Chapter 6
“What are you doing in here?” Knox asked Tripp.
“Having breakfast?” Tripp answered and slid into the booth across from him at the local café. “With another half day anyway of decorating at the Paradise, I figured I’d better have a good, hot breakfast.”
“Me too, and biscuits and gravy sounded good.”
“Mornin’, Brothers,” Tertia greeted them as she came up to their table. “What brings y’all out this early?”
“Good mornin’ to you,” Knox said. “We need hot food to get us through the final Paradise decorations.”
“Startin’ with coffee?” Tertia asked.
“Yep, and I may quit the construction business and put in a café,” Knox answered.
Tertia slipped her order pad out of her apron pocket. “Why’s that?”
“You and Nash are inside out of the snow.”
She patted him on the shoulder and grinned. “You are beginning to understand. What else can I get you this morning?”
“I’ll take the special on the blackboard,” Tripp said.
“Me too, but add an extra biscuit and gravy,” Knox told her.
“Will do,” Tertia said with a nod. “I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with Willa Rose and Hank yesterday, but they seem like good people.”
Tertia was the third of the seven sisters, and she owned the café with her husband, Noah. From what Tripp had been told, they had been one of Bernie’s reverse-psychology couples.
“Yep, they do,” Tripp said.
“Well, I’m off to wait on those ladies.” Tertia nodded toward three older ladies brushing snow off their shoulders as they entered the café. “But I’ll get that coffee and your breakfast out soon.”
The women removed their coats, hung them on the hooks at the end of the booth, and sat down at a table close to Tripp and Bernie.
“Good mornin’, Tertia,” one of them said.
“A snowy mornin’ to y’all,” Tertia said. “What can I get you ladies this morning? I’m surprised to see y’all out in this weather.”
“We don’t miss our Saturday morning unless the roads are closed, and even then we all live close enough to the café that if we get stuck, someone will come along and drag our vehicles back home,” Gloria said.
“We’ll just have coffee,” Millie answered. “Bring cream and sugar. Gloria and Ellie are pansies and can’t drink it without putting a bunch of crap in it.”
“Oh, hush,” Ellie answered. “Neither of you can hold your whiskey worth a damn, so if I need to doctor up my coffee, then I’ll do it.”
“First order of gossip,” Gloria said when Tertia had walked away. “I hear that Bernie is trying to get the woman who is putting an antique shop here in town matched up with someone who will get her out of town.”
“I’ve got five dollars in the pot. I figure she’ll be gone by Valentine’s Day,” the one with stovepipe-black hair said. “And Gloria, darlin’, I see silver roots. You need to get to the beauty shop soon.”
“Got an appointment on Tuesday,” Gloria said. “I’ve got a twenty on her being gone by Easter. If I win the pot, I’m going to spend a weekend at the spa in Wichita Falls. How about you, Millie? What are you going to do with the money if you win?”
“I’ve got my eye on an opal necklace,” she answered. “My date on the calendar is April Fool’s Day. And I’m betting double because I bet that her daddy will leave with her on that day.”
“Holy hell!” Tripp whispered. “Are they talking about Willa Rose and Hank?”
“Yep, and evidently Bernie is the bookie,” Knox replied out the side of his mouth. “Do you remember even seeing those three at church?”
Tripp shook his head. “Now I really understand that Bernie is serious about me not dating Willa Rose.”
“Looks like it,” Knox answered. “I wonder why?”
“She told me that Willa Rose would never stay here, that her roots were in Poetry, and she refuses to let me leave with her,” Tripp answered. “But from what those women are saying, she doesn’t care where Willa Rose goes, as long as she leaves this area.”
“Would you go with a woman if you loved her?” Knox asked.
“Nope, I’ve got what I want, and I’m happy.”
Knox frowned. “All’s fair in love and war, or so they say.”
“Brodie did the war thing with Audrey. I’m not sure I’m up for all that scrappin’ and fightin’ just to get to a happy-ever-after,” Tripp said.
Knox laughed out loud. “But just think of the wild makeup sex after the arguing.”
Tertia returned with their coffee. “What’s so funny?”
“We were just talking about”—Knox lowered his voice to a whisper—“how Brodie and Audrey went through the fightin’ business to get to happiness.”
“Want to make a side bet?” Tertia whispered. “I have ten dollars that says Tripp can convince her to stay.”
“I’ll take that ten,” Knox said. “I don’t think Jesus could convince her to stay here. She’s only putting in a store to appease Hank.”
