Long, Hot Texas Summer

by Brown, Carolyn

  “Bullshit!” Rosie exclaimed. “You are both strong women. Nona, you are going to be your mama’s right arm today. And, Loretta, you are going to be the perfect hostess. Now stop your whining and get a backbone. I know you’ve both got one. Hell, I been puttin’ up with your bitchin’ for a month now. Ain’t neither one of you willin’ to give an inch to me, so buck up and find that strength, even if you have to support one another for a weekend.”

  Loretta chuckled down deep in her chest. “You’ll get your share of lecturing about college. After all, I didn’t get a college degree and I wound up divorced. Your aunts did get their education and they have stayed married, so that could be their argument. But don’t think for one second you are the main target. Mama is coming to the canyon, which she hates, for one reason. And she’s bringing reinforcements with her for the cause.”

  “And what’s that?” Nona asked.

  “They are planning an intervention. The black sheep of the whole family is about to get her comeuppance. I haven’t been real nice when my sisters called this summer and they’re out for revenge. They’ve got some notion that I’m thinking of staying in the canyon.”

  “Are you?” Nona’s eyes widened.

  “Right now I just want to get through this party. I’m not as quick at making decisions as you are,” Loretta said.

  “Hey, I told you, I’ve thought this through, but me and Bossy don’t want to fight with you today. We got to do what Rosie said. We got to make a stand together.”

  Rosie tapped the sign on the refrigerator. “See this. Read it carefully. You got to fight to hang on. So double up your fists and get after whatever it is you want.”

  Before noon the whole ranch seemed to be alive with activity. The tent folks arrived in their big trucks promptly at nine. Flint and Paula were busy unloading ponies from a long horse trailer and getting the corral decorated for the pony rides. Travis and Waylon waved from the enormous black barrel-shaped smoker parked out under a pecan copse. The smell of smoked briskets, turkeys, and pork loins filled the whole canyon.

  “That won’t harm the pecan crop this year, will it?” Loretta asked Jackson.

  “It shouldn’t. Might produce a whole new breed that tastes a little like brisket.” He drove a stake into the ground for the first tent. “Still thinking about tomorrow night?”

  “Hell, no! That’s off. My folks, all of them, sisters and families as well as Mama and Daddy, are coming for the whole weekend.” She shaded her eyes with her hand and watched the convoy kick up a red dirt cloud. “Looks like Nona gets the surprise. She wasn’t expecting them until midafternoon, but there they are and it’s not even lunchtime.”

  “Dinner, darlin’.” He grinned.

  “You know what I mean. The whole family. Dolly, Emmy Lou, and Tammy, plus husbands and kids.”

  “It’s been years since I’ve seen the family. Let’s go welcome them to the ranch.” He waved with his hat, grabbed her hand, and started across the pasture in a long-legged jog.

  She was totally breathless by the time they rounded the end of the house. Four big motor homes had lined up single file. The doors opened as if on cue and people poured out like ants. Her sisters all converged upon her in a group hug and Clark Sullivan, her father, shook Jackson’s hand like he was truly glad to see him.

  Not much shorter than Jackson, Clark was a tall man. His brown hair flashed touches of auburn in the bright sunlight and wire-rimmed glasses made his green eyes appear even larger than they were.

  “Been a long time,” Clark said. “Ranch looks good and that brisket smells wonderful.”

  “That’s Nona’s boyfriend and his cousin’s job today. I don’t think we’ll have too many complaints on what they’re cookin’. Want to welcome all y’all”—he motioned with his hand—“to Lonesome Canyon. Make yourselves at home. There’s plenty of room in the backyard for you to pull those trailers around under the shade trees.”

  “Aunt ’Retta, tell them boys that we get to stay in the house with Nona and they have to go to the bunkhouse. We haven’t seen our cousin all summer,” LeAnn said.

  Her twin, Deanna, piped up right behind her, “And if she stays on the ranch, it might be a year before we see her again.”

  “You six girls unload your things in the house. Faith gets to stay in Nona’s room. LeAnn and Mindy can share the room across the hall from her. Lorrie and Paulette, you two can have the room with twin beds right next to her room,” Loretta said.

