“Two grown consenting adults.”
He popped her on the fanny. “Go put on your shorts and get presentable.”
“Two. Grown. Consenting. Adults.” She said each word distinctly. “That means you don’t tell me what to do.”
He threw up his greasy hands. “Hey, I was teasing. You always grumpy in the morning?”
She shot him a look and shut the door to her bedroom. Yes, she was grumpy. She’d been awakened by her mother. She’d tried to find her father as well as her niche in life for seven years and to be reminded of failure didn’t make her all smiles and giggles. Add to that a kiss that made her knees weak and sent her thoughts plummeting from kitchen to bedroom and romping around in bed for the rest of the day with Hank. Then his complete acceptance to wait and not kiss her a hundred more times before declaring that he couldn’t possibly wait to make love to her. It was enough to make an angel grumpy and Larissa did not have a halo.
Hank whistled while the bacon cooked. So Larissa had a burr in her saddle in the mornings. She could never match his mother in that department. One look from Victoria before mid-morning would scald the paint off a brand new pickup truck. Employees learned quickly to leave her alone until she’d had a pot of coffee and at least four doughnuts. Sugar and caffeine was what kept her fueled and ready to wheel and deal.
Larissa pulled on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and put on a bra. Maybe later she’d take it off, but right then it seemed like a suit of armor against her own emotions. She brushed her hair, flicked a bit of blush on her cheeks, and added a hint of lip gloss to her full lips.
She opened the door into the kitchen to the smell of coffee and bacon. “I’m sorry I was an old bear. I need coffee and sunshine.”
He handed her a steaming cup of coffee. “This will get you going.”
She took a sip or two then set the cup aside. “I’ll peel potatoes while you do that.”
“Wow! Not even half a cup and you are civil? That wouldn’t even take the evil gleam from my mother’s eyes,” he teased.
“Honey, you would take the evil gleam from my mother’s eyes,” she muttered.
He heard every word. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means she’s coming to Dallas in a few weeks for me to meet her new main man,” she said honestly.
Hank laid out the last few pieces of bacon to drain on paper towels. “So she’s not married?”
Larissa giggled. “Not since I was a tiny baby.”
“So what’s the big deal about her bringing a new man?” His attention went on alert as he remembered his mission. For several days he’d forgotten why he was spending so much time in Mingus. While he’d been busy trying to dig up anything and everything on Larissa, he’d started to really like the woman. He didn’t care when it was just heat between them. That could be remedied in a hurry, but now that Larissa was his friend, he’d almost forgotten his original mission. It didn’t matter because friend and lover would come to a screeching halt when she had the meeting at the Honky Tonk and found out that Hank was not on her side of the argument.
Larissa shrugged. “Mother has maintained her beauty. She’s fifty but she looks my age. We easily pass for sisters. Once a lady, not a man, mind you, who’d I’d suspect of flirting, but a woman my age, asked if I was the older sister. She draws young men to her like flies on waffle syrup. The last one was younger than me. He had no idea I was her daughter.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And this woman lives in Tennessee and works at Loretta Lynn’s dude ranch?”
She laughed. “Mother lives wherever the wind takes her. The part about Loretta Lynn’s ranch was a joke. She wouldn’t mess up her Jimmy Choos by getting out of her limousine at a dude ranch. Not unless she spotted a hunky man, then she’d go to the nearest western wear store and arrive in proper style.”
He filed the information away. He’d been looking in the wrong places. Doreen Morley must be amongst the rich and shameless instead of the poor and shameful. “She must be wealthy for that kind of lifestyle.”
“Wealth is relative. Do you consider yourself wealthy? You’ve sat in Paris cafés and eaten in Italian restaurants. Are you rich? How much water do I put on these potatoes?”
“Barely enough to cover them. Soon as they are cooked we poor it all off and add milk.” He read from the recipe. “While they are boiling, we crumble up all this bacon and chop an onion and the parsley. Is your mother just coming to Dallas to see you? Why doesn’t she come here and stay with you?”
