Chapter Twenty-Three
Jackson was behind schedule at the rig all week, so all we got was a few minutes of FaceTime each night before we went to sleep.
That I missed him was a whole new experience for me.
I had cried myself to sleep for weeks after my mother died, but this was a whole new emotional level.
I went to sleep thinking about him. I woke up wishing he was next to me.
Through the day at work, I relived his kisses and fought the hot desire that just that brought about.
When he called on Friday morning to ask me to watch a movie at his trailer that night, it seemed like a month had passed since I’d seen him.
“I’ll make shrimp scampi,” he said.
“I love all things shrimp, and I would love to, but this is the afternoon for bride dress shopping and supper—or at least wine and dessert afterwards to make it a special day for Scarlett,” I answered.
“Then tomorrow night? I could pick you up at six.”
“I’ll be ready,” I said. “But right now, the rush is about to hit us, so I have to go.”
“I’ll be counting the minutes,” he whispered.
His deep drawl fired up my hormones and made me think about makeup sex. I might just start an argument so I could finally fall into bed with him.
At the end of the workday, all four of us piled into my SUV after we had closed the café.
“This makes it real,” Scarlett said as she fastened her seat belt. “I am getting married in a few days. I will be Mrs. Grady Mendoza, and we’re going to have a bunch of kids and live happily ever after.”
“I think I’m as excited as you are,” Tressa said from the back, where she sat beside Rosie. “I’ve never been wedding dress shopping. I hope you are blessed with a lot of children and that you and Grady are married forever.”
“We were talking about that last night, and we want to keep up the family traditions of meals on Sunday like his mama and daddy. They will have their fiftieth wedding anniversary in a couple of years, and we want to follow in their footsteps.”
I was proud of Tressa for giving Scarlett that blessing about kids. No one in the vehicle knew what that had to have cost her after she had lost her own baby in such a violent way.
“I don’t imagine any of us have been dress shopping, have we?” Rosie asked.
“Not me,” I answered. “Until I came to the Tumbleweed, I was married to poker, and a woman doesn’t have to buy a dress for that wedding.”
“I was married once,” Rosie said. “But my mother made my dress. Since we didn’t believe in overdoing things, it was a simple white eyelet outfit with baby-blue trim.
That was supposed to be my something blue.
My underwear was something old. And Mama loaned me her pretty pearls for something borrowed.
Even with all those good-luck things, it didn’t work. ”
I plugged the bridal shop address into the GPS and made a left turn out of the parking lot, then a right onto the highway. “Stay on Highway 62 for the next seventy-five miles,” the tinny GPS lady’s voice said.
“What’s between here and there?” Tressa asked. “I lived in a small town in Mississippi my whole life and never been out of the county until now. This is all new territory for me, and even with the snow, it looks bare. I’m used to trees and lots of green.”
“There is one little gift shop and café between the Tumbleweed and the outskirts of El Paso,” Scarlett answered.
“Right now, all you will see is some dirty snow and a few really strong tumbleweeds,” Rosie chuckled. “When the snow melts and the tumbleweeds all have blown away, you will see dead desert grass and a few straggling yucca plants.”
“Are y’all sh . . . teasing me?” Tressa asked. “That many miles with nothing?”
“Welcome to West Texas,” I replied and told her about my first drive from El Paso to the Tumbleweed. “But I understand that after this month, there aren’t as many of those pesky weeds. Maybe we won’t have to kick them out of the way on Scarlett’s wedding day.”
“I haven’t seen any,” Tressa said. “What do they look like?”
As if on cue, a couple blew across the road and got stuck in the snowdrift on the south side. “Your wish is my command.” I slowed down enough that she could see the thing out the side window.
“It’s just a big old round weed,” she said.
“Yep, and when the north wind blows, they migrate south in droves,” Scarlett told her. “The winter months—especially January—is when they are worse. You’ll see for yourself next year.”
“I hope so,” Tressa said. “I like it so much here that I never want to leave.”
I glanced up in the rearview mirror and saw Rosie reach over and pat her on the shoulder. “That’s music to my ears. Some of us took a while longer to trust each other.”
