Chapter 3

The next night Rosie, CanDee, Justus, and Lucy were having girls’ night at Justus’s house. No boys allowed. Lately, Rosie had been so busy tying up loose ends so she could move to the Texas Rose that she’d neglected girl time.

“What do you think of Dallas?” CanDee popped a Double Stuf Oreo in her mouth and smiled like she’d just tasted heaven.

“It’s a fun town.” Rosie snuggled a sleeping AG up higher on her shoulder. The weight of a sleeping baby felt good.

“She meant the person.” Lucy, matriarch of the Rose clan and mother to Cinco, Rowdy, Dallas, Worth, and T-Bone, tossed back a handful of Peanut M&M’s.

“Oh. Um… he seems nice… I guess.” How did she say politely to his mother that he was an ass?

“I think you make him nervous.” Justus dropped a kiss on her daughter’s head.

CanDee used her extra-long leg to reach around Rosie and kick Justus in the shin.

There was something going on here that Rosie didn’t understand.

“What do you mean?” The only people Rosie ever remembered making nervous were venders who didn’t live up to the promises they’d made her. Come to think of it, nervous wasn’t the right word. After she got through with them, terrified fit their state of mind so much better.

Everyone fell silent.

“I don’t understand. What’s going on here that I don’t know about?” Was there some sort of inside joke?

“Nothing.” Lucy cleared her throat. “I think Dallas is a little intimidated by you.”

“Really? Because I think he hates me. He treats me like an ex-girlfriend who loaned him money. When he’s not avoiding me, he’s glaring at me.” She was pretty sure it was hatred and not intimidation that Dallas felt for her. She shook her head. “I can’t think of anything I’ve done to make him angry.”

Then again, people had remarked in the past that she did tend to steamroll over them, and sometimes that made them angry. But she didn’t remember steamrolling anyone recently.

“Trust me, he’s not angry,” Lucy said. “He likes you.”

“What was with the fight I broke up yesterday?” Rosie had never had to break up a fight. Well, except for a catfight or two. That’s where she’d learned to turn the hose on them.

Lucy waved like it was no big deal. “They do that a lot.”

“Why?” Rosie and her sisters yelled at each other, but it had never gotten to bloodshed. True, it had gotten close, but still, no one had ever had to go to the hospital, and rarely did body parts need to be iced down.

Lucy shrugged. “They’re men. I can offer no other explanation.”

CanDee hip-bumped Rosie. “She’s right. I didn’t grow up with siblings, so this whole fighting family thing is new to me, but I’ve seen all of the brothers fight. It’s just horseplay. They don’t do any real damage. You have sisters, surely it’s the same.”

“Rarely do we try to kill each other. Well, except when Esther made tamales a couple of Christmas Eves ago. We all ended up in the ER. Esther’s good at so many things, but cooking isn’t one of them. Our lives would all be so much better if she gave up on it.” No one could call her sister a quitter, because she still cooked dinner every Thursday. It was odd, Rosie and her other sisters always had something else to do on Thursday night.

Justus grabbed a handful of Peanut M&M’s. “Siblings are interesting. Remember that VW commercial a few years ago where the guy goes up to the car and licks the handle?”

Lucy shook her head. “No.”

“Well, there was a commercial where all of these people wanted to buy this one car and a man runs up to the door and licks the handle and everyone backs away from it.” CanDee pointed at Rosie. “She had to explain it to us. You know, lick it and it’s yours.”

“Oh, yes. I can see how if you didn’t grow up with siblings, that commercial wouldn’t make any sense.” Lucy dug into the Peanut M&M’s. “Bear’s an only child. I had to explain to him the universal law of finders keepers, losers weepers.”

Bear was Lucy’s husband, and he was indeed a big bear of a man, but he was a gentle giant with kind eyes and a ready smile.

