"No, you are Annie's uncle by blood," she said.
"And what am I to you?"
"The jury is still out. You could be my little brother," she said.
He gritted his teeth. "Can't be. I'm not into incest."
"Go on with the story, please," she said.
"Where was I?"
"Slade hated her," Julie reminded him.
"Okay, he did that. Then, on the Fourth of July, they all went to the fireworks at Terral, Oklahoma, which is just over the Red River from Ringgold. You'll see next week. We're going there for their sale."
"What?"
"We're going up there for their cattle sale. It's a lot like this one. We'll go the day of the sale because the Luckadeaus support each other that way. Besides, I've got my eye on a couple of heifers Slade is putting on the market. Then the next night we'll go to the party. That red dress will do fine. They decided to do their sale this year at the Valentine season. Anyway, the kids will go because Hilda and Rosa will be there to baby-sit for us."
"Who are Hilda and Rosa?"
"Rosa would be the Marita of Beau's ranch. Milli can cook, but she's a rancher and would rather be out helping Beau than staying in the kitchen. Hilda is her grandmother's cook. They'll be there to watch the chil dren in the ranch house for all of us. Don't worry. They are very trustworthy."
"And you are just now telling me all this?" Julie fumed.
"It's a whole week. You can't get ready in a week?"
She gritted her teeth. "Go on with the story."
"At the fireworks, two FBI people showed up with a poster that had Jane's picture on it. They claimed she'd run away from an institution. It was the two assassins, so Granny Nellie sent her and Slade off on a trip to outrun the killers. And in the end the bad guys got their comeuppance."
"And Slade and Jane came back in love?" Julie asked.
"No, Slade came back and Jane cleaned house."
Julie frowned. "Cleaned house?"
"Yep, she called it cleaning house, anyway. She sold the oil company and the ranch, then came back and asked Granny Nellie for her old job back and five acres in the corner of Slade's property. She paid Granny an enormous sum for it—something like ten times what it was worth—and had a double-wide trailer set on it. It took a while longer, but finally Slade and Jane did admit that they loved each other and got married. It was quite a wedding. She was barefoot and everyone had a wonderful time that day. Lizzy was so happy. Slade didn't have a mean old girlfriend with two little daughters who called my daughter a skunk and made her cry."
Julie's eyes narrowed into slits. "Who did that?"
"I can't even remember her name. The woman Slade was dating when Jane came into the picture had these two little girls and they were just as mean as their mother," Griffin said.
"Point her out to me and I'll snatch enough hair from her head that she won't be letting her kids make fun of others," Julie fired up angrily.
"The end."
"Okay, okay, so the story is over and yes, I can see that fate had a part in it, and I can also see that you are trying to calm me down because those mean little girls hurt Lizzy's feelings. It's the mother in me," she said.
He stood up and extended his hand. "I know, darlin'. I see it every day. I live with it. I believe you'd fight a mountain lion for those kids. All three of them."
She took it and hauled herself up from the porch only to find her body barely a foot from his. "You are right, I would." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.
He was about to pick her up and carry her upstairs to the bedroom when the damn telephone set up a howling ring in the foyer. He dashed off to answer it with her right behind him. Hopefully, Carl hadn't taken a turn for the worst.
He handed the phone off to her when she followed him inside. "It's Mamie for you."
"Hello," Julie said.
"I'm engaged."
"Congratulations. Who's the lucky man?" Julie said.
"I'm going to be your sister," Mamie sing-songed.
"I'm the lucky one. When?" Julie said but inside she was moaning that she was the most unlucky of all women. Damn it all, anyway. That was one dandy kiss and they'd been on the verge of even more. Someday she would repay Mamie. Just when she and Eli were making out, she'd call her and ruin the mood.
"Three weeks. Can we have it at the ranch?"
"They want to get married right here in three weeks. You got a problem with that?"
"Not at all," Griffin said. "I'm going up to bed. You girls can plan weddings all night."
"Wedding. Not plural," Julie said.
He waved off the comment on his way up the stairs.
Julie listened for ten minutes and tried to put on her happy tone the whole time. But inside she felt like a seething jealous bitch. She let Mamie gush on and on about what all they had to do with the wedding prepara tions. Then Mamie said Eli had to call his parents and Sally, so she had to go.
Julie put the phone back on the receiver and slid down the wall to sit on the hardwood floor. It had smelled like a rose. It had looked like a rose. It had thorns—but it was still bullshit because Mamie was getting married before Julie.
With a long sigh she got back up and started up to bed. She opened her door just as Griffin opened his. "Decided I was hungry," he said.
"There's leftovers in the fridge and sandwich makings. Need me to go help with anything?"
"No, I'm smart enough to get a fork into my mouth," he snapped. Why was he so angry? He and Julie bantered back and forth every day, but why did it upset him that night?
It was because he'd thought the kiss would lead to more. To feel her body next to his was what he wanted and like a two-year-old he was upset when he didn't get it.
She shut the door in his face. "Have at it then."
Before she made it to the closet across the room he slung the door open, kicked it back shut with his foot, and crossed the room in a few easy long strides. He gathered her into his arms and kissed her so hard that her pulse galloped, her imagination ran wild, and every nerve ending in her body quivered in anticipation.
When they broke away, he started as if to leave.
"Good night, Julie," he said.
"Oh, no, you don't." She grabbed him and ran her hands up under his T-shirt, pulling him close to her body again. "You're not kissing me like that and then leaving me to toss and turn all night. You started this, partner, and you're going to finish it."
