My heart melted a little bit. This was what Meemaw had seen in Will. As if she’d read my thoughts and wanted to confirm that, yes, underneath the splay of whiskers and the mischievous smile, Will Flores was a one heck of a good man, the chimes hanging just outside the workroom window tinkled playfully.
Josie and I both stared at Will, speechless, as he beat a path to the front door, threw up his hand in a quick wave, and left without another word.
Chapter 15
Later that day, I took comfort in my bedroom, mostly because it had been Meemaw’s room, and I felt her presence lingering here more than anywhere else in the house. Her old Mission-style rocking chair, with its leather seat and walnut finish, sat in the corner next to an oval mirror. I’d bought a dresser, placing family photos on top, including my favorites of my friend Orphie Cates at Fashion Week, Nana and her goats, and Mama and Meemaw on the front porch.
A few months back I’d realized that Mama’s smile hadn’t quite reached her eyes in the photograph, but recently Hoss McClaine had put it back there, and I’d be forever grateful to him for that.
It was the picture of Meemaw, her blond streak prominent, her head tilted toward Mama, and her smile as broad and real as I’d ever seen it, that made me smile and made my heart clench in sorrow at the very same time. Family. It was the driving force behind everything Meemaw did.
In the shower, I let the warm water run over me until the bits of sorrow that I hadn’t been able to shake, the lingering sadness over Dan Lee’s death, Raylene’s pain, and baby Boone, washed down the drain. Meemaw had wanted me back in Bliss, and here I was. I was going to make her proud, and if there was any chance I could help Raylene, then I’d do it.
I pushed back the Waverly toile shower curtain, stepping into the cold air. My skin was instantly covered with goose bumps. Not even the fluffy bath sheet or the long terry robe I bundled up in could ward off the chill. So much for relying on the new central air and heat. I slipped my frozen feet into my knockoff Ugg slippers and padded out of the small bathroom, through my bedroom, stepping on the loose floorboard that Will hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet, and into the hallway to check the thermostat.
“What in the world?” I muttered. How could the inside temperature have dropped from the toasty seventy degrees I’d had it set at just a little while ago to a bone-chilling sixty-one?
I adjusted it, then hurried back to the bathroom to dry my hair so I wouldn’t catch my death, as Mama always said.
I shut the door behind me to keep the warmth from the residual shower steam in the room, turned to plug in the hair dryer, and felt my heart drop to my feet. The oval mirror was still fogged, but right there in the center were crudely printed words. They were already fading away as the steam dissipated, but I knew it was a message from Meemaw. A thrill went through me and my goose bumps vanished. A new way to communicate!
The thick lines ran together and were blurry, but once I put on my glasses, the words were clear.
Help her.
I stood frozen to the spot, staring. “Help who? Raylene?” I asked aloud, my voice sounding tinny in the small room.
The shower curtain rustled. When I turned back, there were more words on the mirror.
She’s innocent.
I pulled my robe tighter around my body, trying to ward off the chill. “How do you know? I think she was there, right outside waiting for Hattie. She may have pushed—”
The rest of the sentence caught in my throat as words appeared on the mirror in true ghostlike fashion.
Trust me.
The goose bumps on my skin took on a new sensation, less from the cold, more from the ominousness of those two words. I wanted to trust her. I wanted to believe Raylene and Boone could live happily ever after. But was it the truth? How could Meemaw be so sure?
The shower curtain moved again, but no more words appeared on the mirror. The fog cleared until any trace of the message was gone and I faced only my reflection. My dark hair hung in a stringy, wet mess. I tucked it behind my ear, but stopped short, leaning over the sink to look more closely at the blond streak that started at my hairline. It looked like the stripe on a skunk’s back, but was it . . . was it getting blonder?
Somewhere in the distance, I heard bells ringing. I blinked, my mind and my body reconnecting again until I was back in the moment.
Will!
“You up there, Cassidy?” His voice drifted up the stairs.
I forgot about my hair as I hurried back through the bedroom and down the hall, stopping at the top of the stairwell. “Be down in a sec,” I called, trying to mask the worry in my voice. Help her. Meemaw’s words echoed in my head. “Make yourself at home.”
Which, of course, he already had. His arrangement with Meemaw had given him free rein of the house to handle her repair needs. Her passing hadn’t changed that. He came and went, sometimes before I even registered that he’d been around.
I flew into action, hanging my head down to do a quick blow-dry, putting on just a touch of mascara and bronzer, and throwing on a pair of gray wool pants and a red sweater.
Ten minutes later, I was in the passenger seat of Will’s truck making small talk and pushing all thoughts of Raylene, Dan Lee, and Meemaw as far to the back of my mind as I could.
The cold weather, kidnapping, and murder hadn’t stopped Bliss’s historic downtown from brimming with holiday cheer. We ate dinner at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop just off the square, an eclectic little place full of character. Casual, inexpensive, and delicious. Fuzzy’s was a Bliss institution.
As we stepped outside after our dinner, the wind hit us full force. Will had changed into khaki Dockers, a navy sweater with an argyle pattern down the center, and a gray wool jacket for our date, but without a hat, the tops of his ears had turned red.
