Last Chance Beauty Queen (13 page)

Granddad wouldn’t have felt any remorse marrying a woman he didn’t love. Granddad would say that a man could find plenty of love with lower-class girls. Girls you tumbled behind your wife’s back. But a deBracy always picked his bride with two things in mind—her pedigree and the size of her fortune.

And Lady Ashton was loaded on both accounts.

“Aunt Rocky, it’s time to get up and get your hair done and put on your beautiful dress.” Haley stood in the middle of her aunt’s room and bellowed. Granny had given her permission to use her outside voice even though it was inside, and Aunt Rocky was still asleep, and it was still dark outside.

But there was a lot to get done before the parade even started. And Haley had been awake for a while anyway, on account of the fact that the Sorrowful Angel had been especially sorrowful this morning. The darned angel was still bawling her eyes out.

The angel had been hovering around Daddy since they all got up. Haley had halfway hoped the angel would leave the house with Daddy when he went to help the other policemen set up the parade route. But the angel had stayed behind, all the more sorrowful because Daddy hadn’t seen her even though she had tried so hard to make him notice.

She had caterwauled to beat the band once Daddy left. It was a wonder, really, that Aunt Rocky had slept through the angel’s noise.

Aunt Rocky cracked an eye that looked kind of red. “Go ’way.” She waved at Haley but not at the angel, who also had on her outside voice, even if she wasn’t exactly talking at the moment.

“Granny says it’s time to get up.”

“I’m sick.” Aunt Rocky squeezed her eyes closed and rolled on her side.

Haley gave her aunt a once-over. She looked a little pale, but she wasn’t coughing or sneezing or barfing or anything. Haley stood there a moment trying to decide if
she should go get Granny, who also seemed to be grumpy this morning. Haley wasn’t exactly sure about what.

The Sorrowful Angel decided to be helpful, for once. She floated across the room and settled on Aunt Rocky’s bed, where she took hold of Caroline’s comforter and yanked.

“Hey, let go.” Caroline played tug-of-war for a moment with the angel, but the angel won.

“Hey, kid, quit it.” Aunt Rocky opened her eyes again. Yup, they were definitely red. Aunt Rocky didn’t look too happy either. “Go someplace and play with your Barbies or something, okay? I’m not getting up, and I’m not putting on any dress. And you can quit trying to take my covers.” Aunt Rocky pulled the comforter back over her shoulders and closed her eyes.

“I didn’t take your covers. It was the angel.”

Aunt Rocky’s eyes flew open, and she lifted her head off the pillow and looked around the room. “Haley, there’s no one here but you and me, so quit fibbing, okay?”

Aunt Rocky’s eyes closed, and she turned on her side again, this time with her back to Haley.

The Sorrowful Angel managed to look even more sorry than usual and let go of a big loud wail that almost broke Haley’s ears.

“Stop it,” Haley said.

“Stop what?” Aunt Rocky said, raising her head and looking over her shoulder. “Are you talking to me or the angel?”

Haley’s face got hot. She had forgotten to be careful about speaking directly to the angel. Most folks—even Granddaddy, who said he sometimes spoke with angels—couldn’t see the Sorrowful Angel. And every time the
angel did something like move the covers or knock something off a table, Haley got blamed.

“I wasn’t talking to anyone,” Haley fibbed.

“Well, stop talking altogether. I’m trying to sleep.”

“But Granny wants you to wake up.”

“Well then, Granny can come in here and haul me out of bed, okay?”

The Sorrowful Angel must not have liked what Aunt Rocky said because the next thing Haley knew, Aunt Rocky’s bed frame broke in two. The broken bed left Aunt Rocky with her butt on the floor and her legs and head up in the air.

Aunt Rocky said a bunch of bad words. But no one heard them except Haley and the Angel. The Angel didn’t seem at all surprised by those words. Haley wasn’t surprised, so much as curious. There were a few words in there that she had never heard before. And just then, Granny came rushing into the room. Granny had half a head full of curlers in her hair and a worried look on her face.

“Good Lord, Rocky, are you all right? What in the world happened?” Granny said.

Granny turned on Haley. “Honey, you haven’t been jumping on this bed, have you?”

Haley’s face got hot again. She knew it was a sin to tell a lie. “Well, maybe a little, but it was—”

Granny’s mouth turned down. “Young lady, if you tell me that this bed was broken by an angel, I declare I will ground you today, and you’ll miss the parade.”

