It wasn't the first time she and Jarod had had sex, so it wasn't the first morning after, but it was still awkward. She fell back on the bed with a groan. The morning after making love was even more uncomfortable than the morning after sex. She'd have to face Emmett and Jarod that morning together!
She couldn't gather up her things and sneak out. Emmett would be devastated if she and Jarod suddenly "divorced." She took five minutes longer than normal to brush her hair. With slow steps she made her way to the table where Emmett sipped coffee and read the morning paper alone.
She peeked around the archway from the dining room into the kitchen to find it empty and went on inside to pour a cup of coffee. She carried it back to the dining room table and sat down.
The house was a perfect square and two stories up. The small foyer had a staircase up to the top floor. An archway to the left led into a dining room with a smaller arch into the kitchen. To the right was another arch that went into the living room and behind that was a den and office combination. Emmett spent most of his time at the dining room table or else in the living room.
"Good mornin'," she said.
He looked up over the top of his paper, grunted something that made no sense, and went back to reading.
She sipped her coffee and shut her eyes to the endless knickknacks sitting everywhere. If collecting clutter was genetic then Mavis and Chigger definitely shared a limb of the same family tree. Looking back at the way Mavis took charge of everything and nothing riled her, Daisy wondered if she'd secretly given birth to Chigger in her middle-aged years and given her away for adoption.
Emmett snapped his paper shut, folded it, and laid it aside. "It's about time you come crawlin' out of bed this mornin'. Sun's been up an hour already. I told you runnin' that Honky Tonk was going to be too much for you once you were a married woman. Runnin' a joint ain't no job for a married woman. Kids will be comin' along before long. Don't look at me like that. I heard them bedsprings yesterday afternoon and you don't want your kids goin' to school and havin' to say their momma is a barkeep."
"Why not?" She glanced upstairs. Maybe Jarod was in the bathroom.
"You know why not and he's not here this mornin' so stop huntin' him. He's got a cow havin' trouble calvin'. You ought to be out there with him and you would be if you hadn't slept so late because you were off at that beer joint last night. He's a damn good rancher but you are a vet."
She glanced at the clock on the wall behind Emmett's head. It was only seven thirty. She didn't think that should be a sin beyond forgiveness since she normally didn't open her eyes until noon or after.
She glared at Emmett. "Don't you lecture me. I'm twenty-eight years old. I've been making my own way in this world since I was a kid and I don't need your sass. If I want to take my kids to the Honky Tonk with me and put them in the back room while I serve beer and drinks to the customers, that's my business."
Emmett tucked his hands inside the bibbed part of his overalls. "You'll do no such thing with my grandchildren. I won't rest up there with Mavis if you take my blood kin to a honky tonk when they ain't nothing but babies. What's your business right now is to quit. I want you here full time before I die. I want to know there's a good woman behind Jarod, takin' care of him."
"They aren't your grandchildren, Emmett. They'd be your great-great nieces and or nephews. And Jarod's a big boy. He could run this ranch with one hand tied behind his back and cross-eyed, all by his lonesome little self. And I can help run this ranch and take care of my beer joint too." Her blue eyes flashed.
"You'll see I'm right one of these days, Daisy McElroy, and when you do I'll laugh at you," Emmett said.
Daisy McElroy! The name sounded strange in her ears.
"And I won't care if you do," she countered.
He laughed until his breath caught in his chest. "I knowed you were the woman for Jarod from the first time he come home from that beer joint. It reminded me of the first time I saw Mavis. Why, that next day he wouldn't hardly even argue with me. I shoulda brought him down here a long time ago. Let's go talk to the boys at Morgan Mill again this mornin'. You can visit with…" he stumbled on the name.
"Tillman?"
He shook his head.
"Bob?"
Another shake.
"Gordon?"
"Hell no. Not the guys. That woman. I remember when she was born and when she got married and how many kids she's got but I can't remember her name. I even know her momma and daddy and her grandparents," he said.
"Nita is her name. I'm not hungry. I'll just grab a doughnut at the café." Taking him to the café would buy a little more time before she had to face Jarod.
"That's right. Nita. I'll put on my boots and you go bring the truck around to the front door," he ordered.
She went out into the garage and picked out the right keys from the hooks inside the door, fired up his truck, and drove it around to the front yard. She waited a minute but he didn't come out so she left the truck running and went into the house to hear Jarod's frantic voice. Thinking he was talking to her she rushed into the living room to find Emmett sitting in his favorite old worn leather recliner with one boot on and the other on his lap. His face was the color of cold ashes and he was mumbling incoherently.
"Yes, ma'am. Ten minutes." Jarod kept his eyes on Emmett.
"Day…" Emmett's eyes went to Daisy.
She sat down beside and him and held his hand. "I'm right here."
