After she hung up, Lacey felt strangely bereft. She hadn’t realized earlier how much she was counting on being able to spill the whole story to her mother. And her mother hadn’t so much as offered one proverb; in fact, there hadn’t been time during the short conversation to say much of anything.
But then maybe Sheila Sue had entered a more tranquil period of her life in which the troubles of an adult daughter simply weren’t all that important to her anymore.
“Ignorance is bliss,” Lacey said to herself. And then she laughed. At that point, Al and Tipper came loping over from the barn, and as she poured kibble into their dishes, Lacey thought that she might put off calling her mother back for a week or so. It would be hard to keep a straight face when she thought about Fletcher becoming amorous in the cabana. But Sheila Sue loved him, that was the important thing. And just as Sheila Sue had been supportive of Lacey when she’d had a louse of a husband, Lacey could be supportive of her mother now that Sheila Sue had found a good one.
After the conversation—or more accurately, nonconversation—with her mother, Lacey was curious about how other people fell in love and what it meant to them. So when Cody arrived back from Wichita Falls and started talking about how much he loved Kim, Lacey listened up.
“I’d do almost anything for her,” Cody explained earnestly one morning. Ashley and Michele were sitting in their high chairs, neither one of them happy about the itching that went along with chicken pox and not looking too good, either, what with all the scabs. Lacey was spooning applesauce into Michele, and Cody was feeding Ashley.
“And would Kim do almost anything for you?” she asked Cody.
He laughed. “Except live here in Mosquito,” he said. He wiped a dribble from Ashley’s chin.
“I kind of got that idea from her myself,” Lacey said.
“She’s pushing real hard for us to get away.”
“And how do you feel about it, Cody?”
“When we went to Wichita Falls, I interviewed with a feed-and-seed store on the edge of town. They offered me the job of assistant manager.”
“That’s impressive,” Lacey told him.
Cody shrugged. “I have to make up my mind about it. It won’t be easy.”
“No, it won’t. Garth depends on you a lot around here.”
“He refuses to talk to me about the possibilities I’d find in Wichita Falls. Says he doesn’t want to hear about it.”
“Garth has a lot on his mind at present,” Lacey said.
“Yeah. I know.” Cody spared a meaningful look at the babies, and the conversation paused for a beat. Garth had filled Cody in when he’d arrived home from Wichita Falls, and Cody had taken the situation in stride. Not that he wasn’t concerned about this double dilemma, it was more that he was caught up in his own problems with Kim than he was in theirs. Which was the way it ought to be, Lacey thought.
Cody cleared his throat. “You and Kim get along okay, Lacey. Maybe you could point out to her sometime the advantages of staying on the ranch.”
Lacey thought about this for a moment. “If she brings the subject up, I’ll try.” Lacey loved the ranch herself. The wind soughing through the cottonwood trees down by the creek, the thrumming of insects in the brush, the bright-blue dome of the sky stretching over acre after acre of shimmering grassland—it seemed to her the greatest good fortune that this was where she had landed. She understood, though, why some people might not like it. There wasn’t a whole lot to do except work. That didn’t bother her. She liked work. But for Cody and Kim, maybe Mosquito, Texas, wasn’t the best place to settle. There would certainly be more fun things to do in Wichita Falls.
Cody stood up and went to the sink, where he ran water into the baby food jar and rinsed it out. Lacey supposed it was too much to expect him to put the jar in the dishwasher.
“Well,” he said, snagging his hat off the rack beside the door. “I’m off to the barn. The vet’s supposed to come out and look at Yancey’s hoof.” Yancey was the horse Cody usually rode.
“Bye, Cody.”
“Bye, Lacey.” He chucked Michele under the chin and made a face at Ashley before he left.
“Looks to me like your uncle Cody has got a big decision to make,” she told the twins as Cody’s pickup rocketed out of the driveway. Then she realized what she’d said. Cody was no more their uncle than Garth was their biological father.
