“Yes, ma’am.” Both men responded at the same time.
“So you best be thinking about what it is you’ll be doing when the time comes to leave the dress whites behind. It’s never too early to begin planning for the future, you know.”
“You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Jessop,” Dev said.
Anna Jessop nodded, clearly satisfied with that response. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to look around.” She turned her beaming, elfin-like smile on Julia. “I’ll be in the office if you need anything, dear.”
Anna trundled off toward the back corner of the museum. She usually sat at the small desk just outside of the actual office. She liked to be available for any of the family and the odd stranger who might wander in.
“She looks like Mrs. Santa Claus,” Drew whispered.
“Hmm, but she conducted that ‘interview’ better than Admiral Marston.” Devon looked over at Julia. “Enjoyed that, did you?”
“Oh, I love my Aunt Anna, and tend to enjoy any time I get to spend with her.” Then she leaned closer. “Anna Jessop is our secret weapon.”
“She’s a very effective secret weapon. And you’re a smart-ass.” Dev softened the comment with a small but sweet kiss. “Show us the rest of your heritage.”
Julia hadn’t had many opportunities in the past to play tour guide here at the museum. Though she couldn’t count the number of times that she’d visited herself, rarely had she brought anyone along who hadn’t been born and raised in Lusty.
She showed Dev and Drew pictures of the Big House, taken shortly after Sarah, Caleb, and Joshua had moved in, and told the tale of how her Benedict great-greats had gotten together in the first place.
It was a story she’d heard all her life and never tired of, a story of passion and high adventure. Her great-great-grandmother had been more or less sold into marriage by her father to a man whose heart, it turned out, had been as black as sin. The deceitful groom assumed the gunslingers he hired to be no-accounts—men who wouldn’t risk themselves when the shooting started—to escort his bride from Chicago, across Indian Territory to Texas. Instead, Caleb and Joshua Benedict had proved to be his undoing. Intent upon murdering his bride, Tyrone Maddox had himself been gunned down by Joshua, who’d drawn his gun in defense of Warren Jessop.
“She ended up inheriting not only the bequest left her by her grandfather, but because Maddox had been so thorough in his ruse of marrying her as to make her his sole beneficiary, she inherited his entire fortune, too.”
“Good. What kind of a bastard marries a young woman just to murder her and inherit her estate?” Dev’s moral outrage was obvious. Drew appeared equally incensed.
Julia nodded. Theirs was a common reaction to the horrific tale. “As it turned out, Maddox was cash poor, but land rich. And the land he’d amassed in the last year of his life he did so on speculation of it being worth something in the not too distant future. He’d gotten wind, apparently, of a new commodity about to become even more valuable than gold.”
Dev tilted his head to the side slightly. “Oil?”
Julia smiled. “Yes, indeed. Sarah wrote in her journal that neither she nor any of the men—Benedict, Kendall or Jessop—thought much would come of it, but they decided to hang on to the land, anyway, just in case.”
“Wise decision,” Drew said.
Julia grinned. “We all certainly think so.”
She showed them the other photos and artifacts the museum currently had on display. The families still had Adam’s Texas Ranger badge, and one of his Colts. There was a sign, “Jessop-Kendall Investigations,” which had adorned the business Amanda and Warren had opened in Waco.
A trio of gold coins caught the SEALs attention, and had them bending over the case trying to get a better look.
“Recovered from some pirate ship?” Dev asked when he straightened.
“In Texas?” Julia laughed. “No, not a pirate ship. Those coins were minted in 1854.”
“Those are Liberty Head gold dollar coins,” Drew said.
“They are. You know coins?”
“Some,” he said. “One of my foster fathers—a professor—had a collection of coins and liked to try and instill an appreciation for collecting in me. Hmm, 1854…” Drew straightened and looked at Julia. “That was the first gold dollar Congress ever commissioned.”
“Is that why they’re here? But no…Lusty wasn’t founded until 1881.” Dev looked at Drew, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Those three coins are from a stash of gold discovered by the Jessop-Kendalls on their trek into Indian Territory in 1880—the reason, in fact, that Amanda Dupree ventured from Richmond, Virginia, to Waco, Texas, in the first place.”
“Stash of gold? That’s an odd way of putting it,” Drew said. “Do you mean, she came West on a treasure hunt?”
Julia kept smiling at him until he shrugged. “What, they discovered the lost Confederate gold or something?”
“That was just a myth,” Dev said. “The so-called lost Confederate gold was actually stolen at the end of the war by the politicians of the day, proof that nothing much has changed in a century or more.”
“If you say so,” Julia replied. She never argued a point when she knew she was right. Her refusal to do so now made Dev and Drew both look back at those pieces of gold.
Julia stepped over to one of the last photos in the museum, set on the wall not far from the exit. It showed the Benedicts and the Jessop-Kendalls sitting around the table in the dining room at the Big House. In the middle of the table was a document…the same document that had been preserved under glass in a cabinet and was now on display below the photo.
“This picture was taken after the fact, but it commemorates the signing of the town charter, and the first meeting of the Lusty Town Trust. In those days, it only comprised the six of them. But as time went on, every member of the families, upon adulthood, became a member of the Trust. Today, we only meet once a year en masse—that would be in October, to commemorate our version of Founders Day.”
“The Town Trust?” Dev asked. “I saw it mentioned in the lease we signed for the house. I thought it was the name of the rental agency.”
