He stepped around Amanda and the pickup, and opened the door for Milli. “I’ll get the baby, sweetheart. She’s been asleep for the past ten minutes. I hate to wake her, but…”
Amanda stepped between him and Milli and glared down at Milli like she was a fresh cow patty on a hot day. Her nose curled and her upper lip sneered. “Get out of here. You’re nothing but a cheap Mexican hitch. Alice would never want the likes of you on this ranch.”
Milli took a deep breath and tried to will the red-hot blur of rage from her eyes. But it didn’t work. She tried to think about Katy waking up and the fresh look on her face, but all she saw was Amanda’s sneer and mocking eyes. Finally, she gave in to her own anger and rocked the woman’s jaw with a hard right hook, then slapped her on the other cheek as she fell backwards to sit down in the dry dirt.
“Don’t you ever call me a bitch again. You don’t even know me, but I know you and I heard what you said about divorcing Beau in a year if he didn’t do just what you, wanted. Remember what you said to your little friend in the bathroom the night he asked you to marry him? And remember what you told Granny and me at the mall just a few days ago?”
Amanda just sat there bewildered and confused. She was right about the darkhaired, low-class woman. She didn’t have an ounce of dignity. Not a single lady she knew would have done something as base as actually hitting another woman. They might try to kill each other with barbs, but to actually double up her fist like a man? It just wasn’t done in polite circles.
“Now crawl your sorry old scraggly ass out of here, and don’t come back. This ranch is my daughter’s inheritance, and if I ever catch you looking at Beau again, I’ll break that expensive nose job. Now get out,” Milli said between clenched teeth.
Amanda popped back up to a standing position and wiped at a big brown stain across the front of her lace blouse. “I’ll have an assault suit filed on you by tomorrow morning. You could have broken my jaw. My lawyer will be at the courthouse when the doors open in the morning. You ever hit me again and
Milli turned around to find a wide-eyed, grinning man holding her child. “Be careful and don’t wake her up, honey. I damned sure don’t want her tender little eyes to look upon such filth as this.”
She turned back to Amanda. “You’ll what? Darlin’ if you think you can whup me, you better run along home and get your supper and maybe even bring your redhaired friend. You’ll need the help and food because it will be an all-day job. If I wanted to break your jaw, it would be flapping like a pair of underwear on a clothesline. And if you don’t get off the Bar M, I’m going to do more than slap fire out of you, honey. I’m going to beat you until your body is as cold as your heart. That is not a threat. It’s a solid promise. Torres women don’t make promises they can’t keep and when we make a promise, it’s every bit as gold as the Luckadeau word;”
Amanda stomped away hard enough to boil the dust up around her skirt tail. She opened the door to her big, gray car parked at the end of the house. What on earth had gone wrong? She’d intended to play up to Anthony and convince him she wasn’t herself the night before when she got so angry. Things hadn’t gone well when she stopped by the hospital and caught her doctor introducing his fiancée to the staff. When she realized she’d just been a passing fancy and not a long-term arrangement, she decided maybe Anthony wouldn’t be such a bad catch after all. Good lord, what in the world had happened in less than twenty-four hours? It really had been just that long, hadn’t it? She revved up the engine and left a dust cloud in the yard as she sped away.
“You got anything to say?” Milli asked Beau before they opened the front door.
“Nope. Guess you can take care of yourself. Remind me never to call you a bitch,” he grinned.
One minute she was ready to find another lover to erase Beau from her mind, the next she was fighting for him like she was ready to put her brand on him for life. The whole situation was enough to make her want to crawl into a hole and pull the entrance inside with her so she could figure out just what she was going to do.
“That’s right. Or you’ll find yourself on the ground, even if I have to find a two-by-four to help me make up the difference in size. That’s one thing I hate to be called. First time I got into trouble for fighting was over that. Girl kept saying I was a wet-back bitch and telling me to go back home to Mexico that Texas didn’t need any more of my kind in it. We were in the sixth grade and I whipped her soundly. I got a black eye and a bloody nose but she looked just as bad. I had to stay in from recess for three weeks for slapping her first, but it was worth it. Guess I should have given Amanda a fighting chance. I might have just warned her about my aversion to that word, if she’d have said it once and at least given me time to speak my mind.”