“Stop it,” she told herself out loud. She had faithfully promised Garth that she would take no action until the girls had recovered, and that meant no making more problems. She got up and set the dishwasher to going, then wiped down the coffeemaker.
While she was doing that, a strange minivan pulled up in the driveway. Lacey rinsed out the sponge she was using and tried to figure out who it was. She was surprised to see Francelle Spurlin climbing out, moving nimbly considering her bulk and size. “Yoo-hoo,” she called. “Yoo-hoo!”
Lacey quickly dried her hands on her apron and went to the door.
“Mrs. Spurlin?” she said.
“That’s me. I heard little Ashley Anne has the chicken pox.” The woman climbed the steps and stood at the door waiting to be asked in.
“She does, and so does my baby.”
“I always deliver fresh brown eggs from my chickens. It’s a pain to keep chickens, don’t you know, but fresh eggs are so much better than the ones from the store.”
Lacey resigned herself to the fact that she would have to open the door to take the three cartons of eggs that Francelle Spurlin was holding out.
“I must say, I haven’t seen enough of Ashley in a long while,” she said after Lacey accepted the eggs. And then, brushing past Lacey, she walked right in.
“Mrs. Spurlin…” Lacey began, wondering how much to say and when to start saying it. The babies were in their high chairs, and despite the different patterns of chicken pox on their bodies, no one could miss how much alike they were.
“Call me Francelle.” She blinked uncertainly at the girls.
Lacey knew that the woman’s eyes were adjusting after coming in out of the sunshine, and she said desperately, “Let’s go into the den, where we can sit and talk for a spell.”
“Why,” said Francelle uncertainly, “there’s two of Ashley.”
“Um,” said Lacey. She set the eggs carefully on the table.
“My goodness. Lacey, is that your name? Lacey, how did this happen?” She turned startled and—could they be accusatory?—eyes on Lacey.
“We are—uh, well, Garth and I are trying to figure it out,” she offered lamely.
“I should imagine so! Joanie must have had twins. But she wasn’t all that big when she was expecting. How…” Her voice trailed off, and she frowned at Lacey.
“Mrs. Spurlin—”
“Francelle.”
“Francelle, I don’t feel comfortable discussing this right now.” Michele threw her cookie on the floor, and it landed beside Francelle’s right toe. Lacey bent and picked it up, grateful for the chance to hide her face from Francelle’s keen-eyed gaze.
“Oh. I see.” It was clear, however, that she didn’t see. Her closed expression told Lacey that. “They look an awful lot like you,” she added grudgingly.
Lacey straightened. “I suppose they do,” was all she could think of to say.
Francelle let out a long huff of breath. “Oh, dear. Oh, my. Well, I guess this is one story that I won’t be putting in my Social Hi-Lites column. Mercy me!” She managed a smile and awkwardly patted Lacey’s hand. She stared at the twins again, shaking her head. Then she seemed to pull herself together.
“Well, Lacey, I hope you enjoy the eggs, and I’d better be going.” She fluttered a hand in the girls’ direction, and Ashley, recognizing her, beamed.
Lacey had no words for this situation—none at all.
Francelle headed for the door. “Lacey,” she began, then stopped. Whatever she had been planning to say, she seemed to think better of it. “If you need any help, Lacey, you let me know. I mean i
t, now.”
“Thanks,” said Lacey. She tried to smile.
Francelle continued out the door, and Lacey went to throw the half-eaten cookie she’d picked up from the floor in the trash.
When she had recovered, she spoke to the babies. “Any hopes I might have had about keeping you two a secret have been shattered, I’d say.” She knew from living in previous small towns that gossip spread faster than wildlife in such a place.
Lacey couldn’t help it, she just had to hug both of them.
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Everyone would find out sooner or later.” She’d hoped it would be later, that’s all.
After Michele had gummed her new cookie into a sticky mess and abandoned it between the slats of her high chair, Lacey took the twins into the den and turned on Sesame Street for them to watch while she went about putting the house to rights. She’d almost trained the two men not to leave their underwear on the floor right where they stepped out of it, which was progress. But they still scattered empty cups and glasses all around the house, and they never put the toilet seat down.
