Small Town Romance Collection: Four Complete Romances & A New Novella

by Brown, Carolyn

  He cracked open one eyelid. The room was still dark and he could barely see her standing over him. She was wearing some baggy garment that looked vaguely familiar . . . his T-shirt, he realized. it pleased him to see her in it.

  Ted's neck was sore and his arm tingled. "Ouch," he muttered. "Give me time to take a shower and brush my teeth. I'm not even awake."

  They didn't talk any more from the time they got into the truck until they saw the Texas state line in their rearview mirror. Ted sighed with relief when they crossed it into Oklahoma, glad down to the soles of his boots to be out of Bud Tucker's jurisdiction.

  "We'll be at my folks' farm by breakfast," he told Cassie. "Want to tell me why you were on the run before we get there?"

  "No. Not particularly. But I appreciate your help, honest I do. We're out of state now, so why don't you just pull over and let me out? I can hitch a ride to Oklahoma City from here," she said firmly.

  "Damn it all to hell and back!" Ted slapped the steering wheel with both his hands, amazing himself with his sudden outburst of anger. Whether it was the lack of sleep or the unexpected feelings of protectiveness this girl seemed to inspire in him, he couldn't say, but something was making him mad. "Didn't your momma ever tell you what happens to girls who hitch rides? Don't you know better than to get in a car with a complete stranger?" His voice got louder with every word.

  "Don't you dare shout at me!" she yelled right back, startled beyond belief. This man had been pretty quiet until this minute. "You're almost a complete stranger, even if that sheriff does know your daddy. Besides, my momma died the day I was born, but my granny always told me not to get in a stranger's car. She didn't think to tell me not to marry a complete stranger. We both thought I had better sense than that!" Cassie jerked her head around to stare out the window.

  She had planned to tell him the reason why, especially since he'd been so nice about everything. But he didn't have to yell at her like that. What did he care if she hitchhiked or not? In her admittedly limited experience, men only cared about women when they wanted something from them. But this man seemed different. He'd been genuinely kind—and he'd kept his hands off her, even when she'd been sleeping.

  "If you want to know why I ran away—well, there's not that much to tell," Cassie said finally. "Hell, I might as well tell my whole life story. It's a long way to your folks place, right? Want the Reader's Digest condensed version?"

  "Okay," Ted said cautiously. He was curious about her, and even if she made up everything as she went along, it would beat listening to the hellfire-and-brimstone preachers on the early morning radio.

  Here goes, Cassie thought, and took a deep breath. She thought for a moment. What difference does it make if he knows my life story? When the day is over, we'll never see each other again, anyway. He'll stay on his farm, wherever it is, and raise his pigs or whatever he raises, and someday he'll find a girl who'll be happy to marry a farmer, and I'll be on my own in Oklahoma City.

  "My mother died the day I was born. I told you that. Sorry. I'm repeating myself already." Cassie toyed with the worn strap of her purse. "She was Rose Stewart before she married my father, Patrick O'Malley. Granny Stewart told me I got my red hair from my father, but my green eyes were just like my mother's. My daddy died two months before I was born, in an oil well accident. So that's why my granny raised me."

  The affectionate tone of her voice told Ted that Cassie's grandmother had loved her very much—and that she had been a very important person in her granddaughter's young life. He wondered where the old woman was now, and whether she knew that Cassie was a runaway.

  Cassie stopped, and stared out the window, noticing that the land had begun to roll gently in little hills. There were more trees and less flat land than she was used to, but it wasn't so very different from where she'd grown up.

  "So you grandmother brought you up, huh? Sounds like she meant a lot to you," Ted encouraged her to continue.

  Cassie just nodded. "My granny was everything to me." She paused. "She started teaching me my letters when I was three years old," she continued after a while. "It wasn't long before I was reading. She said I took to it like a duck to water. When she enrolled me in kindergarten, I was so far ahead of the other kids, they put me in the first grade. Then halfway through, they advanced me to the second grade. Granny was so proud. She said I'd be in college before she knew it."

  Cassie stopped again, and wiped away a tear.

