Morning Glory (15 page)

A year later, Ardmore suffered from a huge fire
caused when casing head gas in a railroad car exploded. That's when the rumors began. God was cursing the
whole area for its wicked ways. Clara didn't believe
any such thing. God had a little more on his list than
worrying about whether or not oil was found in Carter
County. But that didn't mean she'd changed her mind
about the oil boom. Not one bit. She still wished for the
old days when Healdton was cotton-growing and cattle producing country and life was slow. When she knew
everyone in the area and hoboes didn't camp out in
tents and roam the streets. A time when her father drove
the family out to the farms on Sunday afternoon and
she played with her two cousins, Tilly and Tucker. On
Wednesdays they came to town with their mothers to
do the week's shopping and would stop at the house
for lunch and visiting. Then later, when the three of
them were in high school they began the poetry club.
Dreamers. Such a silly name, yet it was the one that
stuck instead of the glamorous one they'd chosen. One
that they'd fought about for weeks and yet not a one of
them could remember now. Those days were just words
in a history book now, but it didn't stop her from wanting them to return.

"Thank you, Miss Clara." Danny looked up from
where he'd been sitting. His face was black with soot
and his eyes tired from a whole night of fighting fire.

"You're very welcome," Clara said.

"Olivia around anywhere?"

Clara glanced around and spotted Olivia on the other
side of the tent. "Over there," she nodded.

Danny moved slowly, as if his feet weighed a ton.

"Hello," a voice said at her elbow.

When she turned around she was face to face with
Judith Nelson. Clara's stomach knotted up. Her throat
tightened up until she thought she'd never be able to
swallow again. How she ever muttered a simple
"Hello" was a sheer miracle.

Cecil was suddenly beside her. "Judith?"

She gazed up into his eyes. "You look worn out. Sit
down and I'll pour you something to drink. Are you
hungry?"

"I'd love something to eat and drink, too. What I'd
like even more is sleep. Lord, this is the worse fire I've
ever seen" He followed Judith to a chair and pulled it
close enough that only she could hear his words.

Anger boiled up in Clara. They were flirting and
right out in public. She flipped around, refusing to look
at the sight of them shoulder to shoulder, staring at
each other as if they might begin kissing right there in
the corner of the tent. What kind of woman was Judith
anyway?

Clara made more sandwiches. She poured tea. Then
she realized the rain had stopped so she stepped outside
for a breath of fresh air, only to find that there was no
such thing. Smoke still filled the air. Thank goodness
though, it wasn't as heavy as it had been and the latest
men who came through the tent thought it was finally
under control. Healdton wasn't going to burn to the
ground because of the oil wells.

"Hello," Briar said right at her elbow.

She whipped around to face him. There he was, not a
foot away. And there they were, over his shoulder, not ten
feet away, practically touching. Illegal, indecent passion
flowed thickly through the night air. It was her first meeting with Briar since that kiss that had rocked her world.
And there was his wife and best friend, cheating on him.

Briar frowned and stepped closer. "Are you all
right?"

All color drained from Clara's face and she looked
as if she had just witnessed a killing. "I'm fine," she
gasped.

"You sure don't look fine. You look whooped, lady.
You and these other women have been working all
night and it's almost dawn. You need rest" His heart
sank at the sight of her. Not one detail of his memory
had failed him, but in her tired, fragile state, she was
even more desirable than ever. He wanted to take her in
his arms and kiss her until neither of them could
breathe.

Cecil went back into the tent and Judith fairly well
bounced over to Clara and Briar.

She patted Briar on the shoulder. "Hello. I just found
out it's almost under control. We can go home now?"

"As soon as I get a drink. I'm so parched, I'm spittin' dust. Judith, this is Clara Anderson, the lady who
owns the boarding house where I stayed," Briar introduced them. "Clara, this is Judith."

Judith extended her hand. "I'm so glad to meet you.
We spoke briefly in the tent but it was so busy"

"I'll be back. My throat is parched. I'll get something to drink and then we can go home," Briar said.

Clara's jaw worked in anger and her blue eyes

flashed. "How could you treat him like that?"

