Chapter 13 #2
“We are buying the bar, and we’re getting married the first Saturday in June. Nothing big. Just family with the wedding at the Paradise and a big reception out in the yard,” Bo announced, and the dead silence that ensued after she made the announcement brought Brodie back to the present.
“Congratulations?” Brodie finally broke the quietness.
“That’s a lot of news to spring on us all at one time,” Joe Clay finally said. “What about the music store?”
“We’re going to put that on hold for a while and move our trailer back behind the bar.
Eventually, we want Knox to build us a house on the property where the music store was going to be,” Maverick replied.
“But we can live in the trailer or the apartment at the back of the bar until we get a house built, so there’s no hurry. ”
“What made you change your minds?” Mary Jane asked.
“Dave is putting the bar up for sale and offered it to us at a good price—” Maverick started.
Bo held up a palm. “I hope we’re not disappointing y’all, but we’ve been unhappy with our decision to put in a music store.
When Dave called about selling the bar, we both came clean about how much we miss working together in the bar.
So, we talked about it and jumped on the idea of owning the bar.
We were so happy there, and we miss the excitement.
But now we’ve got a half-redone store for sale. Anyone interested?”
“I am,” Knox said. “I could run my construction business out of it.”
“We’ll sell it at a good price,” Maverick said.
Bernie beamed across the table from him. “Remember that I’m available to relieve y’all anytime you want to take a few days off or for your honeymoon. I do know how to run a bar. When do you take over the business?”
“Thank you, Aunt Bernie. We may take you up on that, especially for the honeymoon. We take over tomorrow evening,” Bo answered.
“Anyone else have a little earth-shattering news?” Mary Jane asked.
“Parker and I are having a baby right around Halloween,” Endora blurted out.
“We might beat you to have the next grandchild,” Luna said. “Shane and I are due in mid-October.”
“Babies!” Daisy and Heather, twin daughters of Rae and Gunner, both squealed at the same time.
“Can I hold them first?” Heather asked.
“No need to argue about that,” Rae said. “There will be at least two of them, and if history repeats itself, maybe one or both of my sisters will have twins, so there will be plenty of babies to go around.”
That created enough of a stir to let Brodie sneak out the back door without having to answer any questions. Even if the new move took Bo and Maverick to Nocona, they would still be in the county and able to come to Sunday dinners.
He wandered out to the barn and sat down on a bench for a few minutes. His mind kept going back to the farm, so he finally walked back up to where all the vehicles were parked. He got into his truck and drove out to the farm, intending to give Pansy her walk early that day.
The pig must have recognized the sound of the truck because she was standing on her hind legs with her front ones up on the fence when Brodie arrived.
She would have wiggled if she hadn’t been so round, and if her tail had been long and straight, she might have wagged it.
But there was no doubt in Brodie’s mind that the little critter was glad to see him and probably ready for a nice long walk.
He bent over and put her harness on and then attached the leash before he picked her up.
“I don’t trust you to stay on our property without all this,” he said, and set her on the ground.
She immediately started toward the back of the property. “Okay then,” Brodie said, “evidently you are checking out the trees, so you’ll know where the apples and peaches fall.”
The pig just grunted and led him all the way to the back fence, then turned right like she had before.
“Don’t tell me that pot-bellied pigs aren’t smart,” Brodie said. “You remembered the route.”
He stopped for a while to let Pansy rest when he reached the corner of his property and Audrey’s.
He thought he was dreaming, but after blinking his eyes several times and swatting a mosquito from his arm, he realized that was really Audrey sitting on a blanket on the other side of the fence with a book in her hands.
“Hey,” he said.
She looked up from her book and smiled. “Hey, yourself. What are you doing back here?”
“Evidently Pansy and I are disturbing your peace and quiet,” he answered. “We’ll just keep walking and let you get back to reading.”
“Stay a while and let the poor little critter rest her short legs,” Audrey said.
“Okay,” Brodie agreed, and sat down on a bed of straw under a pear tree. “Why do you come back here to read?”
“It’s peaceful, and I love the smell of the fruit trees when they’re in bloom,” she answered. “Are you really going to keep that pig for a pet?”
“Unless someone comes around to claim her, I guess I am,” he said. “Do you have a pet hiding over on your farm?”
She laid her book to the side. “Not really. I’ve never had a real pet.”
“I’ll gladly let you adopt Pansy if you promise not to change her name,” he teased.
“I’d rather adopt a rattlesnake,” she said in a chilly tone.
“You called her a poor little critter just a minute ago,” Brodie reminded her.
“That doesn’t mean I want to take her home with me or deal with Aunt Hettie if I did,” Audrey said.
“Would you rather have a dog or a cat? We could go to the shelter in Wichita Falls anytime and get you one of either or one of each.”
“No thank you. The only thing that comes close to a pet on my place is a box turtle that has shown up every spring since I was a kid. Grandpa said that was the only pet a farmer needed.” She lowered her voice.
“‘Audrey Rose,’” he said, “‘a rancher needs dogs to help with the cattle, and old women need a lapdog to fuss over, but a farmer doesn’t need a bunch of animals around to take their attention away from the crops.’” Then she went back to her normal tone.
“But he didn’t seem to mind that I named the turtle Mr. T, and he even let me feed it.
