Fannin's Flame

by Tina Leonard

  Fannin pondered Kelly asking him about love. “We’re fond of each other.”

  Everybody groaned. “That doesn’t sound promising,” Calhoun said.

  “Mason’s gonna kick your butt if you got Helga’s little girl pregnant and don’t marry her!” Archer said.

  “Yeah, and you’re going to get the lecture,” Last said. “Condoms are our friend. Condoms keep our lovin’ from going in the oven. Condoms—”

  “That’s enough, Last.” Fannin tried to tell himself everything was going to be fine, that these were men he loved and not ones he wanted to slap the stupids out of. “I do love Kelly. I fell in love with her when I met her. The lady in question is not convinced she wants to marry me.”

  “Dude, you didn’t play her hard enough.” Navarro looked wise. “The less attention you give a woman, the happier she is. The more she’ll chase you!”

  “You were obviously giving her lots of attention,” Last said sadly. “Too much.”

  “We’re having twins,” Fannin said.

  The brothers were struck dumb for several moments.

  “Man,” Last said, “you musta got into whatever Bloodthirsty was drinking. Humpty-humpty.”

  Fannin ground his teeth together. Told himself to remain calm. “You’re apes in human apparel.”

  “We’re merely fascinated attendants to your one-act play,” Calhoun said. “Pew-sitters in your church of drama.”

  “Okay, that’s it.” Fannin stood. “I’ve got to talk to Helga.”

  “What for?” Crockett’s eyes bugged. “You’re not going to tell her, are you? I’m pretty sure she’s blissfully ignorant. Have you thought of how she’s going to react to the news that you’ve…you know…had relations with her daughter? And that you’re not getting married?”

  “I didn’t say we’re not. I said the lady is thinking it through.” Fannin stared his brothers down.

  “Man, you’re in heap big wampum,” Archer said.

  Last slapped his hand on the table. “Wampum means money and that’s not what you’re trying to say, Archer. Now will everybody shut up and let the man speak? He’s asking for our help!”

  Fannin sighed. “I have considered that Helga will not be happy. I know Mason will be disappointed that I put the cart before the horse. I can only warn my brothers that the condom in your hand is not necessarily your friend.”

  They all gasped, brows in their hairlines.

  “And it’s time for me to make something happen in this relationship. Either Kelly wants to marry me, or she doesn’t. I can’t even guess as to what that little firecracker would say to me. She’s as riddled as Mimi in some ways.”

  “I know Mom riddled Dad plenty,” Archer said longingly.

  “I know. So,” Fannin said with a sigh, “it’s time for me to throw myself on the pyre. I’m going to go ask Helga for her daughter’s hand in marriage.”

  They all gasped again.

  “You know, I think I’ll stay around for a while,” Last said, gleefully looking up at the ceiling. “I haven’t seen fireworks lately!”

  FANNIN APPROACHED HELGA as she was folding sheets in the back bedroom. He knocked against the door so that he wouldn’t startle her.

  She turned around and nodded at him.

  “Hi, Helga,” he said.

  “Hi,” she replied.

  Sighing, he wondered how to tell someone that they were expecting twins and would be a grandmother before the year was out.

  Then he realized that was Kelly’s call to make. All he had to do was ask Helga for Kelly’s hand in marriage.

  “Helga,” he said slowly, “I love your daughter.”

  She looked at him with bird-bright blue eyes.

  “She doesn’t love me, but I’m hoping she will one day.”

  Helga watched him as she folded towels. He wondered how they proposed in Germany, and if it mattered. “Helga, I’d like to ask Kelly to marry me. So…” He took a deep breath. “I’m asking your permission to marry your daughter.”

  “YOU SAID WHAT TO MAMA?” Kelly exclaimed.

  “I asked her if I could ask you to marry me,” Fannin said.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t,” Kelly said. “Fannin, you already asked me. We agreed on a trial marriage that we would discuss at a later date. Which I’ve been meaning to speak with you about but—”

  “Kelly, I had to be respectful of your mother.”

