The fiddle playing stopped and a low buzz went up around the sanctuary as the guests processed Granddaddy’s statement and began filing out.
“We’ll be along shortly,” Gavin said. “We have a stop to make on the way.”
I raised my eyebrows at them both.
“The book,” Orphie said. “We’re going to mail it back. Gavin’s been holding it for safekeeping.”
Together. Something was in the air. I couldn’t say if it was love, but whatever was between Orphie and Gavin had them joined at the hip and was bringing out the nurturing side of the deputy.
I was glad for it if it made Orphie happy and set her back on the right path. Returning Maximilian’s book was a step in the right direction.
They headed out and I gathered up the skirt of my gown in my hand, hurrying toward the door. “We have to hurry and get there before everyone else. Call Raylene and Hattie, please,” I said to Will. I hadn’t seen them at the church yet, so maybe we’d be able to intercept them before they left Seven Gables so they could turn right back around and get ready for an early reception.
I stopped short at the sidewalk. “I came with my grandparents,” I said to Will.
“I’ll drive.” He grabbed my hand, but instead of heading toward his truck, he pulled me close, planting a kiss on my mouth. “Damn. What a waste of a good church,” he said, a crooked half grin on his lips. “Some other time, Cassidy.”
I gulped down the surprise bubbling inside me, but before I could respond—or even wonder at yet another reference to him and me in wedded bliss, he pulled me into motion, and off we went to host a reception for a wedding that hadn’t happened.
Chapter 32
Will sped up to Seven Gables, pulling into the driveway. He threw it into park, and I jumped out, running as quickly as I could in my high heels. Up the drive, through the back gate, up the back porch steps, and in through the door into the kitchen.
“Raylene! Hattie!” I hollered through the house. I grabbed an apron and picked up the first tray. It would take who knew how many trips to haul them to the tents. Will grabbed two trays, and we backed out of the door, set the food on one of the tables under the tents, then raced back inside.
I was just bending over to pull one of the trays laden with fried chicken from the oven when I heard a sound from the front room. The creaks and noises were different than those at Buttons & Bows. Every old house seemed to have its own personality and quirks. Mine also had a ghost.
I closed the oven door as Will came back in. At the same moment, a woman’s voice wafted into the kitchen, growing louder as its owner came closer. I whipped around, recognizing the voice instantly. “Mama!”
She appeared in the kitchen and I forgot all about the chicken and the wedding guests about to descend on the inn. “Tessa Cassidy,” I demanded, “where the devil have you been?”
Mama didn’t look distraught. Nor did she look as though she’d just missed her own wedding. In fact, she was wearing the dress I’d made for her, blinged-out boots, white cowboy hat with a tuft of tulle she must have affixed herself, and a good amount of makeup for her, which is to say she had on a dash of mascara and her lips were a shimmery coral.
Her cheeks matched her mouth, and from her Cheshire Cat grin, she looked as if she’d been up to no good and was mighty proud of it.
“Darlin’, don’t be sore.”
I jammed my hands on my hips, perfectly aware of how ridiculous I looked in my designer gown, heels, and colorful, ruffled apron. But I didn’t care. Mama had bailed on her nuptials, and she had some explaining to do.
“Don’t be sore? Mama, you left us at the church without a word. We were worried sick.” I lowered my voice to a harsh whisper for emphasis. “There’s a murderer around here, remember? I thought . . .” I gulped down the fear that I’d kept tightly bottled up inside me. “I thought something had happened to you.” I waved my arm up and down, gesturing to her dress. “And why in tarnation are you wearing that?”
“It’s what a gal wears when she gets hitched,” Hoss McClaine said as he sauntered into the kitchen.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted the plant sitting in the center of the kitchen table and saw that it trembled and shook, its stalks stretching toward the ceiling before my eyes. When Mama was distraught, the plants around her withered. If things were really bad, they died. But the lavender wasn’t wilting. It was growing and the colors of the buds were changing to a deep purple right before our eyes.
Hoss stretched his hand out to Will, who moved forward to shake it. “Sir.”
