The Charmer in Chaps

by Julia London

  Luca tried to see the world through a lens he’d never tried on before. His family hadn’t always been harmonious, but they were family, and he couldn’t imagine not having them, couldn’t imagine people showing up to take him away from them. “That seems a little too Pollyanna, given the circumstances,” he muttered.

  Ella laughed. “Definitely. And for the record, nothing good came out of that move or the one after that or the one after that. Nothing even remotely resembling a miracle came to me in all those years. Not until that day the lawyer walked into the Magnolia and handed me an envelope.”

  “Who was he?” Luca asked.

  “Paul Feinstein, Esquire,” she said with a flourish of her hand and a mock bow. “I had no idea who he was. He was wearing a tan suit and loafers with no socks, which is pretty racy for Three Rivers. He said, ‘Are you Ella Louise Kendall?’”

  “Let me guess—you refused to tell him,” Luca said wryly.

  She gave him a little shove with her shoulder. “As a matter of fact, I asked him politely who wanted to know. And he said, ‘Cockrell, Hamblen, and Associates,’ and asked me to call him after I’d had a chance to review the contents. And then he went into the bar.”

  “I would have thought I’d been served with a lawsuit.”

  “That’s where we’re different. I’m used to people I don’t know showing up in my life. Until I was about twenty-five, there was always a social worker or a court appointee or prison advocate descending on me wherever I was.”

  “Prison advocate?” Luca said, and laughed.

  Ella didn’t laugh. She took a bite of her second taco. “I thought he was there to tell me my mom was up for parole again.”

  Luca had to rewind that statement. He looked for any sign she was joking. But then again, why else would she be in foster care? He didn’t quite know what to say.

  Ella said it for him. “It’s okay,” she said quietly as she studied her taco. “I’m far beyond being ashamed about it. It is what it is, you know?”

  No, he didn’t know; he had no clue. He was as flabbergasted as he was fascinated. He ate his taco and tried to imagine his mother in prison.

  Ella glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Well?” she said lightly. “Don’t you want to know?”

  The impulse to pretend he didn’t want to know sidled through his head—it seemed too personal. But she was being honest with him, and she deserved at least that much from him. “Yeah, I do.”

  “She’d been in and out of jail for most of my life for drugs, which is why she could never get her act together to come and get me. She’d get out of jail, and she’d say she was going to get a house for us and that things were going to be different. But she could never say no to using something, and she never could keep a job or keep up with her probation appointments or go to the parenting classes the state assigned her to. You know what I think? I think she just stopped trying after a while. But anyway, now she’s in for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.”

  He was stunned. It sounded like a Dateline episode. “Who?” he managed.

  “Her husband. Apparently she caught him cheating and she was high, and she wanted to kill him. So she tried. She ran him over with a car. But she didn’t kill him; she just maimed him pretty good from what I know.”

  “She ran over your dad with a car?” he repeated, aghast.

  “Not my dad. I don’t know who my dad is. I didn’t know this man either. When it happened, it had been about three years since I’d even seen her.”

  Luca was losing his appetite and put his taco aside. She hadn’t been kidding when she said her life had been hard. “Have you seen her since?”

  “Once,” she said with a shrug. “After she was sentenced she found Jesus, and she wanted to have a relationship with her daughter. The same daughter for whom she’d been unable to give up drugs, mind you, but I was seventeen, and I was curious. What I remembered about her was starting to fade. So I went to Gatesville to see her.”

  Luca knew enough to know Gatesville housed the state women’s prison. “And?”

  “And . . .” Ella looked him directly in the eye. “There was nothing there. It was like talking to a stranger, and a weird stranger at that. She was too eager, too religious.” She shook her head and tossed the rest of her taco into the bag.

  Luca did not know what to say.

