Can't Stop Believing (HARMONY)

by Jodi Thomas

  Chapter 2

  MARTHA Q PATTERSON DROVE AWAY FROM PARKER TRUCKING with the image of Cord McDowell and Nevada Britain stuck in her mind. Like she always did on her morning errands, she watched people, and those two were saying more with their body language in a few minutes than most people say aloud in a week.

  For a few blocks she let the plot of a steamy novel play out in her thoughts. Tough guy in working clothes talking to society girl who’d been wild since she started wearing a bra. The lines from a song about a man not fitting into her highbrow world drifted through the imagined scene. Martha Q might be older than the two of them put together, but she could remember romantic times she’d once had in a garage with her fourth husband.

  Or maybe it was her second. It was hard to keep track, but the smell of motor oil still turned her on even though her engine never got a chance to run these days.

  Everyone in town knew Nevada Britain. The girl was on her way to breaking Martha Q’s record for number of husbands. Just seeing her standing beside Cord, good-looking trouble that he was, made Martha Q start writing love scenes in her head as she drove. Ever since she’d signed up for the creative writing class at the library, Martha Q couldn’t stop building backstories in her mind. The habit was getting so dominant that she sometimes confused what was real and what she’d made up.

  Occupational habit, she decided. All great writers have the same problem. Or at least she thought they did. Take George Hatcher, owner of the used bookstore; she’d provided him with a far more interesting past than he’d probably ever manage on his own. Martha Q waved at him as she made the square on Main and headed toward her huge old house that she’d turned into a bed-and-breakfast after her last husband died.

  Once she’d made up a story about dear old George Hatcher being a time traveler come back a hundred years to collect period pieces for the History Channel. Martha Q couldn’t seem to be completely truthful with the man who smelled like mildewed old paperbacks. She even left out one of the ingredients to her apricot scones just in case he planned to take it back to the future someday.

  As she turned into the oldest neighborhood in Harmony, Texas, Martha Q let her mind drift back to the way Cord McDowell had tipped his greasy ball cap like it was a top hat when he’d said good-bye to Nevada in her tailored suit and she’d tried to look him in the eye. He was a gentleman, Martha Q decided, beneath all that dirt. It didn’t matter what folks said about him.

  Some claimed he’d gone wild one night and almost killed a deputy, but Martha Q figured there was more to the story. She considered herself an expert on crime because she had a pen pal in prison who grew more handsome in her eyes with every letter.

  A moment later she was ripped from her fantasy when she almost slammed into the black hearse parked in her driveway.

  Martha Q opened her door and wiggled out of her boat of a car before the engine finished its usual death rattle. As always, she’d parked too far to the left of the thin sliver of concrete and had to fight the budding elm branches to move around her car. “I’m going to cut that thing down before . . .”

  She stopped when she noticed someone was listening to her talk to herself. Martha Q never minded the habit, but she hated others eavesdropping.

  “Tyler Wright,” she yelled at the man on the porch as she waddled toward him. “I told you not to come before eleven. I get my nails done on Mondays and I need time for them to dry before I can have a proper conversation.” She waved her fingers in the air while her purse, looped to her elbow, battered her ample breast.

  The chubby funeral director just smiled as he watched her heading toward him. “It is eleven, but I’ll be happy to come back if you like.” He bowed slightly. In his black suit he looked funeral ready.

  She frowned. Agreeable men always bothered her. She’d preferred the yellers and fighters. They made the best lovers, that was a fact. Course, they always turned into ex-husbands who either cried or stalked her. She’d figured out one fact about men years ago: Most couldn’t do two things at once. It didn’t matter if they were having sex or yelling, they didn’t seem to be able to think at the same time.

  Tyler Wright smiled as she neared, obviously having no idea what she was thinking, thank goodness.

  “No, don’t leave.” Martha Q grabbed the railing and pulled herself onto the porch. “I need to talk to you, Tyler, and it has to be before noon. The widows will be back as soon as they finish the early-bird lunch at the Mexican Hat.”

