Melody giggled. “You don’t do the like business right, Aunt Ivy. I’m going out in the lobby so I can call Jill and tell her all about this new plan, and then I’m going to do homework for the rest of this week.” She started out of the dining room. “My tat will definitely still look good next Monday. Life is good.”
“Yes, it is.” Frankie sighed. “A nap does sound good. We need to rest up if we’re going to put on our boots and go line dancin’ on Wednesday night.”
“Yep.” Ivy eased out of the chair and pulled Blister behind her as the two of them put their heads together and giggled all the way to the elevator doors.
Lola hugged Tessa. It was quick but spontaneous, and Tessa hugged Lola back.
“Tessa, did you see Mama’s eyes when I asked her if she’d put the pearls on me for my wedding? I thought she was going to cry,” Lola said.
“It means a lot to her. She really does want you to be happy,” Tessa answered.
“See y’all later.” Lola picked up her patchwork hobo purse and hurried to catch the elevator before the doors closed.
“I thought the old gals were getting pretty tired last night. Looked to me like they were dragging when we went to their room for supper,” Branch said.
Tessa stole the last bite of cinnamon roll from his plate. “You may have to line dance with Blister in your arms so that Ivy can do some boot scootin’.”
“Hey, that was mine,” he protested.
“There are lots more on the bar.”
“Are you telling me that you want another one, too, but you are too lazy to get up and go get it?” he asked.
“I’m telling you that it’s been a long time since I had an antiawkward kiss, and if I go get us each one then I’d probably trip and fall and they’d land in that woman’s cleavage sitting closest to the bar.” She flirted and enjoyed it. “She’s so much bigger than me that she’d probably jump up out of that chair and whip my scrawny ass.”
“In that case, I’ll go get another plateful. But darlin’, your ass is not a bit scrawny.”
“And don’t look at the lady’s cleavage,” she said.
“Jealous?” Branch turned and asked over his shoulder.
Tessa nodded. “Damn straight, and I sure don’t want her to get my antiawkward kiss. I dropped my laptop this morning. Thank goodness it landed on the bed. Then I fell over nothing but air and landed facedown on the sofa in our suite.”
“Wow! You really are running low on preventative, aren’t you?” He grinned.
“Yes, I am.” She smiled up at him.
His butt filled out those tight-fitting jeans just right that morning. The swagger in his step as he made his way across the dining area proved that Branch was one of those men that women’s eyes gravitate toward when they walk into a room. No wonder Avery wanted a second chance.
A vision came from nowhere of Frankie all dressed up with her diamonds on her fingers and her gray hair styled just-so, and she was lying in a gorgeous, shiny red coffin. And in the same room, there was Ivy in a matching casket, all laid out in a red outfit with enough bling on it to rival all the stars in the sky.
She wiped away a tear. Two weeks ago she hadn’t even known these people, and now they had wrapped tendrils around her heart that would never break. She shook the picture from her head and tried to focus on Branch as he brought four big cinnamon rolls and two cups of fresh coffee on a tray toward their table.
“What happened? I was only gone a minute and you have tears in your eyes.” He set the tray down and moved his chair close to hers and kissed her on the forehead. “You didn’t get a phone call with bad news, did you?”
“No, I got a picture in my head of Ivy and Frankie’s funeral. How can I care so much after only a couple of weeks?” She captured his hand with hers and held it to her cheek.
“They’re family,” he said.
“Not Ivy or Melody or you.”
“Sometimes family doesn’t share a bloodline. Think about your mama and daddy. And I hope I’m not family, because if I am I’ve been committing incest in my dreams.” He kissed her softly. “Maybe that will hold you until we can get into the elevator . . . alone.”
“You dream about me?” She was utterly flabbergasted.
He slipped an empty plate in front of her and shifted a cinnamon roll over to it. “Every night since I first walked into your travel agency.”
“Are you teasing me?”
