THE BEST MAN IN TEXAS

by Kristine Rolofson

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  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

  Epilogue

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  * * *

  Chapter 1

  ^»

  "Poor Delia." The statement was accompanied by a sigh and a shake of Georgia Ball's gray-haired head. "I don't know what she's going to do now."

  "I know." Annie took a tissue from her purse, just in case Georgia started crying again. She ignored the curious looks from the bridge group piling into the restaurant for dessert after their weekly game of cards. Everyone in the town of July. Texas, was still gossiping about Delia's divorce, and it wouldn't do to put on a show, not at the Yellow Rose Diner in the middle of the afternoon.

  "And the humiliation," Georgia added, lowering her voice as she took the offered tissue.

  "It certainly is a shame," Annie agreed, taking a sip of iced tea. "Delia's such a nice girl, and to have had such a hard time of it, breaks my heart, it does."

  "I keep telling her that she should move back home," Georgia declared. She was in her early sixties, but she had the energy of a much younger woman and the often-ferocious self-confidence of a teenager. "I have the extra room and there's no reason for Delia to be paying rent somewhere when I sure wouldn't mind the company."

  "No," her friend said. "Company would be nice for you, but—"

  "And Delia can't afford to keep that house, not now that Martin has it up for sale."

  "No, but—"

  Georgia frowned over her coffee cup. "But what, Annie?"

  "Maybe Delia—" she hesitated, thinking over her next words.

  "Maybe Delia what?"

  "Might want to, urn, be by herself. Get her own place. Kick up her heels a bit."

  "Why on earth would she want to do that?"

  Annie decided it was better not to explain. Georgia Ball wasn't known for her listening ability, but she was a good friend. And there was no sense in trying to explain to a mother that her adult daughter might prefer some privacy. "No reason, I suppose. Just that she raised those children of Martin's and now they're all grown-up and, well, Delia is still young."

  "She's thirty-three," her mother declared. "Not exactly a spring chicken."

  Annie tried to remember what her own life had been like when she was thirty-three, but all she remembered was a blur of making meat loaf and ironing shirts. "That's a fairly young age for a woman, especially in this day and age."

  Georgia shrugged. "That depends on the woman. Delia needs—"

  Annie waited. She thought Delia needed a weekend in Las Vegas or a month in Hawaii, and maybe some time with a hunky lifeguard, but she didn't expect Delia's mother to think the same way.

  "She needs help," Georgia concluded. "And she shouldn't be living alone, especially not now. It could take her a while to get over the shock."

  Annie couldn't argue with that. Having your husband divorce you for a younger woman was shocking enough, but finding out he was in love with the pregnant truck stop waitress only added to the confusion. And the baby, born six months ago, didn't even belong to Martin Drummond. "It's all so unbelievable."

  "He told Delia he never meant to fall in love with Julie Brown, but he couldn't help himself. She needed him, he'd said." Georgia rolled her eyes. "The only thing Julie Brown ever needed was birth control."

  "Marty was a fool. I never liked him, not even when he was mayor. He was always a little too full of himself, that man was." And to add insult to injury, he wanted to sell his and Delia's house and run off with Julie Brown the very second his youngest child turned eighteen. In a little over eight months, Delia had gone from married and settled to divorced and abandoned. It was downright disastrous, even in this day and age when no one seemed to know better.

  "I thought he was too old for her—and I told her that, too, when she started seeing him—but Delia was sure she was in love. She was only twenty when she met him, what did she know about love?" Georgia sighed again and shook her head. "And then she took care of those children after their mother died. All this time I thought Delia had the perfect marriage. They seemed so settled and peaceful-like."

  "Thirteen years of marriage is a long time." Annie leaned forward so that no one in the diner could overhear. "I'm almost glad they never had children together. At least Delia is free and clear and never has to see that foolish man again."

  "Small comfort," Georgia said. "I guess the good Lord's not going to give me grandchildren after all."