  She motioned for him to take one of the wicker chairs on the wide porch of the Winter’s Inn Bed-and-Breakfast. “I don’t want you coming back, or staying too long for that matter. The neighbors will get the idea I’ve died and rush over to start picking at my bones.”

  “Now, Martha Q.” Tyler sat beside her. “You know they’d do no such thing.”

  “I don’t know.” Strike two, she thought. She didn’t like being corrected even when they both knew she was wrong. To argue her case, she added, “I think one of them stole my new rake. It was here, right by the porch, all last fall and then one day it was gone. Thought about turning it in to the sheriff, but she sometimes pats my hand. I decided rake theft was probably a hand-patting crime.”

  When Tyler laughed, Martha Q huffed up. “Just you wait about twenty years, Mr. Wright. Once you’re into your sixties, folks start patting on you like they’re testing to see if you bite before they step closer.”

  He rocked back in his chair. “I’m feeling older every day. Too old to be a father for the first time. Kate and I will both be forty-six by the time this baby comes in a few months. We’ll be signing up for Medicare about the same time he enrolls in college.”

  “He?”

  Tyler grinned. “He. Doc says for sure. I’m going to have a son.”

  Martha Q couldn’t resist reaching over and patting his hand. “The next generation to run the Wright Funeral Home. He’ll be the fifth. Think of the history.”

  Tyler shook his head. “Kate and I have both promised we won’t push him that direction. She says all her family has been career military. He might pick that road instead.”

  They both rocked in silence for a few minutes, Tyler lost in his future and Martha Q lost in fiction. She’d made a rule to never live in the past and did her best to stay out of problems in the present, but one was bothering her and it was time she got down to business.

  “Tyler, I asked you here because you’re Joni Rosen’s friend. She and the two other widows you sent over last month seemed to think they can homestead here at my place.”

  The funeral director straightened, knowing the visiting was over. “Is something wrong with Mrs. Rosen? Has she been ill? Has she caused problems?”

  “No, but she ain’t right. Her husband died four months ago, and everyone understood when she stayed at my place after the funeral, but I’m not a boardinghouse. She needs to go home. Her place is so close she could walk, but instead, she’s now entertaining the other two widows. I swear if they stay much longer I’ll have to rename the place Widows’ Inn. They play cards and watch movies until almost midnight, then wake me before nine tromping up and down the stairs.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought she’d tromp,” he whispered to himself. As always, Tyler looked concerned. Martha Q wasn’t sure whether he felt it or had just developed a habit over twenty years in the burying business.

  “Does she still pay her bill?” he finally said. “Her husband left her a nice insurance policy and she has her teacher retirement.”

  “Yes, but that’s not the point. I’m used to folks coming and going, not coming and staying. I’ve had to get up and put on my makeup every morning for four months and now, with three of them, I’m running to the store more often for food and having to wake up the housekeeper regularly to keep the place clean. I only got two more rooms to rent and honeymooners aren’t likely to book with three women in black sitting on the front porch knitting like happy Halloween decorations.”

  Tyler smiled.

  “Don�
��t you dare laugh. Being this beautiful at my age takes a lot of time and money. I’d like to sleep in, put on my oldest jogging suit, and read all day, but no, I have to be the innkeeper.” When he didn’t offer an answer, she prodded. “You got to talk to her about getting on with her life. She’s young, not even fifty-five yet. At that age I still had two or three good tries at marriage in me.”

  Tyler stood. “When will she be back?”

  “I never know. I have to stay dressed all day just in case. She sometimes goes the ten blocks over to her place to do her laundry on Mondays. I keep thinking she’ll just decide to stay, but she doesn’t.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Tyler frowned. “I have to anyway about her husband’s headstone.”

  Martha Q stood. “Good.” She was halfway to the door when she remembered her car still parked behind Tyler’s hearse. “Thanks for coming over. I’ll drive back out so you can leave.”

