Lucky In Love (11 page)

Beau took her bonnet off. “This is Miss Katy. Tell me, Rosa, what do you think? Does she look more like me or Milli?”

Rosa’s grin faded. She’d heard about Katy from Jim and Mary, and she knew the child was fatherless, but standing on the floor looking up at her was the exact image of Beau. He and Milli only met two weeks ago, so that had to be impossible. Her head began to swim as she searched for words in her first-time-ever speechless mind. Katy couldn’t have looked more like a Luckadeau if they’d cloned her, like Rosa had read about what they were doing with sheep.

Milli draped her arm around the woman’s shoulder. “That’s not a question you have to answer. Come on and let me help you put dinner on the table. We’re so hungry we could eat the south end of a northbound heifer right now. And besides, Beau ought to be horsewhipped for putting you on the spot like that. Beau, take Katy out to the horse barn and show her the horses, and call Buster in to dinner. Be back here in ten minutes flat.”

Beau and Katy smiled at the same time, showing off a deep dimple on the left side. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry I scared you like that, Rosa.”

Rosa shook her head in disbelief. “Oh, my. It is really his baby, isn’t it?”

“Of course, she’s mine. And now we’re going out to the barn and see if Buster can tell which one of us she looks like.”

Rosa plopped down in a kitchen chair and looked up at her for answers. “What is going on, Miss Milli?”

Milli explained as briefly and honestly as she could in as few words as possible, then looked around at the dinner preparations. “I see you’ve got the table set. Can I help you put the food in serving bowls?”

Buster stood in the door of the horse barn where he’d been for the past fifteen minutes. Amanda had knocked on the door, all dolled up in a western get-up, looking like the cat what caught the sparrow. She had this smile on her face until Buster answered the door, then she sneered at him like she always did and rudely asked where Anthony was. The man had never gone by Anthony in his whole life. What was the matter with plain old Beau?

“Well, he’s gone off to the church over in Ringling With the Torres family,” he had answered.

“What in the hell is he doing going to that podunk place? He knows we attend church in Ardmore. What’s the matter with that man?”

When Buster didn’t offer any answers, she opened the screen door and stared at him with pure venom. “Old man, you better be putting out the word that you’re looking for a job. I’m marrying him before the Summer is out and the first change I’m making on this ranch is your removal. You and that wife of yours are going to be fired and gone before we even get back from our honeymoon. So start deciding what you’re going to pack in your rattletrap truck, because your days are numbered.”

“We’ll see,” was all he had said as he stepped out the door and around her.

She had eased herself down on the porch swing and glared at him as he went to the horse barn and watched her swing on the porch, wishing all the time he had the nerve to load a gun, shoot her between the eyes, and do the world a tremendous favor. The best thing she could ever do was lay down and die, but he couldn’t help matters along no matter how much he disliked the crude woman. He couldn’t disgrace his children and Rosa by committing murder, even if he might have to go to hell for just thinking about it. He’d have to go to confession next week for sure. Then Beau had driven up, and one minute Amanda was talking, and the next Milli had knocked the hell out of her and she was on her back on the ground. Buster was so excited he didn’t know whether to wind his fanny or scratch his watch when he saw her spin out of the driveway.

Now, Beau was walking out across the lawn, carrying Milli’s little girl he’d heard about from Slim over at the Lazy Z.

“Mornin’,” Buster nodded. “Guess Miss Milli set that woman straight.”

“Yep. Don’t ever call Milli a bitch. She drew a gun on me when I called her a bitch, but man, she really gets hot under the collar when someone calls her that more than once. I guess Amanda won’t be back around here. Miss Katy, I want you to meet Buster. He’s my right hand around here, and you’ll really like him when you get to know him.”

Katy eyed Buster with the innocence of a baby, and Buster eyed her with the wisdom of the sages. Katy saw a nice man who could be trusted, and Buster’s old brown eyes widened as he looked from Katy to Beau and back again. An eerie feeling crawled down his arms and made the gray hair on the back of his neck prickle. This was Milli’s child and she had Beau’s eyes, his hair, even his dimple when she smiled at the horses.

“Horsey. Ride peas,” she said.

“Cat got your tongue?” Beau teased.

Buster let a gush of air escape from his lungs. “Just how did this happen, son?”

“Way most babies happen, Buster. I met Milli at the wedding down in Texarkana two years ago this July. Remember the dream girl I’ve talked about ever since? Well, we weren’t real careful, and I didn’t know about Katy until today. Think she looks like me?”

