Deadly Patterns (22 page)

I needn’t have worried. The second Josie laid eyes on the maxi dress, her jaw dropped and she clapped her hand to her mouth. Her face lit up, her rosy cheeks as bright as strawberries on her olive skin. “That’s a maternity dress?”

I nodded, handing it to her to try on. She took it and slipped behind the privacy screen. A minute later she was flinging her T-shirt and stretch-paneled pants over the top of the wood-slatted partition, and then she floated out from behind the screen, the skirt of the maxi hanging beautifully, flowing around her like cascading silk. I held my breath, watching her walk across the workroom. I’d cut the front to hang longer, compensating for how Josie’s round stomach would pull the fabric up, especially as it continued to grow.

She stopped in front of the oval mirror and gazed at her reflection.

The bells on the front door jingled, followed by a low whistle and a “Wow.”

We both turned as Nate came into the shop.

From the growing rouge on Josie’s cheeks, and the pointed way their eyes met, I got that Nate liked the maxi dress. Or rather Josie in the dress.

“She’s a miracle worker,” Josie said, after the spell between them broke.

“You’re the miracle,” he said. Ah, Mr. Romance. I never would have pegged him as that, but Nate loved Josie, I had no doubt about that.

“I have another outfit,” I said, taking the other ensemble from the hook.

She slapped her hand over her open mouth. “Is that tweed? I love tweed!”

Nate looked to the ceiling. “You know,” he said, a pillar of patience, “I offered to take you shopping in Dallas for maternity clothes, but—”

Her choked squeak stopped his words on his lips. “Nate Kincaid, why on God’s green earth would I go shopping in Dallas when Harlow is right here? If she can’t design something that makes a person look good, then no one can.” She gestured to the maxi dress she still wore. “I haven’t felt this good in . . . in . . . I don’t know how long. I don’t even want any Chubby Hubby.”

I smiled to myself. My design had won out over Ben & Jerry’s. That was a monumental success.

He gave her a kiss before she moved back behind the privacy screen to try on the second outfit. Five minutes later, she emerged no longer looking like a stunning pregnant bohemian woman. Now she looked like she could hold her own with the muckity-mucks in their super-posh suites at Cowboys Stadium. The wide flap lapels of the jacket and the curved hemline were fresh and stunning.

Josie floated across the floor, her head held high, her belly front and center, and an air of contentment I hadn’t seen on her face since her morning sickness had started. I felt flushed and satisfied, as if a ribbon of warm air were circling the room, leaving swirls of comfort in its wake.

The phone rang, so I left them alone and went to answer it in the kitchen.

Michele Brown’s Southern drawl came from the other end of the line. “Harlow, I’m real sorry for callin’ so early, but I thought you’d wanna know.”

“Would want to know what?”

“I was reading through the
Texas Monthly
.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I leaned against the kitchen counter. “Mmm-hmm?” I prompted when she hesitated.

“It’s just that, well . . .”

“Michele, you can tell me. What do I need to know?”

“I was flipping through a back issue and, well, there’s an article and do you know, it’s by the man who died. Dan Lee Chrisson.”

“Yeah, I discovered a few of his articles online.”

Michele hemmed and hawed for another few seconds before saying, “I’m just wonderin’ if this story might be . . .”

“If it might be what, Michele?”

“About you,” she finally spit out. “It’s dated a few months back. If you want, I can e-mail you the link.”

“Yes, please,” I said, giving her my e-mail address. I sat down at the computer in the corner of the dining room, hearing the tap, tap, tapping as she typed. By the time I opened my e-mail, a message was there.

“Got it,” I said. I thanked her and we hung up.

I clicked on the link and was taken to the permalink page with another article written by Dan Lee Chrisson. I hadn’t seen this one when I’d Googled him the day before. I read the title: “Spreading the Magic: How One Man’s Wish Can Impact Multiple Families.”

A lump formed in my throat.

I read the first line and the lump grew to the size of Houston when I saw the name Robert Parker, aka Butch Cassidy. Oh Lord.

I hunched forward, my head swimming as I read. Inexplicably, the melody to Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” strummed in my head. He was singing my life with his words. That’s exactly what I felt like. The article was about my family. The Cassidys. All of us.

He’d changed our names, thankfully, but he’d obviously done his research. He talked about Parker’s transformation into Butch Cassidy, his romantic dalliances with the Sundance Kid’s future girlfriend, Etta Place, and other women from Fanny Porter’s brothel in San Antonio’s red-light district, Hell’s Half Acre.

I took comfort in knowing that he hadn’t blown the whistle on us. Maybe we were just innocent bystanders in his research on Bliss, the outlaws here, and the town’s history.

