Place Your Betts (The Marilyns) (9 page)

He bowed, fixed his hat on his head, and walked down the driveway.

Lucky sniffled loudly and brushed a tear off her cheek. “He looks just like you.”

She loved children but couldn’t have any. Cervical cancer had done a number on her best friend.

“I can’t believe he’s grown.” Charlie closed the door and leaned on it. “He was so tiny wrapped in that blue blanket at Charity Hospital. I still remember his itty-bitty fingers and his long eyelashes.”

Betts might have given birth to Tom, but he belonged to her friends too. They had wanted to keep him and raise him together. That’s the way it should have been. Her baby boy deserved to have two aunts as fine and loving as Charlie and Lucky.

“His lashes are still long and curl up on the ends.” Lucky pulled Betts in a tight hug. “Our baby boy is back.”

This was a perfect moment in time. She was almost a mom. Her son liked her. The one person she’d worried and agonized over for sixteen years wanted her advice. She had a place, and someone needed her. For the first time, she felt a tiny bit normal. Her shot at a real family was within reach, and this time, she wouldn’t screw it up.

***

The next morning, Betts wrapped the burnt-orange bathrobe tighter around her and sat on the bed as Charlie and Lucky packed up their belongings.

“I wish we didn’t have to go.” Charlie draped an arm around Betts’s shoulders. “But I have to be in New Orleans by this evening, and the only way to do it is to drive straight through.”

“And I need to get back to work.” Lucky sat down on the other side of Betts and rested her head on Betts’s shoulder. “I can’t believe our boy is a man. It seems like just yesterday I was bringing you some Creole Cream Cheese ice cream from that little place on Bourbon Street.”

Betts nodded. She’d forgotten about her pregnancy craving for chocolate chip cookies and Creole Cream Cheese ice cream. “My baby boy loved him some chocolate chip cookies. Think he still does? I could make him some for an after-school treat.”

“That’s nice. I bet he’d like it.” Charlie dropped her arm but laid her head on Betts’s other shoulder. “Pretty soon, he’ll be calling you Momma, and it will be like you’ve never been apart.”

“I can’t tell him the truth…his father has commanded it. I will be nothing but a friend to my son until his father deems that it’s the right time.” Betts didn’t like it but could live with it…for a while.

Lucky nodded. “I see.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Charlie agreed.

They sat like that—Betts in the middle, flanked by her best friends—for a few minutes. It occurred to Betts that they were all holding each other up. That was how it had always been—she could lean on them and they on her.

Sisters, not born but chosen.

An hour later, Betts braved the crowd and stood on the front lawn to wave her friends good-bye. When their taillights were completely gone, Betts waved at the crowd, stepped inside, and closed the door.

A familiar sound like a foghorn cut through the morning air. She peeked out the side window. Thank you, God, her bus was here.

Gleaming in the bright morning sun was her black-and-gold luxury tour bus, and hanging out of the driver’s window was Mama Cherie. Betts’s eyes almost fell out of her head.

Where was Jack, her tour bus driver?

She had a bad feeling. Betts sighed long and hard in case God cared that she felt put-upon.

At the beginning of her career, when money had been tight and all she’d been able to afford was a converted school bus, Mama had taken a course, passed the test, and become Betts’s tour bus driver. Funny how the past always came around to bite her in the ass.

Mama tooted the horn again and waved at the gawking fans now overcoming their shock and slowly surrounding the bus. She rammed the bus in park, planted her gold rhinestone cat-eye sunglasses on top of her head, threw open the driver’s door, and slithered down like a stripper working the pole. Her skintight purple Lycra miniskirt and equally tight white tee rode up to heights that Betts would have rather not seen. Thankfully, most of the crowd was blinded by the sunlight reflecting off the purple sequins stretched across her chest spelling out
Hottie
.

“Sweet Jesus,” Betts whispered, slapped on her media smile, and stepped outside. She’d never denounced Mama, but she didn’t play her up either.

After an almost Britney wardrobe malfunction, Mama yanked down her skirt, held her arms up, and spun around like Maria from the Sound of Music. “The prodigal daughter has returned.”

Mama Cherie was back in Hollisville. Hell must be closed for a snow day.

“I’m sure the town council will be excited.” Betts opened her arms for a hug. “Any of them you haven’t slept with?” she whispered close to Mama’s ear.

