Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything (7 page)

“So she does inherit everything!”

Ten continued as if she hadn't interrupted. “Someone from our office will stop by every week to make sure everything's up to snuff. The house, the yard, the pool—”

“I won't do it!” Mae Mae burst out. “Nobody can force me to stay here and work for a dog! Surely I get something if I pack my suitcase and leave right now?”

“Yes, indeed,” Ten said. “You can walk out the door this afternoon, Mae Mae, and I'll write you a check for fifty thousand dollars—the amount Honeybelle listed right here in her will. It's a generous sum.”

“But,” Mr. Carver said hesitantly, “if we stay for a year? And find Miss Ruffles a good home? How much do we get?”

“If Miss Ruffles is happily settled after a year, you'll get a million dollars each.”

“A…?” I was sure I'd heard wrong. Mae Mae's mouth opened, but nothing came out. Mr. Carver looked as if he'd been struck by lightning.

“For the year, you'll continue to receive your current salary, and you'll be allowed to live here in this house as you always have. After a year, you get a million dollars. Each.”

Nobody breathed. A million dollars. A
million.

I was glad to be sitting down. My insides were doing the same thing they had when I was a child and my mother roughly pushed me off onto a jungle zip line. Flying weightless over a bottomless chasm, I was terrified—clutching the harness and panic-stricken to be so alone and out of control, but strangely, wildly ecstatic by the time I landed.

Mr. Carver gave a funny little squeak, and with one glance at his slack face I knew he was ill. I found myself on my feet and gently pressing his head down to his knees. “Steady there, Mr. Carver.” I knelt beside him and patted his back. “You okay?”

“A million. A million dollars,” he wheezed.

Ten stood up to help me steady Mr. Carver in his chair. In a moment, the old man struggled up, looking stunned. Ten sat back down, but kept a wary eye on Mr. Carver.

We all stayed like that while the news sank in. Mae Mae was breathing like a locomotive. For once, she wasn't angry, just flabbergasted. We had all known Honeybelle was rich. But we hadn't realized exactly how rich until that moment.

Mr. Carver swayed dizzily his chair. And I stayed on the floor so I wouldn't have so far to go if I fell over from the shock.

The stillness was broken by Miss Ruffles herself. She scampered across the kitchen and came back to me. She dropped something on the floor and yipped. Her face was covered with flour, and I saw she had managed to open a cupboard again. It had been one of her favorite tricks while Honeybelle was alive—stealing things from kitchen cupboards. The package on the floor in front of me was a bag of semisweet chocolate chips. She yipped again, then sat down, wagging her stub and smiling as if she'd been in on the joke all along.

With sudden concern for Miss Ruffles, Mr. Carver cried, “Chocolate's poison for dogs! Sunny, grab that away from her!”

Miss Ruffles had already surrendered the chocolate, but I picked it up anyway. “You're going to make this as hard as possible,” I said to her, “aren't you?”

Miss Ruffles gave me a panting smile. Her eyes sparkled as if she approved of what Honeybelle had in mind for us. To her, it was all one big, fun shenanigan.

To Ten, I said, “You said something about the death certificate? It's missing?”

“I don't think it's missing. I'm just not experienced enough to find it yet.”

“When you find it, will that change anything?”

“Not a thing. Y'all take care of Miss Ruffles, y'all get a million dollars each.”

“I don't have to do this,” Mae Mae said flatly. “I don't have to look after no dog, no sir. I'll take my share this minute, Ten. You can write me that check right now.” She slapped her hand on the table as if she expected the money to materialize on the spot.

“Yes, ma'am. No problem,” Ten replied easily. “But a million dollars is a lot to walk away from. If you stick around, you won't have to make any more fancy lunches and tea parties for Honeybelle. Just make your own meals and keep the place tidy. Take it easy for a year, and you'll be a rich woman.”

“I've got my dignity,” she shot back. “People will laugh at me. Already the man that delivers barbecue from the Bum Steer makes fun of me for working in a kitchen.”

“At least your kitchen has a roof over it,” Ten said, “and you're not breathing hickory smoke all day. You're tough enough to handle a little ribbing. For a million dollars, you can handle a lot. What about you, Carver?”

