“Wow. It has been a while since I’ve been back. My sisters didn’t mention anything about that. Is she…how is she?” Amelia asked at last. She knew that despite it being the twenty-first century, small towns weren’t always accepting of teenage moms.
“She’s good. We have help with Delaney and Rose is still living at home. She’s been going to college over in Austin,” he said.
To anyone else, it would seem as if she was catching up with an old friend, but there was more to it than that. Maybe it was because of the way she’d had to leave, but he’d always been someone she’d never been able to forget. She thought about that night a lot. She had no regrets about sleeping with him. She’d known once she got to New York her life would be different and she had wanted her first time to be with…well, someone she’d cared about.
“Enough talking about my family,” he said. “What are you up to these days?”
“My folks asked me to come back for a while. I’ve temporarily opened an agency here in town to scout for talent and to teach kids what they need to know if they want to model. I’m doing some classes on manners on the side because the Texas Women’s League asked me to.”
“Sounds…”
“Boring? Silly?”
“Neither of those. Sounds perfect for you. And if playing pro ball taught me anything, it’s that the world outside of Last Stand takes some adjusting to,” he said, at last.
“It sure does. Took me a while,” she admitted.
“Me too,” he said. His phone pinged, and he glanced down at the screen. “See ya around, Amelia.”
He walked out of the door and she watched him leave. She hadn’t anticipated seeing him or talking to him, having been so focused on her issues with her mom, but she was suddenly glad to be back.
Chapter Two
Amelia had always tried to miss Minna Herdmann’s annual birthday extravaganza. The one-hundred-and-two-year-old kept proving the doctors and her critics wrong by celebrating another year when some, okay most, residents expected her to have kicked it before this. Amelia didn’t mind celebrating Minna and actually enjoyed the fact that the centurion was still here to celebrate.
But the real reason Amelia didn’t like coming was that Minna unfailingly tried to corner her to give out her unsolicited advice. And it was advice that Amelia knew she should probably take. Let go of the past. She knew what Minna would say because Amelia’s memaw—Priscilla, a spry seventy-two-year-old—had been giving her the same advice for years.
And anyone else would have let it go…or would they have?
“Why are you staring at Minna?” Delilah her youngest sister came up next to her and handed her a margarita. Delilah had long blond hair that she habitually wore in a braid when she was working in the kitchen at her farm-to-table restaurant—the Dragonfly.
“Just trying to figure out how I can wish her a happy birthday and congratulate her on her long life without being alone with her. You saw what she did to Lily Jones—telling everyone to back off so she could have a word.”
Delilah laughed. “There’s no way you are going to get out of it. If she wants a word with you, she’ll get it.”
“I know. That’s why I was staring,” Amelia said, taking a sip of her margarita. She could tell it was made with the local Outlaw Tequila. It was a good quality tequila sourced from agave in Mexico and made locally outside of town on part of the Delaney ranch property.
She had to give Cal props for turning his family’s notorious past into a win and making his Outlaw Tequila one of the top brands in the world. There was so much—
“Don’t stare at Cal,” Delilah said elbowing her. “If you don’t start acting like you’re at a party, I’m going to tell Memaw you’re confused about which one of her beloved stuffed dogs you get when she dies. Then you’ll have something to distract you.”
“Don’t you dare,” Amelia said. “I don’t know what my deal is today. I’m just feeling so out of sync with everything lately.”
“You’re just not used to being back yet. When I came home from Dallas five years ago, it was nine months before I could adjust to the small-town vibe. I mean, of course, we grew up here, so it shouldn’t be a shock, but it sort of is,” Delilah said.
“You’re right.”
“I know I am. I’m smart…not Emma smart, but I do okay.”
“You’re plenty smart,” Emma said, coming up to them. “I just read more.”
“Reading is the key to life,” Amelia said. Their mom had raised them with books piled in every room. Because of the secret her mom had kept from her for so long, she had never been able to enjoy coming back. She’d even avoided Memaw because she knew that her outspoken grandmother would tell her to get to the heart of things with her mother. But she couldn’t. She didn’t want to dig into that painful time in her life. She had found a way to cope and it mainly meant staying away from Last Stand.
Or it had…until her mom got sick.
That’s when her dad had asked her to come home. He’d said this might be the last chance for them.
“Or a great escape from it,” Emma said. She wore her hair in a low bun at the back of her neck and several rusty-brown tendrils had escaped to frame her heart-shaped face.
Amelia always thought that Emma was the most beautiful of the three of them. And she had a serenity about her that Amelia also envied. “Why are you two huddled over here? Grandmother will only be distracted by Jacob Haines for so long and then she will notice us. And that never leads to anything good.”
“Agreed. We should all split up and mingle, but Amelia was staring at Cal,” Delilah said.
“You were? Are you interested in him? He’s on the heritage committee and they are meeting at the library on Wednesday evening. I could arrange—”
“No. No, don’t arrange anything. I’m just a mess today. My studio is apparently in a flood zone, Mother asked me to meet with her alone and I didn’t respond so Daddy texted me about it, so you know I’m in trouble,” Amelia said.