I prayed that the Cassidys wouldn’t ever be held up for public scrutiny and vilified, but I also knew I had to tell Will the truth before he found out in some other way. I could only hope that he could understand and accept the truth—and me, once he knew.

I printed the article and tucked it into my sewing bag, then scurried back into my workroom. Josie was behind the privacy screen, and Nate waited with the garment bag, ready to add Josie’s second outfit to it.

“I gotta go,” I called to Josie. “Meet me at the Denison mansion in an hour, okay?”

She emerged from behind the screen in the clothes she’d arrived in, her hand on her belly.

“Do you ever sleep, Harlow?” she asked me, handing Nate the clothes. “You’re going to wear yourself down.”

“When Winter Wonderland is over I’ll sleep,” I said. And after I learned the truth about who’d tampered with that railing and why Dan Lee Chrisson died. And after I told Gracie and Will about Gracie’s relation to Butch Cassidy—and what it meant. I grimaced, wondering just how all of this would play out. “Eventually.”

Chapter 30

Ten minutes later I had my sewing bag, the garment bags with the outfits for the fashion show, and extras of everything I could think of, just in case something went wrong, all loaded up in the truck.

I tooled up Mockingbird Lane and drove around the square until I was in front of Villa Farina. I could have walked, but I planned to head straight to Mayberry Street afterward with all the garments I still had. They hung from a makeshift hook in the passenger seat, blocking my view out the right window but staying wrinkle free. A portable hand steamer poked out of my sewing bag. I had everything I needed to make sure the fashion show went off without a hitch.

I parked the truck across from the bakery. A teenage boy darted from parked car to parked car, sticking goldenrod flyers under windshields. The square was abuzz with activity. Carolers strolled, singing in harmony. The lights on the trees around the courthouse twinkled.

The boy headed my way, thrusting a half sheet of paper toward me as I lowered my head to the wind and pulled my coat closed. He wished me a Merry Christmas and then hurried on. Poor kid. He was risking frostbite to give folks flyers that would freeze to their cars and then would get thrown away.

I tossed the paper onto the seat of the truck, wound my scarf around my neck to ward off the chill, and darted across the street. Arnie Barnett sat in his truck in front of the bakery, reading. I waved to him. He waved back, but when I didn’t stop to talk, he went back to his magazine.

Normally the pale green scallop-edged awning, small tables and chairs, and scent of pastries and coffee filled me with comfort and joy, but this afternoon, the cold was too strong even for freshly brewed java.

I waved to Gina behind the counter. Hattie came toward me, two holiday-themed to-go cups topped with plastic lids in her hands.

I doubled back and held the door open for her. “Thanks, Harlow.”

“See you at the fashion show?”

“We have to leave a touch early to go down to Fort Worth, but we wouldn’t miss it. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. I might could end up behind the scenes biting my nails, but I’m ready.” I grinned, but I was only half kidding. I had lovely, strong nails, but if the ball of nerves coiling in my gut kept tightening, I’d start chewing and wouldn’t stop until I had nothing left but nubs.

She lifted one coffee cup in a mock wave, then braced herself against the cold and hurried to her truck. Arnie jumped out of the cab and met her at the curb. He took one cup of coffee from her hands, snatched the flyer from his windshield, then held the door for her so she could get out of the cold.

The pewter overcoat she had on was well cut and looked nice, but I couldn’t stifle the image I had of her in an Irene jacket straight out of the 1860s, nipped in at the waistline and flaring slightly beneath, braiding running around the neckline, sleeves, and in the back. If Raylene ever did open up her own bed-and-breakfast, Hattie could work there and wear the Irene jacket I imagined.

Inside Villa Farina, I found Mama at a table near the front counter, her hands cradling a heavy white mug. A plate of pastries sat in the middle of the table, a magazine next to it, and a steaming cup was waiting for me. “I got you a pumpkin spice latte,” she said as I sat down.

“Mmmm.” I put the article I’d printed on the magazine, stripped off my gloves, and wrapped my hands around the warm ceramic mug. “Perfect.”

“Sugar,” she said after taking a bite of a flaky chocolate croissant, “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I think you need to tell Will.”

I choked on the sip of creamy coffee I’d just taken. “Tell him what?”

“Everythin’,” she said, though it sounded like “everythan’.” “About Butch Cassidy. About our charms. About Gracie and what you reckon her gift might be. The whole kit ’n’ caboodle.”

My blood ran cold and my warmed fingers turned to ice again. It’s what I planned to do. What I knew I needed to do. But suddenly an image of my father—or what I imagined my father looked like—walking away from my mother flashed in my mind. If I told Will about the Cassidy charms, he might well do an about-face and walk away just like Tristan Walker had done to Mama.