  Tyler walked beside her to his car. “I’ll let you know when the baby comes.”

  “You won’t have to. Everyone in town will be talking about it. It wouldn’t surprise me if the hospital sold tickets to the waiting room. Give Kate a hug if you can still get your arms around her.”

  He nodded as he climbed in his long black car and waited for her to back out.

  “Babies.” Martha Q shook her head, and then an idea of adding a secret baby to her romance plot came to her and she couldn’t wait to get back to her study and write. She might go thirty, maybe even forty minutes before her lunch break. Long writing spells always made her hungry.

  Chapter 3

  MCDOWELL FARM

  FROM THE SHADE OF HIS PORCH, CORD MCDOWELL WATCHED the road with mounting anger. His neighbor, Nevada Britain, was driving up his dirt drive like she was drag racing. The little Jeep he’d spent hours working on left a half-mile trail of dirt behind as it roared toward him.

  He knew the second she spotted him. She slowed and he wondered if she was surprised to see him home before dark. There were always a dozen chores on the farm he needed to get to even after he stopped plowing. Only tomorrow morning he wanted to be at the bank when it opened, so he’d come in early. After three years of saving every dime he could, he was still five thousand short on paying off the loan he’d gotten the week he’d walked out of prison. Some said no one would give a convict a loan, but the bank hadn’t hesitated when he put up his farm as collateral. If he couldn’t pay, they’d make twenty to one on their money.

  He’d dress in his best jeans and head for town at first light, hoping they’d give him three more months to pay. One more season. Then, if it rained and the bugs didn’t find his spring crop and the tractor held out, he might be able to come up with the money. Swearing under his breath, he watched Nevada come closer, feeling like he was Moses waiting for the next plague to strike.

  Cord shoved what money he planned to pay on the loan deeper into his pocket and watched his beautiful, spoiled, selfish neighbor approach. Whitaker had been the one to hand her the keys after the Jeep had been repaired, and she hadn’t even bothered to walk to where Cord worked in the garage to thank him.

  There was little hope that she’d driven over after three days to say thanks, so Cord figured he must have done something wrong. Hell, she’d probably come to threaten to sue him for stirring up too much dirt while he plowed too near her fence line.

  He watched her stop halfway between his barn and his parents’ old house and look around as she climbed out. He hadn’t had the time or the money to fix up the place, but right now it seemed to look worse than he thought. Imagining his farm through her eyes made him wish for more hours in the day, more days in the week, more time, period. Then he could have painted the barn, fixed up the fence, replaced the steps.

  Only it was too late to worry about it now.

  She was dressed western from her red boots to her leather vest. If some women are shiny-penny pretty, Nevada was silver-dollar beautiful.

  Near as he could remember, he’d watched her every chance he’d gotten since the day she was born. They’d gone to school together, ridden the same bus home a few times when her mom didn’t pick her up, and then in the fifth grade she’d disappeared. She’d gone away to school and he’d only seen her riding her horses now and then during vacations. When her dad let her start driving, even though she was a year away from being legal, everyone on Sunset Road tried to stay out of her way.

  Fighting down a grin, Cord remembered the half dozen cars she’d wrecked before she got driving down pat. One she’d rolled in the drainage ditch. Her parents had left it there a month, probably just to make her pass it every time she went to town. He doubted the lesson had taken.

  Pulling off her sunglasses, she tossed her long blond hair back like it was a mane and she was ready to run. He liked the way she moved, all fast and headstrong, like she owned the world—and, as near as he could tell, her family did. Talk was that when her parents died her brother, Barrett Britain, cleaned out the family bank accounts and bought a villa in France. He left her with the ranch and the oil business, saying the next time he came to Texas he’d be in a pine box. She’d taken over everything, and as she walked toward Cord, he realized he didn’t even know how to talk to her.

  “You’re home,” she said, as she stormed the porch with a large envelope in one hand and her hat in the other.