  "Lots of women Delia's age get married and start families," Annie said, sorry she'd brought up the subject of Delia's fertility. She hadn't meant to hurt Georgia's feelings. "Really, Georgie, anything could happen."

  "Anything has," Georgia replied, choking back tears. "My poor sweet Delia has a broken heart."

  * * *

  Delia knew there was something wrong with her, something intrinsically twisted, because she also knew that she was supposed to fall apart, especially after her future ex-husband announced that the house they'd shared for thirteen years was to be sold, the profit—if there was any—divided between them, because he'd fallen in love with another woman and wanted a divorce.

  It was the best way, he'd said. Fair to both of them.

  Well, Delia had heard herself say, what in the hell does fair have to do with anything, huh, Martin?

  She knew there was something wrong with her because instead of efficiently emptying her kitchen like some kind of domestic robot, she should be falling apart, collapsing to the white tile floor while she wept and cursed and wondered where she'd left the prescription for the Valium Dr. Arthur had given her. She should toss her wedding china dinner plates to the floor, take scissors to the tuxedo Martin had forgotten to pack, and—after all, because this was Texas—she should then grab her late father's shotgun, drive down the street to the law office parking lot and pelt the tires of Martin's beloved Ford Ranger with bullets.

  Except that Martin wasn't there, because he was off vacationing with his young girlfriend. And even if Delia had shot up his car months ago, he wouldn't have pressed charges. Not Martin Michael Drummond. Before he'd become filled with lust for the twenty-five year old waitress who'd served him a Cobb salad at precisely twelve-forty-five every workday, he'd spent his life making sure that everything ran smoothly, his actions bringing only good publicity for his law firm and a life worth smiling about. Come to think of it, Martin's smug smile had aggravated the daylights out of her for a very long time.

  And that's how Delia knew that something was wrong, that the odd feeling streaming through her might—just might—be relief. Winds of change, she decided, wishing she could remember what song that phrase came from. Maybe something of Uncle Gin's, she supposed, missing him once again. There was a reading of his will tomorrow, to be tactfully handled by Martin's partner, Delia was certain, as she and Martin hadn't spoken since last month, when they'd appeared in court together.

  But the will business was tomorrow and right now she had to decide what to do with two cabinets full of Tupperware. Surely her husband's new girlfriend would have little use for it and, since Delia never intended to cook again, all those convenient containers could be donated to her mother's church for their thrift shop.

  Delia eyed the growing stack of boxes destined for charity. Her wedding china would make someone very happy, she supposed. As would the sets of copper-bottomed frying pans and ridiculously expensive French cookware she was surprised Martin hadn't confiscated for his own use. Surely his new town house on the edge of town needed pans that were guaranteed not to burn on the bottom. Or maybe Martin was eating out these days.

  Eating out with his new, nubile girlfriend while Delia spent her days and nights emptying closets and packing boxes.


  Good riddance to all of it. She felt the same way about the furniture. Wherever she went from here, she wasn't going to drag one single remnant of her married life behind her. And that was another thing Delia thought was wrong with her: she really didn't mind leaving the house. She didn't mind leaving the furniture, or the responsibility of raising teenagers or the strange boredom she'd fought for years. In fact, Delia wished she could walk away from the kitchen and its neat stacks of labeled and taped cardboard boxes, but before she could make up her mind where to go, her stepdaughter opened the back door and strolled inside the room.

  "This place is a mess," Jennifer said, stepping carefully around the boxes to get a glass from the cupboard by the sink. The teenager proceeded to pour herself a glass of orange juice, unaware that some of the juice splattered out of the glass onto the floor.

  "Yes," Delia answered, though she privately thought Jennifer was unaware of what a real mess looked like. If she'd wanted to, Delia thought she could have made a pretty decent mess of leaving this house. "Did you come by to get the last of your things?"

  "Yeah. I've got a couple of bags of clothes in my room." She sighed and leaned against the tiled counter. "I can't believe you're making Dad sell the house."

