CHAPTER SIX
Harper propped her feet, encased only in socks, on the porch railing and leaned back in her chair that Thursday evening. March 22—that’s what the calendar said, which meant they’d been there a whole week. The evenings had gotten a little warmer as they all settled into their routines more firmly. Until summer, according to Zed, the main part of their business would be on the weekends. In some ways it seemed like the three of them had always lived at the tiny little resort; in others, she wondered why she was wasting her life in a place like this.
As usual, she knew that Wyatt wasn’t far away long before he spoke. There was that little lilt in her heart like it floated. He handed her an icy-cold beer in a can, and she held it against her forehead a couple of seconds.
“So how’s your week been?”
“Hours drag some through the days, but the week went by pretty fast.”
He sat down on the porch step. “How’s the chin healin’?”
“I took the strips off this mornin’. Don’t look like it’s goin’ to scar.” She popped the tab on the can and quickly sucked the foam off before it could run down the sides. “I’m usually a whiskey girl, but this tastes really good.” Maybe she only liked beer when she drank it with Wyatt.
“I always bring a case of cold ones for the crew. Room, food, beer on the first night they arrive, and three days of fishin’ for four customers at one low, low price.” He grinned.
“Sounds like you should be in advertising.” She set the beer on the porch rail and clapped her hands dramatically. “But wait! If you book your trip now, Wyatt will throw in a special made-in-a-third-world-country cooler to keep your catch in until you get home.”
He chuckled and put up a palm, “But wait! If you book two trips, Wyatt will provide an honest-to-God old-time fish fry at the edge of the lake. Fish, hush puppies, beer, and fried potatoes.”
“That sounds pretty good. Where do I sign up?” The last time she’d laughed with any sincerity had been when they were together all those years ago.
“Oh. My. God!” Tawny said loudly as she passed by the porch on the way to her cabin. “I’m hearing things. Harper just laughed. I didn’t know she could do that anymore.”
“Smart-ass!” Harper grinned.
“And a smile to boot! Run, Wyatt, run! The world is coming to an end. I think I see a meteorite.” Tawny threw a hand up in a theatrical gesture as if shading her eyes against the imaginary ball of fire coming toward them.
“Y’all are crazier than you were when we were all kids,” he laughed. “Want a beer, Tawny?” He held up a plastic ring with three still attached.
“Don’t mind if I do. Thank you, Wyatt.”
A stab of jealousy pricked Harper in the heart when Tawny sat down beside Wyatt on the top step. But it disappeared when he hopped up and said, “Wait, I see my first truckload of guys arriving. So I’d better get on down there. We’ve got a poker game in my cabin planned. See y’all around.”
Unaffected, Tawny opened her beer and took a long gulp. “I called Mother after work tonight.”
“And?”
“She says that if we come home and do something important with our lives, she’ll forgive us,” Tawny said.
“You goin’ home?”
“Nope. I told her that it’s not a matter of her forgiving us but of us forgiving her. You ready to tell me what it was that got you disowned? What in the devil did you do to survive? There’s no way anyone would let you bartend at that age. How did you live from the time you were sixteen until now?” Tawny asked.
“Nope, I am not ready to tell you that story. I will tell you this, though. For about six months, I worked at an animal shelter. Got a free room at the back of it for taking the night shift. Anyway, one night this man left a whole litter of Doberman pups on the doorstep. I had to get up every two hours all night to feed those critters. Didn’t lose a single one of them.” Harper smiled at the memory.
“And that has to do with what?” Tawny asked.
“Patience.” Harper took the final sip of her beer. “I’m gettin’ to that part. When I asked the manager lady about it, she said that Dobermans sometimes just don’t have the right mother instinct. The pups start to bother the mom with their incessant whining and wanting to eat all the time, so she retaliates by biting them or pushing them away to starve.”
“I think I’m gettin’ your point,” Tawny said.
“Yep, our mother is a Doberman. She had us because Daddy wanted kids to ease his guilt over not claiming Dana. She doesn’t have any mother instinct. She left us with nannies and babysitters and only brought us out when we were all pretty and clean for family pictures. She is what she is,” Harper said.
