Kentucky Heat

by Fern Michaels

  Rhy screwed up his face. “Just pictures of the mortuary. One of a line of coffins. His first dollar I guess, since it’s framed. Who gets the picture of Mom?”

  “We all get one. I’ll take it home with me and have a copy made for each of you. I can order an extra one or maybe have it blown up so you can hang it over the mantel. Would you like me to do that?”

  “Yes,” the brothers said simultaneously. “Yes. Do we look like her, Nealy?”

  “Damn straight we look like her. We have her bone structure, her high cheekbones, and that glorious hair. We might have Coleman blood in our veins, but we don’t look anything like those bastards. Just goes to show who had the best gene pool. Are there any others?”

  Suddenly the hateful words Rhy had spoken to her the previous spring came to the forefront of her mind. “We really don’t know what he was like so I can’t honestly say we aren’t like him. But I do know that if things had gone differently, we wouldn’t be the people we are today, and we might not be sitting here.”

  “That’s it for the pictures. Some magazines with new methods for embalming.”

  Pyne shuddered.

  “Your turn, sis,” Pyne said, pushing a carton toward her with his booted foot. “Wait, let’s have a beer and a cigarette. This . . . this . . . shakes up your insides. I’ll fetch it.”

  “I bet she was just like you, Nealy,” Rhy said as he stared down at the picture of his mother. “You’re her daughter, so it stands to reason you would take after her. We aren’t like that . . . our father, are we, Nealy? What I said before about not knowing what he was like . . . Sons are supposed to take after their fathers.”

  Nealy placed a comforting hand on her brother’s shoulder. “All we have to remember now is that our mother loved us. He doesn’t matter. Sons do not always take after their fathers. Sometimes they take after their mothers.”

  Pyne returned with the beer. “Let’s make a toast to our pretty mother,” he said in a choked voice.

  Nealy bit down on her lip, her eyes filling with hot tears. “To you, Mom,” she said, holding up her bottle to clink it against Rhy’s and Pyne’s.

  “She had a nickname. They called her Marty. We never knew that before. She liked violets. Before I leave, I want to plant some violets on her grave. You two will have to tend it and weed it. You’ll do that, won’t you?”

  “It will be a privilege,” Pyne said softly.

  “Nealy,” Rhy said, sitting his beer down next to him, “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for the past couple of days but kept forgetting. Dillon Roland has a new foal. Heard in town last week that he was boasting it was Derby material. Born same time Shufly was born. He calls him Navigator. Says this time he’s going to go all the way to the Triple Crown.”

  Nealy laughed aloud. “Not in this lifetime. There are no words to tell you how much I hate that man.”

  “So does everyone else around here. I know you registered Shufly for the Derby the day he was born, but do you think he’s Derby material? Do you have any sense of it yet?” Rhy asked.

  “You know the answer to that question yourself, Rhy. It’s too soon to tell. But I will tell you he’s got everything going for him. If I had to take a guess, and it’s just a wild guess, I’d say yes. Shufly isn’t the problem. I’m the problem. I’m pretty old to be running the Derby.”

  Both brothers whooped with laughter to show what they thought of that idea. Nealy grinned. How wonderful it was to sit with her brothers, laughing and talking like a real family. Please, God, don’t ever let this change.

  “Okay, your turn, Nealy. Let’s see what you have there,” Pyne said.

  Nealy took a long, deep breath and felt her nerves spike. Would this be the box that finally put to rest all her old longings? Don’t have high expectations, Nealy. Childishly she crossed her fingers and bent over to bend back the flaps of the cardboard carton. “It’s clothes!” she said in dismay. “Socks and underwear, a wool sweater and some gloves.”

  Her brothers looked at one another. Both of them dropped to their knees to put their arms around her. “It’s okay, Nealy. You have the pincushion and the picture. A few days ago we never expected even that. Just be grateful, and we have one more box to go through. It might turn out to be the best one yet. Why don’t we go outside and walk down to the barn. We need to clear our heads. This is powerful stuff we’re doing here. Come on, Nealy,” Pyne said, helping his sister to her feet.