“Lord, son, if you’d have cloned yourself and started all over as a baby girl, it wouldn’t look as much like you as that child. Now, just what do you intend to do about all this?” Buster talked to him and continued to stare at Katy.

“Don’t know, yet. Evidently what Milli and I do best is fight and make a beautiful baby girl. Don’t know if the two of us could live together every day and not tear a ranch down around our ears. Lord, she’s bullheaded,” Beau said.

“And you’re not?” Buster snapped. “Been tryin’ to tell you about that Amanda for months, but would you listen? Noooo! Wouldn’t hear a word I said.”

Beau hugged Katy close to him, taking in the sweet smell of baby lotion. “I’m listening now. Think maybe we’d better go in for dinner. Milli was helping Rosa get it on the table, and we don’t want them two women mad at us, do we?”

“You got that right.”

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

ROSA FINALLY FOUND HER TONGUE. “My, OH, MY, DON’T the world look brighter this day. Does Hilda know? How about Slim?”

“I don’t think so, and don’t you dare tell them,” Milli suddenly had a vision of all the people standing in a line she’d have to deal with and it made her weary just thinking about it. Hilda would give her a sound dressingdown and then she and Granny would be in the corner, their heads together making big plans about the future.

“Well, it does look brighter,” Rosa declared. “Me and Buster were scared we’d be kicked off the ranch. That woman told Buster just a few minutes ago the first thing she was doing was getting rid of us. Would have been a hard choice for Beau, but if she was his wife, and all…”

“Oh, that’s where Beau would have held the line, I’m sure. Besides I don’t know if the world is all that much better today or not, Rosa. Seems to me like that the world has fallen down around my ears in the last twenty-four hours and I’ve completely lost control. I don’t quite know what to do to put it back together again. One day it’s just me and Katy on Poppy’s ranch, checking cattle, living a normal life, and the next day Beau is no longer engaged, he finds out about Katy, and everything is wild and crazy.”

Rosa scooped up fried potatoes into a bowl and set it on the table. “You did say that Mary and Jim know about all this?”

“I told them just last night. I tried to get out of it. If I’d just known about Alice - but Granny didn’t ever mention it when we talked on the phone. Granny knew about Katy, or at least had some real strong ideas, a few weeks ago. I wasn’t going to tell Beau. I’m still not sure how he figured it out. We went to church and I forgot my purse and when I got back to the truck, he’d put two and two together.”

“Well, it’s about time. He mentioned Katy when he came home the other night. Said he’d pushed her around in her stroller while you shopped and went on and on about her pretty eyes. Then Amanda said something about not wanting children about that time and me and Buster could tell it upset him. Seemed like he was worrying over things like a hound dog worries a ham bone, but he’s a Luckadeau, and even if it meant living a miserable life, he wouldn’t have gone back on his word.”

The last sentence stuck in Milli’s mind. The Luckadeau pride would have kept him in an engagement he wasn’t sure about. The Luckadeau pride would have made him marry the woman even when he’d discovered what she really was. The Luckadeau pride would make him marry her so his child wouldn’t be tagged a bastard. But Milli wanted a man to love her. Simply. Completely. For life. Not because of his inherited pride.

How would she ever know the difference?

“We’re hungry,” Beau called from the front door. “Katy says she wants a corn cob, Rosa. Buster, could you could find us that old high chair Aunt Alice had out on the back porch? The wood one I used to sit in when the folks brought us kids to visit.”

Buster couldn’t get that silly grin off his face no matter how hard he tried. “Reckon I could. Give me two minutes to fetch it and wipe the dust off, and we’ll set right up at the table.”

Rosa beamed as she stared unabashedly at Katy in Beau’s arms. Not once had Amanda ever come in and helped Rosa put the dinner on the table. As a matter of fact, she’d never eaten in the ranch house before. Not that Beau hadn’t invited her, but she always had an excuse. Suddenly, Rosa heard wedding bells and saw wedding dresses and bridal bouquets and she was happy instead of sad. Buster whistled as he used his red handkerchief to dust off the high chair. Beau looked as if he’d just caught cloud nine on its way to heaven.

Milli wanted to hit something or else sit down and cry. She didn’t want Katy to sit in the family high chair that her daddy had used. Her daddy. She didn’t want Katy to have a daddy. Not even if it was Beau, who was quite enamored with her. Milli didn’t want to share her child. What she wanted to do was run and never look back until she was safely out of southern Oklahoma.

