Blame It On Texas Page 3

  “What are you smiling about?” Jake put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her against his side. “Are you that glad to be back home?”

  “Of course. And I’m happy to see you,” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “I hear you’re going to be a father very, very soon.”

  “Any day now.” He beamed and glanced back at his wife, who saw Kate and waved. Elizabeth seemed to glow, though she looked about to burst.

  “It’s too hot in here, Jake. Take her home.”

  “Soon,” he said. “Neither one of us wanted to miss seeing a cake with ninety candles on it. I guess we’re doing it now?”

  “I came to get you, for the pictures.”

  “Sure, but I have to get Beth. I don’t dare let her out of shouting range these days.”

  Kate followed him, wishing she knew Elizabeth better. They’d married last summer, but Kate hadn’t met her until Christmas, and even then there hadn’t been much time to really get to know each other. All Kate knew about her cousin’s wife was that she was from Rhode Island, she had no family of her own except a grown niece, and had offered Kate the use of her east coast beach house anytime she wanted to use it.

  “You know Dusty Jones, don’t you?” Jake asked, as a lean dark-haired man stood on the other side of Elizabeth and helped Jake get her to her feet.

  “Yes,” Kate said, intending to glance at him only briefly. He was taller than she remembered, though the wide shoulders and lean build were the same. She avoided meeting his gaze, sensing he wasn’t any more pleased to see her than she was to see him. She would have thought that nine years would have made them both immune to bad memories, but maybe there were some things that just stuck, no matter how much time had passed.

  “Hello, Kate,” Dustin said, but he looked at the pregnant woman beside him. “There, Elizabeth. I guess we got you on your feet okay.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have sat down,” the woman chuckled. She reached for Kate’s hand. “Kate. It’s so good to see you again.”

  “And I’m glad to see you,” Kate said, “but are you sure you should be in the middle of all of this right now?” Elizabeth looked as if she was expecting triplets, and she looked flushed. Kate made a mental note to turn up the air-conditioning.

  “Don’t worry.” Elizabeth smiled and patted her enormous belly. She wore a mint green sundress and, despite her rosy cheeks and damp bangs, looked like a model for elegance during pregnancy. “I’ve promised Jake I’d let him know when the first twinge begins. I didn’t want to have to leave before Gert saw her cake, though, but so far so good. Oh, I almost forgot,” she added. “Emily wasn’t feeling well this morning and thought she’d better skip the party. She asked me to tell you she would call you tomorrow.”

  “Do you think she’s going to have the baby today?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know, but if she beats me to the delivery room I’m going to be very, very jealous.”

  “I didn’t know you two knew each other so well,” Kate said, realizing that the two women had more in common with each other than they did with her. She fought another twinge of envy for Elizabeth’s pregnant glow.

  “Yes. And I want you to meet Emily’s neighbor, Lorna Sheridan.” Elizabeth tapped a petite blond woman on the shoulder. When she turned, Kate saw that the woman held a baby in her arms. Both had light yellow curls and blue eyes, and both were beautiful. The baby wore a cute blue-and-white striped sunsuit, so Kate assumed he was a boy. “Lorna, I’d like you to meet Jake’s cousin, Kate McIntosh.”

  Lorna smiled and adjusted the baby in her arms so she could shake Kate’s outstretched hand. “I’ve heard so much about you. I used to live across the street from Emily and she talked about you all the time.”

  “Oh,” Kate said, realizing that this was the woman who had married the sheriff last winter. “Emily went to your wedding,” Kate remembered.

  “Yes. She and Elizabeth helped me out a lot.”

  “And your husband’s the sheriff.”

  “Who’s working today,” she added. “He hated to miss the party, but he couldn’t help it.”

  “You have a beautiful baby. How old is he?”

  “Four months.” Lorna smiled again. “He just started sleeping through the night.”

  “I hope mine is as good as this little one here,” Elizabeth said, touching the baby’s soft head with her fingertip. “Lorna’s let me baby-sit so I could practice being a mom.”

