Tex Times Ten (18 page)

“And pelicans may land in our trees,” Last said dolefully. “You’ve messed up all my plans for the evening. Even Mason’s gone. How do all my plans backfire on me?”

“I don’t know.” Tex gazed out the window at Cissy grimly. “I’m fixing to save mine.” Striding out the door, he walked to the table. Cissy looked up at him, but she didn’t smile.

“Crockett, change places with me,” Tex said.

“No, thanks. This is the best seat in the house.”

Cissy smiled at him. Tex began to feel a bit desperate, as if he was the “away” player in a game of “keep away.” Navarro was across from Cissy, so Tex tried that next. “Navarro, how about you swap with me?”

“Nope. I’m good.” Navarro beamed at him. “Your wife’s telling me about the kids. I sure had fun with those little dickens at the river.”

Tex thought his brain was beginning to fry between his ears. His brothers were such butts!
“Cissy,” he said with determination, “would you like to take a walk with me?”

“I just got out of the car, Tex. I was stuck in traffic, and it was a long drive. I really don’t feel like a walk right now.” She sipped an iced tea Last put in front of her and turned back to face her seatmates. “Wonderful, Last. You’re a wonderful host.”

“Fine,” Tex said. “I’ll just pull up a chair.”

He went looking for a chair, but, of course, it was a picnic table with a bench seat so he was making an idle threat. He had three choices, since Cissy was inclined to treat him as if he was just another brother: return to his seat, or go into the house, watch the tube, get out a TV tray and eat in silence.

Or he could go fetch the prince for whom this party was being pitched. That was the best idea. He started toward Mimi’s house to tell Mason that he didn’t want to relieve him anymore and that he’d just have to return to his seat, but Mimi and Mason were talking on her back porch, swinging in the porch swing. They weren’t sitting close, but they were talking. Tex wasn’t certain about barging into that particular conversation, so he turned around and headed back. “How was I innocently planning water lilies and cattails and now find myself in the middle of a smackdown?” he groused to himself.

When he got back, Cissy was gone.

“Where’d she go?” he demanded of Crockett and Navarro.

They shrugged. “She said she needed to get back. Lots of stuff to do.”

“She just got here!”

“She said the party wasn’t what she’d expected,” Crockett explained. “I guess Last had convinced her that you wanted to see her, even though you hadn’t called her. She said she’d interrupted your good time, and that friends didn’t do that to each other.”

“I wasn’t having a good time,” Tex stated. “Did you tell her that?”

“Nah,” Navarro replied. “She told Last, nicely of course, that he needed to quit trying to fix you, that you had to fix yourself. Cissy also told us to give you this, and we felt that there was no need to go into deep explanations at that point.”

He handed over Cissy’s rope ring, and Tex’s heart seemed to crash out of his chest. “You know, I can’t win. I honestly can’t.”

“Did you call her since you’ve been home?” Crockett asked curiously.

“Well…no. But I was going to. I just figured she’d call when she came up for air. I mean, her family just returned. They’ve got their lives to put back together.”

“Bro, you are in a screwy situation. But I think,” Navarro said, “that it was her parting words that stalled us.”

Crockett looked at him sorrowfully. “She said Last was slightly off the mark. You don’t have a reluctance for intimacy per se, just the permanent kind. And that you’d be happy the three months turned out to be more like three weeks, since once you’d played the part of rescuer, you’d forgotten her.”

What could he say to that? His behavior branded
him. Maybe all his intentions had been good, but that hadn’t been what a marriage required.

“I don’t suppose she said whether or not she was returning to Gran’s.”

“Actually, she did,” Crockett said cheerfully. “She was thrilled to be going back to the riverboat. Jellyfish has got a new tour he’s working, and she said it was something she was really looking forward to. She’ll be gone for a month.”

Great. His marriage was over, and his bride was excited about floating away.

Two weeks later, Cissy felt renewed. Jellyfish treated her like a queen, and she learned to appreciate friends who didn’t expect anything but friendship. She learned to be a superlative hostess. Men found her interesting and tried to engage her in more than light conversation. A fast riverboat romance wasn’t right for her, even if she could have forgotten the man who’d held her heart.