  “Thank God, you made the decision. We’ve listened to them whine for four hours,” Dolly said.

  “And thank God you didn’t put Deanna and LeAnn in the same room. They are constantly fighting. Must be what fifteen-year-old girls do,” Emmy Lou said.

  “I remember when four other girls used to fight a lot worse than Deanna and LeAnn do. And don’t think it will end when they grow up, Emmy Lou. At least it hasn’t with my girls.” Katy stepped forward for her turn to hug Loretta.

  Loretta had to bend for the embrace. Her mother’s blonde hair smelled like coconut shampoo and hairspray and for a split second Loretta was homesick for Mustang. For the order in her life, her office at the real estate agency. She missed getting her father’s midmorning coffee at the little shop around the corner and listening to him sing off-key when he worked up a sale.

  “Can all us boys go to the bunkhouse? We was teasin’ them girls about stayin’ in the house. We really want to see what it’s like to be cowboys for the weekend,” Garth asked.

  No one even noticed the pickup driving across the pasture. But when the door slammed and Nona crawled out, settled her straw hat firmly above her blonde braids, and waved, they all stopped talking at once.

  “Is that Nona?” Emmy Lou asked.

  Loretta nodded.

  “She’s dead serious about this ranchin’ shit, isn’t she?” Deanna said.

  “Young lady,” Katy scolded.

  “You say it all the time, Granny,” Deanna pouted.

  “That doesn’t mean you can,” Emmy Lou said.

  Nona started across the yard with her hand firmly in Travis’s. “Hello, all my relatives. I want you to meet Travis Calhoun before you split and scatter. Girl cousins can stay in the house with me. Boy cousins can take their bedrolls to the bunkhouse. Travis will bring you in the back of his truck,” she said.

  “We’ve already settled that.” Tammy grinned.

  Nona started with her favorite aunt, Dolly, and passed out hugs and made introductions. “Well, then I’m reinforcing the settlement. I hope to hell you didn’t come to sit on your cans and be entertained. This isn’t a dude ranch. It’s a working ranch, so you can all pitch in and help make this party a success for me and Mama.”

  Garth and Collin were both fifteen, Billy Ray was fourteen, and Vince was twelve. They looked at Travis in awe.

  “You guys are under this cowboy’s supervision. Take a deep breath and get a whiff of that barbecue cookin’ out there under the shade trees. That’s what he and Waylon are doing today and they can sure use some help with setting up games and other things.” She pointed and narrowed her eyes. “If I catch you tryin’ to sneak a beer, I’ll make you muck horseshit out of stables all afternoon and you won’t get to eat a bit of supper.”

  “Granny, she said shit and you didn’t yell at her,” Deanna said.

  “She’s twenty-one,” Katy said. “You can say bad words when you are twenty-one, but I still won’t like it.”

  “You’re still bossy as hell, Loretta,” Garth told her.

  “Garth! You aren’t twenty-one either,” his mother, Dolly, fussed.

  “She is, Mama. She’s always bossed us boys around and she let the girls do it too,” Garth said.

  “Travis, darlin’, please take these cowboys to the bunkhouse and then put them to work.” Nona kissed him right there in front of aunts, cousins, and even her granny, who shot a
glaring look that way.

  The boys dashed inside the motor homes and were back out in record time, each holding a bedroll and a duffel bag. They scrambled over the side of the truck like monkeys climbing trees.

  “Right nice to meet all of you,” Travis said.

  The brothers-in-law nodded at the same time—Isaac, Stephen, and Terrance, the best husbands Loretta’s sisters could have ever found. Loretta had approved of the three hardworking men from the day she met them. But she did feel sorry for them. Living with her sisters couldn’t be easy by any stretch of the imagination.

  “Enough jawin’ for now. Get back in your wagons and we’ll line ’em up in the backyard and then we’ll see what we can do to help,” Clark chuckled.

  “Well, done,” Loretta whispered to Nona as they loaded back up. “And you did it without Bossy to help you.”

