Secrets in the Sand

by Carolyn Brown

  “Thank you”—she smiled—“but I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I was serious.”

  “I know a beautiful woman when I see one.” Clancy kept his arm around her shoulders. “I thought I was going to die before I could get another kiss. It seemed like Dillon preached for hours this morning, and then all those folks wanting to talk to Mama and see you again. I was feeling pretty puny.”

  “Clancy, you are full of bull—”

  He put his fingers over her mouth. “Here comes Wilma Jones. If she hears you say that entire word, she’ll drop down on her knees and commence to praying for your soul right here and now,” he whispered in mock seriousness, then turned abruptly. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Jones. Do you remember Angela Conrad? She lived here when we were in high school.” Clancy brought Angel around to stand beside him with his arm still around her shoulder.

  “Nope, can’t say as I do.” Mrs. Jones shook her head. “Pretty woman, though, Clancy. If you had half a brain, you’d keep her close to you. There’s some bachelors in the crowd who are already eyeing her. Now, where is your mother? I want to offer my congratulations. Some folks is talking about her marryin’ up with Tom, but they’re just jealous because they don’t have someone to treat them that good.” The old woman shook her finger under his nose as if she were preaching him a sermon.

  “Whew, close call.” Angel giggled when Mrs. Jones was out of hearing distance. “I like Mrs. Jones. She says what she thinks.”

  “Yep, she does. Don’t you remember her from church when we were in school?”

  “Clancy, I didn’t go to your church. I went with my granny to the Methodist church over on the other side of town,” she reminded him.

  People continued to arrive for half an hour and milled around among the tables, visiting as they waited for Sunday dinner to be served. Several stopped by to be introduced to Angel. Some remembered her vaguely; others didn’t. But in a while, she began to feel more comfortable. Then Tom clapped his hands three times to get everyone’s attention.

  “Merrie and I want to thank you for coming to share this special time with us.” He smiled. “We’re glad you are here. I know you’re all hungry and we appreciate you waitin’ while the photographer snapped a few pictures of us. He’s got a real strong camera. My ugly mug didn’t even break it! Now, let’s all form a line right here and start eating.” He took Meredith’s hand in his and led her to the food table.

  “Clancy!” his mother called to him across the pool. “The photographer is waiting for you and Angel inside. I told him to take a bunch of you two.” She pointed through the glass doors.

  “Let me freshen my makeup and lipstick. I’ll just be a minute,” Angel said. She headed toward the bathroom, and when she passed the den, she heard her name. She stopped and flattened her back against the wall beside the open door.

  “Janie told me that Melissa was pregnant,” one of the trio said. “And it’s not her husband’s baby. She went down to Florida to try to get Clancy to marry her again, but she found Angel down there with him. I hope his mother knows what Clancy is getting into.”

  “Oh, Meredith’s got her head so far up in the clouds, she wouldn’t know straight up from backwards right now,” the second one said.

  “Don’t knock it!” the third woman added tartly. “I’ve lived alone ever since my Frank died, and I don’t like it. If I’d known Tom Lloyd was lookin’ for a wife, I would’ve been out at that cemetery so fast it would look like a tornado headed that way. Meredith is a good woman and she was a good wife to that first husband of hers. He was a good man but a whole lot on the uppity side. Can you imagine the late Mr. Morgan out there on his knees doin’ yard work or lookin’ at Meredith like she was a queen? Lord, I’d lay down on the freeway and die a happy woman for just one day of a good man lookin’ at me like that.”

  “Don’t change the subject. Do you really think Melissa and Clancy are through?” The first voice sounded incredulous.

  “Of course they are! They shouldn’t ever have gotten married in the first place. I don’t remember Angela much. I think she was one of those kids who just blended in with the background in high school, but she sure doesn’t now. I’d love to have that figure she’s got, and I hear she owns an oil company. That probably makes her the most prosperous kid to ever come out of Tishomingo High School,” the lady said.

  Angel stifled a giggle.

