Secret Santa

by Fern Michaels

Seemingly deaf to Wanda Joy’s tirade, Miss Velvet walked toward the table and bent her head low over the vase, breathing in the rose’s sweet scent.

  “But,” she asked, lifting her head, “who in the world would send me a yellow rose?”

  Velvet glanced toward Mr. Delacorte but when she saw the warm blue of his eyes turn suddenly flat and cool, she quickly looked back to Wanda Joy. “Was there a return address?”

  “No, ma’am. Just that letter,” Wanda Joy replied, tilting her head to indicate the stack of mail that Miss Velvet held in her hand and a large, yellow-gold envelope on the top. “There’s no return address there either, just your name.”

  Wanda Joy smirked, scratched her left ear, and moved her enormous wad of chewing gum to her right cheek. “That’s why I say I’m playing Cupid’s messenger. If I didn’t know better, Miss Velvet, I’d say you’ve got yourself a secret admirer.”

  “A secret admirer? At my age? Don’t be silly . . .”

  Feeling another sudden flush of heat, Miss Velvet dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief once again. Standing behind her, Noel and the other members of the class of 1985 looked at each other with gleeful eyes, clamping their mouths tightly closed to keep from laughing out loud.

  Chapter Three

  Texas is a state known for producing beautiful women who are strong of body and spirit but the Tudmore women were among the strongest of all, and the most unusual.

  Flagadine Tudmore, the ancestor whom Miss Velvet took such justifiable pride in, outlived her pioneer husband by several decades and founded, not just the town of Too Much, but also the twelve hundred acre F-Bar-T ranch. The ranch had been passed down from mother to daughter, as a strictly matrilineal inheritance, for six generations. Though not an especially large spread by Texas standards, the F-Bar-T sat on the best grazing land in the county and the most beautiful, with waves of gently rolling hills and a thin blue ribbon of sweet water running through the middle. It was like an oasis in the desert, a precious pocket-sized kingdom, a realm ruled by women.

  And so, though Dutch Templeton sat at the head of the table and carved the turkey, his position as family leader was symbolic rather than actual, gained by virtue of being the only adult male present at the family’s Thanksgiving feast.

  Dutch was not bothered by this. He was an affable but unambitious fellow, who loved his wife and daughters and understood what he was getting into when he married a Tudmore. However, since his sons-in-law had walked out the year before, he felt outnumbered, like a lone rooster living among the hens. Sometimes he enjoyed flapping his wings and having a good crow, just for the sake of stirring things up, seeing his womenfolk clamor and cluck in response. This was one of those times.

  Dutch pushed himself to a half-standing position, leaned across the table for a second helping, spearing an entire leg from the turkey, and said in a loud voice, “So, Velvet? What’s this I hear about you having a secret admirer?”

  “Dutch!”

  Taffy gasped and delivered a cautionary kick to her husband’s shin, giving every appearance of being horrified by the bluntness of his question. But her shock and dismay were feigned.

  Two days before and less than two hours after the incident took place, Taffy had gone to the Tidee-Mart to buy groceries for the Thanksgiving feast and overheard young Buck Swanson telling the butcher about Miss Velvet and the rose. Though she’d never have blurted it out quite like Dutch did, Taffy had been dying to ask her aunt the exact same question.

  Velvet dropped her fork onto her plate with an impatient clatter. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Do the people in this town have nothing better to do than gossip and spread rumors?”

  Silky, just a year older than her sister and so like her in appearance that they might have been twins, grinned. “Not really. In a town of two thousand, there’s never much news to share but what news there is, gets out quick. Especially in a week when half the population is stopping by the meat counter to pick up their turkey.”

  Velvet growled with disgust and mumbled something about hammering the butcher with his own meat mallet on her next visit to the Tidee-Mart.

  Lydia Dale and Mary Dell, who were twins, though fraternal rather than identical, and who were so busy supervising their little ones dinner that they’d barely been able to converse with the other adults at the table or eat more than a mouthful themselves, now jumped into the conversation, delighted that the subject they were so curious about had been thrown open to discussion.

