isn't mine," Griffin said.
Dian wiggled against the restraints. "Don't tell me that. You think I'd believe she's not your child, Griffin Luckadeau? I'm not blind. How could she not be yours? She's the spitting image of you. You were cheating on me all along. I thought she was Lizzy with that white streak and those blue eyes. Get these damned cuffs off me."
"We going to call this a domestic dispute or take it on to the county?" Jim Bob asked.
"You get these cuffs off and I'll show that bitch a thing or two," Dian yelled loud enough that Chuck clapped his hands over his ears and buried his face in Griffin's leg.
Julie was so mad she could see flashes of red light reflecting off that stupid pink hairdo. Why in the hell had Griffin ever married such a wench in the first place? "First of all, don't call me a bitch, and second, stop accusing me of sleeping with Griffin."
"How'd you get that kid if you wasn't messing around with my husband?" Dian sneered.
"He did have a twin brother, remember?" Julie said. She hated to have this conversation in front of Lizzy and Annie.
Dian sucked air and turned pale gray.
"He wouldn't. He left because… He loved…"
"Would you kids all three come up front with me for a little while so these big people can get this all straight ened out? I've got a new shipment of candy and I could sure use you to sample it for me. I can't decide whether to buy more of the chocolate or the caramel next time around," Mamie said soothingly.
"I can't leave my momma," Annie clung harder.
"Is she really my momma?" Lizzy asked again. "She can't make me go with her, can she?"
Julie handed Annie over into Mamie's arms. "Go with Mamie and let us visit for just a minute. I'll be right here and the policeman won't let this woman hurt you. See, she's got her hands behind her back in handcuffs. She's not going to hurt me or Griff."
"And yes, she is your momma, but she is not taking you with her anywhere," Griffin told Lizzy.
"Me, either?" Chuck whispered.
"You, either, son. Go on with Mamie. It's going to be all right, I promise," Griff said.
Mamie carried one and ushered the other two out of the room. "Okay, come on and we'll see about that candy."
Dian turned on Julie the minute they were gone. "You're a lying bitch."
"Lady, that is enough," Jim Bob said sternly.
"Graham wouldn't sleep with her. He was in love with me. That's why he enlisted and went away. He said I was the only woman he could ever love, so I know she's lying. That brat belongs to Griffin."
"Well, darlin', Graham Luckadeau lied to you because I met him in Dallas the night he left Saint Jo," Julie said.
Griffin's jaw worked in anger. "Did you? Did he?"
"Hell no! Graham wouldn't touch me because I belonged to you on paper. I was willing but all I got was a few kisses and even then he felt guilty."
"Annie belongs to Graham," Griffin said.
"And you can't prove it, can you?"
"DNA," he said.
"Which is the same for identical twins, so now what have you got?" Dian changed her tune and began to bite her lower lip. "I've got to get back to California. My mother is keeping my boys and she said she could only watch them a week. Come on, Griffin, let me have her for one week. I'll bring her back, I promise."
"I'm not filing charges on her, Jim Bob, with the stipu lation that she leave Saint Jo right now," Julie said.
Dian snarled at Julie. "This isn't your business. I thought she was Lizzy. This is between me and Griffin."
Julie headed through the curtains into the store. "I'm finished. Take her to jail. You can hold her twenty-four hours on disturbing the peace. I'll be in tomorrow morning to press charges for kidnapping and child endangerment and anything else my lawyer can think of between now and then."
Dian sidled up to Griffin. She could sweet-talk him into anything now that the red-haired bitch from hell was gone. She couldn't imagine Griffin with a redhead. It was Graham who liked red hair; that's why she'd dyed hers dark auburn just before he came home from boot camp. "Okay. Okay. I'll leave. But come on, Griff. She's got two little brothers. Twins. A year old. She needs to know her kin."
"Lizzy has everything she needs. You'd better take Julie's offer and leave town. She's pretty protective of those kids. She will press charges and you will go to jail. Then who's going to take care of your other children? Your husband? Child services?" Griffin asked.
"Wake up, Griffin. She's got one that looks like you and that boy can't be a year younger than her daughter and he looks just like her. Looks like she'll sleep with anything," Dian smarted off.
"I'd say none of that is your business," he said. He felt absolutely nothing akin to love or lust, either one. He'd envisioned her coming back home for the first two or three years and in the dream she'd been sorry that she'd left him; sorry she'd deserted Lizzy; repentant and ready to be a wife and mother.
In the past two years she had scarcely crossed his mind. Looking at her that sunny December day, all he could think was that she wasn't worth the time he was losing on the ranch that afternoon.
"I never did love you. I just married you because Graham and I had a big fight when I wanted him to propose to me, so I dated you to get back at him. I married you to get back at Graham," Dian spat out.
"The past is like Las Vegas, Dian. What happened there stays there," he said.
Jim Bob raised a hand. "What's it going to be lady? I ain't got all day to listen to you insult my friend."