  They were back in the house within the hour, their faces hopeful but resigned.

  “Nealy, you open this last one. You’re the only daughter, so it should be you. Let’s just agree that whatever it is, it’s more than we had when we started out. We need to be grateful for this little bit,” Pyne said.

  “You’re right. Well, here goes.” Gingerly, Nealy folded back the flaps of the box, then bent them downward. A piece of yellow paper lay across the contents of the box. In dark ink, the huge printed words proclaimed MARTY’S THINGS. “Oh, God, oh, God!” Nealy said, clapping her hands to her cheeks. “It’s Mama’s things. How did he get them if she went away? Did that hateful old man send them to Carl Ridley?”

  “Maybe the answers to your questions are in the box, Nealy. See what it is,” Rhy said, sitting down on the floor next to his sister. Pyne settled himself in the space on the other side of Nealy.

  “It’s her things. Her personal things. Things she either left behind or . . . or, I don’t know what. Here’s a bracelet, but it’s tarnished. A book. Oh, look, it’s Little Women. Here’s another one, Jane Eyre. That means Mama liked to read. Oh, isn’t this wonderful. Oh, look at this, it’s pressed violets in a little silver frame. It’s tarnished, too, but I can polish it up. Violets must have had some special kind of meaning to her.” Nealy opened a small wooden box whose lid was on hinges. “It’s her recipes. Recipes she wrote. In her own handwriting. Look how pretty her writing is. All swirly and flowery. You can hardly read my handwriting.” Tears dripped down her cheeks as she reached for a packet of faded photographs tied with a violet-colored ribbon. She handed the packet to her brothers.

  Rhy undid the ribbon, his eyes wet. “It’s us when we were little. Damn, we were good-looking kids. She wrote our ages and names on the back.” He passed the snapshots to Pyne, who passed them to Nealy. They cried openly then, brothers and sister. It was the last picture that brought Nealy to her feet. “Well, if there was ever any doubt, this erases it. It says, Rhy, Pyne, Cornelia, and their daddy, Seth Coleman. I know our first instinct is to burn this, but it is the only picture we have that’s proof. If neither of you mind, I’d like to keep this. I won’t look at it or anything like that, but I do think we need to preserve it. Don’t ask me why I think this, I just do. Do you agree?”

  “Sure,” Pyne said.

  “It’s okay with me.”

  “Good. How about if I take all these pictures with me, get new negatives and prints made. Then we’ll each have a set. Look how cute you two are. You can see by the look on Mama’s face that she adored you both. You can’t even see me, I’m so bundled up. This is the only picture of me from that time. It proves I’m me. Do you have any idea how important that is to me? Maud and Jess took pictures of me, but I was seventeen then. These are real.”

  “What else is in there?” Rhy asked, peering into the box.

  “That’s because you bundle up babies,” Pyne said gruffly. “I can see your face.”

  “A scarf wrapped in tissue paper. It feels like silk. A snood. That’s to keep your hair in place. Here’s a jeweler’s box! Mama had jewelry!” Nestled inside the velvet box was a single strand of pearls and a silver ring that looked like a wedding ring.

  Three pairs of eyes stared down at the pearls and the ring.

  “These pearls are older than I am. Why would Mama have a wedding ring? Do you think it was a pretend ring? You know, to make her feel better about her relationship with Seth Coleman.”

  “That would be my guess,” Pyne said. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Nealy. It real
ly doesn’t.”

  “It matters to me, Pyne. It always will, too.” Nealy handed the box to Rhy, who dropped it. The silver ring rolled across the floor. Nealy scrambled on all fours to capture it. Pyne picked up the pearls. Rhy reached for the box, dropped it a second time, and watched as the velvet lining fell loose. A square of brittle paper, folded over to match the size of the lining, fell out.

  Nealy sucked in her breath. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Rhy said.

  “Maybe it’s one of those things none of us wants to know. If our mother hid it in this box, she must have done it for a reason,” Pyne said. “Maybe we don’t have any right to look at it.”