  "Hey," Ted said softly. "I didn't mean you had to tell me everything—especially if it upsets you. We can just ride along quietly," he said. He had a hunch the rest of her life story might be too painful to tell.

  "If you're going to understand today, you have to know about yesterday," she said in a dull voice. "I graduated from high school when I was barely sixteen. My granny talked to the principal and he talked to a college program administrator who let me start a medical secretary training course. I was interested in the health care field, and that seemed like a good place to start."

  "Sure is. You know, I've got an uncle who's a doctor in Maysville," Ted said. He didn't add that his uncle might need a secretary. This girl didn't seem to like being helped too much, and it'd probably be best if he stopped trying to.

  Cassie didn't even hear his comment about his uncle. "Anyway, I finished the first year and was enrolled for the second. When I left for the first day of school last fall, Granny was fine, waving goodbye to me from the porch, proud of me as ever. By the time I got home that day she was dead of a stroke."

  Cassie shut her eyes and saw the frail old woman who had been both mother and father to her. The little lady who'd told her to take life like a bull . . . by the horns, look it straight in the eye and dare it to challenge her. Her grandmother's body had looked so small in the cheap casket. After the preacher had said the routine words for the benefit of the few relatives who'd cared enough to show up at the funeral, her granny had been buried. And that had been that.

  "A neighbor said I could live with her and finish school, but it didn't work out. You see, Granny had another daughter when she was real young . . . my mother's half sister. It's kind of a tangled story, but my half aunt married a drunk and they had a son. Cecil. I suppose he's my half cousin or something like that."

  She took a deep breath.

  "I never did like him, but when Granny died, there he was, crawling out from whatever rock he'd lived under until then. Since he was the only living relative I had, the State Department of Child Welfare said I had to go live with him. Oh, he was willing, all right. But when we got to his farm . . ." Cassie trailed off.

  Ted waited patiently, not knowing if the story had ended or if there was still more to come.

  She sighed and started again in the same monotone.

  "The first day we got to Cecil's farm, his wife told me I'd already had too much schooling and it was time for me to earn my keep. That meant getting up at dawn to work in the garden, the fields, or the house, or wherever else they could think. Just so long as I was slaving sixteen hours a day. I don't mind hard work, but if either of them thought I hadn't done my chores right then I had to do without supper or breakfast, and sometimes I got no food at all for the whole day. Anyway, to make a long story a little shorter, Cecil tried to get me to unlock my bedroom door after midnight a couple of nights ago. He was whispering on the other side of the door, saying that if I'd just unlock it, he would let me eat breakfast the next morning. I could figure out what he was after. So I waited until he gave up and then I took my mother's wedding rings from my dresser, and just sneaked out. I walked six miles into San Antonio, hocked them, and used the money to buy a ticket to Oklahoma City. You know the rest." She ended her tale with a small sigh.

  Ted's stomach felt empty but he wasn't hungry. He wondered if pity felt like this. Cassie hadn't been dealt a fair hand when life had shuffled the deck. No wonder she'd seemed so vulnerable—yet she had a stubborn streak that he admired, too. Cassie had endured too much for someone who was only seve
nteen . . . the thought jerked him back to the present. Her age alone had to be grounds for a speedy annulment—he was certain Uncle Ash would agree. Ted didn't want to cause this girl any more trouble than she'd already been through.

  But he wasn't exactly sure he never wanted to see her again, either.

  "So why are you going to Oklahoma City?" He cleared his throat, trying for an easy tone. "Any kinfolk there?"

  "Nope." Cassie shook her head but wouldn't look at him. "Only relative I have in this world is Cecil Gorman and if I never see him again, it will be too soon. Oklahoma City was as far as I could get on the money from the wedding rings, that's all."

  "Oh." Ted couldn't find another word in his vocabulary.

  The Oklahoma sunrise seemed to welcome Ted and Cassie on that particular morning. The dark began to fade and the pale light showed the branches of trees, reaching out as if beckoning the two young people in the pickup truck home. A huge, brilliant red sun peeped over the eastern horizon, and Cassie turned to watch it rise, smiling a little.