  “Don’t be mad, Aunt Velvet,” Lydia Dale said while lifting an eyebrow at the eldest of her three, ten-year-old Jeb, who quickly removed his elbows from the table. “You can’t blame people for being interested. After all, when’s the last time somebody in Too Much got a dozen yellow roses!”

  Mary Dell, who was holding her infant son, Howard, in one arm and trying to cut her turkey with the other, looked up in surprise. “A dozen? I heard it was two.”

  Velvet let out an exasperated growl. “It was one! One rose! Not one dozen! One single rose. That’s all. Nothing worth getting worked up about.”

  “Well, do you know who it was from?” Lydia Dale asked. “Did he send a message?”

  “I heard there was a card,” Mary Dell said.

  Silky, who shared a little cottage in town with her sister, confirmed this. “There was. But she won’t let me read it.”

  “Must be juicy if you’re keeping it secret from Granny,” Mary Dell said, raising and lowering her eyebrows meaningfully. “You tell her everything.”

  Velvet rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. There was nothing juicy about it. If you must know, the note was practically illegible. I’ve never seen such poor handwriting or grammar, like something a child would write. Probably a child did write it, one of those silly boys over at the high school, thinking it would be a fun prank to play on an old spinster.”

  “Who cares about the handwriting?” Taffy asked eagerly. “Tell us what it said!”

  “Just a lot of nonsense. I can’t remember it now. I threw it away as soon as I finished reading it.”

  Taffy clucked her tongue with disappointment. “Threw it away? Really? So you don’t have any idea who might have sent it?”

  Miss Velvet picked up her fork and started to work on the tiny mound of sweet potatoes that occupied the lower right quadrant of her dinner plate. She’d always had a dainty appetite.

  “It might have been that hulking Buck Swanson,” Velvet said. “I wouldn’t put it past him. He was awfully quick to run to the Tidee-Mart and report everything to Bob Baker, probably counting on the fact that Bob would pass it along with every pound of poultry he sold that day. I don’t like that scheming Buck Swanson. Never did. I can’t imagine how that boy got himself into the honors history class. He’s as dull as a rusty ax.”

  Dutch, who was still chewing, said through a mouthful of turkey. “Well, wait a minute, Velvet. Is the boy scheming or is he stupid? Don’t see how he could be both.”

  Velvet ignored the question.

  “Seriously, how does a boy like that get into honors history? Mrs. Ryland must have signed off on his placement before she went on maternity leave, knowing she wouldn’t have to deal with him. I can’t imagine that Mr. Delacorte would have approved it.”

  Silky, who had been listening to this exchange without comment, though paying careful attention to her sister’s vocal tone and facial expressions, took a casual sip of sparkling cider from her glass and asked, “How is Mr. Delacorte working out anyway? Is he as bad a teacher you thought he’d be?”

  Velvet picked up her knife and began methodically cutting her tiny portion of turkey into tiny bites, each a half-inch square, keeping her eyes on her plate as she spoke.

  “I never said I thought he was a bad teacher. I had no way of knowing whether he was or wasn’t. Neither did the school board; that was my beef. The board didn’t lift a finger to find out about his qualifications! They let Marlena Benton run roughshod over them, just like she always . . .”

&nb
sp; Velvet, receiving a pointed look from Lydia Dale, stopped herself in mid-sentence.

  Since the divorce, Miss Velvet sometimes forgot that Lydia Dale’s children, Jeb, Cady, and Rob Lee, were half-Benton and that Marlena Benton was their grandmother. Though her former mother-in-law had treated her like dirt since the divorce and Jack Benny had treated her worse, even spreading a rumor that the baby, Rob Lee, wasn’t his, Lydia Dale would not allow her children to be exposed to any disparaging talk about their father or their Benton relatives. She was right, of course, and Velvet knew it. But sometimes it was hard to restrain herself.

  It was just like she always said; taken as a group, men were disappointing, most of them not worth the time it took to throw them over. Oh sure, now and then you’d find a decent one. Dutch was all right. A typical Too Much male, handsome and shiftless, but he loved his children and grandchildren. And, for reasons that Velvet found hard to fathom, her niece being a little spoiled and self-centered, Dutch worshipped the ground Taffy walked on. Yes, Dutch was a decent enough sort.

