The Wedding Pearls Read online

  “Why are you so interested?” A cold coke did not give him the right to open up old wounds.

  “I need someone to talk to, and everyone in my life is either severely pro or con in this issue. I need some advice from someone who is totally neutral,” he said.

  Lord, help! When had she become the therapist on this trip? She was a travel planner, not a problem solver. Hell’s bells! She couldn’t even get her life straightened out, what with all this new family. Throw in the sparks between her and Branch and it thickened the troubles by ten.

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Tell me all about it. But remember, I can fix it if you want to go to England on a shoestring budget but I’m not good at relationships. My past is testimony to that.”

  Branch removed his cap and laid it to one side. “That’s the problem. I don’t want it fixed. I’ve moved on and I don’t want Avery in my life. She left me for a bigger firm and for one of the older partners in that firm who did not own a small ranch.”

  “And?” Tessa asked.

  It was Branch’s turn to talk in a monotone. “She started calling and when I refused to answer or return her calls, she started sending long, lengthy e-mails. After the first two I wrote her a note and said I was deleting them all from that point on. Now it’s texts. Ten a day at least, mainly to let me know that she’s not giving up.”

  “And?” Tessa raised an eyebrow.

  “And I quit opening them today. Did you have the same problem and is this normal?” he asked.

  “No, his name was Matt, and he broke up with me. He’s been married since March and his wife is pregnant, which means he was cheating on me long before we broke up. I hope he doesn’t start stalking me like that,” she said.

  Branch sat up so fast that his movements were a blur in her peripheral vision. “It is stalking, isn’t it?”

  Her head bobbed a couple of times. “That’s what I’d call it. Maybe after a month, she’ll get the message, but then she might get desperate and decide if she can’t have you, no one can.”

  Branch shivered. “She’s pretty vicious in the courtroom. I wouldn’t put it past her, the way she likes to win.”

  Tessa laughed. “She’s too smart to try to kill you, Branch. So she’s a lawyer?”

  He nodded. “And your Matt? Is he in the travel business?”

  “He’s not my Matt. And no, he is a computer consultant for a large firm out of New Orleans. He’s from New Iberia originally and his parents live there. We went to high school and college together and we kind of fell into a relationship,” she answered.

  Branch turned around and slung his legs out over the side of the chaise lounge. “What happened?”

  “He said that we grew apart and the fizz went out of our relationship. And his mama wasn’t real sure that she wanted her son to marry a woman that had no idea what kind of people she came from.” Tessa had never wished for a roll of duct tape so badly in her life. Even a little six- or seven-inch length of it would be enough to tape her mouth shut. Had she inherited the need to talk too much from Lola along with her clumsiness?

  A frown drew Branch’s eye brows into a solid line. “Because you are adopted?”

  “It’s a big thing when someone can trace their ancestors back to the sixth day of creation and wants to know what kind of blood is coming into their family. And”—she lowered her voice—“there was that scandal when Sophie and Derek ran off to the commune for those years. Who knows what kind of weird stuff they might have put into their adopted child’s head?”

  “That is a foolish way of thinking,” Branch said. “Did you see that woman after the breakup?”

  “Of course. We go to the same church. I see her sweet little gloating face every Sunday,” Tessa said sarcastically.

  “Does Matt go to that church, too?”

  “When he’s in town visiting his folks, which is about once a month. But he and his wife, who is also a computer geek, stay in New Orleans most of the time. I hear that she has an uncle who practices voodoo, but no one is telling Matt’s mama. She’d probably have a heart attack. Now your turn,” she said.

  “For a heart attack or to stick pins in a doll that looks like Avery?” His eyes twinkled.

  “You know what I’m talking about. If I’m telling stuff, then you have to do the same. Tell me more about Avery,” she said.

  He tipped up his coke, finished the last of it, and tossed the can toward the big black trash bin across the room. It landed smack in the middle and he pumped his fist. “That was a three-pointer.”

  “You play basketball? I would have guessed you were a football player.”

