The Charmer in Chaps

by Julia London

  Cordelia, Charlie’s wife—Charlie’s estranged wife—knew the mourners were all waiting for something to happen, for some logjam of emotion to suddenly burst, for some catfight to break out. That was because where Charlie Prince was concerned, there was always something to see. He’d been larger than life, a rich Texas rancher with a penchant for pretty girls—the goddamn bastard—expensive whiskey, and big deals.

  Naturally, their children, from oldest son Nick to the twins Luca and Hallie, took the news pretty hard. Charlie’s mother, Dolly, took it quite hard, of course, but Dolly was old enough to have experienced wretched loss and knew how to numb herself with booze. Cordelia’s children, not so much.

  None of them took it as hard as Cordelia. She probably didn’t show it—she could be an ice queen when she wanted to be—but she was nothing but ashes inside. It didn’t matter that she and Charlie had been separated for the third time in their nearly forty-year marriage. Yes, of course she felt guilty that she hadn’t been around to nag him to stop smoking those awful cigars and, for God’s sake, to eat a vegetable now and again. But even though she and Charlie had certainly had their ups and downs, and he’d been a philandering ass, he’d also been the love of her life. She’d never stopped loving him, even when she’d wanted to kill him. And his death had absolutely flattened her.

  Dolly had always said Cordelia was made of brass tacks, and she supposed she was. After her initial shock, she’d gotten hold of herself because she had to take care of things. She was the glue in this family, the hall monitor, the drill sergeant, the president. She gathered her children and her mother-in-law, and together they planned a good-bye that befitted the Texas titan that Charlie Prince had been. It was what people expected of the Prince family. It wasn’t a memorial. It was an event.

  So it was that on a beautifully mild winter afternoon, all those who mourned Charlie gathered at the famed Three Rivers Ranch compound. The ranch was set at the base of gentle hills and at the mouth of the river, amid ancient live oaks, acacia, and cedar, as well as the occasional patch of prickly pear. The old Spanish-style mansion had been the seat of the Prince family for more than one hundred years and was featured on postcards sold at Market Square in San Antonio. All twenty thousand square feet of the mansion looked like it belonged on the pages of Architectural Digest. Terra-cotta patios gave way to a modern, zero edge pool, and from every room, there were sweeping views of the more than seventy-five thousand acres of Prince land where cattle and thoroughbreds grazed.

  Cordelia was dressed in a simple black shift that Zac Posen had made especially for her. She had her blond hair styled into a simple chignon and wore the diamond bracelet and teardrop earrings Charlie had given her after his last affair. She poured enough whiskey into her wineglass to float an armada. Cordelia wasn’t a drunk—or rather, she hadn’t been before Charlie died—but the days leading to the memorial had been a blur of pain and anger and numb acceptance, all made possible by the expensive Scotch whiskey Charlie was so fond of.

  She walked out onto the balcony that overlooked the living room and stared down at the dozens milling about, drinks in hand. Vultures. They wanted to gawk? She’d give them something gawk at. This event was the send-off to top all send-offs. Not only had she cajoled her favorite chef to fly in from Los Angeles and cater the event, she’d hired waitstaff to walk around in formal attire with trays of canapés and French champagne. The plan was that after this so-called “celebration” of Charlie’s life—that was what Hallie insisted they call it—the riffraff and gawkers would go home, and only the family would gather at the family cemetery to bury the urn that contained Charlie’s ashes.

  “Delia?”

  Cordelia looked down to the left. Sarah Jenkins-Cash was waving at her, like they were at a charity function and Cordelia hadn’t made her donation and was trying to slip out.

  “How are you?” Sarah called up.

  How the hell did she think she was? Cordelia put out her hand and gave her the universal so-so wave, then turned her back on Sarah. She hated people to see her pain. Charlie once told her she was too closed off. “You don’t give an inch, Delia. You’re too damn hard.”

  She wished she hadn’t given him an inch. She wished she’d kept him home, with her. Kept him healthy. His veins free of plaque. She wished she’d been a better wife, a better lover, a better caretaker . . .

