Chapter 1
“Holy…” Ursula was struck so speechless that she couldn’t remember what to say next, but she was sure it had to be one of those four-letter words and had nothing to do with angels.
There was great-aunt Bernie, sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee in one hand and the leash to her yappy little Chihuahua dog, Pepper, in the other.
“What,” Ursula muttered, “the…”
There was no mistaking her elderly aunt with all that curly hair the color of a fire engine.
Even just sitting there, she seemed to exude sass and opinions.
Ursula was frozen in the driver’s seat, and her hands seemed to be glued to the steering wheel.
Bernie was supposed to be in Ratliff City, Oklahoma, minding her own little dive bar.
She only closed it on Christmas and Easter—never on Thanksgiving—so what was she doing in Spanish Fort, Texas, at the Paradise?
Aunt Bernie waved at her, and Pepper started barking.
Ursula raised her hand and waved back, then opened the vehicle door.
The Thanksgiving holiday had just taken a hard left turn.
The old gal did not have a filter on her mouth, and she was always, always ready to give advice—whether Ursula or any of her six sisters wanted it or not.
“It’s about dang time you got here. I been sittin’ out here on this porch all morning waitin’ on you,” Bernie yelled as she pushed herself up from one of a half-dozen rocking chairs lined up across the front porch.
“Dang?” Ursula asked and managed a weak smile.
“Mary Jane says if I’m going to live here, I have to give up swearing, smoking cigars, and drinking bourbon before breakfast,” Bernie said with a sigh.
“But I figure it’s a small price to pay.
I eat chocolates instead of smokin’ my Swisher Sweets, and I have a little kick of Jameson in my coffee in the afternoon. ”
She was barely five feet tall with bright red hair and blue eyes set in a bed of wrinkles.
Ursula could still smell a faint whiff of Swisher Sweets cigars on her jacket, which meant she hadn’t been in Spanish Fort for long.
Bernie’s Place , the name of her bar, was embroidered on her T-shirt, and her cowboy boots looked like they’d spent a good many years drawing up beer and pouring double shots of whiskey behind the bar.
“Live here!” Ursula muttered.
Bernie looped the end of Pepper’s leash on the back of the rocking chair, and with her arms open, she met Ursula at the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch that wrapped around three sides of the house.
“Don’t go getting your panties in a twist,” Bernie said as Ursula walked into her arms and bent down to hug her. “I didn’t take your room away from you, and I’m glad you have come home. It’s time for you to get married and have some grandbabies for your mother.”
Thoughts were running through Ursula’s mind like screaming kids on a merry-go-round.
Did that mean Bernie had moved into one of the other sisters’ rooms and Ursula would have to share her bedroom with one of them?
Why did Bernie decide to move to Spanish Fort?
And the biggest one was why did Ursula’s mother, Mary Jane, consent to such a crazy idea?
“Speak up, girl!” Bernie demanded. “You are more like me than any of your other sisters, and we speak our minds. Turn them squirrels loose that’s runnin’ around in your head right now.”
Ursula chuckled. “Whose room did you take, and why are you living here?”
Before Bernie could answer, Ursula’s stepfather, Joe Clay, and their longtime neighbor Remy Baxter came from around the house, each with a couple of boxes in their hands.
Neither of them could wave, but Joe Clay’s bright smile told Ursula that he was welcoming her home.
Her heart skipped a beat and then raced ahead.
Ursula had heard that Remy had come back to Spanish Fort to live on the small ranch next door to the Paradise, but she hadn’t seen him in years.
Joe Clay wrapped her up in a fierce hug.
“Glad you made it home and that you don’t have to leave again.
I hope the rest of your sisters do the same thing before long.
” He was looking sixty right in the eye, but he was still strong as an ox, as the old adage went.
His dark hair had a few gray streaks and was a little longer than it had been when he first came around to remodel the Paradise, the old brothel, but back then, he’d just gotten out of the service.
She looked up into his blue eyes and smiled. “Me too, Daddy.”
“Ursula, you remember Remy Baxter, don’t you?
” Joe Clay smiled at them both. “He and Shane O’Toole have agreed to help me with the decorations this year.
Remy was our next-door neighbor until he went off to college in Gainesville and then got himself a job at his college.
Smart boy here. Shane has taken over his grandparents’ fishing business down on the river. ”
“Remy and I graduated together,” she said and then glanced over at Remy.
“I remember you, very well.” She felt a bit of heat traveling from her neck to her cheeks.
Evidently, the crush she had had on Remy when she was in high school was still there.
Surely, though, he was married by now or at the very least had a girlfriend.
When she shifted her gaze over to Bernie, the woman was smiling like a Cheshire cat. Her eyes were all aglitter, and it didn’t take a psychic to know what had her mind spinning, not after that crack about babies that she’d just come off with.
“I remember you too,” Remy said.
“So how have you been?” she asked as she looked up at his face again.
“I’m doing great. I’ve moved back into the house next door, and I love being back over here. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it. Living in a walk-up apartment just isn’t the same as living in the country,” Remy answered.
In high school, he had been handsome, but he was also shy and a little awkward—maybe because he was so tall.
He had measured more than six feet when they were freshmen and didn’t top out until they were seniors when he reached six feet four inches.
Since those days, he had muscled up and he seemed very comfortable in his body.
“That’s great. It’s right nice to have a sexy guy living right next door.” Bernie grinned and nudged Ursula. “Y’all can get reacquainted now that you are home for good, Ursula, but for now, Joe Clay, you and Remy here can take all Ursula’s stuff upstairs and put it in her room.”
Remy nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’m more than glad to help.”
