Mary made a growling sound low in her throat. “A skinny woman in ugly glasses and a nightgown, with really messy hair.”
“Look harder.”
Mary narrowed her eyes and jutted her chin forward. “I still see the same thing.”
Margaret spoke softly in her ear. “You see more. Much more. And you know you do.”
“Margaret, I—”
“No. You listen now. I’ve been trying to make you see—really see—yourself for years, and you know it. Sometimes I thought it was never going to happen. But I think we’re close now, very close. And I want to say a few things, about your mother. And your father. About the love they shared.”
Instinctively, in protection of the habits of a lifetime, Mary tried to cast her gaze downward, lowering her lashes and dipping her chin.
But Margaret, very gently, put up her hands and guided Mary’s head back so she was looking right into the mirrors again. “Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s time you faced it. You know that it is. They were good people, your parents. And they shared a beautiful, private, perfect world, just the two of them. It worked for them. They had each other. And that was enough for them.
“But Mary—they had no right to do what they did to you, to teach you to be the way that they were, to bring you up believing you had no choice but to be that way. It’s not true, Mary. You are not your mother. Or your father. You can make your own way. You can have so much more.”
Margaret took her by the shoulders again and gave a reassuring squeeze. “Come on, look. Really look. That’s you. Do you see? The scared, shy clerk who works in my shop. And the beauty at the ball. You’re both. And you’re more.”
“Oh, Margaret—”
“Shh. Listen. I have a secret. I’m going to share it with you. I love all my girls—and yes, I do, I think of them that way, all the girls who come for my dresses, as ‘my’ girls. But some of them, well, they’re extra special to me. And for those—the really special ones—I like to sew a little token, something they’ll never even know is there, for luck, for happiness, right into the gown I design for that special girl. For you, it was white rose petals, sewn into the hem. Your special secret charm. White to stand for innocence—and for secret love, too. You lost those petals, did you know that? I discovered they were gone when you gave me the gown to mend—and you know what?”
Mary met her friend’s eyes in the mirror.
“It doesn’t matter,” Margaret said. “It doesn’t matter that you lost them. Because the real charm is no secret. The real charm is inside you. You are that incredible girl at the debutante ball. That was you, in that dress, so confident and so stunning. You danced and you laughed, didn’t you? You carried yourself with pride. And you talked with James Campbell. Talked easily. Intimately. You told me you did. And maybe you even shared a few more kisses than you admitted to me?”
Margaret chuckled. “Oh, yes. I see your blush. I know. I’m a woman. I know how it was…I know how you were. Because I know you, Mary.
“And the truth is, now that you’ve let yourself be that beautiful woman, even if only for one night, you can never again deny that she is a part of you. You came out of your shell for an evening, Mary. You did it. And you can do it again.”
Mary stared at herself in the mirror. She was listening. And she was also admitting the truth at last.
Her dear friend was right.
Margaret sent Mary home to put on some street clothes.
Then, together, they drove back to Mission Creek Creations, where they indulged in an after-hours shopping spree. They dressed Mary from the ground up, choosing clothes that would fit the “total” Mary, the woman who was regal and self-possessed—as well as sweet and shy. Mary agreed that she’d visit her optometrist tomorrow. She’d get some more attractive glasses, and possibly contacts, as well.
“Good,” said Margaret. “You’ll start wearing these new clothes tomorrow, too. You want to look your best. Because James Campbell will be back. Now he knows where to find you, that man will not be able to stay away.”
Chapter 11
As usual, Margaret was right.
James was waiting at the shop the next day when Mary arrived for work. She came in the back door as she always did, to find Margaret holding a box knife, ready to start going through a recent delivery.
“You have a visitor,” Margaret said with a grin, tipping her gray head toward the doorway that led to the front of the shop.
Mary knew immediately who it had to be. Her heart kicked into high gear and her cheeks felt a little too warm.
But it was okay. It was manageable. She smoothed her hands down the cream-colored linen sheath that she and Margaret had chosen the day before, wishing she’d had time to get those new glasses she’d planned on.
“How do I look?” she said, low enough that no one but Margaret could hear.
“Just fine,” Margaret whispered back, then made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on now. You go talk to him.”
She found him waiting at the counter, a brown bag tucked under his arm. “Your shoes.” He handed her the bag.
“Uh, thank you.” It came out all right. A little shaky, maybe. But at least she’d spoken up, and she wasn’t a mass of tangled-up nerves, wasn’t fighting an almost unbearable urge to run and hide.
He looked at her steadily. She did wonder what he might be thinking.
She was thinking that he was the best-looking guy in the world, that she did not for a minute regret their time in the pool house. That, except for the lies she’d told him, she wouldn’t have had any of it any other way.
“I’ve been wondering,” he said. “That name you called yourself. Olivia—”
“Leigh,” She provided. He nodded. He looked as if he hoped she’d say more. So she did. “It was…my mother’s. Well, not her given name. But her pen name. She was a poet.”
“The poems you quoted were—”
“Hers. She wrote them, to my father.”