  Wait. Why was she blaming herself? There was no one to blame but Charlie. She wished she could kick him just now.

  Cordelia moved off the balcony and down the stairs, into the throng of mourners.

  Charlie would have hated this. Every damn bit of it. It was as big a to-do as any of the charity balls Cordelia had ever hosted, and he’d always hated those, too, because Charlie was not that kind of man. He’d preferred to have a few friends over for barbecue and beer. She could picture him sitting by his grill, tossing a ball to one of the dogs while he entertained his friends with one of his ridiculously unbelievable tales. Even though Cordelia was an Applewhite by birth, she was the one who truly appreciated the Prince legacy. The family was big and influential, its roots sunk deep into every aspect of Texas history over several generations. People had come from all over the state of Texas to pay their last respects to Charlie—legislators, judges, lawyers, bankers . . .

  And a few young women she didn’t know and didn’t care to know. Leeches.

  More than two hundred people had been ferried out to the ranch in tourist buses from town. Cordelia hated them all right now. Where had they been while Charlie’s veins were clogging? Probably stuffing meat and cheese into him and watching him wash it all back with bourbon.

  Fortunately, Cordelia had had enough to drink that she could smile at whoever stopped to tell her how sorry they were, and then turn away and mutter under her breath that they should go jump in a lake.

  She watched the vultures circulate around the pool and pet the horses that meandered over to the fence looking for handouts. She watched them wander into her house, which she had completely redone when she married Charlie, because it had been one hot mess of vintage Texas and Hee Haw. She could see them googly-eyeing all the trappings of the Prince wealth, touching the marble and gold, the crystal, the silk. She could hear them talk about how great Charlie had been, and she hated them even more.

  Charlie had not been great. He’d cheated on her, and he’d lied to her. But he’d given her three beautiful children and a life most could only dream of. He’d disappointed her, he’d surprised her, and he had always loved her, even when he couldn’t love himself. She’d always loved him, too. Even at the end, when she’d hated him most, he could still bring her to her knees with a smile. Stupid, stupid bastard.

  The afternoon continued to teeter along as Cordelia had planned. She imagined that everyone who was there would later say it was the loveliest good-bye they’d ever witnessed. She would be written about, sung about, and admired for her ability to honor Charlie even with the burden of her grief.

  She would later wonder how she could pull off something so spectacular and still not understand it wasn’t the mourners that would ruin it for her. No, they stood around, staring in awe at their surroundings. They’d come just to gawk. She would later realize things might not have gone haywire at all if she hadn’t spent the day drowning the burn in her chest with whiskey. The event was just the icing on her little mourning cake. But the burial? That was the moment she’d been dreading, had been trying to numb herself to. That was when things went belly-up, when the light was fading from the day, and everyone had gone, and the family had trudged up the hill to bury Charlie’s ashes next to generations of Princes.

  Cordelia had a pretty firm opinion about how the burial ought to go and had envisioned it for days. The plan was that they’d each say a few words beneath the twisted boughs of the live oak trees while the family dogs lay obediently at their feet. She had imagined how, having spent untold thousands on her children’s ed
ucations and elocution, they would each speak eloquently and say something profound. She had even planned that the last ray of sunlight would streak red and gold and orange across the sky when they released the Chinese lanterns, and somehow, Charlie would know how much she’d loved him.

  But Cordelia hadn’t counted on Margaret Sutton Rhodes and her son Tanner joining them like they were family. When she saw them walking up the path, her drunken fury had turned into a dangerous riptide. She’d swayed in their direction, determined to cut off trouble at the pass, but her brother Chet had stopped her.

  Chet was a big man, taller than Charlie had been, broad across the chest. “He deserves to be here, Delia,” he’d said. “I told him to come.”

  Cordelia thought her heart might explode out of her chest.

  “Who deserves to be here?” Nick had asked.