Mostly, she enjoyed the solitude. After her shifts at night, she sat on deck in a secluded area Jellyfish had roped off with an Employees Only sign and a chair he called his dreaming chair. She didn’t dream, but she loved watching the river float past and gazing at the beautiful stars overhead. Every once in a while Jellyfish joined her, but mostly he understood that she needed time to heal.

For the first time in her life, she felt as if she’d found a place of her very own.

T
EX LOOKED AT THE ARC
of cattails at the top of the pond with satisfaction. “Just look at those beauties,” he said to Mimi. “They transplanted better than I
would ever have thought. If those live, I’m going to get some more for over there.”

Mimi nodded. “But I love the weeping willows.”

He’d put five in, spreading them out around the top of the pond. That way the view from the house wasn’t blocked. “Just wait until they’re big and full.” He gave her a mischievous glance. “Just wait till you are. That’s going to be something to see.”

Mimi laughed. “I’m not showing yet, but then maybe a woman doesn’t show quickly her first time.”

“I dunno.” Tex only knew about cattle. “Hey, where’s Brian these days?”

“Working in Austin. He’s got so many high-profile cases right now that he can barely get to the phone to call me.”

Tex frowned. “Is that hard on you?”

She shook her head. “Now that Dad’s at home, I spend so much time with him that I’d feel guilty if Brian were here. Once Dad is better, I’ll be able to be more of a wife. I know Brian loves me. It’ll all work out eventually.”

Tex nodded. “Yeah.” He hoped so, anyway.

“Marriages don’t always have the perfect beginning.”

Pff. Understatement of the year. But he wanted off the subject of marriages. “So, now I’m thinking we need a boat dock. Not a big one, more like a fishing-pier type of thing.”

“There are no fish.”

“We could stock fish, but I’m not keen on that. If we plan it right and put the pier in the deepest part,
the kids could jump off into the water. I know they’re going to try to swing from the willow branches, and I’m not particularly sure they’ll hold. Pier might be better.”

She gazed up at him. “Tex? Where are all these kids coming from that you keep talking about? You have three married brothers, and none of them live here. Even so, they have a total between them of one child, Emmie, that I know of. And I’m only having one.”

“Well, I…I don’t know,” he said with wonder. “I was trying to plan for the future and I kept seeing bunches of kids.”

“But you don’t want any.”

“Hell, no, I don’t.” Briefly he thought about Cissy, but she’d also said she didn’t want children. “At least I don’t think I do,” he said slowly. “There were so many of us that we never got a break from one another. Sometimes we wore one another out.”

She was silent.

“We had you to break up the monotony or we might have killed one another.” His tone was thoughtful. “You were like the tribal goddess. We could always count on you to think up a sacrifice.”

She laughed. “Tex, I wasn’t that bad.”

“Yeah, you were. You were fun and interesting, and you and Mason thought up some doozies. We needed the softness of a girl around, even if you were more boy in some ways than girl.”

“Thanks. It was a survival-of-the-fittest thing.”

“I know.” He scratched his head. “Hey, why do you think you’ll only have one child?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I just don’t see it. Same way you don’t see yourself having any.”

“Yeah.” He bent down to dig some more dirt out around the weeping willow, not noticing Mimi walk away. The plan called for small circular gardens at the base of each tree, sweet william in each stone-lined circle. It would be dainty and white and—

Slowly, he turned the soil in his hands. It was under his nails and lined his palms. He swept his hands against each other, enjoying the scrubbiness of dirt on his skin. The dirt of his land relaxed him. Like water relaxed Cissy.

They were so different.

Mimi and Brian were married. They had to be apart. It wasn’t ideal, but obviously, it had to be that way.

Tex was married to Cissy. She hadn’t called, and except for the few moments he’d seen her at the garden party train wreck, they hadn’t communicated.

This was a woman who understood that he couldn’t pull his head out to save his life. And she was content to walk away, no hard feelings.

