"Monopoly?" Cathy frowned.
"That's right. Cards are sinful and will lead you straight to hell so we don't play cards on Saturday night."
"And I'm a Sunday school teacher and I live with Daisy and I do
what
?" Cathy could hardly believe the lie.
"Bookkeeping. It's not a lie. You do work for Daisy and you do take money and count the till so that makes you a bookkeeper. Say it often enough and it don't sound so far-fetched. Momma's a pain in the ass but she's my momma and she's the only one I'll ever get. I wouldn't hurt her for the world and she's got a bad heart so it's not really lies but heart protection," Chigger said.
"Did Daisy tell you about my other job? Is that why you said I was a bookkeeper?" Cathy stopped stirring the yeast mixture. "Do you read tea leaves or practice voodoo?"
Chigger glanced up from her job. "Are you a real bookkeeper?"
Daisy answered the question. "She's an accountant. She's got a college degree and she worked at an oil company along with a son-of-a-bitch who slapped her around. She gave a notice and came to Mingus to get away from him and the area."
"Well I'll be damned."
Jarod slipped into the kitchen through the back door and asked, "What will you be damned about?"
"Daisy will tell you later but save a week from Sunday for dinner at my house. Momma is coming to visit," Chigger said.
"Strength in numbers?" Jarod draped an arm around Daisy's shoulder. "Have you two met my girlfriend?"
"We have and we know," Cathy said.
Jarod brushed a kiss across her forehead. "Just came after a glass of tea and to tell you the first load of cattle will be here right before noon. We've got most of Emmett's herd rounded up and in the corral. If you'll bring the paperwork down right after lunch we'll go through them and decide what to turn out and what to send back with the trucks. Jim Bob, Joe Bob, and Billy Bob are here helping us too."
"Maybe I should've made three hams." Daisy shrugged his arm away and went to straighten the wrinkle-free table cloth.
Jarod filled a plastic glass with tea and carried it out the back door. "See you in at noon."
"Whew! What was that all about?" Chigger asked when he left.
"What?" Daisy asked.
Chigger pulled out a dining room chair and sat down. "Okay, let's get this thing talked through before the fellers come in for dinner. Another ice storm like that and Jarod will be introducing you as his ex-girlfriend. You know what I'm talking about, Daisy, so don't give me that blank stare. I could feel the chill. Right here in the middle of the summer, it felt like an icy winter wind filled the house. Don't you think he could feel it too? Last time I gave Jim Bob the cold shoulder like that was a year ago when this woman at the Honky Tonk backed him up in a corner and had his belt buckle in her hands when I caught them."
Daisy sighed. "I don't know what it was. Last night I really wanted to enter into a committed relationship. Today, when he said that girlfriend thing, it made me mad and I have no idea why."
"Better figure it out right soon," Cathy said.
"I'm not sure it's even Jarod. I think it might be all this stuff around me. I feel like I'm being smothered to death just trying to fix a meal in this house with all the clutter around me and then he's smothering me by being so damn possessive. I couldn't breath when he put his arm around me. I felt like all these damned fake animals were giving me the evil glare. His sister-in-law, Jewel, looks at me like that and…" Daisy stopped talking and threw up her hands in bewilderment.
"Physical things are affecting the emotions. I can understand that," Chigger said. "Everything chose that moment to close in on you and make you crazy."
"You should be a psychiatrist," Daisy said.
"Hairdresser. Rancher's wife. Psychiatrist. One and the same. Got to get to the bottom of a problem, then unravel the damn thing no matter what you are. Here's the deal. Momma's church owns an old house that they keep things like this in, along with clothing and used eyeglasses to give to the needy. If Jarod is willing we'll get rid of it."
"I'll ask him," Daisy said.
"Hey, you know what this house reminds me of? My grandmother's. She loved all this folderol," Cathy said.
"So do I," Chigger said. "Like I said, it's cozy to me, but to each his own, and if this drives Daisy crazy enough to produce icicles when Jarod touches her, it's time for the damn stuff to go."
***
As he worked that morning Jarod kept thinking about the way Daisy shrugged off his touch. She'd offered to make the lunch; he hadn't asked. He'd given her a chance to back out of the relationship and she'd agreed to it—quite wholeheartedly. So what in the devil did he do wrong from the time he walked out the door that morning and she'd kissed him passionately until the time he ran inside for a glass of tea?
She was behaving like most of the women he'd had in his life and that didn't set well with him. Get him committed and then play little mind games that kept him confused. If he'd judged her wrong then he could and would get out of the relationship. He was too old and had been through too many women with issues to play the game again.
He hadn't figured out a single thing when he and the Walker triplets trooped into the house for dinner. Jarod spoke to several of the men already in the backyard with plates piled high in front of them as he made his way across the yard. He wasn't in a hurry to face Daisy again even though his stomach was growling and he was as thirsty as if he had just crossed the Sahara.
Once inside the house, the dinner line was still long. Daisy, Chigger, and Cathy were busy behind the table and the noise level was even higher than when Uncle Emmett had the television and the CD player running at the same time. Daisy looked up and smiled at him. What should have sent his spirits soaring plunged them to the pits of depression. Too hot to touch. Cold enough to freeze him. Now warm. Those abrupt changes in temperature could ruin a relationship and squelch love.
Jarod picked up a plate at the dinner buffet only to have Daisy move around and get in front of him. "You won't mind if your girlfriend cuts in line, will you?"
"Not at all," he said flatly.
A band appeared around Daisy's heart and began to tighten. Had she just destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to her?
"Did you get the cattle all penned up for me?" she asked as they loaded their plates.
"We did. Just a few more stragglers to herd in and they're all ready."
She could feel the frost coating his words.
He started out the back door and she touched his arm. "In the living room. Alone. Please."