  Chet was referring to Tanner, Charlie’s “other” son, and Cordelia glared at her brother—her kids didn’t know that Tanner was their half brother. He was one of Charlie’s dirty little secrets. Margaret, that bitch, had once been one of Cordelia’s closest friends, up until the day she decided to sleep with Cordelia’s husband. But Margaret’s greatest mistake was walking into the family cemetery like a reigning beauty queen.

  She should not have done that.

  Cordelia was drunk, which, admittedly, was not Margaret’s fault, but Margaret should have suspected. Margaret had stolen Charlie from Cordelia not once, but twice, and she was not going to steal this final moment from her, too. Not to mention, Cordelia didn’t think now was the best time to tell her kids they had a brother. So she did what any inebriated, grieving, angry woman of a certain age would do, and lunged for Margaret’s throat.

  She should not have done that.

  Cordelia couldn’t really say what happened next. She remembered Luca taking the first swing, because he was a loyal son, he loved his mother, and his mother was under attack. But Luca was more of a lover than a fighter, and honestly, Cordelia wasn’t certain, but she might have been the one who was doing the swinging.

  She knew that Tanner took the second swing and put Luca on his ass. To be fair, Tanner’s mother was also involved in the brawl, and Tanner probably loved his mother, too, although it was hard to understand why, and he probably felt the same responsibility to defend as Luca had. Poor Hallie, who tended to act first and think second, didn’t know who Tanner was, but no one was more important to her than her twin, not even her fiancé, Christopher, and Hallie had made a towanda sort of scream as she pushed Christopher over a chair in her haste to throw herself on Tanner’s back and save her brother.

  Chet pulled her off but clumsily tore her dress, which made Hallie shriek, which prompted one of the dogs to take a bite out of Chet’s ankle.

  Of course it was Nick, solid, dependable Nick, who grabbed his mother and held her back when George Lowe, the family attorney, appeared and threw up his arms and bellowed, “Enough!”

  Everyone stilled. Cordelia looked around. Charlie’s urn had fallen into its little coffin and had lodged crookedly, and Luca was trying to free it. The Chinese lanterns were crushed, the pastor had disappeared, and the dogs were so excited they kept jumping on Margaret.

  George rounded them all up and pointed to the house. “Go,” he’d commanded firmly. “We need to talk.”

  So the family had sheepishly stumbled down the hill to the house. Cordelia grudgingly agreed that Margaret and Tanner could come, too, when Nick told her in no uncertain terms that they were coming.

  They gathered in the library. Things had calmed down considerably by then, as they were all too inebriated or too spent from the shock of losing Charlie and the grief, or just the general unfairness of life, to fight anymore.

  Cordelia felt something odd and put her hand up. There was part of a Chinese lantern in her hair. Luca had a bag of ice cubes Frederica had probably given him—she’d always favored Luca—pressed to an eye that had swollen shut. Hallie’s designer dress was slit up to her crotch. Tanner’s lip was busted, Dolly was holding a broken framed picture of Charlie to her chest, and Nick had to stand between everyone and Margaret, lest anyone try and take her down again, because she kept saying, very loudly, that she deserved to be here.

  Well, at least the worst was over, Cordelia figured. Her children now understood they had a half brother, and while she wished they had not found out like they had, she could at least mark that off her to-do list.

  “I have news,” George said, and his gaze flicked up to Cordelia, and he flashed a strange smile. A sad smile. Like he felt sorry for her. But not in a sympathetic way because she’d lost her husband—it was more piteous than that. “I don’t know how to sugarcoat it, so I’ll just say it. Charlie had a gambling problem.”

  Cordelia snorted. Was that all? She was well aware of Charlie’s gambling, and his frequent trips to Vegas, his recklessness with betting. She glanced down at the dress Zac had made for her and noticed the seam had torn. She hoped he wouldn’t ask for pictures.

  “Now, don’t misunderstand,” George said. “It’s not like you’re poor.”

  Hello. That brought Cordelia’s head up.

  “But you’re probably not as rich as you think,” he said apologetically. “Well, frankly, I know you’re not.”

  Cordelia’s heart began to pound in time with her temples. “Wait just a minute, George,” she said curtly, as if George was pranking them.