  “But anyway,” Ella said, making light of it, “fast forward ten years, and the man came to my bar with the envelope, and there it was, my miracle. It really was a miracle, Luca, because I was struggling to make ends meet. My hands got clammy, my belly did some loop-de-loops, and I, Ella Louise Kendall, experienced my first bona fide miracle ever, because my grandmother had left me her house and her farm, which I didn’t even know she still owned. Apparently, a cousin or someone kept it rented after Grandma went to the Alzheimer’s home, and they used that money to pay for her care.”

  “That’s . . . that’s amazing,” he said.

  “I remember that house. I remember marking the walls in the front bedroom, and the marks are still there. I remember standing on the back porch and watching a breeze sweep across the prairie grass before I felt it in my hair and how Grandpa would push me in the old tire swing before he got too sick. Grandma would cook supper with food they grew right there, in the spot where the bushes have grown up now, and that house, believe it or not, always smelled like warm summer nights and hope and love.” She smiled, the memories clearly still with her.

  Luca knew that feeling, too, the feeling of summer. As corny as it sounded, it was a feeling he carried in his heart, and brought out and dusted off every year at the first breath of summer. What he remembered of summers was how their majordomo, Martin, would invite him and his siblings down to his house, and he would crank homemade ice cream on the back porch, and they would play games with Martin’s kids. Other nights, his dad barbecued while they swam, and his mother would sit under the rose-covered trellis with a cocktail, laughing at his dad’s jokes. And then later, they would lie on blankets and look at the blaze of stars overhead.

  “So after all those years of moving around, I finally had a rundown place of my own.” She laughed.

  Luca picked up her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “You really have had a pretty rough life, haven’t you?” he said.

  Ella’s smile faded. “Don’t, Luca.”

  “What?”

  She shifted around to face him. “Don’t feel sorry for me. That is the worst. I don’t feel sorry for me. I mean, yes, I’ve lost more Tamirs and grandmas in my life than I can possibly count, but I’ve managed. I have put one foot in front of the other, and I’ve wrapped up all my warm, fuzzy memories of my grandparents and taken them with me, and I’ve gone on. I’ve survived. I went to college; I got a degree; I’m working; I’m fine. But the one thing I can’t abide, the one thing that I hate above all else is for someone to feel sorry for me. Because I made it, Luca. I made it in spite of everything.”

  “Okay,” he said. He hated pity, too. He knew exactly what she meant, how it felt to be dealt a crappy hand and to make something out of it. “But I don’t feel sorry for you,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I admire you. I—”

  “Luca!”

  Both of them started at the masculine voice and turned toward it. Randy Frame was standing in front of them with a bag of tacos. “Hey, I guess you two know each other after all,” he said, waggling his brows. “What’s up?”

  “Randy!”

  Luca heard Ella sigh as Mariah appeared, holding two beers. She looked at Ella, then at Luca. Then at Ella. “Are you kidding me?” she said to Ella.

  “Hello, Mariah,” Ella said.

  “Randy, sit,” Mariah demanded, pointing to the table.

  “Maybe we should ask if they mind if we join them,” Randy said.

  “We’re sitting,” Mariah said, and plunked herself down. />
  “Please, join us,” Luca said, and mimed a look of fright at Ella before sliding off the table and sitting down across from Randy.

  “What’s going on here?” Mariah asked, giving Ella a grossly obvious wink.

  What was going on here was that Luca was still falling, slipping farther and farther down the rabbit hole. “We’re having some tacos, Mariah. Don’t get any ideas.”

  “Too late!” she chirped, and beamed at him before turning that blazing smile to Ella.

  Chapter Seventeen

  This was exactly what Ella feared would happen if she came to town with Luca. Someone would see them, probably someone with a big mouth (Mariah), and knowing Mariah as well as she did, Ella was certain the whole town would have heard about their “date” by tomorrow afternoon.

  And then, days or weeks from now, Luca would move on, and people would whisper, Who does she think she is?

  That was really nothing she could control, and she understood that it shouldn’t influence her feelings for Luca in the least, but Ella did not want to look like an idiot. She did not want to be the poor girl who thought she had a chance with one of the Princes. She knew better.