The old boy will be coming around soon if he’s still alive. ”
“I begged my mother for a pet, but I wanted a dog or a hamster,” he said with a grin.
“And you got a pig,” Audrey giggled.
Brodie nodded. “I did, but I’ll be willing to give her up if she belongs to a family.”
“Then you can get a dog or a hamster?” Audrey asked.
“I think I’ve outgrown pets,” Brodie answered, and then silence filled the air.
“I should be—” he started to rise to his feet.
“No, stay a while,” she said. “I’ve been living here permanently for two years, and I have yet to make friends. It’s nice to visit with someone my age.”
“You have met all my sisters. You see them every Sunday, and you must be involved with something at the church that could make them your friends,” Brodie said.
Audrey frowned and shook her head. “I inherited Aunt Hettie with the farm, and she was already set in her ways when it came to the Paradise. Then the minute Bernie pulled her trailer into town, Aunt Hettie got more fuel for her fury. I don’t think being friends with your sisters would be such a good idea. ”
Brodie cocked his head to one side. “Explain the way that you inherited an aunt, please?” As soon as he asked the question, he thought about the way he and his brothers had inherited a whole family that included Aunt Bernie.
“When her husband, my Uncle Amos, died, she came to live with Grandpa and Granny,” Audrey answered.
“She more or less ran the house since Granny always had something wrong with her. If you looked up hypochondriac in the dictionary, you would find her picture right beside it. When Granny died, Aunt Hettie just kept doing what she’d always done—keeping house for Grandpa, cooking, and taking care of the flower beds out in the yard.
When I finished college, Grandpa told me that I would inherit the farm when he died.
Part of the deal was that I had to take care of Aunt Hettie as long as she was alive or until she decided to live somewhere else,” Audrey explained.
Brodie tried to think of a question that would require more than a yes or no answer just to keep her talking. “Do you ever kind of resent that?” he asked.
“Nope,” Audrey replied. “She’s a lot of company, and I’d be lost without her, but some days she is a lot to deal with—like this morning in church. Now it’s my turn to ask a question. How did you find out that Joe Clay was your biological father? And are Knox and Tripp really twins?”
“That’s two questions,” Brodie said. “Yes, they are really twins even though they don’t look a thing a like—kind of like one set of my sisters, Rae and Bo.
My parents adopted them when they were only a few days old.
And as far as Joe Clay goes...” He told her about his mother revealing their biological parentage to all of the Callahan brothers.
Audrey reached under the bottom strand of barbed wire and laid a hand on his knee.
“I’m sorry about your folks.” After a gentle squeeze she took her hand away.
“I can sympathize because I lost both of my parents in a trucking accident when I was in college. When I graduated from high school, Mama went on the road with my dad. They were killed when the truck in front of them jackknifed on the ice. Six people were killed that day. From then on, I just had Aunt Hettie and Grandpa. I’d spent all my summers here from the time I started kindergarten.
I even came back to help Grandpa during holidays and summers after I started teaching vocational agriculture.
From the time I was a little girl, I knew your sisters enough to say hello, but Aunt Hettie and Grandpa… ” she shrugged.
“I understand,” Brodie said.
“Now, it’s my turn to ask a question. Other than a firefighter, what did you do before you moved here?”
“I spent two hitches in the army.” He wished that she had not removed her hand. He would have loved to lace his fingers in hers.
“Doing what?”
He grinned and wiggled his dark brows. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to…”
Her laughter rang out over the cornfield behind her and the orchard in front of her. “Really, what did you do?” she asked when she stopped giggling.
“Special ops, and I enjoyed my job, but Mother got sick about the time I should have reenlisted for a third time. I came home to help with her. Dad had died two years before that, and my brothers were both busy. They stepped in when they could, but that last year…” he swallowed the lump in his throat.
“I wouldn’t take for all the memories we made. ”
“Same with me and my folks,” Audrey said. “I had finished college and had been teaching vocational agriculture at a little school out in the panhandle when I got the news about the wreck. I’d just spent a week with them over Christmas break, and I often think of all the fun we had.”
“We hang on to the good,” Brodie whispered.
She stood up and folded her quilt. “Yes, we do, and today has been a good day. But my time is up. Aunt Hettie will be waking up from her nap. She is as predictable as the sun when it comes to her schedule. She’ll be ready for her afternoon snack and then she’ll make herself a whiskey sour.
I will fuss at her for drinking so early in the day because she likes to argue.
But at her age, I really don’t care how much she drinks or that sometimes she wants ice cream instead of healthy food. ”
“Shall we make a date for next Sunday right here at the same time?” Brodie asked.
“Brodie Callahan, are you asking me for a date?” Her tone attempted to be serious, but she had a smile on her face.
“I would, but…”
“Neither of us are ready to face the consequences, are we?” she asked.
“I’m ready when you are,” he answered.
“Maybe someday,” she told him.
He sat still and watched her until she disappeared into the cornfield and listened to her whistling until it faded away into the breeze that kicked up. He recognized the tune as “Would You Lay with Me,” an old Tanya Tucker song.
The lyrics asked if he would walk a thousand miles through burning sand to get to her.
“Yes, I would,” he said as he stood up with Pansy and walked all the way down the fence to the trailer with the song playing on a loop in his head.