A lump lodged in Haley’s throat. It was time to put on her very bestest behavior even if that required telling a lie. Sometimes life with an angel was really unfair.
When Haley told the truth about the angel, well, it usually resulted in worse trouble than if she just fibbed.

She pulled in a shaky breath. “No, ma’am, it wasn’t the angel. I reckon the bed was broken the last time I jumped on it. And so when Aunt Rocky rolled over, it just broke in two.”

Aunt Rocky unfolded herself from the bed and gave her a funny look. “I didn’t roll over.”

“You didn’t?” Haley asked, her heart suddenly pounding in her ears. She really didn’t want to be grounded on the first day of the Watermelon Festival. Tears filled her eyes.

“No. It just broke. Kind of sudden,” Aunt Rocky said. She stared down at the bed, with its split wooden bed rails. “Momma, there was nothing wrong with this bed last night.”

Granny let go of a sound that wasn’t really a laugh. Haley knew that when Granny made a sound like that, it was probably best to go hide somewhere. “Honey,” Granny said. “You were so pie-eyed last night I doubt you would have noticed if the bed was on fire. Now get your butt in the shower and be ready for Jane to do her magic on you in the next ten minutes, you hear?”

Haley braced herself because sometimes Aunt Rocky and Granny got to arguing about stuff. But the angel drifted between them, and that seemed to take all the starch out of both of them.

Aunt Rocky closed her mouth, turned on her heel, and headed toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. Granny turned in the other direction toward the kitchen, where Aunt Jane had been working on her hair.

“Haley,” Granny said as they walked back to the
kitchen, “I’m glad you didn’t fib about the angel this time.”

“Does that mean I can go to the parade?” Her voice wavered. “I’ll help clean up the room after?”

Granny chuckled warmly. “Honey, you can go to the parade. I think I’ll make Aunt Rocky clean up the mess in her room. It would do her good after the way she’s behaved the last few nights.”

Granny sat back down at the table, and Jane started back to working on her hairdo. The angel drifted in and took her usual place by the broom closet. Haley sank down into the pink rocking chair that Granddaddy had made for her. Prissy, the cat, jumped in her lap.

She gave Prissy a hug, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

What was she going to do about the Sorrowful Angel? Something wasn’t right if an angel was making her lie. She was going to have to ask Reverend Ellis about this. She had a feeling he might have better answers than Dr. Newsome.

Dr. Newsome didn’t really believe in angels, but the preacher had to. And the angel broke that bed. Even worse, the angel didn’t seem to be very sorry about it either.

“Goodness, sugar, I think you’ve grown some since you were eighteen.” Momma stared at Caroline over her shoulder as the two of them looked into the full-length mirror on the back of Momma’s bedroom door.

As usual, this mirror wasn’t telling any lies. Momma looked fabulous in her green and pink dress. Jane had done up Momma’s hair in short sausage curls down the back with her rhinestone tiara holding her bangs back off
her face. She looked twenty years younger than her actual age. Her dress fit her exactly the way it had fit her forty years before. Momma had a really nice hourglass shape that she had managed to maintain even after four children.

In contrast, the dress that had made Caroline infamous as an eighteen-year-old might just humiliate her twelve years later. Her boobs, always just a little too large for her comfort, were poured into that tight bodice, and the girls were not all that happy about it. One or both of them looked like they might make an escape at any moment.

She wanted to throw a first-class, Watermelon Queen hissy fit. But her head was hammering so hard that any loud noise might cause it to split wide open. Her stomach was queasy, too, and she wondered if she could manage to hang on to the float for the duration of the five-mile parade without hurling. She decided that if she had to hurl, she would do it on the dress, thereby getting her out of this ridiculous situation.

At least her hair was good.

Not only could Jane sing like an angel, but the woman had taken Caroline’s unruly mop of hair and transformed it into something amazing. She wore a crown of woven pink and green ribbons that cascaded down her back. Instead of trying to blow-dry the curl out of her hair, Jane had coaxed it into a mane of wavy darkness that made her look like something out of one of Haley’s fairytale books.

And—good news—she could use the long hair in Lady Godiva fashion if the seams on her dress gave way or she encountered a sudden wardrobe malfunction.

“I declare, Rocky, all my life I’ve wanted to have a bustline like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone noticed.”

