“I get to name the next one, then,” he said.
“Over my dead body. The next one will be a joint effort from start to finish, and we’ll agree on a name. And, dear hearts, it won’t be Anthony!”
“Anthony was my great-uncle’s name’ Beau said sharply.
“I don’t give a royal two-sided flip if it was the name of the governor of the great state of Texas or if it was the greatest, richest man in the whole state of Louisiana. I’m not having a little boy named Anthony.”
“Then we’ll name our next daughter Toni with an ‘i’ instead of a ‘y.’ They do that now, you know, name girls with boy’s names.” He fanned the fires of her anger just so he could watch her eyes dance. “Amelia Toni Luckadeau. Has a nice ring to it. Then she’ll be named after what I thought your name was and me, too.”
She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling of the plane. “It almost worked. You almost made me mad enough to forget that in a few minutes I have to meet all your relatives.”
He smiled and his dimple deepened. “Who says I was joking? But we will be meeting them soon. I’ll give you a few more minutes’ reprieve, though. I told them that no one could come to the airport to get us.
I’ve got a rental car reserved and we’ll drive out to the place by ourselves.”
They drove north and then back west into a sparsely populated area covered with gorgeous, tall pine trees. Beau stole glances at Milli often and noticed she kept straining her head to see the tops of the trees.
“Pretty impressive, aren’t they? Sometimes when I look at the scrub oaks I miss the elegance and grandeur of these pines. Some of them are as old as the land, I’m sure.” He reached across the console and took her hand in his, just about the time Katy leaned forward in her car seat and upchucked everything she’d eaten for two days.
“Good grief!” Milli turned quickly. “The medicine didn’t work this time.”
Beau pulled the van off on the side of the road. “What medicine? Is she all right? Do I need to turn around and go back to the hospital?”
Milli was as calm as a mid-summer breeze. “No. She gets sick every time we fly, but most of the time she does pretty good if I give her the medicine. Grab that box of tissues and the plastic trash sack, and I’ll get this cleaned up in short time. It’s all right, sugar, Mommy is here and we’ll clean you all up in a minute.”
“Katy’s sick,” she said. “Yuck.”
“You must have flown a lot for it to affect her so little,” he said.
“That’s right,” Milli said.
Beau turned around in the seat and watched as she unzipped a suitcase and dragged out a bright red sunsuit with a matching bonnet, a diaper, and a square box of baby wipes. In a few seconds she had Katy all clean, hugged several times, reassured a dozen more times, and back in a clean car seat. Then she cleaned up the mess on the floor with the skill only a mother possesses, and tied the top of the plastic bag holding all the nasty tissues and wipes into a double knot.
Beau was slightly green around the mouth. “Whew, you’re pretty good at that.”
“There’s more to babies than sweet-smelling baby lotion and picking out a cute little name. Katy never has flown well, but she’ll be fine now. Once it’s out of her system, she’s hungry as a bear.”
Beau put his hand over his own mouth and tried to block thoughts of food entering his mouth. “I think I’ll put the sweet-smelling baby lotion on the kids and you can do that cleanup stuff. I’ve always had a weak stomach when it comes to upchucking. And I hate to fly, too.”
“Oh, no, big boy.. You make ‘em, you help with the whole ball of wax. You name one, boy or girl, Anthony or Toni, and I do hereby promise I’ll hide the medicine when we fly. Reason I don’t like that name is because Amanda called you that, like Beau was beneath her dignity. I didn’t like the way she said - it. Now fire this bus up and let’s go eat all that food you promised me. You did say there would be potato salad, baked beans, and enough brisket to feed Sherman’s march to the sea. And did I hear something about coconut cream pie?”
“If you say another word, you vixen, I’m going to do what Katy did.” He checked the rearview mirror and pulled back onto the highway.
“So that’s where she got her weak stomach. We Torres and Jiminez folks can talk about heartworms and castration while we’re eating a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. We wondered why she upchucks so easily.”
