The Banty House

by Brown, Carolyn

  He stood to his feet with her still in his arms, pushed up out of the chair, and took her into the living room. “If that’s all it is, we can fix that problem. You scared the crap out of me. I thought you were going to tell me something was wrong with the baby.” He set her down in a chair in front of his desk and opened his laptop.

  She put her elbows on the desk and buried her head in her hands. “And now you’ve only got six days to get ready for this big change in your life, instead of three weeks. Are you sure you want me to move in here that quick?”

  “Honey, we can go get your things this afternoon. You can sleep here tonight, and you’ll have almost a week to get used to the place. Everything’s goin’ to be all right. And by the way, I like your new hairdo.”

  That made her cry even harder. “No one ever noticed me before. I don’t deserve it.”

  He went to the kitchen, brought back a chair and pulled it up beside her as close as he could. “Now, dry up those tears.” He reached to the back of the desk, jerked a tissue from a box, and wiped her face with it. “And let’s get you some retail therapy.”

  “What’s that?” she asked. “And yes, I would like to move in this afternoon. Those stairs at the Banty House are killing me.”

  “It’s online shopping, and whatever we buy can be shipped here in two days. Let’s start with sheets for the bed. Pink?” He hit a few keys and brought up a page with all kinds of baby things. “Let’s start with basics and buy all the fancy swings and stuff like that as we figure out whether we need them or not. So sheets?”

  “Pink.” Ginger managed a smile. “I want her to be a princess.”

  “Oh, honey, there’s no doubt that she’s already that. I almost forgot to tell you my good news,” he told her as they filled a virtual cart together.

  “Sloan, that’s wonderful.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’ll be doing what you love, and it’s not that far that you have to move. But if you just want a job, that big shot at the hospital offered you something there, and that’s a lot closer.”

  “That’s a job.” He nodded. “But this is what I want to do. I loved the military, and working with them again would be like a dream come true. But I will have to change my car washing day to Saturday.”

  “Then that’s exactly what you need to do, and, honey, I reckon the sisters won’t mind you washing the car on Saturday.” She smiled at him.

  He could have easily drowned in her dark-brown eyes. Their gazes caught, and he tipped up her chin just slightly so he could kiss her. The first one was soft and sweet, but then they deepened until they were both panting for air. He held her close for another few seconds and felt like he could conquer anything—even a psych eval—if she was there every evening when he got home.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Getting used to a different bedroom and a smaller house was more difficult than Ginger thought it would be. Although she was ready to get away from those killer stairs in the Banty House, she still didn’t sleep well that first night. She dreamed all night that Lucas was back and he was furious with her for getting pregnant. He threw things and cussed so loudly that she thought for sure his voice would break the dirty windows in the apartment. He said that since it was too late to get rid of the thing, she’d have to give it away.

  She told him to go to hell, stormed out into the night, and found a park bench, where she curled up and went to sleep. In the dream, Sloan drove up in his truck, and they were driving away when she awoke. When she finally opened her eyes and glanced around the room, she let out a long whoosh of air. The dream had been so real. She immediately curled up in a ball with her hand over her stomach to protect the baby. Then she heard Sloan whistling and pots and pans rattling together and caught the aromas of bacon and coffee. He had come to rescue her in the dream, but in real life, too.

  She swung her feet out of the bed and padded across the hall to the bathroom in her bare feet. Her faded and worn nightshirt barely reached her knees and had stretched just about as far as it would go over her belly. Her reflection in the mirror showed dark circles under her eyes, but her hair still looked pretty dang good. She washed her hands and splashed cold water on her face, then went toward the kitchen.

  “Good mornin’,” Sloan said cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?” He filled a mug with coffee and handed it to her. “It’s decaf. I stopped drinking caffeine when I came home. It seemed to add to my jitters.”

  “I’ve been using decaf when I can get it”—she blew on the top of the cup and took a sip—“and no, I didn’t sleep too good, but then, I never do when I’m in a new place.”

