Trouble in Texas (25 page)

Billy choked on laughter, leaving Brant to field the question.

“It’s not a haunted house, Jesse. But I think you’ll have fun with all the secret
passages and old rooms. Once we finish renovating, I’ll invite you and a group of
your friends out for a night.”

As Jesse let out a whoop, Billy turned to Brant. “We? Don’t tell me you’ve bought
into Beau’s crazy scheme.”

Brant set his margarita down. He had never been much of a mixed drink kind of guy
and found he missed the smooth brandy of Miss Hattie’s. “Actually, I don’t think it’s
so crazy. And while I don’t know if I’m sold on the idea of a men’s retreat, I do
think that Miss Hattie’s is a piece of Texas history that shouldn’t be lost.”

“And what about our grandfather?” Billy asked. “With all your plans of renovating
Miss Hattie’s have you had time to investigate how he died?”

“I haven’t discovered how he died,” Brant said. “But I now know for certain that he
was at Miss Hattie’s. He gave her a silver chest almost identical to the one Daddy
inherited from our grandmother. Except this one was dated a good two months after
he supposedly died.”

Billy sat up even straighter. “You’re kidding? So he was killed at Miss Hattie’s later?”

“Or maybe not at all,” Brant said. “The only proof we have is from a ninety-year-old
man who heard it from his grandfather. I located Miss Hattie’s journals, but so far
they haven’t mentioned William Cates. Which means we may never know what happened.”

Billy studied him. “And can you live with that, Brant?”

It was funny, but the curse that had consumed him after the death of Mandy and B.J.
was no longer such a driving force. It had been pushed out by other things. The renovation
of Miss Hattie’s. A bunch of crazy old hens. And a librarian with baby soft skin and
pretty gold eyes.

Brant glanced down at his watch. He had a good hour before he had to be at Elizabeth’s
house, but suddenly he didn’t want to wait any longer.

He rolled to his feet. “I need to be going.”

“Oh no, you don’t.” Shirlene got up from the couch. “Cristina is making her green
chile-infused turkey, and I’ve already told her to set another spot at the table.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to taste that another time,” Brant said. “I have a date tonight.”

Billy shot him a surprised look. “A date as in with a woman?”

“Is there another kind?” Brant headed for the door, keeping an eye out for Brody,
who had disappeared mysteriously. The little boy showed up again when the family congregated
around Brant to say good-bye. But this time he only had a cap gun. Still, it was a
little disconcerting for Brant to step out the door and know that it was pointed straight
at his back.

“Next time, be sure to bring your girlfriend,” Shirlene called out as Brant climbed
into the pickup.

His girlfriend.

The words rolled around and around in his head as he started the engine and drove
down the tree-lined entryway. And soon, the words were joined by the image of Elizabeth
sitting at a dinner table with him, Billy, and Shirlene. It was a nice image. So nice
that he allowed it to develop into a daydream. And Brant had never been much of a
daydreamer. Which probably explained why it got so out of control. One moment, he
was enjoying dinner with his brother and sister-in-law, and the next, he was sitting
on the white couch with Elizabeth tucked against his side like Shirlene had been tucked
against Billy’s. Children were playing around their feet, but not Brody and Adeline.
These were different children. Children with a mixture of dark and light hair, and
gold and blue eyes.

It was a crazy dream. But no matter how crazy it was, it remained with him all the
way into Bramble, warming him from the inside out. Making him feel alive and part
of a world he’d given up on. He was so wrapped up in the daydream that it took him
a moment to realize his phone was buzzing. He pulled it from his shirt pocket and
answered.

“M-Mr. Cates?” a quivery female voice came through the receiver. “This is Starlet
Brubaker.”

He adjusted the phone. “Is everything okay, Starlet? Did something happen to one of
the hens?”

“Oh, no. They’re all fine.” She paused. “It’s just that I overheard something that
I thought you needed to know.”

“Please don’t tell me they contacted another girl.”

“Actually,” Starlet said, her voice clogged with what sounded like tears. “It was
your brother I overheard talking.”

Knowing how much Starlet was enamored with Beau, Brant thought he knew what had her
so upset. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Starlet,” he said. “Beau talks to a lot of girls.
It was probably just one of his childhood friends from Dogwood.”