"Who? Cecil?"

"No, Briar," Clara exclaimed.

"Briar? What's he got to do with anything?"

Clara's hands knotted up into fists. "You are some
piece of work, lady"

Judith cocked her head to one side. "What is your
problem? What I do with Cecil has nothing to do with
Briar and really it's none of your business."

Clara's fist unwound and she had the hardest time
keeping her open palm from reaching out and slapping
Judith's face. The woman was truly a harlot and deserved
to be whipped publicly and ridden out of town on a rail.

Briar wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as
he came out of the tent. Tension thicker than smoke and
crackling worse than fire filled the air. Clara looked as
if she might actually hit Judith any minute and Judith
had an expression that dared her to do so.

He stopped in his tracks. "What is going on here?"
"She's crazy, Briar. You said nice things about her,
but you were wrong. The woman is a lunatic," Judith
said. "She's the tackiest woman I've ever met"

Briar turned on Clara. "What on earth did you say?"
"Why don't you ask her? Ask her what was going on
not ten feet from you. What was going on in church on
Sunday morning? Ask her when you get her home
what's she's been doing behind your back with Cecil."
Clara's finger quivered when she pointed.

"Why would Briar care about Cecil? He knows about
him," Judith said.

Clara was totally bewildered. "You give your consent
for her to be flirting with another man?"

"Yes, of course, I do. Cecil is my best friend. I'll
gladly share Judith with him," Briar grinned.

Clara shook at the idea of such a sinful way of life.
"You are all horrid!"

"Why?" Judith asked.

"Where is your daughter?" Clara asked bluntly.

"She's at home asleep. We've got a guy who got
hurt on the rig and he's staying at the house with us for
a few days until his leg heals. She's fine, Clara.
Honest. I wouldn't leave my four-year-old at home
alone. But what has my daughter got to do with this?"
Briar said.

"If you've got to ask, then you are more stupid than
this town thinks I am" Clara stormed back toward the
tent.

The giggle began as a faint sound. It grew into a full
fledged guffaw that Clara could scarcely believe could
come out of a woman as pretty and refined as Judith.
Why would a harlot be laughing at her? She turned
quickly to look back and see Judith actually bent over
at the waist, laughing so hard, tears were washing her
face.

Judith pointed but had begun to laugh so hard she
couldn't catch her breath enough to talk. "You
thought ... I just figured it out. You thought-"

"I thought what?" Clara growled.

"You thought-" Judith tried desperately to get it
under control and finish the sentence without breaking
into more laughter.

"What I think is that you are all depraved. It just
proves what I've said all along. These oil wells bring in
nothing but riffraff."

"I. Am. Briar's. Sister." She said each word distinctly and loudly. "I'm not his wife."

"Sister? But they said Judith Nelson in church
and-" Clara stammered.

"You thought Judith was my wife?" Briar frowned.

"Yes, I guess I did." Clara said.

"Then you thought when I ... when we were in the
kitchen ... you... " Briar looked at Clara and then at
Judith, who was grinning. "I'm not Percy. You were
thinking I was just like that man, weren't you?"

"We'll talk about this another time. I'm tired and I'm
going home" Clara turned abruptly and went back into
the tent.

Tilly was at her elbow the moment she was inside.
"You'll talk about what? Fire is under control. We can
pack it up and go home. It's not like the one three years
ago where we took shifts and stayed for days. Rain's
even stopped. Let's go home and get some sleep. I
declare, I could sleep on a bed of rocks or in a mud
puddle, whichever one I found first."

"I'm ready" Clara followed Tilly to her car and
climbed inside, her body glad to sit down, her mind still
a jumble of frazzled, raw emotions.

"So are you going to tell me what happened out there
with Briar and his wife?" Tilly asked as she started up
the engine and drove toward town.

"Judith is his sister," Clara told her flatly.

"Sister! Well, that explains the flirting, doesn't it?
But if she's not his wife, where did the little girl come
from and where's her mother?"

Clara threw up her hands. "I have no idea."

"I'm going home, taking a bath and sleeping all day.
When you figure it out, you can tell me all about it."
Tilly parked in front of the boarding house.