  “In my opinion, Melissa has gone too far,” a third voice piped up. “She’s been a spoiled brat her whole life. It’s time for her to be accountable. We’d better get on out to the reception before the food is all gone. Those women with husbands should be through the line now and us old widow women can have what’s left.” She stood up and Angel barely had time to go on down the hall and get the bathroom door shut before she heard them making their way down the hallway.

  She checked the mirror and was only slightly surprised to see two round spots of color on her cheeks. It had been a long time since anyone or anything made her blush. She reapplied her lipstick and went back to the living room where Clancy waited patiently.

  The photographer looked across the room and smiled. “I don’t often get to take pictures of such a beautiful couple.”

  Angel blushed. “Thank you, sir. Just tell us what to do.”

  “How about here by the fireplace? And I’m just plain old Greg, no ‘sir.’” He pointed toward the fireplace. “Clancy, would you please stand behind her and put your arms around her waist?”

  “Gladly,” Clancy said.

  “Now, lean back just slightly, Angel,” Greg said. “Tilt your head just a little. Now look at me with those big, green eyes and don’t smile,” he said.

  And Angel smiled.

  “Works every time.” He snapped several shots, checked them on the camera, and nodded. “Let’s go over to that antique chair. You sit down, Angel. Clancy, stand behind her with your hands on her shoulders.”

  “When we get done with this one, can we have one of Angel sitting in my lap?” Clancy asked.

  “Anything you want,” Greg agreed.

  Angel’s smile was getting tired by the time Greg finished taking pictures, and her stomach was growling.

  “That’s about two hundred,” Greg said. “Thank goodness for digital cameras. There should be a good one or two for you to use.”

  “How much for a copy of every one of them?” Clancy asked.

  “I’ll make you a good deal,” Greg said as he packed up his equipment.

  “Why would you want all of them?” Angel asked.

  “Because you’re in them,” Clancy answered and kissed her on the cheek. “We’ll talk about the pictures later. Right now, let’s go eat.”

  Angel nodded. “I can sure agree with that.”

  Angel piled food on her plate and carried it over to a table. “I could eat a whole cow if someone would knock the horns off and heat it up on a charcoal grill. Who would have thought that church and posing for pictures could take so much energy?”

  “Add in what we did half the night, and it’s a wonder we have enough energy to blink our eyes,” Clancy teased.

  “That would be Angela Conrad,” a lady whispered from the next table over. “Meredith told me she was Clancy’s high school sweetheart before he started dating Melissa.”

  “Well, when he gets tired of her, he can send her over my way,” one of the older men at that table said with a chuckle.

  “Oh, Raymond, you’re too damned old to know what to do with her.” The man beside him punched him playfully on the arm. “Besides, what would someone that pretty want with an old coot like you? I heard tell she’s got an oil company and enough money to buy this whole town and plow it under for a garden if she wanted to.”

  “Gossip, gossip.” Clancy grinned.

  “But it’s nice gossip, and as long as they’re talking about us, someone else is getting a rest. That’s what my
granny used to say.” Angel picked up a napkin and spread it out over her lap, then reached across the table for another one to set beside her plate. “I’m messy when I eat ribs, but I love them!”

  “Seems to me you like food, period,” Clancy said. “And I do love a woman who isn’t picky about what they eat.”

  “You would, too, if you’d lived for a whole year on pork and beans and wienies,” she said. “Besides, I’m one of those fortunate women who can eat whatever she wants and not worry about calories or fat grams. I’m so active and burn them so fast that I can eat what I want.”

  “Just another thing that I love about you.” Clancy picked up a rib with his fingers.

  “Let me have your attention.” Tom tapped the edge of his glass with his fork. “The caterers are bringing a little champagne toast around to your tables now,” he said as waitresses brought silver trays with fluted crystal glasses of champagne and set one beside each person.

  Tom raised his own glass high in the hot afternoon breeze. “I would like to propose a toast to my new bride. To my Merrie, who has made me happy at a time in my life when I thought happiness was just a dream I had lost forever. May we celebrate our fiftieth anniversary together,” Tom winked at Meredith and clinked his glass against hers. “I love you, darlin’.”