Larissa laughed. “My house wouldn’t hold her luggage. No, seriously, she’s got a charity function of some kind. I expect she’ll spend a few days at the home place up in Perry, Oklahoma, while she’s here. Especially if she wants to impress Boyfriend Number Umpteen.”
“Are you bitter?” He carefully added the name of the town where the home place was located to his list of things to pass on.
She shrugged. “I wasn’t. Indifferent most of my life. Not bitter, though. Mother is charming, fun, and a hoot to be around. We have a great time but she’s my friend, not my mother. My nanny was my mother figure. She died seven years ago. That’s when I decided to find myself.”
“Did you?” he asked.
“Find myself?”
He nodded as he crumbled bacon into a bowl.
“Oh, yeah. I went here and there and even over yonder and Larissa wasn’t there so I really did pull down a map in the library at our house and I really did stick a pin in Mingus, Texas. I thought I’d gone to the end of the world, made a left-hand turn, and felt hell’s scorching fires when I found Mingus. But I found Larissa Morley here. You ever go on a journey hunting yourself?”
He swallowed hard. “I never lost myself.”
“Oh, you are lost, honey. If you are living in two places and one of them has a mother like mine, then you are definitely lost. Try my trick. Get one of those thumbtacks with a big plastic head and blindfold yourself. Turn around three times and stick it in a map. See where it takes you,” she said.
“Maybe I’ll try that sometime. Right now I’m pretty content with where I am.” His heart clinched up. He wasn’t content. He was miserable. Larissa Morley had him twisted around her finger and he dreaded the day she found out that he was working for the other side.
The smell of the onion caused tears to drip from her cheeks. Hank busied himself at the stove so he wouldn’t see her cry. After the meeting concerning the sale of Mingus, which he’d already decided was not about to come to pass, she would really cry and the thought pierced his heart.
“Hey, hey, anybody home?” Linda called from the living room. She, Betty, and Janice paraded into the kitchen. They stopped dead when they saw Hank at the stove and Larissa crying.
She held up the onion and giggled. “Come on in. Hank has the coffee ready. We’re making that damn good potato soup stuff I was telling y’all about. You can eat with us soon as it’s done. Stop giving Hank drop-dead looks, Janice. I’m crying because of the onions.”
A part of Larissa was glad for the intrusion because it stopped the questions and conversation about her mother. The other part wished they’d make excuses and leave so she could have Hank all alone that rainy day.
“I’ll make a pitcher of tea,” Linda said.
“I’ll check the pantry and see if there’s anything to stir up a dessert,” Betty said.
Janice went to the cabinet and took down a plastic bowl. “I’ll make a pan of biscuits to go with the soup. Bring out the flour and shortening while you are in the pantry, Betty.”
Hank raised an eyebrow.
Larissa smiled. “They are as much at home in my kitchen as in their own. Got to admit they’re a hell of a lot better at cooking.”
Janice patted her on the shoulder. “Aw, honey, when you get another thirty or thirty-five years on you, you’ll be better than us. Look how far you’ve come in the past six months. Lord, first time you tried to make a biscuit I figured we’d have to go up to the sheriff’s of
fice and register the thing as a concealed weapon. If you’d have flung that thing at a man, it would have killed him dead on the spot.”
Hank stole glances at the three women. They were all somewhere between sixty and seventy. Was that why Larissa liked them so well? They’d become surrogate mothers.
Betty brought out flour, sugar, shortening, cinnamon, and everything else they needed and set it all on the cabinet. “Hey, how does snicker doodles made up in bars sound? That’s faster than waiting for cookies.”
Hank poured the boiling water off the potatoes and added milk. “I feel like a chef. Let’s put a fancy restaurant in downtown Mingus. Anyone know of a place I could buy?”
“I own a chunk of what used to be downtown Mingus but not even Hayes Radner who thinks he’s God could buy it from me. And honey, I’m too damned old to be working in a restaurant,” Linda said as she mixed butter and sugar together. “I’m close to retirement and when I can talk J. C. into it we’re going to travel.”