“I can see how things like that would be hard for an only child to understand,” Rosie said. “Personally, I’ve fantasized about being an only child for most of my life.” But if she’d been an only child, she probably would have ended up in foster care after her mother decided she was tired of being a mother and left Rosie with a neighbor and never came back. That might have happened anyway, if her mother hadn’t died. Intellectually, Rosie knew she wasn’t the reason for her mother’s heart attack, but the frightened and heartbroken ten-year-old girl still lived inside of her, and she knew her mother had died because Rosie was a bad child. Her only apology to her sisters for their mother’s death had been to work harder and longer and smarter, so they wouldn’t know it was all Rosie’s fault.

Her oldest sister, Louisa, who’d been twenty-two at the time, had moved her three younger sisters into her one-bedroom apartment, and somehow they’d made ends meet.

“Don’t say that.” CanDee put her arm around Rosie. “I love your sisters.” She turned to Lucy. “She was raised by her older sisters. They started Fantastic Flans out of that one-room-apartment kitchen.”

“Oh my God.” Lucy’s mouth fell open. “Their chocolate flan is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I can’t believe I’m going to admit this, but I ate all four of the chocolate flan cups in the family pack in one sitting last week. When our housekeeper, Mary, asked about it, I totally threw my sons under the bus and blamed them.” She shook her head. “It may make me a terrible mother, but I don’t care. It was worth it.”

“They worked on that recipe for close to three years before they perfected it.” Rosie couldn’t help but smile. Louisa and Ariana made a good living off of their homemade flan, and so did Esther in a roundabout way. She was head of marketing.

“You should taste the coconut flan. I don’t even like coconut that much, but I love their coconut flan.” CanDee fanned herself like she was talking about the best sex ever. “So yummy.”

“I don’t think the coconut has hit the market yet.” With the wedding and building the bed-and-breakfast, Rosie wasn’t in the loop when it came to her sisters’ business.

“Sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to try it.” Lucy sounded like she really meant it and not like she was just saying it.

Over the last year, Rosie had come to know that Lucy shot straight from the hip, even if she occasionally put someone’s eye out.

“Back to Dallas.” Gently, Justus lifted her sleeping daughter out of Rosie’s arms. “I think he’s cute. Don’t you think he’s cute?”

“Sure.” What else was Rosie supposed to say? His mother and sisters-in-law were currently staring at her.

Now that she thought about it, he was kinda cute, in a Superman—dark hair and baby-blue eyes—kind of way. Also, the killer dimples on both cheeks didn’t hurt. And he had a nice butt. Okay, she was willing to admit that she’d noticed his good looks a time or two. There was nothing wrong with appreciating a nice-looking man. They did it to women all the time.

“By the look on your face, I’d say that ‘sure’ doesn’t cover it. You think he’s cute.” CanDee hip-bumped her again. “It’s okay, it’s just us girls here.”

“I won’t tell.” Lucy crossed her heart, zipped her lips, and threw away the key.

“Okay, I’m willing to admit that I might have checked him out a couple of times. He’s nice to look at… so sue me.” They weren’t going to let her off easy. And it didn’t matter that she was attracted to Dallas. He most definitely was not attracted to her. It was funny, Worth was Dallas’s identical twin, but she only felt brotherly affection for him. When they were identical twins, how could she be attracted to one but not the other?

Just because they had the same DNA didn’t mean they were the same person.

“I think you should give Dallas a chance. He’s a good guy.” CanDee shoved another Oreo into her mouth.

“Sure, why not?” Rosie didn’t know what exactly was going on here, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that she and Dallas would ever have anything more than animosity between them. The fact that he was cute was beside the point.

Lucy sat up. “Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about the bed-and-breakfast. Do you really think we should open before the restaurant is up and running?”

Lucy, CanDee, Justus, and Rosie had all put up equal money to build the B&B. They were equal partners who voted on and discussed everything.

“I’ve been giving that some thought,” Rosie said. “I’ll take care of breakfast, and we can stock the fridge with sandwich-making items or suggest that the guests eat out while they’re sightseeing in Roseville or Fredericksburg. But dinner has always been an issue. I was thinking we could hire different celebrity chefs to cook dinner. Maybe even make it a cooking class where the chef teaches the guests while they all cook dinner.” She thought about it for a minute. “We could market it as a culinary getaway and include Texas Rose wines.”

“That’s brilliant.” CanDee clapped her hands. “I would have never thought of it.”