Mr. Carver still looked shell-shocked. “I don't know,” he said faintly. “This isn't what I expected. I thought if we were lucky Honeybelle would give me enough to maybe move to Austin or Nashville. Somewhere I can listen to music.”

“Wait a year,” Ten counseled, “and you can have a whole band to yourself, anywhere you want.”

“What happens if something goes wrong?” I asked. “What if Miss Ruffles chokes on a bone?”

“Or gets into those pills of hers,” Mae Mae said. “There was the day she ate too many of her vitamins and had to go to the vet to get her stomach pumped.”

“She was real trouble before Miss McKillip came,” Mr. Carver said to Ten. “Once she ran away from Honeybelle and was almost run over by a car. What if that happens again? What if she dies by accident and it's not our fault?”

“Then you all lose everything,” Ten said solemnly.

The doorbell chimed in the front of the house. The sound rolled back to the kitchen, and Miss Ruffles let out her threatening bark. She dashed to the swinging door. She scratched it and then began to dig at the floor as if she could excavate her way out of the kitchen. I reached over and grabbed her collar. She fought me as I dragged her back to the table. I held her fast, but she wriggled in my arms.

“That'll be Hut Junior and the family.” Mae Mae seemed unable to stand up yet. “Do they know about this? About us?”

“No, ma'am,” Ten said. “I figured I'd tell y'all first so you'd be prepared when they hear the news.”

“They're not getting anything from Honeybelle?” I asked.

“A little something,” Ten said. “A big something, actually, because Honeybelle was a wealthy woman. Wealthier than most of us knew. But they won't get this house, not now, anyway, and not as big a share of her money as they expected. Hut Junior doesn't even get the oil and gas company—not yet. A lot of other people in town will eventually receive bequests or have their loans forgiven. Just not until Miss Ruffles is settled. And some were hoping for their money a lot sooner.”

“The university,” Mr. Carver guessed. “They want that new stadium something terrible.”

Ten nodded. “There's a lot of money at stake for a lot of people, but Honeybelle has tied it all up in Miss Ruffles for the moment. I can't lie. It could get ugly around here. There might even be a lawsuit. Or several. But the three of you don't have to do a thing except look after Miss Ruffles and keep up the house like you've been doing.”

He tried to sound soothing, but I could see Mae Mae and Mr. Carver were unsettled—bordering on semihysterical. The doorbell chimed again, prompting Mr. Carver to scramble up from the table. He reached for his blue coat and put it on.

“I'll get the door.” He tried to regain his professional composure, but his hands were shaking too hard for him to fasten his buttons, so he gave up. “Mae Mae, put the refreshments out. Sunny, take that dog outside and keep her occupied until the family is gone.”

We got busy doing as he said. I pulled the leash from my pocket and made a grab for the dog's collar. Mr. Carver disappeared out of the kitchen, unsteadily heading for the front door. Muttering to herself, Mae Mae lumbered to the refrigerator and pulled out a decorative plate with a bright green molded salad jiggling on it, surrounded by a garnish of grapes and lemon peel. She pushed through the swinging door and carried it out to the dining room.

I snapped the leash on Miss Ruffles and dampened a paper towel at the sink to wipe the flour from her face.

As I bent over the dog, Ten said, “You seem pretty calm about this windfall, Jane Eyre.”

“The shock hasn't set in yet,” I replied, noting that my hands weren't exactly steady.

“Aren't you surprised? To be getting a million dollars from a woman you barely knew?”

“I'm completely stunned,” I admitted, dropping the paper towel into the trash.

“To be honest,” Ten drawled, “we're a mite surprised ourselves, down at the office. Tell me, how did you get this job in the first place?”

“I interviewed, and Honeybelle hired me.”

He shook his head, not believing. “How come Honeybelle hired you and not one of the local girls who applied for the job? Girls she already knew?”

“Because I was better qualified, I guess. I've worked as an assistant for many people at colleges.”

