Chapter 11
The bone-chilling feel of moisture in the air, be it rain or snow, hit Bo when she stepped out of the house on Monday evening. Even all the warm lights around the wooden cutouts of Santa and Mrs. Santa and the elves didn’t give off a glow that evening. A puff of breath filled the air with every exhale as she jogged out to Tertia’s SUV.
“Remember when we used to think it was cool to play like we were smoking in weather like this?” Tertia asked when Bo opened the passenger door and slid into the seat.
Bo chuckled at the memory. “Oh yeah, and we used twigs for cigarettes.”
Tertia had gotten her name from an Irish trilogy that Mary Jane was writing at the time. Tertia was the last book in the series, and since she was also the third daughter in the Simmons family, her name had a double meaning. Her curly brown hair was pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head, and her aqua eyes looked tired that evening.
She put her truck in gear and drove slowly down the lane. “Why were we in such a hurry to grow up? Those were good days.”
“Are you all right?” Bo asked.
“Just tired, but the remodeling on our house is done, and we’ve got our Christmas tree up and decorated. We probably won’t have time to do much outside this year, but I do plan to wrap the porch posts with lights.” Tertia covered a yawn with the back of her hand.
“Sister, you’ve been working six days a week at the café, and every evening and Sunday either doing food prep for the next day or helping get your house fixed up. You aren’t leaving any time to catch your breath,” Bo fussed at her. “Rae doesn’t have a job yet. Put her to work doing something.”
“She needs to have time to find herself like I did.” Tertia’s voice quivered, and she wiped away a tear.
Bo laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Out with it. What is really wrong?”
“Noah and I…we…I feel like we’re drifting apart, and we’ve only been married a few months. At this rate, we won’t even have a relationship in five years,” Tertia said. “He used to look at me like Maverick looked at you yesterday, but now we are so weary from all we’ve been doing that we barely even say, ‘Good morning,’ to each other.”
Bo remembered several questions from Aunt Bernie’s blog about that same thing—what to do when the relationship isn’t new and shiny anymore. “Without time together, and I don’t mean in the work situation, you are going to have these problems. Maybe since Sunday is the only day that you have away from the café, you should do something fun.”
“But we always have dinner at the Paradise, and…” Tertia made a turn into the church parking lot.
Bo didn’t give her time to finish the sentence. “And we will all understand if you and Noah want to spend the day eating strawberries in bed. Mama will never get any more grandkids if all you married sisters are too tired to even get one started.”
Tertia finally smiled. “If we had a whole afternoon, we would probably forego the strawberries and sleep.”
“Then when you awake, you could cuddle and maybe make a grandbaby for Mama and Daddy to spoil,” Bo said.
“We both want to start a family, but how could we ever give children the time and attention they need when we can’t even give each other a few minutes a day? How did Mama and Daddy ever raise us seven girls and keep their marriage fresh? He still looks at her like she’s made of pure gold.”
“You remember what Mama told us about Sundays?” Bo asked.
“Every other day of the week belonged to her work and to us girls, but Sunday was Daddy’s day. After church and dinner, they would go for long walks or just sit on the back porch and talk,” Tertia said with a nod.
“They flirted with each other all the time, and still do, but those Sundays set the mood for the romance later that night, I’m sure.” Bo smiled.
Tertia almost giggled. “Even though we don’t like to think about that part of their relationship.”
“I know.” Bo nodded. “The stork brought all seven of us, I’m sure.”
“Or Mama found us under a cabbage out in the garden.” Tertia’s mood seemed a bit lighter.
“You should have seen the sixty-and-older women at the meet and greet,” Bo said. “They were just a little older than Mama and Daddy, and honey, they could give us some lessons on flirting.”
“Okay, okay!” Tertia said as she parked in front of the church. “I’ll flirt, but right now, we’ve got to go inside the church and put our stamp of approval on the cookbooks.”
“Then you are finished with your church duties. My advice is that you do not let Endora talk you into another job here. After Christmas, I’m just the piano player for Sunday morning services, not the coordinator for the Christmas music,” Bo said.
Both women opened the truck doors at the same time, and a gust of cold wind with a hint of misty rain swept away any of the warmth inside. Bo glanced at the temperature on the dashboard just before it went dark—thirty degrees.
“We’re liable to be driving home on slippery roads,” Tertia said. “Instead of a white Christmas, we could have an icy one.”
Bo hopped out onto the ground, slammed the door, and jogged toward the church. “I hope Aunt Bernie is enjoying better weather than this.”
“Me too.” Tertia followed close behind her sister.