Rosa opened the door before Beau could turn the knob. She wore a white, bibbed apron, her hair pulled back in a bun, and a smile so big a Cadillac could have driven through her mouth and not touched a single tooth. “Miss Milli, so glad to see you put that woman in her place. She got here about ten minutes ago and Was sure ugly to Buster when he told her Beau went to church over at Ringling this mornin’. She told him he’d just as well start packing his sorry belongings because his days on this ranch was numbered. He told her that when Beau kicked him off the ranch he’d go without a word, but he wasn’t listening to any of what she had to say. Buster didn’t even mention you. Oh, look at that precious little baby!”
Beau took her bonnet off. “This is Miss Katy. Tell me, Rosa, what do you think? Does she look more like me or Milli?”
Rosa’s grin faded. She’d heard about Katy from Jim and Mary, and she knew the child was fatherless, but standing on the floor looking up at her was the exact image of Beau. He and Milli only met two weeks ago, so that had to be impossible. Her head began to swim as she searched for words in her first-time-ever speechless mind. Katy couldn’t have looked more like a Luckadeau if they’d cloned her, like Rosa had read about what they were doing with sheep.
Milli draped her arm around the woman’s shoulder. “That’s not a question you have to answer. Come on and let me help you put dinner on the table. We’re so hungry we could eat the south end of a northbound heifer right now. And besides, Beau ought to be horsewhipped for putting you on the spot like that. Beau, take Katy out to the horse barn and show her the horses, and call Buster in to dinner. Be back here in ten minutes flat.”
Beau and Katy smiled at the same time, showing off a deep dimple on the left side. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry I scared you like that, Rosa.”
Rosa shook her head in disbelief. “Oh, my. It is really his baby, isn’t it?”
“Of course, she’s mine. And now we’re going out to the barn and see if Buster can tell which one of us she looks like.”
Rosa plopped down in a kitchen chair and looked up at her for answers. “What is going on, Miss Milli?”
Milli explained as briefly and honestly as she could in as few words as possible, then looked around at the dinner preparations. “I see you’ve got the table set. Can I help you put the food in serving bowls?”
Buster stood in the door of the horse barn where he’d been for the past fifteen minutes. Amanda had knocked on the door, all dolled up in a western get-up, looking like the cat what caught the sparrow. She had this smile on her face until Buster answered the door, then she sneered at him like she always did and rudely asked where Anthony was. The man had never gone by Anthony in his whole life. What was the matter with plain old Beau?
“Well, he’s gone off to the church over in Ringling With the Torres family,” he had answered.
“What in the hell is he doing going to that podunk place? He knows we attend church in Ardmore. What’s the matter with that man?”
When Buster didn’t offer any answers, she opened the screen door and stared at him with pure venom. “Old man, you better be putting out the word that you’re looking for a job. I’m marrying him before the Summer is out and the first change I’m making on this ranch is your removal. You
and that wife of yours are going to be fired and gone before we even get back from our honeymoon. So start deciding what you’re going to pack in your rattletrap truck, because your days are numbered.”
“We’ll see,” was all he had said as he stepped out the door and around her.
She had eased herself down on the porch swing and glared at him as he went to the horse barn and watched her swing on the porch, wishing all the time he had the nerve to load a gun, shoot her between the eyes, and do the world a tremendous favor. The best thing she could ever do was lay down and die, but he couldn’t help matters along no matter how much he disliked the crude woman. He couldn’t disgrace his children and Rosa by committing murder, even if he might have to go to hell for just thinking about it. He’d have to go to confession next week for sure. Then Beau had driven up, and one minute Amanda was talking, and the next Milli had knocked the hell out of her and she was on her back on the ground. Buster was so excited he didn’t know whether to wind his fanny or scratch his watch when he saw her spin out of the driveway.