She was cleaning the dining room blinds when the phone rang. She took her time wiping the slats, hoping that Garth’s answering machine would pick up, but by the fifth ring she realized that he must have turned it off. By the time she scooped up the phone she was slightly out of breath.
“Hey, Lacey,” said the voice of her ex-husband.
She rolled her eyes heavenward and sank down on the nearest chair. “Hi, Bunny. How’d you find me?”
“I wondered where you were, so I called your mom. She’s not much for keeping secrets.”
Lacey bit her lip. You’d think Sheila Sue would have more sense than to let her ex-husband know where she was.
Bunny went on talking. “Anyway, Lacey, I thought I’d come see you. And our little girl.”
First Francelle, and now this. It seemed like more than a body could take in one day. “Why, Bunny? You didn’t pay all that much attention to Michele when you could have.” She hoped she didn’t sound as panicked as she felt at the thought of Bunny’s scabrous blue truck with its rust spot in the shape of an Indian head rolling up the driveway of the Colquitt Ranch.
“When I left, Michele hadn’t got too interesting yet. She couldn’t do much, not even sit up.”
“Don’t bother to show up here, Bunny. I haven’t any money to give you.”
“You’re working for some rich rancher, aren’t you?”
Lacey wasn’t sure how rich Garth Colquitt was, but it was plain that he had a sight more assets than Bunny Shaw.
“Working for someone doesn’t mean I have what they have.”
“Well, it’s like this, Lacey. Ma cut off my allowance. I need funds. She says that if I’d behaved better, you and I wouldn’t be divorced. She’d have access to her grandchild, she says, and she’s mad and won’t send me money.”
Lacey knew that Delilah Shaw had received a huge chunk of money in an insurance windfall after being injured in an accident in a K mart, and for years she’d been doling dibs and dabs of it out to Bunny so he could continue to pursue his dream of making it on the rodeo circuit.
“If your mother wants to see Michele, she can call me,” Lacey said.
“Ma wants me to bring Michele over myself.”
This was, no doubt, Delilah’s way of manipulating her son, control freak that she was. There hadn’t been much love lost between Lacey and Delilah, and Lacey would have been just as happy if her former mother-in-law fell off the edge of the earth, never to be heard from again. Bunny, too.
As Lacey watched Michele and Ashley from the other side of the room, she recalled how Bunny hadn’t wanted visitation rights. He hadn’t sent her one cent for Michele’s support since the divorce, not that Lacey would have taken it. Would Michele and Ashley be better off with their father in her life? Since that father was the ever-irresponsible Bunny, Lacey thought not.
“Don’t call here again, Bunny,” she told him, and then she clicked the phone off.
The girls were playing so quietly, so happily, not even complaining about the itching.
“I would say that Bunny Shaw is the last thing we need at this point,” she said to them.
Michele smiled up at her, and Ashley said, “Mama-mama!”
It was the first time she had spoken any word remotely resembling Mama. Overcome by the emotion of the moment, Lacey picked her up and hugged her close.
Not only was Bunny the last thing they needed, he was also the last thing Lacey wanted to think about.
And, since she knew he was mostly empty threats and hollow promises, she didn’t.
GARTH WATCHED from the window of the Coffee Cup as Horace the mayor sauntered down the main street. A couple of kids stopped to scratch the mule behind the ears, and afterward, a pickup truck honked impatiently for him to get out of the way.
“Dangest thing I ever saw,” Garth muttered to no one in particular, and was surprised as someone slid into the booth opposite him.
“That’s what I think too,” said Donna Faber.
He focused surprised eyes on her. She looked pretty good today, seemed to be letting her hair grow out of its short cut.
“How are you, Donna?” he asked as he helped himself to a handful of pork rinds from the bowl on the table.
“Fair enough. How are the girls?”
“Still got the chicken pox.”
“You didn’t call me.”