The sun was a sliver of orange on the far horizon
when Clara walked up on the porch. She slid down in
the white rocking chair and sighed. Dulcie arrived and,
without seeing her in the shadows of the porch, opened
the door and soon the aroma of coffee and bacon wafted out the door. Clara stood up, stretched and started
for the door when a car screeched to a halt beside the
curb.

Briar got out, marched up to the porch and stopped
right in front of Clara.

"I don't want to wait until later to talk about this," he
said.

"There's nothing to talk about," she whispered.

"Oh, yes there is. You thought I was married and that
was the reason I left"

"I didn't know why you left without a word," she
said stoically.

"It wasn't because I'm married" He defended himself.

"Then where did Libby come from? Did she just fall
out of the clouds and land on your doorstep?"

"I was married," he said. "Can we sit down and talk
sensibly?"

She claimed the white rocker again. "Sure, go ahead
and talk."

He pulled the brown chair close to hers and sank into
it. "Libby's mother left me the month after she was
born. She went back to New York City. She is an
actress. It's a complicated thing. Lorianne loved acting
and she couldn't live without it."

"But what about Libby?"

"We got married six weeks after we met. I figured
she'd give up acting and she figured I'd give up the oil
business and follow her career. Neither of us were willing to give up anything. It lasted eleven months. She had
Libby ten months to the day after we were married"

Clara couldn't fathom a woman leaving her child.
Not when she'd wanted a family so badly. "Doesn't she
ever see Libby?"

"Like I said, it's complicated. Hard to explain," Briar
said.

"Okay, then why did you leave Healdton without a
word or a note or anything?" Clara asked.

"Because I liked that kiss, Clara. But you are a good
person, a woman with standards and who's never been
married. I'm blundering," he sighed.

"Yes, you are. What's me never being married have
to do with it?"

"I'm divorced. I have a child. But mainly I'm divorced. Good women don't marry divorced men. Not
even in our modern-day world. You'd be the talk of the
town," Briar said.

The corner of her mouth twitched in a smile. "Is that
a proposal?"

"Good Lord, no. I kissed you. I shouldn't have. It
meant nothing. It can mean nothing. You deserve better.
But it's not a proposal"

"Good, because I would have said no. But it's
because I don't know you well enough to marry you,
not because you are divorced. Now go home. The ladies
will be coming down for breakfast in a few minutes. As
you well know, I am the village crazy lady. That should
even scare away divorced men, but I don't want to
explain to the ladies why I'm sitting on the porch talking to you before the sun is up"

"Clara, I should have left a note or something. I
knew when I left that I'd be moving to the area if Cecil
could buy that farm where we got the first gusher. I'm
sorry."

"Apology accepted"

"Have a good day, then. I plan on doing the same if
Libby will let me" he left her sitting alone in the new
light of day.

Clara hugged herself. It hadn't been her reputation as
an oddball that caused Briar to leave without saying a
word. It was because he was divorced. And he said he'd
liked the kiss, too.

The kiss awakened me to realize I'm not an old maid.
It made me start thinking about a life with someone.
Not Briar Nelson. Not an oil man. But someone.

"Why was Briar here?" Olivia asked from the edge
of the lawn.

"It's really none of your business why Briar was
here. What are you doing just coming home?" Clara
asked.

"I was out there with the bunch of you, fighting fire,
too. Was he here to set you straight about Judith? I
asked Danny why Briar put up with her flirting with
Cecil and he told me that Briar is her brother, not her
husband. Can you believe that? Here I was thinking
Cecil had thrown me away for a married woman he
could never have. I feel much better now. Of course,
he'd go for the president of the company's sister before
he would a mere bank teller. Anyway, I thought you
ought to know that Judith is just a gold digger, not a
wife. So Briar is free if you want to go after him
again."

"Again! I never went after him the first time."

"Oh, come on, Clara. A blind man could see that you
were attracted to each other when he was here before. I
smell bacon and coffee and I'm starving. I'm going to
breakfast, and thank goodness it's Saturday and I don't
have to work. I'm sleeping until supper and going
dancing with Danny."