“Tripp, you can be our bookie,” she said and then delivered the ladies’ coffee to them.
“I thought she was a matchmaker. Lord knows, she’s always bragging about how that she fixed up all seven of the Paradise sisters,” Ellie said the minute that Tertia was out of hearing distance.
“She don’t want her around the two remaining Callahan men. Have y’all met either of them yet?” Gloria whispered.
“No, but I hear they’re both pretty sexy.” Gloria giggled. “We really should attend church here in town or go into the leather shop to see for ourselves.”
“I heard that Bernie’s having a devil of a time keeping them apart, and that Willa Rose has a terrible reputation wherever she comes from,” Ellie said, “and that she’s out to land a rich husband. We all know that all those boys are rich.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Gloria said, “but they must have money to be able to come into town and buy a farm and the old barn.”
“And the youngest one bought the old store,” Millie added.
“But Bernie says the Callahan brothers are good people, and she doesn’t want them to get involved with anyone who will leave Spanish Fort.”
Tripp frowned and took a sip of his coffee. “Is that fire engines that I hear?”
“Either that or an ambulance,” Knox answered.
“Oh, sweet Lord!” Millie gasped. “I just got a text from my daughter who lives in Nocona. She said that the church here in town is on fire. We really should have gone at least one Sunday so we could get a look at those Callahan men.”
“Well, I’m glad that we have always gone to one in Nocona. I hope all these people don’t transfer their membership down there,” Gloria said. “Right here at Christmas we don’t need them butting in on our plans.”
Tripp and Knox both were on their feet in seconds and headed out the door.
“I just got a call from Mama,” Tertia yelled as they left the café. “Keep us posted. We’ll shut down this place if you need us.”
“Will do,” Knox shouted over his shoulder.
“This goes to prove that we need a volunteer fire department in Spanish Fort,” Knox said as he got into his vehicle.
“Brodie was in that business, but I bet there would be plenty of guys…” Tripp didn’t even finish the sentence, but climbed in behind the wheel of his truck and followed Knox out of the parking lot.
Neither of them slowed down for the ninety-degree turn to the left but slid around it with the expertise of a NASCAR driver.
Tripp’s heart was beating so hard that he couldn’t breathe when he saw the Nocona firemen already on the scene and a blaze shooting out of the church’s double front doors.
He braked so hard that pieces of the gravel parking lot flew every which way.
He hurried over to stand beside Parker, Endora, and a big, burly man stretching hose from the truck to the church.
“What can we do to help?” Tripp asked.
The man with Capshaw on his turnout coat turned around and faced Tripp and Parker. “Can you find out if there was there anyone in the church?”
“Just me, and I called 911 as soon as I smelled smoke coming from the foyer,” Parker answered. “Thank goodness the wind is coming from the north and blowing the smoke away from the old parsonage and the new one. We’ve got lots of family here. Just tell us if there’s any way…”
“I’m not sure we’ve got enough water in the truck to put this blaze out.” The man gave a hand signal, pulled back a lever, and water shot out of the end of the hose.
The blaze seemed to eat up the water and beg for more.
“There’s a well out back,” Parker answered. “And the Red River is only a few hundred yards to the north. Will either of those work?”
“Hopefully,” Capshaw answered. “I hope we’ve got enough hose to reach the river.”
Tears flowed down Endora’s cheeks and dripped onto her shirt. “What are we going to do? The Christmas program is ruined, and oh, Parker, where will we have services tomorrow?”
Parker drew her close to his side and kissed her on the cheek. “God will provide. He always has. Joe Clay’s barn is empty. We could set up the folding chairs and have it there. No one says there has to be a steeple on the building for the spirit to be there.”
“I’m sorry.” Joe Clay draped an arm around his youngest daughter. “The ice storm that’s coming this way has already closed bridges across the Red River and part of the highways.”
Tripp wondered what that had to do with having services in the barn, but then Joe Clay went on to say, “I invited all the carnival folks to bring their trucks and equipment to the Paradise. They have trailers for the people to stay in, but their animals need a warm place. They can’t get home to Ringling, Oklahoma, where they winter, so I told them they could stay at our place and put the animals in the barn. ”
“We don’t have to worry about services tomorrow anyway,” Parker assured Endora. “I’d decided to put the word out that we wouldn’t have Sunday school or church since the roads are getting so bad.”
Mary Jane moved over between Joe Clay and Endora and wrapped her daughter up in a hug. “We’ve got two weeks before the Christmas program, so stop worrying. Your dad and I will see to it that everything is taken care of. You just concentrate on…”