  Nona smiled up at Loretta and said softly, “They don’t scare me nearly as bad as Rosie does, and she said we both had to get a backbone. I could understand her telling me that, but you’ve always made Superman seem like a wimp.”

  “Thank you for that. I needed it today. Take the girls on into the house. I told them which rooms they are staying in this weekend,” Loretta said.

  “I’ll help get the electricity run to the motor homes and then we’ll grab a beer and go help get the tents set up. I haven’t seen y’all since Emmy Lou’s wedding.” Jackson followed Clark to the lead motor home.

  “Seventeen years is a long time,” Clark said.

  “Too long.” Jackson smiled.

  Loretta crawled up the ladder to the hayloft and chose her spot carefully—far enough back that no one could spot her from below, close enough that she could see everyone working like ants getting ready for the party. Ezra and several of the older folks had already arrived and were sitting inside a tent with big fans on either end. The thermometer already registered three digits, but at least the cool air kept the elderly from heatstroke.

  Rosie had stepped up, God love her soul, and hauled Katy and the sisters off to the kitchen to help her bake chocolate sheet cakes all afternoon. And after she’d sworn that she wouldn’t do a damn thing to help with the party. Loretta owed her big-time.

  All the phone calls and hard work looked to be coming together out there. Tents were up. Baskets of those little cardboard church fans with bright-colored fireworks pictured on one side and the Lonesome Canyon logo on the other were ready for use. The boy cousins were busy setting up two croquet games, badminton, and a baseball diamond. Flint and Paula had the pony rides ready. Now all they needed was people to come help them celebrate.

  She heard someone coming up the ladder, but wasn’t surprised when Nona poked her head through the hole in the floor.

  “Hey, got room for me and Bossy? I rescued him out of my bedroom. He’s not real fond of all those people. I may let him sleep up here tonight,” Nona said.

  “There’s always room for you and Bossy. I bet he’ll be real happy sitting on that hay bale over there in the corner tonight. Where’s everyone else?” Loretta asked.

  “Right now we’ve set up a beauty shop in the dining room. All the little girls and women who want to visit can have their nails done and/or faces painted with red, white, and blue bursts like sparklers,” Nona said. “Faith is in charge and Deanna and Paulette are helping her. LeAnn and Mindy are taking care of refreshments—sweet tea, coffee, and soft drinks and cookies. The others are in the kitchen with the aunts. Delegate. That’s the secret.”

  “Have you gotten the talk yet?” Loretta asked.

  Nona sat down beside her mother, leaving a foot of space between them. “I’d sit closer, but I smell like a locker room. I’m a lost cause. They’ve given up on me, Mama. You were right. They’re here to make sure you go home to Oklahoma. Aunt Emmy Lou was whispering to Granny, but she shut up in a hurry when I went in the kitchen. But believe me, Faith was willing to tell all for an introduction to one or two cowboys.”

  “And you? Are you on their side?” Loretta asked.

  Nona shook her head. “Not anymore. I like having you here. It’s like we are a family again. Now you, Mama? Are you going to stop pressuring me to go back to college in the fall?”

  “Never. Please finish. If not in Oklahoma, you can take classes here. There’s a college in Amarillo. I don’t care if you have an OU degree. I just want you to finish,” Loretta answered.

  “Well, I’d say that’s negotiable.” Nona smiled. “We’ll talk more about that idea when we get through this weekend. I hear someone on the ladder.”

  “Hey, do I hear voices in my attic?” Jackson’s voice preceded him up to the loft. “I figured I might find you here. The caterers have arrived and they’ll be setting up in the food tent. Rosie has bullied the brothers-in-law into carrying the sheet cakes to the dessert tent. It’s already filling up with cobblers, cakes, cookies, and I even saw two freezers of homemade ice cream.”

  “That’s what I like about the canyon. Folks don’t ever come to a party empty-handed. I’m going to be first in line for ice cream,” Nona said.

  Travis yelled from below, “Hey, the hayloft.”

  Nona scooted over and dangled her legs over the edge. “Hey, just look at that sexy cook!”

