Chapter 20
Audrey slept fitfully, dreaming about Brodie, waking up to toss and turn, going back to sleep only to have him invade her subconscious mind again and again through the night. She awoke early on Saturday morning and found her aunt in the kitchen stirring up a batch of blueberry muffins.
“Thank you for making my favorite breakfast.” She poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Do you want to talk about last night?” Hettie asked, her voice all sweet and kind.
“Nope,” Audrey replied. “What’s done is done. I learned my lesson.”
Her heart felt like a rock in her chest, and tears formed behind her eyelids, but she refused to let them fall. She would miss that breathless feeling she had every time that she was around Brodie, and she would really miss having Endora for a friend.
That’s what you get for tempting Fate, the annoying voice in her head said.
Better to learn the truth now than later, she argued.
Hettie slid the pan of muffins into the oven. “You are strong. You don’t need any man who treats you like that rotten Callahan did.”
“You are right,” Audrey headed for the front door.
“Where are you going?” Hettie asked.
“Out to the front porch to suck in the fresh scent after a spring rain,” she answered.
“That’s a good sign that it’s time for you forget all about Brodie Callahan,” Hettie agreed. “But fifteen minutes is all you get. The muffins will be ready, and they’re best eaten right out of the oven.”
Audrey forced a smile. “Slathered in butter.”
“That’s right,” Hettie answered.
She stepped out onto the porch and sucked in the smell of a nice morning breeze after a hard rain. “Nothing better than…” she whispered, and then gasped when she realized Brodie was curled up on the porch swing.
He opened his eyes, sat up, and rolled the kinks out of his neck. “Good mornin’.”
“Get off my porch and off my property,” she growled.
How did she not see his truck parked in the driveway beside hers? Or even get that tingle she always felt when he was anywhere around? Had he completely ruined everything they had had in their short-lived relationship?
Water droplets hung on to his dark hair, and his jeans and jacket were both soaking wet.
“Not until you hear me out,” he said. “Remember the three rules that you laid out? We’ll always be honest. We will tell the other one if we want to date other people.
We won’t let anyone influence the way we feel.
Well, I’m adding a fourth one. We will trust each other, even when the circumstances tell a different story than the truth. ”
“You erased all those rules when you kissed that woman,” Audrey snapped.
“Even in a court of law, the guilty party gets his time in the witness stand,” Brodie shot back and shivered.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“All night. I told Hettie I wasn’t leaving until I talked to you,” he answered.
She was astonished to the point that her words came on in a whisper. “You slept in that swing in the pouring-down rain?”
“I just sat here and huddled up against the wind and rain. I fell asleep about an hour ago,” he admitted. “I’ll sit here all day if you don’t let me explain what happened.”
“Okay, then,” she said with a sigh. She dragged a ladder-back chair from the other end of the porch and sat down. “You’ve got about ten minutes.”
“Why ten minutes?” he asked.
“That’s when the muffins come out of the oven, and Aunt Hettie will yell at me to get in the house,” she answered. “So, talk fast.”
“I thought that woman was you,” he said.
“She had long, dark hair and the same jacket you wore last night. I walked up behind her and put my arms around her. I thought something was strange when her hair didn’t smell like yours did, and I didn’t get any vibes like I usually do when you are around.
Then she turned around and kissed me . I was about to push her away when…
” he paused. “It sounds like a lame excuse, and if I knew her last name, I would tell you to go ask her what happened. She said her first name was Valerie, but that’s all I know.
I expected you to tie into her like you did Linda Massey instead of accusing me of something like cheating. ”
“O...kay...eee,” Audrey dragged the word out into several syllables.
She wasn’t sure that she believed him, but she would give him the benefit of a huge doubt after she had time to think about his excuse.
“Can we talk about this more after I’ve had my breakfast? Meet me in the orchard this afternoon?”
“I’ll be there,” Brodie stood up. “What time?”
“We quit work at noon. I’ll bring sandwiches and cookies,” she said.
“One o’clock?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said with a nod.
“I’ll see you then,” Brodie said, and slowly walked out to this truck.