  Kate had the unsettling fear that all of this baby-making might be contagious. Beauville appeared to be a hotbed of fertility. She was rescued from panic when Jake tapped her on the shoulder.

  “They’re lighting the candles now,” he said, “so we’d better move over to the dessert table.”

  “Daddy?”

  Kate glanced past Elizabeth to see a young dark-haired boy tugging on Dustin’s calloused hand. His son. Of course. He was a miniature version of his father, though small for his age.

  “What is it, Dan?” Dustin’s tone was patient, as if he was used to answering the boy.

  “Grandma Gert said I could help.”

  “With what?”

  “The candles,” he said, sounding almost timid. Kate would have expected any Jones child to be hell on wheels. The entire family had had a wild streak the size of the Rio Grande. “She said I could help blow them out if she didn’t have enough air.”

  Jake reached over and tousled the boy’s hair. “Well, you’d better come on. She’s my grandma, too, and Kate’s. So we’d better get over there pronto.”

  Dustin hesitated, frowning a little. It didn’t diminish those looks, Kate saw, watching from a few feet away. Elizabeth, standing next to her, held out her hand to the child. “Danny, can you take my hand? I could use some help.”

  Danny looked up at his father.

  “Go ahead,” Dustin said. “But walk slow. Mrs. Johnson has to take it easy.”

  “I know,” he said, sounding more like his father with that Jones confidence. Kate moved out of the way so the boy could accompany Elizabeth, flanked carefully by her husband. Kate joined the group just as Dustin moved to follow his son and Kate found herself in the awkward position of walking with him toward the front of the room.

  She couldn’t think of a thing to say. A woman who had most likely written hundreds of thousands of words of dialogue in the past four years couldn’t come up with her own script. What do you say to an old lover? Kate couldn’t imagine, could only hear her own words of nine years ago, get out. Funny, she wished she could say that again, so he would turn around and leave the building and that would solve everything. And what did that say about her own emotional maturity if her reaction to this man was still the same? Not much, she decided. Kate attempted to paste a smile on her face as various townspeople greeted her and said they were glad she was here for “the big day,” but she was conscious of Dustin walking so close to her.

  Pathetic, she told herself. It’s been nine years and being close to him still makes my heart race. Her mother would have a fit when she saw him, which was the only vaguely humorous thing in this whole encounter.

  Unfortunately, Martha was too busy rearranging the dessert table to notice the man she had once described as “the wild, no-good Jones boy” who would date her daughter “over my dead and lifeless body.” Then her attention was taken by Elizabeth and Jake, and Gert’s delight over their presence at the party was clear to see. Kate watched the small boy shyly approach her grandmother, but Gert put one arm around the boy’s thin shoulders and hugged him close to her.

  “You remembered, did you?”

  He smiled a little, as if afraid to be too happy. “Yep. I’ve never seen so many candles before.”

  “Neither have I,” her grandmother said. “Do you think I can blow them all out?”

  “I’ll bet you can,” Kate replied, stepping closer. She would not let Dustin’s presence here ruin such a special occasion. “If you have enough help.”

  Gert smiled. “Kate,
have you met my buddy Danny?”

  “I sure have. He looks ready to help, and—” she caught her mother’s frantic wave by the kitchen door right before someone turned off the lights “—here it comes now.”

  Someone began to sing “Happy Birthday” and everyone joined in as the three-layer cake was wheeled across the room and placed in front of Gert, who looked as if she was enjoying the celebration. Kate blinked back tears and tried to sing as she watched her grandmother’s expression of delight. Dustin’s deep baritone rang out, reminding her that he’d liked to sing along to the radio as they drove around the county, looking at ranches and land and talking about their dreams.

  Well, she’d dreamed of loving someone who wouldn’t get someone else pregnant. When that didn’t work out she’d dreamed of getting out of town. Getting out of Texas.

  “Now?” Danny asked, as soon as the singing stopped and the crowd waited expectantly.