  “Give it a day or two.” Sloan took a pan of muffins from the oven and set it on the table beside a plateful of bacon.

  “You don’t have to wait on me,” Ginger said. “We didn’t talk about rent or bills last night. I should pay my half.”

  “The house and land were handed down to me by my granny, so there’s no rent. The utilities are paid for through the company funds, so don’t worry about all that,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “It’s complicated, but this place is actually Baker Oil Company. I don’t have a formal office, but I do have a lawyer and a CPA who take care of things for me. I meet with them about once a month over in Hondo to sign papers,” he explained as he buttered a muffin and put it on her plate.

  “But . . . ,” she started to argue.

  He shrugged. “How about we make a deal? You get free room and board for making supper for us and helping with housework. I like a clean house, but I hate to dust. I could hire someone to clean for me, but I don’t want people in my house that’ll go out and tell what kind of toilet paper I use or whether I have steaks or chicken in my freezer. I figure those things are nobody’s business but mine.”

  “I don’t like to dust, either, but what you suggest is sure enough a fair deal.” She took a bite of the muffin and a sip of her coffee. “What about breakfast and dinner? I’ll be here until about eight o’clock, but I’ll be at the Banty House at noon, then back here at supper when I’m working for them.”

  “I like to make breakfast, so that’s my job,” he said. “Besides, when the baby gets here, there’ll be times when you’ll be up with night feedings, so I imagine it’ll be nice for you to have it fixed for you. Anything else?”

  “Yes.” She reached for another muffin. “Can I have the recipe for these? I’ve got a collection of Betsy’s, and I’d like to add this to my book.”

  Sloan pushed back his chair and went to the utility room. She expected him to return with a recipe card or maybe a cookbook, but he set a box on the table in front of her. “Use this. The recipe is on the back. It says to add an egg and some milk. Stir and bake at three hundred fifty degrees for twenty minutes. There’s a whole selection of things like this in the pantry if you ever want to whip some up for yourself.”

  “I reckon that recipe is simple enough that I can master it.” She finally smiled.

  “If I can follow it, I know you can,” he said.

  “And if I have trouble, I’ll just yell at you.” She ate a fourth piece of bacon and finished off her coffee. She stole glances over at him. A tiny dot of toilet paper was stuck to his chin where he’d cut himself when he shaved that morning. His dark hair was combed straight back, and his shoulders were squared off, even when he sat at the table. Military was written all over him. She was glad that he had the chance of a job doing what he loved, but suddenly a jolt of pure fear went through her. She had thought she would faint when he had defused that bomb in the hospital, and he would be doing that all day every day if he went to work for the military.

  “Hey, what’s the matter? Are you okay? Is it the baby?” He reached across the table and laid a hand on hers.

  “I’m not askin’ for anything, honest,” she whispered, “but what happens to me and Martha Belle if . . .” The words wouldn’t come out of her mouth.

  “If what?” Sloan asked.

&
nbsp; “You’ll be working with bombs all day”—she gulped a few times before she could go on—“and what if one of them blows up?”

  “Honey, I won’t be working with live bombs. I’ll be training guys on how to identify different explosive devices and how to disarm them, but I shouldn’t be in any danger,” he told her. “And if you’ll put my name on the birth certificate, then everything I have will go to the baby if I did die.”

  “Do you even know what you’re saying? That’s crazy talk,” she said.

  “Why is it? You’re naming the baby after Granny, and I have no children, so the company will have to go to someone. I can’t think of anyone better than someone who’s named after my granny.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s just money. That ain’t nothing but dirty paper with dead presidents on it.”

  “You’ve known me less than a month, and this baby isn’t biologically yours,” she said.

  “Want to know a great big secret? One that no one in the whole world—not even the sisters in the Banty House—knows.”

  “I don’t know,” she answered.

