Lone Star Hero

by Jennie Jones

  “That’s exactly it, Molly. Gather your thoughts before you gear up. I like that.” He smiled. “I knew you would have thought it out for yourself but maybe hadn’t had time to see everything that’s possible. I just prompted the idea, nothing more. I happen to believe in what you’re doing, and in your capabilities to run your business.”

  That was generous of him. “But I’m not the right person to be in charge of all this, am I?” she admitted, stepping from the wall.

  “You’ve got a blind spot.”

  “Where?” She glanced over her shoulder.

  He smiled again, sweet and slow this time. “You don’t realize how loyal you are. That’s your strength and you need to use it. You need to chill more and use your best skills to engage.”

  “I’ve never had to do something as big as this all by myself—not that I’m not capable,” she added quickly. “Anyway—don’t talk to me about blind spots. You’ve got one, too.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You like to think you’re helpful—but in fact, you leave people once the attention becomes too much. You distance yourself.”

  “I do?”

  Of course he did. That was why he’d come here tonight after saying he didn’t want to know. He felt bad about saying he wouldn’t come. It was just a shame he had come and witnessed her messy speech.

  She slumped against the wall again. “You try.”

  “Me?” he asked, with a laugh. “No thanks. I’m not getting involved.”

  “Tough. You are involved. We can’t do any of this without my business starting up first. So you’re heavily involved because my business won’t go anywhere without a roof.”

  “Now you’re negotiating like a pro.” He grinned. “Okay. I’ll give it a go—but that’s all,” he said, with a warning in his eye. “I’ll do what I can and nothing more.”

  “Thank you.” She meant it. She really wanted to hug him actually. He could do it, she knew he could. She also felt excitement build. “Go get ’em.”

  He debated for a moment or two, looking around the room with a narrow-eyed focus that told her he was already regretting saying he’d do what he could.

  “I’ll try. Nothing more,” he said, and made his way through the crowd of cake eaters.

  Everyone was chatting and eating, forks clashing on china plates but he made it up onto the stage.

  Davie stepped forward and Saul bent to talk.

  Then Davie put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

  “Break over,” Davie said. “This guy’s got something to say and I for one would like to hear it.”

  “Go for it, honey!” Momma called.

  People took their seats again, cake plates in hand.

  “Hi, everyone. I’m Saul Solomon.” He stuck his fingertips into the pockets of his jeans and gave his audience a smile so genuinely full of masculine charisma, Molly sighed in contentment. He could run for mayor with a smile like that.

  “I’m sure you all know that I’m helping Molly build her roof.” He didn’t even have to raise his voice, it just carried and sang to the crowd like a lullaby. “She’s shared with me her plans for the photographic studio, and they’re great. It’s going to work—but here’s the thing.”

  It felt like everyone in the room stopped eating cake and leaned forward a little.

  “You’ve got to seek a way to build the valley’s reputation,” Saul said, “and that of each town. After a long period of decline, it’s not going to be easy.”

  Murmurs of “True” and “You can say that again” filtered through the market hall.

  “Like how?” Momma called.

  Saul looked across at her. “As a guy just passing through, I notice things. Stuff you might not see because you live here.”

  A guy just passing through. Molly sighed.

  “Like what?” Davie asked. He was frowning and he had his thick arms crossed over his bulky bodyguard chest.

  “Like the opportunities you’re not utilizing for this town open day.”

  “What do you suggest?” Mr. Walnut asked.

  “Well—how about something to keep the visitors occupied and grateful when they come to your town on open day? I’m thinking a car wash just past the Welcome to Hopeless sign. There’s enough space for a make-do car park. Wash their vehicles for free. Offer them hot dogs and tacos, or a barbeque—but charge them for that food—then give them a slice of the famous Hopeless sponge cake, for free.”

  “So they get something, and we get something,” Marie said. “I love it. I’ll add a free hair appraisal booth.”

  “I’ll do an art and craft stall,” Davie said.

  “I’ll sew some little flags for the kids,” Mr. Jack offered, “and put them on sticks.”

  “I’ll make my apple jam. My pantry is laden.”

  “Great idea, Mrs. Wynkoop.” Saul smiled at her.

  I’ll take photos. Molly would charge a dollar for a set of five photos of each family. But she didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Saul’s engagement with his audience by speaking up.

  Suddenly, Saul looked at her and smiled, then took his focus back to his rapt listeners. “I’m sure Molly will take photos, if you ask her. All this will help to make Hopeless a great place to visit.”

  “How can we show our proposed expansion when people visit?” Winnie asked.

  “You want a big noticeboard for starters. You can put details of the plans for the town on it. Molly—you write up some plans for your business, including photos, and let people know what type of events they can hold at the hacienda.” He turned back to the crowd. “You ought to make Hopeless more family-friendly, too. You need more amenities in town for tourists, or hikers and cyclists. You’ll need the car park, and also bike racks. If I’ve got time before I leave, I’ll knock up some wooden tables and benches so there’s a picnic area.”

  If he had time before he left. Molly smiled again when he caught her eye, but it felt stiff and unnatural.