  “Now,” Gert declared, and Kate edged closer to help if she was needed. Jake, on the other side of Gert, gave Kate the thumbs-up signal. “One, two, three!”

  It took a few tries, but the four of them managed to get the candles extinguished.

  “Did you make a wish, Gert?” someone called out from the crowd. Carl Jackson, Kate noticed, because he winked at her mother after he asked the question.

  “Sure did,” Gert replied, dipping her index finger into the butter cream frosting and taking a taste. “But don’t ask me what I wished for, because I’m not allowed to tell, am I, Danny?”

  “Nope.”

  “Take a lick.”

  The boy dared a glance at his father, who must have nodded his permission, because Kate watched him dip a tentative finger into one side of the cake and take the tip off of a pink rose and stick it in his mouth. Yes, Kate thought, watching him. Charming the women, just like his father. Daring to take what he wanted and damn the consequences.

  “Kate,” her mother hissed, as if she had grown impatient saying her name. “Pay attention. I need you to help cut the cake.”

  “Sure,” she said, picking up one of the knives readied for the task. “Any special directions?”

  Her mother frowned. “Yes. Cut the pieces small and keep your mind off that cowboy.”

  “I’ll try to cut the pieces small,” Kate promised. “And I don’t have any idea what cowboy you’re talking about.” Dustin had moved to the other side of the table where he could supervise his son. She watched as he bent down and said something to Gert that made her chuckle.

  “Ha,” Martha said, placing a stack of small rose-decorated paper plates in front of her. “You and Gert. Cut from the same cloth.”

  “I know.”

  “You’d better pay attention to what you’re doing or you’ll cut your fingers off with that knife,” her mother said.

  “Don’t worry,” Kate said, slicing the top layer of the cake into neat squares. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Yes,” her mother sighed, scooping cake slices onto plates with a sterling server. “You always thought you did.”

  Kate bit her tongue to keep from saying something she would regret. Her mother could turn a self-assured television writer into a cranky teenager with only a few sentences. Kate smiled to herself. Maybe that’s how she’d inherited her flair for dramatic dialogue.

  “Give that piece to your grandmother,” her mother said, pointing to the section of cake with the most frosting. “She still has a sweet tooth.”

  “All right.”

  “And make sure Elizabeth gets some cake and doesn’t have to wait. I imagine Jake wants to get her home and off her feet.”

  “Okay.” She looked for Jake and, when she caught his eye, pointed to the cake. He nodded and came around the back of the table.

  “You need help with that?” He started to take the knife from her hand.

  “No, Mom wanted to make sure that Elizabeth had cake before you left.”

  “You should take her home soon,” Martha advised. “She should be resting.”

  “That’s what I told her too, Aunt Martha, but she’s got a mind of her own.”

  “She’s lovely,” her mother said, nodding approvingly toward the pregnant woman sitting on a metal chair near Gert. She handed Jake a piece of cake. “Here, make sure she eats something. And don’t forget there’s lemonade and iced tea, too, in case she’s thirsty.”

  Her cousin winked at Kate and took the plate that was almost as big as the piece of cake it held. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll take good care of her.”

  “Such a nice couple,” Martha murmured. “I don’t know why you can’t find a nice man like that in New York.”

  “Neither do I,” Kate said, which was her standard reply every time her mother stated this particular complaint.

  “You work too hard.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, now you’re on vacation. You can get some rest.”

  “And keep my mind off cowboys?” She couldn’t help teasing.

  “Good Lord, I hope so.”

  Kate had to laugh, but she watched Jake deliver cake to his wife, noticed Lorna cradling her baby while an elderly woman talked to her, saw Dustin take his son in hand so other well-wishers could talk to Gert, and she felt another stab of envy. She was home, so why all of a sudden did she feel like a stranger in her own town?