  But just look at what had happened to poor Lydia Dale; left high and dry with three little children to support when Jack Benny left her for that floozy! After all Lydia Dale had been through, Velvet found it hard to believe that she was willing to take the plunge again. Not that Velvet had anything against, Graydon, Lydia Dale’s fiancé. He doted on her children, had done a good job as their ranch manager, and gave every appearance of being steady and hard-working. Even now, he was off in Montana, investigating some new and supposedly hardier breeds of sheep. But appearances could be deceiving.

  Mary Dell’s husband, Donny, had seemed steady and devoted, too. But for their inability to have children, Velvet would have said Mary Dell and Donny were as happy as any couple she’d ever met. But when Mary Dell was finally blessed with a baby boy, Howard, who was born with Down syndrome, Donny just couldn’t cope. He went out to pick up some groceries at the Tidee-Mart and never came back.

  Donny wasn’t a cheating louse, not like that horrible Jack Benny, a Benton if ever she’d seen one, but he wasn’t as strong as he appeared to be. In fact, in comparison to Mary Dell, who, quite rightly, considered that sweet little Howard to be a gift from heaven, Donny was downright weak. It was such a shame. But, that was the way it was with men. Yes, indeed. Appearances could be deceiving.

  “Well, from what I can tell so far, Mr. Delacorte appears to be a good teacher. His students seem to like him well enough. But I don’t know if that signifies much. However,” she said, smiling a little as she recalled his comments about her newsletter article, “he does have a finely tuned appreciation of history. That I know for sure.”

  Silky nodded. “He’s such a nice-looking man, too.”

  “Do you think so?” Velvet asked absently. “I hadn’t noticed. Can’t say as I care much for that beard. A full beard always makes me think a man is trying to hide something . . . a personal insecurity. Or a weak chin.”

  “Mr. Delacorte isn’t using his beard to hide a weak chin,” Dutch said as he ladled more gravy onto his mashed potatoes.

  Taffy turned toward her husband. “How would you know? You’ve never even met him.”

  “Yes, I did. Yesterday. He was coming out of the hardware store carrying two wooden poles and twenty yards of white canvas. When I introduced myself and asked him what he was up to with all that stuff, he told me that he’s one of those historical re-enactors. Plays the part of a general in the Texas Army, back in the days of the republic. Just on the weekends and such, for fun. But he’s sure excited about it. He went on and on. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who gets that worked up about Texas history. Present company excepting,” Dutch said, nodding in Velvet’s direction before loading his fork with potatoes. “Anyway, that’s why he has the beard. It’s part of his character.”

  “Really?” Velvet asked. “A general, you say?”

  “Uh-huh. Oh, Mary Dell, I almost forgot. Mr. Delacorte needs some help sewing his tent. When I told him that you owned the quilt shop, he asked if you might know somebody who could make it for him.”

  Mary Dell, who had given up trying to eat and was playing peek-a-boo with Howard instead, looked up at her father.

  “I don’t know anybody that does that kind of work.” Mary Dell shifted Howard in her arms. “But, why don’t you tell Mr. Delacorte to bring everything to the quilt shop. I don’t know if I can sew a tent or not, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

  “Try stitching it on my old Featherweight,” Silky advised. “That should do the trick.” Almost everything that Mary Dell knew about sewing, she had learned at her grandmother’s knee.

  “Do you really think so?” Mary Dell asked doubtfully. “Canvas is so heavy and your machine is so old. I’d hate to break it.”

  “Bah!” Silky said, dismissing her granddaughter’s concerns. “Those Featherweights were built to last! You can sew anything from silk to leather on those old Singers. Not like these new machines. From the prices they’d charge, you’d think they were made of gold but most of them are pure plastic. Don’t worry, honey. You can’t break my machine. My momma sewed all our clothes on it when we were little, everything from dresses to dungarees. Isn’t that right, Velvet. Velvet?”

  Velvet, who was dissecting her half-inch squares of turkey into even smaller quarter-inch bites but had yet to eat a single one of them, jerked, startled at the sound of her own name.

  “What? Did you ask me something, Silky? I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Silky grinned and waved her hand. “That’s all right. We weren’t discussing anything all that earth-shattering. What were you thinking about, anyway?”