Tawny finished her beer and set the empty can on the porch. “Have you forgiven her for what she said and did to you? It was awful at the house after you left. I begged them to let me move here and live with Granny.”
Harper inhaled so deep that her lungs hurt and then let it out slowly. “I forgave her a long time ago. She’s not worth the pain and suffering. I just hope that I got Granny Annie’s big heart when it comes to children and not hers,” Harper answered.
Tawny scooted over and braced her back against the porch post. “You think you’ll ever have kids? You willin’ to take that kind of chance?”
Harper shrugged. “Are you?”
“I like kids, so maybe if the right man came along,” Tawny answered. “What happened to all of those puppies?”
“I didn’t leave that job until I’d found a good home for each of them.” Harper nodded.
“That’s good,” Tawny said. “Maybe we should send Mama a picture of the two of us huggin’ a Doberman.”
“Wouldn’t do a bit of good. She’s never had to admit that she was wrong. Daddy adored her and let her run the place and us. She’d just wonder why in the hell we were sending her a picture of us with a dog,” Harper chuckled.
“Probably so. Good night.” Tawny groaned when she got to her feet. “Too many hours sitting in front of a computer, but I think I’m getting this business figured out.”
“Try standing on your feet all day,” Harper said.
“No, thanks. I’ll take kinks over aching arches.”
When Brook was a little girl, she and Dana had watched animated cartoons, and then slowly they’d graduated to more mature movies and even television series on either Friday or Saturday nights. Brook’s newest love was MacGyver, a remake of an older show that now had two seasons on DVDs, so they usually ended the week by watching it over and over. But that night she’d gone off to the mall with Tawny, and Dana felt the emptiness as she sat on the grass at the edge of the lake.
Down around Houston, when someone mentioned a beach, visions of sand, seagulls, and water all the way to the horizon came to mind. But in north central Texas, the image changed to green grass, ducks, and lights in the summer homes on the other side of the lake.
Get used to it. That’s why you have sisters. The kid grows up and leaves home, and you’d have no one if it weren’t for your sisters. The voice sounded a lot like her grandmother’s.
“You didn’t have sisters or brothers, Granny,” Dana argued.
Harper sat down a few feet from her. “Who are you talkin’ to?”
“You startled me,” Dana said. “What’re you doin’ here? I figured you’d be gettin’ into trouble in that bar up the road.”
“Didn’t feel like it tonight. Do you always talk to yourself, or do you have a feller hidin’ up in the trees?” Harper asked. “We should’ve brought marshmallows.”
“I remember when we used to do that when you girls were with us in the summertime.” Zed appeared out of the darkness from the other direction. “We’d start us up a fire down here on the edge of the water and have hot dogs and them things with graham crackers for dessert.”
“They were s’mores. Roasted marshmallow crammed between two graham crackers along with a piece of chocolate candy bar. Pull up a chair or a piece of the grass and join us, Uncle Zed.” Harper pointed to the area between them.
He eased down a couple of feet from Harper. “That’s right. Me and Annie built us up a bonfire and made them things a few times, but it wasn’t the same when you girls weren’t here with us. I’m missin’ her real bad tonight. The walls in my room got to closin’ in on me, so I came out for a walk. She loved it when the trees started gettin’ leaves and folks started fillin’ up the summer places.”
“My favorite memories of her are in the store,” Dana said. “She kept me while Mama went to school to get her cosmetology license and then afterward while Mama worked.”
“Did you ever know Grandpa?” Harper glanced over at Dana.
“No, he was already gone when I was born,” Dana answered.
They sat in silence for ten minutes, and then Zed slowly rose to his feet and started back up the trail toward Annie’s Place.
“You okay?” Harper called out before he disappeared.
“I’m better. It helped just to sit with y’all a spell. I can feel her presence in among us when you girls are all together. Especially when you ain’t bickerin’.”
“See,” Harper whispered, “he’s not as sad when we try to get along.”