  Everyone took a sip, and then Tom raised his glass again. “I’ve got another toast,” he said. “This is to Clancy and his Angel. They were high school sweethearts, and now they’re back together again. To you two kids. May you find the same happiness Merrie and I have found.” He raised his glass high toward them and then polished off the rest of what was in it.

  “Thank you.” Clancy rose to his feet. “And a toast from me if anyone has anything left in their glasses. If not, raise your hand, and the caterers will be around to fill it again. To my mama, who’s been my friend as well as my parent. I thought my father was the most wonderful man in the whole world, and I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d ever like anyone else taking his place. But Tom has made a place of his own, both in Mama’s heart and in mine. So, to Tom, my new friend. And to Angel—my one and only.” Clancy clinked his glass with Angel’s and tossed back the rest of his champagne in one swallow.

  He had barely sat back down when one of the caterers brought him a cordless phone. “For you, sir. The phone rang in the kitchen area, and one of my helpers answered it. The caller asked for you.”

  “Hello?” Clancy pushed the button and waited.

  His eyes suddenly filled with tears and his chin quivered. Angel looped her arm in his. “Is everything all right?”

  He shook his head. “We’ll be there as soon as we can get there,” he said. “Angel is right here beside me. I’ll bring her with me. Tell him we’re on our way.”

  “What’s wrong?” Angel asked.

  “That was Anna. Red’s had a heart attack. They’ve got him in the hospital in Denison, and he’s asking for the two of us. I was wondering why they weren’t here. Mama would have invited them for sure.”

  Tears ran down Angel’s cheeks, dripping off her jaw. “I’ll get my things together.”

  “Here, take this.” Clancy pressed a white hanky into her hands. “I’ll tell Mama and Tom and be right behind you.”

  Chapter 15

  Red’s wife, Anna, met them at the hospital door. Her makeup was smeared from all the tears she had cried. Her trademark skintight jeans had long since lost their perfect crease from top to bottom.

  “How is he?” Angel hugged her old friend tightly and felt Anna’s thin shoulders shudder as she gave way to a whole new set of sobs.

  “Red’s goin’ to make it. The doctor’s said this heart attack was just a little one, but it sure scared me. While we were waiting for the ambulance, I realized that I didn’t even know how much I loved him until I nearly lost him. I thought he was gone, Angel. I really thought he was gone.” She wept even harder. “Oh, Clancy.” Anna broke one arm away and brought him into a three-way hug. “He started asking for you a couple of hours ago. I told him to wait until we saw the doctor, but Red said to call you right now. Only immediate family is allowed in intensive care, but he’s pitched such a fit, they said you two could go in if it will calm him down.”

  “Are you sure?” Angel drew back and looked at her. “We don’t want to upset or worry him. Most of all, we don’t want to excite him. Maybe we ought to wait till tomorrow morning.”

  “Nope. Red intends to see Clancy tonight,” Anna said. “I’ll go with you up to the floor where he is and wait in the lobby until he visits with you. The nurses sure wouldn’t allow all three of us in there at once. They said you could only stay five minutes. He’s done told me what he intends to say, and I agree with him, Clancy. So, listen to him. And besides, he’s afraid to go to sleep before he speaks his mind.”

  They found Red in a room at the end of the intensive care ward. An oxygen tube was stretched around his freckled face and attached under his nose. An IV dripped into his sinewy left arm, which had seen more hard work in its sixty years than most men could experience in two or three lifetimes. He looked so much smaller in a hospital bed than he did when Angel had wheeled and dealed with him over oil wells. When he sat across a conference table from her, haggling over the price of a well, he seemed to be ten feet tall and made of steel. Tonight, he looked like someone’s grandpa, with wispy red hair turning gray and deep wrinkles around his mouth.

  “Afternoon, you two kids.” Red smiled and a bit of color returned to his face. “Glad you are here. Saves me a trip up to your place, because I was determined to see you even if I had to crawl out of the bed and check myself out of this place.”