  “Yes, but…” Kelly closed her eyes. “Oh, Fannin. I wish you’d told me you were going to do that. What did she say?”

  “Well, it was the oddest thing. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me. So I left.”

  Kelly sighed. “I’m so sorry. That’s really sweet, Fannin.”

  “I actually don’t see why this conversation has been so difficult. You’re pregnant. We’re getting married.”

  Kelly sobered. “I’d called her yesterday morning and told her about the babies.”

  “You did? She doesn’t seem unhappy.”

  “She’s not! She’s thrilled. I just didn’t tell her you were the father.”

  “What?”

  “Well,” Kelly said quickly, “I figured one shocking piece of news at a time! I mean, did you tell your brothers everything at once?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You all share everything, including whether or not a girl’s got PMS. Mama and I don’t gossip over everything. I know our relationship might not seem close, but it is. We just talk about things differently than you do. I guess you’d call it one step at a time.”

  “Still, I’m sure she put one and one together and came up with twins, Kelly. Obviously, if I was asking to marry you, I’m the father.”

  “Fannin,” Kelly said slowly, “I’m taking a leaf out of Mimi’s book.”

  “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t want a trial marriage. I don’t want to play around with my life. For you Jeffersons, many times a woman is merely sport. When I asked you about love, you said you hoped it would grow. I don’t think that happens exactly. I don’t know if people move from fling to final in a couple months. We’re going to live half a world away from each other. I just don’t think that’s the way for children to grow up.”

  “So where is this going?”

  “I’ve decided to marry an old family friend, Fannin. I want security and a stable home for my children. It’s the son of a man who was friends with my mother and my father. He lives in Ireland, near the ring house I inherited. In fact, he’s been keeping an eye on it for me.”

  “I see,” Fannin said coldly.

  “You probably don’t see now,” Kelly said, “but Fannin, I think you will, when you think this through!”

  “No, I don’t think I will,” he said, and then she heard the phone click.

  FANNIN WAS SO MAD he thought his head was going to pop off his shoulders. That little girl was yanking his chain, and he didn’t like it one bit! “She’s crazy,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?” Mimi asked, passing him in the kitchen to get fresh water for the baby’s bathtub.

  Turning, he said, “Mimi, you’re about the craziest gal I’ve ever known.”

  “Thank you, Fannin. I love you, too.” Blissfully ignoring him, she filled the tiny bathtub. “Nanette’s getting to be such a big girl.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Mimi, I need you to give me some—what do my brothers call it?—chick stuff.”

  She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “I need to get inside a woman’s head.”

  “Never. Trust me. That is a movie theater in which no man really wants to run the projector.” She turned, then stopped at the look on his face. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes,” he said, feeling pressure in his back molars from the feelings he was trying to contain. “I need a woman’s opinion.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” She sat down at the kitchen table.

  “I did.” />
  “No, you said something silly about chick stuff. Women like it when a man straight talks them. None of that allegorical nonsense.”

  He sighed. “Do you remember Kelly, Helga’s daughter?”

  “Of course. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday, but I think short-term memory loss is normal for this stage of new motherhood.”

  “Mimi, pay attention!”

  “I am, Fannin!” she said, annoyed. “Would you just get to the point?”

  “Kelly is having twins!” he yelled.

  “Twins? As in babies?”

  “Yes. Babies, for crying out loud. Two of what you just had.”

  “Whew. She has my sympathies. And my congratulations.” Mimi brightened. “Who’s the father?”

  “I’m the father!” he hollered, feeling like he was going to have a stroke.

  Mimi looked hurt. “Gosh, Fannin, no need to chew my head off. You’re going to upset Nanette.”

  He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just that nobody seems to think that I have much to do with the fact that Kelly’s having babies.”

  “I’d say you’ve had a lot to do with it.” She frowned at him. “Does Mason know? You’re going to get the condom lecture. Condoms are our friends—”

  “How do you know about that?” he demanded.