He met my gaze steadily, his face less friendly than before. Probably taking in the cheap thrift-shop dress and the butterfly locket my mother had given me ages ago—nothing valuable, really, but it reminded me of her, and how the wings of a butterfly could be the beginning of a hurricane. Next to the young ladies he had grown up with, I was probably colorless, shapeless. A sunburned nose in the land of beautiful southern belles.

He said, “You came all the way to Texas to be a governess for a dog.”

“That's not exactly how it happened. I was already here. I had a job at the university, but my boss was fired. And I was hired to be Honeybelle's personal secretary, not just to look after Miss Ruffles. The job happened to evolve that way. Honeybelle had no complaints about my work while she was alive.”

“Here's the thing,” Ten said. “If the family decides to sue Mr. Carver or Mae Mae, I can make a good case on their behalf. But you? Your story is mighty suspicious.”

Miss Ruffles looked from my face to Ten's and back again, aware of the tension between us. I knew she was wondering if she should bite him. I put my hand on her head to quiet her nerves. She trembled with the effort of holding still.

Miss Ruffles wasn't the only one upset. I struggled to control my voice as I said, “I'm not the only suspicious part of this story. Your father and grandfather—Honeybelle went to their office almost every day for the last two weeks. They were rewriting her will, weren't they?”

“That's none of your—”

“All I'm saying is, if she rewrote it and died almost right away—doesn't that make you wonder what was going on in Honeybelle's life?”

He frowned. “What was going on?”

I felt myself getting emotional. I didn't want to tell him what Honeybelle had said about being murdered. I'd sound silly if I blurted out the idea that maybe she had made quick arrangements about Miss Ruffles because she had seen some kind of threat building against her. But the man's “bumping off” wisecrack after the funeral was suddenly jumbled up in my mind with
a million dollars, a million dollars!
And I was thinking Honeybelle's death hadn't been natural at all. I shoved that thought back down where it belonged and heard myself say instead, “A lot was going on. There was a big feud at the garden club meeting. Honeybelle felt all her friends abandoned her. And the next thing you know, the college president was bleeding on her rug. And then she dies—a perfectly healthy woman has a heart attack out of the blue—and her nurse takes off like … like there's a fire somewhere.” I saw him bite back a smile and decided not to mention the squabble over a wedding and family members measuring the house to move in practically before the funeral music faded. Maybe this kind of conflict was business as usual in Texas, but it felt like one big dangerous carnival ride to me. Plus
a million dollars, a million dollars!
I tried to get a grip and failed. “Now her new lawyer shows up on a horse! It's just … it was very complicated around here.”

“Honeybelle was a smart lady. She could handle complicated,” Ten said. “But she was a soft touch, too. She kept those two old folks around the house way past their expiration dates just because. A lot of people used that softness for their own profit. Maybe you did, too.”

“No,” I said firmly, stubbornly. “Not me. I liked and respected Honeybelle. I'd return everything she's already paid me to have her back.”

“That's big talk.”

“She was a wonderful person.” A lot like my mother, I almost said.

He eyed me a while longer, absorbing the tumult of emotions that surely showed on my face. He must have drawn a conclusion, because he finally said, “That's good to hear. Because if you turn out to be a con artist who played a nice lady like a deck of cards, you're going to be in a heap of trouble.” All of his earlier pleasantness evaporated, he said, “From now on, a lot of people are going to be watching you. Me included.”

 

CHAPTER FIVE

You tell a gelding. Ask a stud. Discuss it with a mare. And pray to God Almighty if it's a pony.

—HORSEMAN'S ADVICE

My mother used to say that field research was a lot like camping. You could have clean pants or dry pants, but you couldn't have both. That's how I felt as I wrestled Miss Ruffles outside, where she promptly ran away and tried to dig under the gate to get to Ten Tennyson's horse. By the time I reached her, she had a sizable hole started and was covered in dirt. Unimpressed, Hondo dozed. And I could have Honeybelle alive or
a million dollars, a million dollars!
But not both.

I refilled the hole as best I could, glad to have something to do while I thought about Ten's threat.

And a million dollars
. A million.
It was hard to think about anything else with that number whirling around in my head.