  Travis struck a pose, muscles bulging and a grin on his face. “One hour and we’ll be ready to take the briskets out of the smoker and cut them up. Your older cousins are now valets. They’re parking cars out in the north pasture. Glad we moved the cattle to make more room. Place is filling up and folks are asking for you and your mama,” he said.

  “Catch me,” Nona said.

  “No!” Loretta gasped.

  Travis stepped back and shook his head emphatically. “Don’t you dare. If you break a leg, Jackson will shoot me for sure. I’ll wait for you at the bottom of the ladder.”

  She scrambled backward and disappeared through the hole in the floor.

  “Alone at last,” Jackson sighed.

  “But only for a minute or two. We’ve got to go play host and hostess. And we do have a chaperone.” She pointed to Bossy, sitting in the corner.

  “My God! Is that what I think it is?” Jackson asked.

  “Yes, it is. It appears he’s not happy in her room right now with all the people in the house, so he’s going to stay out here. I’d bet dollars to cow patties that she takes him in before bedtime, though.”

  “I won’t tell a soul that he’s out here,” Jackson said, “but I am going to take a picture of him with my phone.”

  “I didn’t think of that. Send it to me when you get time.”

  He quickly took the photograph and then sat down beside her, tilted his hat back, and tipped her chin up with his fist. The kiss was long, lingering, hungry, and hot. It blocked out friends, family, enemies, and even the thought of homemade ice cream. When it ended he continued to hold her close to his chest, their hearts beating in unison.

  “I needed that to get me through the rest of the afternoon and evening,” he said.

  “I might need a booster shot over the weekend.” She smiled.

  “You get to feelin’ weak, honey, you just wink at me and I’ll be glad to take care of that for you,” he teased. “It’s kind of amazing how that Clark and I fell right back into our old friendship like we’d only talked yesterday. I thought it might be awkward, but it wasn’t.”

  “I’m sorry about tomorrow,” she whispered.

  “Me too. But I changed the reservations to next week, so it’s not canceled. It’s only postponed. Meet you up here tomorrow evening at eleven o’clock?” he asked.

  She leaned back and smiled. “It’s a date.”

  “Does that mean we are dating?” he asked.

  “Nona asked me the same thing when we went to the spa. What do I tell her?” Loretta asked.

  “You decide and then let me know. Right now I don’t have to bre
ak up with anyone. Do you?”

  “I wouldn’t be sleeping with you if I had a boyfriend,” she said.

  “Well, that’s good news,” he chuckled. “Should I write you another note and send it by Bobby Lee? Will you check the yes box again, Loretta?”

  She remembered that day when they were ten and he’d sent Bobby Lee to bring her the note. “Why don’t you try it and see?” She wondered what checking yes would entail at their age now. Back when they were ten years old, it meant that she liked him and she was his girlfriend, but they’d grown past that, fallen in love, gotten a divorce, and now—what were they?

  Her hand felt small in Jackson’s as they made their way from barn to the party, spread out over ten acres of ground with folks from Ezra’s age and older to tiny babies in strollers and infant carriers. Travis held up a fist from the smoker area and Jackson nodded.

  “I guess that means they’ll start cutting up the brisket now,” Loretta said. “I never realized how much work there is in this party. How are we ever going to make it without Rosie?”

  “I’ll hire you to come back every year, or else you’d best teach Nona all the ropes,” Jackson said.

  “What does it pay?” Loretta asked.

  “Sex three times a week as long as you are here,” he teased.

  “I can get that anywhere in the world without planning a party,” she whispered.

  “But it won’t be like what we have, will it, darlin’?”

  Ezra waved from inside the tent. Jackson waved back and Ezra shook his head. When he pointed at Loretta, she pulled her hand free. She touched her chest with a finger and Ezra nodded.

  Jackson dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I’ll see you later.”

  “If you can’t find me, check the loft. It’s my sanctuary,” she said.

  “Loretta!” Heather and Maria yelled from the backyard.

  She waved back and pointed to the open-front tent where Ezra was sitting. They nodded and ducked into the tent, where appetizers and drinks were set up.