by Merry Farmer
Chris’s face heated. “Well how am I supposed to know that if you leave them lying around?”
“You’re supposed to know at a glance because you grew up on a ranch around horses,” Karlan answered.
“Yeah, stupid, don’t you know anything?” Kolby added.
They were teasing. They were just being brothers. They didn’t really mean it, didn’t mean any harm. Brush it off, Chris, brush it off, he told himself.
“Okay, well, I have an extra hour or so before I have to leave to teach class. What can I do to help out around here?” he asked.
Karlan and Kolby exchanged looks. They weren’t good looks. They were the kind of looks they would exchange if one of the girls had asked if she could wrangle the bull.
“I’ll tell you what.” Karlan stepped forward, nothing but brotherly love and good will on his face. He slapped Chris on the back and smiled. “Why don’t you stick to the stuff you’re good at—teaching and the like—and we’ll take care of the ranch.”
“Yeah,” Kolby seconded with an equally friendly shrug. “You know you’ve never been good at this stuff anyhow. Don’t worry about it. We’ll handle everything.”
It took every ounce of Chris’s will power not to grind his teeth and shout at his brothers to quit shutting him out of the work that was his birthright.
“Okay, if you’re sure you don’t need me for anything.” He did his best to sound cool with it.
Karlan laughed and thumped his back again. “Don’t worry, baby brother, we’ve got everything taken care of. You don’t need to worry about this.”
He couldn’t bring himself to reply. Smile, yes. He could do that. He could always smile.
With a tight wave, he turned and marched out of the stable. Every single time. It happened every time. Whenever there was work to be done on the ranch, whenever the Culpepper family needed to rise to some occasion and prove their worth, Karlan, Cooper, and Kolby rushed in and took care of everything, leaving him in the dust. It was no wonder he was never in any hurry to get anything done. As far back as he could remember, his brothers would jump in and take care of any job that needed doing, any task that needed completing, and any chore that had to be finished without giving him so much as a chance to offer to help. They called him the black sheep for going into the sciences and teaching, but not once had they ever given him the chance to be like them. As a kid, he’d idolized his older brothers…until the day he knew they’d never admit him into their macho rancher club. And yet, he’d never truly been able to break away from them either.
“What’s got you looking like someone stepped on your favorite action hero figure?” Chastity asked as soon as Chris schlumped his way through the kitchen door of their house.
She stood from the table—where she was leafing through a catalog full of pictures of yarn—and skipped over to him. She threw her arms around him, squeezing him tight, and kissed him.
A huge chunk of the resentment Chris had carried back from the stables dropped off his shoulders and splattered on the floor. He closed his arms around Chastity and hugged her tight, his heart slapping against his ribs. She was a godsend, this woman of his. So warm and accepting.
“I’m still itchy,” he told her. It wasn’t a lie, but right at that moment, he wanted nothing to do with the real reason he was a grump. Besides, Chastity smelled too good. He buried his face in her thick, blonde hair and just breathed. “What kind of shampoo do you use?”
Chastity laughed and snuggled up against him. “I don’t know. Whatever Hope bought when she went grocery shopping. It’s kinda nice.”
“You’re kinda nice,” he replied, straightening enough so he could kiss her square on the lips.
Chastity sighed, drawing out the kiss as long as possible. “So you’re still itchy?” she asked, half whining.
Chris would have given anything in the world to be completely itch-free. “Yeah,” he answered with a sigh. He had to shake off the stupid and the gloom that haunted him. “Hey, do you want to come in to town with me this afternoon to watch me teach a science class?”
It was a stupid question, and there were probably a million things more exciting than watching him stand in front of a room of middle school kids, teaching them all about the planets, but a large, raw something inside of him wanted his wife by his side.
To his surprise, Chastity’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! I’d love to come.” She bit her lip. “Let me just run over to the big house to tell Hope I won’t be able to help with the day care this afternoon.”
She jumped into action, even as Chris called after her, “Are you sure your sister will be okay with that?”