Mama wasn’t as promiscuous as she liked for people to believe, but Betts kept up the pretense because it was expected. And apart from an eighteen-month county jail sentence sixteen years ago for drug trafficking and the occasional arrest for various non-drug-related things, Mama had mellowed with age.

“I can’t say. Don’t know who’s on the council these days.” Mama patted Betts’s back. “Your grandmother is resting peacefully now…oops, sorry… I meant resting in several pieces at the medical school.”

“Good one.” Betts nodded. “Witty with just the right amount of catty—”

“I try.” Mama released Betts and glared at her childhood home. “Hasn’t changed one little bit.”

“Evil isn’t prone to change.” Betts shrugged.

“I talked to Charlie last night, and she mentioned that she and Lucky had met Gabe.” Mama fixed her
spill it or else
look on her face.

“Met is too temperate a word. Charlie wanted to murder him, but Lucky held her back. Pretty run-of-the-mill by our standards.”

“She also mentioned Tom.” Mama whispered this sentence close to Betts’s ear. “She said he was wonderful.”

Betts swallowed the love gathering in her throat. “He’s unbelievable. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

“Me too.” She grabbed Betts’s hand. “Thank God we’re done with all the sappy stuff.”

“Lord have mercy. Is that you, Cherie?” A man with a potbelly stepped out of the crowd as he smoothed down a hank of blond hair creatively swirled around his shiny, bald head.

Mama shaded her eyes. “Who’s that?”

“It’s me, Bump Bledsoe.” His grin got wider the closer he got to Mama’s cleavage. “You look the same.”

Mama smiled tightly. “Thanks, Bump. Long time no see.” Her face said it all—disgust, and if Bump had actually looked up, he’d have seen it too.

“How you been?” Bump’s eyes never left the V of Mama’s shirt.

“Good.” Mama’s top lip curled up.

“Wanna grab some coffee and catch up?” Bump inclined his head toward the DQ, but his eyes stayed put.

“Um.” Mama looked from the house to Bump and back again. It was quite a dilemma. Go into the house she hated or spend time with a man who was only interested in her cup size.

“I’m gonna go change.” Betts headed inside.

“I guess coffee sounds okay. Your eyes better stay north of my chin.” The third option, to escape back into the tour bus, must not have crossed her mind.

It was a testament to how much Mama hated Gigi’s house that she would pick the ogling comb-over rather than face her childhood. Betts nodded. Some places were cosmically bad…the Bermuda Triangle, Dracula’s Castle, and Gigi’s house. As far as Betts knew, the only things that Gigi had murdered were hopes and dreams, but Betts wasn’t about to go digging around in the backyard because, God knew, there were enough skeletons in the closet.

An hour later, they were standing on Betts’s new land. Gabe was nowhere to be found. When he came home, he’d be mad as a hornet. It couldn’t be helped. She hadn’t told him about the land yesterday because he was devious, and he’d proven that by calling the tabloids her first night in town. Having fans intrude here would make life miserable. She glanced at the fence separating their property.

A car horn blared, and Betts jumped. While he might have been fair-minded the other day, today might be a different story.

“Who could that be?” Mama turned around and shaded her eyes from the morning sun.

Mama had never met Gabe. Hell hath no fury like Mama scorned. There was no telling what she’d do to Gabe for messing with her baby girl. Betts was tempted to pop a bowl of popcorn, pull up a lawn chair, and watch Mama go to town on him, but an innocent like Tom might get caught in the crossfire. Betts glanced at Mama, who was bent over scratching her ankle. Based on the absence of panty line, Betts was pretty sure Mama was au naturel. Perfect. Nothing said responsible like a noticeable lack of underwear.

The horn blared again. Betts turned around. A familiar pickup truck roared down the dirt driveway leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. Based on the speed and recklessness, the driver wasn’t exactly the hospitality coordinator for the welcome wagon.

“There’s something I forgot to tell you.” Betts shoved her hands in her back pockets. “You see that cabin over there?”

“Yes.” Mama turned back around. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m not gonna like this?”

“I don’t remember inviting you over.” Gabe stepped down from his pickup.

Betts’s smile would have made a rodeo clown proud. “Howdy, neighbor.”