I studied them both as my mind raced through the possibilities. “But you didn’t get hitched,” I said, my eyes narrowing. Mama wasn’t one to wring her hands, and if I could base anything on the lavender, she wasn’t upset. Still, her hands were clasped and twisting in front of her.
Hoss dropped his hand back to his side and Will came back to me, touching the small of my back. My mind processed. Wringing hands. Shaking hands. Mama’s smile and her wedding outfit. Hoss hitched his thumbs into the front pockets of his brand-new black jeans. Something shiny caught the light from the window over the sink, drawing my eye. A ring.
A ring? My gaze flew to Mama’s left hand. To her fourth finger. And, holy smokes, to the gold band firmly situated below the knuckle.
“What is that?” I asked without blinking. Without shifting my gaze. Without breathing. “Did you elope?”
“Darlin’,” she said, moving close enough to put her hands on my shoulders. With my pumps on, I towered over her a good five inches, but she looked up at me, still my mother and still full of motherly authority. “Hoss was over when you brought the dress by. We were talkin’ late last night, and well, one thing led to another and we just decided we wouldn’t wait. We shouldn’t wait.”
“Got a hold of my cousin to officiate for us in Corsicana,” Hoss said. “He performed the ceremony early this morning.”
I stared at them, stunned into silence. They were married. Tessa Cassidy and Hoss McClaine had jumped the broom. They were husband and wife. And they’d done it on the down low, keeping us all in the dark, from me to Gavin and everyone in between.
“But why?” I finally asked. “Why not just wait for the ceremony?”
Hoss took hold of Mama’s fidgety hand. “I wasn’t gonna let her try and back out again, Harlow. Your mama’s jittery, and dagnabbit, no way was I lettin’ her get away.”
I could understand where he was coming from, but still. “Ever hear of a phone? I know you both have one,” I said. The irony of the conversation wasn’t lost on me. When I’d been a rebellious teenager in Bliss, I’d been wrung out plenty of times by Hoss, and then hung out to dry by Mama directly after. My, how the tables had turned. Here I was, ready to read them both the riot act for not calling, for worrying us all, and for shirking a commitment they’d made.
But looking at the goofy, love-struck grins on their faces, I was sure my words would fall on deaf ears.
“You do know you’re partly to blame,” Mama said to me.
I sputtered, pressing my open palm to my chest. “Me? Just how do you figure that?”
She winked at me. “Darlin’, you know your charm works like a . . . well, like a charm. You made my dress, and sure enough, I felt something the second I put it on. What I wanted most was to live out my days with Hoss, and I had a moment of clarity. Now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t have some doubts, but I’m smart enough not to fight my destiny.”
I gestured to my dress. “I was supposed to be the maid of honor. I might have liked to see you get married.” I tried not to come across as too disgruntled. The truth was, I was happy for her and Hoss, both. They deserved the happiness they’d found with each other, with or without a church wedding in Bliss.
“Now, now, Harlow.” Mama pulled away from her new husband, came to me, and placed her hands on my shoulders. “It’s all right. Everyone will understand. We’re here now.”
I sighed. I was thrilled they’d come back f
or the reception instead of hightailing it to Choctaw Casino a short ways over the Oklahoma border. There was no more time for recrimination. Outside, car doors slammed. Voices, conversation, and laughter rang out as the wedding guests, now exclusively reception guests, followed the trail of helium balloons and traipsed up the driveway of Seven Gables toward the tents.
Raylene and Hattie burst into the kitchen like twin tornados, spinning into action. “Good grief! We just made it to the church, heard there wasn’t a weddin’, and had to turn back around,” Raylene exclaimed. She laid eyes on Hoss and Mama, dropped her gaze to the ring on Mama’s finger, blinked, but didn’t pause to ask why or what for. We backed away as they flew into action, grabbing trays of food from nooks and crannies in the kitchen that I hadn’t seen. “You get the cheesy biscuits and I’ll get the barbecue chicken wings,” Raylene told Hattie.