“Where to?” Hank wished he had a notebook with him. Larissa made mush of his brain most days and he had trouble at night remembering what he was supposed to put on the list for the investigators to check out.
“I haven’t decided. If I leave it up to J. C. it’ll be to Galveston for a night and maybe a day and then drive back home so fast that he won’t even stop for a dollar burger and a pee break. He doesn’t like to be away from his bed or his remote. I had to keep him liquored up in Vegas to be able to stay there a week and there were dancing girls and roulette wheels. That should tell you how much traveling we’ll really do but it’s a nice dream.” She laughed.
“You should see the exotic places like France and Italy. Maybe England or even Sweden,” he said slyly. “How about you, Betty? You want to travel farther than Galveston?”
“Hell, no. I don’t want to leave Mingus. Elmer is thinking that we ought to sell out and move to be closer to the kids but he’s going to be sleeping with one mad she-coon if he does. Hell, he might be sleeping with his old coon dog if he sells my house. I’m not leaving Mingus. This is home and I’m happy here. I love the whole bunch of them but if I lived close they’d drive me stark raving mad. If he wants to go worry with them, then power to him. He can go by himself and I’ll stay right here. ”
Janice threw up her flour covered hands. “Don’t look at me. Frank wouldn’t sell his chunk of dirt if God wanted to buy it for a new church house. Besides, I wouldn’t know what in the hell I’d do without my friends. I’d be lost and miserable. If Elmer gets a wild hair up his ass, you can live with me, Betty. Hayes Radner might as well scratch his ass with a length of barbed wire as come around wanting our place.”
He didn’t need to remember any of the conversation. If the rest of Mingus felt the same way there would never be an amusement park there. The Radner Corporation would have to move on down the highway and find another piece of property.
“Hank brought a movie to watch when we finish our mid-afternoon brunch,” Larissa said.
“You changing the subject. Lord, girl, you’re the one who’s been on the soapbox and preached the hardest about this thing. I figured you’d throw them onions down and begin to oratin’ like a holiness preacher on the last night of a revival,” Linda said.
“I’m just tired of it. I want to eat good soup, scarf down about six of those biscuits and some cookies, and watch a funny movie. I’ll be glad when it’s over. I’m not selling. You three aren’t. We’ll hope the rest of Mingus doesn’t. But with what we all own, he’d be getting only a little portion of what he needs and wants. So he might as well cut off a piece of barbed wire and bare his butt.”
Betty giggled. “What movie you got? That new one with Sandra Bullock?”
“Hank’s brought in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Y’all ever seen it?” Larissa asked.
Janice clapped her hands and flour mushroomed over the table. “Love it. Haven’t seen it since it came out in the movie theater more than twenty years ago. Remember when we left the husbands at home and went down to Stephenville to see it?”
“I would never forget that movie,” Betty said. “I came home and thought about turning one of my empty buildings into a whorehouse. Figured we were far enough from Palo Pinto and the sheriff that I could get away with it for a while.”
“Why didn’t you?” Larissa asked.
“Figured Elmer would spend all my profit on the hookers and then I’d have to kill him and spend the rest of my life in prison. Besides, the sheriff up in Palo Pinto wasn’t nearly as good lookin’ as Burt. Hey, why don’t you put in a chicken ranch and Hank can run for sheriff. Can you sing like Dolly?”
Larissa shook her head. “Not me. My singing turns the hot water cold in the shower.”
Hank chuckled at the thought of running for sheriff of Palo Pinto County. Somehow he couldn’t picture himself in that role even though in another lifetime he could easily see Larissa running an old-time brothel.
“I’m ready for the onions so I can brown them in the bacon drippings,” he said.
She carried them across the room in a small bowl and handed them to him, their hungry eyes locking in the foot of space separating them. Hank’s conscience drove a railroad spike through his heart. He could not make love with Larissa again, not until after the town meeting. How could he live with himself?