  “So when did this start?” Mariah whispered excitedly as Luca and Randy talked.

  “Nothing has started,” Ella said. “He helped me with something at the house, and we had some tacos. That’s it, the whole enchilada.”

  “The whole enchilada my ass,” Mariah said. “How do you expect me to believe that?” she leaned across the table and whispered, “Do you know how many times I had to listen to you pine for Prince Luca when we were in high school?”

  Ella stole a quick look at Luca to assure herself he hadn’t heard Mariah. “Will you stop?” she whispered back. “That was a very long time ago.”

  Mariah leaned even closer and whispered, “So, what, you aren’t into him anymore? What’s the matter, did he get too good-looking for you? Because he’s only gotten better looking—”

  “Mariah, stop,” Ella said, laughing.

  Mariah snorted. “I’m your friend. Why won’t you tell me?”

  “If I’m your friend, why won’t you give me your business?” Ella countered.

  “Not fair,” Mariah said, and leaned back. She indicated Randy with her chin. “I have that one breathing down my neck.” She grunted, took a swig of beer. “Okay, so don’t tell me. But I thought we were friends. Speaking of friends,” she said, sounding a tiny bit surly, “remember the day you and Stacy came to my shop?”

  That caught Randy’s attention. He suddenly turned toward Ella and Mariah. “Yeah, Stacy,” he said.

  “Who is Stacy?” Luca asked.

  “Oh, you remember, Luca,” Mariah said with a flick of her wrist. “Stacy Perry. Blond hair. School choir.”

  “Oh, right,” he said.

  Well, great. Stacy, he remembered. “What about her?” Ella asked.

  “Did you remember seeing a yellow dress with white trim?” Mariah asked.

  Something tipped in Ella. She had a sudden vision of Stacy coming out of the sheriff’s office in a cute yellow dress. Ella blinked. She lifted her bottle and drank.

  Mariah’s eyes narrowed. “Have you seen it, by any chance?”

  Everyone was looking at Ella. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. Guilt by association all over again. “Umm . . . where was it?” Ella asked as she frantically tried to think of what to say.

  “It was on the seventy-five-percent-off rack.”

  “I didn’t go back to that rack, remember?”

  “I know. But I’m asking, have you seen it?” Mariah asked pointedly.

  Ella’s stomach was suddenly churning. She wanted to throttle Stacy. She couldn’t believe her! Shoplifting was horrible. But to steal from a friend? And when she was with Ella? Stacy clearly had no regard for Ella at all—it was like they were teens all over again. Stacy risking everything with no regard for how it would impact Ella if she was caught when Ella was with her. It had happened more than once, which meant Ella had also been taken into custody. Guilt by association. She’d been released when she had nothing stolen in her possession and Stacy had sworn it was just her, but it was harrowing all the same.

  To know she’d done it again made Ella feel furiously helpless.

  Her silence was enough of an answer. With a sigh, Mariah shook her head and looked away. “I knew it,” she muttered.

  “I didn’t know, Mariah,” Ella said. “I assumed she bought it in San Antonio.”

  The men had fallen silent, but not Mariah. “I know you had nothing to do with it, Ella, and I’m not mad at you. But I am furious with Stacy. When I think of all the times you two came over and my mom made supper for you. All the sleepovers we had so you two could get out of that house with all the fighting and drinking. We gave you and Stacy a normal life where we could, and this is the thanks I get?”

  Ella wanted to crawl in a hole. She hated Mariah’s review of her life. “I know, it’s maddening,” she said. “It’s always been Stacy’s way of coping—”

  “Don’t you dare defend her, Ella,” Mariah said sharply. “Don’t you dare.”

  “I’m not,” Ella said evenly. “I would never.” Her face was surely as red as a beet. She was so embarrassed that the person closest to her in this world was a common thief. What must Luca think of her now? “I know you’re furious, Mariah, and I am, too. I may understand why she does it, but I hate that she does it at all.”