Now, Beau was walking out across the lawn, carrying Milli’s little girl he’d heard about from Slim over at the Lazy Z.
“Mornin’,” Buster nodded. “Guess Miss Milli set that woman straight.”
“Yep. Don’t ever call Milli a bitch. She drew a gun on me when I called her a bitch, but man, she really gets hot under the collar when someone calls her that more than once. I guess Amanda won’t be back around here. Miss Katy, I want you to meet Buster. He’s my right hand around here, and you’ll really like him when you get to know him.”
Katy eyed Buster with the innocence of a baby, and Buster eyed her with the wisdom of the sages. Katy saw a nice man who could be trusted, and Buster’s old brown eyes widened as he looked from Katy to Beau and back again. An eerie feeling crawled down his arms and made the gray hair on the back of his neck prickle. This was Milli’s child and she had Beau’s eyes, his hair, even his dimple when she smiled at the horses.
“Horsey. Ride peas,” she said.
“Cat got your tongue?” Beau teased.
Buster let a gush of air escape from his lungs. “Just how did this happen, son?”
“Way most babies happen, Buster. I met Milli at the wedding down in Texarkana two years ago this July. Remember the dream girl I’ve talked about ever since? Well, we weren’t real careful, and I didn’t know about Katy until today. Think she looks like me?”
“Lord, son, if you’d have cloned yourself and started all over as a baby girl, it wouldn’t look as much like you as that child. Now, just what do you intend to do about all this?” Buster talked to him and continued to stare at Katy.
“Don’t know, yet. Evidently what Milli and I do best is fight and make a beautiful baby girl. Don’t know if the two of us could live together every day and not tear a ranch down around our ears. Lord, she’s bullheaded,” Beau said.
“And you’re not?” Buster snapped. “Been tryin’ to tell you about that Amanda for months, but would you listen? Noooo! Wouldn’t hear a word I said.”
Beau hugged Katy close to him, taking in the sweet smell of baby lotion. “I’m listening now. Think maybe we’d better go in for dinner. Milli was helping Rosa get it on the table, and we don’t want them two women mad at us, do we?”
“You got that right.”
ELEVEN
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ROSA FINALLY FOUND HER TONGUE. “My, OH, MY, DON’T the world look brighter this day. Does Hilda know? How about Slim?”
“I don’t think so, and don’t you dare tell them,” Milli suddenly had a vision of all the people standing in a line she’d have to deal with and it made her weary just thinking about it. Hilda would give her a sound dressingdown and then she and Granny would be in the corner, their heads together making big plans about the future.
“Well, it does look brighter,” Rosa declared. “Me and Buster were scared we’d be kicked off the ranch. That woman told Buster just a few minutes ago the first thing she was doing was getting rid of us. Would have been a hard choice for Beau, but if she was his wife, and all…”
“Oh, that’s where Beau would have held the line, I’m sure. Besides I don’t know if the world is all that much better today or not, Rosa. Seems to me like that the world has fallen down around my ears in the last twenty-four hours and I’ve completely lost control. I don’t quite know what to do to put it back together again. One day it’s just me and Katy on Poppy’s ranch, checking cattle, living a normal life, and the next day Beau is no longer engaged, he finds out about Katy, and everything is wild and crazy.”
Rosa scooped up fried potatoes into a bowl and set it on the table. “You did say that Mary and Jim know about all this?”
“I told them just last night. I tried to get out of it. If I’d just known about Alice - but Granny didn’t ever mention it when we talked on the phone. Granny knew about Katy, or at least had some real strong ideas, a few weeks ago. I wasn’t going to tell Beau. I’m still not sure how he figured it out. We went to church and I forgot my purse and when I got back to the truck, he’d put two and two together.”
“Well, it’s about time. He mentioned Katy when he came home the other night. Said he’d pushed her around in her stroller while you shopped and went on and on about her pretty eyes. Then Amanda said something about not wanting children about that time and me and Buster could tell it upset him. Seemed like he was worrying over things like a hound dog worries a ham bone, but he’s a Luckadeau, and even if it meant living a miserable life, he wouldn’t have gone back on his word.”