"Make him really marry you," his whisper was raspy.
"You old goat!" she said.
Emmett squeezed her hand with all the energy he had left.
"Promise?" he said before he shut his eyes. He had a smile on his face and Daisy's hand in his as he crossed the threshold to reach out for Mavis.
Tears streamed down Daisy's cheeks as she laid her face on his knee and wept. "He's gone."
The paramedics arrived with whining sirens ten minutes later and found them, Daisy on one side and Jarod on the other, their hands entwined together over his right one that still held Daisy's.
"I'm not getting a heartbeat or a pulse. They'll pronounce a time of death when we get to the hospital with him," a small dark-haired lady said. "Y'all can follow us but…" she left the sentence hanging.
Daisy pulled both her hands free. "We will go with him."
I didn't promise, she thought as she followed the paramedics out to the ambulance with Emmett's body. Fifteen minutes before she'd been arguing with him and now he was gone and she hadn't promised so he could go on into eternity without worrying about leaving unfinished business behind. Guilt flowed over her like baptismal water.
Jarod gripped the steering wheel in his truck so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He hadn't expected Emmett to go like that. He'd thought he'd have several sick spells, maybe spend time in the hospital, and finally go in a morphine-induced stupor. He sure hadn't expected the last words he'd hear from Emmett's mouth would be, "Daisy is your Mavis."
Daisy touched his hand.
He relaxed.
"We had an argument at the breakfast table. He wanted me to come to the ranch permanently. I'm glad he went like this, sitting in his chair surrounded by all his things, and after a rousting good fight with me. He laughed until he almost cried at the end of the argument. He lived until the last minute of his life and died with dignity," she said.
"About last night," Jarod said.
"I can't talk about that right now, Jarod. Let's just get today finished and I'll go home," she said.
"You could stay until after the funeral," he said.
"Your family will need the room and you'll be busy with the arrangements."
Jarod started the engine and followed the ambulance. "Emmett took care of everything. It's all written down. The overalls and shirt are hanging in a special place in his closet. They are the last things Mavis ironed before she died that morning. His boots are shined and ready. They are the last pair he wore when he danced with her at the Honky Tonk. His gray hair is
to be parted and combed back like it was when he dated her and there's a picture of them on their wedding day that is to be put in his hands."
Daisy scooted across the truck seat and buried her face in Jarod's shoulder. "That's the kind of love I want."
Jarod swallowed hard but the lump in his throat didn't budge. He drove with one hand and drew her close with the other. Was Daisy truly his soul mate like Emmett kept fussing about and would she ever leave the Honky Tonk? She had the excitement of all those things that Toby sang about: bikers, truckers, hookers, lookers, loud music, even Tinker, and now her cousin, Cathy. He'd thought he'd have six weeks to decide what to do about the way he felt. That had just been snatched from him and it hurt as bad as losing Emmett.
He parked the truck behind the ambulance. He and Daisy walked beside Emmett's sheet-covered body into the emergency room. The doctors pronounced Emmett dead on arrival at the hospital with cause of death listed as an acute cardiac arrest. Jarod kept an arm around Daisy as they watched the doctors cover Emmett with a white sheet and the nurse make the phone call for the funeral home to come and take the body away.
It was only a few minutes before Jarod led her back out to his truck. He started up the engine, turned up the air conditioning, took his cell phone out of his pocket, and made a phone call.
Daisy looked out the side window to try to give him some privacy.
"Mother, Uncle Emmett had a heart attack this morning. He didn't survive it. He was gone in minutes. We are at the hospital and we're on our way back to the ranch. The hearse is here to get him now. Is there anything else I need to do before you all get here?"
He listened for a moment.
"I'm fine. Daisy is here with me. His final words were to Daisy." He held the cell phone to his chest and touched Daisy's shoulder. "What did he say?"
She swallowed hard and lied. "I couldn't understand it all. He was muttering. I think he wanted to see Mavis."
Daisy looked at the hearse backing up to the hospital doors. "You don't need to go talk to the funeral home people?"
"No, he did all that when Mavis died. He paid for his funeral at the same time he paid for hers. He'll be at the same funeral home she was and the services will be Thursday at ten o'clock," Jarod said.
"How do you already know that?"
"The first conversation we had when I came to the Double M concerned his going home to be with Mavis. He will be buried two days after he dies because the devil will come hunting him on the third day. And he'll already be 'up there' with Mavis so the devil will be shit-out-of-luck. His words exactly, not mine. He's already paid the funeral home extra to do whatever they have to do to make sure it's two days after his death and at ten o'clock in the morning because that's when Mavis had her services and they're to be held at the little country church they attended. After that he'll be buried at the Liberty Cemetery beside Mavis and we are all to go home to the ranch and have dinner under the shade trees like we did when Mavis died."