He cleared his throat. “They were beautiful. I meant that, when I said they were.”
She felt a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Well, James, you only heard a few lines.”
“I liked what I heard.”
“Well, then thank you. I mean, for my mother’s sake.”
He was looking at her so strangely. As if he admired her. As if he didn’t want to go.
And he didn’t.
James would happily have stood there by the cash register in Margaret McKenzie’s shop for the rest of the day, staring into Mary Clark’s incredible eyes, wondering how he’d ever managed not to notice her.
However, he had a practice to run and she had her own work to do. “Listen. About yesterday—”
She put up a slim hand. “No. Honestly. Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded.
And there was nothing more to say, really. “Well, then, I guess I ought to be going.”
“Thanks again.” She held up the bag. “For my shoes.”
“No problem.”
Mary stood right where she was, listening to the shop bell ring as he went out, watching him walk by the front window, moving much too quickly out of her line of sight.
When she turned for the back room, she found Margaret standing in the doorway.
She studied her friend’s face for a moment, then wrinkled up her nose. “You’re looking really smug, Margaret, do you know that?”
Her friend beamed at her. “Go after him. Go after him right now.”
“Oh, that’s crazy. I can’t do any such thing.”
“Of course, you can.”
“No. Now, let’s drop the subject. Let’s go ahead and take care of that order you’ve got back there.”
Margaret made a low, impatient sound in her throat, but she didn’t argue further. They went in back together and started going through the boxes, sorting things to hang on the racks, choosing which items to put on display.
They’d worked for a
bout ten minutes when Mary realized she couldn’t stand it. “Oh, all right.” She smoothed her hair and straightened her glasses. “I’ll be back in half an hour, tops.”
Margaret had that smug look again. “No hurry. Take your time.”
It was a three-minute walk to his storefront law office.
That secretary he’d told her about the night of the ball—the efficient and intimidating Mrs. Letterby—glanced up from behind an impressively tidy-looking desk when Mary entered the small, attractively furnished waiting room. “How may I help you?”
Mary experienced a distinct urge to whirl around and get of there. She ignored it. “I’m Mary Clark. I’d like to speak with Mr. Campbell.”
Mrs. Letterby frowned and glanced down at her calendar. “You have no appointment.”
Mary swallowed—but she didn’t break. “If you would please just tell him I’m here, I would really appreciate it.”
The secretary shrugged and picked up the phone. “Mary Clark to see you. Yes. All right. Certainly.” Mrs. Letterby hung up and rose from her chair. “He says to show you right in. This way.” She turned for the door a few feet behind her.
Mary just stood there, thinking, I’m to go right in. James said so.
The secretary paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Ms. Clark? Are you all right?”
Mary blinked. “I…yes, Mrs. Letterby. I am more than all right.”
He was standing behind a big cherry-wood desk when Mary entered the room. The secretary left them, pulling the door closed as she went.
Mary kept her spine straight, but she really would have liked to have had something to lean against. She felt more than a little weak in the knees. And her heart was a trip-hammer. Just bonging away in there.
Oh, could she do this? She prayed she wouldn’t blow it.
They stared at each other.
He looked…happy. To see her.
That was good. That was a definite plus.
She sucked in a big breath—and the words were there. More than there. They came pouring out, stumbling over each other in their eagerness to be said.
“Oh, James. I’m so sorry, I truly am. I shouldn’t have run out on you that night, and I know it. But I’ve had this, well, I don’t know what else to call it but a crush. An insane, impossible crush. On you. I’ve had it for months now, since you opened your office here and I noticed you walking by Margaret’s shop. I would see you, every day, several times, just strolling by. So handsome, so sure of yourself. Just, well, a truly self-confident man. And then, I heard about you. Gossip, you know? About your parents and how you took care of your sister. And I, well, I really liked the things people said about you.
“Of course, I knew that a man like you would never look twice at someone like me. And you never did, until that one special night. And I…well, I just wanted to save that night, in my heart, in my memory. I never dared to believe there could ever be more.”
James decided he couldn’t stand it—the damn desk between them. He slid around it and he got to her in four long strides. “Mary…”
“Uh. What?” She blinked those gorgeous eyes.
He cupped her face in his hands and he whispered, “Shy and wild, you came to me. I knew you, knew your secrets before you shared them, knew your heart that sang to mine…”
“James.” Her voice held wonder—and a touch of accusation. “You have been reading my mother’s poetry.”
He confessed, “I figured it out yesterday. I’ve been to the bookstore, bought all three of her books. And you’re right. I have been reading. And, well, Mary, I have a question for you.”
“A question…”
“Do you believe in love at first sight?”
She frowned at him, clearly unsure how to answer.
He stroked her hair, loving the silky feel of it, hardly daring to believe that she was really here, that he was touching her again when for two endless weeks he’d thought her gone forever from his life.
“Please, Mary. Tell me. Do you?”
She caught her lower lip between her pretty white teeth, thinking hard, then carefully began her answer. “Well, people do say that’s not possible, don’t they? I mean, there’s attraction at first sight, certainly. But how can we really call it love? When you don’t even know the person, when you aren’t even—”
He went for broke. “I do, Mary.”
