Personal Assets (Texas Nights) (30 page)

“Okay.” Allie’s stomach jumped at his request. Did he want to talk about Friday night? About what she’d said?

She kept herself busy chatting with the picnickers, from the sheriff to the mortician. She mmm-hmmed and oh-reallyed her way through more than one story about grandchildren and gout.

Eventually Emmalee approached her, and Allie hugged the birthday girl. “Independence Day and your birthday rolled into one. I don’t know any woman who deserves to live her life the way she wants more than you.”

“I sure hope so.” Emmalee shot a look over Allie’s shoulder, which meant Charlie Pfeiffer was behind her somewhere. “Eden tells me it’s time to cut the cake. Can you help gather everyone together?”

“Only if you’ll give me the inside scoop on the flavor.”

“Italian cream cake.”

“I’ll round them up ASAP.”

* * *

“...happy birthday, dear Emmalee-ee. Happy birthday to you.”

Cameron watched his mom blow out the twelve candles Eden had arranged in a group of five and seven on top of the huge cake.

His mom clapped her hands and said to the people in the park, “Thank you for sharing your July Fourth celebration with me.”

From the crowd someone shouted, “I’ll come to any party where you and Eden are providing the food.”

She cut into the cake and placed portions on little paper plates until Eden scooted her aside and said, “Enough of that. It’s your birthday. I’ll serve.”

Eyes bright and smile wide, his mom chatted with friends gathered around her. She looked happy, confident. Like she’d finally come into her own. Allie really had made a difference in her life. Someone called her name, and she turned. Then she took a piece of cake from her plate and held it to someone’s mouth, like that thing people did at wedding receptions. The man standing in front of him stepped aside, and he saw her slide another piece into...Charlie’s mouth? Cameron’s stomach rolled the way it had that time he and Jamie’d gone deep-sea fishing. A trip he never intended to make again.

This was the man his mother was seeing? He’d liked Charlie, trusted him. And now he had his hands on Cameron’s car
and
his mom.

Fabric brushed his arm, and he smelled Allie’s cinnamon scent.

“This is who...?” he asked.

“They look good together, don’t they?” Allie smiled. How could she smile at a time like this? “Want some cake?”

“I don’t think I can eat right now.”

She scrutinized his face. “This—” she gestured to his mom and Charlie, “—doesn’t bother you, does it?”

If the whirlpool in his stomach was anything to judge by, then he didn’t think he was a hundred percent okay with this. “I’m not sure.”

“You knew your mom was seeing someone.”

“Yeah. But there’s knowing, and then there’s
knowing.
” He turned away, couldn’t handle another cake feeding.

Allie grabbed his biceps and whirled him back around. “Look at her. She’s happy. Charlie is a good guy and you know he’ll be good to her.” She palmed his cheek. “And, Cameron, he loves your mother.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. If Charlie didn’t treat his mom right, Cameron would not only take a sledgehammer to his GTO, but him as well. At that moment, the older man looked up and met Cameron’s stare. Charlie smiled and sheltered Cameron’s mom with an arm around her shoulders.

A flash of loss stabbed at his gut and then ebbed. He nodded once, acknowledging the new man in his mom’s life.

* * *

Emmalee’s birthday cake was delicious, but right now it sat in Charlie’s stomach like a bunch of golf balls at the bottom of a water hazard. He shoved his hand into his front pocket, touched his good luck charm.

“Em, wanna take a little walk? Work off that cake?”

She had a dab of white frosting at the corner of her mouth. He wanted to kiss it away. Would she object since she’d fed him cake in front of the whole town? The way Cameron glared at him from the crowd, he’d object, possibly with his fists.

Ah, to be young and full of vinegar and piss again.

“You read my mind. But I have to be back to work a booth in twenty minutes.” She wore a sleeveless print top that showed off her upper assets and flowed around her hips but didn’t disguise how her cropped pants hugged her rear end.

Charlie’s palms tingled. He risked taking her hand, and she didn’t pull away. That was a promising sign.