Audrey’s heart told her to drop her coffee mug, run after him before he could leave, and apologize for being so hasty and not trusting him.
Her mind told her that any man worth his salt would have told her he was sorry and promise to never again make out with an old girlfriend or maybe a woman that he had just met that night.
Aunt Hettie would agree with the intelligent side of the argument, not the happy-ever-after side that her heart presented.
She sat in the chair and watched him drive away and dreaded seeing him that afternoon—and at the same time couldn’t wait.
“Hey, who was that leaving so early?” Walter seemed to appear out of nowhere.
“Brodie Callahan,” Audrey answered.
Walter sat down on the swing. “He’s alive after spending the night with you. I figured Hettie would fry him with a look and finish him off with a tongue-lashing if she ever found him in the house at breakfast time.”
“He slept on the swing,” Audrey said, and then told him the whole story.
***
Brodie drove over to his farm, then sent Knox and Tripp a text telling them that he had had a rough night and wouldn’t be at the barn that morning.
Then he went inside the trailer, dropped his boots right inside the door and his jeans and shirt beside the table, and crawled into the cot-sized bed.
Compared to the porch swing, it was pure luxury.
He was thinking about talking to Audrey again when he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
When he first awoke, he thought that another storm was brewing but soon figured out that it was Pansy rooting around under the trailer.
He sat up in bed, checked his phone for the time, and found that it was past noon.
He’d been sleeping for more than five hours and still felt like he could fall back on the narrow bed for another five.
“Who needs an alarm clock when you’ve got a pot-bellied pig?” he said as he got out of bed and went into the tiny bathroom to take a quick shower and brush his teeth.
His stomach grumbled while he was shaving and let him know that he hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. He and Audrey were supposed to go to the Mexican restaurant in Nocona after the speed dating event, but that had blown up in their faces.
“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all,” he said, quoting something he’d heard in the past.
He dragged out the coffeemaker from under the sink in the kitchen but couldn’t find a pod, so he wound up making a cup of instant. “Tastes like motor oil mixed with mud,” he grumbled, but he drank every bit of it while he checked his texts.
Knox wanted to know if he had patched things up with Audrey.
Tripp asked if he was going to stay in the trailer until he got over his heartache.
Audrey asked if he liked mayo or mustard on ham and cheese sandwiches.
He ignored his brothers and sent a text back to Audrey with one word: mustard.
Not even a please or thank you until they figured out where each of them stood.
And where you stand as a couple? his mother’s voice asked.
“That is first and foremost,” he said as he dragged the quilt off the bed and threw it over his shoulder. He had only taken a few steps when a slow drizzle started again. He sent Audrey a text and asked if she would meet him in the equipment barn to the west of the orchards.
Brodie kept running until his senses picked up that very familiar tingle that said Audrey was nearby. He looked over his shoulder to see her coming behind him with a cooler in one hand and a paper bag in the other. He didn’t wait but kept jogging all the way to the barn.
She came in right behind him and set the sack and cooler on a worktable, then removed her yellow slicker and looked him right in the eye. “I guess we need to talk.”
He spread the blanket out on the floor. “Do you believe me?”
“My heart told me that no one would sit in the rain all night if they weren’t being honest, but my mind says that you are crazy for doing that and such a person will make up excuses,” she said.
“Which one are you going to believe, and can we please eat while we talk? I haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours, and I’m starving. My girlfriend didn’t even offer me a cup of coffee this morning. Or maybe she’s not my girlfriend anymore and didn’t want to waste good coffee on me?”
“Mama used to say that nothing ever got resolved on an empty stomach.” She sat down on the far edge of the quilt and carefully arranged all the food.
Brodie sat down beside her but kept his distance. She handed him a sandwich and a bag of barbecue potato chips. He opened the chips and ate one while he unwrapped the sandwich. “My mother said the same thing. Seems they were both right. Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I can’t—not just yet,” Audrey answered. “But you go on and enjoy the food. I’ve got muffins and cookies for dessert, and there’s tea and a couple of beers in the cooler.”
Brodie opened the cooler and took out a bottle of sweet tea. “Why can’t you eat?”
“What you said has been going over and over in my mind all morning,” Audrey answered.