The cold front from the north had dropped the temperature to a teeth-chattering thirty-seven degrees. “It’s supposed to get colder tonight,” he said, pulling on a pair of black leather gloves.
“Thank God that little baby is safe.” I wrapped my scarf around my neck, buttoning my jacket under my chin and pulling my knit hat down over my ears. We walked across the grassy lawn of the courthouse square, then under the pergola, the twinkling lights around us making for a perfect romantic atmosphere. I tilted my head back and took in the details of the structure I knew he’d designed, right down to the location of the grassy lawn and the rectangular slabs of stamped cement forming the walkway underneath. “It’s beautiful,” I said.
We walked along the bare Texas ash and American elm trees that twinkled with tiny white lights, passed Bliss Donuts on the Square, ambled by a podiatrist’s office, and just as we passed An Open Book, the bookstore Josie’s sister-in-law, Miriam Kincaid, had just opened, Will took my hand.
And I felt a flutter in the pit of my stomach.
He was right. My mojo was coming back. All I’d needed was some good food, some fresh air, and Will Flores holding my hand. I felt like a fifteen-year-old girl out on her first date.
We walked around the square, passing Villa Farina, Josie’s bead shop, a home decor shop, and the red and white awnings of the old-fashioned ice cream parlor.
A minute later, we waited to cross the street at the corner. He pointed at the Victorian-era house across the street. “I hate to ask, but mind if I run into the Historical Society office for a second? I have to grab some paperwork.”
“Sure.”
The light turned green and we crossed Dallas Street, turning right and ambling up the walkway to the porch. “It’ll just take a minute,” he said, letting go of my hand as he pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.
He shut the door behind me, turned the dead bolt, and flipped on the light switch. The old house maintained its historic charm but managed to hold a business office ambience at the same time. The parlor to the right looked like it was used as a waiting room and maybe as a conference area. To the left I caught a glimpse of the small kitchen. Will stopped at the base of the stairs
and gestured to the photographs hanging on the walls, and to a display case. “Feel free to look around. I’ll be right back.”
He took the stairs two at a time, glancing back at me with a slight smile playing on his lips.
That schoolgirl feeling hit me again, but I swallowed the flutters and focused on the historic artifacts. I’d been in the old courthouse at the center of the square and had walked through the museum. My favorite section of the museum’s collections was the textiles. Handmade lace, quilts, and homespun fabrics filled one entire room of the courthouse.
The only similar display here was a folded-up quilt sitting on the lowest shelf of the freestanding case. I passed photographs of Bliss’s founding fathers, Justin Kincaid and Charles Denison, standing in front of the Denison mansion, one of Bliss’s first post office, a little one-horse building that had long ago burned down, and a picture of a stately looking building with a stone facade and a wide cement stairway leading to the double front doors. A hundred years ago, it had been Mission College. When the college moved to a nearby town, the building was purchased by the school district and it became Bliss’s first high school. The district had grown, a new high school was built, and now the original Mission College was Mcafferty Middle School.
Farther down were pictures of famous outlaws who’d passed through the Lone Star State. My own kin, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang had a place of honor. Next to it was a photo of a young Jesse James before his death and burial in Missouri, and an older man who went by the name of J. Frank Dalton and who claimed to be the real Jesse James. Finally, a photo of Bonnie and Clyde and the Barrow Gang, who, according to legend, hid out in the backyard of 2112 Mockingbird Lane when my great-great-grandma Cressida Cassidy was a girl.
“Cassidy.”
I jumped, startled by Will suddenly standing beside me, the look on his face making me think he’d said my name more than once. “Got lost in the past,” I said.
He took my hand and pulled me away from the pictures. “Did you see this? Josie registered it with the Texas Quilt Project before she donated it.”
He pointed to the lowest shelf of a curio case and the folded quilt that lay there, showing a worn and frayed fabric faded from age. I couldn’t see the whole pattern, but I knew it was a colorful mosaic, or honeycomb, pattern, the hexagon design made from gray and pastel calico prints. The quilter’s stitches were short and uniform—a true testament to her skill. A quilter’s stitch was like her signature—distinct and identifiable. The pads of my fingers dusted the top of the old cloth, snagging on a small section of broken stitches. “What’s the Texas Quilt Project?” I asked.
He riffled through the file he’d brought down as he said, “It’s a statewide documentation effort. People bring old quilts in to be photographed. The documenters record information about the quilt maker, fabric, style. Stuff like that. It’s recorded on inventory forms.”
“So it’s the oral history of the quilts?” I had several Cassidy quilts in a closet at the old farmhouse. Meemaw had made one of them, and I thought Cressida Cassidy had made one as well. The other two I suspected were made by Texana, but I’d never been sure.
“This one belonged to Etta Place,” he said, “although I don’t think they know if she actually made it since it’s signed E.B.”
I brushed my fingers over the worn fabric, but turned to Will. “Did you get what you needed?”
One side of his mouth quirked up in a sort of half smile. “All set,” he said, his smoky gaze traveling to my lips, and I got the distinct impression that he wasn’t thinking about the file.
But he held his thoughts and opened the door for me and we braved the cold night again.