They strolled around the park’s perimeter, while most of the action was happening in the center near the main gazebo. Charlie took deliberate breaths, but his heart was still flopping every which way. He led Emmalee to a bench shaded by an oak with branches swooping low to the ground, making a natural arbor. It didn’t get any better than this. Well, unless he waited six months and prayed for cold weather, then he could do this in front of a fireplace and—

Charlie
,
stop all this namby-pamby garbage.
You know that old saying:
you snooze
,
you lose.
Do you really want to lose Emmalee?

Vivian again. Lord, he’d loved that woman with everything in him, but if she didn’t shut up, he was going to lose his mind.

“I thought this was supposed to be exercise,” Emmalee said.

Hell, if his heart rate spiked any higher, they’d be hot-footing it to the ER. “I’ve always thought this was a pretty spot, with the trees and the old Kilgore house across the way.”

Emmalee’s brows rose but she settled onto the bench. “It does feel good to get off my feet.” She patted the wood. “Don’t you want to sit?”

He couldn’t. If he did, he’d never get this out. Instead, he paced around the bench.

Emmalee craned her neck to watch him as he circled her. “Charlie, tell me what’s got you so riled up.”

He grasped a branch above him hard enough the bark bit into his palm. “I think we’ve come a long way since that night at Rosa’s, don’t you?”

“Well, I’m not an old ninny running up my front walk now.”

“You’ve never been an old ninny.” He squeezed once and released the branch. He could do this. “Hell, Em, I’m no good at this, but I’ll do my best.” He pulled the velvet box from his pocket and hunkered down on one knee. He flipped open the lid to reveal a platinum-set two-carat square diamond. “Emmalee Wright, will you marry me?”

Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened. Closed. Somehow telling a woman she looked like a hooked bass in the middle of a marriage proposal didn’t seem like a great idea. Finally, she said, “This is a surprise.”

A surprise? What did she think they’d been doing together, playing tiddlywinks? “If you don’t like the ring, we can—”

“No, it’s beautiful.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Charlie, do you realize we only started dating two weeks ago, less than that if you don’t count dinner at Rosa’s.”

“We’ve known each other forever, and Em, I want a woman in my house again. In my bed.”

She jumped up, strode away a couple steps and turned back. “I guess you want her in the kitchen and the laundry room too.”

“Well...”

“Charlie, you’ve damn well been picking up your own socks and nuking your own dinner since Vivian died. Just because we like each other, have a little fun together, do you think it means I want to cook and clean for you for the rest of my life?” She took a breath, and he forced himself to stay focused on her face and not her breasts. “I appreciate that you think I’m appealing enough to be the next Mrs. Pfeiffer, but for now I like being plain old Emmalee Wright. The new and improved Emmalee Wright who never plans to play second fiddle to a man again.”

“At our age, we can’t afford to waste time on all that mating dance crap.”

“Well, I’ve been described many ways in my life, but never as a waste of time.”

“Em—”

“I think we’ve both said enough.” She ducked under the low-hanging branches and shot like a bullet back toward the gazebo.

Charlie
,
honey.
I
hate to say it
,
but you need to read one of those books on why men don’t ask for directions and women read maps upside down.

That was when Charlie realized he’d never once told Emmalee he loved her.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cameron hadn’t even had a chance to eat a piece of his mom’s birthday cake before it was time for him to take Chikkalo Bill’s CEO on a quick city tour. He purposefully walked Dylan Marfa along the storefronts across Johnson Street, keeping the courthouse between them and the Williams Building. The businessman had already driven through Shelbyville’s small industrial area and met with Erma Sue Wells, the Realtor who had two properties listed that would be the perfect size for Chikkalo Bill’s to build a new bakery and distribution center.

The tour had taken longer than Cameron expected, and it was now just minutes before he was supposed to meet Allie at the softball fields. Regardless, he kept his stride slow. Marfa was scheduled to fly out in less than three hours, and they were headed in the direction of his rental car, so he’d be back on the road to Houston soon.

“You were born and raised in Shelbyville?” Marfa asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“I researched the population statistics for the county,” Marfa said. “Apparently, it’s grown in the past ten years, but the demographics are highly skewed toward the older generations. Chikkalo Bill’s needs a young, vibrant workforce.”

What a catch-22. “If Shelbyville had some type of corporate cornerstone, people would be more likely to return home after college or stay here in the first place.”

“Yet you decided to move back even without that. Why?”