"I'm going home. Undo these damned cuffs. I'm leaving."
The policeman unlocked the cuffs and she flounced through the curtain. "Good-bye, Lizzy. You have two little brothers you should get to know. A real family that you'll never have here with her two kids. Here's my phone number. Call me if you ever want to come live with me." She pulled a card from her pocket and handed it to Annie.
Annie handed the card back. "I'm Annie. I told you. I'm not Lizzy. She's over there with my momma, Julie."
Dian tossed it on the floor and slammed the door behind her as she left. "Give your sister the card and don't believe a word they're telling you, kid. Griffin is your daddy."
Mamie picked up the card and handed it to Julie. It was a Mary Kay Cosmetic's card. Dian Withers was written on the baby pink card below the Mary Kay logo. It had a cell phone number beside her name but no address.
"Is my daddy really Annie's daddy, too?" Lizzy asked.
"That woman is crazy, Lizzy," Annie said. "She thought she was my momma. Now she thinks your daddy is mine. I don't have a daddy. Is she really gone, Momma? She won't come back and put her hand over my mouth again, will she?"
"No, she won't be back again. It's all over. Now let's go home. I bet Elsie is worried and I bet dinner is almost ready." Julie was amazed that her voice sounded normal.
"I don't have a daddy, do I? Is Griffin my daddy? If he is, why didn't you tell me?" Annie's popped her hands on her hips just like Julie did when she was upset.
"We'll talk about all of that when we get home," Julie said.
Mamie sighed. "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes today."
Annie giggled and her face softened. "Momma's shoes wouldn't fit you."
"No, they wouldn't," Mamie agreed.
Jim Bob and his deputy poked their heads through the curtains and told Julie they were escorting Dian out the back door, taking her to the Dairy Queen in the squad car, and would follow her all the way to Nocona, where they'd radio ahead for a police car to follow her to the western edge of Montague County.
"Are you ready to go home?" Griffin asked Julie.
"As ready as I'll ever be." She dreaded what lay ahead but the time had come for Annie to know the truth.
The children whispered in the backseat all the way home.
Griffin was quiet. So many skeletons; so much deception. He'd never known that Graham and Dian had dated. The whole story left him drained and riding a guilt trip. If he hadn't dated and eventually married her, then Graham wouldn't have gone into the service, where he got killed.
When they were all safely inside the house, Julie poured each of the kids a glass of milk and set a platter of cookies in the middle of the kitchen table. Elsie worked around them, getting lunch ready for the hired hands. Griffin melted into the chair at the head of the table and sighed loudly. Julie set a cup of steaming hot coffee in front of him and poured herself one.
She sat down on the other end of the kitchen table and sipped the coffee, not knowing where or how to start the conversation. How much to tell? How much to leave out until Annie was older?
"I can see y'all got things to talk about. I can go somewhere else," Elsie said softly.
"No, you can stay. You already know most of what we're going to tell them, anyway," Julie said.
Elsie nodded and kept working.
"You're going to have a visit with us, aren't you?" Annie said seriously.
"Yes, we are," Julie said.
Annie took a deep breath. "I didn't do anything wrong, Momma. I just didn't know what to do but run and run and run to Mamie's store."
Griffin patted her hand. "Honey, we know you didn't do anything wrong and you were very brave."
"I would have done just what you did, too, Annie. If I hadn't been in the house I would have bit her on the leg like a dog," Chuck said.
Lizzy still wore a puzzled look. "Are you sure that was my momma, Daddy? She didn't look like the picture in my room. Will she come and steal me like she did Annie? If she does I'm going to run to Mamie's store."
"No, she's gone back to California," Griffin said.
"But why would she want to live with California? All he has to eat is squash relish and jelly," Annie said.
"What?" Julie asked.
"You know. California comes to Mamie's store and buys your relish and jelly so why would Lizzy's momma want to live with him and besides, why'd she make a pink streak in her hair?" Annie asked.
Julie laughed.
Griffin grinned.
The innocence of children,
they thought at the same time.
"California that Mamie talks about is a man with a real name, but she doesn't ever remember it. California is also the name of a state way far from here, and that's where Lizzy's momma lives. It's two very different things."
Annie wrinkled her brow. "Okay, I just didn't know. I was scared, Momma. I cried."
"I would have too, Annie," Lizzy said seriously.
"Not me," Chuck said. "I would have fought her and she would have let me go. I'll teach you girls how to fight so it won't happen again."
"Okay, Chuck," Lizzy said. "But I'm not going to bite her on the leg. Did you see all that stuff on her leg? It looked like wire. It might hurt my teeth."
"Ah, it's just tats. My momma had them on her leg. She had a rose. It's just pictures. You can bite them and they won't hurt you."
"Did you bite the rose?" Annie asked.
"Huh-uh. She would have kicked me against the wall. She was pretty mean when she didn't have her medicine," Chuck said.
Annie looked at Julie and changed the subject. "Why'd she say Griffin was my daddy?"