by A. J. Pine
“He didn’t go to Sunday morning,” Brody said defensively. “So I waited and went with him to night services. Besides, I always liked to hear him sing.”
“Well, if y’all are going, then I am too,” Valerie said.
Brody shoveled green beans into his mouth. They might get more than they bargained for, but hey, it was their decision.
The buzz in the packed café at lunch that day was that the old grocery store out on the edge of town had burned to the ground that morning while church was going on. A tornado had ripped off the back part of the roof ten years ago and the building had gone to ruin since then.
“Where were you this morning about ten o’clock?” Fred whispered when Lila set his plate of chicken and dumplings on the table.
“Right here helping Molly make those dumplings,” Lila answered with a smile.
“Does seem strange,” Fred’s wife said. “We ain’t had trouble since you left and you come back and it starts all over again. Maybe you don’t have to do anything at all. Could be that trouble follows you around like a puppy dog.”
“Well, I’ll be gone at the end of summer and nothing bad will ever happen in Happy from that day forth. Maybe if you find a buyer for this café, I’ll be gone even sooner. Y’all enjoy your dinner and holler if you need anything,” Lila said.
“Order up!” Molly yelled from the kitchen.
When Lila reached for the plate on the shelf, Molly turned around from the stove and smiled. “Blamin’ you for this mornin’s fire, are they?”
“How’d you know?”
“I figured it would happen when I heard the fire engine going and heard that the old grocery store burned to the ground. The volunteer firemen have been tryin’ to get the owner to let them burn it for years.”
“Why didn’t he?” she asked.
“Have no idea, but it’s good riddance to bad rubbish. That thing was an eyesore. I wouldn’t be surprised if the owner set the fire himself. When the store went belly-up, he moved off to San Antonio. The property has been for sale so long that the Realtor’s sign has faded until you can’t see who to call for information.” Molly went back to filling orders. “Don’t let them rile you. Tell ’em all to go straight to hell ridin’ on a rusty poker.”
“That’s bad for business.”
“Where else they goin’ to eat without driving fifteen to thirty minutes?” Molly laughed.
The café cleared out a little by one-thirty, but there were still a few sipping glass after glass of sweet tea or coffee and discussing the fire. At two-thirty, Molly started cleaning the kitchen and putting the last of the dirty dishes in the two commercial-sized dishwashers. There was no one in the place at three when Lila locked the doors and started sweeping the floors.
Molly waved from the door into the kitchen. “I’m going home for my Sunday afternoon nap. I’ll pick you up right here at six-thirty for evening services. I like to get there a little early and visit with my friends before the singin’ starts at seven.”
Lila leaned on the broom. “I’m not going to church.”
“Yes, you are. Churchgoin’ women do not set fires,” Molly declared. “See you at six-thirty. And wear a dress.”
“Okay,” Lila sighed. “But I’ll drive myself and be there at a quarter to seven.”
“Promise? It won’t hurt you and you’ll see a lot of your old friends.”
And all those old friends probably think I burned down a building just for kicks. The only thing I ever set fire to was a tire Jace Dawson got out of the ranch trash pile. And it was in the middle of Main Street where it couldn’t hurt a thing. It stirred up smoke and a big stink, but it didn’t destroy property.
“I’ll be there. Have a good nap,” Lila said.
She got everything ready to open again the next morning and carried a tall glass of water with a slice of lemon in it to a table. She kicked off her boots, sat down, and propped her feet on a chair. Tomorrow she intended to drag out her sneakers with a nice thick, cushy sole. Running the café was a seven, six, six job—seven days a week from six in the morning until six in the evening, except Sunday when they closed at three.
Her eyes grew heavy, so she picked up her water in one hand and the boots in the other and padded through the kitchen. She made sure all the doors were locked before she went to the apartment and stretched out on the sofa.
A ping on her cell phone awoke her two hours later. She checked the text, saw that it was from Molly reminding her about church, and shut her eyes for another few minutes. Then she realized that she had twenty minutes to get dressed and get to the church or she might be running the café single-handed tomorrow. She sat up so fast that the room did a couple of fast spins.