  “My daddy couldn’t have children. Granny told me that he had a high fever as a child. Doc Emerson said that it could have made him sterile, and so they did some tests when he was in high school. Sure enough, Doc Emerson was right. My dad fell in love with my mama when they were still in school, and she knew about the problem. They married young and thought about adopting, but Daddy wanted his baby to have my mama’s DNA. So they went through a fertility clinic, and here I am. If they ever did a DNA test on me, they’d find that my father was number seven-two-eight-six. Blood don’t always mean family.”

  Ginger was stunned speechless for several minutes. She’d thought that he looked just like the picture of his father that was hanging on the living room wall. When she could speak, she asked, “How did you find out about that?”

  “Granny told me on her deathbed, because with all this new DNA testing going on, she was afraid I’d find out on my own. She didn’t want me to think my mama had been unfaithful to my daddy. She said I was the product of my father’s undying love for my mama and that there had never been a child who’d been more wanted than I was.”

  After the dream she’d had just before she awoke that morning, she could hardly wrap her mind around that much love. “Do you ever wonder about your father?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head. “My daddy was my granny’s son for all I care.”

  “Do you want children of your own?” she asked.

  “Martha Belle could be mine if you will let her be. Maybe someday she’ll have a sibling or two. Who knows what the future might hold?” he said. “But I do know what the present holds. We’ve got about thirty minutes to get ready and go to work. You don’t want to be late on your first day, and I don’t want to have to rush with washing the car.”

  Ginger got up, carried her dirty dishes to the dishwasher, and then went to her room to get ready for work. She stopped and placed her hands on the rail of the baby bed. “Your biological father is dead, and I don’t even know if he’d want a child if he was alive, and a man I met only a few weeks ago is asking me to name him as your father. It would be a lie, but it would secure your future forever. What do I do?”

  “Hey, hey.” Betsy gave Ginger a hug when she arrived that at the Banty House. “We missed you at breakfast this morning. How’d you do on your first night at Sloan’s?”

  “Not so good.” Ginger tied an apron around her body above the baby. “What are we doing today?”

  “Making dozens and dozens of cookies for the Romp tomorrow,” Betsy said. “We’ll spend the day on the porch and serve cookies and lemonade to anyone who wants to sit a spell and visit with us. Last year, we went through twenty dozen cookies and so many gallons of lemonade that I lost count. The folks appreciate free refreshments.” She talked as she stirred up a batch of peanut butter cookies. “And, honey, there’s some folks who can’t afford to buy off them high-dollar vendors. Now tell me why you didn’t sleep good.”

  “I had a bad dream and Sloan is asking me to do something I’m not sure about,” she said.

  Betsy whipped around with narrowed eyes, pursed lips, brows drawn down so hard that the wrinkles in her forehead deepened. “What’s he done?”

  “It’s complicated, but you got to understand the nightmare first.” Ginger told her about the dream and then what Sloan had said.

  Betsy pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down somewhere in the middle of the story. Ginger told her everything except the part about the fertility clinic. “So what do you think? Give me some advice.”

  “Oh, Ginger, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” Betsy wiped tears from her cheeks with the tail of her apron. “That’s such a sweet thing for him to do. You’ve got to think about it . . .”

  “Think about what?” Kate came in from the living room. “I’ve got the chairs and the card table all set up for the Romp. I thought you might have some cookies already out of the oven. I was going to steal one.”

  “You got to tell her and Connie,” Betsy said.

  “Tell me what?” Connie walked into the kitchen and set a can of dust spray on the table. “When’s the cookies going to start coming out of the oven?”

  Ginger told the story again. “What do I do? I never set out to take advantage of anyone, and if I do what he’s asking, I feel like I am. I’d love for Martha Belle to have a father listed on her birth certificate, but it doesn’t seem right to lie.”

  “Martha Belle?” Betsy whispered.

  “You’re naming the baby for our mama?” Kate asked.

