Lucky In Love (18 page)

“You are what?” She couldn’t believe her ears. He hadn’t touched her, hadn’t kissed her or even hugged her, and he was proposing. There was something wrong with this whole picture.

Oh, yeah. And there was something wrong with the picture last night, too.

“I’m not going to give you an engagement ring, Milli. I don’t want another engagement. I want a wife. I want you to be my wife, and I want my daughter on the Bar M where she belongs, learning to take care of the cattle, learning to love the land that’s going to be hers when I’m dead and gone. I’m not going to leave you, Milli. I’m not going to hurt you like Matthew did. I love you. And you can trust me. You’ve got my word on that, and it’s as good as a solid bar of gold. Maybe better. Matthew had gold but no integrity. Don’t judge me by him ever again because I’m a different man. I love you. I said it before and I’ll repeat it every day for the rest of my life. So if you want to marry me, just sign the papers and then we’ll talk about the rest of the problems we are facing.”

She stared at him sitting there with their daughter. He didn’t move. Neither did Milli. They didn’t reach across the span separating the two chairs and touch fingertips, or stand up and fall into each other’s arms with Katy between them. The world did not stand still and the sun was still moving toward the west. The clocks didn’t stop. It was just a normal day after all, except for the fact he’d asked her to marry him and made promises that she believed with her whole heart. She picked up the pen and signed her name right below the lawyer’s finger.

“Now, what else do we need to talk about?” she asked.

“This.” He set Katy on the floor and gathered her into his arms and hugged her so tightly she could hear his heart doing double time. He tipped her chin back and kissed her soundly. She shivered all the way to her toes.

“Now, sir, Milli and Katy and I are going to go down to the corrals and have a long talk. Thank you for coming out here on a Sunday, and next time we have a barn dance, bring your wife and join us.”

Buster watched from the barn door as Beau opened the front door and the three of them walked slowly toward the barn. He smiled for the first time that day. Lord, he’d thought for sure Beau would die. He wouldn’t talk all day long. He’d waited more than four hours on that swing, just sitting there like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Seemed like they were doing fine at the dance and he saw Beau kiss her good-night beside the pickup, but evidently that crazy fool boy said something that upset her. Why else would she cut and run like a scalded hound? Hopefully, whatever that lawyer said had helped them to work through whatever the hell the fight was all about.

“Now, tell me again what you told me on the phone,” he said softly.

She looked up into his eyes and didn’t blink. “I said I love you. I’ll stand and fight or I’ll drop down on my knees and beg, but I love you, Beau Luckadeau, and I was wrong to judge you by Matthew’s half bushel.”

“Matthew’s half bushel?”

“You know. I judged you by his standard and that wasn’t fair. And I ran because I was scared of my own self, scared to trust you, scared of all these feelings you make in my body, scared that someday you’d leave and all I’d have left was a broken heart.”

“I’m going to tell you one more time, Milli. I love you. I love this baby we’ve made and it don’t matter if we make one more, six more, or no more, she’s my firstborn. Now I want to marry you, and I don’t want to wait forever to have you here where you belong. But I want things to be right there, too. I want you to go to Shreveport with me next weekend to meet my folks,” he said.

“You’re going to take me home to meet your momma? I’m the one-night stand from the wedding! She’ll have your hide tacked to the smokehouse door if you come dragging someone like me into her house. And remember, I’m part Mexican. What’s she going to do with that?”

“Love you just like I do. Momma ain’t prejudiced. And she’s going to fall in love with Katy, too. So is next weekend all right?”

“Only if you go to west Texas with me the weekend after that.”

“Hey, you got two big brothers. I’ve seen pictures of them over at Jim’s house. What do you reckon they’ll do? Remember, I’m the sorry sucker who got you pregnant and didn’t marry you. And I’m French and English.

Maybe those Mexicans want you to marry one of theirkind and they’ll hate my blue eyes and blond hair.”

“They love Katy and she looks just like you.”

“Guess we better make both trips to take care of things proper,” he nodded. “Now, about a wedding date. What do you think about August first?”

“Less than a month? Momma will shoot me. I’m the only daughter and she’ll want a big hoopla.”

“Nope, just a simple ceremony right here at the Bar M. It’s midway between the two families and seems only right that we start here.”

“Sounds good to me. Momma can come stay with Poppy and Granny and make plans from the Lazy Z. She’ll have to have flowers and a cake and a big reception, no matter if it harelips the governor of the great state of Texas, himself,” she said.

“That’s fine. Guess that’s all settled now.”

“Guess it is,” she nodded.

But she didn’t have that breathless, ecstatic feeling in her heart she had when he finally kissed her in the house. He’d proposed and they’d just discussed their wedding and she felt strangely as if they’d just talked about whether they were going to ride three-wheelers or horses out to check the pasture fence.