“Hey,” Endora said, slinging open the door. “We’re all in the fellowship hall waiting to open the boxes until y’all got here.”
“Sorry we’re late,” Bo said. “The time got away from us. Before we go in and join the rest of the committee, how do you and Parker plan to keep the romance in your marriage?”
Endora whipped a strand of her long blond hair over her shoulder and closed the door. “Are you already thinking that far ahead with Maverick?”
“No, but I might need to know for Aunt Bernie’s blog while she’s gone,” Bo answered.
“We’ve talked about that, and we will follow Mama’s old rule.” Endora motioned for them to follow her and headed to the fellowship hall. “Sunday afternoons belong to us unless there is an emergency of some kind, so for the first little while, don’t even expect us for Sunday dinner at Mama’s house. And another rule we have promised each other is that we will never go to bed angry with each other. We’ll settle the argument and then…” She blushed.
“Have wild, passionate makeup sex even if you are tired?” Bo finished for her.
“Something like that.” Endora opened the door and stood to the side to let them enter the room ahead of her.
Several women waved.
“We didn’t peek. Since Tertia put so many of her recipes and so much work into the making of the cookbooks, we wanted her to see the finished product first,” Frannie said. “Too bad Bernie isn’t here. We’ll miss her Thursday night at the final quilting bee before the holidays. We should do very well with the silent auction.”
Bo removed her coat and hung it on the back of a chair. “She’s got some good ideas for a spring quilt to auction off for the missionary fund. I bet she won’t be off cruising to warmer climates when you put that one up at Easter.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t get addicted to living on a ship,” Frannie said.
Tertia set a box up on one of the tables and used a pair of scissors to cut the tape away from the top. She removed a wad of packing paper and smiled when she saw the book’s cover, with its picture of a metal Christmas tree in the middle of a table and with Christmas cookies and pies surrounding it. Bo couldn’t remember a time when a tree just like that one hadn’t been on the holiday table at the Paradise.
“Now for the big surprise,” Frannie said. “We had an anonymous donor who paid for the publication of the cookbook, and all the work and recipes were donated by us church women. So, the proceeds are all profit, which will go to Endora and Parker to use to redo the parsonage.”
Endora eyes widened and she slapped a hand over her mouth. Tears streamed down her face and she shook her head. “But that’s money for the missionary fund…”
“No, that was just what we told you so we could surprise you,” Frannie said. “The quilt money will go to that fund. This is for you and Parker. We ordered five hundred copies, and three hundred of them are already sold. The others will go fast, and our donor has said that if we need to have a second printing, it will also be paid for,” Frannie said. “No arguing about this. We have had so much fun doing it.”
Vera crossed the room and hugged Endora. “Keeping it a secret wasn’t easy when I was in Wyoming, and even harder when we came back to Spanish Fort for part of the year. You don’t know how many times I nearly told Ursula and Remy. I didn’t even tell Alan.”
If Bo had been married, she probably wouldn’t be able to keep a secret from her husband, or her son and daughter-in-law, like Vera had for all the weeks and months that went into putting the cookbook together. She gave Vera a hug, and whispered, “If I ever have a secret I need to tell someone, I’m coming to talk to you.”
“Anytime, darlin’, anytime,” Vera said with a smile.
Bo turned to face Endora and whispered, “Just say thank you.”
Endora wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “Thank you isn’t enough. The money from it will be put to good use, and I will remember the love and labor that you all put into making this every time I use one of the recipes.”
A round of applause filled the fellowship hall, and then the women all gathered around to take a book from the first box and go through it. After a few minutes, Vera laid the copy she had been looking at aside and said, “We can’t have our last cookbook committee meeting without refreshments, so I brought my pumpkin bundt cake—recipe is in the book of course—and everything is set up back in the kitchen.”
“And my pecan tassies are there,” Frannie said. “Gladys is off on the cruise with Bernie, but she asked me to make Grammie’s gingerbread—and both of those recipes are in the book too.”
Bo almost said that Bernie would have sent a bottle of tequila if she’d been home, but she just smiled. “Did someone make coffee to go with all these lovely desserts?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Frannie answered and headed toward the kitchen. “I preordered a copy of this book, Tertia. Don’t let me get out the door without paying for it.”
“Me too,” half a dozen other committee members said.
Bo’s phone buzzed in her hip pocket. She slid it out, saw Bernie’s name on the screen, and carried the phone to the back of the fellowship hall so she could hear better. “Hey, are you enjoying the cruise? Have you made any matches since you’ve been out to sea? I figure you’ve at least put a couple of folks together for their happy-ever-after.”
“I am not and I have not!” Bernie’s voice sounded horrible.