“I swear Milli, if you don’t hush…” He covered his mouth again and a funny little gaggy sound crawled out of his sexy mouth.
“Oh, all right - and they say men folks are the stronger sex.”
By the time they reached the ranch his color was almost normal. The faint green around his mouth was subsiding and his face didn’t look as if he’d just awakened from a nightmare to see a ghost curled up on the pillow next to him. When he drove into the driveway, people came out from every corner. Milli had the sudden urge to lock the doors and refuse to get out of the van.
He opened the car door for her first and then took a smiling baby from the car seat. He put his arm around Milli and the three of them went to face the lion’s den.
“Hi, y’all,” Beau said.
“Well, get on up here boy, and let us see this new grandbaby you been braggin’ up all summer.” Joseph reached out a hand to touch the baby’s arm.
“Daddy. This is Milli, and this is our daughter, Miss Katy Scarlett.”
A tall, blonde woman wiped her hands on the bottom of a white apron covering a pale blue shirtwaist dress. She was barefoot and her long, blonde hair was tied back with a blue bandanna.
“Come on in the house, Milli. I’m Joann. We’ve been dying to meet you. All we’ve heard every time we talk to Beau is your name. He said you were beautiful, but he didn’t prepare us for just how pretty you are. Maybe the next baby will have your big, brown eyes. I’d just love to have a grandson with brown eyes. Come inside and meet the Luckadeau women and bring that baby with you. Beau can give her up for a little while.” She ushered Milli into the living room of the long ranch house, through a porch full of men.
Women covered every square inch of the great room, not unlike the living room, den, kitchen, dining room combination at the ranch house where she grew up. Milli knew she’d never, ever remember all the names. But every single one of them smiled at her and the fear that they’d kill her disappeared.
“Do you think she’d let me hold her?” Joann asked.
“Maybe,” Milli said. She was amazed that she wasn’t more selfish with Katy. She’d sure been so when Beau wanted to hold her.
Joann reached out. Katy went right to her. Instantly, Milli knew what Katy was going to look like when she was edging up on sixty years old. Looking at the two of them together was seeing the past and the future standing beside her in the present. Katy would someday be the image of this graceful, barefoot woman. Still, a devilish little thought toyed in her mind. Wouldn’t it be something if someday she and Beau did have a son who was the image of her Mexican father, with coal black hair and the banty rooster attitude that goes right along with short men?
Joann finally found her voice, but it still had a crack in it. She went to the front door. “Look, Grandpa. Granny got to hold the granddaughter first.”
“Yep, but when she sees the pony I bought for her, she’ll like me better,” he teased.
“Pony? Ride, peas. Daddy, ride,” Katy reached for Beau.
“What pony?” Beau asked.
“Oh, a little white Shetland. Them old boys can’t have horses and Miss Katy not have one of her very own. Got her a sidesaddle made, too, but it won’t be finished ‘til next week ‘cause I had the man tool her initials into the leather. KSL. You are meanin’ to change that last name, ain’t you, son?”
A hush fell over the entire room.
“As soon as possible,” Milli answered.
Beau shot her a look that melted her heart.
An hour before the barn dance and party was to begin, Sami, one of the
sisters-in-law, showed Milli to a bedroom at the end of a long hallway.
“This is the room Momma said to put you in. The door over there opens into a little nursery. Guess this is where they raised their boys. When a new one was born he would get the nursery, and the older one went to one of the other bedrooms. I bet Katy might appreciate a little nap before Beau, Grandpa, and Granny start showing her off like a prize calf. They’re tickled with this new girl. You don’t know how long this family has waited for a girl. I haven’t got the heart to tell them that the doctor says this is probably a boy I’ve got.” She patted her rounded tummy. “Already eleven rambunctious grandsons. You’re a brave woman to bring that little girl in here amongst them all. All the relatives from here to Georgia and halfway across Texas are coming in to meet you, and oh, yeah, watch out for Jennifer. She’s married to Beau’s cousin, Dennis, and she’s got the morals of an alley cat.”