Dana rose to her feet. “I’ve got a movie and some popcorn if you want to join me in the house. Tawny said she’d bring Brook home by eleven.”
“Think we could stand each other for two hours without arguin’? Uncle Zed isn’t going to be there, you know.”
“I’m willin’ to give it a try if you are,” Dana answered.
“What movie you got?” Harper gracefully went from sitting cross-legged to a standing position.
“Lots of them. You can even choose.” She never thought she’d feel that way, but time with Harper beat being totally alone for the next three hours.
The path from the lake to the house wasn’t far, but neither of them said anything. Dana stepped inside the house with Harper right behind her and stopped in the middle of the living room. “It seems like she should be coming out of the kitchen with a pan of brownies in her hand for us to eat while we play some board game,” Harper said.
Dana laid a hand on Harper’s shoulder. “I feel the same way, and I’ve been livin’ in this house more than a week. If I was into hocus-pocus stuff, I’d say her spirit isn’t happy and it’s tryin’ to tell us something.”
“Is the Ouija board still somewhere in the house?” Harper flopped down on the sofa. “That thing scared the bejesus right out of me. If it’s under the bed or in the hall closet, we should take it down to the lake and toss it into the water.”
“Haven’t seen it, thank goodness. It scared me, too. Want a beer or a glass of sweet tea?”
“Tea, please. Why wouldn’t she be happy? We’re all here and, with the help of Uncle Zed, keepin’ the place going. We’ve done pretty good this past week, in my opinion,” Harper said.
Dana brought in two tall glasses of tea and set them on the coffee table. “Considerin’ that it’s us, we’ve probably broken the record for doing good. Popcorn or trail mix?”
Harper picked up a glass and took a sip. “Trail mix, if it’s what you made when we were here last time. The kind with M&M’s in it?”
“Brook’s favorite. I make it at least once a month,” Dana yelled from the kitchen.
She took a bowlful to the living room and opened the hall closet where she’d stored the collection of movies that she’d brought with her. When she turned around, Harper was right behind her.
“Sweet Lord!” she gasped.
“What?” Dana asked.
“That’s a lot of movies. You should put them in the store and rent them out to the folks who stay in the cabins.” Harper ran her finger down the rows and rows, arranged alphabetically by the first letter in the title.
“Oh, no! This is my and Brook’s private collection. We couldn’t get cable out in the barn, so I bought movies.” She shook her head the whole time she was talking.
“Barn? You lived in a barn? I thought you lived on a big fancy horse ranch.” Harper spun around to face her.
“I lived on a horse ranch in a small apartment attached to the stables. It had a living room and bedroom combination, a small galley kitchen, and a bathroom. It was free so I didn’t complain, but we couldn’t get cable. Brook hasn’t suffered from it.” Dana ran her finger across the DVDs.
“Hot Pursuit,” Brook yelled as she and Tawny came through the back door.
“I thought y’all were out until eleven o’clock,” Dana said.
“We got bored and thought about going to a movie, but I wasn’t spending my hard-earned money for that when we got better food and more comfortable chairs at home.” Brook removed her jacket and set two bags on the floor. “I found a pair of jeans on a half-price rack and two shirts seventy-five percent off.”
“She’s a shrewd shopper.” Tawny glanced over at Harper. “What are you doin’ here? Is that Dana’s trail mix?”
“Yes, it is, and I’m here to watch a movie,” Harper answered.
“So is Aunt Tawny. Yay!” Brook clapped her hands. “We can all watch it together. Y’all seen Hot Pursuit?”
Harper and Tawny both shook their heads.
“Well, you’re goin’ to love it.” Brook grabbed a pillow and a throw from the sofa and tossed them on the floor. “This is my spot. Y’all can have the sofa and the recliner.”
There were two good things about watching a comedy—no one had to talk, and they felt good when it ended. As soon as the credits began to roll, Harper carried the glasses and Tawny’s beer bottle to the kitchen, thanked Dana for the evening, and left by way of the back door.
Dana watched her leave and wondered again what had changed Harper from that fun-loving teenager into a person with so many demons.
“That was fun,” Tawny said.