“What’s wrong?” Bo worry meter jacked up a hundred percent.
“Me and Gladys are both taking turns throwing up in the bathroom. We’re either not cut out for ship travel or we’ve picked up a stomach bug. We saw the ship doctor, and he gave us medicine, but it’s not doing a blessed thing,” Bernie answered.
“Maybe it’s just a twenty-four-hour stomach bug, and you’ll feel all better by tomorrow.” Bo remembered an article she had read about women’s symptoms of a heart attack, and one of them was severe nausea. Bernie was past eighty and Gladys was most like about that same age. What on earth would they do if one of them had a cardiac arrest on the ship?
I’ll just have to fly to wherever they dock and take care of them until they are able to fly home, Bo thought.
“We make our first stop on land tomorrow morning. I hope we feel better by then,” Bernie said. “We haven’t been able to eat anything but crackers and sweet tea since we set sail.”
“I’m so sorry,” Bo said. “This was supposed to be a wonderful experience, not a nightmare.”
“And we missed the unveiling of the cookbooks and the surprise for Endora for this,” Bernie groaned. “Talk to you tomorrow if we’re able to make it off this death trap. Bye now.”
“Hope you are well soon. I’ll be looking for your call.” Bo heard a gagging noise, and the phone went dark.
“Poor Aunt Bernie,” Bo muttered, and then felt guilty that she had wished her elderly aunt would be gone for even longer than the cruise.
She stood up and the phone rang again. Expecting it to be Aunt Bernie telling her that her fast trot to the bathroom was just a false alarm, she answered it without even checking the caller ID.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
“I would be if it were next Sunday instead of just Monday.” Maverick’s deep voice threw an extra beat into her heart.
“I’m sorry,” Bo said. “I thought you were my aunt… How did you get this number?”
“I have my ways, and you have six sisters.” He chuckled. “I’m getting the bar ready to open, and my mind keeps going to all the fun we had yesterday. That was the best first date ever.”
“That was not a date,” she protested. “It was simply a Sunday dinner.”
“Potato, po-tah-toh,” he said. “I’m calling it a date.”
“Nope, a date is when a good-night kiss is involved,” she told him, and wondered if she’d actually said that out loud.
“We’ll remedy that on the second date,” he shot back. “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about you. Have a good evening, Miz Bo Simmons.”
“You, too, Mr. Maverick Gibson,” she said.
He chuckled again and the screen went dark. She stared at it for several minutes before she shoved it back in her pocket.
***
Rae snapped the leash on Pepper’s collar and walked behind him as the dog pranced from Bernie’s trailer to the nearest bush and hiked his leg on it. Five feet farther down the well-beaten trail to the house, he had to water a weed. Another few yards and he hiked up a hind leg but had nothing to offer the base of a hackberry tree.
“I should have gone to church rather than taking on Pepper duty,” she grumbled.
The north wind swept her black hair across her face, but she couldn’t do anything with it as long as she had a leash in one hand. Finally, after a few more dry attempts at Mary Jane’s dormant rosebushes, she and Pepper reached the front porch. She attached the end of his leash to a porch post and sat down in a nearby rocking chair. Endora’s cats, Poppy and Misty, came up the steps and curled around Pepper when he lay down on the porch.
“That’s not very nice,” Rae said. “You could keep my legs or even my lap warm instead of feeling sorry for Pepper.”
Tertia’s vehicle pulled up in front of the house. Bo got out and jogged up to the porch.
“I’m glad you are here.” Rae stood up. “Pepper has had about ten minutes of his evening outing. You can take over now. Did you bring my cookbook?”
“I’ll get two quilts if you will stay and talk to me,” Bo said. “And I didn’t bring mine or yours. We can pick them up next Sunday after church.”
“I’ll get the quilts and make a couple of mugs of hot chocolate.” Rae went inside and was heating water in the microwave when her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number, so she answered it cautiously. “Hello?”
“Miz Rae?” Heather asked.
“Yes, is something wrong, Heather?”
“How did you know it was me and not Daisy?” she asked.
“I told you the first time you came into the Sunday school class that I could tell y’all apart,” Rae answered. “How did you get my phone number?”
“I called the church and Miz Bo answered, and she said your number was the same as the church except the last four were five, two, one, six,” she answered. “Daddy says that we have to go to a new school next year.”
Rae tried to console her by saying, “Maybe you’ll like it better than the one you are going to now.”
“Daisy is happy because she gets her own room, but I don’t want to be in a room all by myself in the dark.” Her words came between sobs.
“Where’s my phone?” Gunner’s deep Texas voice overpowered Heather’s weeping. “Heather, who are you talking to?”