  “No, basketball is my participation game. Football is my armchair game. Who’s your favorite team?” he asked.

  “You’re not getting off that easy, buster. I’m not interested in football tonight. I want the Avery story,” she said.

  “It’s time to put the clothes in the dryers. You sit tight and I’ll be right back. Won’t take five seconds.”

  She watched him walk away with that easy swagger that marked him as more rancher than lawyer, and tried to imagine him in a tailored three-piece suit in a courtroom. It wouldn’t materialize no matter how tightly she shut her eyes. He would always be the six-foot cowboy with dark hair and sexy green eyes who’d walked into her travel agency that day with the most earth-shattering news of her entire life. In the picture in her mind, his face, with the perfect amount of chiseling and a perfect-size cleft in his chin, always had a smile for her and sometimes when he looked her way, she even got a sly wink.

  He whistled an old Ernest Tubb tune as he returned. It took her a minute but finally she remembered it jazzed up, high school band style. “Waltz Across Texas” had never been her favorite country song because she didn’t like Ernest Tubb’s voice. But it did have a catchy melody when Branch whistled it. He flopped down on the chaise lounge. “Now, where were we? Talking about your favorite football team?”

  She narrowed her eyes into nothing but slits. “We are going to talk about Avery. You made me spill my guts. Now it’s your turn.”

  Branch shrugged and stretched out on the chaise again. “She’s tall, dark haired, and brown eyed, and she’s a crackerjack lawyer. She’d joined our firm and was a go-getter. I had no idea she set her head for me, not for the person I am but because I was my father’s son and she wants to be partner in a firm.”

  “Were you blind?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, but believe me, I’ve got my eyes wide open now.”

  “And she broke it off with you, because you wouldn’t give up your ranch and be only a lawyer, right?”

  He gave her a thumbs-up sign.

  “I bet she’s not clumsy, either.” Tessa smiled.

  “Not a bit. Graceful as a ballerina. But I’d take clumsy over a calculating and manipulative serial killer.”

  Tessa hummed a few bars of the hair-raising music from a horror film. “She’ll kill you, Branch, like a black widow spider kills her lovers after she’s finished with them. If not your body, your soul.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, so I’m steering clear of her. And thank you, Tessa, for sharing and for listening.”

  “Phone is vibrating, which means I’ve got a text.” She checked the message coming in. “Lola says that the food will be here in thirty minutes. It’s being delivered to Frankie’s room.”

  “That should give us time to fold clothes and put them away.” Branch led the way to the laundry room. He pulled the still-hot clothing from the dryers and tossed them on the folding table. Their hands got tangled up when she grabbed for a pair of underpants and he went for his white briefs at the same time. Static electricity sent sparks flying when they pulled them apart.

  “Wow!” he said. “Looks like they formed a tight relationship in that dryer.”

  “Looks like it.” She blushed.

  Dammit! She’d rather have the clumsiness than the fiery-hot cheeks.

  “You ever felt sparks like that in a relationsh
ip?” he asked.

  “Let’s get this folded and go have supper. If I felt sparks right now it would be from hunger,” she answered.

  “I have,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, one time I have felt sparks like that, and it scared the hell out of me,” he said.

  “Avery?”

  “No, ma’am. Didn’t feel anything like that with her. It happened after she left.”

  Tessa wanted to know who had created sparks for him, but she couldn’t make herself ask the question. Not when they were folding underwear.

  He stacked all of his things in a pile and picked them up. “I’ve got mine all done. I’ll see you in Frankie’s room in”—he checked the clock above the washing machine—“ten minutes.”

  “Me, too, Branch Thomas, and it scares me every time it happens,” she mumbled after he was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hey, y’all.” Lola passed out paper plates and plastic forks. “I called down to the front desk and asked the clerk if there was a movie place in town. And he told me that they’d restored the old Palace Theater here in Childress. There is a play going on there tonight, kind of like an Off-Broadway thing. Anyone want to go with me?”

  Melody stopped opening all the square boxes on the desk and raised her hand. “Me. Count me in. I don’t care what it is about. I want to go.”