  Nealy gave her brother a long-suffering look. “She’s gone, Pyne. We have to look at it. When people hide things they always expect those things to be found someday. Maud told me that. You’re the closest, Rhy, you see what it is.”

  “You’re a girl. You do it,” Pyne said.

  “All right. But if it turns out to be something none of us likes or that we can’t handle, we put it back and never mention it again. We have to agree, or I’m not touching it.”

  “We agree, we agree. Just do it already,” Rhy said loudly, his voice booming all around the room.

  Nealy’s touch was reverent as she unfolded the fragile square of paper. “It’s . . . it’s a . . . what it is is . . .”

  “For God’s sake, Nealy, what the hell is it?” Pyne exploded.

  “It’s a marriage license! Mama was married to Seth Coleman. It says so right here. Look for yourself!”

  “Just tell me one thing, are we legitimate or illegitimate?” Pyne demanded hoarsely.

  “You are legitimate! We all are. Look at the dates! Just look at those dates!” Nealy screamed at the top of her lungs. “There is a God after all! I knew there was, but this . . . this makes it all right. I can’t believe this! If they were married, why did they let everyone think . . . those awful things?”

  “Who knows the way that ugly man’s mind worked? More to the point, if Seth Coleman was married to our mother, did he divorce her? How could he have sold us off to his brother?”

  “I don’t know, Pyne. We’ll probably never know. I don’t know about you two, but I am in total shock. I simply can’t believe this.”

  “Are you sure it’s real? You said the ring might be a pretend ring. Maybe this is a pretend marriage license,” Rhy said.

  “No, it’s real. As real as my marriage certificate to Hunt. See, here’s the raised seal. We can always check it out. They were married in Nevada. I don’t think it would be hard to check. I can have Ruby ask the Thorntons to do it for us. It’s just all so unbelievable.”

  “Is there anything else in the box, Nealy?” Pyne asked.

  “Some letters. I guess they’re from her sisters. And a book. No, it’s not a book. Well, it is a book but it’s a diary. Mama’s diary. Oh, my God! Mama kept a diary. Now we’ll know everything. Everything we ever wanted to know about her. Look, it’s late. Let’s make some dinner since it’s your cook’s day off. Some fresh coffee. We’ll build up the fire and sit in here, and I’ll read her life to us this evening. I want to think about all this for a little while. You know, kind of hug it to me. Is that okay with you both?”

  “Sure, but you have to do the cooking. I have some things to check on at the barn. Rhy, you bring in a load of firewood. Bring lots of it. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night. You might need to bring in some beer from the back porch.”

  Nealy settled herself in the corner of the deep, comfortable sofa. Next to her on a small table was a thermos of coffee. Beer bottles in a bucket of ice rested on the coffee table between her brothers’ recliners. It was nine-thirty when Nealy opened her mother’s diary. Once it had been bright red. Now it was faded to a dusty pink. The small brass key was pinned in place with a thumbtack.

  “This is a five-year diary. What that means is there are just a few lines for each day of the year. I never had one of these, but I gave one to Emmie when she was about ten. We used to laugh at how she could only get a few words on each page because she wrote her letters so big. She would . . . What she would do was write her secrets on a piece of paper and then Scotch tape it to the page. At the end of the first year that diary was ten inches thick with extra sheets of paper. This diary,” she said, looking at her brothers, “was probably never meant to be read. I have mixed feelings about reading it. Maybe if we’d had a normal life and came across this by accident at some point, I want to think I would have returned it to wherever I found it. I hope we’re doing the right thing by reading it.”

  “Is the book full? Did she use up all the pages?” Rhy said.

  “No. There’s about thirty pages with nothing written on them. Sometimes, she skipped whole weeks and months. I guess she just wrote what she thought was important. The first entry is the one where she met Seth Coleman. This is what it says. . . .”