Esmeralda and Barbi came up next to us. I was struck by a vision of the two of them, both of them wearing jeans and T-shirts and looking like regular teenage girls. Nothing designer. Nothing fancy. Nothing that I could make for them, yet it was what they should be wearing. Clothes meant for girls rather than the grown-up ensembles they wore on the runway every week. “Go enjoy some fried chicken,” I said, ushering them through the kitchen and out toward the tents.
For now, there was nothing else I could do. I took off my apron, tossing it aside as Gracie led the way outside. Will guided me with his hand on my lower back, and before long the murder was pushed to the back of my mind and all my thoughts went to celebrating Mama and Hoss’s marriage.
Chapter 33
With the exception of Quinton, the photographer, who’d opted out of the wedding festivities, the out-of-towners stuck together in one corner of the bigger of the two tents set up. To a bunch of city slickers, the backyard barbecue wedding was surely a sight to behold, especially given that there’d been no ceremony to go with it.
Hoss McClaine was a tough man to read. With his iron gray soul patch, matching mustache, and black cowboy hat, he still looked more like the sheriff than the groom, but my perception of him might always be a trifle off. I saw him—and then I saw myself tipping a cow or climbing the town’s water tower right before being caught and hauled off to have a little heart-to-heart with the man himself.
He was a quiet observer, and I knew for a fact that the fashion folk who’d descended upon Bliss a few short days ago and who were sticking together like a bunch of mud daubers in a nest had not escaped his notice. They’d not escaped my notice, either. One of them was likely a murderer, and while I’d thought it might be Midori, all I had were unfounded suspicions. They hung together like a pack, either not wanting to separate and possibly become the next victim, or not wanting to be singled out as not part of the group.
The models were still fast friends, but all I could see when I looked at them was the age difference. Were the Dallas women good influences on the impressionable New York girls? My gut was telling me that something was wrong with the fact that Zoe and Madison were still working for Midori.
“Beautiful dress,” I said to Madison. It was a short cream-colored sheath with cutouts along the sides. Revealing, yet sophisticated. “Is it one of Beaulieu’s?”
She shook her head, her mane of ginger locks floating around her shoulders like a cloud. “I thought so, too, but Jeanette made it,” she said.
If I’d had any doubt as to Jeanette’s talent, this proved the girl had it in spades.
“This one’s Midori’s,” Zoe said, looking down at her own outfit.
“It’s lovely,” I said to Zoe. It was from Midori’s collection the previous year, but the dropped waist and asymmetric hemline were always avant-garde and fashionable.
“Beaulieu has one just like it,” Esmeralda said, shaking her head.
Barbi’s head bobbed up and down. “Almost identical.”
I did a mental headshake. Yet another design Beaulieu had stolen from Midori. How long before he would have reproduced some of mine?
Lindy broke away from the group, catching my eye so I’d follow. “So they skipped the ceremony and came to the reception, huh? Interesting. Maybe I’ll do an article on most unusual Texas weddings. Don’t think it would win me any awards, but it might be good for kicks.”
A “whoop!” went up from the portable dance floor set up in the center of the bigger tent. The country band we’d brought in as entertainment had launched into Waylon Jennings’s “Luckenbach, Texas.” They sang the first lines, paused long enough for another “whoop!” to go up, and then everyone broke out singing the chorus. It was a country wedding anthem, celebrating the basics of love and the simplicity of country living, the Waylon and Willie way.
Mama led the guests in the singalong, Hoss standing to the side, just watching, a happy crook of a grin playing on his lips. He had the basics of love down, but good.
The twinkle lights flickered in time to the music. It couldn’t be Meemaw, could it? I didn’t think she could leave Buttons & Bows or the 2112 Mockingbird Lane property, but maybe I was wrong. She never had been able to sit out a party. Mama came by her eccentricities honestly. As the saying goes, the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.
My apple fell a little further out, but not out of reach. I might not be whooping it up on the dance floor, but I was hunting down a killer. We each had our own way of being unconventional.
Will and I stayed till the bitter end, finally seeing Mama and Hoss off to their first night of marriage, but Mama wasn’t quite done working her own magic for the evening. She stopped at the passenger side of Hoss’s truck and caught my eye before turning her back.
