Chapter 21
Church services started at eleven o’clock, so Brodie arrived fifteen minutes early and took a seat in one of the wingback chairs in the foyer.
Five minutes later the buzz of conversation mingled with laughter filled the sanctuary as folks left their Sunday school classes.
He recognized Endora’s and Rae’s voices, but the rest of them blended together.
In another minute Ursula and Remy came through the doors.
“Hey, where’s the rest of the brothers?” Remy asked.
“They’ve already gone inside. I’m waiting for Audrey,” Brodie answered.
Ursula patted him on the shoulder as she passed by and went into the nursery. “Good luck with that. We need to get Clayton into the nursery, or we’d stick around to give you some moral support.”
She and Remy were barely in the nursery when Hettie and Audrey arrived. Brodie stood up and smiled at both of them. “Good mornin’, ladies. Y’all both look very pretty this morning.”
Hettie narrowed her eyes, snarled her nose like she was smelling a skunk, and shook a veined fist at him.
“I don’t like this, and I won’t ever accept you into the Tucker family.
If Audrey doesn’t put an end to this, I will move to Wichita Falls to the retirement village where my best friend Bitsy lives. ”
Family was everything, and Hettie was Audrey’s only living relative. No matter how strange the bickering relationship between the two of them was, there was every possibility that Audrey would resent him if she was forced to choose either him or her aunt.
“Aunt Hettie, you are in church,” Audrey scolded.
“You don’t have to accept me, Miz Hettie,” Brodie said in the calmest voice he could muster up. “But it would be very nice if we could be civil to each other.”
“Hmmph,” she huffed, and headed into the sanctuary alone.
“I’m so sorry,” Audrey whispered. “She’s had a burr in her saddle for months and seems to get worse with every passing day. No, that’s not right: with every minute, not day.”
“Things could have been the same at the Paradise if Bernie hadn’t been agreeable,” Brodie said. “Are you sure you’re ready for this, and I don’t just mean today but in the future as well?”
“I am if you are,” Audrey answered.
He planted a kiss on her forehead and took her hand in his. “I’ve been ready ever since you kissed me and then rolled around in the mud with that woman—what was her name?” he teased.
“We need to forget all about who she was and just focus on what we are, and that’s a couple,” she informed him, “whether Aunt Hettie is happy with the idea or not. She’s always fussy about something, it seems.”
“Since I moved in next door?” Brodie asked as the two of them walked hand in hand down the aisle.
“More like since I moved in,” Audrey answered. “And according to her, if we share a hymnbook, we are a set-in-stone couple.”
“My mother said the same thing about the folks who went to our church in Bandera,” Brodie said. “I never understood how two people holding one songbook was indicative of two people looking at wedding cakes.”
“Don’t be getting any ideas about a cake-tasting evening. This is just our sixth date,” Audrey said out the corner of her mouth.
“I do like wedding cake, but I can get that when Bo and Maverick tie the knot. However,” he said, stopping in the double doors, “how many dates do we need to go on before we do think about that kind of thing?”
“A hundred at the very least,” she answered before he could finish.
“Sounds good to me. Who’s going to keep count?
Me or you?” Brodie stood to one side to allow her to be seated on an empty pew ahead of him.
He wasn’t sure if the quietness that filled the room was just his imagination or if everyone had gone silent when they saw Brodie and Audrey were together.
He could almost read their minds by the expressions on their faces.
Run for the hills. World War III is starting right there in the Community Church of Spanish Fort.
The fight between Bernie and Hettie wouldn’t leave a single splinter behind when it was all said and done.
The poor congregation looked like they didn’t know whether to drop down on their knees and pray or to really panic and run for the Red River.
“What is going on?” she asked as she sank down on the pew.
“Everyone is in shock, but don’t worry”—he sat down beside her—“by next week, it will have worn off and someone else will be the headline of the Spanish Fort gossip vine.”
“Fame and glory never last long,” she teased.
“Good morning, everyone,” Parker said. “If you will open your hymnbooks to page thirty-nine, we’ll all sing together. Pay attention to the words about love conquering all.”
Brodie pulled a hymnal from the back pocket of the pew in front of them and opened it. Audrey slid over even closer to him and whispered, “Seems appropriate, doesn’t it?”
“Yep, it does,” he answered. “But I can feel the heat from Hettie trying to fry me into a pile of ash right here in the church.”