"I see," she said.
It was all so different from when her grandmother and mother died. Granny died in the middle of the night and they flew her body back to Cherokee, North Carolina, to be buried beside her husband. By the time Daisy and her mother drove from Arkansas to North Carolina, Granny's sisters had the arrangements under control. It was an Indian funeral and Daisy didn't understand a thing that went on for the most part. She and her mother stayed long enough to eat dinner with the relatives and then they drove straight back to Arkansas without stopping for anything but food and potty breaks. Her mother was exhausted by the time they got back and slept for two whole days before she went back to work at the bar.
When her mother died, she used what insurance money there was and buried her in the cemetery at Mena beside her first husband, Daisy's father. The latest boyfriend didn't even attend the graveside service. There were a dozen folks she'd worked with over the years who arrived to listen to one hymn and the preacher pray over her body. Cathy attended and stood beside Daisy. She hugged Cathy and they cried together, then she got into the old Maverick and drove back to southern Oklahoma.
Emmett had passion in his life. He argued with passion and he'd loved Mavis with passion. He'd lived, not merely existed.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked when Jarod pulled up in front of the ranch house.
"The donkey. He never even got to see the thing he fought so hard against and gave in to you so easily when you mentioned it. Damn it, anyway."
"I think he'd rather see Mavis than a donkey," Daisy said.
"I suppose so. What about you? What were you thinking about? I'm putting off going into the house. As bad as I hate all the fighting, it will be empty without him."
"Passion," she answered with one word.
"Last night."
"Not really. Passion as in zest for living and loving. I don't want to exist. I want to live like Emmett did."
"So last night? Was it not passion?"
"Last night was mind boggling and it was damn fine. But I want it all, not an hour a night of feeling like I'm the queen of the whole world. I want the arguing. I want the slow kisses after breakfast and the struggling to see if we can afford to buy something we really want. I want to look at what I've done with my life with pride when I get to the end and it all flashes in front of me. And I mean all of it. Not just the part everyone else thinks is good."
"Daisy, you deserve all of it. Any man should love you enough to make sure you have it all. When you reach the end and it flashes in front of you, you shouldn't have a single regret. You should never have to settle for second best. You deserve even better than the very best."
Tears stung her eyes but she didn't let them fall. She changed the subject. "What time will your folks be here?"
"In about an hour," he said.
"Good lord, are they flying?"
He nodded. "Mom and Dad will fly. They own a small plane that they get around in when they are in a hurry. Both of them are licensed. The rest of the family will be here before suppertime."
***
Cathy was sitting at the dining room table with a cup of coffee in front of her. Her yellow oversized T-shirt had a hole in the sleeve. Her hair was mussed from sleeping too hard after a long night's work, and yesterday's makeup was smudged.
"What are you doing home? Trouble in paradise so early in the marriage?" she asked when Daisy carried in her suitcase.
"Moving back in. Emmett died this morning. You look like hell."
"Well, your eyes are all red and you are pale so that don't leave room for you to be passin' judgment on me. Sit down and I'll pour you a cup of coffee. Tell me what happened. Start at the beginning and tell it all. Then I'll take a shower. I feel like sin on Sunday morning. I'd forgotten how much work closing up a joint is."
Cathy moved gracefully around the kitchen. She poured coffee and dug around in a box for a couple of packages of toaster pastries. She put one package in front of Daisy and said, "Dip 'em in the coffee and you don't have to heat them up."
Daisy began the story without telling anything about the bedroom scene from the night before. That was too fresh and too personal to share even with Cathy. She'd finished her second cup of coffee by the time she finished.
"And you left him there alone?" Cathy asked.
"I did but his parents were in the air and were going to land in ten minutes."
"Where?"
"In the pasture and he was going to drive the truck out to get them."
"Scared to meet them, weren't you? Afraid they'd look down on you because you own the Tonk and they have an airplane and fly around the country. That makes them rich in your eyes and you poor in theirs," Cathy said.
Daisy had her mouth open to deny it but she couldn't. "That means you give a shit and that means you like him and that means you're wadin' in deep shit, which means you could get hurt again. Be careful. I'm taking a shower now. You got anything black to wear to a funeral or do we need to shop today?"
"I've got a
basic black dress that Ruby made me buy for things like funerals and weddings. Which by the way, we're going to a wedding on Friday," Daisy said.
Cathy finished the last bite of pastry and headed toward the bedroom. "For someone who said she'd never get all wound up in a small town, you are sure doing a good job of it again."
Daisy was still sitting at the table when Cathy came out with an oversized towel wrapped around her body and another one around her hair. She sat down and removed the towel from her hair, shaking out long wet blond strands.
"I really did run from getting involved. I lasted seven years. That damn Chigger is the culprit," Daisy said.
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