And then she tossed the bouquet.
Right to me.
Chapter 34
“You caught the bouquet!” Josie sat next to me in the dining room of Seven Gables, her five-month-old baby girl, Molly, in her lap. A tuft of dark, fluffy hair was pulled into a plastic barrette on the top of Molly’s head, and she was dressed from head to toe in yellow ruffles. She looked up at me with enormous gray-blue eyes, her little lips drawn together in a bow.
“It was fixed,” I said, typing as we talked. “She knew exactly where to throw it.” Mama and Hoss had gone off on their four-day honeymoon and the guests had finally departed. Raylene and Hattie had taken care of the food cleanup and Madelyn’s husband, Billy, Gavin, Nate, Josie’s husband, Will, and a posse of other men had worked to clean everything else up.
When they were done, Orphie went off with Gavin, and Will eventually took Gracie home, shooting me a lingering glance that made me blush under my custom-fit dress. Josie kept me company until Molly couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.
“It means you’ll be next,” she said, ignoring my cynicism.
“Only if you believe in superstitions like that.” Which, truth be told, I did. But I wasn’t going to brood and wait expectantly for Will to propose. I had other things to occupy my mind, namely the murderer who was still at large.
A short while later, I was back at Buttons & Bows. Meemaw was by my side, her presence almost palpable tonight. I sat at my computer in the dining room, Googling random word combinations that I thought might offer me some revelation.
“What’s Midori hiding?” I asked aloud, taking a break when searching fields of flowers and white rivers didn’t giving me anything useful.
Meemaw didn’t answer. A snack, I decided. I’d been so wrapped up in the events of the day that I’d hardly eaten. That didn’t happen often, and my empty belly reminded me why.
I changed out of my maid of honor dress and into cotton shorts and a tank before warming up a bowlful of peach cobbler Raylene had sent home with me. Skipping straight to dessert seemed like a good idea at the moment. Who knew? Maybe the sugar would fuel my brain.
I added a scoop of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream before padding back to the computer. A new search for poppy fields was up on the computer. “Did you type that, Meemaw?” I asked aloud, but I already knew the answer. It couldn’t have been anyone el
se.
“Poppies?” I clicked one of the links and started reading. Before long, my cobbler was long forgotten, the ice cream melted and streaming in creamy white rivulets down into the base of the bowl. I was reading about a different milky extraction—the air-dried stuff that came from the unripened opium poppy. The article went on to talk about the alkaloids in the plant, including morphine, codeine, and others I’d never heard of.
I grabbed for the phone and dialed. “Poppies,” I said when Will answered.
“Little orange petals?” he said. “As in California’s state flower?”
“Or, you know, the ones used to make opium.”
That caught his attention. “I’m listening.”
I forwarded him the article I’d just read and asked him to have Gracie take a look. “Is that what she saw in her vision?”
From my end of the phone, I heard him ask her the question. There was a lengthy pause while I assumed she looked at the pictures of the unripe capsules that looked like green balloons on the flower stalks, the fields of purple and lavender flowers, and a man patrolling another flower field, assault rifle cradled in his arms. Exactly what she’d described from her dream.
A rustle came over the line followed by Gracie’s excited voice. “That’s it! What’s it mean?”
Will’s voice followed, from the extension, I presumed. “You think that Beaulieu character was killed because of opium?”
“I think it’s possible,” I said slowly, new ideas formulating in my mind as we spoke. I thought again of the bolt of fabric Midori hauled around with her. It wasn’t the fabric that was so valuable; it was something else hidden in it. That had to be it! “What if someone is smuggling this dried poppy drug to Midori, and then she—” Oh Lord. Another piece of the puzzle came together in my head. Her signature wide hems! “What if she takes the stuff from there and the next step is to hide it in the hems of the dresses?” That would explain why they were uneven and why the fit was wrong. If she cut them to compensate for extra weight from whatever she might hide there, it wouldn’t fit correctly until she’d added the packaged drugs to the dresses.
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