She blinked again. “Hmm?”
“I do. Believe in love. At first sight.”
“Uh. You do?”
“Since I first saw you, yes. I believe in it.”
Mary felt it was only fair to point out the flaw in his logic. “But James, you saw me several times, before that night at the ball. And you didn’t even know I was there.”
“I was a fool.”
Well, she couldn’t very well argue with that. “Yes, James. You were.”
“But now, I do see you, Mary. I see all of you, I swear that I do. You’re here. You’re real.”
“Yes.” She found she was smiling. “You’re right, James. I am.”
“Kiss me, Mary.”
And she did.
And a month later, in June, they were married—at the Lone Star Country Club, of course.
FRANKIE’S FIRST DRESS
Ann Major
For my readers: The gate is always open to those who come with love.
Chapter 1
Frankie Moore’s hands flew off her steering wheel, and she shook her fists at the big, blue-white sky. Center stripes blurred crazily. Then her big tires hit the grooved edge of the shoulder that rumbled warnings to sleepy drivers, drunks and to girls who were as mad as hornets at tyrants who were ruining their lives.
When her tires hit grass, Frankie grabbed the wheel and swerved her pickup back onto the highway.
The things she did for the people she loved—especially for Aunt Susie!
“Not Vince Randal, though!” she hissed up at her rearview mirror as if there were a real person sitting up there who could hear her.
“It’s really pushing it to demand I choose him to escort me to the debutante ball! I’ll choose my own escort, thank you very much!”
“Okay, then—who, smartie-pants?” came a little voice.
The tall, golden-haired, impossible devil who sprang instantly to mind caused Frankie to shiver even though it was hot, very hot for May.
“No. Not him! No way!”
Not that Aunt Susie, who was the closest thing Frankie had to a real mother, had asked her such an impertinent question. Not that she would suggest that particular yellow-haired devil who swaggered around in tight jeans and cowboy boots like he thought he was a god. Not that Frankie would ever tell her aunt off, either. Aunt Susie had done so much for her. The last thing Frankie would ever want to do was crush her.
Frankie chewed at the sore place she made when she’d bitten her tongue during their heated discussion. Just the thought of that argument got her shaking again and caused her foot to fall heavily on the accelerator.
The speed limit sign outside of Mission Creek read fifty-five. She looked down. Her speedometer said eighty-five. Uncle Wayne’s last admonition lit up in her mind like a neon sign.
“One more ticket—even a warning ticket—and no truck for you, young lady!”
With a sigh of regret, Frankie lifted her scarred boot off the gas pedal.
It was bad enough having to be a dumb old debutante. She couldn’t endure the thought of suffering through such an ordeal on the arm of stuffy Vince Randal.
Aunt Susie’s words rang in Frankie’s mind. “If you aren’t going to college, it’s time you started thinking about settling down, about your future.”
“I am thinking about my future. That’s all I’m thinking about!”
“A smart, pretty girl should think about catching the right kind of man.”
“Oh, please—”
“Why don’t you just call Vince back?”
“I think I’ll do all those errands you were fussing at me about in
stead.”
“What about Vince?”
Frankie had chomped down on her tongue and then flung herself out the door.
This whole thing was crazy—Frankie Moore, tomboy, cowgirl, being fitted for a ball gown? Why, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d worn a dress. Or high heels. Bows and frills were for other girls.
Of course, there were those faded pictures on the piano of that guiless cherub with the big green eyes and mussed red ringlets reminding her of the times Aunt Susie had trussed her up in itchy outfits trimmed fussily with an over-abundance of lace and little seed pearls and lots of frilly bows. That was before Frankie had had a say of her own. But by the vast age of three, Frankie had been a pure tomboy cowgirl in her jeans.
Frankie didn’t own a dress! Didn’t want to either! Being a debutante this season wasn’t about her. It was about Aunt Susie, who was still a Houston girl at heart, a city girl who’d fallen for a rich cowboy. Aunt Susie hadn’t had a clue as to how difficult life with her man in the south Texas desert would be for a society woman like her.
Saturday was a big shopping day in little towns like Mission Creek. Even though it was still early, as soon as Frankie hit the commercial section of the town, the traffic was bumper to bumper. She drove several blocks at ten miles an hour without seeing even one parking space. Then, as she was passing Coyote Harry’s and was about to explode with impatience and give up by turning onto a side street, to her amazement, she saw two empty parking spots on Main Street. Right in front of Mission Creek Creations—Mrs. Margaret McKenzie’s Little Shop of Horrors!
Her dreaded destination!
Frankie smiled. Now be nice. Remember, nobody else in Mission Creek calls it that.
Mrs. McKenzie had been running her fancy dress shop for thirty years. She’d dressed generations of debutantes. Much as Frankie dreaded being fitted for her ball gown, at least she’d get to see her friend, Mary Clark, who worked as a dress shop assistant.
Lone Star Country Club: The Debutantes Page 18