Tressa asked Scarlett what kind of dress she had in mind, and the conversation between them went from there.
The word trust stuck in my mind. I believed in Rosie and Scarlett more than anyone I had known in my life.
I wanted to feel the same for Jackson, but a small part of my heart was still guarded.
I’d only known him for a short time, and there was real chemistry there.
Even knowing that, I could not put him through the agony I’d seen in my dream.
“You look sad, Carla,” Tressa said. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Not at all. I was thinking about how glad I am that you showed up when you did so that Scarlett can have a few days off.”
“Me too,” Scarlett said. “Matilda told me that some folks come into your life for a season, and some for a reason. I’m glad that y’all are in my life for more than a season, and I believe the reason is because we are a family, as Ada Lou says.”
“Thank you. I haven’t even been with y’all a week, and I already feel that . . .” Tressa paused.
I looked into the rearview mirror to see if she was crying, but she had a beautiful smile on her face.
“That,” she went on, “I’m a part of a family. How does the Tumbleweed do that?”
“It’s not the café,” Rosie answered. “It’s Matilda’s spirit.”
“Who?” Tressa asked.
Scarlett and Rosie took turns telling stories about Matilda and the adages she had passed along to them. A little over an hour later, they were still talking when the GPS lady said, “You have arrived.”
A woman greeted us with a smile when we walked inside the shop.
Racks and racks of white dresses were to our right.
How on earth was Scarlett ever going to go through all those gowns?
She would be exhausted by the time the shop closed.
“Y’all must be with the Scarlett Jones group.
I’m Mary Beth, and I will be helping you. Which one of you is the bride?”
Scarlett raised her hand. “That would be me, and I’m already bewildered by all this.”
“Don’t you worry about anything. I will take good care of you.” She looped her arm through Scarlett’s and led her toward the back. “Two of your group have already arrived and are waiting for you.”
We rounded a corner to find Ada Lou and Nancy sitting in a semicircle of pink velvet wingback chairs and drinking champagne from crystal flutes. Ada Lou raised her glass. “Since we are part of the family, we decided to crash the party.”
I looked over at Rosie, who shrugged and said, “I always make an exception for a wedding.”
A stage with a bank of mirrors on three sides and two open doors leading into dressing rooms was right ahead of the chairs.
A crystal chandelier with what looked like thousands of prisms hanging from it threw out light over the whole area.
I heard a short gasp from Tressa and turned to find her blushing.
“I feel like I should run back to Mississippi. Folks like me don’t belong in places like this,” she whispered.
“You will do fine,” I assured her with a pat on her back. “This is not the norm for the Tumbleweed folks. It’s just a dress-up day.”
“We crashed for two reasons,” Nancy said as all of us took a seat. “We wanted to get in on the excitement, and we both need to buy a new dress for the wedding.”
That was when it dawned on me that I would need something suitable to wear, too. The little black dresses that I wore to poker games wouldn’t be appropriate. Neither would my denim skirt or jeans. The only things left in my closet were work clothes.
I could feel Tressa squirming next to me and remembered the duffel bag full of secondhand things.
“Then I guess we’ll all need something decent to wear,” I said.
“After we get Scarlett all set, the rest of us can try on outfits. Maybe we should all wear shades of red since that is Scarlett’s color. ”
“Since y’all are paying for the wedding dress, I’m picking up the bill for the rest,” Ada Lou said. “Don’t argue with me. This is something I didn’t get to do for my daughter.”
I bent down, gave Ada Lou a hug, and whispered, “Thank you. Tressa is super nervous.”
Mary Beth whipped out a white notebook and a pen. “You all have a seat, and then the bride can tell me what she has in mind. I’ll gather up a couple of dozen dresses and bring them back for her to try on. But first, what is your budget?”
“She doesn’t have one,” Rosie said. “If she likes it, then she has it.”
“Nothing too elaborate. I like things that are more vintage than modern,” Scarlett said.
Mary Beth poured four more flutes of champagne and handed one to each of us. She set the half-full bottle on a low coffee table along with an assortment of cute little petit four cakes and a carafe of water with six small glasses arranged around it.