“Probably not,” Chastity laughed. “But I’d rather risk her wrath and be with you.”
Thwap. Those words hit him like Cupid’s arrow, smack in the chest. Chris couldn’t remember a time when anyone had said they would rather be with him than do just about anything. It made him stand taller, put a little more spring in his step as he collected his teaching supplies and packed up for the lesson. It put a proud smile on his face as he loaded up the truck, then swung around his mom’s place to pick Chastity up. It kept a grin on his face as they rode into town together, Chastity yammering about what her sisters were up to and what all the kids at the daycare were doing the whole way.
“And she said that as long as I kept up with my knitting—for the ranch, you know—she didn’t mind if I spent the afternoon in town with you today. In fact, she said that if I was going to be around your homeschool families, I should try to drum up business. Even homeschool moms need a chance to drop the little guys off so they can get stuff done, after all.”
It was a delight to listen to her talk about Hope and the daycare and all of the ways the new Culpepper brides were willing to help out the ranch. At least his brothers were letting someone help out.
He pushed that cranky thought away and pulled into the parking lot of Culpepper’s salon, the Curly-Whirly.
“Now, if I can just—oh! Are you getting a haircut before you teach?” Chastity leaned forward to get a good look at the salon out the windshield.
“No,” Chris laughed. “The salon has a big event room in the back.” He cut the engine, but since he was early, he leaned back, rested his arm across the seat, and turned to face Chastity. “I teach these science classes to homeschooled kids, mostly because science can be such a detailed and advanced subject that a lot of parents don’t feel qualified to teach it. Several families are part of homeschooling co-ops, which bring kids together for things like this.”
“That’s such a good idea,” Chastity said, eyes bright. “I wish we’d had something like that growing up.”
“Were you home schooled?”
“No,” Chastity laughed. “There was a small Christian school near where we lived. But believe me, I’m sure Mom and Daddy would have preferred to keep us in the house, legs crossed, halos polished at all times.”
Chris chuckled. “I sure am glad you didn’t learn to keep your legs crossed.”
Thankfully, she shared his sense of humor and laughed over the remark.
“Anyhow,” he went on when things down south swelled enough to make life uncomfortable again. “Denise Bonneville owns the Curly-Whirly, and her daughter, Destiny, is one of my students.”
“Wait, she owns a salon and home schools her kid?”
“No,” Chris laughed. “She asked special permission to enroll Destiny in the class so she could get ahead with her science studies. And since she offered the use of the salon’s event room…” He finished with a shrug.
Chastity’s eyes narrowed and she studied him. “So her daughter could get ahead with her studies? Really?” She crossed her arms.
“Yep. And it’s a good thing too. The salon is centrally located. Come on, I’ll show you.”
At last, Chris opened his door and slid out of the truck. He came around the front of the truck to help Chastity down, but she’d already helped herself. She looked up at the big sign over the Curly-Whirly’
s door, then marched ahead of Chris into the salon.
The sharp scent of perm solution and dye hit Chris smack in the face, like it always did. A trio of older women sat under noisy dryers, reading magazines at one side of the room. Denise and her afternoon stylist, Tammy, were busy blow-drying the hair of two younger women. Piles of hair littered the floor under each chair, but Destiny Bonneville stood at the ready with a broom near the back of the room. She brightened and waved when Chris walked in. Chris waved back.
Denise whipped to face Chris, shutting off her hair-dryer and stepping away from her client, even though the woman’s style was still half wet.
“Chris!” She beamed as if it was Christmas and skipped her way over to greet him with giggly air kisses to each cheek. Chris was fairly sure they wouldn’t have been air kisses and they wouldn’t have been on his cheeks if he hadn’t been careful and leaned back at just the right moment.
“Hey, Denise.” He shifted his schoolbag on his shoulder to serve as a partial barrier. “Sorry I’m a little early.”