Justus held her hand up for a high five. “Rowdy loves showcasing his wines, and I love baking.”

“I’d volunteer to help cook too, but the nearest hospital is like forty-five minutes away and I’m not sure EMS has enough ambulances to transport all of the food-poisoning victims before the salmonella I accidently gave them does a number on their intestinal tracts.” CanDee shrugged one shoulder. “Unless I make my famous pancakes or my meatloaf. The meatloaf only made one person sick, but that was years ago.” She waved it away like it was a nonissue. “I’m pretty sure that pancakes can’t kill anyone, or they haven’t yet.”

“Why don’t you leave the cooking to those of us who haven’t sent anyone to the hospital?” Rosie patted CanDee’s knee. “Nothing ruins a business quite like food poisoning.”

“You can help out in other ways.” Lucy scooped up her granddaughter and positioned her on her shoulder. She patted the sleeping child’s back. “I’m so glad we have a granddaughter. It’s about time we had some girl babies.” She smiled at Justus. “Did you show Rosie and CanDee what Dallas bought AG?”

“No, I forgot.” Justus walked down the hall, presumably to AG’s room. A couple of minutes later she stepped into the living room holding a frilly, pale-pink organza dress complete with petticoats, matching shoes, and a pink bow headband large enough to staunch a massive head wound. “Her uncles spoil her rotten.”

Rosie studied the outfit. It was cute and girly and not what she’d expected. “I thought it would be a pair of cowboy boots.”

There she went again stereotyping people.

“You’d think so, but all of her uncles have showered her with super frilly, girly gifts. They want to dress her up in poufy pink dresses and black patent-leather Mary Janes. It’s hilarious.” Justus set the outfit down on the coffee table. “Worth bought her a red rain slicker with ladybugs all over it and matching ladybug rain boots. They’re so huge that she won’t be able to wear them until she’s ten, but they really are adorable.”

“Cinco bought her the tiniest high-heel shoes. She won’t be able to wear them for years, but he doesn’t care.” CanDee pulled one knee up and rested her chin on it. “It’s so funny. He loves AG so much, but he doesn’t want to hold her because he’s afraid he’ll break her.” She glanced at Lucy. “He needs to get over it, because in seven-ish months, he’s going to have one of his own.”

CanDee sat back and watched the aftermath of the verbal grenade she’d just dropped.

“Oh my God, you’re pregnant?” Lucy’s eyes turned huge. “You’re going to have a baby?”

“Yes, I’ve done several pregnancy tests and they’re all positive.” CanDee smiled from ear to ear. “I haven’t told Cinco yet because what with his past relationship, I wanted to make sure.”

“What happened to him?” Rosie knew Cinco had been married before, but she didn’t know any of the details.

Lucy’s face screwed up like she’d just smelled the world’s stinkiest cheese. “His first wife lied about being pregnant so he’d marry her.”

“Wow, what a bitch.” Rosie rarely used the B-word, but when the bitch-hat fit, she had to call it.

“I know, right?” Justus threw an arm around CanDee and hugged her tight.

“I’m so excited.” Lucy hugged her granddaughter to her. “This little one needs cousins. Lots of them. Okay, you need a blood test. I can draw your blood and take it to the hospital tomorrow. I’ll have the results in minutes.”

“That would be awesome.” Excitement radiated off of CanDee in waves. “I can’t wait to tell him.” She took a deep breath and looked to be judging her words carefully. “I’d like to be able to show him the results of the blood test, or at least have you talk to him to confirm the results.” She hugged Lucy. “I’d like for him to know that I’m really pregnant.”

“He knows you’re not like his first wife.” Lucy patted her on the back.

“I know, but think about it from his perspective. He’s got to have some lingering doubts, and rightfully so.” CanDee had the enviable ability to see a situation from all angles.

Rosie didn’t suffer from fair judgement like CanDee. She didn’t see all the angles, or really want to see any other side besides her own. It wasn’t stubbornness or a lack of empathy, it was more a single-minded drive to accomplish whatever she’d set out to accomplish.

Even if that accomplishment was something impossible. Like having a normal conversation with Dallas.