  She turned back to sneak a look at Ted, who very rarely smiled, she realized suddenly. Cassie sensed an unspoken sadness within him that she didn't dare ask about—after all, she probably would never see him again after this day. His somber expression seemed to match the seasonal bleakness of the landscape around them, and she wished suddenly that she could have a chance to know this thoughtful stranger better. But that would take time, and time was something they didn't have.

  They passed a sign welcoming them to Maysville, and were soon driving down Main Street, which was only a few blocks long. The Christmas decorations were still up in the darkened shop windows, and a hand-lettered sign in one said Closed Until After New Year's. Have A Happy And Don't Drink And Drive.

  Cassie realized that December was almost over, and Christmas had come and gone without her ever celebrating. Well, there hadn't been much to celebrate, come to think of it.

  They quickly passed through the outskirts of town, and were now driving through farmland.

  "Are you really a farmer?" she asked shyly. "This is pretty country around here."

  "Sure am," he replied. "I have a few acres of my own right next to my dad's land." His dad, who was going to skin him alive for marrying this girl. His ever-loving uncles might even tack his hide to the smokehouse door to remind all future generations of Wellmans never to do anything so crazy again . . . but if they'd seen Cassie looking so lost and frightened, they might have taken a notion to rescue her themselves. "It's only two more miles. Momma will have breakfast ready by the time we get there. Daddy has always liked to eat early and my younger sister Alicia takes forever to get ready for school, so she has to get up early."

  "What?" Cassie said, alarmed. "I didn't ask you to take me home—as if I were a stray puppy. I'll just get out right here. Ted Wellman, stop this truck and let me out, now! I'll jump out if you don't. I swear I will!"

  Ted didn't react. His family would've expected that. Big, gentle Ted seldom got worked up enough to care about anything anymore.

  But Cassie had no way of knowing that. She looked at his expressionless profile, and then kicked him hard, in his right shin. Ted didn't so much as flinch.

  "Now, why did you go and do that? I'm not going to hurt you, girl. A good breakfast wouldn't kill you."

  "Let me out!" she shrilled. "I don't want to meet your family and I don't care if we did just get married!"

  Ted gritted his teeth. This little tornado was kinda getting to him. He cursed his own good nature. So he'd saved her from that dumb sheriff and now she was treating him like this. Well, she could damn well settle down and listen to reason. Even if he had to yell again.

  "Listen, Cassie," he shouted. His vocal cords hadn't worked that hard for a very long time. "You said you used all your money to buy a ticket to Oklahoma City. Well, what are you going to do when you get there? You've got no money, no place to stay, and no prospects of a job. Use that brain your granny was so proud of, will you?"

  He paused, and she looked at him like a scared rabbit.

  "I'm going to turn this truck around at the next section line and if you so much as make a move to jump out, I'll—I'll—" He couldn't think of any reasonable threat so he pounded the steering wheel instead. "I told you Uncle Ash could get us out of this. But he can't do it quickly unless you stick around to sign the papers. You owe me that much, and that's all I'm asking."

  Tears spilled out under her thick eyelashes. She was so mad she couldn't utter a sound. For the second time that morning he was yelling at her as if she were a child. She wasn't going to stand for it, and . . . Ted pulled off the road suddenly, and Cassie clutched the edge of the bench seat to keep from slamming against him.

  "Welcome home, Mrs. Wellman," Ted said sarcastically. He parked the truck beneath a huge pecan tree in the center of an oval driveway. Cassie just stared, shocked.

  "Home?" she said softly.

  She had expected a small frame house, the kind a dirt farmer in the heart of Texas might have. The kind with scaling paint and a dirt yard with a beat-up car jacked up on concrete blocks, and an old tractor peeking out from behind the house.

  What stood before her eyes looked like a picture from one of those historical Western romance novels she liked to read sometimes. The farmhouse—if it could be called a mere farmhouse—was three stories high, with balconies, and a wraparound verandah. The landscaped yard was straight out of one of those gardening books her granny had pored every spring. There was enough house—and enough land around it—for several generations of a large, prosperous, happy family.