He’d spent all this time putting in cattails, not too many, just enough for beautification. And Cissy had mentioned cattails to him. He’d been toying with the idea of floating a water lily or two for a delicate touch of color. She’d teasingly suggested he consider farming water lilies since roses didn’t work for him.

Water lilies were plants that survived in water. A plant was a plant, and he loved to garden.

He swept his hands off.

C
ISSY STOOD AT THE ENTRANCE
to the riverboat, greeting the guests returning from a day of shopping and walking in the riverside town of Sperryside. The guests were enjoying the small towns they visited. They liked the privacy Jellyfish’s riverboat provided—something they, as famous wealthy people, didn’t find very often. The chefs that Jellyfish had hired for the excursion had wowed them. He had four, who rotated weeks of specialties: Louisiana seafood, Mississippi down-home, and more.

“I bought you this,” Sheikh Mohammed Fadin said as he returned to the boat. He handed her a beautiful handmade white lace doily. Startled, she glanced at Jellyfish, who stood beside her greeting the returning guests. Imperceptibly, he nodded.

“Thank you,” she said to the sheikh. “It’s lovely.”

“As are you.” He nodded slightly and boarded.

Jellyfish grinned at her. “You can’t expect not to have an admirer or two.”

She looked at him.

“It’s okay, Cissy,” he said gently. “The sheikh means nothing by it except as a courtesy to his hosts. To refuse it would embarrass him. If he had genuine designs on you, it would have been rubies or something.”

She was silent.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I’m sorry you’re so hurt.”

She took a deep breath. There was no point in hiding what he obviously knew.

A playwright boarded, handing her a beautiful
stone paperweight mined from local formations. “You shouldn’t have,” she said with surprise. Jellyfish touched her back, and Cissy said, “It’s so pretty. Thank you for thinking of me.”

The playwright said, “This has been the trip I needed. Thank you for taking such good care of me. Some of the best hotels in the world haven’t done as well. You’ve got the right touch of warm hospitality and quiet caretaking. I’ve gotten most of my next play plotted.”

She smiled. “I’m so happy. The river probably has more to do with your muse generating, but Jellyfish and I are delighted you’re pleased.”

The playwright shook Jellyfish’s hand and boarded.

“You’re such a mother,” Jellyfish said with a laugh.

“Mother?”

“Yes. You’re mothering the guests like you did your nieces and nephews. The men are eating it up, because every man likes to be attended to, you’re beautiful, and they can tell it’s sexless. You’re the perfect hostess, Cissy.”

“I don’t know that I want to be sexless,” she protested, trying not to laugh. “That sounds sort of scary.”

“I didn’t say
you
were sexless,” he said as they closed the gate behind the last guest. “I said that the way you treated men was sexless. So they can do a little something to thank you and you won’t perceive it as flirtation. No, Cissy, there’s nothing sexless
about you at all. It’s just that you’re not available, and they can tell.”

“No, I think they’re worried that you’ll make them walk the plank. You’re the largest man any of us have seen.”

“Yeah, I know. The sheikh tried to hire me as a bodyguard.” Jellyfish laughed. “But I’m not available, either.”

“I don’t understand this ‘not available’ thing. Could you explain?”

He leaned against the rail, looking out at the sleepy town. “I’m going to sell my boat, and then…I don’t know what. I’m ready to do something else. I grew up in a commune. I want to see the world. This is my pirate phase. I’m going to have another phase soon. That’s all I know. So I don’t want to be hired or wifed. You’re in love, Cissy, and that’s why you’re not available. Your heart’s a little broken, and people can pick up on your sadness.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’ve tried so hard to be cheerful!”

“You have. The guests love you, including the women. It’s not obvious, but the sadness shows every once in a while when you look down, like your thoughts are somewhere else. It gives you a very fragile, wistful appeal, and it makes people want to take care of you. Men eat it up, but as you said, any man on board who thought once about flirting with you thought about me next and didn’t have a third thought. I am a large pirate, as you noticed.”

She smiled at him. “Maybe that’s why I feel so safe on the riverboat.”