“Oh, you can come in here any old time you like.” She smiled so wide that he worried her face might snap. She certainly wore enough make-up for cracks to appear. Her lips were a dark, sultry red, and she had on enough eye-shadow to be on her way to prom, even though it was the middle of the day. And her hair had always perplexed him. It was clearly dyed a vampish black with dark red stripes shooting out from a zig-zag part in the front, and something that resembled a turkey’s butt in the back.
“Do you want me to keep you company until your students get here? You know I’m always willing to keep you company, sugar.”
Her hand swiped a little too close to his backside. In fact, if he hadn’t stepped closer to Chastity’s side, that hand might have done some real damage.
“I brought my own company today,” Chris answered her. He smiled and rested a hand on Chastity’s back, barely noticing that Chastity had her arms crossed and her jaw clenched. “Denise, I’d like you to meet Chastity. Chastity Culpepper, my wife.”
4
Chastity had never fooled herself into thinking she was the smartest of the Quinlan Quads. No, that title went to Hope. But she was smart enough to spot a woman who had designs on her husband, even though Chris had mentioned that Denise had a middle school-aged daughter. Kids didn’t mean a woman was married, and the hand that had come so close to squeezing Chris’s backside didn’t have a wedding ring on it.
“Your…wife?” Denise lost her saccharine-sweet smile as her eyes drifted past Chris to Chastity.
There was no way Chastity was going to be cowed by a woman who looked like an ice cream truck that had crashed into a Mary Kay party.
“Hi,” she said with her own brand of sweetness, shifting her knitting bag to her left arm and holding out her right hand. “I’m Chastity, Chris’s wife. It’s such a pleasure to meet some of Chris’s friends.” She drew out the word ‘friends,’ making sure the tramp knew that the closest she would ever get to Chris was the far end of the Friends Zone.
Denise’s smile looked like she’d taken a huge whiff out of one of her dye bottles, but she took Chastity’s hands with her garishly-painted nails, pumped up and down once, then let go and wiped her hand on her apron. “Pleased to meet you.”
Clearly, she was anything but.
Fine. Two could play at that game. Chastity slipped her free arm into Chris’s, keeping her smile in place. “I can’t wait to see this classroom you were telling me about, sweetie,” she told Chris. “And I’m dying to see you teach.”
Chris’s brow flew up. “You are?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. His eyes twinkled with mirth. Chastity caught on to the mischief, and her smile grew. So Chris was fully aware of Denise’s games, and by all appearances, he wasn’t having any of it. Good. That saved him a week in the doghouse.
“He’s so smart,” Chastity told Denise, as if the two of them were buddies. “And I’m sure he’s a great lecturer.”
“He doesn’t do a lot of lectures,” a young woman, who had to be one of Chris’s students, even though she carried a push-broom, said. “He has us do a lot of projects, which is cool.”
“Thanks, Destiny.” Chris winked at the girl, then started for the back of the salon.
“I’m Destiny, by the way,” the girl introduced herself to Chastity. “That’s my mom.” She shot her thumb over her shoulder with a roll of her eyes. “It’s cool that Mr. Culpepper got married.”
“Destiny Melinda Bonneville, you get back here and sweep up this hair.” Denise charged after them, stopping her daughter with a hand to her shoulder.
“I’ve got class, Mom.” Destiny handed the broom over to Denise.
“Excuse me, what about my hair?” The woman in Denise’s chair swiveled to face them, her head still half wet.
Denise stiffened, as if pulled in two directions, then huffed a curse under her breath and stomped back to her chair. She practically threw the broom against the wall between her booth and the one where the other stylist worked. The other stylist lifted her eyebrows and sent a look to her client through the mirror, but they both kept their mouths shut. Denise was a few beats too late in putting on a salesman’s smile. “You know, Julie, you should think about trying the new fresh-out-of-the-shower look.”
The customer, Julie, wasn’t buying it. “I’m paying for a blow-out, so I’m going to get a blow-out.”
“She’ll get a lot more than that, if she’s not careful,” Destiny whispered to Chastity as they turned a corner at the back of the salon, walked past a washer and dryer and shelf full of color tubes, and on to the classroom. “Mom once spit her gum in someone’s hair because they told her she’d dyed it the wrong color.”