I looked up as her hand covered mine. “I don’t know if he’ll understand,” I said.

“Hoss does.”

I stared at her. Mama never had been one to mince words. Her bluntness was one of her gifts, at least in my mind, but at this moment, a little buildup would have been nice. “What?”

She tapped her fingers against my hand and I looked down. And noticed the ring the sheriff had given to Mama a few months back. She normally wore it on her right hand, but now it was on her left, and on her— “We’re gettin’ hitched, Harlow Jane.”

I sat up straight, my mouth fighting between smiling and frowning. “Hitched?”

“Tyin’ the knot. Bitin’ the bullet. The old ball and chain.”

“Married.” I started grinning and then I couldn’t stop. “Mama, that’s wonderful!”

“I think so, too. We’ll do it in the spring, I think. Maybe early summer. And I want you to make my weddin’ dress.”

“Well, of course. I wouldn’t let you get hitched wearing anybody else’s creation.”

She nodded, smiling, but her hand squeezed mine and her smile faded. “Sugar, I want you to know—”

She sounded so serious, like the lead-in to some ominous bomb she was going to drop, that I had to fight the hammer suddenly pounding in my temples. “I had to tell him everythan’.”

I leaned forward. “What do you mean, everything?”

“Everythan’. The wish Butch made in Argentina. Our charms. Meemaw’s ghost.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Everything?” I asked again.

She nodded sagely. “Everythan’. No secrets. You have to start a relationship with a clean slate. I kept secrets from your daddy, and you know how that turned out.”

I frowned. Yes, I did. It had left her husbandless and Red and me fatherless. “What did he say?” She was still wearing the ring, so he hadn’t walked out on her.

“He’s a man of few words.”

“You told him you had a magical gift and that Loretta Mae hangs around as a ghost and that we’re all charmed and he didn’t say much?”

“Because he pretty much knew it already,” she added. “All except the part about Meemaw.”

My heart hammered in my chest at the implication of that. “How could he pretty much know already?”

“Honey,” she said with a shake of her head, “people think we’re an odd lot. They come around when they want some special plant that they think’ll help ’em with their arthritis or somethin’, or like Will, goin’ to Nana when those dang goats were givin’ him grief. No one talks about it, is all. They don’t put words to it.”

I ran through the list of who all knew about our charms and who else seemed sort of clued in. Mrs. James knew, of course. Her daughter, Sandra, and her granddaughter, Libby, were our relations and were charmed. She’d also had a pact with Nana and Mrs. Mcafferty back when they were kids, which meant Mrs. Mcafferty knew.

I also wondered if Mrs. Abernathy knew something. Or if she at least suspected. Michele Brown had told me about the articles by Dan Lee Chrisson, so she pretty much knew, even if I hadn’t confirmed it.

Madelyn Brighton knew.

Aside from Madelyn, though, none of them knew about Meemaw’s ghostly presence. She and Hoss were in a club by themselves with that bit of knowledge.

“We’ll talk about the weddin’ later, honey, but I really do think you should fess up to your man. If Gracie is Cassidy kin, no matter how far back, or how thin the line—well, then, he has to know.”

She was right, of course.

She released my hand and picked up the Dan Lee Chrisson article I’d printed. Her eyes flashed as she gave it a quick perusal. I caught movement in my peripheral vision. The vibrant red blooms on the poinsettias scattered around the bakery, I realized. The leaves swayed, ever so slightly, as if a tiny breeze had disturbed the quiet air. But I knew they were reacting to Mama’s energy. “He seemed to have known,” she said.

I picked up the magazine, thumbing through it to distract myself from Mama’s charm potentially going haywire. If I was calm, maybe she’d stay calm and the poinsettias wouldn’t grow like Jack’s fairy-tale beanstalk.

I flipped through page after page of the home renovation glossy, a few of the images implanting themselves into my brain for future reference. My calmness seemed to work. The holiday flowers settled down again. “Well, I’ll be,” she said when she was done. “He really tried to stir the pot, didn’t he?”

“I guess,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure. He could have been a lot more blatant than he’d been, naming names and our gifts and fully outing us. But he hadn’t.

We ate our croissants, running through the possibilities. I told her about Meemaw’s message to me in the steamed mirror.

“I saw the article in the courthouse,” Mama said. “It’s true, your great-grandfather walked out, just like your father did. But Hoss isn’t goin’ anywhere, and I’d bet a truckload of turnips that Will Flores wouldn’t either.”

“What wouldn’t I do?”

I whipped around to see Will coming up behind me.