  Velvet shook her head, pulled her napkin from her lap, and dabbed it daintily against her lips and then against her brow.

  “Oh. Nothing. Nothing important. Just the . . . the oral history project. Yes, that’s right. I was thinking about the oral history project. And George Plank. I hope Buck Swanson followed the script I gave him and didn’t try to cut him off. You know how George can ramble.”

  “At George’s age,” Dutch said, “he’s earned the right to ramble. I bet it turned out fine but if you’re so worried, Velvet, why don’t you go over and see George tomorrow? Check on him yourself.”

  “We’ve got a ham bone in the refrigerator,” Dutch said. “You can take it with you to give to Buster.”

  “That’s a good idea. Thank you, Dutch.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So,” she said, looking at her nephew-in-law, “a general, you said?”

  Dutch nodded. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what he told me.”

  Velvet pressed her lips together for a moment before finally spearing a sliver of turkey meat with her fork.

  “A general,” she mused. “Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? You can tell just by looking at him.”

  Chapter Four

  The F-Bar-T ranch was located just six miles from downtown Too Much but it took Silky and Velvet a full fifteen minutes to drive back to their little shotgun cottage on Houston Street. Silky believed that any speed above thirty miles per hour would tax the engine of her 1964 LeSabre. After dark she insisted on driving even more slowly, concerned about the possibility of hitting any stray cattle that might have escaped through a broken fence and wandered onto the road. Velvet felt this was a remote possibility but she wasn’t the one driving so she kept her opinions to herself. After a lifetime of living together, she and Silky were tolerant of each other’s foolishness and idiosyncrasies.

  When they pulled into the driveway, Velvet hopped out of the car without being asked and raised the door of the garage, a single-stalled, detached structure that had once served as a small stable. With the car turned off and shut up safely for the night, the sisters went inside and, without saying a word, set about their nightly routine.

  Velvet brought in the cat, Mr. Bowie, named for the famous frontiersman who died at the Alamo, and gave him a bowl of kibble and a little leftover turkey
as a treat. Then she took the milk carton out of the refrigerator, filled two glasses and set them on the kitchen table. Meanwhile, Silky put a kettle of water on the stove, then went around and made sure all the doors and windows were locked before returning to the kitchen and sitting down to drink her milk. When their glasses were empty, at almost the exact moment the tea kettle started to whistle, Silky rose from her chair and took two red rubber hot water bottles out of the cupboard.

  “I don’t believe I’ll need one tonight,” Velvet said. “I’ve felt overheated all afternoon.”

  “Are you sure? It’s going to get awful cold. Forty-degrees, the paper said. If this keeps up, maybe we’ll have ourselves a white Christmas.”

  “That would certainly be one for the history books,” Velvet said. “It hasn’t snowed in Too Much since December 16, 1911.”

  Silky smiled as she poured steaming water carefully into her own hot water bottle. She never ceased to be impressed by her sibling’s ability to keep important historical milestones cataloged in her head.

  “Last chance,” she said, looking at Velvet before pouring the rest of the water down the sink.

  Velvet shook her head. “I’m fine. If anything, I’m too warm.”

  “Could be the change,” Silky suggested.

  “Don’t be silly. I went through that ten years ago. Maybe I’m coming down with something?” Miss Velvet touched her forehead. It was cool.

  “Well, I’m sure I’ll be fine in the morning. Good night, Silky. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “Happy Thanksgiving, Velvet.”

  Mr. Bowie followed Velvet to her room and hopped up onto the bed, kneading the blue and white “Sister’s Choice” quilt, which Silky made as a Christmas gift for Velvet years before, into a state of optimal comfort before curling up into a ball and closing his eyes.

  Miss Velvet took off her gray, calf-length dress and hung it up in the closet next to similarly shapeless frocks of black, charcoal, and navy blue, before changing into her white flannel nightgown. Next, she went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, washed her face, unpinned and unwound the braided coronet of her hair, unplaited it, gave her gray, waist length locks fifty strokes with a brush, and plaited it again, letting the braid hang loose down her back, before walking to the bedside and kneeling down to say her prayers, thanking her Maker for his many mercies and blessings.