She jerked her shirt over her head and was yanking her jeans down as she rushed to her bedroom. No time for a shower. She applied fresh deodorant and shook her hair out of the ponytail, slipped into a cute little knee-length orange sundress, and cussed loud enough to blister the paint when she had to search for both sandals in the bin of shoes she hadn’t unpacked yet. In the garage, she eyed the motorcycle but the rumor mill would have a feast with the story of her riding to church with her skirt blown up, showing off a pair of red bikini underbritches.
She did take a moment when she reached the church to flip down the visor mirror of her truck and apply bright red lipstick and a touch of mascara and run a brush through her hair. Then she rushed into the church and located Molly, who frowned, tapped her watch, and gave her a you-were-testing-my-patience look before she pointed at the third pew from the front. Now wasn’t that just the big old red cherry on top of a hot caramel sundae? Lila would have been much happier claiming a corner on the backseat where she could escape quickly after the last prayer.
“I overslept and had to rush,” she whispered.
“Next time set an alarm. Them fancy phones y’all carry can do everything, including telling you bedtime stories, so there’s never an excuse to be late for anything,” Molly said out of the corner of her mouth.
The preacher took his place behind the pulpit and cleared his throat, and silence filled the little church. “I’m glad to see Lila Harris with us tonight and to hear that she’s helping out at the Happy Café. Now, if you’ll all open your hymn books to page three hundred, we’ll sing together before the sermon.”
The hymn ended and the preacher made a few comments about hell being seven times hotter than the Texas heat wave. That brought out a few chuckles, and Lila was sure if she turned around, she’d see more than one person using those cardboard fans to ward off such fire and brimstone.
“And now I will ask Brody Dawson to give the benediction,” the preacher said.
Lila’s heart stopped, then raced ahead, beating twice as hard as it ever had. From his voice, it was plain that he was only a couple of pews behind her, but she couldn’t hear a word he said for the pounding in her ears. Her cheeks turned fire-engine red as she remembered the kiss from the night before.
Any second the skies were going to go dark and lightning was going to split through the roof and zap her dead for thinking about the heat she’d felt when Brody kissed her. She glanced out the window to see nothing but big, fluffy white clouds and the sun slowly sinking toward the horizon. Evidently God had given her a pass since she hadn’t been in a church since she left Happy and he was just glad to see her sitting in a pew.
She heard Molly loudly say, “Amen!” so she knew when to raise her head and open her eyes.
Molly smiled as she stood to her feet. “Didn’t hurt too bad, did it?”
“What?” Lila asked.
Molly bumped shoulders with her. “Coming to church.”
“Hey, Lila,” a feminine voice said at her elbow. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Kasey? It’s great to see you, and, darlin’, you look the same as you did in junior high school. Are these your kids?” She smiled.
“Yep, these three belong to me. This is Rustin.” Kasey pointed toward a little dark-haired boy wit
h blue eyes. “This is Emma, and this critter here on my hip is Silas.”
“You’ve got a beautiful family. Emma is the image of you at that age. Bring the kids to the café sometime and I’ll treat them to an ice cream sundae and we’ll catch up.”
“Yes!” Rustin pumped his fist in the air. “Can we go tomorrow, Mama?”
“Maybe later in the week. Tomorrow all three of you’re spending the day with your nana.” She winked at Lila. “That’s Adam’s mother. You remember Gracie McKay, right? And we will take you up on that offer, Lila. Maybe later in the week?”
“Any day that’s good for you. I look forward to it,” she answered.
“Does the invitation extend to me too?” Brody’s warm breath tickled her neck as he stepped out into the center aisle.
“Only kids under twelve get free ice cream. You might not be older than that mentally but your size gives away your age.” Lila hoped that her voice didn’t sound as high and squeaky to everyone else as it did in her own ears.