“Why didn’t you respond?” Emma said. “Mother wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important, and you know she’s sick and doesn’t want to push you. But I think she wants to get everything in order.”
Amelia’s heart broke when she heard that. Her feelings for her mom were complicated but she loved her. She was mad at her and had been since she’d left Last Stand, but she didn’t want her to die. She wished there was some bit of magic that would make her understand what had happened. “I know. Because I’m a horrible daughter who can’t let go of my issues,” Amelia said.
Delilah put her arm around her sister’s shoulders and Emma did the same. “You have to talk to her soon.”
“I know.”
It didn’t need saying out loud, but their mother was sick, which was why Amelia had finally come home. She knew she had to make peace with her mom, but knowing it and doing it were two very different things.
“Hello, ladies,” Cal Delaney said coming over to them with full margarita glasses.
Again, she was struck by his good looks. The ten years since she’d last seen him had only served to enhance his sexiness. As a boy his face had been all angles but time had changed that into a strong jaw, firm lips and high cheekbones. His years of playing professional football had ensured that his body was muscular and lean. She knew she was staring at him again but it was hard not to.
She hadn’t looked her fill the other morning it seemed. Plus there was something just so rugged and damned sexy about the way he carried himself. It was hard to look away.
“Cal,” Delilah said. “Thanks for the refill. I’m going to go mingle. Don’t let my sisters turn into wallflowers.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cal responded to Delilah as she took her drink and walked away, dropping her empty margarita glass on the tray of a passing waiter.
“I see Landry from the Friends of the Library. I need to speak with her before she disappears,” Emma said, leaving. “See you next week, Cal.”
“Looking
forward to it, Emma,” Cal said.
Amelia looked down at her margarita glass. Honestly, there wasn’t enough tequila in the world to make her stop feeling awkward today.
“And then there were two,” he said, his voice just as deep as it had always been, but low-pitched so that it traveled no further than her ears.
“Yes. I meant to say…I suppose you wondered why I left right after the night we spent together.” She hadn’t fully explained the situation the last time she’d seen him. And she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him.
“One would say that,” Cal said.
*
Cal hadn’t expected to see Amelia today. He’d become pretty good at the jovial smile and faking it as an upstanding citizen of Last Stand. He had outlaw roots and he was always more comfortable in jeans and T-shirt than a suit, but Minna’s birthday party required him to play the part. After all the changes in his life, he was so used to rebuilding that when things seemed to be going well, it made him edgy.
Like right now—his brothers were all doing well in their careers and he had convinced his baby sister Rose to go back to school and hold off on marrying her loser baby daddy. So Cal had thought everything was right in his world and then Amelia had walked into the party looking more beautiful than a woman had the right to. He was struck dumb, just like he’d been in high school. He’d looked around for someone to distract him but his brother’s friend Red Aldean was busy teaching a group of kids the right lure to use to catch perch in Hickory Creek, a spur off the Pedernales River. And his brother was flirting with some girl that Cal didn’t know so he’d been left to his own devices—standing there staring at temptation and hating that Amelia still had any power over him.
She’d been his first. He’d always attributed that fact to the reason why he couldn’t forget her. She’d also left him…well the entire town, hell, the great state of Texas the day after they’d had sex. It had made the man-boy he’d been start asking some questions he still couldn’t answer.
And now she was back. He’d seen her one other time in the years since she’d left Last Stand. They’d been at an NFL/United Way gala in New York and she’d been someone else’s date. He’d still been with his former fiancée Sheena then, so it had seemed fitting to him.
Today, she wore her ebony hair in a blunt bob that accentuated her cheekbones and drew his eyes to her lips. Her mouth was full, and he wondered if he’d just fantasized how soft her lips were and how right they’d felt under his. It had been a long time since he’d held her, but he remembered how she’d fit so perfectly in his arms. Of course, he’d filled out since high school, so they might not be that good together now.
Yeah, right.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before I left,” she said. “You were probably not even bothered, but leaving you like that has stuck with me for a long time.”
He was surprised she had brought that up, but it had been on his mind too, ever since he’d heard she’d come back. He’d never understood why she’d left. “It bothered me. I showed up at your house the next morning to pick you up and Jasper told me you were gone,” he said. Mr. Corbyn had been intimidating back when Cal had been in high school but the two of them had become friends once he’d become an adult.
“Yeah, that was a really horrible thing for me to do,” she said. “It had nothing to do with you.”
“Wow, really?” he asked. “If it had nothing to do with me then why’d you sleep with me before leaving?”
“Damn, why don’t you go straight to it?” she asked. “I suppose I wanted a good memory to take with me.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. “I guess that means I didn’t make you run away.”
“Did my dad say I ran away?” she asked. “My parents weren’t too happy about me leaving, but they knew I was going to New York.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said,” Cal responded. He now knew precisely nothing more than he had before he’d started this conversation, but he felt like he could let go of the feeling that he’d been a contributing factor to her leaving. “We never have to talk about that night again, if you don’t want to.”
