Chapter 18
The twins, Endora and Luna, assured Bernie just before Thanksgiving that, even though it was the toughest secret they had ever had to keep, none of the other five sisters knew that she had moved to Spanish Fort.
Ursula had finished her teaching job and should be there before lunch.
Bo was flying in from Nashville. Rae, Ophelia, and Tertia were all driving and planned to be home by suppertime.
More than an hour ago, Bernie had snuck a little Jameson in her sweet tea and had claimed a rocking chair on the front porch to wait for the oldest Simmons girl to get home.
She wanted to be one of the first to welcome Ursula home for the holidays.
Little, other than this secret, had gone the way she planned since she left Ratliff City.
She had thought she would get a phone call a few weeks after moving to the Paradise and Clara would tell her that Nash had proposed.
She had hoped that Clara would ask her to be the maid of honor, but oh no, that’s not the way things went at all.
One of the first weekly calls that Clara made was to tell Bernie that Hoot’s brother, who never married or had children, had passed away and left his small farm up near Shattuck, Oklahoma, to Hoot and Darlene.
They had been talking about downsizing for a while, and they would like to move up there, but they didn’t want to live more than two hundred miles from the kids.
Then, as if Fate made the decision for them, the Chicken Coop caught on fire a couple of weeks later and burned to the ground.
Clara was inconsolable when she called to tell Bernie the news.
“The fire department folks said a squirrel must have gotten into the attic and chewed through some electrical wires,” she said between sobs.
“When the blaze reached the storage room and the bar, the liquor fueled the fire even more, and it went in a hurry. Oh, Aunt Bernie, I am so, so sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, darlin’. Move to northern Oklahoma and start a new bar,” Bernie told her. “The Universe has spoken, and we could argue with it until we turn blue, but once its mind is made up, nothing can change it, not even a block of C4.”
“Aren’t you sad?” Clara asked.
“I am, but we both have our memories. Did you save any of your personal things?”
“Not even what was left of the old cigar,” Clara said between sobs.
“Dry your eyes. Kiss Nash and tell him everything is going to be all right. You have both started over before, more than once, so take the insurance money, buy a new bar, take a trip before you settle in to working, and never look back. Think about the happiness you have with Nash, and move on,” Bernie told her.
Then, as luck would have it, a small bar not three miles from Hoot’s new farm came up for sale.
Pepper’s Place, named for the man who built it twenty years before and made a drink with jalapeno peppers floating on the top, was located just over the border from a dry county in Texas, and that made the decision for the whole family.
Hoot sold his ranch in Ratliff City, and on Bernie’s okay, the kids donated the land where the Chicken Coop had been all those years to the city for a brand-new volunteer fire department building.
Hoot chipped in a chunk of money to buy them a new shiny red truck.
“The Universe spoke and Fate agreed. Yes, I wept a little at the idea of the bar being gone, but the Good Book says, ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust.’ I just mourned and grieved like I would at any good friend’s funeral, but when I thought about it, everything seemed fitting,” Bernie told Pepper, who growled at the cat who thought she owned the Paradise porch.
“They each owned half of the Chicken Coop. Now they own Pepper’s Place together.
It’s like two halves now make a whole, and even though I didn’t get to be in the wedding, I’m glad that they got married in Vegas just before they took over the new bar.
The name of the place seemed like an omen to me and Clara both, especially when they found that it had an antique jukebox in it with a whole collection of records so they can change them out. ”
Pepper growled at the cat again, and she flopped down under another rocking chair.
“You’ll get her trained, but it will take a while,” Bernie assured him and lowered her voice to barely a whisper.
“Maybe you’ll get that job done by the time I get Ursula and Remy together.
It took some doing for me to get him over here today, but I finagled it just right.
If I can get a bawling great-niece of mine and a sexy, silver-haired feller together, then this should be a piece of cake.
And besides, Pepper, my boy, Remy lives right next door.
That’s as good as it gets. Mary Jane will have another of her girls close by, and maybe even have her first grandbaby by the time another Thanksgiving rolls around.
“I hear a vehicle coming down the lane. I’m so excited that I could dance a jig right here on the porch.
” She shaded her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Yep, I believe it’s Ursula, and here come Joe Clay and Remy around the end of the house.
The Universe is with us today and life is good, Pepper.
Even though I grieved when the Chicken Coop burned, I’ve moved on.
Now it’s time to work my magic on Ursula and Remy. ”