  “Yep,” he said without explaining, knowing it would irritate her. He wasn’t disappointed.

  She glared at him, as if considering turning around and leaving.

  If he wanted her to stay, even a minute, he’d better think of something. “Why are you here, Nevada? Looks like the Jeep is still running.”

  She surprised him by saying, “I was in a hurry the other day or I would have stopped in to say thanks. You got it running better than I ever remember.”

  “Guess I should be glad you didn’t bring the sheriff.” She’d called in a complaint two years ago and he’d almost been fined. If the sheriff had sent deputies, he’d have been cuffed and hauled in before they even bothered to ask questions. Every lawman in the county except Sheriff Alexandra Matheson had dropped by to warn Cord that they’d be watching him. Alexandra wasn’t friendly, but he guessed she was fair. She’d asked questions first.

  “I can’t believe you’re still upset about that. If I hadn’t sent the sheriff, you know you wouldn’t have listened to me, Cord. I left three messages on your phone before I called Sheriff Matheson. You can’t just go flying that old plane around over my land. It stampeded my horses.”

  “I don’t answer my phone.” He shrugged, accepting an ounce of the blame.

  Before he could step back into their two-year-old feud, she stopped him with an open palm like she was a crossing guard for his front porch.

  “I didn’t drive out here to talk about that. I came to ask a favor.”

  Every drop of anger and frustration went out of him even though he didn’t move an inch. “A favor?” The Britains had never asked the McDowells for anything in three generations. His grandfather said once that they started out with bad blood over the boundary between the two ranches, and the wound it left would take a hundred years to heal.

  “I’m not selling,” he said, the first thought that came to his mind. She could probably already smell blood in the water, but he’d lose to the bank before he’d sell to her.

  “I’m not asking,” she snapped, none too friendly for a woman asking for a favor.

  He remembered a time when she’d been home for Christmas break when they were in high school. He asked her for a date and she’d turned him down so fast it took him several heartbeats for his mind to catch up with his ears. They’d both changed a great deal in ten years. She’d grown from a skinny girl to a beautiful woman, and he’d turned into stone. Even now, if he’d been brave or wild enough to pull her against him, she’d feel no heart. Any kindness, any caring, had been beat out of him in Huntsville.

  She straightened, all proper. “What I’m offering is a business deal that
could benefit us both.”

  “I’m not interested in doing business with a Britain, and I’m fresh out of favors.” He looked down at her and was surprised to find that she wasn’t looking at him. He’d always pictured her as straightforward and demanding, a queen in her realm. Now he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know her well enough to be able to tell if she was being shy or simply taking a moment to plan her strategy.

  He’d watched her drive past his land. He’d seen her in town a few times, but they’d never been close enough to speak. Two years ago she’d called the sheriff on him. She hadn’t even given him time to tell her he’d been having engine trouble and was flying low, praying he’d make it to his land before he crashed the plane.

  Her hands tightened into fists, and she slowly raised her head. “I knew I’d be wasting my time coming over here. Since you went to prison, everyone says you’ve been nothing but mean. You don’t have a friend in this world, Cord McDowell, and as near as I can see, you never will. You live out on this dry, worthless land and work all day seven days a week and for what? So you can die alone? I’ll probably be the one who finds the body and has to see about the funeral, and I don’t like you, either. If you weren’t my last choice, I wouldn’t be here, so you’re going to have to listen to me for a minute before I leave and never step on your land again.”

  Cord felt a lecture coming on, so he sat down in one of the metal chairs that had been spray-painted a dozen times. While she paced, planning her next attack, he studied her. Watching Nevada storm was better than watching anything on TV.

  Finally, she stopped and placed the envelope she’d carried onto the porch railing. “I came all this way and I’d like you to at least consider my offer. What I have to say is too important to give up on.”

  “All right,” he said, knowing he wasn’t buying or selling, but listening he could afford.

  She stared out at the open land as she lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “I can’t explain any of the why, so don’t ask. Just hear me out and then say yes or no.”