Chapter 5
Tripp’s last Thanksgiving dinner had been a takeout family meal from a local restaurant.
Brodie had set it all up on a table beside his mother’s hospital bed, but not even the hospice nurse could talk her into taking a few bites.
When he looked around at the table at the whole Paradise family, including Aunt Bernie, and now Hank and Willa Rose, he wished that his mother was there to share in the whole noisy day.
After the meal, when everyone who loved football retired to the living room, he quietly snuck out to the porch swing in the enclosed back sunroom. The hum of conversations and the giggles from Rae’s daughters followed him, but at least he could hear himself think.
He set the swing in motion with the heel of his boot and was trying to sort out all the feelings he had when Willa Rose was around.
Speak of the devil, and he will appear, he thought when Willa Rose sat down on the other end of the swing.
“Hey, what are you hiding from?” she asked.
“Everything? How about you?”
“The same,” she answered.
“Well, hello!” Bernie said with a beer in her hand as she and Pepper came through the door and she sat down between them. “If I’d known you were out here, I would have brought y’all a beer. Person needs something to settle their stomach after a big dinner like that.”
“Thank you, but I’m not a beer drinker,” Willa Rose said.
“Vodka then?” Bernie asked.
“Whiskey. Preferably Jameson, but I like Jim Beam too,” she answered.
Tripp could almost hear the wheels in Bernie’s head humming faster than the noise from in the house as she filed away mental notes. The virtual profile Bernie would work up would say that Willa Rose would like to leave Spanish Fort and that she preferred whiskey over beer.
“I do like a little nip of Jameson in my morning coffee,” Bernie said as she undid the clasp on Pepper’s leash and poured the last of her beer into a small bowl at the end of the swing.
“He gets downright cranky if…” She stopped talking and pointed.
“That damn pig of Brodie’s has rooted under the fence again.
She comes to visit Pepper every chance she gets.
Now I’ll have to take her outside and put both her and Pepper in the barn until Brodie or Audrey can take her back home.
Y’all might as well come on with me. I might need some help corralling the thing.
For a short-legged, potbellied pig, she can outrun a lightning streak. ”
“Why do you put them in the barn?” Willa Rose asked.
“Because once Pepper sees Pansy, he howls if he can’t be with her, and Pansy squeals like someone is chasing her with a butcher knife,” Bernie answered. “So, when Pansy runs away and shows up here, they have a playdate in the barn.”
She snapped the leash back onto the Chihuahua, started outside, and turned back with a frown. “Well, come on. I told you that I might need help.”
Tripp and Willa Rose stood up at the same time and followed her outside.
Pepper and Pansy bumped noses and then the little round critter fell in behind Pepper like they were playing follow-the-leader.
Tripp didn’t think Bernie would need help with anything, but when they reached the barn door, she motioned with a flick of her wrist.
“You can open it for me, Tripp,” she said.
What have you got up your sleeve or, worse yet, hiding under that red hair, besides a set of horns? Tripp wondered, but he threw the door open and gasped right along with Willa Rose.
“What is all this?” he asked.
“Most of it is Christmas decorations. Pansy and Pepper love playing chase in and around everything,” Bernie explained and released Pepper.
“Is it for the whole town or something?” Willa Rose asked.
“Nope, just for the Paradise, and we’ll all be on hand first thing tomorrow morning to help haul it out of here and situate it all around the Paradise,” Bernie answered. “That includes you, Tripp, and Hank. Since you have help now, you can spare a day.”
“What about Willa Rose?” Tripp asked.
“Her antiques are arriving tomorrow,” Bernie reminded him. “But when she gets finished, we would appreciate the help. Sometimes I think Mary Jane wanted all those sons-in-law so they could help with the decorating.”
“Now she’s getting Audrey for her first daughter-in-law, right?” Willa Rose asked.
“Yep,” Bernie answered. “There they go! I hear Pansy squealing over there”—she pointed to her right—“about where the sleigh is.”
The yippy little bark off to the left told Tripp that Pepper had heard her and was on the hunt. Tripp hopped up on the sleigh’s buckboard, and Bernie wasted no time in sliding in beside him. She patted the area right beside her and motioned for Willa Rose to join them.