Kasey giggled and nudged Brody on the shoulder. “You’ve met your match, brother. You’ve got to pay for your ice cream.”
“Is that right, Lila?” His eyes bored into hers.
Neither of them blinked for several seconds and then she smiled. “Yes, it is right. Free ice cream comes at a great price. You’d have to rob a bank to get that much money.”
Suddenly, a tiny little hand slipped into hers and she looked down to see Emma smiling at her. “I like ice cream,” the little girl said. “And you’re pretty. Can I be your friend?”
“I would like that very much and you’re very pretty too.” Lila ignored all the people around her and stooped to Emma’s level. “What is your favorite kind of ice cream?”
“Strawberry,” Emma said seriously.
“Then I’ll be sure that we have lots of that kind when you come to visit me sometime this week.”
Emma nodded. “And will you read me a story?”
“That’s what good friends do, isn’t it?” Lila answered. “But I don’t have any books that I can read to you, so maybe you’d better bring your favorite one with you that day.”
“‘I will bring ABC. C is for camel. C. C. C,’” Emma quoted.
“Dr. Seuss?” Lila glanced over toward Kasey.
“Her favorite, but…,” Kasey said.
Lila stood back up. “I would love to read to the kids. Please pack a couple of books to bring along. Most any evening is good for me. Just give me a call.”
“Thank you.” Kasey smiled.
Lila shook hands with the preacher and was ten feet away from her truck when she realized that Brody was parked next to her. Standing there, with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing a white pearl-snap shirt and creased jeans, he flat out took her breath away. By the time she reached her truck, he’d dropped his arms to his side and opened her door.
“You look very pretty tonight,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“I’ll see you sometime tomorrow at the café if I can sneak away for a few minutes or if I have to come into town to the feed store.”
“For real or will you change your mind?”
“Not this time, darlin’,” he said as he shut the door.
Lila sat in the hot truck, sweat rolling down into her bra, heart pounding and her thoughts running around in circles for a long time before she finally switched on the air-conditioning. Being angry at him when he was hundreds of miles away and when he wasn’t standing so close that she could have touched him was a whole different ball game.
Chapter Six
Lila danced around the café with the broom to Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman.” The singer asked for a big hell, yeah, from the redneck girls like her and the broom turned into a microphone. From then on, Lila lip-synced the rest of the song and then hit the replay button on her phone so she could get the message out there to the whole empty café.
The beat was still pounding in her ears as she two-stepped the broom back to the kitchen, where she kept it in one hand and loaded a tray with ice cream toppings with the other. In a few minutes, Kasey and the kids were coming for an ice cream party and she’d looked forward to the evening all week.
She carried the tray to the dining room and set it on a table that she’d covered with a red and white checkered cloth. She wanted it to be a real party for the kids and for Kasey.
It had been a crazy week. On Monday, Brody had come into the café, had a glass of lemonade, and didn’t even get to drink it before he got a call from the ranch about fencing. On Wednesday he dropped by again but didn’t even get to sit down before Jace phoned saying that they needed six more rolls of barbed wire, so he turned around and left. On Thursday a florist brought a single red rose with a pretty white ribbon around it. The note said: Welcome home. Brody. Molly was fit to be tied when she put the rose in a pint jar.
“I’m tellin’ you that you’re on the road to heartache,” Molly fussed.
“All over a single rose?” Lila asked.
“Just that much will bring Hope and Valerie out gunnin’ for you,” Molly had said.
“I’m not a kid anymore. I’ll take them on,” she’d answered.
He didn’t come around at all on Friday but Kasey had called that morning to see if she and the kids could come to the café for ice cream about six-thirty that evening. Lila had been so excited all day, just thinking about reading to the kids. She went back to the kitchen and placed five crystal boat dishes on a tray. The last time they’d been used was probably for her sixteenth birthday but they’d only needed two that night—one for her and one for her mother. She heard doors slamming and hurried back to the kitchen to bring out four flavors of ice cream. She hummed all the way back into the dining room.