  “Oh, my gosh. Like y’all ever kept it a secret. He practically sang it to you boys in lullaby form from the age you started wearing deodorant and discovered your first zit. I thought I heard Last repeating it over and over one day when he was throwing feed out to those chickens we had once. Remember those?”

  “I’m not worried about Mason right now,” he interrupted. “I’m worried because Kelly says she’s marrying someone else.”

  Mimi started giggling.

  “What in the hell is so funny?”

  “All of you Jefferson boys. Your love lives are train wrecks. Just watch ’em derail.”

  He frowned. “She says she’s taking a leaf out of your book.”

  “And what fine leaf would that be?”

  “The one where you marry a man you don’t love in order to have a father for your children.”

  Mimi straightened. “I think I hear Nanette calling me.”

  “Wait, Mimi.” A sigh escaped him. “Look. I love her. I want to be her husband.”

  “So go do it,” Mimi said, supremely annoyed. “Instead of sitting in my kitchen playing ‘Cry Me a River’ on the tiny-whiny fiddle.”

  “I—”

  “Stop,” she said. “If you are saying ‘I’ because you cannot have it your way, then go away and stop wasting my time. You can laugh all you want about what I did, Fannin, but I knew exactly what I wanted and what I had to do to get it. I am happy with my life now. In fact, it’s beatific.”

  What about Mason, he wanted to say, but her eyes dared him to say a word on that subject.

  “So go,” Mimi said stubbornly. “Either go and get what you want or go sit in your own house and mope.” She got up. “Did you ever notice how you were always telling Kelly what she had to do in order to please you? You listened to what her needs and dreams were, and then you ignored them. You said, Yes, Kelly, I’m not keen on your mother and you’re too independent for me, but if you want me, you’ll have to do it the way I like it. And no woman with half a brain in her head would want that, Fannin.

  “But you found a woman with a full brain inside her skull, so why shouldn’t she leave you on the vine for a less intelligent female to pick? And so, we have the continuing saga of the Jefferson male quest for what pleases them.” She took a deep breath. “Was that the expertise you needed?”

  “I think that should just about do it.”

  “Felt just like old times, didn’t it?” she asked with a wicked smile on her face.

  He coughed. “Yeah, somehow it did.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Matters were never going to be any easier than they were at the ranch, Fannin had decided. Mason had never come home—though they’d had a postcard from Wyoming.

  He had figured out that Mason was on a mission to find Maverick. That was fine with him.

  Fannin personally didn’t have time for any other mission besides the one he was on—a mission to marry the mother of his children, now that Mimi had set him straight.

  Quietly he pushed open the door of the Honey-Do Agency. A striking woman looked up at him. “Hi,” she said brightly. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Fannin Jefferson.”

  She nodded. “I’m Julia Finehurst, owner of the Honey-Do Agency. Please come in and make yourself comfortable.”

  Impossible. But he perched on the edge of a chair, his hat rotating in his fingers.

  A red fur-ball came to roost at his feet, brown eyes staring intently up at him. “Hey, Joy,” he said, laying the hat down so he could scoop her up. “Did your mama leave both of us behind? Hey, great necklace, little lady. Looks like I’ll have to tell Santa Lily she’s a smart girl.” He rubbed the little dog’s head, gratified by her loyalty.

  Dogs were easy. “Maybe I should get a dog,” he murmured. “I mean, they still run off, but at least you can put a collar on them.”

  “What can I do for you, Fannin?” Julia asked, her tone kind.

  Fannin tried to relax. He figured Julia knew exactly who he was, so he was blunt. “I’m looking for Kelly.”

  She nodded. “She’s not here, Fannin. I’m sorry.”

  “Where is she?”

  Julia took a deep breath. “Ireland.”

  He stared, a thousand emotions flooding him at once. Shock and anger choked his good manners. “She can’t do that.”