The last sentence stuck in Milli’s mind. The Luckadeau pride would have kept him in an engagement he wasn’t sure about. The Luckadeau pride would have made him marry the woman even when he’d discovered what she really was. The Luckadeau pride would make him marry her so his child wouldn’t be tagged a bastard. But Milli wanted a man to love her. Simply. Completely. For life. Not because of his inherited pride.
How would she ever know the difference?
“We’re hungry,” Beau called from the front door. “Katy says she wants a corn cob, Rosa. Buster, could you could find us that old high chair Aunt Alice had out on the back porch? The wood one I used to sit in when the folks brought us kids to visit.”
Buster couldn’t get that silly grin off his face no matter how hard he tried. “Reckon I could. Give me two minutes to fetch it and wipe the dust off, and we’ll set right up at the table.”
Rosa beamed as she stared unabashedly at Katy in Beau’s arms. Not once had Amanda ever come in and helped Rosa put the dinner on the table. As a matter of fact, she’d never eaten in the ranch house before. Not that Beau hadn’t invited her, but she always had an excuse. Suddenly, Rosa heard wedding bells and saw wedding dresses and bridal bouquets and she was happy instead of sad. Buster whistled as he used his red handkerchief to dust off the high chair. Beau looked as if he’d just caught cloud nine on its way to heaven.
Milli wanted to hit something or else sit down and cry. She didn’t want Katy to sit in the family high chair that her daddy had used. Her daddy. She didn’t want Katy to have a daddy. Not even if it was Beau, who was quite enamored with her. Milli didn’t want to share her child. What she wanted to do was run and never look back until she was safely out of southern Oklahoma.
Milli looked around the bedroom where she and Katy were supposed to change into shorts and Tshirts. A king-sized four-poster bed made of burled oak took up most of the south wall and a matching dresser with a triple mirror the north one. The lone star handmade quilt done in shades of blue served as a bedspread. As a child, she remembered playing around on the floor at the ranch with fabric scraps while Alice and her grandmother lowered an old quilting frame from the ceiling and talked ranching business while their needles flew in and out. She wondered if this was one of the ones they had worked on back then.
Why hadn’t she even asked about Alice in the past tw
o years? If she would have simply asked how she was faring, then Granny would have told her all about the new owner at the Bar M and probably even mentioned his name. But hindsight is the only 20/20 vision and it was too late to go back now.
She removed Katy’s Sunday romper and dressed her in shorts and a soft T-shirt. “Well, baby girl, this has already been a day. Next thing you know, he’ll be wanting you to call him daddy, but that ain’t happening today. I’ve had enough turmoil for one day.”
“Daddy, daddy, daddy,” Katy picked up on the word immediately.
A tear formed on Milli’s lashes and traveled down her cheek, streaking her makeup. Then another one hung there a while and in seconds she was wiping away the streams as they dripped off her jawbone. “Why, oh why, didn’t we stay in Hereford?”
Beau stopped long enough to look in the mirror to see if there was a change in his face since morning. Surely fatherhood would add a wrinkle around his eyes, but the grinning fool looking back at him didn’t look so very different, except there was a glitter in his eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday. Even if he and Milli couldn’t ever get past the fighting stage and even if she didn’t feel that prickly feeling in her heart like he did when their hands touched, at least he had a child to carry on the Luckadeau name. Someone to run the Bar M when his time on earth had ceased. It didn’t matter now if he was always unlucky in love. Women could come and go in his life and he wouldn’t have to put up with one whining moment just to get an heir.
He brushed his hair back one more time. But oh, how wonderful it would be if Milli could be as attracted to me as Jam to her.
The sun was high in the sky and the bank thermometer said it was a hundred degrees when they went through downtown Sulphur. He chose a spot close to the shallow part of the creek running through Chickasaw National Recreation Area, formerly known as Platt National Park.
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