“But it wasn’t a friend. It was a doctor.”

Just that quickly, Brant’s good mood dissipated, and his hands started shaking so
badly that he was forced to pull over to the curb.

“What did the doctor say?” he asked. “Is the cancer back?”

“Cancer?” Starlet released an earsplitting sob.

This time, Brant had no patience for the girl’s theatrics. “Be quiet!” he ordered.
The wailing stopped immediately, and he took a deep breath before he continued.
“Now tell me exactly what happened and what you overheard.”

Starlet sniffed. “I was in Miss Hattie’s closet, and I overheard Beau talking on his
cell phone. He sounded really upset about some x-ray. Is that why he went to Houston
on Monday, Mr. Cates? He went for x-rays?”

Brant had known that Beau had gone to Houston on Monday. But Brant thought he’d gone
to hang out with a college buddy. His brother hadn’t mentioned anything about tests.

“Where is Beau now, Starlet?” he asked. “Did he head back to Houston?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked as a sob broke free. “The entire time he was packing,
he just kept repeating the same thing… ‘I want to live.’ ”

W
HOEVER HAD INVENTED EYELASH CURLERS
had never taken into consideration inept women with no coordination. Elizabeth stared
down at the clump of eyelashes still attached to the brand-new shiny instrument hooked
on her thumb and forefinger. Her gaze moved back up to the bathroom mirror to verify
the fact that the lashes on the curler belonged to her. They did. The woman who looked
back at her was a good ten lashes short of a row.

The missing lashes weren’t the only reason Elizabeth felt like throwing up.

The new blue eye shadow she’d gotten at Sutter’s Pharmacy was too dark, the black
eyeliner too thick, and the rose blush too bright. Instead of the beautiful, sophisticated
woman she’d hoped for, Elizabeth looked like a preschooler who had gotten into her
mother’s makeup.

Dropping the eyelash curler into the sink, she was reaching for a washcloth with every
intention of wiping off the hideous makeup when the phone rang. She carefully made
her way back into the bedroom, trying not to twist an ankle in her new high-heeled
shoes.

She picked up her phone from the dresser and pressed the talk button. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

Brant’s deep voice sent her into hyper mode, and she started removing the curlers
that were still in her hair. It was easier said than done. One curler after another
got tangled and refused to come out.

“I’m almost ready,” she said as she left the curlers dangling and hurried over to
the closet to get the black dress she’d bought at Duds ’N Such. “Are you outside?”
She finished zipping the dress and stared at herself in the mirror. The dress had
looked sexier on the hanger. On her, it looked like a black potato sack with arm holes.

There was a long pause. “Actually, I called to tell you that I can’t take you to Houston.”

Her shoulders relaxed. “Thank God. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I’m date
material. Why don’t I fix us something here to eat, and then we can—”

“I can’t come over, Elizabeth.”

She dropped her hands away from the curlers, not knowing if she felt depressed that
he couldn’t come over or that he hadn’t called her
Beth
. “Oh. Well, that’s okay. Did you want me to meet you out at Miss Hattie’s?”

There was another long pause, this one much more terrifying than the last.

“Listen, Elizabeth, you were right to keep our relationship on a friendship basis.
You don’t want to get involved with me. Not when everyone around me seems to…” He
released his breath, and she could almost picture him running his hand through his
hair. “Look, I need to go, but I want to tell you something first. You’re a beautiful
woman, Elizabeth Murphy, and any man would be lucky to be with you.”

The phone clicked dead, and Elizabeth was left to stare at the image in the mirror
of the garishly painted woman in an ugly black dress and dangling curlers.
Beautiful?
She turned away from the mirror. She wasn’t beautiful. If she was beautiful, Brant
wouldn’t be breaking their date.

And not just their date, but whatever relationship they’d had.