  “Then why are you still hanging out with her?” Mariah asked plaintively. “You are so much better than that, Ella!”

  “Come on, Mariah,” Ella said softly. “You know why.”

  “Please don’t give me that ‘sisters’ nonsense,” Mariah said, making air quotes around the word sisters. “Because you’re not.”

  “Okay,” Luca said. “All right, Mariah.”

  Mariah glanced at Luca. She sighed, folded her arms over her body, and exchanged a look with Randy. A moment or two passed before Mariah sighed and looked at Ella again. “She put you in a terrible position, Ella.”

  “She did. She really did.”

  “I ought to turn her in. Which would be super ironic since she is working for the sheriff now,” Mariah said with a snort. “But she is definitely not welcome in my store.”

  “No,” Ella agreed. She was so livid she didn’t trust herself to speak. There was no defense for Stacy.

  “Okay,” Randy said. “We’ve taken up enough of their time, Riah. Let’s go.” He stood up and picked up their bag of tacos.

  Mariah got up, walked around the table, and bent down to hug Ella. “Don’t take it personally,” she said, and Ella wondered how she was not supposed to take it personally. She’d just dressed down Ella’s choice of friends.

  They said goodnight, and when the Frames had wandered off, Luca said, “Are you all right?”

  No. “It’s fine,” Ella said, desperate to talk about anything but Stacy. “So it’s getting late.” She stood.

  “It’s not late; it’s a little past eight.”

  She smiled. “I need to go.”

  Luca sighed. He stood up. “Thanks for coming out with me, Ella. I enjoyed it. Until the Frames showed up.” He smiled.

  She smiled, too. He put his hand on the small of her back as they began to walk toward the parking lot. “I’m glad you made me go,” Ella said. “Thanks for the tacos.”

  “Thank you for sharing your story with me,” he said as they reached the parking lot. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to tell me. Or to take the flack about your friend.”

  She cringed inwardly. “Stacy has a bad habit. But she’s really not a bad person.”

  “You’ll have to tell me more about her sometime.”

  Ella smiled. “You’ll have to tell me something about you sometime, too.”

  “That would imply you’re up f
or a next time,” he pointed out, and cupped her elbow.

  “Sure,” she said nonchalantly as he pulled her closer. “As friends.” Luca looked so handsome in the sparkly light of the trees. So handsome that he made Ella feel achy and happy at the same time. Happy that she’d come with him after all. Achy that she longed for him so.

  “Friends,” he agreed, and he lowered his head, his mouth only a breath from hers, and lingered there.

  Ella felt herself sinking into a little boat of pleasure. It wasn’t fair, to be pushed from shore so easily. To like someone quite as much as this. She slowly lifted her chin, expecting, and wanting, to be kissed.

  But he didn’t kiss her.

  She shifted slightly closer. Kiss me already, cowboy.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I’m not sure about this.”

  “Sure about what?” she whispered as he put a hand on her waist. Come on already. She was starting to feel a little on fire.

  “I’m not sure if we’re just friends.”

  It was her own damn fault for being so insecure that she’d started this friend business. She shifted again, so close that she was touching him. “Will you please stop talking and kiss me goodnight?”

  He paused. He turned his head slightly so that his mouth was on her temple. “Okay, Ella,” he said. “I will kiss you. But you enter this arrangement at your own peril.” And then he took her head in his enormous hands and kissed her.

  Ella didn’t move. She opened her mouth to his as an image of him lying completely naked on her chenille bedspread flashed in her brain. His kiss was so tender and demanding all at the same time that she was on the verge of bursting into globs of gooey hearts. She put her arms around his waist and held on to keep that from happening.

  He pressed the tips of his fingers to her cheek and lifted his head, his eyes searching her face. “You know we’re kicking up some dust here, right?”

  She was too impatient to analyze it. “It’s just dust,” she said, and nipped at his lips.

  “Dust rises before a storm, you know.”