“Until we get this settled, my appetite is gone. I ate two of Aunt Hettie’s muffins this morning, but they tasted like sawdust. And by the way, Walter thinks I’m right to talk to you.
Aunt Hettie is giving me another dose of the silent treatment. ”
“Seems like one of the rules that you laid out was that we wouldn’t let other people influence us,” Brodie said between bites.
“Walter says a man who is lying wouldn’t sit in the rain all night and couldn’t possibly sit here and eat sandwiches with me,” she said. “Aunt Hettie says that you can’t trust a man whose family lives in a brothel.”
“Well, let’s get this over with so you can eat,” Brodie said. “Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”
Audrey shook her head, inhaled deeply, and let her breath out slowly. “No, but you’ve got to know where I was coming from. You saw that I was sitting between two of your blind date women.”
Brodie finished off his sandwich and unwrapped another one. “I did, and I also saw you talking to twelve different guys. The last one was trying to woo you away with his love of farms and pot-bellied pigs.”
She giggled nervously. “Who uses the word woo in this day and age?”
“I do because I don’t know any other word that fits,” he answered.
Audrey had trouble reading Brodie. One minute he seemed like he wanted to make up. The next she wasn’t sure that he wasn’t about to tell her to take a hike back to her own side of what fence was left.
“Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll give you that, but I told them all the same story.
That I had a neighbor who had a cute little pot-bellied pig that I dearly loved.
That was a little bit of a lie, but I was trying to put them off.
Then I got a farmer who must’ve heard the story from one of the others. ”
“I was a little jealous of that last one,” Brodie admitted, “but I didn’t worry about it, because we both know and understand that every relationship is built on trust.”
Audrey absolutely hated to apologize to anyone for anything, but she also had always taken pride in the fact that she was honest with herself above all else.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t trust you. What happened was my fault.
I shouldn’t have let Linda Massey plant a seed of doubt in my heart.
You didn’t cheat on her—not by any stretch of the word. ”
“No, I did not . I didn’t even go out with her,” he said, and finally smiled. “Thank you once again for saving my country ass with that woman.”
Audrey laid a hand on his knee. “Am I forgiven?”
“If you will sit with me in church tomorrow.” He grinned.
“Yes,” she said. “But not with your family or with Aunt Hettie. We’ll sit together without either one.”
“Will you go to Sunday dinner with me?”
Audrey wasn’t sure she was ready to be that sorry, but she nodded. “Can we maybe just go to Tertia’s café? I’m not quite ready to be thrown in the middle of the whole Paradise family.”
“Yes, we can,” he answered. “And you don’t have to meet the whole family until you are ready. Maybe you’ll come to Bo and Maverick’s wedding with me and meet them at the reception.”
“That’s in June, right?” Audrey asked, and reached for a sandwich.
“Yes, it is,” Brodie answered.
“Then yes,” she answered.
“Why does it matter when the wedding is?” Brodie asked.
Audrey had never been good at really opening up to anyone, especially someone who could possibly break her heart.
But if, in spite of all the obstacles, this was going to work with Brodie, she had to give a little.
“You said to be honest, so I will. That gives me a little while to get ready to be thrown in with your whole big family. I’ve been an only child as well as an only grandchild for my whole life.
I don’t have relatives, so I have mixed feelings about being around all those folks.
It took a lot for me to go to Endora’s, but I want to be friends with her.
And a little more about me: I talk too much and too fast when I’m nervous. ”
Brodie scooted over closer to her. “We’ve got our first argument behind us.”
She shifted her position until their shoulders were touching. “Is it time to make up?”
“I think it just might be.” Brodie turned slightly, tipped up her chin with his fist, and kissed her. The first time his lips met hers, the kiss was sweet. The second time it deepened, and the third had them both panting when it ended.
“How many dates have we been on?” he asked.
“Tomorrow in church is number six,” she whispered, and kissed him again.
“How are you counting?” he asked.
“I guess from the first time I kissed you to make Linda Massey leave you alone.” She managed to really smile for the first time since the night before.
“Then number six, it is.” He grinned and kissed her one more time.