  “I’m afraid she did.” Julia smiled sadly.

  He had the feeling she was sad for him. “People do not just get up and move to a different country.”

  “She has a home there, Fannin. Is it really so surprising, or is it surprising because you didn’t want her to do it and she did anyway?”

  “Kelly’s having my babies. A woman does not desert the father of her children to move to a different continent.”

  Julia sighed. “You haven’t called in a while. You haven’t visited her. The discussion of the trial marriage even died its natural death. The plane ticket was bought months ago, before she even went to Union Junction. What did you want her to do? Throw it all away and hope you’d come around eventually?”

  “I’ve been busy,” he growled.

  “It was already Kelly’s plan before she met you. I told her the best thing she could do was to go find herself. What you and she had didn’t seem to be…developing.”

  He nodded. “I guess you’re right.” Now what? The woman he loved was gone. “Reckon I’d better go get me a little Irish lass then.”

  “Not if you plan on going over there and telling her she has to come back here,” Julia warned him. “You’ll ruin any chance you have of winning Kelly’s heart if you go in there with your typical approach. No offense.”

  His brothers’ approach hadn’t worked for him at all. His approach didn’t seem to be working, either. He was willing to listen to this calm, nonjudgmental woman with the sympathetic eyes. “What do you suggest I do? We’re having children.”

  Julia shook her head. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  “In the meantime, guess I’ll buy a plane ticket.”

  She hesitated. “You’ll need a passport. Do you have one?”

  “Actually, no.”

  She got out a pad and a pen. “You can’t go anywhere without a passport, I’m afraid. And those take quite a while.”

  “How long?”

  “Three to six weeks. I can do what I can to help you. We have some experience here with the paperwork, due to some of our clients—”

  “I would appreciate any help you can give me.”

  “All right.” She smiled. “Now we need to discuss how long you plan to stay.”

  “I’m not sure.” Right now, he was making up his plans as he went along.
“I didn’t even know Kelly had left the country. Is there a number where I can reach her, by the way?”

  Julia wrote a number on a piece of paper, handing it to him silently. “Maybe you should think about applying for a visa.”

  “A visa?”

  “In case you decide on an extended stay. More months than weeks, you see.”

  “Months? No, I can’t leave the ranch for months. I have to…” He hesitated at the look on Julia’s face.

  “Maybe a round-trip ticket is more the thing,” she said lightly. “Can I look for fares for you, Mr. Jefferson? We provide a full range of services for our clients.”

  He had the sudden feeling that he’d been found lacking. “Thank you.”

  Getting up, he put his hat back on and went to the door, struck by a sudden, paralyzing thought. Turning slowly, he said, “You wouldn’t know anything about a wedding, would you?”

  Julia’s expression closed. “I’ve probably already said more than I should have. I’m sorry.”

  That was a bad sign. Julia obviously knew that Kelly had mentioned marrying a family friend. He cursed silently to himself.

  “You have her phone number,” Julia reminded him. “You can ask her any personal details you like.”

  He nodded.

  “And you might also want to leave Joy here,” Julia said with a smile.

  He hadn’t realized he’d nearly carried the dog out the door with him. Her warm body and welcome had given him the strength he needed. “What’s going to happen to Joy? Do you need me to take her to Helga for you?”

  “For now, she’s staying with me. Until I get word on what Kelly plans to do.”

  “So…” Fannin digested that quickly. “She’s not married yet. Or there wouldn’t be the possibility of her coming back to get Joy.”

  “As I said—”

  “Thank you,” Fannin said happily. “What do you need from me to get the paperwork flowing?”

  “I’VE BEEN ENLIGHTENED,” Fannin told Kelly over the phone. “I swear, I’m only listening to female tactics from now on. No more men’s ideology on handling women. And nothing more from my brothers. That’s pretty much a no-brainer.”

  He heard Kelly sigh. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Fannin. You just need the right woman. I don’t believe I’m her.”