He picked up a plastic fork, cut off a piece of the sweet roll, and fed it to her. “I’m not teasing, Tessa. We knew Ivy wasn’t well when we started out, but for you to dream about Frankie, too. I wonder what that means. Do you know something I don’t?”
“Grandmother–granddaughter confidentiality is as binding as lawyer–client, I do believe.” She took the fork from him and talked between bites.
“Is it her lungs? She smokes as much as or more than Ivy.”
She changed the subject abruptly. “Isn’t that painting up there on the wall pretty?”
He frowned. “What if I stop giving you your anticlumsy kisses?”
“I’ve been a klutz all my life. I reckon I could continue to live with my ailment.”
The frown deepened, drawing his dark brows together. “If she’s sick, then my dad will know and I’ll ask him.”
“That’s between you and him and Frankie and I have nothing to do with that business, and besides, I might be yanking your chain.” She smiled.
“Only you aren’t. I can read your eyes, Tessa.”
“What are you going to do with two weeks’ vacation? Go back to work or take a real trip somewhere?” She tried changing the subject again.
Branch leaned over and nuzzled her neck. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Answer my question. What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to ranch for two weeks and enjoy every minute of it. What about you?” He kissed her earlobe.
“I’m staying in Boomtown and using every day of it to be near Frankie and Lola,” she said.
“Want to take a day and tour my ranch?”
“I’d love to. I love ranchin’,” she said.
“But you live in town. How do you know you love ranchin’?”
“My grandmother on Daddy’s side still has a little spread up between Jeanerette and New Iberia.” If she didn’t get some distance between them, she was going to lead him up to his bedroom and fall into bed with him. “She has chickens and a couple of hogs and maybe ten head of cattle. They used to have more, but when Paw-Paw died she sized it down to what she could manage.” She inched away and picked up her coffee. “She’s a salty old girl, a lot like Ivy, but she smokes a pipe rather than cigarettes and she likes wine instead of liquor. Makes all kinds of wine herself. Blackberry, wild cherry, and dandelion wine.”
He ate the first bite of his cinnamon roll. “I can’t believe a city girl like you likes country life. What’s your favorite part?”
She didn’t need to think about the answer one bit. “Baby lambs. Maw-Maw is old-school Cajun, and she has a couple of old ewes that produce little lambs every spring. I love watching them romp and play in the pasture.”
“I’d love to meet your maw-maw someday. She sounds like a pretty awesome lady,” Branch said.
“I’ll take you to see her if you are brave enough.”
Branch finished his second cinnamon roll. “How many of your previous boyfriends were brave enough?”
She shook her head. “Not a single one. Maw-Maw is a hell of a lot more than a force. She’s more like a tornado and a hurricane combined and she will grill you for hours about your intentions because the only reason a girl takes her feller to see a Cajun grandmother is because she is entertaining ideas of bringing him into the family. So it’s up to you to call the shots about when you want to meet her.”
“Is that a proposal?” Branch laughed.
Tessa bit her lip. She’d sure gotten his mind off the Frankie issue in a hurry. “No, sir! Maw-Maw would have my hid
e for a stunt like that. In her world the man takes on that job, not the woman. What are you going to do with your free morning?”
“I need to call my dad and see if he knows anything about Frankie’s health,” he said. “Gotcha! I knew you were steering me away from that but I want to know.”
“You don’t play fair,” she protested as she pushed her chair back. “I’m going to put on my runnin’ shoes and do laps around this hotel.”
“You don’t play fair, either, and soon as I talk to my dad, I’ll catch up with you. I feel sluggish from lack of exercise.” He rose and with one hand on her back guided her to the elevator.
“Lucky us,” he drawled as soon as the doors closed. “We don’t have to share.”
She reached over and pushed the button to stop the elevator, wrapped her arms around his neck and tiptoed, her eyes locked with his. He bent slightly at the knees and his lips met hers, tongues doing a mating dance that sent her hormones into overdrive.
“Wow! That should cure you for a week,” he said hoarsely when she took a step back and hit the button to put the elevator back in motion.