  HE’D BE DAMNED IF he was going to stare at Kate McIntosh, but then again, she sure looked good. Too thin and too pale, as if living in the city wasn’t healthy. Tense, too. The way she gripped that cake knife meant trouble for anyone who got in her way. Her mother was probably aggravating the hell out of her. Some things didn’t change.

  He heard his son giggle. And some things did. Like the fact that he was a father now, responsible for a child. He had to get the boy away from Gert before he ate so much frosting he’d be sick. No one could say this kid had the Joneses’ iron stomach.

  “Come on, Danny.” He bent down to Gert, who sure looked as if she was enjoying her party. “You look pleased with yourself. Are you sure you don’t have a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in that old purse of yours?”

  The old lady laughed. “Don’t go broadcasting my secrets, Dustin. I’m just feeling real good, that’s all. I survived almost a whole century. No one else in town can say that, can they? Poor Mike Monterro would have celebrated his ninetieth this month, too, if he’d lived that long.” She sighed. “So I guess I’d better be grateful about living so long.” She gave Danny a kiss and thanked him for helping with the candles, then looked at Dustin. “What do you think of my granddaughter?”

  “She’s very beautiful.” No lie, even dressed in black and looking like a ghost, Kate was as gorgeous as she ever was.

  “Yep. She’s home for two weeks, you know.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Gert had informed him at least twice a day for the past month. He’d had time to figure out that ignoring Kate would be the easiest way to deal with her.

  “She’ll be coming out to the ranch.” The old lady studied him as if waiting for a reaction. So Dustin didn’t say anything, just waited for Gert to continue. “You can show her what you’ve been doing.”

  “I’m not real sure she’d—”

  “Be interested?” Gert finished for him, a mischievous glint in those pale blue eyes of hers. “I think she would be.”

  Dustin shrugged. Gert could think whatever she wanted, but it was time to drag Danny away from the cake. “Come on, son. We’ve got chores to do.”

  “It’s Saturday afternoon,” Gert protested. “You’ve got the rest of the day off.”

  “And, unless you need me to take you home, I’m going to spend a couple of hours putting a two-year-old quarter horse through his paces.”

  “Can I stay?” Danny looked up at him. “Please?”

  “I’ll watch him,” Gert promised. “And Kate and Martha will bring us back to the ranch later.”

  “Sorry, buddy,” Dustin told his son. “But I need your help this afternoon.” He wasn’t about to leave the
boy with people he barely knew, not that he doubted Gert’s good intentions.

  “Excuse me.” Martha McIntosh appeared behind Gert’s chair. “The photographer is here for the pictures, Mother. He said you might make the front page.”

  “How about that.” Gert grinned at Danny, who giggled. “I’m gonna be a star.” She waved at the photographer, a thin young man who wore a serious expression. “Over here, young man. Do I know you? What’s your name?”

  He shook his head. “I just moved here, ma’am.”

  “Well, that’s all right,” she told him and tugged Danny back into her embrace. “Take a picture of me and my friend here.”

  “Is he your great-grandson, ma’am?” He focused, then counted to three. “Smile.”

  They did, and then Dustin tried once again to get Danny away from Gert and out of the grange hall.

  “Come on, Danny. Let’s let the folks get the real picture,” he said, over Gert’s objections. He eased the boy away as he saw Jake and Kate heading toward them.

  “What about the cake? Grandma Gert said I could have a big piece. A corner piece.”

  “You haven’t had enough frosting?”

  Kate, holding two plates, handed one to Danny. “Here you go,” she said, producing a white plastic fork to go with it.

  He looked down at the cake, cut from the coveted corner, and then up at the dark-haired woman who had handed it to him. “How’d you know?”

  “It was just a lucky guess.”

  “What do you say, Dan?” Dustin urged, wanting his son to make a good impression, and hating himself for wanting to impress this woman.

  “Thank you. A lot.”

  “You’re welcome.” The smile she gave his son surprised him with its warmth. The visiting princess, dispensing favors to the little people. He wished the glamour girl would head back east, as far away from him and the boy as possible.