  "I'm not making your father do anything," she said, not for the first time. "We both agreed this was a fair way to settle things." And she didn't add that she didn't have any great desire to live in the sprawling home by herself. It had belonged to her husband—her ex-husband—and his first wife Mary before she'd died and left her husband with three young children to raise. As much as Delia had tried to put her own imprint on the house—she'd tried new paint, flowered wallpaper, filmy white curtains, floral slipcovers—nothing had basically changed the nature of a house designed with open space and entertaining in mind. Sometimes Delia longed for the cozy rooms of her childhood home, for window seats and braided rugs and the battered pine cupboard that housed her mother's good china.

  Her next home, whenever she could afford one, would have wood floors. She would have a light-filled studio and plenty of shelves for her beads and fabric. Delia attempted, partly from habit and partly out of habitual politeness, to engage her stepdaughter in conversation. "So, how is everything with you?"

  Jennifer, tall and thin, blond and elegant, shrugged. "Fine. This town really bores me to tears."

  Delia had heard that same complaint from her for years. "How do you like the new place?"

  "It's okay, for a condo. But I'm going off to college in a few weeks, so it doesn't really matter where Dad lives now."

  Delia thought it should matter more, but she didn't say anything. It had been hard to raise three stepchildren who thought of her as an unpaid servant, but she'd persisted, knowing that they needed a home and a mother and all the comfort a family could give. It had never quite worked out though. Especially not after they became teenagers and treated Delia like she was a rug to walk on. Kevin and Karl, the twins, were now twenty-one, about to start their last year of college in California, where they lived year-round now. They'd never had much use for a stepmother, unless it was to buy them clothes or fill the refrigerator. She'd tried getting close to them, but they'd had each other for company. If there was a problem they went to their father, who was pretty good at making problems go away. Too good, Delia had said more than once, as she watched the boys grow up into self-absorbed, spoiled young men.

  She really didn't know why Martin had married her after all. Oh, maybe he thought he was in love with her. She'd been too much in love to listen to her mother's warnings about a "ready-made family." So by marrying her, he'd acquired a full-time housekeeper and nanny for his children without having to provide anything but room and board. He'd had sex thrown in for free—okay, she'd enjoyed that, too, up until the last few years when Martin's interest had clearly waned—and she'd gained fifteen pounds out of frustration.

  "I should start exercising," she muttered. Those added fifteen pounds were something else to add to the list of what she blamed herself for.

  "What?" Jennifer looked up from her perusal of the box of cooking utensils.

  "Nothing. Do you need any more boxes? There are plenty on the porch and you take those pans, if you want. You might need them for your own place someday."

  "No, I'm all set," the young woman said, taking her juice and her size-seven body toward the hall door. "One more trip for my winter clothes and then I've got everything I need."

  So do I, Delia wanted to say. I no longer need a husband who doesn't love me or a house that was never mine or three ungrateful stepchildren who didn't know a good thing when they had it.

  What she needed, Delia decided, was a good thing of her own.

  * * *

  J.C. Brown cursed the town, the buildings, the streets and the people. He cursed the red light at the intersection of Main and Cottonwood and the traffic stalled by a UPS truck that had stopped to make a delivery to Gilroy's Hardware store. He resisted the urge to honk the horn of his own pickup, only because he didn't want to call attention to himself. The last thing he wanted, on this god-awful hot day, was to advertise that he was in July, that another "badass Brown" was driving down Main Street

  looking for trouble.

  And J.C. Brown wasn't looking for trouble. Well, he amended, checking out two twenty-something women smoking cigarettes in front of the Cottonwood Lounge. Maybe he was. He pulled the truck over and parked along the curb while the women watched him. The taller one, a brunette, tossed her cigarette onto the sidewalk and crushed it with the toe of her boot, while the shorter woman shook her blond hair out of her face and adjusted her sunglasses.

  Joe stepped out of the truck and walked around the front to the sidewalk. If he'd worn a hat he would have lifted it, just to make them smile, but he wasn't in the mood for flirting. "Ladies," he said.

  "Hey," the tall one replied, while the light-haired woman stared. "How's it goin'?"

