Texas Born (49 page)

Jenny's face held a sphinxlike expression.
'You are my luck, so why shouldn't I succeed?' she asked, suddenly
speaking in riddles.

Elizabeth-Anne looked at her quizzically.
Obviously it was high time she steered the conversation back on
course. 'About these bills, Mrs. Sexton.'

'Mrs.
Tex
Sexton.'

'Mrs. . . .' Elizabeth-Anne sighed heavily.
'. . . Tex Sexton.'

'Those bills are correct. I checked them out
myself the day before yesterday.' Jenny took off her hat and
twirled it on her index finger, watching the emeralds and diamonds
flash as they spun around, a glittering whirling dervish. She kept
the hat balanced so proficiently that it was obvious she had
practiced that little act to perfection.

Elizabeth-Anne folded the invoices. 'I
suppose,' she said, 'it's meaningless to say that if they're not
corrected, I may find it necessary to take you to court?'

'You'd be wasting your time and money. Judge
Hawk has been in our pockets for years now.'

Elizabeth-Anne let out a deep breath. 'You
wouldn't, by any chance, be trying to drive me out of business,
would you?' She eyed Jenny narrowly.

'Who?
Me?
' The twirling hat came to a
rest; Jenny's look of surprised innocence was patently faked.

'I can't think of anybody else who would try
such underhanded dealings. Can you?'

'Watch yourself,' Jenny growled in a low
warning voice. 'If I want, I can squash you as easily as a bug,
anytime I please.' Her pert nose wrinkled disdainfully. 'I don't
need to be insulted by you, you goddamn freak.'

'I'm sorry to have to say this,
Jennifer
, 'Elizabeth-Anne said with pointed iciness, 'but
Auntie was right.'

'Oh? In what way?'

'She confided in me once that she was afraid
you were not quite right, if you know what I mean. You harbor
grudges and slights which should long have been forgotten. And both
Auntie and I knew full and well why you married your husband.'

'And pray tell, why?'

'To get back at us,' Elizabeth-Anne said with
unruffled calm. 'At Auntie. At Zaccheus. And me. You don't love
Tex. You never have. You're in love with his money and his power. I
wonder if he knows that.'

Elizabeth-Anne paused. 'How does it feel to
sell oneself?'

'Get out of here!' Jenny's voice was a low,
rasping whisper. 'Get out of here and never darken my door again!
Do you hear me?'

Elizabeth-Anne shrugged wordlessly.

'Well?' Jenny shrieked with ear-piercing
shrillness. 'Do I have to throw you out?'

Slowly Elizabeth-Anne walked to the door, her
head held high. She grasped the wrought-iron handle and pulled it
open. For a moment she turned around and stared at Jenny.

Jenny's eyes were fiery with murderous hatred
and her breasts were heaving.

'You may have won Tex,' Elizabeth-Anne said
quietly, 'but you did not get Zaccheus. Nor will you always get
what you want, no matter how hard you try. And I can promise you
one thing. What you will get, Jennifer Sue Sexton, is everything
your black heart deserves!'

Jenny let out a shriek, looked around madly
with glazing eyes, and lunged at a Remington bronze. She grasped
the sculpture in both hands and lifted it high.

Elizabeth-Anne shut the door just as Jenny
flung it. The sculpture crashed heavily against it, splintering one
of the oak panels.

Even on her way down the hall, Jenny's tirade
followed Elizabeth-Anne. 'Those prices were
nothing! Nothing
compared with what you're going to pay, you bitch! I'll raise them
five hundred percent!
A thousand!
And that tourist court of
yours? It'll rot, you freak! You wait and see! You'll never open
the doors to that goddamn precious tourist court you and that
bastard Zaccheus conceived! I'll see to it if it's the last thing I
do!'

It doesn't matter, Elizabeth-Anne told
herself over and over as she drove off swiftly. Even if Jenny
raised Coyote's prices astronomically, she could still make do . .
. she would have to make do. She would order only what she needed.
From outside, the tourist court would look complete, but she would
finish only half the units on the inside, if it came to that. That
would cover the usurious prices until money started to roll in from
the finished units. And she could even go one better. She could buy
everything else she needed in Brownsville and have it transported
up here if she had to.

There was more than one way to skin a mean
cat.