"My room or yours?" he groaned.
"Right here." She fell backwards on the bed and pulled him down with her.
Sparks danced around the room in a bright array of colors. The headboard bumped the wall once and Julie reached up to hold it steady. It was more than sex, deeper than merely a lovemaking session. It was a blending of two hearts and two souls; the kind that transcended age, time, and space. When it was over they were both panting but reluctant to let go of each other.
Breathlessly, she finally whispered. "What have you got for act two?"
He groaned. "You are insatiable."
"Yes, I am and don't you forget it."
She rolled over to one side and pulled the edge of the sheet over her body. "Well?"
"Tonight, it's a one-act play, darlin'. If you want a three-act play, you're going to have to have a few more one-acts in between and not wait so long."
"We'll have to see about that," she smiled.
Sometime near dawn he peeked out into the hallway and tiptoed back to his own room. Julie awoke five minutes before the alarm sounded and rolled out of bed, alive, awake, and alert. She hurriedly threw on a robe and rushed down to the kitchen. Coffee was perking and breakfast waiting by the time Griffin made it to the table.
And he acted like he did every single morning.
She could easily have strangled him until his blue eyes popped out on the table like two marbles. How could he behave like the night before had never happened? Easy. It was the same way he had acted after the night in the barn. For weeks now she'd been waiting for him to make another move and nothing, nada, nil. He must have the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome. One man in the kitchen; another in the bedroom. How on earth was she going to combine the two into one worth having?
The kids dragged themselves to the table, ordered pancakes and sausage, and sipped at orange juice until their blue eyes finally opened. By the time the plates were set before them, they were ready to eat and hurry back up to their room to get ready for school. It was Friday and the weekend was right around the corner. School was fun, according to Annie, and she loved to learn, but she missed playing in the backyard all day.
"You might want to call Jane today," Griffin said.
"Why's that?"
"I told you that red dress was all right but it seems like last year the ladies were wearing jeans and their fancy western things. I don't want to get in trouble," he said.
She threw a dishtowel at him. "It's not what I wear or don't wear that's going to get you in trouble."
"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow. "Are we going to do that analyzing thing?"
"Go to work before I commit justifiable homicide and bury your carcass under the rose bushes," she said.
"A little psychology first. I tend to like to discuss what you're not wearing more than what you are wearing. But that makes you all mad and hot under the collar and you start this tirade about how you are so much older and wiser than the mere boy that I am at twenty-eight." His blue eyes twinkled.
"Out. Get out or I swear I'm throwing things that will hurt," she said.
"Yes, ma'am. My place or yours tonight?" He wiggled a black eyebrow.
"Neither," she raised her voice.
"The barn, then? Reckon the kids will be all right in the house all alone?"
Her temper rose as well as her voice. "I said get out of here, Griffin, and I mean it."
You wanted him to act different and when he does
you rile up in a rage. Make up your mind, woman,
her conscience whispered softly.
"I'm gone. See you after school. I swear you are two different women. One when the sun goes down; another when the moon comes up. Are you part werewolf or something?"
She picked up the orange juice decanter and drew back with it. "I'm all bitch right now."
"We'll talk after the sun goes down. I like that Julie better, anyway."
He disappeared out the back door whistling all the way across the yard.
She sat the decanter down and huffed. How dare he say that about her being two different people. That was his mantra, not hers. Or was it? She tilted her chin up an inch higher. They were both acting like that, weren't they? Because what they had was a physical attraction that could possibly burn itself out in a few months. Their bodies screamed for it; their minds shied away. Hence Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
She drove over to Mamie's for a peek at the engage ment ring during her lunch break at school. Mamie was still floating around on the clouds way up above that number nine puff of white. She flashed an engagement ring at Julie the moment she walked through the door.
"Lookee, lookee. You're the first one to see it," Mamie said.
"What about your folks?" Julie asked.
"Guess we never did get around to that, did we? Granny raised me and left me this business and her house. I lived with her my whole life. Daddy was her son and he liked women. Married eight times by the time he ran his car off the bridge between Terral and Ringgold when he was forty. Momma would have been fifty-one this year, but she OD'd when I was a year old. She was seventeen. Daddy got her pregnant when she was barely sixteen and they got married. He was a whomping eighteen that year. Nineteen when she died. Don't go feeling all sorry for me, though. I had Granny and she loved me unconditionally. I've had a wonderful life. And now it just gets better. I've got Eli Donavan."
Julie couldn't keep the grin off her face. "You are something else, lady."
"So enough about me. What's goin' on with you and Griffin?"
Julie busied herself sniffing the various new candles. "Nothing much."
"Methinks me smells a lie," Mamie said.
"He's soooo…" Julie searched for the right word.
"So what? Handsome as hell? Sweet as honey?"
"Yes, there's that, but so infuriating. By night he's one person. By day another."
"That's life, Julie. At night when there's two people in love they connect on a different level than they do in front of the rest of the world during the day time."
"Who died and made you so damn smart?"
"My granny," Mamie said.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"
"Hush. I mean it. She and I had these long complicated talks from the time I was a little kid. She told me that about men. You ought to know it anyway, being a preacher's daughter. How did your parents act in public?"
"Okay, but…"
"No buts. Now they've been together… what… thirty something years, maybe forty? A long time. How do you figure they act in the bedroom?"
"Good God, I don't even want to think about that," Julie said.
"Aren't you glad for two personalities when you think about it? One to share with the world? One to share with just you? Now tell me about the one that's got its roots in the bedroom," Mamie said.