Trouble in Texas (10 page)

“Where are you going, Lizzie?” Baby asked.

Elizabeth slammed the elevator gate closed. “To deal with a bully.”

Once the elevator was on its way up to the main floor, Baby turned to Minnie.

“Maybe we should go after her. She looked a little murderous.”

Minnie nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right, Baby, she does look a little angry. And
come to think of it, she didn’t start showin’ a little piss and vinegar until Branston
showed up.”

Baby sat down on the couch. “You don’t think he forced himself on her when she found
him in the bedroom, do you?”

Sunshine tugged at her leotard that had ridden up on her butt. “It didn’t look like
he was forcing her when they were kissing in the library.”

Minnie’s eyebrows lifted. “They were kissin’ in the library?”

A guilty look crossed Sunshine’s face. “I wasn’t spying, Min. I was just going to
ask Branston if he needed anything.”

It only took a minute for Minnie to start cackling. “I was only teasing Elizabeth
about losing her virginity, but it looks like I wasn’t too far off the mark. And if
Branston is the one that can heat up her hen blood, then Branston is the key to us
gettin’ to keep Miss Hattie’s.”

Baby looked puzzled. “But how are we going to keep him here?”

“By giving him what he wants,” Minnie said.

“Sex,” Sunshine piped up.

A sly smile slipped over Minnie’s face. “His great-granddaddy’s murderer.”

B
RANT HAD EVERY INTENTION OF
heading back to Dogwood, but first he wanted to take a look around. It would be stupid
to have made the trip clear out here and then not check out the property. Beau tagged
along, although it didn’t take him long to get bored and head back to the house for
a nap.

From what Brant could figure out by the barbed wire fences, Miss Hattie’s property
included a couple of acres. The barn and house took up a big chunk, and the rest was
covered in weeds, mesquite, and overgrown lilac bushes. The lilacs didn’t surprise
him. Not after spending an entire night with the scent. What did surprise him was
the amount of bushes. They grew twice as high as the weeds and were twice as difficult
to get through.

Brant had just about given up on finding anything in the lilac-weed jungle when he
came across a headstone. The weeds had been cleared from around the base of the mauve-colored
stone, but an overgrown lilac bush covered most of the front. He reached out and brushed
back the branches until he could see the chicken statue perched on top and the name
engraved beneath.

M
ISS
H
ARRIETT
L
ILLIAN
L
ADUE

Brant didn’t know why he knelt at the marker, or why, after a few moments of silence,
he started snapping off the lilac branches that covered the headstone. Maybe it was
his way of paying tribute to the grand madam. Or maybe he just couldn’t stand the
thought of a person’s last resting place being completely undetectable. When some
of the branches proved too thick, Brant got up and headed to the barn to see if he
could find some pruners. He took an armload of branches with him, dumping them in
one of the trash bins that sat against the side of the barn. He had just put the lid
back on when a snooty voice spoke from behind him.

“Are you planning on taking up gardening?”

He turned to find Elizabeth standing only a few feet away, her hair smoothed back
in a tight bun and her clothes much less rumpled than they had been earlier that morning.
With her glasses reflecting the overhead sun, he couldn’t see her eyes, but her cheeks
were a rosy red. Which seemed to be their constant condition. Except this time, he
didn’t think it was from embarrassment as much as anger.

Brant brushed his hands off on his jeans. “As a matter of fact, my doctor has recommended
that very thing. He claims it alleviates stress.”

“Well, you need to relieve your stress elsewhere,” she stated in a voice that reminded
him of his second-grade teacher, Miss Shultz. And Miss Shultz had been one uppity
pain in the ass. “You’ve worn out your welcome here.”

He shrugged. “I would’ve been more than happy to leave
yesterday. It was you who kept me from doing so. Therefore, I’ll leave when I’m ready.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I owe you, Ms. Murphy, and I don’t take my grudges lightly.”

Annoyingly enough, she didn’t look that worried. “I don’t doubt that for a moment,
being that you’re the same grudge holder who was willing to put an entire town out
of work just because someone shot your relative a hundred years ago.”