  I met the most dashing man today at the diner. He kept ordering food just so I would keep coming back to his table. He told me my hair was beautiful and that my complexion was like fresh cream. I tried to hide my hands because they’re so rough and red. I wonder if he’ll come back. He left me a wonderful tip. I’m going to buy some of that glycerine and rosewater. Maybe even a pair of rubber gloves for when it’s my turn to do the dishes. I hope he comes back.

  “The next entry is two weeks later.”

  He came back. He asked if I’d like to go for a walk with him after my shift was over. I said yes. He told me again how pretty I was. He told me he thought about me every day for the whole two weeks. He’s so virile. We walked over to the park and sat on one of those hard wooden benches. I let him kiss me. I thought my heart would pound right out of my chest. He told me he was a widower. He likes me a lot. I can tell. He asked if he could see me again. I said yes.

  “It goes on like that for a while. Mostly just one line here or there. Then at the end of the month she writes a summary. At least I think it’s a summary. Here’s the first one.”

  This has been a month to end all months. I think I’m falling in love. Seth says he already loves me. He wants me to have sex with him. I said no. He comes by every single day. They’re starting to tease me at the diner about snagging a rich rancher. I asked him if he was rich, and he said yes. He brings me flowers every single day. Little bunches of violets. He’s very kind and gentle with me. He says pretty things that I like to hear.

  “There aren’t any entries for the next few months. This is the next one, four months later.”

  I’m beside myself. I don’t know what to do. Seth wants to go to bed with me. I keep saying no. Mama would skin me alive if she knew I was even thinking about going to bed with a man I wasn’t married to. All my girlfriends have had sex, and they tell me to go ahead. Seth said we could take a trip. He worked up this fancy story for me to get away. I’m thinking about it. I want to, but I’m afraid someone will find out.

  “There’s not another entry for an entire year. This is the first one.”

  I asked Seth point-blank if he intended to marry me. He said, not yet. Mama won’t even look at me. She called me a harlot. Daddy won’t look at me either. They won’t sit at the table with me. They stopped going to church because everyone is talking about me. Seth said he loves me and that sex with me is so wonderful all he does is dream about me. I told him how things are at home, and he agreed to get me my own apartment so he can come over anytime he feels like it. He said he would buy me my own car. Imagine that! He gives me spending money, too, as he put it, to buy myself some pretties. He means fancy underwear and silky nightgowns. I do it because I love him. He never talks about his other life but I asked around and I know he has children. I think he’s ashamed of me. I started to cry when I asked him that and he said no, he wasn’t ashamed of me. I want to get married because I love him so much it hurts when I can’t see him.

  “No more entries for seven months.”

  I’ve made up my mind. I’m moving ou
t of the apartment and giving back the car. I can’t live like this. My friend Melba said I could stay with her for a while. I’m not even going to tell Seth. I’ll leave him a note. I can get a job waitressing anywhere. I don’t have any willpower where he is concerned. This will be a good way to find out if he truly does love me or if he just wants a cookie on the side.

  “There aren’t any real entries, a line here or there saying she hasn’t seen him or heard from him. She got a new job at someplace called the Sweet Grass Cafe. The next entry is four months later.”

  He found me. He looked awful. Sad and his eyes filled up. He said he loved me more than he loved his horse. I guess that’s a good thing. He said he would marry me, but we couldn’t tell anyone for legal reasons. I don’t care about reasons. I just want to marry him and be happy. I hope we have a baby.

  “Well, she got her wish. The next entry is two weeks later.”

  We got married. Seth wanted to keep the marriage license, but I wanted to keep it. He said no, he’s the man, and he should keep it. He stuck it in his pocket and when he fell asleep, I took it out and hid it. He thought he lost it. He was so upset. He never asked me if I took it, so I didn’t have to lie. He said he could get a copy of it by paying more money. I never in my wildest dreams thought I could be so happy. I now have a beautiful two-bedroom apartment with a marvelous kitchen. Seth bought me a fancy yellow car, a brand-new one. He said it was a wedding present. He gave me a string of pearls. He is so kind to me. He comes every day. He gives me more money now so I won’t have to work. My hands are starting to look real nice now. I even polish my nails.

  “The next time she wrote was a full year later.”