  "There's Uncle Ash's pickup." Ted pointed to a brand-new black club-cab truck parked in the driveway. "And Uncle Brock must be here. Yup. That's his red Cadillac over there." He shook his head, dreading the confrontation that he was expecting with his family.

  "Who are they?" Cassie asked, bewildered, her own anger chilled by more than the cold north wind whipping through the truck when Ted opened the door. "What do they all do for a living? Run a gold mine?"

  "Uncle Ash is the lawyer who's going to unmarry us. Uncle Brock is Maysville's general practitioner. They're my daddy's brothers. My daddy owns some oil wells and he runs an oil well maintenance business, too. But he started out as a farmer, the way I'm starting out."

  "Why are they all here? I think you missed somebody. Who owns that white pickup truck?" she asked nervously.

  "Oh, that's mine. I only use this one for trips down to Texas to pick up oil well parts. I don't want to scratch up my nice new truck. But I guess you would've preferred to be rescued in the new one."

  Ted guided Cassie up the stairs onto the front verandah without another word from her.

  "You ready to meet your new in-laws?" he asked, in a tone she didn't particularly like. "Dear," he added, in an even more mocking tone.

  Cassie shook her head no, and looked almost ready to bolt. Ted got a firm grip on her elbow and almost pushed her through the front door.

  His father, Bob Wellman, greeted them warmly from inside the living room. Ted was a little surprised. A warm welcome was the last thing he'd expected. He looked over at his Uncle Ash, who was sitting on the blue velvet sofa with his wife Maggie cuddled up next to him. Uncle Brock saw the two of them enter from his spot in the den, and he set his newspaper down and came in, too.

  Ted's younger sister Alicia was taking exquisite glass ornaments from a huge Christmas tree, and packing them carefully in an old wooden chest that looked hand-hewn. Cassie figured that the pretty dark-haired girl was a little older than she was—perhaps in college—and she looked wistfully at the ornaments. She had always wanted a big, old-fashioned, real tree like that every year, but she and Granny had made do with a bitty one from the drugstore.

  Ash had a definite twinkle in his eye, Ted noticed nervously. "Hello, nephew," the older man said in a booming voice. "Is that the jam you were in?" He nodded toward Cassie.

  Ted could've kicked his uncle, but instead he introduced him and his
sister to her. Cassie managed only a nearly inaudible hello.

  A short woman came from what Cassie supposed was the kitchen. Long, dark hair, streaked just slightly with gray, was pulled back at the nape of her neck. She had the softest brown eyes Cassie had ever seen, and she was wearing a denim skirt and a red sweater, both covered with a bibbed apron with lace on the edges.

  "Ted?" She raised an expressive eyebrow.

  "Momma, I want you to meet Cassie," he said. "Cassie, this is my mother, Maria Wellman." There. That had to be the most awkward moment of his life, and it was over.

  Cassie nodded. "Hello, everybody. Sorry to bother you. But I want all of you to know I appreciate what Ted did to help me out. Now if you'll just show me where to sign the papers, I'll be on my way." She tried to sound as if she got married and divorced all the time, and it wasn't any big deal.

  "Sit down," Ted said to her. "Let me explain," he said to his folks.

  "That might be nice, son," his father said, amiably enough.

  Ted started at the beginning from when he'd looked up and seen Cassie for the first time barely twenty-four hours ago, and he didn't stop until he'd told it all, including that she'd fainted from hunger, and that she had threatened to jump out of his truck.

  When he finally finished, Cassie felt ashamed to the bone. Everyone in the room knew she was dirt poor, had only the clothes on her back, had put their son in an awful fix, and had no idea of what to do next. She wished passionately that she could vanish from their lives in a puff of smoke, but Ted had made his point.

  She owed it to him to stay, if only for a short while.

  Maria watched the girl while Ted told his story. Then she watched her son. For the first time in many years, he'd shown some emotion. It was the first time he'd been angry, the first time he'd cared about anyone or anything enough to take a stand, since longer than she could remember. And if her crazy son thought that for one minute his mother was going to stand by and let the girl who'd somehow wrought this miracle just walk out the door, he had taco filling for brains.