After the meeting, she’d never speak to him again. That brought on pain worse than his conscience inflicted. How had he fallen for the woman? He’d come to the ranch with one stone in his hand to kill two birds. He’d spend a month with his father away from three-piece suits and high-dollar deals. He’d sip a beer in the evenings on the front porch, enjoy Oma’s spoiling, and all those things that drew him back to an easier way of life year after year. And he’d also do a little undercover work for the firm if he could get a foot inside the door with Larissa Morley.
“Get a room,” Linda giggled.
Larissa blinked and laughed with her. “Hard not to stare at something that looks like Hank, ain’t it?”
“Darlin’ if I was thirty years younger I’d do more than stare,” Betty said.
Hank blushed.
Larissa laughed harder.
The biscuits and cookies went into the oven at the same time. When the soup was finished they were ready to serve right along with it. Larissa sliced Colby cheese and added a few sweet pickles to a saucer for a relish plate and Linda set the table. Hank drug an extra straight back chair from the living room and all five of them crowded around the small table. He felt like Judas at the last supper. He wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he dug out the change in his pocket that there wouldn’t be thirty pieces of silver.
“So how long you stayin’ up at your dad’s ranch and what do you do in Dallas? Damn this is good. I’ve got to write off the recipe before we leave. Elmer will love it. I might make a pot full for supper. Hand me one of those biscuits, Linda,” Betty said.
Larissa looked at Hank, suddenly realizing she didn’t know much of anything about what he did in Dallas. “What do you do in the big city? I bet you don’t wear cowboy boots and western cut suits.”
Hank bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. “No, I wear three-piece suits and dress shoes. I work in a big firm that diversified years ago into many areas. I have a doctorate degree in business finance.”
“Well, Dr. Wells, it’s hard for me to picture you all decked out like that,” Larissa said.
“It’s harder to picture myself as sheriff of Palo Pinto County,” he said, trying to change the subject.
“A doctorate degree, huh? Wait ’til I tell J. C. that Larissa’s got a fancy executive scraping her house and making potato soup in her kitchen. He won’t believe a word of it,” Linda said. “Pass me the cheese, Betty.”
“When I come to Palo Pinto, I’m a cowboy just like my dad,” Hank said.
“Well, it’ll make a hell of a good story,” Linda said.
When they finished the mid-afternoon lunch, Betty cut and stacked
snicker doodles onto a platter while the rest of the crew put leftovers away and washed the dishes. She set them on a foldout tray in the living room so they could nibble while they watched the movie. The clock said it was five minutes past two. The movie would be over by four and she’d easily have time to make a pot of that delicious soup for supper.
“Everyone get a comfortable seat and we’ll put the movie in.” Larissa wiped her hands dry on a terry dish towel.
Linda claimed the rocking chair. Betty and Linda sat on the sofa. That left the loveseat for Larissa and Hank.
Betty ran a hand over the dark green micro-fiber couch arm. “I still can’t believe you found these two pieces at a garage sale. They’re practically brand new.”
“It’s a good story so I’ll tell it while Hank gets the movie ready. They came from Abilene and I spent almost as much on the U-Haul truck to get them up here as I did the furniture. It was an estate sale and a husband and wife team was getting rid of everything. It was his grandmother’s stuff and he’d made the stupid mistake of telling his wife about an affair that morning. I made a ridiculous offer for these two pieces plus the rocking chair and she sold them to me for fifty dollars,” she said.
“Vengeance was hers that day,” Linda said.
“Yep, it was and he couldn’t say a word. I lost out on a gorgeous lamp but he made that sale and it went for five times what I paid for the furniture.”
“You ladies ready?” Hank asked.
They all nodded and he pushed the button on the remote control. The next two hours the rain came down in buckets and they watched the madam of the Chicken Ranch, Miss Mona, and her sheriff boyfriend try to save her brothel from a TV muckraker. Hank did not see himself as the sheriff but took the place of the muckraker. The Chicken Ranch was a symbol of Mingus, Texas. Miss Mona, of course, was Larissa. When the story ended he made an excuse, left the movie in the DVD player, and headed north with “what ifs” playing in his mind the whole way home.
Chapter 9
On Tuesday it rained.
My Give a Damn's Busted Page 12