“This is the fanciest place I’ve ever been in,” Tressa whispered.
“Me too,” Scarlett agreed and set her flute on the table. “I don’t really like champagne. Does anyone want mine?”
“I’ll take it,” Nancy said. “Ada Lou is driving, so she can only have one drink, but I’ll take whatever any of y’all don’t want. This is the good stuff.”
Tressa also passed her glass down to Nancy. “Ada Lou, I will pay you back for my dress as soon as I get a paycheck.”
“Nonsense.” Ada Lou waved her off with a flick of her wrist. “Family takes care of family. You can pay me back by coming to my trailer sometime and playing Scrabble with me and Nancy.”
Mary Beth rolled a rack up to the side of a platform and showed us all the first dress. It had pearls scattered on the skirt and looked like it came out of a 1960s fashion catalog.
Scarlett shook her head on that one, as well as the second one, but the third was the charm.
Her sudden intake of breath told me that she had picked out the perfect dress before she’d even tried it on.
But the expression on her face said everything when she walked out of the dressing room in a dress that fit her like it had been tailor made for her figure.
“That is gorgeous,” Ada Lou gasped. “Please keep it as a maybe, if not a yes.”
“I’m afraid to look at the price tag, but this is my dream dress.” Scarlett’s voice was filled with awe. “I never thought I would find something so perfect.”
“Then you will have it,” Rosie said. “Now, pick out a veil?”
“I don’t think I want one. The dress is enough by itself.” She held out her arms, and the bell sleeves fell halfway to her knees. “If it gets warm, I can remove this”—she took off the jacket, leaving behind a sleeveless V-neck dress—“and dance all night with Grady.”
“How about red and white rosebuds tucked into your hair?” Tressa suggested.
Scarlett turned around to check out her reflection in all the mirrors. “I like that idea, Tressa. I haven’t been to many weddings, but the dresses look stiff and uncomfortable with all the satin, beads, and lace. The lace on this one is soft and moves with me.”
I could clearly see her walking down the aisle with a bouquet of red roses in her hands.
“What kind of dress do you want when you marry Jackson?” Ada Lou whispered.
“Shhh . . . ,” I shushed her. “This is Scarlett’s day, not mine.”
Ada Lou nodded and winked. “If that’s the dress, then we should find something in red for the rest of us. Mary Beth, can you roll that rack away and bring us something to look at that would be fitting for the mother, sisters, and grandmothers of this beautiful bride?”
“Absolutely. Long or short?” she asked.
“Short,” Ada Lou said. “Two of us—and I’m talking about me and you, Nancy—would get tangled up in the hems of something that’s dragging on the floor and fall on our faces.”
“Of course,” Mary Beth nodded. “Scarlett, if you are sure about the dress, we will put it in a garment bag for you.”
“I want to keep it on until you come back with something for the rest of the family,” she said. “But you can take the others away. This is the one.”
We’d gone into the store intending to buy one dress.
We left with six. Mine was a white rose print on a red background.
I’d never worn anything quite like it, but when I tried it on, it fit and Scarlett loved it.
As we were walking out with our garment bags draped over our arms, I suggested that we put them all in the back of my SUV.
“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Ada Lou agreed. “That will leave room for Rosie to ride with me. I might need her to help me haul Nancy’s drunk butt out of the truck.”
“I am not drunk,” Nancy declared. “It would take more than six of those skinny glasses of champagne to make me dizzy.”
“Then why did I have to help you get into that crimson dress?” Rosie asked with a bit of edge in her voice.
“I’m old. I can’t zip up a dress from the back. That does not make me drunk,” Nancy snapped.
Ada Lou made sure that Nancy was in the back seat and then turned to face us. “I wanted to take y’all to a really nice place, but this is Scarlett’s day, and she wants pizza.”
“All of you have spent way too much money today for us to go to a swanky restaurant—and besides, I like pizza,” Scarlett said as she slid into the passenger seat. “I already feel like a princess.”
“So do I,” Tressa said. “If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up.”
“Me either,” I whispered under my breath.