He set Katy on the ground and she toddled off to chase a passel of kittens scampering around the back porch steps. Then he carefully and deliberately took Milli back into his arms and kissed her and that terrible feeling in the middle of her chest dissolved. “And Milli, if you ever scare me like that again, I intend to turn you down over my knee and give you the whipping you were begging for.”

“You and what army?” A secure feeling enveloped her entire being and she knew she’d just made the right choice.

“Don’t ever do it again.” He left no room for discussion. “We’re not going to talk about this again. Just don’t ever break my heart like that again. Promise?”

“I promise. I love you, Beau.”

He hugged her close enough that she could hear the pounding of his heart. “I’m scared to let you drive out of here, but I’ve got to trust you just like you have to trust me. You’d better get on over to the Lazy Z. Jim and Mary are going to be sitting in hot water until you get home. Unless you want to take me to the barn before I go. Or you want to take a drive to the nearest motel.”

“I’m so tired I couldn’t hold my eyes open for another kiss,” she whispered. “Good night, Beau.”

Everything was perfect, or was it? So much could still go wrong. She hoped they were strong enough to face the hurdles and get on with their lives - together. But the thought of facing a whole tribe of Nordic-looking gods made her knees go weak.

************************************************************************************************

MILLI DRESSED IN A STRAIGHT DENIM SKIRT WITH A SLIT up the side, showing off a tanned, muscular leg. Then she picked out a sleeveless, light blue lace shirt from the closet and buttoned it up the front. She heard Beau’s truck tires crunching the gravel in the driveway followed by Katy’s squeals as Beau swung her around.

They’re Katy’s kin, so don’t be so nervous. You’d think you were plain old white trash from the wrong side of the tracks the way you’re acting.

“Milli, you’re goin’ to miss the plane,” Jim called from the bottom of the steps. “They don’t hold them big birds for women just because they can’t figure out what to wear!”

“You are beautiful. I’ll have trouble keeping you for my own when all my cousins see you,” Beau said when she made it to the living room. “Especially Griffin. He’s the only one of us who’s not blond. His wife left him and he’d snatch you up in a minute to help him raise his daughter, Lizzy.”

“What color is his hair?”

“Black with a white streak right in the front. Lizzy has it, too. It’s a genetic thing from his momma, but the rest of us are all blonds. Just be careful one of them don’t try to beat my time with you.”

“One big old blond feller is enough for me,” she said nervously.

“That’s good news,” he beamed.

They settled Katy into the car seat and drove south. Beau tapped out the rhythm to tunes from an Alabama CD, and she chewed on a thumbnail.

“They ain’t goin’ to bite you, so quit chewing your fingernails.” He gently pulled her hand down and held it firmly in his.

“I had a hangnail. Besides, how do you know they won’t bite? You’re the fair-haired son. I’m the dark-haired witch who has caused a big family embarrassment.”

“They’ll love you because I do.”

“We’ll see who’s biting their fingernails next week.” She looked out the side window.

Mercy, what was she doing in this truck on the way to the airport, anyway? It was only four hours, but Beau said the baby didn’t need that big of a trip plus a full weekend. So they would drive to Dallas and catch a 30-minute hop over to Shreveport. She should have offered to fly her plane, but she hadn’t told him about that yet, and besides, she really needed the time to calm her frazzled nerves and get ready to meet the horde of Luckadeaus, who were planning a big hoedown party tonight, church tomorrow morning, a family reunion alter church, and then at six o’clock, their plane left for the return to Dallas.

She shut her eyes tightly. It was only for two days. Monday morning everything would be right back to normal. Beau lived in a make-believe world of “everything is wonderful and everyone is going to love everyone else” but that kind of Cinderella syndrome didn’t happen in real life. Even though he had an earring in his pocket it wasn’t a glass slipper and it didn’t mean all of his family was going to drop down on their knees and slobber on her toenails. She wasn’t fair-haired Cinderella with a pumpkin coach and a dozen horses, and at midnight she was still the same old Milli.

“So why did you name our daughter Katy Scarlett?” Beau asked when they were in the sky.

Now, just exactly why did he think of that now? All these weeks and he’d never asked about her choice of names.

“Have you ever read Gone With the Wind? Or seen the movie? It’s old. Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable star in it.”

He shook his head. “Saw a lot of old westerns on late night television, but not that one.”

“It’s not a western. It’s a story of the South after the Civil War, and the main character in it is Katy Scarlett O’Hara. She’s full of spit and vinegar and steps right up in a man’s world and makes a place for herself at a time when it wasn’t the thing to do.”