A loud crack of thunder sounded as if it rolled right over the top of the church, then rain pelted down so hard that it looked like fog out the side windows. Brodie leaned over and asked, “Do you think Hettie called that down?”
“I don’t reckon she’s got that much power,” Audrey giggled softly.
“Good thing we didn’t plan a picnic in the orchard and decided to eat at the café—unless you want to drive down to Nocona and have lunch at the Mexican place?”
Audrey shook her head. “That place is bad luck for us. Remember what happened the last time we planned to go there.”
Brodie nudged her gently with his shoulder. “We could have a trailer picnic.”
“That sounds wonderful for another time,” she said. “But, today, let’s just go to the café.”
***
Parker called on Remy to give the benediction at the end of the service, and he had barely gotten the amen said when the sound of sirens got louder and louder until they stopped in front of the church. Two EMT’s ran through the doors and yelled, “Where is Henrietta Morris?”
Audrey left Brodie’s side and rushed across the church to the pew where her aunt was sitting with her chin dropped almost to her chest and her cell phone in her lap. “Aunt Hettie, what’s wrong? Why did you call 911?”
“I’ve got chest pains,” she panted. “I think I’m having a heart attack, and you caused it.”
“You ate a lot of salsa on your eggs this morning,” Audrey reminded her. “Are you sure it’s not heartburn?”
“It’s my heart! I know my own body, and this is not heartburn!” Hettie raised her voice to a yell as the EMTs helped her onto a gurney. “It’s broken because of the way you treat me.”
Audrey tried to take her hand, but Hettie pushed her away. “I don’t need you.”
“I love you and want to go with you,” Audrey said.
Hettie crossed her arms over her chest and prayed loudly, “Our Father in heaven, don’t lay this to Audrey’s many sins.
Forgive her for killing me, and please make her break up with that evil man.
He has brainwashed her, and she will be miserable if she chooses him over me, and don’t let me die before I see her open her eyes and see what a mistake she is making. Amen.”
The last word came just as the EMTs wheeled her outside.
Brodie seemed to appear out of nowhere and said, “I’ll follow the ambulance. Y’all will need a ride home if she’s okay.”
“Thank you,” Audrey said, and crawled into the back of the ambulance with her aunt.
“Get out!” Hettie yelled, and then groaned. “Until you break it off with that Callahan man, I don’t even want to look at your face.”
“Aunt Hettie, you don’t mean that,” Audrey said, “and I don’t care what you say; I’m going with you. If you aren’t able to sign papers, I’ll need to be there.”
“Why? You ain’t my keeper,” Hettie argued. “And besides, Bitsy is meeting me at the hospital and sitting with me until I either die or get well. Until that man is out of your life, I don’t need you in mine.”
Audrey held on to the bar beside the narrow seat. “How did Bitsy even know that you were being taken to the hospital?”
“I called her when I first started having chest pains. She told me to call 911 and said that she was on her way. Did you know that at her retirement village, the people can have a car?” Hettie asked, and then moaned, “I feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest.”
“Miz Morris, I’m going to put an IV in your arm. If this turns out to be a heart attack, we can get medicine in to help you—”
“Do what you can,” Hettie said. “I can see a white light up ahead of me. I hope Bitsy makes it to the hospital in time to tell me goodbye.”
Audrey patted her on the shoulder. “What you are seeing is the ambulance light right above your eyes.”
“I know what I’m seeing, and it’s my precious Amos shining a flashlight to show me the way to him,” Hettie argued.
Audrey had absolutely no doubt that her aunt was faking. Was there nothing Hettie wouldn’t do to ruin her relationship with Brodie? And would he get tired of the old gal’s shenanigans before long?
The ambulance stopped under the awning at the emergency room entrance.
The EMTs opened the back doors, and in seconds they were rolling Hettie inside.
When Audrey started to follow them, one of them reached out with an arm and said, “You will need to stay in the waiting room until we get her settled and figure out what’s going on.
Someone will keep you updated and let you know when you can go back to see her. ”
Brodie parked right behind them, jumped out of the truck, and opened up his arms. “What happened?”
Audrey walked into them and said, “I really think she is faking.”
Brodie buried his face in her hair. “Why would she do something like that?”
“In my opinion, she’s bored with farm life and wants to go live close to her friend in a retirement village,” Audrey said. “But she wants it to be my fault.”
“Good Lord!” Brodie gasped. “Why?”