by Jeannie Watt
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WHEN LILLIE JEAN walked into the high school gymnasium, all eyes turned her way as people scoped out Thad’s new partner—at least that was how it felt to Gus. Lillie Jean didn’t seem to notice, but he had a feeling it was an act. He touched the small of her back, guiding her toward the classroom where the coats were stored. After five consecutive spaghetti feeds, he knew the drill.
People smiled and nodded, their gazes openly curious as he and Lillie Jean passed by. He’d give proper introductions after she’d had a chance to get her bearings. Annie Delaney raised a hand and when he started to wave back, he realized that she was waving at Lillie Jean. Cool. She had a friend.
“There’s one of the twins,” she said, leaning close so he could hear her.
“Tyler.”
“How can you tell?”
“Up close he has a scar on his chin. Far away he’s standing next to his wife. Jess—” he pointed out the other Hayward brother, who was setting up chairs with the help of a pretty redhead “—is with his fiancée, Emma.”
“I guess that’s easy enough.” She scanned the crowd, taking in the kids playing around the edges of the gym, the generations of single families sharing tables. “This is nice.”
“Surely they do stuff like this in your town.”
“But the difference is that I know everyone there. The good, the bad, the ugly. Everyone here has a clean slate for me.”
They spotted Madison at the same moment, standing near the end of the long serving line, talking to a small group of overdressed women.
“Most everyone,” Lillie Jean muttered. Gus gave a low laugh, and then she turned to look over her shoulder as someone said her name. Annie.
“Hi, Gus. I wanted to introduce Lillie Jean to my family if I can steal her away.”
“I’m here to meet people,” Lillie Jean said to Annie with an answering smile.
“I see Thad.” His uncle was sitting at a table near the back corner with a couple of his buddies. Either Mimi or Ginny were running the pub.
Lillie Jean followed his gaze. “I’ll head over and say hello when I’m done.”
“Have fun,” he said as she and Annie started through the crowd. He didn’t think she’d heard him, but she shot him a look over her shoulder that told him she had. He pushed his thumbs into his back pockets, suddenly at loose ends. He looked around, then headed over to join Thad.
“Hey,” Thad said as Gus approached. “Thanks for covering for me.”
“Feeling better?”
“Yeah. I am.” He glanced at his watch. “I have a little over an hour before I go on shift. Tyler said I could go to the front of the line.”
“Nice of him.”
“Yeah.” The old man cleared his throat. “I’m a little surprised to see you escorting Lillie Jean.”
“Well, you know, she wanted to get out and I always come to this thing, so...”
“Here you are.”
“Yes.”
“Heard that she and Madison had a bit of a dustup.”
Not much happened in Gavin that wasn’t reported in the Shamrock, and probably every other bar in town.
“I’m not sure exactly what happened.”
“Heard Lillie Jean took her down a notch.” Thad fixed his gaze on his nephew as if suspecting him of harboring secrets. He wasn’t, except for the fact that he was watching all the guys who were watching Lillie Jean.
“That’s what I heard, too.” He gave his uncle a quick humorless smile. “Let’s just hope they stay on opposite sides of the gym tonight.”
“Yeah. Nita looked delicate, too, but she could hold her own.” Thad fell into silence, then gave Gus a look. “There’s no chance that you two...” He let his voice trail.
Gus refused to take the hint. “What do you mean?”
Thad frowned deeply. “I watched you two come in,” he said as if that explained everything.
Gus shot a look at the three guys sitting a couple chairs over. They were arguing about the future of cattle prices and didn’t seem at all interested in Gus or Thad, so Gus turned back to his uncle. “What are you getting at?”
“I guess all I’m saying is that if Lillie Jean is anything like Nita, then I understand why you would fall for her. I’d hate to see you end up like me.”
Gus blinked at his uncle’s quantum leap. “You’re moving kind of fast. We’re at a community spaghetti feed.”
“And your head is about to swivel off your neck watching her.”
Gus found himself struggling for a reply when he was saved by Thad’s phone buzzing in his pocket. His uncle dug out the flip phone and opened it. “Yeah?” He let out a frustrated breath. “All right. Yeah. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
He closed the phone and looked around the room.
“Problem?”
“Ginny’s coming down with that bug Mimi and I had. I have to head to the bar. Hector’s my ride.”
Gus scanned the room. No sign of Hector. He leaned sideways to pull his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll run you over there. I can drop a plate of food by later.”
“No need. I’ll order a pizza.”
Lillie Jean was sitting with Annie and her family at a table far from the door, so Gus simply led the way out of the gymnasium, thinking that maybe it was better than checking in with her, so Thad didn’t get any more ideas about saving Gus from himself. He wouldn’t be gone that long, and he could easily find her when he got back. After all, she was the most striking woman in the room.