“Momma, I think the entire county of Allenberg is going to notice. And for the record, I don’t want people to notice my boobs. They could notice my eyes, or my hair, or something else. To be honest, I don’t want to be noticed at all. I’d like to be sitting along the parade route wearing sunglasses and a big floppy hat.”

Momma chuckled. “Well, I’m sure your soulmate will notice all of you, sweetie, including your bustline.”

“Honestly, Momma, I didn’t feel comfortable with this low neckline when I was eighteen. I feel even less comfortable now. And to think my boss is going to see me dressed like this.”

Not to mention Hugh deBracy, whose opinion she suddenly valued as much as Senator Warren’s.

And valuing his opinion of her wardrobe was simply insane. Hugh was an English baron—an aristocrat. He was so far out of her league that it didn’t matter what she wore. In fact, in a strange sort of way, she should be thankful she was dressed like a fluffy watermelon today. Hugh would take one look at this dress and know the truth about her. There would be no more waltzing with Hugh when he saw the real Rocky Rhodes.

“Think of all the eligible bachelors out there,” Momma said, breaking into her thoughts, as if Momma knew that Caroline was only thinking about one particular bachelor—the one she needed to treat professionally.

“Right, Momma,” she said unenthusiastically.

“Oh, come on, honey, the parade route will be lined with hardworking, regular Joes. One of them is going to be your true love. You know when Miriam starts with her forecasts, love is usually right around the corner.” She gave Caroline a little hug. “Now won’t that be fun?”

“No. Especially not if the only thing that attracts this regular Joe is my bustline.” She wanted to be valued for more than that. She wanted to be taken seriously.

And, well, back in her twisted female mind, she wanted to be taken seriously by the one guy she’d recently met who was most definitely not the salt of the earth and a regular Joe. Just thinking about the warmth of Hugh deBracy’s hands on her made her all quivery inside.

“Sirocco Caroline Rhodes, you listen up now,” Momma said, putting her hands on her hips. “Love is never anything to sneer at. It’s likely to knock you right off your feet when you’re least expecting it, and you have the advantage because Miriam has told you that love is coming your way. The kind of true love that Miriam predicts is a blessing. You hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Caroline gave her bodice another upward tug.

Clay called from the front room. He’d brought his minivan to take them over to the parade staging area. It was time to go. She followed Momma out to Clay’s car feeling exposed, sour, and grumpy.

Three hours later, Caroline’s head had finally stopped throbbing. Her feet, on the other hand, were killing her.

What had possessed her to wear these high heels? She had been standing all that time on the seventy-fifth anniversary float, holding on to a metal bar that was all that passed for safety on this moving contraption. Her arches were throbbing, and the small of her back was in agony.

Of course, if she’d been one of the older ladies, they would have given her a throne to sit in. Miz Miriam was sitting up on the highest level of the float, which looked
like an elongated wedding cake with big numerals 7 and 5 at its top.

Caroline, being one of the younger ex-queens, had to stand on the lowest level of the float and wave and smile and endure an endless stream of salacious comments from the rednecks and good ol’ boys lining the parade route. Her station was on the front side of the float so at least she could see where they were going.

This vantage point also gave her a horse’s ass view of the Last Chance Gang, an equestrian group composed mostly of middle-school kids, including her niece, Lizzy. The kids wore white Stetsons and rode ponies. A couple of the older kids did some trick riding and lasso twirling. The kids were cute. But one of their adult supervisors turned out to be Dash Randall himself, looking surprisingly fit for a man who had undergone baseball-career-ending knee surgery a year ago.

Dash was getting his share of attention from the good ol’ girls and their mothers. To be honest, Dash had impressed a lot of kids, too, since he was doing some seriously cool tricks with a lasso. But then Dash had always been a show-off.

Thank goodness it was almost over. The float saluting seventy-five years of Watermelon Queens turned onto Court Street in Allenberg, heading toward the square where the county courthouse and reviewing stand were located.

Caroline tugged up her bodice and fixed her beauty queen smile on her face. Up ahead, the dignitaries had gathered under the bunting-draped plywood of the reviewing stand. Senator Warren sat in the first row surrounded by U.S. and state representatives. A row of
local dignitaries occupied the seats behind him. Caroline finally found Hugh, seated in the last row, wearing an impeccably tailored light gray suit with a crisp white shirt and a narrow light blue tie. He sat right next to Cissy Warren, who was dressed, as always, in the most expensive designer fashion money could buy. Hugh and Cissy looked good together—like refugees from Ascot, slumming today with the simple folk.