Milli looked around the bedroom where she and Katy were supposed to change into shorts and T-shirts. A king-sized four-poster bed made of burled oak took up most of the south wall and a matching dresser with a triple mirror the north one. The lone star handmade quilt done in shades of blue served as a bedspread. As a child, she remembered playing around on the floor at the ranch with fabric scraps while Alice and her grandmother lowered an old quilting frame from the ceiling and talked ranching business while their needles flew in and out. She wondered if this was one of the ones they had worked on back then.

Why hadn’t she even asked about Alice in the past two years? If she would have simply asked how she was faring, then Granny would have told her all about the new owner at the Bar M and probably even mentioned his name. But hindsight is the only 20/20 vision and it was too late to go back now.

She removed Katy’s Sunday romper and dressed her in shorts and a soft T-shirt. “Well, baby girl, this has already been a day. Next thing you know, he’ll be wanting you to call him daddy, but that ain’t happening today. I’ve had enough turmoil for one day.”

“Daddy, daddy, daddy,” Katy picked up on the word immediately.

A tear formed on Milli’s lashes and traveled down her cheek, streaking her makeup. Then another one hung there a while and in seconds she was wiping away the streams as they dripped off her jawbone. “Why, oh why, didn’t we stay in Hereford?”

Beau stopped long enough to look in the mirror to see if there was a change in his face since morning. Surely fatherhood would add a wrinkle around his eyes, but the grinning fool looking back at him didn’t look so very different, except there was a glitter in his eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday. Even if he and Milli couldn’t ever get past the fighting stage and even if she didn’t feel that prickly feeling in her heart like he did when their hands touched, at least he had a child to carry on the Luckadeau name. Someone to run the Bar M when his time on earth had ceased. It didn’t matter now if he was always unlucky in love. Women could come and go in his life and he wouldn’t have to put up with one whining moment just to get an heir.

He brushed his hair back one more time. But oh, how wonderful it would be if Milli could be as attracted to me as Jam to her.

The sun was high in the sky and the bank thermometer said it was a hundred degrees when they went through downtown Sulphur. He chose a spot close to the shallow part of the creek running through Chickasaw National Recreation Area, formerly known as Platt National Park.

“We’ll spread the blanket right here to stake out our claim. We’ll put the chairs right out in the middle of the water where Mommy and Daddy will sit with their feet in the water and watch Katy play,” Beau said.

Milli’s eyebrows shot up. “Daddy?”

“And what else should I call myself? I’m not Uncle Beau. I’m Daddy, and she can start learning that today.”

He jerked his T-shirt over his head, picked up two folding lawn chairs from the back of the truck, and set them in the middle of the shallow creek. “Would you please put her little bathing suit on her? That diaper is going to draw up enough water to make her bottom heavy. And take your sandals off. Wade right out here when you get her ready. The water isn’t cold. Before we leave, I’ll take you over to little Niagara. Now, that’s too cold for our baby to play in, but it’s a pretty sight.”

Milli peeled off her shirt and shorts, leaving them in a heap on the blanket. She tugged at the bottom of her bright red, two-piece bathing suit, trying to pull it up above the faint white lines left from stretch marks. She frowned when Beau whistled appreciatively and shot him a hateful look. So he thought he could just pop right into this fatherhood role and be “Daddy,” did he? Well, Katy Scarlett was her daughter. Rosa and Granny already had wedding bells in their eyes, but Milli damn sure didn’t see anything but arguments in the future. The biggest one yet was probably coming on in the next five minutes.

She undressed Katy and put a pink and white polka-dotted swimsuit on her while she squealed and pointed toward the water. When Milli dipped her toes in the water, Katy shrieked and wanted more.

“Put her down and give her that plastic cup. She’ll entertain herself for hours with it.”

She held the baby close to her heart. “Don’t be telling me what to do,”

“What got in your craw? For cryin’ out loud, Milli. The baby wants down. Don’t hold her so tight. Let her play. That’s the whole reason we’re out here.”

“Of course it is,” Milli shot right back. “So Beau can be a daddy.”

“Is that what your problem is? Got a little green jealousy sticking in your craw?”

“A lot of it.”

She eased Katy into the water and handed her a cup. Katy filled it with water and threw it on Beau’s bare legs and he yelped, pretending to be freezing. She giggled and threw more and the game was on. The dimple in her cheek deepened and so did his. Her blue eyes twinkled and so did his. Milli was losing control faster than a shooting star and it scared her senseless.