“A few reasons. One, a business opportunity presented itself. I’d been hunting for a garage and when Scoot started looking to sell, my mom called and let me know. Two, the cost of doing business here is less than in a bigger city, which is a real advantage.” Cameron hesitated. Didn’t seem quite right to share his personal reasons, but he said, “Three, I wanted to find someone special, settle down and make a life.”

“How’s that going for you?”

Hopefully better after today. “I’m seeing an amazing woman.”

“Good for you. Must be slim pickings here.”

Slim pickings, what was that supposed to mean? No man in his right mind would think Allie Shelby was anything but top shelf.

Marfa pointed across Main Street. “What’s going on in the park?”

“Annual July Fourth picnic and my mom’s birthday party. There’s a softball game in—” he checked his watch—
damn
, “—forty minutes.”

Marfa chuckled. “Probably the highlight of this town’s year.”

Cameron bristled at the guy’s words. Yeah, Shelbyville was small, but they weren’t total hicks. “Too bad you can’t stay to see the game.”

Or not.

“Then why don’t you take me over and introduce me around? I’d like to get a feel for the potential labor pool, and say happy birthday to your mother, of course.”

They crossed Main and wandered through the kids running with balloons and the parents chasing after them. Some teenagers sat around a tree taking pictures with their phones while one kid played his guitar. Older folks played 42 in the shade and swigged lemonade. But he didn’t see his mom.

A few craft and food booths dotted the green space behind the gazebo, but the one to the far right had a line stretched all the way to the gazebo.
What in the world?

Marfa pointed in the booth’s direction. “Now, that looks like something we need to investigate.”

That would work. Cameron would introduce Marfa to a couple of people and then hustle him back to his rental car, so he could get to the field only a few minutes late.

Dennis McIntosh, owner of the drugstore, was strolling their way, and Cameron stopped him. “Have you seen my mom?”

He grinned. “Sure have. See that line? That leads straight to your mama’s booth. Tell you what, this is some July Fourth celebration. In all my years, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Like
what?

An uneasy feeling crawled up Cameron’s spine.

“Well, if that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is,” Marfa said. “And shopping locally will put me in folks’ good graces.”

The closer they walked to the tent, the worse Cameron’s crawly feeling got. People were packed tighter than they’d been when waiting for his mom’s birthday cake. Eden was making her way down the line with a pad and pencil. Taking orders?

“Excuse me.” He reached out to stop a woman who held a sack close to her chest. “Could you tell me—”

“Oomph.” She stumbled over his foot and windmilled her arms. He caught her by the elbow before she splatted to the ground, but her bag went flying.

Marfa bent to retrieve her package and its contents, looked up with wide eyes. “Ma’am, is this your...your...?”

Was that a penis cookie in Marfa’s hand? What the hell?

“Oh, shoot!” she said. “It’s been on the ground. Now I can’t eat it.”

Cameron grabbed the brown paper bag from Marfa and read the words stamped on it:
Enjoy our delicious joysticks.
All proceeds benefit Personal Assets.

“What’s Personal Assets?” Marfa asked.

What was he going to say?
It’s my lover’s sex shop?
Okay, that wasn’t fair. He’d just admitted what a difference Allie’d made in his mom’s life. “A local business.”

“What kind of business would sell treats like this?” Marfa face reddened. “Don’t they know children are present?”

“Well, of course,” the woman huffed. “That’s why the cookies are in bags.” She snatched her penis from his hand and stomped away.

Cameron pushed through the line to find his mom handing out bags left and right. She turned to a woman beside her. “Suzanne, what if we run out?”

“We’ll take orders and hand-deliver them this week.”

Cameron stepped up to the table. “Mom, what do you think you’re doing?”

At least she still had the good sense to look slightly shamefaced. Then she lifted her chin and said, “Helping someone I care for.”

Which was exactly what he was trying to do, if he could ever get to the field.

By this time, Marfa stood to Cameron’s left, studying the three folding tables heaped with little brown bags. Right this second, the futures of kids like Ben, Tiny and Marcos were being buried by the weight of those damn sacks. It wasn’t as if Allie hadn’t known the Chikkalo Bill’s guy was going to be here today. She’d been sitting at the table when Cameron mentioned the date of Marfa’s visit.