At first he thought Donna was referring to his phoning her socially, which he recalled telling her he was going to do when he got back from Austin. He started to offer an excuse, then relaxed when he realized that what Donna meant was that he hadn’t phoned to update her on Ashley and Michele’s progress. His frantic call to her on the night she’d come out to the ranch had nearly slipped his mind.
“Lacey seems to have things under control,” he said, only realizing how that sounded when Donna’s lips tightened.
“She seems like a pleasant person,” was all Donna said.
“Yep. That she is.” He couldn’t think of anything else to add to the comment, so he kept quiet.
“They’re talking around here about those babies. You might as well know.”
He shifted in his seat. Lacey had told him haltingly of Francelle’s visit. “Donna, the gossip doesn’t surprise me one bit. People in Mosquito don’t have much to do, but they sure enough have plenty to say.”
A hint of a smile curved Donna’s lips upward, softening her features. Garth had never considered her to be a great-looking woman, but it wasn’t until he’d had Lacey to compare her to that he’d realized she was downright homely.
“I want you to know that I wasn’t the one who told everyone that they’re obviously twins,” Donna said.
“You’re not the only one who’s seen them. And I knew you wouldn’t gossip.” He offered her a reassuring smile. He’d realized from the outset that there was no point in trying to keep the babies’ resemblance a secret, what with ranch hands in and out of the house and Cody telling Kim everything, not to mention Francelle Spurlin. News of any kind spread quickly around here, and people in Mosquito found out what they found out. That’s the way it was.
The waitress plunked bowls of chili down in front of each of them and flounced away.
Donna helped herself to a mouthful before sprinkling hot sauce over the contents of the bowl. “This might be a nosy question, Garth, but what are you going to do?”
“We’ve decided to put off any discussion about that until the babies get well.”
“Which will be about another week.”
“Right.” Garth crumbled saltines over his chili.
“I can verify that I saw Ashley the morning after she was born. If that would help, I mean.”
“What happened took place before you showed up. They’re Lacey’s biological daughters. Anybody who looks at their eyes would know that.” In a way it was a relief to be talking about this. He’d bottled up his feelings ever
since he’d learned the truth, and no matter how he tried to ignore them, they were still there, lurking like a rattlesnake at the bottom of a gopher hole. Every once in a while, especially when he thought about the possibility of losing Ashley, those feelings sank their fangs into his heart.
“There are blood tests. There are DNA tests. There are things you can do.”
“Nothing can undo the wrong that’s been done. Ashley looks so much like Lacey and Michele and nothing like me or Joan. If I’d never seen Michele, I’d be none the wiser. But—” he held out his hands in an expression of helplessness “—I have. Something went wrong that night, Donna. It happened in the delivery room.”
“Have you talked to anyone who was on duty that night?”
“Not yet.” The chili had lost its taste, and he stirred it with his spoon, knowing that he wouldn’t eat it now. This talk was too unsettling. He was devastated, that was the truth, and he couldn’t speak of it even to Donna.
“Maybe you should talk to Ruth Acevedo.”
“Ruth retired a couple of days after Ashley was born,” he reminded her.
“Still, Garth, she can tell you what she knows.”
“Ruth recently moved to Quail Hills Manor. She’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which apparently developed while she was still working at Sweiger County Hospital.”
“Oh, Garth, I’m sorry to hear that. I knew Ruth had problems, but I didn’t know it was so serious.”
“I haven’t kept in touch with her as much as I would have if Joan had lived, but I don’t think we can count on her to remember much. Who else would have been working there that night?”
Donna thought for a moment. “The only one I can think of would be Ardie Fernandez. She’s still employed as an aide in the delivery room. I’ll find out her address from the hospital if you want to talk with her.” Donna’s eyes searched his face.
“That would be good, Donna.” He started to get up. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to stop by the drugstore and pick up some more ointment. Those babies have run through that first tube I bought.”
“You didn’t eat your chili,” she said.
“Guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.” He settled his hat on his head and started for the door, aware that Donna’s eyes, her best feature, were on him as he left.
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