“Oh?” Milli raised a dark eyebrow.
“Yep, used to date Beau and threw him over for Dennis about two years ago. Dennis got the bad end of the deal. Woman ain’t never been faithful to one man in her life. She grew up with my older sister, and she’s got round heels. If a man breathes on her, she just rolls back on them heels and lands on her back!”
“Thanks for the warning, but she’s married, you said,” Milli laughed at the age-old joke with Sami. She undressed Katy, found her pacifier and laid her in the crib. Katy sighed loudly and shut her eyes, glad to be in something faintly familiar.
“Don’t mean jack squat to her. And she’s always had a soft spot for Beau, so watch out. See you in a little while. Bathroom is right there. Bet you’re ready for a long soak and a few minutes of quiet.”
The long bath and quietness did restore her nerves, but not as much as the acceptance of Beau’s family. She dressed in a pair of black jeans and a black westerncut shirt with white snaps that had been tailored to fit her small waist. She laced a tooled leather belt through the loops and fastened the silver buckle, shaped like two entwining hearts, into the last hole in the belt. Then she pulled on black eel-skin boots. Finally she twirled her long dark hair up into a French roll and pinned the top with an ivory comb studded with diamond chips that her grandfather Jiminez had given her grandmother for a wedding gift.
She dressed Katy in a pale blue denim jumper with a pink and white checked shirt. Then she pulled up the golden curls with a matching pink lace bow. Just as she was sliding the silver bracelet on Katy’s arm, Beau knocked once on the door.
He held his heart. “Whoooy! These are the finestlooking two women in the whole state. You look like something out of a magazine.”
Milli eyed him from the shiny black boots, up past the skintight Wranglers with a sharp crease down the front of each leg, to the white shirt with pearl snaps, on past the bolo tie with a silver slide that matched his belt buckle, to his lop-sided, dimpled grin. “You look pretty fine, yourself.”
“Ah, shucks, don’t be sayin’ things like that. You’ll make me blush,” he teased.
“You! You can’t even playact that role, but you do look almighty handsome,” she said.
“Thank you, madam. I intend to look just like this on our wedding day,” he announced.
“And by then I’ll be ready to help you shuck right out of those tightfitting britches and do something other than look like the icing on a cake.” She looped her arm though his and the three of them went out of the house and across the backyard to the Circle L sale barn.
“That kind of talk raises the temperature ten degrees.” He pulled her close.
“Standing this close to you raises it twenty degrees,” she said.
“Maybe we ought to elope rather than meet your parents and have a wedding.”
“Don’t tempt me. But honey, after all these blondes, I can hardly wait until next week when you meet all my folks. So eloping is out of the question until after that.”
“Ah, shucks.”
“Not even that poor old country boy ‘ah shucks’ attitude will change my mind,” she said.
“Well, then, we might as well go on out to the party and let the rest of this part of the state meet my daughter and get a look at the prettiest girl ever to set foot in this area.”
By midnight Milli had met so many family members and friends, her head was swirling. She missed Beau, but figured he’d disappeared outside for fresh air. The sisters-in-law were in the process of gathering up their own husbands and sons to take them home, and the band was putting away their instruments. Joann had taken Katy back to the house at ten and made sure she was sleeping soundly before she left the cook to watch her, and she and Joseph were outside bidding farewell to everyone who was leaving.
Milli wandered through the barn, not so very unlike the one on the Lazy T in west Texas, and only slightly bigger than the one at her grandfather’s ranch in Oklahoma. Her thoughts were on how she’d handle the sale at the Bar M next year, and who she might get to cater the dinner, when she reached the back door of the barn and slung it open.
She stepped outside into the star-studded darkness of night and stood still for a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then she heard the noise. When she turned to her left, there was Jennifer locked up in an embrace with none other than Beau, himself.