* * *
LILLIE JEAN HAD missed the feeling of community, and it appeared that she had to travel no farther than Gavin to recapture it. She sat at a table with Annie and her family, doing her best to tell yet another set of twins apart—Annie’s daughters—and making small talk with the extended family sitting around the table. They seemed fascinated by the fact that she designed clothing for a real country-western musician, even though only one person at the table had heard of Isabella. As they talked, Gus’s table filled up and it took her a while to realize that Gus and Thad were no longer sitting there. Well, they had to be somewhere, and until she found them, Lillie Jean was staying right where she was. She felt safe from Madison who was giving her looks across the room that reminded her of the calf-stealing cow.
There was still no sign of Gus when the people started lining up for dinner, so she joined the line with Annie’s family. After filling her plate, she turned to see if Gus’s table had opened up, only to be startled by a light touch on her elbow.
She glanced up to see a darkly handsome man smiling politely at her. Even though she was a suburbanite, she was from Texas, and she recognized a super expensive beaver cowboy hat when she saw one.
“There’s room at our table if you need a place to sit,” the man said pleasantly.
He had a little bit of Texas in his voice, so Lillie smiled back. “Thank you.” She was there to meet people, after all.
“Carson Craig,” he said as he handed her a napkin before getting one for himself.
“Lillie Jean Hardaway.”
He led her to the table and made introductions and it soon became apparent that she was not sitting at a table of locals, with the exception of Carson, but rather with a table of his guests, up visiting from Oklahoma.
So much for meeting the neighbors, but Lillie Jean settled in and ate as she made small talk with people who were much, much wealthier and well traveled than herself, but they all seemed to be nice down-to-earth people who just happened to have money. They, too, were fascinated by the fact that she was a designer and she answered questions until she saw Gus come in the door and then head for what was left of the spaghetti buffet.
“I appreciate the conversation,” she said to the table in general. “I need to check in with my...friend.” Yes. A much better word than date, although callin
g Gus a friend felt odd, primarily because she’d made such a big deal about them not becoming friends. She felt as if they had the potential to become much more than friends, and it kind of scared her. But she wasn’t backing off, and that right there told her that maybe she was on the right track this time.
“It’s been nice talking to you, Lillie Jean.” Carson got to his feet, dug in his pocket and pulled out a card. “If you wouldn’t mind calling me sometime in the near future, I have a matter I’d like to discuss.”
“A matter?” Lillie Jean repeated dumbly. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to discover what part of Texas he was from and he had something to discuss with her?
“Don’t look so alarmed,” he said with an easy smile. “It’s all business and can be handled over the phone.”
“Is it about the ranch?”
He gave her a charming smile. “Talk to you soon, Lillie Jean. I’m looking forward to it.”
And she was mystified.
* * *
THE LONG FOOD tables were almost deserted by the time Gus got back to the gymnasium. He loaded a plate and found a seat at an empty table. A second after he sat down, Lillie Jean sat on the opposite side of the table. “You disappeared.”
“Sorry about that. I ran Thad back to the bar. The plan was to get back before you knew I was gone, but kegs had to be moved to access a faulty line, and...I’m sorry. I hope you got to talk to some people.”
“I did. I had a great time.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Madison kept a respectful distance.”
“Another plus.”
“She has her sights set elsewhere,” Lillie Jean said matter-of-factly. “She was trolling for this good-looking blond guy. He seemed interested, too.” Gus gave her a “better him than me” look and she laughed. “I don’t think she and I are ever going to be friends, though.”
“She’s not a good friend,” Gus replied before biting into the garlic bread. “It took me a bit to figure out that it’s all about her, but I eventually got the picture. She’s good,” he added when Lillie Jean cocked an eyebrow. “She had Thad fooled, too, and Thad doesn’t fool easily.”
“I guess my first impression kind of colored my view of her.”
“First impressions can be tricky,” he agreed. “I suspected you of being a scam artist.”
“No kidding.” She kept a straight face, but her blue-green eyes were lit with amusement. Thad was right. Gus’s feelings for Lillie Jean were growing. He’d liked her before, but now that she’d dropped her guard, accepted that the draw they felt for one another wasn’t going away anytime soon, things felt different.
Annie and Trace Delaney and their girls drifted over to say goodbye.
“Maybe you can come to my class and talk about your job,” one of Annie’s twins said to Lillie Jean.
“My class, too,” the other chimed in.
Lillie Jean smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
After the family left, she said, “Annie told me that Career Day happened about a month ago, and I doubt I’ll be here for next year’s.”
Gus didn’t answer. He finished the last of his spaghetti, then gathered up his plate and gestured toward the door. “What do you think about eating and running? Unless you want to stay for the raffles?”
“The two I signed up for are ‘need not be present to win.’” She tilted her head, her dark hair sliding over one shoulder. “I’ve had fun, but I wouldn’t mind getting home.” She gave him a pert smile. “I have early morning chores, you know.”
He smiled back, then got to his feet. After dumping their plates, they walked to the classroom where the coats were stored. “I honestly am sorry about missing most of this thing.”
“Yeah?” she said as he handed her jacket to her.
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“How?”
“I’ll give you a tour of the park.”
“I thought we were going home.”
He turned after they exited the school and put his hands on her shoulders. “When we get back home, we’ll fall back into our roles. But here...here we’re just Gus and Lillie Jean.”