“Another of my baby girls is home for good!” Mary Jane yelled as she came through the door. “Come on up here and give your mama a hug.”
Ursula’s arm brushed against Remy’s when she headed toward the porch.
The touch was brief, and they were both wearing jackets, but the feeling was the same as when their hands had touched back in high school.
They had been assigned lockers right next to each other their senior year—back in the days when he would barely even look her in the eyes.
A few times when they had been closing their locker doors, their hands had touched, and sparks had danced up and down the halls like tiny little bursts of brilliant light.
Ursula jogged up to the porch and hugged her mother. Sassy, the big orange cat, came from around the house and began to rub around Ursula’s legs and purr loudly. “She’s glad to see me,” Ursula said. “I thought maybe she would have forgotten me.”
Pepper had crawled back under the rocking chair, lain down on his belly, and was growling at Sassy. The cat acted like Pepper was nothing more than a peasant and she was the reigning queen of Sheba.
“That evil critter ain’t glad to see anyone,” Bernie said. “She torments my poor Pepper. He just wants to be friends, and she spits and hisses at him like a demon. I think the madam of this place put her spirit in Sassy.”
Mary Jane picked the cat up and carried her toward the door.
“She’s almost as independent as you are, Ursula, but not as much as that first cat we had right after we moved here.
Miz Raven was the boss here at the Paradise.
Sometimes I thought that the madam of this place left her spirit behind in that cat for sure.
” Mary Jane opened the door, set the cat down, and then held the door for Ursula and Bernie to go in ahead of her.
Ursula remembered the day that Joe Clay had brought the first cat into the house after they had all moved to Spanish Fort and into the old brothel known as the Paradise.
She and all her sisters were elated to finally have a mama cat and a litter of kittens.
Their biological father would never allow them to have so much as a goldfish or a hamster, but Joe Clay had toted a laundry basket full of babies into the house.
That was probably the day that Ursula had decided Joe Clay was daddy material.
The smell of cinnamon and freshly baked bread met them when she stepped inside the foyer.
The aroma overpowered the whiff of cigar smoke that Ursula had gotten when Bernie hugged her earlier.
Ursula wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that half-full coffee mug out there on the porch really did have a splash of Jameson in it, even though it wasn’t five o’clock anywhere in Texas.
“I’m damn”—Bernie slapped a hand over her mouth—“dang sure glad you are here. The cinnamon rolls are ready and Mary Jane wouldn’t let us touch them until you got home.”
“I’m happy that you decided to follow your heart and give yourself a year to write,” Mary Jane said as she sat down at the table. “We’ve missed having you girls in and out all the time. I even thought about fostering some kids, but Joe Clay keeps telling me to give it some time.”
“Time for what?” Ursula asked.
“Time for you to come home, fall in love with the boy next door, and make a bunch of babies so Mary Jane can have children rompin’ and playin’ in this big old house,” Bernie said as she removed her jacket.
“Maybe they’ll even slide down that banister over there”—she pointed to her right—“and laughter will fill this place up.”
“Bernie!” Ursula scolded and hoped that Remy didn’t hear what she had said.
“Joe Clay swears that you’ll all get tired of living so far away and that someday, you’ll realize where your roots are and come home.
You’re the third one to fly back to the nest,” Mary Jane answered as she led them into the kitchen.
“I hated what Endora had to go through, what with the breakup with her fiancé and all. I was so glad when she and Luna both came home and took jobs at the Prairie Valley school.”
“And that’s why I bought a travel trailer just big enough for me and Pepper to live in,” Bernie said.
“We dragged it up here behind my truck, and Joe Clay got us hooked up for water and all that stuff so we’re right comfortable out there in the backyard.
I’m going to go finish off my coffee and put Pepper in my house.
” Bernie spun around, put her jacket back on, and started back through the foyer.
“What have you done, Mama?” Ursula whispered as soon as she heard the front door close. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d let Bernie move here?”
“She’s a handful for sure.” Mary Jane chuckled as she set plates out on the table for the cinnamon rolls.
“Assisted living places wouldn’t allow pets, especially not Pepper, and she was my support system when your father left us.
She called every day and cussed him with all kinds of words that I won’t repeat.
At the time, I needed her, and now she needs me.
” She stopped long enough to make a pot of coffee.
“You can get down the mugs and put the milk on the table. I don’t know which one Joe Clay will want.
And the reason I didn’t tell you she was here is because I was afraid that if you knew, you wouldn’t quit your job and come on home where you belong.
If you are going to be a writer, then you need peace and quiet, and you can’t get that in a noisy apartment in a city. ”
“And I’m going to find it in a house with a whiny sister named Endora who still believes Fate hates her and her twin, Luna, who is walking on eggshells because she doesn’t want to hurt Endora’s feelings,” Ursula said with a sigh, “and then add Bernie to that! I can’t imagine her letting me have hours and hours to write a novel without popping in with Pepper to visit with me.
” Ursula set mugs and glasses both on the counter. “Has she straightened Endora out yet?”
“She’s working on it,” Mary Jane answered.
“Joe Clay loves her sass and banter. Endora doesn’t roll her eyes as much as she did a week ago when Bernie arrived, so I think we’re making progress.
It takes a while to get over a breakup like she had, and I’m speaking from experience.
To have all the excitement of being engaged and starting to plan a wedding, only to find out that her fiancé was sleeping with her best friend, was devastating. ”
“Yep, but it’s time for my youngest sister to pull herself up out of the mud and move on,” Ursula declared.
“Spoken just like Bernie,” Mary Jane said with a nod. “As long as you are alive, that woman will never be dead. She didn’t have kids, but she sure passed her genes right on down to you.”