  “You’re going to have to start doing things differently,” George said, pretending she hadn’t spoken at all.

  “Mom?” Hallie whimpered.

  “How differently?” Nick asked.

  “Don’t spend as much,” George said.

  “What?” Hallie said, and looked wildly between George and her brothers. “I’m getting married!”

  “George!” Cordelia shouted, alarmed. “You’re scaring my children! You don’t mean we can’t spend,” she said with a bark of unbelievable laughter, and looked around the room for anyone to agree with her.

  But everyone’s stunned gaze was locked on George.

  “Listen, all of you,” George said. “Charlie was a good man at heart. But like anyone, he had his demons.”

  Cordelia snorted and looked at Margaret, who returned her glare.

  “But he loved his family. Last time we updated his will, he made sure there was something in there for each of you.” George looked at the paper before him and began to read. He didn’t look up. He didn’t make eye contact.

  Cordelia knew her husband. And she knew before George ever uttered a word that the “something” Charlie had left for each of his family was not what they were expecting.

  As if his death hadn’t been hard enough, he would add this to it? She looked at the faces of her children, at the confusion and disappointment, and felt a new, fresh wave of grief. Damn you, Charlie.

  She wanted to kill him all over again.

  Chapter Six

  It was Mariah’s bright idea that Ella set up a booth at the Three Rivers Winter Carnival.

  “You have to be kidding,” Ella had scoffed one afternoon when she’d stopped by Mariah’s beauty salon/boutique to beg her for work. “People aren’t interested in accounting at winter carnivals.”

  Mariah had held up a black dress against Ella. It had big yellow daffodils printed on the full skirt, and Mariah had studied it with a critical eye.

  “They are interested in games and beer and . . . winter,” Ella had said as she glanced down.

  “You’d be surprised,” Mariah had said, and put the dress back on the rack. “Last year, Dr. Evans got two new patients. One of them didn’t actually have many teeth, but still, he signed up for dental care at the carnival. That’s how you reel them in.” She’d picked up a light blue polka dot dress and held it up to Ella. “You would look so cute in this.”

  Ella had loved the adorable dress, but she’d pushed it asi
de. Unfortunately, the animals that congregated at her house were putting some serious hurt in her discretionary budget. “That’s not how you reel anyone in,” she’d said. “Anyway, forget the carnival. Come on, Mariah. Are you going to give me your business?” She truly hadn’t come to shop. If she didn’t get her business off the ground, she’d be hostessing at the Magnolia and working part-time for strange Byron for the rest of her life.

  Mariah had put the blue dress in front of her again. “Randy is skeptical.”

  “What? Why? I bought him a donut!” Ella had exclaimed, pushing the cute dress aside again. “Is it because I’m a girl? That’s it, isn’t it? That is so sexist, Mariah.”

  Mariah had returned the dress to the rack. “It’s not because you’re a girl, Ella. It’s because you have no clients. You’re untried. He says we don’t know if you know what you’re doing or not.”

  “I have a degree. I have experience. I am the accountant for the Rodeo Rebels,” she’d pointed out.

  Mariah had rolled her eyes at that. “Keeping track of nothing is a lot easier than actual money.”

  Mariah and Stacy had never been as close as Ella was to either one of them.

  “Go to the winter carnival and drum up some business,” Mariah had advised. “I’ll even lend you a table.”

  So here Ella sat at the Three Rivers Winter Carnival, sandwiched between a brassy redheaded woman selling time-shares and homemade jam, and a man with a faded plaid shirt and a cowboy hat that was as stained as her kitchen floor. He nodded in her direction, then looked away. He was too busy setting up a display of repurposed horseshoes. He’d painted a bunch of them orange and had soldered them together to make a pumpkin. He’d made some colorful horseshoe daisies, too, which he’d welded onto rebar poles. Ella assumed they were to put in a garden. He had wine racks, tables and chairs, crosses, toilet paper holders—whatever a person could possibly want, all of it made from horseshoes. And in the center of his table was what she thought was possibly his crowning achievement—a miniature horse made entirely of horseshoes. Ironic.