“Kind of like two different people?”
“Nope. Kind of like the same people in a different place. What if I’d met you elsewhere, Lillie Jean? And you were through dealing with your ex and his thieving ways. What would you have thought about me?”
She bit her full lower lip as she looked up at him. “Honestly? I probably would have been very interested and not worried about hiding it.”
“Likewise.” He pushed his hands into her hair and slowly lowered his head to kiss her, keeping it soft when he wanted to make it so much more. “But we have a situation that makes things trickier.”
She rose up on her toes and kissed him back, then wrapped her arms around him and leaned into him. “I’m not going to think about that tonight.”
Gus eased back and then tucked Lillie Jean’s hand over his arm. “Then I am in no hurry to get home.”
* * *
LILLIE JEAN AND Gus never made it to the park proper. They stopped at the playground just inside the entrance and sat in the swings, talking about their childhoods. Gus’s was markedly different from Lillie Jean’s. Until moving in with Thad, he’d had essentially no support system. His mom had actually walked away from him and his dad, married another man, started a new family Gus had never met. He’d been justifiably angry, but then Thad, as he told it, slapped him into shape with some tough love.
“Thad is a good man,” Lillie Jean said. “But try as I might, I can’t see him married to my grandmother.”
“I don’t think he’ll ever get over her.”
Nor did Lillie Jean, despite not knowing him that well. It was the way he looked at her with that hint of sadness, as if mourning what had been and never was. She liked Thad, and she could see where her grandmother would have found him attractive back in the day. Maybe it was just because she’d only seen her grandparents with one another and their bond had been so strong that the idea of her grandmother with another man boggled her mind.
“Has he had other women in his life?”
Gus shook his head. “Mimi was trying to fix him up with Ginny, but he’s having none of it.”
“Sad.” Lillie Jean nudged the swing and got it moving, shifting as she felt the stiff card she’d gotten from Carson Craig in her front pocket. “Do you know a man named Craig?”
“Carson Craig?” Gus’s body tensed as he said the man’s name.
“Yes.”
“Was he at the spaghetti feed?”
“I sat with him at dinner.”
“He’s my neighbor.”
“He wants me to call him.”
“Don’t.”
Gus didn’t add anything, so Lillie Jean finally said, “I assume there’s a reason?”
“He would be impossible to work with.”
“I see.” She hadn’t gotten that vibe from him. He’d seemed very affable.
Gus let out a breath and then rubbed the back of his neck before twisting the swing to face Lillie Jean dead on. “I appreciate you giving me time to nail down a loan, but if it doesn’t work out, and you sell to Carson, Thad and I will have to sell ourselves.”
“That bad.”
“I can’t begin to tell you.”
Lillie Jean nudged the swing a little higher. Her good mood was fading fast. Once again, she’d broken her friendship-business rule and once again it was coming back to bite her.
“I’m going to hear what he has to say.” For all she knew, it might not be about the ranch. Maybe he wanted to order one of her custom designs.
But in her heart of hearts, she knew that it was about the ranch.
“I can’t stop you.”
Now Lillie Jean turned to face Gus, feeling as if an in
visible wall had risen out of nowhere to separate them. “I have a chance to buy back my business. I talked to Andrew tonight. I don’t know the details. I don’t know how long he can wait. He’s sending me the numbers.”
“The amount he cashed you out isn’t enough?”
“Not even close. I have to buy out two partners. And there’s some debt now. I need to act while I can still rescue it.”
“This is better than starting fresh?”
“If you knew the number of hours Andrew and I put into our business to begin with, the amount of equipment I’ll have to procure...yes. Definitely better. And my friend Kate could come back to work for me right away.”
“That’s important to you.”
“She can bring her kids. Right now, child care eats almost her entire paycheck. Her mom lives with her, and babysits when she can, but she has to make a living, too. It’s a rough situation.”
“But not of your making.”
Lillie Jean wondered if he was purposefully echoing her own words back at her, then decided not. His expression wasn’t one bit ironic.
“I talked Kate into coming to work for us. She quit her job in Austin. Andrew fired her the same day he forced me out. She hasn’t been able to find another job in her field.” So yes, Lillie Jean did think it was a situation of her making.
“There’s got to be an option besides Craig. Even if Thad and I can’t come up with funding.”
“I hope you’re right, Gus. And I hope that Andrew can wait awhile for cash and maybe we can work something out with the vendors. They might be willing if it means getting paid what they’re owed instead of pennies on the dollar.” She got up from the swing, leaving it swaying behind her. “Maybe we should head back to the ranch.”
Gus got to his feet. He only stood a couple feet away from her, but it might as well have been a couple of miles. “Yeah. We should do that. Before it gets too late.”
From the way Lillie Jean’s stomach was knotting, she suspected that it was already too late.
When they reached the truck, Gus opened the door for her. After Lillie Jean got in, she reached for the handle, but Gus’s hand was still on the frame.
“I like you, Lillie Jean. I want you to have what you need in life. But please, if there is any other way, do not sell out to Carson Craig.”