“So you
do
know who I am. That makes things a lot easier.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Now you’ll know exactly what to expect.”

Her lips pressed into a firm line that took the plumpness right out of them. “If you
felt that way, then why didn’t you just tattle to the sheriff?”

“Because I prefer to handle my own retribution.”

“Sort of like God?”

He tipped his head. “Sort of.”

“Well, sorry if I don’t wait around for judgment day, but I need to get back to Bramble
and you need to leave.” She straightened her suit jacket. “I wish I could say it was
nice to meet you, Mr. Cates. But unlike your brothers, I find you to be a disagreeable
man.” She turned and started to walk off, but he reached out and grabbed her arm.
She felt more fragile than she looked. Something he’d noticed earlier on the stairs
and again in the library.

Of course, he’d noticed other things in the library as well. Like how soft her lips
were and how sweetly they opened up to his. Even pressed in a firm line, they were
tempting, which made his next question come out a little meaner than he had intended.

“How did you become the owner of Miss Hattie’s?”

She jerked her arm away. “Do you always go around bullying people, Mr. Cates?”

“In business, it’s called getting your questions answered.” He crossed his arms. “Bullying
is when you force someone to do something they don’t really want to.”

“You do seem to persevere, don’t you? I’ve already apologized for that, while you
haven’t once apologized for your brash behavior. It sort of makes a person wonder
what kind of women you’ve been hanging out with.”

“The kind who don’t lie about how they lost their panties.”

Her face brightened, and there was a moment that Brant thought she might actually
punch him, but he should’ve known that Ms. Murphy had more self-control than that.

“Which means,” he continued, “that you’re probably not going to tell the truth about
how you came to own Miss Hattie’s. Since I can’t understand why a librarian would
want a whorehouse, the only feasible answer to the question would be that you inherited
it like Sunshine said.” He laughed. “Although the woman is a little confused about
whom you inherited it from. My guess would be that you’re somehow related to a businessman
who bought into the house years ago.”

She slowly clapped her hands. “Bravo, Mr. Cates. No wonder you’re one of the wealthiest
men in Texas—you know how to put two and two together. Now that you’ve finished your
detective work, you can let me go and be on your way.”

That would’ve been the smart thing to do. But there was something about Elizabeth’s
demeanor that bothered
him. She had acquiesced almost too easily. So instead of releasing her, he reached
up and pulled off her glasses. The eyes that stared back at him were big and brown
and filled with tiny golden flecks that reflected the sunlight. Eyes identical to
the ones in the mural over the bed.

“Shit,” he breathed.

She released an exasperated huff. “So eloquently put. I must admit that I thought
the same thing when I discovered the connection. But we can’t help who our relatives
are, now can we? Something I’m sure your brothers, Beau and Billy, understand completely.
So if you’re done interrogating me, I would appreciate it if you’d give me back my
glasses and be on your way. As you’ve pointed out, I own Miss Hattie’s and I want
you to leave.”

Brant might’ve complied if he hadn’t been so stunned by the fact that the same whiskey-colored
eyes that had occupied his dreams for the last month were identical to the eyes staring
back at him now. It was a relief when she pried the glasses from his numb fingers
and covered those eyes. Except covering them with thick glass didn’t seem to stop
his imagination.

Now that he knew what lay beneath, all kinds of sexual images flashed through his
mind. Images that he was no longer certain were real or just part of his screwed-up
psyche. Either way, he couldn’t seem to keep his head from dipping toward her lips.
And as mad as she seemed to be, Elizabeth didn’t do one thing to stop him.

“Hey, you two!”

His brother’s voice caused them to pull back. Brant gave her upside-down mouth one
last look before turning to Beau, who tramped through the weeds toward them with a
knowing grin on his face.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Not at all,” Elizabeth said. “Mr. Cates was just saying good-bye.”

Beau looked at Brant. “No kidding. Well, I’m glad I caught him before he left. It
seems that Miss Minnie just remembered something that might help us find out if our
granddaddy was here. I guess Miss Hattie kept a record of all her visitors. There’s
just one problem. Miss Minnie doesn’t exactly know where it is. Although she thinks
it might be up in the attic.”