“Well, in a way. You see, Warren Jessop set up a legal covenant—a trust, into which was donated large parcels of land out of the tracts that both the Benedicts and the Jessop-Kendalls owned. On this land they established the town of Lusty. Income from the land is divided between the central coffer and the individual members. We each have our own inheritances, trust funds set out for us when we’re born. But the
land
is owned by the entity that Warren Jessop set up. We can do a lot of things, but we can’t sell any land.”
“That was very clever of him,” Drew said.
“Yes, it was. In the 1880s it guaranteed that no one could move in, take over, and hold witch hunts. Towns had more autonomy then than they do now. And basically, as it turned out, the families were blessed. Even though the good people of Waco had
heard
of a town out here, for many years, no one paid it any mind. That allowed the people of Lusty to live—and love—as they chose.”
They’d managed to spend nearly two hours in the museum. Julia blinked in the late morning sun when they finally emerged from the small building.
On the sidewalk, they were greeted by a few passersby, all of whom offered both Dev and Drew sincere smiles. “Where to next, madam tour guide?” Dev reached for her right hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. Drew repeated the gesture with her left hand.
Julia never realized she liked those sorts of little gestures until now.
“How about we go grab a cup of coffee at the best restaurant in town?”
Drew looked up and down Main Street. “I think it’s the
only
restaurant in town,” he said.
“Well, it is, but it’s also the best.”
“It certainly has a catchy name.
Lusty Appetites
,” Dev said.
Julia laughed. They walked at a leisurely pace, which suited her just fine. “I’m told Kelsey came up with that name
before
she understood what kind of a community she’d moved into.”
“She’s the chef married to your cousins Matthew and Steven,” Drew said.
“I think you’re trying to memorize all the family connections,” she teased him.
“I have a chart.”
Since he’d said that very seriously, she believed him. “I’d be happy to help you with that chart.”
Drew grinned. “I want to see if I can do it on my own, first. That way I’ll learn it better.”
Stepping inside the restaurant was always such a treat. Julia closed her eyes and inhaled deeply and let the myriad aromas of good cooking tease her senses.
It always smells so damn good in here.
If she wasn’t hungry when she opened the door, she sure was within minutes of entering the place, nearly every time.
“Smells good in here,” Dev said. “I wasn’t hungry, but now…”
It wasn’t noon yet, so the dining room was only about a third full. Ginny Rose looked up from the table she was clearing when they entered. Her gaze went from Julia to the two men, and then back to Julia. Her eyes widened, and Julia figured Tracy must have told her about her “men problem.”
“Hey, Ginny,” Julia greeted.
“Hey there, Julia. How are you today?”
Julia bit back the smart-ass answer that immediately sprang to mind. After a full night of one outstanding orgasm after another, she felt way better than fine. However, in the month or so that she’d known Ginny Rose, she’d come to appreciate that the other woman was different than most of the women she knew. A bit shy—especially around her cousins Adam and Jake Kendall—and almost fragile, Ginny had impressed her with her hard work, her respect for Grandma Kate, and her absolute devotion to her son, Benny.
“I’m great, thanks. We
were
only coming in for coffee, but I think now we’re going to eat.”
Ginny smiled. “Kelsey’s and Tracy’s cooking has that effect on just about everyone. Those that don’t cotton to the meat and gravy aromas sure do go for the pastry and cake ones.”
Julia introduced the men to Ginny, who greeted them shyly but readily offered her hand. “Y’all just sit wherever you like. I’ll bring you menus in a bit.”
Ginny disappeared into the kitchen. Julia led the men over to a nice round table near the back from the door but within sight of the large picture window. If they wondered why she’d chosen a table for six instead of one of the several empty ones for four, they said nothing.
Julia knew her town and her family. She wondered just how many of people would “happen by” in the next half hour or so.
The first one, of course, came sailing out of the kitchen, a tray in her hands. Julia was not one bit surprised to see four glasses of sweet tea on the tray Tracy Jessop carried.
Tracy set a glass in front of each of them, then took the last one in hand and sat in the middle one of the three empty chairs. Her raised eyebrow told Julia she noticed the men had tucked her in between them. Julia knew the sight wasn’t an unfamiliar one, because that was how most men in Lusty tended to seat their women.
“So you’re my sister’s….neighbors.” Tracy looked from one to the other of them, her smile wide.
“Our families tended to have more sons than daughters,” Julia said to Dev and Drew, “and Tracy and I adopted each other years ago.” To Tracy she said, “This is Dev, and this is Drew, and as you can see, I did return their call.”
Drew tilted his head to the side. “Are you the Tracy who’s engaged to Jordan Kendall and Peter Alvarez?”
Tracy smiled. “I am. If you spend too much time trying to figure out everyone’s connection to everyone else, it’s going to give you a massive headache.”
“I’m doing all right so far. But I’m definitely going to need another whiteboard.” Then he looked at Julia. “Who’s Ginny married to?”
“No one, yet,” she said.
“But my future brothers-in-law are working on the situation,” Tracy said.
Ginny came out of the kitchen, with a basket of bread, and a plate of butter. It seemed to Julia that she held Tracy’s gaze in an odd sort of way as she set those items on the table. When Julia tilted her head and looked at her friend, Tracy just smiled.
Julia was familiar enough with that smile to be forewarned. She kept part of her attention on the sidewalk outside, wondering who would make their appearance first.
“If you’re determined on figuring out the family trees,” Tracy said, “Aunt Anna has a large chart at the museum.”