  “I picked out Belle first, and then I saw the name Martha on Sloan’s granny’s tombstone and they kind of went together. I plan to call her Belle,” she answered.

  “Mama would be so proud, and so would Martha. Since you’re doin’ that, I think you should do what Sloan asked,” Connie said. “His granny would be so proud to know that she had a granddaughter named for her.”

  “I’d like our baby to be called by both names. There ain’t nothing sounds more Texan or Southern than a double name,” Kate said, “and when she gets old enough, I’m going to teach her to make shine just like my mama taught me. I went to the basement with her the first time when I was twelve. By the time I was fifteen, I could make a run all by myself.”

  “Martha Belle.” Connie smiled. “It rolls off the tongue so well. I can see Mama smiling up there in heaven right now.”

  “But she’s not blood kin to either his granny or your mama,” Ginger argued.

  “Honey, do you think that makes a bit of difference to either of them? No, ma’am, it don’t. You think on it for a while and make up your own mind.” Betsy stood up and set about getting a pan of cookies ready to go in the oven. “And while you’re thinkin’, we’ll get cookies made.”

  “I got one more thing to say,” Kate said. “You ain’t blood kin to us, either, but we couldn’t be happier that you’re in our lives or prouder to have you for our adopted granddaughter if you was our very own. Blood don’t always make families. Hearts do.”

  The only thing that came to Ginger’s mind was “Amen!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ginger didn’t have to worry about what she’d wear to the Rooster Romp. Betsy had remodeled a dress for her—one of the remaining white cotton dresses that the last round of working girls had left at the Banty House. It had been decided that she would sit on the porch with the ladies in the afternoon, but until noon, she could go with Sloan down to Main Street. Betsy said that she needed to see all the vendors and maybe get some cotton candy at the carnival, but she warned her about riding the Ferris wheel.

  “What if something crazy happened and you couldn’t get down off that thing?” Betsy asked. “It happened to me one year, and I was stuck up there for a whole hour. Connie got really bitchy by the time that stupid thing started to move again.”

  Ginger hadn’t ever been to a carnival, so she made no promises. She’d imagined the whol
e thing would be much bigger than it was, but it was actually quite small. Everything was set up right on Main Street and covered only two blocks, with the Ferris wheel sitting in front of the old post office.

  “Let’s do that,” she said.

  “Oh, no, ma’am,” Sloan said emphatically. “Betsy gave me my orders. You can ride a horse on the merry-go-round, but you’re not to get on that thing. She’ll take a switch to me if I don’t take care of you.”

  Ginger wasn’t sure if it was the result of pregnancy brain, or if she’d had enough of men telling her what she could or could not do. She handed Sloan what was left of her cotton candy and marched right over to the Ferris wheel. She handed the man enough money to purchase a ticket and sat down in the seat he held for her.

  Sloan dropped the paper cone of pink candy and raced over to the teenage kid who was operating the Ferris wheel. “She can’t ride this. She’s going to have that baby in four days. So make her get off.”

  “Sorry, sir, but my manager says anyone can ride this, including pregnant women, and I’d get in trouble if I made her get off. She could sue the carnival, and I’d lose my job,” the kid said as he pushed the button to bring the next seat into play. “Next?”

  A couple of lovestruck teenagers got into the seat and huddled up next to each other. Ginger heard the ticket taker tell Sloan that he’d have to wait until the next ride, and then the wheel began to turn. She didn’t realize that she was afraid of heights until the swinging seat reached the top of the wheel. She looked out over the town of Rooster, and her stomach started to clinch up into a knot. The nausea hit on the second round, and even though she closed her eyes at the top, the swaying motion reminded her of just how high she was. By the fifth round, she absolutely hated the thing and its lively music. If she could have reached the kid who had insisted that it was all right that she rode the thing, she would have slapped him for selling her a ticket. She prayed to God that she hadn’t caused her baby any harm and vowed to never ride anything at a carnival again if she could just put her feet on solid ground.