Chastity tried not to snort. “And she got away with it?”
Destiny shrugged. “She claimed it was an accident, and besides, the Curly-Whirly is the only salon in Culpepper.”
Chastity would have made some sort of reply, but they crossed through the doorway and into a room that had no business as part of a salon. It was clearly a classroom. A wide whiteboard took up most of one wall, and while there were a few fliers advertising various salon products that looked like they’d been left there by a salesman, most of the room’s decorations consisted of maps of the solar system, charts documenting the water-cycle, and a diagram of a cell.
“Whoa. This really is a classroom.” Chastity turned in place, taking in the whole room.
“Yeah, we’re lucky to have this facility,” Chris admitted, setting his schoolbag on the far end of a pair of folding tables that had been pushed together to make one wide table. “Afternoon, Mrs. B.”
Chastity jumped as an old woman stirred in an armchair in the far corner of the room. She hadn’t even seen the tiny, gray-haired woman napping there. If the majority of the room looked like a classroom instead of a salon, the back corner where the woman had been napping looked like a slice of someone’s living room had been plopped there for no reason.
“Are you going to stick around for today’s lesson, Grandma?” Destiny asked, going over to give the older woman a kiss.
“Is it that time already?” The older woman blossomed into a smile at Destiny’s kiss and squeezed her granddaughter’s hand.
“Almost, Mrs. Bonneville, almost.” Chris gave the woman one of his trademark winks, then rounded the table to give her a kiss on the cheek the way Destiny had. Mrs. Bonneville chuckled and patted Chris on the cheek. “Mrs. B., I’d like to introduce you to someone very special to me.”
“Oh?” It took the woman a minute, but as she blinked herself out of her nap, Chastity decided she was as sharp as a tack, in spite of her wrinkles and gray hair.
Chris moved to stand by Chastity’s side, looping his arm around her waist. “This is Chastity.”
“She’s his wife!” Destiny blurted before Chris could finish. “Mom’s pissed.”
“I bet she is,” Mrs. Bonneville laughed. She turned her grandmotherly smile to Chastity and studied
her for a moment. “My, but you’re a pretty young thing.”
Something about the sweetness of the compliment squeezed Chastity’s throat tight. “Aaw, thank you, ma’am. I can see you’re pretty special yourself.”
“Oh, not me.” Mrs. Bonneville waved away the compliment with one soft, long-fingered hand. “And you can call me Myrna, dear.”
“Okay, Myrna.”
“I’ve been telling Christopher here that he can call me Myrna for years, but he refuses.”
“Mrs. B. was my fifth grade teacher. There’s no way I’m calling her by her first name now.” Chris gave Chastity a peck on the cheek, then headed back to the other end of the table to take out his things and set up his lesson.
“I’ll help, Mr. Culpepper.” Destiny skipped after him.
“I can’t wait to see my new hubby in action.” Chastity pulled one of the folding chairs from the side of the room over to Myrna’s recliner. She set her knitting bag on the floor and pulled out the baby blanket she was working on for Faith’s dolls. “I hear he’s real hot stuff.”
“I should say so.” Myrna shifted in her chair, resting one slightly-trembling arm on the chair’s arm and leaning closer to Chastity. “But you’re his wife, you’re the one who’s seen him in action. I bet he’s a locomotive in the sack.”
Chastity laughed out loud. Her own grannies—both of them—would have expired with a bad case of the vapors if they’d so much as thought something like that. “I bet he is.” She swayed closer to Myrna and whispered, “But we haven’t actually done the deed yet.”
“What?” Myrna balked, so loud that Chris and Destiny glanced up from the other end of the room. Myrna waved at them with a deceptively innocent smile, and the two went back to work, collating papers and setting them at each of the places at the table. “What?” Myrna repeated, quieter. “With a backside like that, you haven’t jumped his bones?”
Oh man, Chastity loved Myrna Bonneville.
“I was going to,” she confided. “I had him mostly naked and everything.”