But as much as she tried to calm herself, the
adrenaline raced madly through her. Her heart was palpitating and
her hands were shaking violently. She knew that Jenny's threat was
not an idle one. And Sexton threats were not to be taken lightly.
When Jenny had screamed that the tourist court would never open . .
.

Elizabeth-Anne shivered suddenly, despite the
heat. A deep fear gnawed in the pit of her stomach.
Don't you
think about it!
She told herself over and over.
It'll be all
right. Everything will turn out all right.

She tightened her lips resolutely. She would
not allow herself to be frightened. Not by Jenny. Nor by Tex. Not
by
anybody
. She would show them! She would make herself an
example and show everybody who ever cowered before the Sextons just
how savagely one could fight back. She would not allow herself to
be intimidated or defeated: she would fight tooth and nail. She
would be a worthy opponent.

She would win.

She tightened her lips even more resolutely.
If Jenny thought she could take the tourist court away from her,
well, she had a major surprise coming.

But Elizabeth-Anne was the one in for a
surprise. When she got back from the ranch, a visitor wearing
expensively tailored city clothes and driving a brand-new blue
Chrysler was waiting for her at the café.

'Miss Elizabeth-Anne Gross?' he asked.

She stared at him. He was a big man, heavyset
and florid-faced. 'I . . . er . . . I'm Elizabeth-Anne Hale now,'
she said. 'I haven't gone by the name Gross in . . . oh, well over
thirteen years.'

'If we could, er, talk in private,
ma'am?'

Her first panicked thought was: Zaccheus!
They've caught Zaccheus!

'Are you . . . a . . . policeman?' she asked
shakily-

'Good Lord, no.' The man chuckled. 'Godfrey
Greenley at your service, ma'am.' He produced a calling card and
handed it to her formally. 'As you can see, I'm an attorney in
Brownsville.'

She looked at the engraved card. 'Then this
isn't about Zaccheus?' Her relief was immense.

He frowned. 'Er . . . can't say that it is,
ma'am. This concerns an . . . ahem . . . an inheritance.'

Godfrey Greenley coughed,
ahem
-ed, and
er
-ed a lot. His conversation was filled with
whereases,
whereuntos,
and
insofarases
.

Elizabeth-Anne had taken him upstairs to the
second-floor parlor, and Rosa had brought up a pot of coffee.

Greenley sipped his and set it carefully
down. He cleared his throat, rose to his feet, and paced around
importantly, tucking his thumbs under the lapels of his waistcoated
suit.

Elizabeth-Anne sat on the settee, feeling the
baby inside her kicking as she watched him.

'I drove up in person to . . . er . . .
investigate to my satisfaction that you, Miss Gross . . . er . . .
Mrs. Hale . . . are indeed the person I am looking for. Insofar as
I have asked around, I am satisfied that you are.'

She looked up at him, her hands folded in her
lap. 'You said this involves an inheritance?'

He nodded gravely. 'I did.'

'Then there must be some mistake.' She
laughed softy. 'You see, Mr. Greenley, there is nobody I could
conceivably inherit from!'

'You
were
once known as Elizabeth-Anne
Gross?'

'Yes, but there-'

'And your parents
did
die in a circus
fire back in 1901?'

'Why, yes. But I don't see—'

He stopped pacing and smiled; his teeth were
large and tobacco-browned. 'You're her, all right. Permit me to
say, Mrs. Hale, as a rule heiresses don't usually try to tell me
they're not entitled to what is rightfully theirs.' He chuckled.
'If anything, once there's the smell of money, heirs, both real and
fraudulent, tend to come out of the woodwork!'

'But what . . .'

'It's all right here.' He took an envelope
out of his breast pocket. 'Whereas I could explain it to you, this
letter should clear up the . . . ah . . . mystery even quicker.'
'Yes, well, but who's it from?' He passed it over to her. She
looked at it.
Elizabeth-Anne Gross
, a labored script read.
She turned it over. It was sealed. She looked at him.

'Open it,' he said gently, producing a
well-aged briar pipe and leather tobacco pouch, 'it's yours. Mind
if I smoke?'

'No, no, go right ahead.' For a moment
Elizabeth-Anne just held the envelope and stared at it. Godfrey
Greenley busied himself pushing the shredded tobacco down into the
pipe and eyed Elizabeth-Anne while he lit it. He frowned as he
puffed. He couldn't imagine anyone not tearing into that envelope.
In his long experience, the smell of money usually provoked wild
reactions in people.