“Great,” she said, offering him a small smile. “I’ve felt like a d-bag over my behavior for a long time.”
He shook his head, wishing he’d brought a bottle of tequila with him, so he could knock back a couple of shots, but just smiled instead. “Don’t. It’s all in the past.”
“I love that you made the old jail into a storefront. Some of your Delaney outlaw ancestors must be crowing over that,” she said.
He let her change the subject and then after catching her up on the tequila business, he said goodbye and walked away from her. He’d thought it would bring him closure, that the answers she’d given him would be enough to let him have a win in walking away, but it wasn’t. He still wanted something more from her, but he had no idea what.
And with the Delaney curse, it wasn’t like he expected a different outcome. No Delaney woman had ever lasted. They were a lawless clan, except for Rose. She was the only Delaney woman standing and Cal intended to do everything in his power to ensure that his baby sister stayed that way. And if that meant going behind her back and making sure her boyfriend was man enough for her, then so be it.
*
The Carriage House restaurant had been here before Last Stand had officially been a town. In the mid-1800s, it had been a carriage house for travelers heading north toward Fort Worth or back east, but in the last decade it had become the number one party venue in town. The place was decorated for Minna’s birthday with flowers, balloons and other festive Texas-themed décor that represented the decades that Minna had been alive. Chairs and tables made judicious use of the space, maximizing seating for all the of town’s inhabitants who would be in attendance today.
Minna caught her eye and waved at Amelia in that regal way she had, and Amelia toyed with the idea of pretending not to see her. But she knew she’d catch hell from her grandmother if she did that.
So she made her way around to Minna to give her a birthday greeting. The older lady was holding court in the center of the room, as well she should. Her silver-gray hair had been plaited into a crown braid and her eyes sparkled with delight. Amelia was pretty darn sure that Minna liked being the center of attention and that was one thing Amelia could understand. It was easier to get out of her own head when other people were watching her.
“Happy birthday, Minna,” Amelia said, dropping a kiss on the older woman’s cheek. She was thin and wiry-looking, wearing a pale blue gown that made her eyes seem brighter than they normally were.
“Thank you, my girl. It’s good to see you back in town,” Minna said.
Amelia nodded. “I guess so.” Even though she’d been back for ten days, it had been a busy time and Amelia hadn’t ventured into town for any social events apart from coffee with her sisters. Other than that she’d pretty much limited herself to grocery shopping in Austin, a good two hours’ drive from Last Stand, and attending church because her parents expected her to. And that was it. She’d been focused on working on the house she’d rented and avoiding her parents. She’d only come back because of her mom’s health issues—not to talk about the past…no matter how much the past dominated her every waking moment.
“I know you don’t want my advice and to be fair, your grandmother told me it was none of my business. But I am over a hundred, so I figure Priscilla really needs to remember to respect her elders.”
“I’ll remind her of that,” Amelia said unable to stop the grin on her face.
“You do that. While you’re at it, I think you need to settle with the past. You may have left Last Stand to see the world, but you’ve come back here the exact same confused girl who left.”
Amelia wished she could ignore Minna’s words, but she knew they were the truth. “Some things are easier said than done.”
“The hard bits are always like that. But you just have to get some gumption and do it,” Minna s
aid.
“Minna, you make me feel like a coward,” Amelia admitted. “I’ve been trying to get my head around things and I can’t.”
“You’re trying too hard,” she said. “If I’ve learned anything living all these years, it’s that there are some things that don’t make sense if you overthink them.”
Maybe Minna had a point. She glanced up, hearing her mom’s laughter. Her mother had her head thrown back and held on to her dad’s arm as she laughed. And as much as she had unsettled issues with her mom keeping the fact that she wasn’t Jasper Corbyn’s biological daughter a secret from her, that laugher brought a smile to her face and Minna reached over, squeezing her hand.
“Now go and get me one of those margaritas that Cal is peddling. I haven’t had one in years.”
“He makes them strong,” Amelia warned her.
“Just the way I like them,” Minna said with a wink.
She left Minna’s side and asked the waiter to bring her a margarita, then she went over to talk to her mom. Her dad shouldn’t have had to text her to make her respond to her mother, but things were always more complicated than Amelia wanted them to be. She always thought she’d made her peace with the past until she saw her mom and it all came rushing back.
She got close to her parents. Both in their fifties, they looked younger. Her mom wore her auburn hair in a short pixie cut that had some length to it, spiked up around her head. She had her gold-rimmed glasses on and wore a turquoise dress that brought out the green in her eyes. Looking at her mom, Amelia could hardly believe she was so unwell, but she knew how concerned her dad was. Her dad had on a pair of dress jeans and boots, a button-down shirt and a sports coat. His hair was still blond, though streaked with gray now, and he was clean-shaven.
In her heart, she felt that pain that always hit her when she saw them. It started out with love and ended in betrayal and she knew she had to let it go. She’d been sixteen when she’d found out the truth and it had changed nothing but her reality. Her sisters and her parents were the only ones who knew the secret, but they’d never discussed it.
Her Texas Ex Page 2