“You just go on figuring out your life, sister
Cissy,” he said easily. “Don’t you worry about a thing. However, if I should see your cowboy one day, do you want me to dunk him or allow him on the boat?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cissy said. “He hasn’t done anything to be dunked for. So I guess I’d have to say to let him stay dry.”

“You’re certain? Because, as captain, I reserve the right to do whatever I want.”

His protectiveness was sweet, but not necessary. “I’m really all right, Jellyfish. But you don’t have to worry about Tex anymore. If he was going to talk to me, he’s had plenty of time to do it.”

“Okay.” He looked past her for just an instant, then said, “I’ll be starting the boat in five minutes. The guests should be settled by then. You stay here until the boat is moving, and greet any passengers who wish to embark.” Then he walked away, calling over his shoulder, “And I’ll ice extra champagne.”

“Embark?” She stared after him. They’d counted all their guests. Everyone was aboard. Turning to look into town, she caught her breath.

Tex was jogging toward the boat, his hands full of long-stemmed roses. “Tex!”

“Don’t leave without me!” he called.

She put her hands out to help him from the dock onto the boat, but he vaulted it, landing on the deck as if he’d done it plenty of times.

“I learned to jump from riding rodeo,” he said with a flourish. He handed her the roses. “Thornless,” he said.

She was too shocked to say anything.

“Cissy,” he said, “I screwed up everything.”

“Not everything,” she replied. “What are you doing here? And how did you find me?”

“Jellyfish logged his trip properly, but he’d also told Hawk where he was going in case he needed him for another finder’s mission. Hawk is not hard to get ahold of, and he seems to have a lot of information. I knew I could count on him,” Tex said. “But that’s really not important. I would have found you wherever you were, Cissy. We didn’t end things right.”

“Right?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve taken a long time to think about it, and I think you should marry me.”

“We are married.” In her heart, Cissy had dreamed of hearing these words from Tex again.

“Married properly, forever, and in between.”

“Are you serious?” she whispered, her heart beginning to race as she realized that he was here for the real deal, the true proposal she’d always dreamed of. She hugged the roses to her.

“Yes. We might be married,” he agreed, “but if you wish to stay married under our deal of convenience, then I would like to put forth the idea that we still have one point left that we didn’t cover. I never made love to you properly.”

She stared at him. “Oh, yes, I think that is the one area where I can truthfully say that you did not let me down.”

He grinned. “You make a man feel better, Cissy, when he’s been an ass. However, I believe the point of agreement was that I make love to you under the
stars. All night long. And I have not done that. I have not completely honored my part of the bargain.”

“Oh, I see,” she murmured.

“However, in the interest of moving forward, what I would really like to do is start over. As much as I enjoyed our marriage of convenience, I’ve realized that is not all I want from you. Nor is it all I want to give to you.” He dropped to one knee on the deck, sweeping his hat from his head and placing it over his heart with one hand. With the other, he reached to take her hand as she held the flowers, the stone paperweight and the doily. “Other admirers?” he asked. “Did I get here just in the nick of time?”

She shook her head. “No admirers.”

“Yes, admirers,” he said with a mock sigh. “However, I understand their pain, since you are the only woman in the world I could ever love.”

Her heart leaped inside her. “Tex—”

“Now, I know you’ve worried about the trashy issue,” he said, holding up his hand. “I know you don’t think you’re the right woman for me. Believe me when I tell you that I’ve watched Mimi torture Mason all these years. I’ve seen him understand too late how much he enjoyed her. I don’t want you to get away from me, Cissy. I like your sense of humor and your spunk. I like that you don’t let me win, except in bed. Actually, I even like the way you’re always one step ahead of me, and how you let me stew in my own juice for the past two weeks. You have a lot of respect for yourself, Cissy, and it’s very, very becoming.”

She felt tears gather in her eyes. “You see me differently than I see myself.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t mind telling you every day what a wonderful woman you are, if you’ll let me. Now, put down those nice trinkets from those poor slobs who recognize an amazing lady when they see one, and let me propose to you with all the romanticism that I can muster.”