  “And how about a tourist information booth,” he added.

  “I’d love to look after that!” Winnie said, standing.

  “It’s yours, honey,” Momma said.

  “I’ll do some walking one day,” Saul told Winnie. “I’ll map out the best areas to create proper trails, picnic spots, and horse riding tracks. That should kick you off. After I’m gone, you ought to call in a professional. Someone who knows the hiking business.”

  After he’d gone. Molly’s smile was now frozen in place.

  “What do you think we ought to do with the other unused spaces in town?” someone asked. “There’s plenty of them.”

  Saul paused, pursing his mouth as he thought. “Well, you can add a fenced-in grassy area for dogs. Maybe a kiddie area with a sandpit or a swing set or something. Between you all, you can get that done before the Hopeless open day. Anyone got any other suggestions?”

  “How about a Tip-the-Bachelor into a barrel of water?” Momma asked. “For a mere dollar.”

  “I’m not getting tipped into a barrel of cold water,” Mr. Jack stated emphatically.

  Saul grinned. “I’m with you on that one, Mr. Jack.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “I know I came in late here,” Saul said, “and I know the valley is financially broke. I’m not trying to poke my nose in where it’s not wanted, but can I suggest a citizen-placement scheme where everybody gets a say, or hands in an idea.”

  “I’ll draw that up,” Davie said.

  Saul nodded at him. “From what I’ve heard about the bar in Surrender, you might want some security guys in the crowds.”

  Crowds? Molly stifled a laugh, then ticked herself off. No matter how many came, Saul had given everyone the burst of enthusiasm they needed.

  “I’ll organize that, too,” Davie called out.

  “Okay, and lastly. I think it’s important you all recognize that without Molly Mackillop’s perseverance and trustworthy skill sets, none of this would be happening and you’d all have a
lready sold your land to Donaldson’s and be stuck somewhere you don’t want to be, regretting your decision. So let’s hear it for Molly.”

  Saul clapped, and immediately others joined in.

  “Thank you, Molly,” Mr. Jack shouted.

  “Three cheers for Molly.”

  Molly looked up at Saul, her breath held high in her lungs. He smiled at her, and he was still clapping like everybody else in the room. His attention seared her to the wall. She felt the beam in his eye reach her heart.

  He jumped off the stage and headed for her. Fortunately, he had to stop a few times as people slapped him on his shoulder or shook his hand, and Molly had time to regroup and get herself and her thoughts in line.

  But, oh, why wasn’t she right for him?

  “You look tired,” he said when he reached her.

  “Not me. Nice speech. Well done.” She smiled her most friendly smile.

  He frowned, and cocked his head to one side. “Are you pissed about me saying all that?”

  “No! Of course not.” She was just pissed about the if I have time and after I’ve gone bits. “Brilliant ideas, and what’s more, you got us all off our seats.”

  “Okay. Let’s go home—I mean, let’s go back to your home.” He looked confused for a second, as though he couldn’t make sense of what he’d just said. “Let’s get out of here,” he said at last, and walked past her.

  Molly followed.

  He drove. She let him. Contractors liked to feel in charge. Anyway, she was tired.

  “I lied about my family,” she said suddenly, then clamped her mouth closed.

  “When?”

  “To the thing—my ex-fiancé—I call him the thing.”

  “I call him the bastard.”

  Molly melted in the dark of the cab. He had a name for her ex? That was thoughtful.

  “I omitted to tell him I had a family,” she said. “Because of all the crazy, spooky stuff. It’s the reason I left home in the first place. I wanted to see if people outside Texas would notice how crazy I was.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  “I know that. Other people don’t until they meet me.”

  He laughed. “Stuff what other people think.”

  “You don’t care what others think about you, but I do.”

  “No, I don’t care. Although some people say I should,” he added quietly.

  She shifted slightly on her seat so she was half facing him. “How come? What happened?”

  “I lost my family.” He looked across at her briefly. “I gave them away.”

  “How can you give a family away?”

  He smiled but didn’t answer immediately. It looked like he was pulling thoughts out of the recess of his mind and Molly had a feeling they were thoughts he’d once considered but had buried.

  He firmed his mouth and sighed. “Something happened to me. I discovered I wasn’t my father’s son.”

  Pain shot through Molly’s chest. This was it. This was his heartbreak and she all but felt it as her own. It had hurt him so badly. “I’m sorry, Saul.”

  “Don’t be. I’m over it.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  He grinned. “Let’s not forget you know nothing about me.”

  “I know more than you think,” she muttered. “So how many family members did you give away?”

  “My grandpa, my mom. My sister and three brothers.”

  His family was growing every time he opened up about them and Molly wanted to know more. “That’s a big family.”

  “No bigger than yours. You’ve got your mom, your cousins, Alice, her sisters, Davie, Winnie. That’s a lot of people.”

  “Yes, and they’re not all my blood family.”

  He growled. “Don’t start. I’ve over it. I’m gone and it’s best.”

  It wasn’t best and Molly persisted. “When you left your family who are no longer your family, you cared what people thought, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t answer for a while, then he gave a hesitant response. “Yeah.”