Sighing, she slowly tore the envelope open.
The sheet of paper inside was thin and yellowed. She unfolded it.
The writing was simple and straightforward and filled with spelling
errors.

Dear Elizabeth-Anne Gross:

By the time you read this, I'll be dead and buried.
You probably dont remember me or my late husband, Bazzel Grubb. I'm
not too proud of what we done, try in' to pass ourselves off as
your relatives all them years ago. We ain't related to you, and we
got paid a tidy sum by Miz Clowney so we'd leave you with her. That
woman sure did love you, I could tell. Well, Bazzel and me moved on
and invested that money and it's grown to a nice little nest egg.
We lived quite comforrably and then Bazzel he up and died.
Everything's mine now, and since I don't have no next of kin, I
want you to have it. I know this is a surprise and all, but you was
such a cute kid and I felt bad about our charging Miz Clowney to
let her keep you.

God bless,

Amanda Grubb

Elizabeth-Anne's eyes were moist with tears.
'Auntie had to give them money!' she said softly. 'She never told
me!' Godfrey Greenley cleared his throat. She looked up at him and
sniffed. 'The woman who made out the will wrote that letter quite
some years back,' he said. 'Does it explain everything?'

Elizabeth-Anne wiped her eyes with the back
of her hand and nodded. 'Yes.' Then she cleared her throat and
said, louder, 'Yes, Mr. Greenley, it does.' She smiled sadly.

'Good. Then I'll just read you the will and
drive back down to Brownsville and execute it.'

Elizabeth-Anne nodded absently. How strange
things had turned out! she thought. Money from heaven, that's what
it was. And never had she needed it more.

So fate
could
dish out just as many
good surprises as bad ones.

She raised her head. 'Mr. Greenley! I was
wondering if I could impose on you?' 'Ma'am?'

'Could I ride back to Brownsville with you?
There's some . . . personal business there I'd like to take care
of.'

'Of course. I'd be . . . er . . . delighted.
If there's anything else you need . . .' He smiled
magnanimously.

'Just the name of a good building-supply
company, that's all.'

'Consider it done. I'll take you there
myself.'

And that was how the Hale Tourist Court was
finished on time—and without any more of Coyote Building Suppliers'
materials. Thanks to Amanda Grubb, Elizabeth-Anne could now afford
to bypass the Sextons and have everything transported from
Brownsville—on the new highway. She liked to imagine that Jenny was
angry as all hell. And she thought:
Well, let her be. And
couldn't help adding: Maybe she's so mad she'll burst.

It was the grand opening of the Hale Tourist
Court— and a week before Elizabeth-Anne's baby was due.

As if to cooperate fully, the weather was
crisp, bright, and blue. There wasn't a cloud to be seen.

On the podium, the singer wearing the black
mantilla set high on the tortoiseshell comb was finishing the last
drawn-out notes of 'La Paloma.' The Mexicans hollered, clapped, and
whistled, and even Quebeck's Anglos cheered and applauded
enthusiastically.

The singer made a gracious sweeping bow,
exchanged bows with the guitarist, blushed, and hurried down the
steps, to be swallowed up by a crowd of admirers. The six-man brass
band sitting on the porch of the manager's cabin started up again
and broke into a brassy John Philip Sousa march.

The festivities had been planned as a mixture
of Anglo and Hispanic traditions. Elizabeth-Anne set great store by
all men being created equal.

Everyone wore his Sunday finery, and even the
completed Hale Tourist Court was dressed up for the occasion.
Bright red-white-and-blue bunting was draped from the little front
porches of the individual cabins, and flags snapped in the breeze.
In the distance, a big rectangular billboard with a gold coronet
jutting out over the top had just been unveiled. It faced the
highway. 'HALE TOURIST COURT,' the bright red block letters read,
and under that, large black script letters announced: 'Luxury Fit
for a King—At Commoners' Prices.'

Elizabeth-Anne, dressed in a loose, brightly
flowered cotton maternity dress, gazed around with a mixture of
proprietary pride and aching bone-weariness. For the first time in
months she seemed relaxed. Her eyes sparkled and she looked
radiant.