The door flew open and Emma’s short little legs were a blur as she ran across the floor to meet her, but Rustin stood back close to Brody’s side. Lila stopped so fast that the cartons of ice cream started to slide and it took some fancy footwork to keep them steady. Even blinking a dozen times didn’t magically turn Brody into Kasey.
“Hey, Lila. Kasey got one of her migraines about thirty minutes ago.” He lowered his voice. “I can’t stand to see Emma disappointed. So I hope you don’t mind getting me instead?”
For the first time in many years, Lila was totally speechless. He looked like he was afraid she was going to kick him out of the café. And she wanted to set the tray on the table, hug him, and assure him that it was fine.
“Thank you for bringing them and of course it’s all right. I couldn’t disappoint that precious child either.” Her voice finally came out hollow and slightly breathless. “Emma says her favorite is strawberry. What’s yours, Rustin?”
“Chocolate.” He crawled up in a chair, pulled a napkin free of the dispenser, and tucked it into the neck of his T-shirt. “We already had our baths and Mama said not to get all messy.”
Rustin’s dark hair still had a few droplets of water hanging on it. Emma’s braids were damp and Silas’s blond curls kinked all over his head. She could never deny the kids, or herself either for that matter, the party—even if Brody was there.
“I bet Silas likes chocolate with whipped cream on top, right?” Lila reached for the baby and he didn’t even hesitate before holding out his little arms.
“He loves anything chocolate.” Brody’s arm brushed across hers in the transfer. The tension, sparks, and heat were so steamy that it was a pure miracle the ice cream didn’t melt.
“I’ll get a booster for Emma and a high chair for Silas,” Brody said.
“Bananas!” Emma peered over the top of the table.
“Whipped cream and cherries. Yummy.” Rustin rubbed his tummy. “This is the bestest party ever.”
Emma poked a finger in his shoulder. “Lila is my friend, not yours.”
“I’ll be everyone’s friend.” Lila settled Silas into the high chair that Brody brought from the far end of the café.
“Everyone’s? Does that include the
ones that are too old for free ice cream?” Brody set the booster in a chair and then helped Emma into it.
“Depends on lots of things,” she answered.
“I don’t need a booster anymore,” Rustin said. “I’m a big kid and someday I’m going to stink just like Uncle Brody.”
Lila locked eyes with Brody. The toughest cowboy in the whole state of Texas was blushing.
“Sometimes Uncle Brody stinks,” Emma whispered, and her little nose twitched. “You don’t stink. You smell good, like Mama’s perfume when she’s gettin’ all pretty. Uncle Brody took a bath, so he don’t stink no more, either.”
“Man, she talks plain,” Lila said.
“Since the day she said her first word. She has to keep pace with Rustin.” Brody chuckled. “But she’s right. You do smell really good. And this cowboy refuses to let us feed him anymore.” He pulled a bib from his hip pocket and fastened it around the baby’s neck. “Can I help with anything, Miss Lila?”
“I’ll scoop and you can put on the toppings,” she answered. “Let’s start with Silas.”
The baby pointed to the container of chocolate as soon as she opened it.
“He’s gotten real definite in what he likes and doesn’t. Anything that has orange flavor isn’t his thing,” Brody said.
“Must run in the family.” She dipped out a big round scoop of ice cream and put it in one of the fancy dishes.
Their eyes met over the table.
“I still don’t,” he whispered. “Surprised that you remembered that detail.”
“Like I told you.” She tapped her forehead with a forefinger. “I remember everything.”
“Banana?” she asked.
The baby nodded several times.
“Whipped cream?”
He shook his head.
“Guess he really does know what he likes.”
“Uncle Brody don’t like whipped cream neither and he don’t eat the white stuff on chocolate pie,” Rustin said. “Mama says that Silas is just like him but I don’t think he’ll stink as bad as I will when I’m a cowboy. I get to haul hay when I’m ten and I’d like a banana and whipped cream and two cherries on top and some of that chocolate syrup.”