“So you named our daughter after a character?”

Milli set her jaw and challenged him with flashing brown eyes and drawn eyebrows. “Yes, don’t you think she can fill the shoes?”

“I just think it’s strange.” He didn’t back down from her gaze. The battle lines were drawn and even if he didn’t win, he would have the fun of making up later.

“Strange! I don’t think a fine old southern name like Katy Scarlett is strange,” she huffed.

“Katy Scarlett sounds like a character in a book. It doesn’t sound like a real name. Look at her, Milli. She looks like an Adelida or a Ruth, or something that has stability.”

“Katy Scarlett sounds like a fine southern…”

The baby whipped her little head around and stared up at her mother with big blue eyes. Milli giggled, realizing that every time they said her name she turned to see what they wanted. “Besides, I couldn’t very well name her Beau or Beauetta, now could I? Or even Antoinette, since I didn’t know your first name was Anthony. We weren’t exactly dragging family skeletons out of the closet that night she was conceived. I just picked out what I liked, and you can learn to live with it. Besides, my middle name is Kathryn and Katy is a nickname for that,” she declared.

“I get to name the next one, then,” he said.

“Over my dead body. The next one will be a joint effort from start to finish, and we’ll agree on a name. And, dear hearts, it won’t be Anthony!”

“Anthony was my great-uncle’s name’ Beau said sharply.

“I don’t give a royal two-sided flip if it was the name of the governor of the great state of Texas or if it was the greatest, richest man in the whole state of Louisiana. I’m not having a little boy named Anthony.”

“Then we’ll name our next daughter Toni with an ‘i’ instead of a ‘y.’ They do that now, you know, name girls with boy’s names.” He fanned the fires of her anger just so he could watch her eyes dance. “Amelia Toni Luckadeau. Has a nice ring to it. Then she’ll be named after what I thought your name was and me, too.”

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling of the plane. “It almost worked. You almost made me mad enough to forget that in a few minutes I have to meet all your relatives.”

He smiled and his dimple deepened. “Who says I was joking? But we will be meeting them soon. I’ll give you a few more minutes’ reprieve, though. I told them that no one could come to the airport to get us.

I’ve got a rental car reserved and we’ll drive out to the place by ourselves.”

They drove north and then back west into a sparsely populated area covered with gorgeous, tall pine trees. Beau stole glances at Milli often and noticed she kept straining her head to see the tops of the trees.

“Pretty impressive, aren’t they? Sometimes when I look at the scrub oaks I miss the elegance and grandeur of these pines. Some of them are as old as the land, I’m sure.” He reached across the console and took her hand in his, just about the time Katy leaned forward in her car seat and upchucked everything she’d eaten for two days.

“Good grief!” Milli turned quickly. “The medicine didn’t work this time.”

Beau pulled the van off on the side of the road. “What medicine? Is she all right? Do I need to turn around and go back to the hospital?”

Milli was as calm as a mid-summer breeze. “No. She gets sick every time we fly, but most of the time she does pretty good if I give her the medicine. Grab that box of tissues and the plastic trash sack, and I’ll get this cleaned up in short time. It’s all right, sugar, Mommy is here and we’ll clean you all up in a minute.”

“Katy’s sick,” she said. “Yuck.”

“You must have flown a lot for it to affect her so little,” he said.

“That’s right,” Milli said.

Beau turned around in the seat and watched as she unzipped a suitcase and dragged out a bright red sunsuit with a matching bonnet, a diaper, and a square box of baby wipes. In a few seconds she had Katy all clean, hugged several times, reassured a dozen more times, and back in a clean car seat. Then she cleaned up the mess on the floor with the skill only a mother possesses, and tied the top of the plastic bag holding all the nasty tissues and wipes into a double knot.

Beau was slightly green around the mouth. “Whew, you’re pretty good at that.”

“There’s more to babies than sweet-smelling baby lotion and picking out a cute little name. Katy never has flown well, but she’ll be fine now. Once it’s out of her system, she’s hungry as a bear.”

Beau put his hand over his own mouth and tried to block thoughts of food entering his mouth. “I think I’ll put the sweet-smelling baby lotion on the kids and you can do that cleanup stuff. I’ve always had a weak stomach when it comes to upchucking. And I hate to fly, too.”

“Oh, no, big boy.. You make ‘em, you help with the whole ball of wax. You name one, boy or girl, Anthony or Toni, and I do hereby promise I’ll hide the medicine when we fly. Reason I don’t like that name is because Amanda called you that, like Beau was beneath her dignity. I didn’t like the way she said - it. Now fire this bus up and let’s go eat all that food you promised me. You did say there would be potato salad, baked beans, and enough brisket to feed Sherman’s march to the sea. And did I hear something about coconut cream pie?”