“Well, would you look at that?” Mama said. “Speak of the devil.” She scraped her chair back, and before I could say things in Bliss had gone all catawompus, she was up out of her chair, one foot inching toward the door. “I was just fixin’ to leave, Will. Take my seat and have yourself a flaky pastry.”

He came around and sat in her vacated chair, and then quicker than a spotted ape, she was gone.

“Another Cassidy matchmaker?” he asked, not bothering to smother his crooked grin.

“Guess they’re a-comin’ outta the woodwork,” I said, exaggerating my Southern accent. “Subtlety isn’t Mama’s strong suit.”

“No, I guess it isn’t.” He flagged down Gina and ordered a cup of coffee, then took a bite of the croissant Mama hadn’t touched. “So what wouldn’t I do?” he asked again after a beat.

I swallowed, mustering up my gumption. It was now or never. Well, I reasoned, not really, but now was as good a time as any. “You know how I told you that I thought Mrs. Mcafferty might know about Gracie being her granddaughter?”

His smile vanished, the midnight blue of his eyes turning to slate. “I went to see her,” he said.

I sucked in a deep breath, but shook my head. “No you did not.”

“I sure did.”

My eyes burned and as I looked at him, I just wanted to tell him that it would all be okay. But of course I had another bomb to drop and I didn’t know if anything would be okay. “Did she confirm that she got pregnant before she married her husband? Did she admit that Naomi is Jeb James’s daughter?”

He nodded grimly, running the pad of his thumb across the whiskers on his chin.

Oh Lord. “Do you think Sandra knows?” I asked after Gina delivered his coffee. I’d been so focused on the fact that Gracie was probably my second cousin, I hadn’t really registered that that meant Naomi was a cousin, too. We were, all three of us, cousins.

“No idea.”

I held my breath, waiting for him to tell me how it had gone with Mrs. Mcafferty. She knew about the family lineage and the charm passed from Etta Place on down to Jebediah James straight into Naomi and now Gracie. But had she told him all of this?

“She was sad that she’s missed out on Gracie’s childhood. Or at least she seemed sad. I’m going to introduce them at the fashion show.”

I exhaled. “What if Gracie doesn’t want that?”

“It’s time,” he said. “It’s past time.”

“That’s good, Will.”

He shrugged, then moved his chair closer to me, lowering his voice. “I’m a little worried about her. She’s been obsessed with the consignment and vintage shops on the square. She goes in and’ll spend a couple hours looking at all the clothes, touching everything . . .”

He kept talking, but his words blended together. She wasn’t going to stores that had new clothes because they didn’t carry history in them. They had no energy or soul. Oh boy.

“Will,” I said, swallowing the lump of trepidation that had lodged in my throat. My mother’s words bolstered me up. No secrets. You have to start a relationship with a clean slate.

“Hmm?” he said, taking another drink of his coffee.

Which was a good idea. I stalled, lifting my pumpkin spice latte to my lips.

“Cassidy,” he said, prompting me, “you look more scared than a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

I choked on my coffee. “Wh-what?”

He shrugged. “I heard Loretta Mae tell a person that a time or two. Seems appropriate. Now come on, just spit it out.”

Tell him everythin’
, Mama had said. My gut was telling me she was right. If Will and I had any chance of developing something real, I couldn’t hold back.

Gina packaged up the rest of the pastries, poured our coffees into to-go cups, and I dragged Will to my truck. I turned it on, cranked the heat, and launched into my story.

I started with the love triangle between Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place, moved on to Butch and Texana falling in love, his escape to Argentina with the Sundance Kid, her unexpected pregnancy, and finally his wish on the Argentinean fountain, which bestowed magic on all of his female descendants.

He sat quietly, his face growing more and more tense with each passing sentence. “Let me get this straight,” he said when I was finished. “You’re saying that, one, you—and all the Cassidy women—are, what, witches? Magical? And two, that Gracie is a descendant of Robert Parker, aka Butch Cassidy, is charmed, and is some sort of distant cousin? Or something like that.”

“Pretty far removed, but, yeah, in a nutshell,” I said with a grimace. I wished he didn’t look quite so uneasy.

“Unbelievable.” He shook his head, his brows knitted together, then leveled his gaze at me.

“So Naomi has some magical power, too? Is that what you’re telling me?”

My grimace didn’t budge. “I reckon she does. Sandra and Libby Allen are both gifted in the kitchen. Sandra especially. Her cooking taps into a person’s emotions and makes them stronger or gives them what they need. Libby’s is still developing.”

His thoughts seemed to stray for a few seconds, and then his face cleared. “You were so calm after you were released from the hospital. It was her food?”