  “Red, you old devil.” Clancy bent over the bed and hugged him. “You’ve given us a scare. Angel cried all the way down here, and I couldn’t swallow the lump in my throat.”

  Angel had to tiptoe and then bend over to kiss him on the forehead. “The trip seemed like it took two days instead of a little over an hour.”

  “I’m glad y’all love me that much,” Red said. “It’ll make what I’ve got to say a lot easier. Now I’ve been asking—even begging—you to come to work for me, Clancy. You’ve always been like a son to me and Anna, the son we couldn’t have.”

  Red paused and took a deep breath. “Not that you’ve been around much lately. But you’re a grown man with your own life to live, and I know you have liked teaching high school kids. I’m too old for the stress of running an oil company. I’ve got to slow down. I don’t just want you to work for me. I need you to help me.”

  “All right.” Clancy nodded. “I was going to call you next week with my decision anyway—”

  Red held up a hand. “Now hear me out. I’m talking about more than just a job. I figure I’ve got a few years left, and anything I can’t teach you, Angel can. She’s smarter’n me, anyway, but I’m older and I’ve got more experience, so you’re goin’ to learn from me first. Me and Anna had our wills drawn up a while back, and Texanna Red will be yours when I’m gone. All of it, lock, stock, rigs, and barrel. And the time has come for you to start learnin’ how to run it. You’re throwing away that degree in geology and chemistry, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Red, I can’t let you do that, not when you’ve had a scare like this,” Clancy said.

  “Hush, and let me finish. Patty told me last week about you two. You and Angel can be competitors, or you can be partners. I don’t give a damn if later on down the road you consolidate Texanna Red and Conrad Oil, or if you keep them separate and fight over who makes the most money. I want you to know how to run the company so I won’t cash in my chips worryin’ about some smart woman like Angel takin’ advantage of your lack of knowledge. I’d like to see my two favorite people together before I die.” He closed his eyes and took another deep breath.

  “Red, I’ll work for you, but you don’t have to leave the oil company to me,” Clancy assured him.

&n
bsp; “It’s already done. Now, get on out of here,” Red whispered dramatically. “Come see me tomorrow. First, I have to teach you to run it. Half of the company is yours right now, the rest when I’m gone. Maybe before that day, I’ll get to bounce a grandbaby on my shaky old knees?”

  Angel suppressed a chuckle. “Red, you connivin’ old cuss, you’re not about to run my life, even if you did have a heart attack. You might have grandchildren someday, but it won’t be because you pretended to be sicker than you really were. You’re tougher than shoe leather and buzzard bait combined. I’m goin’ home, and when we get back tomorrow, you better be sittin’ up in bed, unwired from all these contraptions, and makin’ oil deals on the phone. Good night, you old sweetheart.” She kissed him on the cheek and headed out the door, then turned around to wait on Clancy.

  Red opened one eye. “I’m not one bit tougher than you are, smarty pants. And, Clancy, I’m holdin’ you to your word. Call that school and tell them you’re resignin’ before school starts up, and be ready to go to work in your new office on Wednesday. That’ll give you two days to find a place and get moved down here to Denison. I just signed a deal on a new building. Now go catch that girl and make her your bride before she gets away.”

  “It’s not that easy, Red.” Clancy winked at Angel. “I’m not entirely sure she wants to be caught.”

  “Then you’d better hurry up, Son. She’s gettin’ away.” Red talked out of the side of his mouth and closed his eyes again.

  Clancy crossed the room and took Angel’s hand in his. “I wouldn’t want you to get away.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Angel sighed. “I really was afraid he’d be gone by the time we got here,” she said as the two of them made their way down the hall to the waiting room.

  “Me too.” Clancy swung open the door.

  Anna stood up and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Did he talk to you?”

  “I start at Texanna on Wednesday morning. If I’ve got a question, and I’m sure I will have many as I learn the business, I’ll just call Angel.”