“Miz Rae,” she answered.
“Give me the phone and go on to bed, sweetheart. You will love the new place, I promise, and we aren’t moving until school is out at the end of this semester,” Gunner assured her. “Rae, are you still there? Got time to talk for a few minutes? Do you mind if I switch it over to FaceTime?”
“Yes, I’m still here, and I don’t mind FaceTime. What’s on your mind?”
His face looked rugged, as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I’m between a rock and a hard place.”
“Talk to me,” she said. “Maybe I can help.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I went to college with Remy. I didn’t know him well, but we were acquainted. I run into him every now and then at church when I can go with the girls.”
Rae used to tell her old partner that he started every conversation with “on the sixth day God made dirt,” so she was used to what seemed like a discombobulated beginning.
“Why do you drive all the way up here when there are churches in Nocona?” she asked.
“My wife was raised on a little farm between here and there, and that’s where she went. Aunt Rosie is actually her great-aunt, not mine,” Gunner answered and then paused. “I shouldn’t be bringing my worries to your doorstep.”
“When I brought the girls home last night, Rosie told me that you have until Christmas to find a babysitter,” Rae admitted. “Is that what you are fretting about?”
Gunner raked his fingers through his dark hair. “That’s just part of my problem.”
Rae couldn’t imagine what Remy had to do with the whole story, but she was patient. He had at least gotten past the day that dirt was created. “Go on.”
“I rent this house. The owner died and his kids have a buyer for it.” Gunner said. “It’s time for me to…”
“Move on, right? But it’s tough living in a place where your wife’s memory is around every corner,” Rae finished the sentence for him.
“Yes, it is.” He nodded. “And here lately I feel like she is telling me that she can’t rest in peace until I have moved on, not just where houses are concerned, but in life.”
Rae carried two quilts out to the porch and laid them on an empty rocking chair while she talked. “I understand where you are coming from. I got that message—maybe not from a spouse or even a boyfriend—but it was a strong feeling that it was time for me to move back to Spanish Fort.”
Bo raised an eyebrow. “Gunner?”
“Do you need to go?” he asked.
“No, I’m here and listening to whatever you want to talk about. Heather was upset when she called,” Rae said. “Have they lived in that same house all their lives?”
“Yes, they have,” Gunner answered. “They’ve shared the same room too. I told them they could have their own rooms in the new place. Daisy seemed happy with the idea, but Heather got tears in her eyes. I hugged them both and assured them that the school is a lot smaller than the one they are attending now and told them they would love it.”
“They’re young,” Rae said. “We moved to the Paradise when I was about their age, and it didn’t take any of us long to adjust. Kids are resilient.”
“Heather asked me if they could still go to the same church.” His tone got more exasperated with each word, and sighed again. “I think the girls really, really like you, Rae. Maybe that will make the move easier, just knowing that you’ll still be their Sunday school teacher.”
Rae went upstairs to her room. When she kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, Gunner was explaining that as the Nocona police chief, he had to stay in Montague County. Knowing that she would still get to see the girls on Sunday put a smile on her face. But she still wondered what Remy had to do with the story.
“So, anyway, to make a long story short”—he finally smiled—“or a short story long like I just did, Remy and I were talking yesterday afternoon while I helped with decorations. He has an empty house adjacent to his property that he bought up when the previous people living there decided to leave town, and he’s willing to rent it to me. I called him this afternoon, and the girls and I will be moving into it in a week or two. Now, all I need is a babysitter for a few hours after school, all day on Saturday, and a few hours Sunday evening. Do you know anyone who might be interested in that kind of job?”
“I’ll do it,” Rae volunteered. “They can ride the bus here to the Paradise, and you can get them here at the end of your workday.”
“Are you serious?” Gunner’s face showed pure shock.
Rae didn’t understand what he was saying until she realized she had said the words out loud without even thinking about it. “I guess I am, if you will trust me with your daughters.”
“Thank you, thank you!” Gunner said. “I’ll tell the girls. They kind of fell in love with you at the house yesterday. All they’ve talked about is how you let them read to you and even brushed their hair. Heather probably won’t even mind the move if she gets to see you every day. I’ll call you tomorrow with more details.”
“Daddy, will you come tuck us in?”
Rae could see the child in the background, and her heart went out to her. “You’ve got girls to kiss good night. We can talk more later.”
“Thank you again, and good night.”
“Good night, Gunner, and give the girls a kiss from me.”
Bo knocked on the door and peeked inside.
Rae tossed her phone onto a pillow, threw her hand over her forehead, and groaned. “What have I done?”