“There’s a band at Bliss Donuts on the Square,” he said.
I laughed. I didn’t go out much, and the nightlife in Bliss was a far cry from that in Fort Worth or Dallas. “That’s not something you hear every day. Don’t bands usually play at the park or down at Buddy’s?”
He stopped to stare at me. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been to Bliss Donuts on the Square.”
“Okay,” I said, smiling up at him. “I won’t tell you.”
“Let me guess. You’re a traditionalist.”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.” The quirky donut shop had opened long after I’d moved to Manhattan, and since I’d been back in Bliss, I hadn’t ventured away from Villa Farina and the abundance of treats there that I was slowly working my way through.
We started walking again. Will had his file folder in one gloved hand and my hand in his other. “Don’t get me wrong. I love Villa Farina—”
This time I pulled him to a stop. “As well you should. What’s not to love?” The Italian bakery was almost my home away from home. Bobby Farina made melt-in-your-mouth mini Italian pastries just like his family’s original bake shop in New York. “Have you had Bobby’s tiramisu?”
He yanked my hand until I was walking again. “I have, and it’s amazing, but Bliss Donuts on the Square is a different bird. It’s tough for any business to make a go of it these days—”
“Mmm-hmm.” I had recurring nightmares that all Meemaw’s otherworldly interventions weren’t going to be enough to keep Buttons & Bows in the black and that I’d end up losing the shop and the house, all in one fell swoop.
“—so they have bands play and have a bar—”
“With their donuts.”
“Which are baked.”
“Healthy donuts.” That sounded like it would be sacrilegious to a donut connoisseur, akin to an evening gown made out of polyester and plastic beads.
“Maybe not healthy,” he said. “But tasty. Amazing variety. Cherry pie. Granola. Lemon. Brie and apricot.”
“I’m game,” I said as we passed Villa Farina again, hung a right, then a left at the next block.
He pulled me close, letting go of my hand and slipping his arm around my shoulder. I moved closer, my body fitting snugly against his. He was better than the little space heater I kept in my workroom. The cold left me and I felt safe and warm and comfortable.
We stopped at the orange and blue logo of Bliss Donuts on the Square. The band tonight was really a one-woman show. The poster board sitting on an easel in the corner billed the tall, auburn-haired singer as Giselle. No last name, like Cher, Madonna, and Adele. She had a folksy bent to her voice—easy to listen to as you indulged.
“They’re square,” I said, eyeing the flaky pastry.
“Donuts on the Square. Get it?”
I did. And apparently I wasn’t alone. The place was doing a steady business. “Is that Gracie and Libby?” I asked a few minutes later as we waited for a table, sipping our coffee and nibbling our pretzchocamels, the shop’s salty-and-sweet concoction.
Will turned, waggled his eyebrows at his daughter and Libby Allen—the two had become fast friends during the Margaret Moffette Lea Pageant and Ball a few months back—but stayed away from their table.
“Good dad,” I said.
He kept one eye on the girls as two teenage boys ambled past their table. They kept walking, and Will turned back to me only after the boys had gone. “Hmm?”
“You’re a good dad, giving the girls their space.”
“That’s me, dad of the year,” he said with a grimace. I knew he was still beaten and battered after the blowup with Gracie over the truth about her mother and learning that her grandparents, the Mcaffertys, lived right here in Bliss and still knew nothing about her. He’d tried to take Gracie to meet them, but she’d chickened out each time.
“You’re doing a pretty great job, Will. Gracie’s a terrific girl.”
“She is. The Mcaffertys, they’re just . . . so different from us.”
“She still doesn’t want to meet them?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
He glanced at his daughter one last time before we spotted an empty table in the back corner. From the looks of it, Bliss Donuts on the Square was the place to be. Besides Gracie
and Libby, I saw quite a few familiar faces. Jude, the nurse from the hospital, sat at the counter. She waved at me, giving me a quick look up and down to gauge how I was faring with my injuries. I gave her a thumbs-up and a smile, wishing I could hide the slight limp I still had from the fall.
She frowned, as if she could see right through my tough-girl facade, but then the friend she was with said something to her and she turned her attention back to her donuts, the singer, and her companion.
I spotted Hattie and Arnie Barnett at a table in the corner, a stack of magazines between them. Hattie closed her issue of Country Decor as we came up. My pulse quickened. I should steer clear of playing detective, but maybe Hattie would say something to alleviate my worry over her and Raylene.
Arnie wore a North Texas ball cap, a quilted plaid flannel jacket, jeans, and work boots, and I got the feeling this was dressed up for him. I liked Will’s version of dressed up much better.
He scraped his chair back and stood, rolling up a worn copy of Numismatic News and setting it on the chair. He captured Will’s hand in a forceful handshake. “Good to see you, man. Out on the town, eh?” He looked from me to Hattie. “Us too.”
Hattie gave a strained smile, her jacket wrapped tightly around herself. She looked pale and drawn.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked her.
A visible shiver passed over her. “Still a little shell-shocked over Boone.”
Arnie waved his hand at her. “He’s back home with Raylene and everything’s fine.” He looked back to us and added, “We barely had time to get folks organized and start looking for him when you found him.”
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