He followed without saying another word.
She set her plate on the coffee table and sat down cross-legged in front of it. "I'd like to explain about this morning, but you're going to think I'm crazy."
He sat across from her. "Explain away."
Daisy took a deep breath. "This is going to sound like I'm trying to justify a bad mood and I'm not really sure how to put it. But I hate all this clutter. I feel like I'm being smothered to death and I didn't even realize it until Chigger pointed it out."
"Chigger always going to have to point it out when you are bitchy?"
She cut her blue eyes around at him. "I admit it. I'm so sorry for the way I behaved. It was mean and bitchy and just plain ugly. I felt like all the junk in this house was closing in on me. And then there you were all happy because I'm your girlfriend, as you put it, with your arm around me and it felt like you were closing in on me too. Everything in the place was sucking the life out of me. The evil eyes of those animals damned me. You were all possessive. You want to end our committed relationship because I was bitchy one time, then evidently I was wrong about you anyway."
"I don't want to end it. I want to work through it. You never acted like that before," Jarod said, the ice crystals melting from the words.
Daisy went on. "And I will never act that way again because I've worried all morning that you would take it just the way you did and it wasn't a good feeling. I would have hated for you to have treated me like that in front of your friends and family. I'm truly sorry. Please, please forgive me," she said as she locked gazes with him across the table.
He touched her hand. "Forgiven." Daisy was different. When she was wrong she apologized. She hadn't let it fester for days but had cornered him as soon as he was back in the house, and he had a very good feeling that she'd never bring it up again. Yes, sir, his Daisy was honest and he believed her when she said it wouldn't happen again.
"Just like that?" she asked.
"Just like that. Forgiven and forgotten."
"You are a good man, Jarod."
I love you. I really do
but I can't say the words. Please don't give up on me.
I'll be able to say them someday.
"You keep right on thinking that. I've got a confession. All this junk drives me crazy, too. I hate to be in the house with it. Garrett says the night he spent here when Emmett died was like a horror movie. He said their eyes watched him every time he moved. He's planning on making a bonfire out of it all."
"Chigger says we can box it all up and take it to her mother's church. They give away stuff to folks who need it."
"Bless her heart. Garrett will pay you all to take care of it."
"No payment necessary. Can we make up now?" Her eyes twinkled.
He leaned across the table and brushed a quick kiss across her lips. "Don't do that again. I'll meet you halfway. Hell, I'll even meet you three quarters. But I can't read your mind. Makeup will have to wait. Remember Garrett, Livvy, and Ben are all moving in today. Garrett is taking your old room. Livvy and Ben will take the other one until their trailer is hooked up. We will have to put makeup on the back burner but I guarantee it will be worth it when we get around to it."
She moved around the table to sit close enough that their hips and shoulders touched. "Why didn't you tell me that last night?"
Joe Bob eased open the door and peeked in. "Mind if I join you? Tables are full in the backyard and besides, I want to talk to Jarod about this Sunday thing. Lord, can you just see me acting all lovey-dovey with Cathy? She's liable to slap my face."
"What Sunday thing?" Jarod asked.
Joe Bob frowned. "You didn't tell him, Daisy? I'll eat on the front porch. I just figured you could give me some advice since you played like you were married to Daisy." He left without shutting the door.
"Explain please," Jarod said.
"It's like this. Chigger figured out that I had hot flashes the first time I laid eyes on you. Don't look at me with that grin. It's hard enough for me to admit all this but I'll be damned if I ever keep a single thing from you again," she said and went on to tell him the whole story.
It started as a mild chuckle and wound up a loud guffaw that had him reaching in the pocket of his bibbed overalls for a red bandanna to wipe at his eyes. "So we get to be married again on Sunday?"
"Married twice. They say the third is the charm. We'll have to be very careful," she giggled.
The laughter stopped when he tipped back her face and his gray eyes locked with her dark blue ones. He bent and she stretched. Their lips met in a long drawn out kiss that left them both aching.
"I'm going to get hot flashes thinking about you," she said.
He kissed her forehead. "Good. I hope you have to take a cold shower just like I will. I'm going now before I carry you off to a hay loft and put a 'do not disturb' sign on the door. Give us thirty minutes and then come on out to the corral. Keys to my truck are on the top of the refrigerator. Bring it. That rutted path out there will rattle your cute little car to death."
"Thanks for the truck but I'd rather go to the hay loft," she said.
He laughed softly. "Me too, darlin'."
Cathy poked her head into the living room after Jarod left. "I see what you mean about stuff. It's everywhere. The longer I'm here the more I see. How on earth did anyone collect so much in just one lifetime? Looks to me like it would take three lifetimes to get this much gathered up."
Daisy motioned her on into the room. "It could have taken three lifetimes. There's probably stuff here from Mavis' parents and maybe even from Emmett's. But Jarod said Garrett would be very thankful to have it out of here."
Cathy plopped down on the sofa and leaned her head back. "It's been a morning and I'm tired but Chigger and I will get started once we put the leftovers away. I don't have to be home until six. It'll take you that long to get your outside jobs done anyway. Y'all get that tiff straightened out? We heard a lot of giggling going on in here. I don't suppose you did anything hinky though. Never known a man to like a woman to giggle while he's putting the make on her."
"Yes, we did get it straightened out. Now about this mess we've got to clean up. Got any ideas?" Daisy was getting damn good at changing the subject away from her and Jarod.
Cathy shrugged. "Don't worry about it. Me and Chigger can take care of it today while you are outside. I can't believe I'm supposed to be hankering after Joe Bob Walker on Sunday. He's been avoiding me like the plague. How are we supposed to convince Momma Jones that we are an item if he's afraid to be in the same room with me?"
"We convinced her that Jim Bob was as shy as Willa Mae," Daisy said.