  “Not me,” Ivy said. “This old broad is tired.”

  Frankie yawned. “I’m already in my caftan. I’m not getting dressed again. Go on, Branch, and get started. You don’t have to wait for us womenfolks to load our plates.”

  Branch followed orders. “Plays are not my thing. I’d rather watch a movie. Is there another theater around these parts?”

  “Only if you want to drive fifty miles down south of here. They’ve got an old drive-in that stays open until the first week of October,” Lola answered.

  “You mean one like in the old movies where you watch it from your car?” Tessa asked.

  “You’ve never been to a drive-in?” Frankie asked. “Oh, Branch, you’ve got to take Tessa. It doesn’t matter what’s playing.”

  Tessa filled her plate with sweet-and-sour pork and fried rice, and then carefully carried it across the room. She set it on the table and eased down as gently as possible to the floor. Lola and Melody each claimed an end, which left Branch and Tessa across from each other on the cramped table.

  Branch picked up his fork. “Never was any good with chopsticks. Looks like we’re dining in a fine Oriental restaurant tonight. Seems only right that we take in a movie afterward. Besides, I haven’t been to a drive-in since I was a teenager.”

  “Then Lola, you call a taxi to take you and Melody to the Palace, and y’all”—Frankie pointed at Branch and Tessa—“can take Mollybedamned to the drive-in. She hasn’t been to a theater in forty years. She’ll enjoy the outing.”

  “Fifty miles is a long way to drive for a movie,” Tessa protested. Besides, it would mean a few hours in the front seat of the Caddy with no one but Branch, and she wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

  “Since I’m driving, do I get to log the hours?” Branch asked.

  “Hell, no! I’m not paying you to go have a good time, and believe me, I will check the logbook to see if it matches the one I’m keeping,” Frankie answered.

  “I haven’t been logging in nearly the hours that I would be if I was back at the office. Dad may see my numbers at the end of the week and tell me to rent a car and come home,” Branch argued.

  “You tell your daddy to talk to me before he makes a fool decision like that. I can always take my accounts to another firm,” she said.

  “I’ll remind him.” Branch winked at Tessa.

  Ivy poked Tessa on the shoulder when they’d finished supper. “Come on outside with me to smoke. I swear, I miss those old motels we used to stay at back when Mollybedamned was brand-new. Folks could smoke right in the room. Next thing you know, they’ll be making us go outside to fart.”

  “Why?” Tessa asked.

  “Hell if I know, but the way things are going, they will,” Ivy answered. “I’m glad that I won’t be around to see the day.”

  “Not to fart. I can understand that as small as most of these rooms are. Why do you want me to go with you?” Tessa asked.

  “Because Frankie says that she’s too tired and these two have to get their asses in gear because that play starts in an hour. And your movie isn’t going to begin until it gets dark so you don’t have to leave for an hour and someone has to babysit Blister so I don’t blow him and me both up.” Ivy headed toward the door, oxygen tank rattling along behind her.

  “I’ll knock on your door in an hour,” Branch said.

  “And midnight is your curfew,” Frankie said.

  Tessa stopped. “I haven’t had a curfew since I went to college.”

  Frankie dumped the remainder of a box of fried rice on her plate. “This tastes really good tonight. And darlin’, I don’t care if you stay out until daybreak or what you do. But Mollybedamned has a curfew and it’s midnight. She has to have her rest if she’s to get us a couple of hundred miles on down the road tomorrow morning. And the wagon train leaves at ten, so y’all best be awake and sober by then.”

  “Mollybedamned will be sitting in her special parking spot before midnight,” Branch said.

  “Get a move on it, Tessa. I’m dying for a cigarette,” Ivy yelled from ten feet down the hallway.

  Tessa hurried to catch up and took Blister’s leash from Ivy. “Why do you smoke when you have bad lungs?”

  “They’re already bad. Might as well die happy as crazy.”

  “Crazy?” Tessa asked.

  The front doors slid open and the hot evening air slapped them right in the face. “That’s where I’d be without my nicotine. I’d be yanking my hair out, slobbering and begging for a cigarette. This way I’m happy.