Gabe stopped in his tracks, confusion swirling in his light blue eyes. The dirt covering his jeans did little to disguise the fact that they’d been washed so many times they’d faded into a second skin. Her mind flashed back to high school, when he’d rushed over to Gigi’s right after work covered in dirt because he’d been too anxious to see Betts to clean up first. Heat rushed to body parts that had no business being anything but stone-cold around him. The past had a way of trickling into the present.

Mama stepped in front of Betts and held out her hand. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Betts’s young and extremely open-minded mother, Cherie.” After some gratuitous eyelash batting, Mama shot him a suggestive smile. “Betts didn’t mention having such a handsome neighbor.”

“Mother?” He looked at Betts. “Really?”

“I’m afraid so.” Betts nodded.

“So many things make sense now.” Gabe tipped his hat then took Mama’s hand. “Gabe Swanson.”

Mama went from flirty to pissed-off in two seconds flat. “Gabe Swanson…
Gabe Swanson
. You have some nerve showing your face around here. I have half a mind to grab my baseball bat and knock—”

“Gabe lives in the cabin. Along with Tom.” Betts stepped between Mama and Gabe. Mama had a reputation in New Orleans for busting heads and any other part of the anatomy that was close at hand. Many a fight had ended when Mama grabbed her baseball bat from under the bar. “Down, Mama. Let’s be neighborly.”

“I see where you get your sparkling personality.” Gabe did the one-eyebrow-raised thing. “Neighbors?”

“Be nice or I’ll give her free rein. Mama’s bitch-slapped tougher men than you.” Betts flashed Gabe her brightest smile. “Want the good news or the bad news?”

He stuck his hands in his back pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Good.”

“I bought your land. I’m parking my tour bus here until further notice.”

“That’s the good news?” One side of his mouth went up in a lopsided, cocky grin—the same grin he’d had the night he’d climbed over her grandmother’s fence, snuck in Betts’s window, and professed his undying love. “What’s the bad?”

“Mama and her baseball bat are frequent visitors.” Betts smiled.

“Damn.” Gabe looked from Mama to Betts and back again. “Neighborhood’s going to hell.”

Just to gauge his level of even-temperedness, she said, “I’m thinking of building a house over there.”

Mama studied her. “Really?”

“Sure.” She avoided Mama’s eyes because the woman could detect a lie a mile away. It wasn’t a bad idea, now that Betts thought about it. A home place—something nice for Tom.

“That would be good for you. A real home.” Mama nodded.

“I already have three houses—”

“None of them is home. This would be home.” Mama put her arm around Betts’s shoulders.

“Hell, that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.” Gabe’s voice quivered, and he wiped away a couple of fake tears. “Is the touchy-feely Dr. Phil moment over? I’ve got work to do. What’s it gonna take to get you two off my land?”

“Not on your land.” Betts pointed to her feet. “I’m standing firmly on
my
land. Bought and paid for—”

“Over my dead body.” His left hand massaged the bridge of his nose. “Wait, I take that back—don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

The land was worth every penny of the large chunk of money she’d laid out for it.

“Thanks for the cows too.” Betts looked around. “Where are they? I’d like to inspect my investment.”

“Would you believe they ran away?” His face was deadpan.

“All five hundred?”

Gabe was the only person besides Mama with whom Betts could banter. The fact that it was all bullshit didn’t lessen the entertainment value.

Gabe shrugged. "Chick-fil-A’s got half-price nuggets until three p.m. They really do want us to eat more chicken.”

Betts stared at him and refused to blink until he gave her a real answer.

“The herd, including your cows,” he gritted out the last part, “is down by the pond. They roam the fields eating grass. That’s why they’re called free-range cattle—soon to be certified organic.”

“My, my, my…aren’t we the granola-munching, tree-hugging, free-range cattle baron.” Betts ate organic when possible, but it was hard to believe that Gabe had taken the family business into the hormone-free age. “Your production and profit margins must have taken a hit.”

“We manage.” Gabe crossed his arms. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d ask me before you use any chemicals or decide to grain feed.”

“Your father is probably rolling in his grave.”

Gabe hunched his shoulders. “I don’t give a damn if my father spins from here to eternity—the old bastard deserves to rot in hell.”

Evidently, Gabe loved his father about as much as Betts loved Gigi.