No longer in a hurry, Elizabeth took her time unzipping the dress and hanging it back
in the closet. It wasn’t even four o’clock, but she still dug through her drawers
until she found her old pair of flannel pajamas. Once she had them on, she made one
more attempt at getting the curlers out. When she failed, she left them dangling and
walked to the kitchen. She’d been so nervous about her date that she hadn’t eaten
lunch, which might explain the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She went through every cupboard and refrigerator shelf, but nothing looked good. She
finally settled on a container of week-old yogurt. Curled up on the couch, with Atticus
cuddled close, she spooned in one bite after the other and tried to think logically.

Logically speaking, she had never stood a chance with Brant Cates.

Brant deserved to be with gorgeous women who knew how to use eyelash curlers and hot
rollers. Women who made anything they put on look sexy. Women who were comfortable
hopping on a private jet and flying to a big city for dinner. Not some frumpy librarian
who had spent the last fifteen years in a town with only one main street.
A town that suddenly felt like a vast black hole that was sucking her in.

Or maybe it wasn’t the town that was a black hole, but her life.

All Elizabeth could see were endless days spent exactly the same way. Shower at six
fifteen. Josephine’s for tea and toast at eight twenty. Open library at nine. Eight
hours later return home.

Home.

She looked around the sterile living room. It didn’t feel like home. There were no
knickknacks or colorful throw pillows or bright Andy Warhol paintings. It was a depressing
thought to realize that The Jungle Room was homier than her house. Despondent, she
did something she rarely did. She reached for the television remote. But before she
could click it on, the doorbell rang. She was up off the couch in a flash, sending
Atticus flying and curlers swinging. She had the door open before she even considered
how she must look. She started to make excuses, but they died on her lips when she
saw the four women standing on the porch—make that three standing and one sitting
in a wheelchair.

“Good God,” Minnie said. “What the hell did you do to yourself, Lizzie?” Without waiting
for an invitation, she pressed the button on the arm of her chair and almost mowed
Elizabeth over.

Elizabeth jumped out of the way just in time. “What are you doing here?”

“We came to cheer you up,” Baby said. She pulled a container of ice cream out of a
grocery sack and handed it to Elizabeth.

“Because Brant dumped you.” Sunshine beamed.

While Elizabeth was trying to figure out how the hens knew she’d been dumped, Minnie
rolled farther into the living room and glanced around.

“It’s worse than I thought. This house has ‘old maid’ written all over it.”

Even though Elizabeth had been thinking the same thing, she bristled. “I haven’t had
time to put a lot of effort into decorating. And just how did you know Brant broke
our date?”

Minnie examined the books in Elizabeth’s bookcase. “Brant talked to me after Starlet
told him about Beau flyin’ the coop, and he thought you might need some company.”

“Beau left?” Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do, Minnie?”

“Minnie didn’t do anything,” Starlet jumped in. For the first time, Elizabeth took
a good look at the young woman. She looked worse than Elizabeth. Her cheeks were wet
with tears, and her makeup was smudged beneath puffy, bloodshot eyes.

“Beau left because he’s…” She released an earsplitting wail, “d-dying!” She flopped
down on the couch and placed a hand over her eyes.

For a moment, Elizabeth felt like doing the same thing. “Beau’s dying?”

“Now, we don’t know that for sure, Starlet.” Baby came hurrying back in from the kitchen
with a handful of spoons.

Starlet peeked over her arm. “Then why was Brant so upset when he found out Beau had
been talking to a doctor right before he left?”

Elizabeth’s heart tightened as Starlet’s words sank in.
No wonder Brant had broken the date. He had other things to worry about. Like Beau
dying. She hated to even think the thought, but there was no getting around it. If
Beau had talked with a doctor and then disappeared, something was very wrong. And
Elizabeth felt responsible. She was the one who had pushed Beau to go for a check-up.
The one who convinced him to make an appointment at the earliest opportunity. And
now it looked as if the worst scenario possible had happened. And if she felt this
upset by the news, there was no telling how upset Brant would be.

The feeling of icy cold had her glancing down at the small container of ice cream
that she was squeezing in her hand. She quickly gave it to Baby before heading toward
the bedroom.

“I have to find Brant. He’s upset and will need someone to talk to.”

Once in her room, she didn’t waste any time changing into the jeans and sweater she’d
taken from Miss Hattie’s. She was standing at the dresser mirror, still struggling
with one stubborn curler, when Minnie rolled into the doorway.