  “Funny, it don’t seem that hot when we’re driving down the road with the wind blowing in our face, does it?” Ivy fanned her face with the back of her veined hand. “And I meant to tell you, girl, you are getting some color on your skin, but you need to wear something other than T-shirts because you are getting a farmer’s tan. Don’t imagine that Branch would mind, seein’ as how he’s more rancher than lawyer, but then maybe it ain’t Branch that you want to impress.” Ivy found a place on a bench across the street.

  “What do I do?” Tessa asked.

  “You wear a tank top thing so your arms will be the same color and won’t look like half of them are brown and the other half dipped in buttermilk,” Ivy said.

  “No, not that! I know what a farmer’s tan is. What do I do about Blister?” Tessa asked.

  “You turn that knob right there until it’s on the off place, take him over there across the road, and park him under that shade tree. He doesn’t need to get overheated. And then you come back here and sit with me while I smoke my after-dinner cigarette,” Ivy said.

  Tessa did exactly what Ivy said but still hoped that they were far enough away from the tank if a spark hit it. Then she trotted back across the street and sat down beside Ivy, grateful that the wind was blowing the smoke away from her. She wouldn’t have time to wash it out of her hair if the wind shifted.

  It’s not a date, her conscience yelled loudly.

  I know, but Branch doesn’t want to smell secondhand smoke all evening, she argued.

  Ivy took a long draw from the cigarette and coughed when the smoke hit her lungs. “You are frowning. Do you not want to spend the evening with Branch? I’d be willin’ to bet my last cigarette that he would be a lot of fun.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m arguing with myself,” Tessa answered.

  Ivy held the cigarette between her fingers. “I’ve always loved to smoke. From the first time I tried it. Changing the subject here, though. I’m worried about Frankie. She never gives up a cigarette after supper.” She took a short puff and didn’t cough that time. “We need to take it slower. That casino nig
ht was so much fun but it’ll take both of us a week to get over it. So I want you kids to start planning fun things after we check into the hotel at night. Us old cats are content to talk to each other about the good old days and watch television.”

  Tessa moved closer, ignoring the smoke, and put her arm around Ivy’s shoulders. “But you could do that at home.”

  “Yes, but we get to have family and friends in and out of our room and eating with us and arguing with us during the day when we’re ridin’ in Mollybedamned. It’s a wonderful thing to have folks around you when you’re old and bitchy,” she said.

  She smoked one cigarette and lit the next one from the fire of the first. “I’ll pay for having two like this, but it reminds me of when me and Frankie were young and we were real bad chain-smokers then. Sweet tea or coffee and cigarettes. Sometimes it was beer and cigarettes, and on occasion it was a shot of moonshine in our coffee and cigarettes. But we always had our nails all pretty and our cigarettes right handy.”

  Ivy closed her eyes and enjoyed the hit of nicotine from the second cigarette. “A year ago the doctor said it was emphysema, but three months ago he said it was lung cancer and I slowed down to a pack a day then. Now a pack lasts me two days and if it wasn’t for Blister, I’d probably done be dead. I’ve got three more months at the most, maybe less. When we get home, I’ve got plans made for some changes, but this is vacation and I’ve got Blister.”

  “Oh, Ivy, does Frankie know?” Tears welled up in Tessa’s eyes.

  Ivy patted Tessa on the knee with her spare hand. “It’s okay, darlin’.”

  Tessa wiped at a single tear that streamed down her cheek.

  Ivy squeezed her leg gently. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand to see folks cry alone, and if you sling snot, then I’ll have to do it with you and it makes me cough. Besides, I went down to the funeral home and paid for my funeral, told ’em that I want a pack buried with me. Just tuck them under my pillow and I’ll find them on my way to the big white light. But I’ve made other plans concerning my living arrangements. This is my last hoo-rah, but I intend to go out with my boots on and holding Frankie’s hand. And when I slide up to the pearly gates, it’s not going to be with a single regret.”