“Might as well get on up here where we might catch a glimpse of them once in a while,” Bernie said. “They’ll get tired pretty soon, and Pansy will flop down on that fat little belly of hers. That’s when Tripp will catch her and take her back to Brodie and Audrey’s farm.”
“Why me?” Tripp understood now what helping Bernie entailed.
“Because Audrey and Brodie have a bet going about who will win the football game. Ain’t no way I’m draggin’ either of them away from the television on a day like this. I want to see all the hoopla when Brodie’s team wins. It should be quite the show.”
“What makes you think Brodie’s team will win?” Willa Rose asked.
“I was a bartender for more than fifty years, and believe me, I’ve heard or watched enough football to know which team will win.” Bernie laughed.
“When Pansy gets tired, y’all could go with me out to the farm,” Tripp suggested. “Willa Rose hasn’t been out there yet, and maybe Pansy will handle easier if Pepper rides along with us.”
“Oh, no!” Bernie protested. “Willa Rose and I are headed back into the house. Endora and Rae found out through Hank that she helped with both the school and the church Christmas programs down in Poetry. They both want to talk to her about lending a hand for Christmas programs at the Prairie Valley school and the church. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rae doesn’t try to convince her to join her in teaching the little kids’ Sunday school class too. ”
When the virtual light bulb went off, Tripp had to fight the urge to slap his forehead.
Bernie had fussed and worked what she called reverse psychology in the past, but mostly she just griped and cussed about one of the sisters not dating some guy.
This time, though, she meant business in a very serious way.
She was not taking any chances on Willa Rose and Tripp even riding out to the farm together.
“Looks like the playdate is over,” Tripp said and pointed to a clear area where Pansy had flopped down on her stomach.
“Does Brodie raise potbellied pigs?” Willa Rose asked.
“Nope,” Tripp answered. “He didn’t even want this one, but a tornado back in the spring must have dropped her close to the farm, and we wound up with her. She’s just a pet and a huge nuisance. Always digging out from under her pen no matter how secure we think it is.”
“And when she does, she heads for the Paradise.” Bernie chuckled. “I think she gets lonely for company. You go grab her, Tripp, and I’ll take care of Pepper. When you get done at the farm, come on back for a leftover supper.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tripp said with a nod.
Bernie whistled loudly and Pepper ran out from behind a cutout of a snowman.
He panted as if he’d just finished a marathon in the Sahara Desert.
Bernie scooped him up in her arms and motioned for Willa Rose to follow her.
Tripp eased one hand under Pansy, and the other one over her, but before he could get a grip, she slipped out of his arms and ran across the barn and hid behind the sleigh’s runner.
“You can catch her,” Bernie yelled. “I’ve got faith in you, and you should tell them to do a better job of shoring up that pen this time.”
Tripp dropped down on all fours and was reaching under the sleigh when the barn door slammed shut, and Pansy took off again.
Instead of chasing her, he crawled back up on the sleigh and waited for her to run all her energy out and flop down to rest again.
He wouldn’t be surprised if Bernie hadn’t slipped away before dinner and turned Pansy loose just to have an excuse to send him away for a while that afternoon.
“Nope, can’t be,” he muttered. “She couldn’t have known that Willa Rose and I would both want to get away from all the noise at the same time.”
That there were so many decorations in the barn had surprised him, even though he and his brothers had arrived during the holidays the year before.
He had forgotten about the Paradise being decorated more than any Dallas mansion he had ever seen.
Or that after New Year’s Day he and his two brothers had helped the family put away all the cutouts, the sled, and boxes and boxes of other things.
Now, starting tomorrow, it all would come right back out of the big barn again.
Pansy finally got tired of chasing under and around everything looking for Pepper and dropped down on her belly one more time.
Tripp eased off the seat and this time he got a firm hold on the critter.
He carried her out to his truck and didn’t let her go until he was behind the wheel.
He closed the door and shoved her over the console onto the passenger seat.
“I should tie a rope around your fat little belly and make you run behind the truck all the way back to the farm,” he grumbled. “If I had to tell something I was thankful for again today, you would be at the bottom of my list.”
The skies had begun to turn gray when he parked in front of the place where Brodie’s house used to be before the tornado blew it away.
He reached over and got a firm grip on Pansy before he even opened the door.
He carried her out to her pen, and sure enough, there was a big hole under the fencing where she had rooted out.