“I hope not.” She smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After a buffet pizza lunch and a two-hour ride in drizzling rain, they stopped at yet another hotel. They’d all begun to look alike to Tessa: walk through the doors into the lobby to a smiling person who was all too glad to take that piece of platinum-colored plastic from Branch’s hands. Elevators either around the corner or straight ahead. Dining room usually to the left, and not a nickel’s worth of difference in the rooms. Swimming pool and exercise room somewhere on the first floor. Brass luggage carts in a little foyer between the outside door and the one that opened into the hotel lobby.
That Tuesday afternoon, she noticed that Frankie was already yawning when the clerk handed them the room keys. Melody had confided that both the old gals had gone back to bed after breakfast and slept until after eleven o’clock. It was getting serious when a sixteen-year-old kid interested in texting and selfies was worried about her roommates.
After Branch unloaded Tessa’s and Lola’s suitcases in the room right next to Frankie and Ivy’s, Lola fell backward on the bed and sighed. “I’m ready to be home. I talked to Hank and we’re going to get married next week. That’ll give Ivy and Mama time to rest up a bit. I’m afraid Ivy is going to go downhill fast, and she needs to be there the day Mama puts the pearls on me for the wedding. I’d feel horrible if she wasn’t, and Hank has been ready for this for years.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Tessa said.
“Would you stand up with me and be my maid of honor? You can say no and I can ask Inez, but I’d sure like it if you’d do that for me. I’m too old for a bachelorette party so you wouldn’t have to do anything but be there with me,” Lola asked.
Tessa fell back on the bed beside Lola and laced her fingers in her birth mother’s. “I’d be honored. So when exactly is the day?”
“A week from Saturday. I told Mama this morning after breakfast and she was really happy with it. She told me that you’d agreed to stay on until your vacation is up, so maybe we could go shopping next week, get our nails done and our hair and all that girly stuff. I need to find a dress and I’d appreciate your help. Nothing long and flowing or I’ll fall over my own feet.” She smiled.
Tessa squeezed her hand. “I see flowing but midcalf length and maybe some baby rosebuds wound into a circlet for your hair.”
“You see me as a flower child, don’t you?” Lola squeezed her hand.
“Yes, I do, and I love the picture in my head. Free and unburdened of all the conventional cares of the world.” Tessa turned her head to face her.
Lola looked right into Tessa’s eyes. “I never thought I’d be here like this with you, but I’m so glad that it’s happened.”
“I never thought I’d meet you at all.”
“Did it bother you, being adopted?”
Tessa turned back to stare at the ceiling. “Being clumsy bothered me but being adopted, that wasn’t any big thing. Clint was adopted, too. We figured we were special.”
“So your best friend and cousin is also adopted?”
It was a strange feeling, but Tessa was totally comfortable talking about this now with Lola. “Yes, his mother and mine are sisters and we’re the only two grandchildren on that side. But my daddy has six siblings, so there are lots of cousins on that side. Most of them have been brought up in the country and are a lot more Cajun than I am.”
“I’m glad you grew up in a big family and that you weren’t the only adopted kid,” Lola said. “But I’m happy, too, that you’ve come into my life at this time.”
“Me, too,” Tessa said.
When the phone rang beside the bed, Tessa let go of Lola’s hand and picked up the receiver. “Hello,” she said.
“Meet me in the exercise room in ten minutes? Wear your swimsuit and we’ll go from there to the hot tub,” Branch said.
Lola flicked her wrist in a go-on gesture. “If that is Branch, get on out of here. I’m going to discuss wedding plans with Hank and Inez.”
Tessa wanted to tell Lola that her plans would change drastically and it would probably be in a glorified, exclusive nursing home, not in the living room of the lovely home in Boomtown. But she’d been sworn to secrecy and besides, she could not burst Lola’s happy bubble. She loved her too much to do that—not as a mother, but as a good friend.
“I bet I can beat you there,” Tessa told Branch.
“Last one on a bike owes the other one a coke out of the vending machine.”