  "I've had better days," he drawled, leaning against the truck's front fender.

  "Yeah," she said, pulling another cigarette out of her shoulder bag. "Tell me about it."

  "I'm looking for Julie Brown," he said, unwilling to stand on a hot sidewalk and play games with bored women who smelled like beer and smoke. Those days were over. "You seen her around?"

  "Not lately."

  The shorter woman finally spoke. "You from around here?"

  J.C. shrugged. "Used to be."

  "I know you." She nodded. "You're Julie Brown's older brother."

  He silently cursed the family resemblance: dark curly hair, green eyes, and an easy smile that could charm rattlesnakes, those were the unmistakable characteristics the Browns had inherited from their father. J.C. often wished he'd gotten more of his mother's genes, but leave it to the Brown side to dominate everything in his life, even the DNA.

  "But Julie comes in here, right?"

  The tall one shrugged again. "Used to, until she ran off with the mayor."

  "Former mayor," the other woman corrected, shooting a flirty smile toward J.C. "That sister of yours could corrupt a saint."

  "Yeah?" Sweat dripped down his back between his shoulder blades and he wondered if he went into the bar if the women would follow him. He was in no mood for seduction, had no interest in pursuing either the tall gal in the short denim skirt or the yellow-haired one, despite a pair of blue eyes that ordinarily would tempt him into forgetting business.

  "Absolutely," Blue Eyes declared, looking him over one more time.

  "They still serve burgers in there?" He nodded toward the diner across the street.

  "Yeah. Too bad we can't join you, but we have to get back to work. Maybe we'll see you down here later, maybe around nine?" It was obviously an invitation for more than a beer.

  "Maybe," he drawled, trying to look flattered. "If you run into Julie anywhere, tell her that her brother's in town and looking for her." Not that his sister wouldn't find out soon enough, even though he wouldn't have minded surprising her. He'd had the plea
sing vision of hauling her off a bar stool by grabbing her ponytail and hanging on until she went in the direction he wanted her to go, the way he used to when they were kids and she'd stepped right in the middle of some dirt road he was building with his dented Tonka dump truck.

  He'd most likely get arrested for doing that now, but the expression on his sister's face might almost be worth it.

  Almost. He was a fine, upstanding citizen now. And he sure as hell wanted to stay that way.

  He hesitated before opening the rough wooden door of the Cottonwood. He wouldn't mind a cold beer, and at the same time he could leave a message for his sister with the bartender. Every bartender within fifty miles knew Julie, according to his mother's phone call last night.

  The inside of the Cottonwood was dark and cool, a ceiling fan was whirring overhead and the smell of beer wasn't unpleasant. He glanced around the bar, past the line of barstools and the empty tables to the pool table where a couple of young guys were busy competing with each other. His sister wasn't there, just like he'd been told, and the only woman in the place—a woman with chestnut curls—was perched on a bar stool with her back to him. She had a cute, rounded little ass, he noticed, and then he remembered why he was in town. So he walked behind her and took a seat four stools away. He didn't need another "Aren't you J.C. Brown?" conversation.

  Fortunately the bartender was no one he recognized and, after the man set the bottle of beer he'd ordered and a chilled glass in front of him, J.C. decided to pour his drink and wait for a few minutes before mentioning his sister. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, either. It was damn embarrassing, trying to hunt down a woman who had left her kids and run off with a man whose marriage she'd broken up.

  This wasn't how he intended to spend his summer. Yet he couldn't help glancing toward the only woman sharing the bar with him. Maybe she knew Julie, but he sure didn't feel like asking. This particular woman didn't look as if she belonged on a bar stool. She was pretty, with an oval face and the kind of skin that felt like satin. She was drinking something frozen and pink, a strawberry daiquiri, he figured, meaning she wasn't a boozer, not a real one anyway. She was most likely waiting for a girlfriend; she wore khaki shorts and a pink T-shirt that made her look more like a soccer mom than a woman ready for afternoon flirtation or a quickie at the High Cotton Hotel next door.