  They were silent then, and Molly didn’t like it. There was too much in the air. They’d opened up and there was more to say. Otherwise it would all just sit in the air and never get cleared.

  She was tempted to tell him about the doubt and worry she’d had before she’d discovered Jason working the new girl, but maybe she should shut up and not involve Saul in any more of her problems. He’d probably never a met a woman who had so many problems.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “How do you know something’s wrong?”

  “I can tell. You’re keeping something back. Something you want to tell me.”

  “I bought my own engagement ring.” There, she’d said it.

  He shot her a look. “He asked you to?”

  “I was helping him out.”

  “Yeah, right. And the bastard let you. But that’s not it. There’s something else. Spit it out.”

  Molly swallowed. “I’m still lying. Alice said I was and I am.”

  “Because you didn’t mention your unusual family to your ex?”

  “No.”

  “So what?”

  “Something stupid. No big deal as it turns out.”

  “I told you mine.”

  Molly swallowed the moisture in her mouth and stared ahead. It was dark in the cab and there was safety in that. You could always tell the truth in the dark. “I don’t think I really wanted to marry him.”

  He slowed the pickup and brought it to a halt, then turned to her and hooked an arm over the back of her seat.

  “What’s so wrong with that?” he asked, pinning her with the focused look in his eyes.

  “I was lying to myself.”

  “So? I still don’t get it.”

  “I never lie to myself. In my head, I’m always truthful.”

  “You didn’t lie to yourself, Molly.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “No. You didn’t love him but you’d gotten yourself in deep. So you thought you’d be letting him down if you pulled up and left.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes. And you’re not the sort to pull out when the going gets tough.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No.”

  He was right. “I think I helped finance his sisters’ college education.”

  “Oh, Molly.” He didn’t shake his head or give her a look of despair. It was as though he felt for her, or understood why she’d done that.

  “So I ought not to ask for my ring back, and maybe not ask for my money either, because if I do, his sisters might end up illiterate and living in some shanty town and it’ll be my fault.”

  He laughed, then took his attention to the road and pulled the pickup away. “I love your imagination, but you’re not to blame if his sisters can’t afford to go to college. Neither are you to blame for anything that might happen to the bastard once he returns what’s rightfully yours, and takes over that car lease, or lets you sell the car before they repossess it and you get the black mark.”

  “You think so?”

  “You bought your own ring and you hid your family from him because you were trying to prove to yourself that you’d been right about the choices you’d made.”

  Molly contemplated all that he’d said. “You know what?” she asked as they came up to the hacienda arch. “I think you’re right.”

  “It has been known to happen.” She heard a smile in his voice. “Maybe we’re a couple of idiots,” he said. “Well, you are—” He threw her a smile. “For not seeing your blind spot.”

  “I’m a liar, you’re the idiot. Don’t forget you’ve got a blind spot, too.”

  “Oh, right. That distance thing, yeah?”

  “You think that’s going to keep you safe, but it won’t.”

  “Didn’t keep me safe from you, did it?”

  “We were meant to meet. Not that we wanted to, but we were meant to.”

  “So you could get your roof.”

  �
�Yes. You were meant to build my roof.” Damn, it hurt that she wasn’t right for him. She felt right for him. He felt right for her. “You have to learn to say no to people, instead of getting their hopes up by helping out for a short time then leaving them.”

  “Fine. No, I won’t build your roof.”

  “That’s different.”

  “And then what?” he asked. “After I’ve built your roof. What then?”

  “Then you’re meant to leave.”

  “Yeah,” he said as he slowed the pickup before the turning for the hacienda driveway. “Then I leave.”

  She ducked her head when he drove beneath the arch, then grimaced. He’d gotten her doing it now. “How is that crane going to get through my arch? Because it won’t.”

  “It’s going to go around the side and up the dirt.”

  “Good idea. That’s what I was going to suggest.”

  She saw a flash of his white teeth in the darkness. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, boss.”

  She smiled, then settled in her seat more comfortably for the short trip up the driveway and home.

  Chapter Twenty

  Two days later, Molly ended the call she’d made to her mother, sighed, and closed her Town Open Day folder. She threw it to one side then pushed to rise from the kitchen counter, trying not to think too much about the impact of what Momma had just told her.

  It’s great. It’s for the best. She just wasn’t sure it was for her personal benefit.

  Momma and Alice had found the money to tile the roof. So all that was expected of Saul was to get the remaining rafters and whatever into place. He’d be gone in three days...

  It was almost heartbreaking. But she’d have to accept it, and tell Saul.

  So far, yesterday and today, Molly hadn’t been needed for the roof build, since Davie had turned up at five am yesterday, ready to work alongside Saul. She’d taken lots of photographs though. A memory of how she’d worked with gut and gumption, to make this business work for herself and for the valley.

  All the hammering and building noises from outside infiltrated her head again. Saul. She couldn’t get him out of her mind, especially now.

  At least the break from building and clearing rubble had given her the chance to review the town’s open day plans, which were going well. Don’t worry about what Momma said. It’s meant to be. But still—why had Momma and Alice suddenly made this decision to help?