Her first reaction was to slip back into the barn and run away. Her second was a white-hot anger erupting from somewhere deeper than her toes, and spewing out over the top like an active volcano. So all men were just alike. Matthew wasn’t a low-down cheating rattlesnake He was just doing what they all did, and he got caught.
“Stop it,” Beau pushed Jennifer away from him. “I’m not doing this and if I’d known this was what you wanted to talk about I would never have come out here with you. You’re married to my cousin! And I’m engaged to Milli.”
“And you still want me,” Jennifer said snidely. “You never could keep your hands off me.” She slid her left hand up his thigh.
Beau pushed her back at the same time he noticed a dark shadow on his right. “And I said no! Forget it. Go home.”
“That Mexican bitch must be damn good if she’s better than me,” Jennifer said.
Beau realized the dark shadow was moving toward them.
“Oh, no. Milli, let me explain.”
She pushed him away and kept walking. “What did you call me?” She stopped two inches from Jennifer’s nose.
Beau tried to step between them. “Wait a minute, Mil.”
“Stand back, Beau. I’ll deal with you later. Now, what did you call me?” She whipped around and faced the woman again. Jennifer was only slightly taller than Milli, but she had twenty pounds on her. Milli knew she might be sporting bruises next month on her wedding day, but she’d promised she’d stand up and fight for Beau, and she was damn well prepared to do just that.
“I said you were a Mexican bitch.”
Another party came out of the shadows. “That’s enough, Jennifer! Apologize to the lady for trespassing on her property, and we’re going home.”
“I will not,” Jennifer glared at her husband.
“Yes, you will. We’re going home and packing your bags. I’ve had all I’m taking. Beau don’t need you interfering with him and the lady here has every right to slap the fire out of you. Now apologize, Jennifer.”
“I won’t.” She sulked like a child.
“Then you can walk ten miles home and your stuff will be waiting on the porch. Your car keys will be in the ignition, and the divorce papers will be at your folks on Monday.”
She took off in a run behind him. “Wait, Dennis.”
“Now, what have you got to say for yourself?” Milli turned on Beau.
“Not a thing. I should have had more sense than to follow her out here when she said she needed to talk to me. But I got to admit I’m glad I did,” he smiled brightly.
“You are what?” she yelled.
“Glad I did. I wondered when she kissed me if I’d see stars like I do with you, and I didn’t.”
>
“You really are out of your mind, just like Slim said. But honey, next time a woman calls me a bitch twice you’d better step back because I will knock the hell out of her.” She put her arms around his neck and drew his mouth down for a kiss.
And the stars were there for both of them.
TWENTY
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“WE TAKIN’ MY TRUCK OR YOURS? FLYIN’ OR DRIVIN’?”
Beau asked the next Friday night when he and Milli were taking turns pushing Katy in the swing.
“You arranged for last weekend’s trip. I’m taking care of this weekend. You just be here at seven o’clock in the morning with your bags packed and ready,” she said.
“And is there a Jennifer I’m goin’ to have to take care of out there in west Texas?”
“No. I never did crawl between the sheets with anyone named Jennifer. And I don’t think I’ll be out behind the barn letting some female mess with my silver belt buckle.”
“You know what I mean. Got any old boyfriends coming to the engagement party out there? Trying to entice you out in the yard to lure you away from me?”
“Never know.”
“You are never going to give me a moment’s peace. I’ll be walking on eggshells the whole time we’re married.”
“Good. Then you won’t get bored. It’s your turn to push Katy.”
His captivating grin made her whole body ache with desire. The past two weeks hadn’t been easy for either of them. It was a busy time of the year, there hadn’t been a drop of rain to draw them back to the barn, and neither Mary nor Hilda had jumped right in and said, “Why don’t you two just go away for the weekend?”
Mary and Hilda talked about receptions, caterers, and flowers. They floated around with stars in their eyes just thinking about Milli living right next door. Where she used to hear Beau’s name a hundred times a day, now it was wedding plans. But no one seemed to think about Milli and Beau wanting to have some time alone.
Lucky In Love Page 21