“I’m not ready to share her, Beau. I’m not ready for you to tell me what to do. I’m not ready for a relationship like everyone is throwing me into. I feel like Daniel in the lion’s den. I’m independent and I intend to stay this way. It’s what has kept me going during rough times and the whole bunch of you are going to have to back down and let me have some breathing room. I know how to take care of her. I’ve been doing it for over a year now, and I’ve managed fairly well without any input from you.”

“Hey, don’t be selfish. I’m not going to grab her up and run off with her. I just want to be part of her life, too. Now look at the fishes, Katy. See the little minnows. Here, baby, set the bucket right here and Daddy will show you how to put gravel in it.”

“I mean it, Beau,” Milli’s tone caused him to leave Katy to her own games and look into Milli’s eyes.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Sharing Katy isn’t something I want to do right now. I think what we better do is fly back home and forget about the rest of the summer. Slim can do the chores and Poppy is getting along pretty well.”

“It isn’t going to be any easier in six months or a year or even ten years, Milli. I’m her father. I’m willing and eager to acknowledge that, even if we have to go our separate ways. She will always be mine and I want her birth certificate amended with my name on it. She’s going to inherit the Bar M someday and -”

“But like I told you. She doesn’t have to. What if I don’t want her to be a Luckadeau? She’s done just fine as a Torres this long. What if I don’t want her to inherit the ranch? Did I lose all my rights this morning when You realized she was your child?”

“No, matter of fact you didn’t lose any of your rights, Milli. But I have rights, too. She’s mine as well as yours. And I want to share in her life. I want her to have her rightful inheritance. I want her to know the Bar M and learn to run it just like you can run Jim’s ranch without even thinking about it. I want her to know the joy of seeing a newborn calf or even pulling one like you do so expertly. There’s things I want, too, and I’m entitled to them because I’m her father.”

“But can’t we just ease into it?”

He cocked his head off to one side. She was as beautiful in her red two-piece bathing suit as she’d been in the off-white lace dress. He could see a couple of faint stretch marks peeping out over the top of the bottoms and wished he could have been there through the pregnancy. She’d never been just a one-night stand to him. Not in the beginning. Not one day since. He’d looked across a crowded room and found an angel. His aching heart had been soothed when they’d made love. His soul had found its mate that night, and he’d been in love with her for two years.

“No, I don’t think we can. We might try to ease into a relationship between the two of us, but Katy is something different. She’s yours and mine and we’ll just have to get used to the fact that we both have to share. I’m damn sure not looking forward to the end of summer when you take her back to Texas, and I’ve only known her a few hours. I can’t imagine the way this old cowboy’s heart will break when I have to watch her leave with you. And it’ll break every time I have to give her back, but at least I’ll have her for a little while each year.”

“I can’t think about that right now. It scares the hell out of me that someday she’ll call me from the Bar M and tell me she wants to live with you and not come home. And that’s only the thoughts I’ve got now. I can’t imagine how many more will come plaguing me by the time we get home tonight. Beau, what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to play right here until Katy gets bored, then we’ll go find something else to entertain her, because today we’ve both got her and we’ll think about that and not tomorrow.”

“Not about today or even Katy. About us.”

“I’ve been in love with you for two years, and I fell in love with Katy this morning before I even realized she was mine. I know what I’d like to do about us. Now what would you like to do?”

“Beau, you’ve been in love with a woman you created out of the ashes of a disastrous night. You could make her think or say or do anything you dreamed, because she wasn’t there. I’m stubborn. I say what I think and I’m not some sweet little angel on a puff of smoke who sugar coats everything. I don’t know if I love you. I don’t even know if I like you. We’ve got a child and yet you’ve never even courted me, except last night at a dance. And then you were evidently upset because you’d just been ditched by Amanda and needed someone to help you make it through the night.”

“Give me the summer, Milli. I’ll court you, if that’s what you want, and at the end of the summer we’ll talk about what kind of plans we can make as far as Katy is concerned. That fair enough?”

She thought about it for a while. A whole summer to worry with the issue, when she usually didn’t think about anything more than thirty minutes, sometimes not even thirty seconds. Like the issue with Amanda - she’d settled it right then and there beside the truck. If Beau hadn’t liked the way she took care of it, she would have taken Katy and walked back to the Lazy Z. How could she spend a whole summer worrying about the outcome, and yet, what a summer it would be. The thought of Beau actually courting her took her breath away. What other choice did she have? He knew about Katy now and so did lots of other people, and he did have his rights as a father, whether it broke her heart or not. But would he be courting Milli Torres as a woman, or Milli Torres as the mother of his child?