“If you say another word, you vixen, I’m going to do what Katy did.” He checked the rearview mirror and pulled back onto the highway.

“So that’s where she got her weak stomach. We Torres and Jiminez folks can talk about heartworms and castration while we’re eating a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. We wondered why she upchucks so easily.”

“I swear Milli, if you don’t hush…” He covered his mouth again and a funny little gaggy sound crawled out of his sexy mouth.

“Oh, all right - and they say men folks are the stronger sex.”

By the time they reached the ranch his color was almost normal. The faint green around his mouth was subsiding and his face didn’t look as if he’d just awakened from a nightmare to see a ghost curled up on the pillow next to him. When he drove into the driveway, people came out from every corner. Milli had the sudden urge to lock the doors and refuse to get out of the van.

He opened the car door for her first and then took a smiling baby from the car seat. He put his arm around Milli and the three of them went to face the lion’s den.

“Hi, y’all,” Beau said.

“Well, get on up here boy, and let us see this new grandbaby you been braggin’ up all summer.” Joseph reached out a hand to touch the baby’s arm.

“Daddy. This is Milli, and this is our daughter, Miss Katy Scarlett.”

A tall, blonde woman wiped her hands on the bottom of a white apron covering a pale blue shirtwaist dress. She was barefoot and her long, blonde hair was tied back with a blue bandanna.

“Come on in the house, Milli. I’m Joann. We’ve been dying to meet you. All we’ve heard every time we talk to Beau is your name. He said you were beautiful, but he didn’t prepare us for just how pretty you are. Maybe the next baby will have your big, brown eyes. I’d just love to have a grandson with brown eyes. Come inside and meet the Luckadeau women and bring that baby with you. Beau can give her up for a little while.” She ushered Milli into the living room of the long ranch house, through a porch full of men.

Women covered every square inch of the great room, not unlike the living room, den, kitchen, dining room combination at the ranch house where she grew up. Milli knew she’d never, ever remember all the names. But every single one of them smiled at her and the fear that they’d kill her disappeared.

“Do you think she’d let me hold her?” Joann asked.

“Maybe,” Milli said. She was amazed that she wasn’t more selfish with Katy. She’d sure been so when Beau wanted to hold her.

Joann reached out. Katy went right to her. Instantly, Milli knew what Katy was going to look like when she was edging up on sixty years old. Looking at the two of them together was seeing the past and the future standing beside her in the present. Katy would someday be the image of this graceful, barefoot woman. Still, a devilish little thought toyed in her mind. Wouldn’t it be something if someday she and Beau did have a son who was the image of her Mexican father, with coal black hair and the banty rooster attitude that goes right along with short men?

Joann finally found her voice, but it still had a crack in it. She went to the front door. “Look, Grandpa. Granny got to hold the granddaughter first.”

“Yep, but when she sees the pony I bought for her, she’ll like me better,” he teased.

“Pony? Ride, peas. Daddy, ride,” Katy reached for Beau.

“What pony?” Beau asked.

“Oh, a little white Shetland. Them old boys can’t have horses and Miss Katy not have one of her very own. Got her a sidesaddle made, too, but it won’t be finished ‘til next week ‘cause I had the man tool her initials into the leather. KSL. You are meanin’ to change that last name, ain’t you, son?”

A hush fell over the entire room.

“As soon as possible,” Milli answered.

Beau shot her a look that melted her heart.

An hour before the barn dance and party was to begin, Sami, one of the sisters-in-law, showed Milli to a bedroom at the end of a long hallway.

“This is the room Momma said to put you in. The door over there opens into a little nursery. Guess this is where they raised their boys. When a new one was born he would get the nursery, and the older one went to one of the other bedrooms. I bet Katy might appreciate a little nap before Beau, Grandpa, and Granny start showing her off like a prize calf. They’re tickled with this new girl. You don’t know how long this family has waited for a girl. I haven’t got the heart to tell them that the doctor says this is probably a boy I’ve got.” She patted her rounded tummy. “Already eleven rambunctious grandsons. You’re a brave woman to bring that little girl in here amongst them all. All the relatives from here to Georgia and halfway across Texas are coming in to meet you, and oh, yeah, watch out for Jennifer. She’s married to Beau’s cousin, Dennis, and she’s got the morals of an alley cat.”

“Oh?” Milli raised a dark eyebrow.

“Yep, used to date Beau and threw him over for Dennis about two years ago. Dennis got the bad end of the deal. Woman ain’t never been faithful to one man in her life. She grew up with my older sister, and she’s got round heels. If a man breathes on her, she just rolls back on them heels and lands on her back!”