Brant didn’t even hesitate before heading toward the back door.

“Now wait one second,” Elizabeth said as she hurried after him. “I didn’t give you
permission to go searching through my attic.”

Brant glanced back at her. “What are you going to do? Call the sheriff?”

The stairs that led to the attic were steep, narrow, and dark. The dim flashlight
Minnie had given Brant gave off about as much light as a firefly as he, Elizabeth,
and Beau moved up the worn steps.

“Isn’t there a light switch?” Elizabeth asked as she swatted at a cobweb.

“An exterminator would be more appreciated,” Beau said. “I think I just got bit by
a spider.”

“This should be right up your alley,” Brant said. “You used to drag me to every haunted
house in Dogwood on Halloween.”

“Except those creepy critters were the dime-store variety. And I don’t think what
just ran across my boot was made of rubber.”

Elizabeth latched on to Brant’s shirt and almost pulled him back down the stairs as
she turned to Beau. “Was it a mouse?”

“If it wasn’t, then it was the biggest spider in Texas.”

Elizabeth scuttled up on Brant’s step. “Well, kill it.”

“I would love to, ma’am, but I’m a little skittish myself,” Beau said. It was easy
to detect the teasing note in his brother’s voice. “Now Brant, on the other hand,
has never been scared of anything. He could slay a dragon if he took the notion, which
means a little ol’ mouse wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Brant ignored his brother’s foolishness and tried to climb the last step, but Elizabeth
had a stranglehold on his shirt. He wasn’t exactly happy with the woman, but he couldn’t
ignore her fear, either. He slipped his hand in hers and gave it a comforting squeeze.
“Mice are more terrified of you than you are of them.”

“Unless it’s Willard,” Beau said.

“Shut up, Beau.” Brant pulled Elizabeth up the last step. He shined the flashlight
at the wall and, spotting a switch, reached out and flipped it on. One single bare
bulb came on, but its light was enough to reveal the mountains of clutter that were
piled almost to the rafters.

“Holy shit,” Beau said, before muttering an apology. “Sorry, ma’am, but this is one
big pile of crap.”

It was. Except Brant didn’t view it as crap. He viewed it as a gold mine of precious
history. There were old televisions and radios. Leather trunks and suitcases. A stockpile
of paintings and a grandfather clock that made his hands sweat. Or maybe that was
the heat emanating from Elizabeth’s.

“Does the saying, ‘finding a needle in a haystack’
mean anything to you?” Beau asked with a smirk in his voice. A cackle came up the
stairwell, and Brant released Elizabeth’s hand and called down to the old woman who
sat at the bottom.

“Can you remember what you stored it in?”

“I think it was a trunk,” Minnie called back up.

Brant looked back at the clutter. There had to be at least a hundred big trunks stacked
amid the furniture and cardboard boxes, but he had never been one to be intimidated
by work. He didn’t waste any time pulling out the first trunk and opening it up.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to look through every one,” Beau said.

“Now why would I do that when I have a helpful little brother?” He searched through
the trunk of old clothing.

“Oh no.” Beau stepped back. “I’m not spending my time in some musty, old, rat-infested
attic looking for a book unless it’s filled with some of Miss Hattie’s x-rated stories.”

“Beau’s right,” Elizabeth said as she walked over and slammed the lid of the trunk
down, almost catching Brant’s fingers in the process. “Once I sell the house, there
will be plenty of time to pull all the things out of the attic and look through them.
If I should find anything about your grandfather, I’ll be more than happy to contact
you.”

Brant ignored her and grabbed another trunk. “Well, that’s real nice of you, Ms. Murphy,
but since I don’t trust you as far as I can throw that grandfather clock over there,
I think I’ll just look myself.”

Another cackle drifted up the stairs, followed by Minnie’s raspy voice. “All of that
stuff belongs to us hens, and if Branston wants to go through them, that’s fine
with us. Isn’t that right, Sunshine?” Sunshine chirped her agreement, which made Elizabeth’s
brow pucker all the more.

“And if Beau doesn’t want to hang out up there,” Minnie continued to yell up, “I’ve
got a few things he could help me with down here.”