“I’d rather have a beer when we go out to get supper stuff,” she said.
“Then you’d best hurry or you’ll be buying me a beer.”
She slammed down the phone and raced to her suitcase, threw things out on the sofa, and stripped down to her bare skin right there in front of Lola. In less than two minutes she was wearing her swimsuit with an oversize T-shirt over the top, had tucked her key card into her shoe, and was on her way out.
“I never thought I’d see the day that you’d leave things in a mess.” Lola laughed.
“I’ve got a bet with Branch and I like cold beer.”
“Then fly like a butterfly.” Lola laughed.
Tessa ran barefoot to the elevator. The doors were closing when a big hand slipped between them and pushed. And there was Branch, carrying his running shoes like she did and wearing nothing but baggy swim trunks riding low on his hips and a dazzling smile.
She couldn’t keep her eyes off the perfect amount of soft black hair traveling from his chest to his ripped abs to his belly button and down into his trunks. She was glad she had a shoe in each hand or she might have lost all her willpower and run her fingers through it to see if it was as soft as it looked.
He pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. “You are so damn cute in that T-shirt, but darlin’, it’s wrong side out.”
She whipped around and kissed him on the tip of his nose. Two could play the flirting game. She might be rusty, but she wasn’t dead. “Maybe I’m wearing it like this on purpose so you’ll notice me.”
“Oh, honey.” His shoes hit the elevator floor with a thud. “I notice everything about you every day.”
“Oh, yeah? What was I wearing earlier?”
“A gorgeous smile,” he said.
“And?”
He raised a finger. “And jean shorts with an orange tank top and a black bra with one strap that peeked through all day to entice me.” And a second finger as he counted off what she wore that day. “Perfume that sent my senses reeling, something tropical smelling in your hair.” A third finger shot up. “And cute little brown sandals that showed off your new happiness tattoo on the top of your foot and coral lipstick.” The elevator doors slid open and he picked up his shoes. “Anything else you want to know?”
“I think that about covers it,” she answered with a sly grin.
The fitness room was right around the corner a
nd had a sign on the door reminding people that they were not to use the equipment without proper footwear—no flip-flops or backless sandals of any kind—and they were to use it at their own risk because the hotel was not responsible for accidents.
“Do you think we need to sign an affidavit in blood?” He held the door for her.
“Aha! I beat you in here, so you owe me a beer.” She sat down on the weight bench and put her shoes on, tucking the key card in the bra top of her bikini.
“That’s what I get for being a gentleman. Hey, I talked to my dad earlier.”
“What did he tell you?” She hoped that Mr. Thomas had let the cat out of the bag so she and Branch could discuss the whole thing. She needed to tell someone so badly.
“Not a damn thing. He said it was covered by client privilege and that if she wanted me to know about her health, she would tell me. That it was my job to make her happy so she didn’t move her money and affairs to another firm,” he said. “You sure you don’t know something that you’re willing to share?”
Tessa sat down at a stationary bike. “I can share that Frankie is a hoot and that Ivy seems to be sucking down more oxygen every day and that Frankie is worried about her. And that Lola is getting married a week from Saturday, so save the date. And that Melody is working her little ass off to get every bit of her homework done so that she can be caught up when she gets back in school on Monday.”
Branch dropped to his knees and drew Tessa close to his bare chest. The soft hair tickled her cheek and dammit all to hell, she wanted more than a few stolen elevator kisses.
“You sure you can’t tell me more?” His voice was deep, seductive.
She placed one of her small hands on each side of his face and gently nipped at his lower lip. “Yes, I am very sure.”
“Okay then.” He rolled up on his feet and stood up.
Her eyes were level with the blue dolphins on his swim trunks right below his belly button and she could not force them away from that little white string. If she pulled it, would it reveal proof that he was as turned on as she was?
And that’s when Melody poked her head in the fitness room. “Hey, y’all goin’ to the pool when you get done in here?”
The Wedding Pearls Page 22