“We’ll have to make it a Friday night date.” Brook yawned. “Movies and popcorn at our house.”
“We’ll see. Thanks for loaning me your daughter and for the movie and trail mix,” Tawny said.
“And the beer? Hey, Mama, when can I have a beer on movie night?” Brook asked.
“When you are forty and not a day earlier,” Dana chuckled.
“She’s not ever goin’ to let me grow up,” Brook groaned.
Tawny gave Brook a quick hug on her way out the door. “Don’t get in a rush to do that, kiddo. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Good night.”
Surprisingly, almost shockingly, they’d managed to spend a couple of hours in one another’s presence without insults bouncing off the walls—and Uncle Zed wasn’t even there. Later, Harper was sitting on her porch when Tawny passed by, so she stopped and sat down on the step.
“You remind me of that cop in the movie,” Harper said.
“In looks or in actions?”
“Both,” Harper told her. “Mother was right. You are the pretty one.”
“She said that?” Tawny wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
“Said that God made you pretty to make up for the fact that you were a girl. Daddy wanted a son so bad, but she said she wouldn’t do that to her body a third time for any man on the face of the earth. And that he was cursed for having a bastard to begin with.”
Tawny let it soak in for a little while. “Guess it’s not much of a compliment after all, is it.”
“Better than being the tall, gangly daughter that looked like Granny Annie. Too big to ever be pretty,” Harper said.
“Looking like Granny is not a bad thing, is it?” Tawny asked.
“It seemed like it was at the time. If she said it now, I’d thank her.” Harper smiled.
“For a couple of privileged kids, we sure got a lot of baggage, don’t we?” Tawny said. “Seems like Dana has less than we do, and our father wouldn’t even claim her. ’Course, he wouldn’t stand up to Mother for us, either.”
“Crazy, ain’t it?”
Tawny yawned. “Tomorrow comes around pretty early. I’m going to bed.”
“Me too.” Harper stood up and stretched with her hands over her head.
Tawny had always envied Harper for her height and her brown eyes. She was anything but an ugly duckling. Tawny was suddenly sorry that their mother had made her feel like that. But then Retha had never considered anyone else’s feelings—except maybe her husband’s, and then only if it suited her mood and her need for his paycheck. She’d always been his trophy wife with her gorgeous blonde hair and big blue eyes.
“I wonder if he ever had a mistress,” Tawny mused as she passed cabin after cabin.
“If he did, he better hope his wife don’t find out about it,” a voice said from the porch of cabin number six.
The masculine voice startled her. She stopped in her tracks and tried to remember who was renting that particular unit. Finally the face that went with that deep drawl materialized.
“Evenin’, Mr. Richman,” she said.
“That makes me sound like an old man. I’m just Tony, not Mr. Richman,” he chuckled. “But it is a right nice evenin’, ain’t it?” He leaned forward and rested his hands on the porch railing.
Tawny remembered him checking in, but it was a blur with all she had to do that day. Now she could see that his clear blue eyes were rimmed with heavy black lashes and his smile lit up the whole porch.
“Yes, it is. Supposed to be in the eighties tomorrow. Good fishin’ weather,” Tawny said.
“I don’t fish. I’m here because my wife threw me out.”
Tawny was not a sounding board for domestic fights, but he reminded her so much of her last boyfriend that she sat down on his porch. “Did you deserve it?”
“Oh, yeah. I didn’t want to marry her at all, but she was pregnant and my daddy is the preacher in a little church up in Lindale.”
“Why are you tellin’ me this?” Tawny asked.
“Just need to bare my soul to a stranger who don’t give a damn what I did,” he said. “I was sittin’ here prayin’ to God to give me a sign about what I’m supposed to do come Sunday mornin’, and you walked by. I figured you might be my sign.”
“God wouldn’t send me to be anyone’s sign,” Tawny laughed.
“My girlfriend, also a preacher’s daughter, and I had this big fight and I got drunk,” he said. “So I wound up in bed with another preacher’s daughter for a whole weekend. My girlfriend and I made up the next week, but . . .” He let the sentence trail off.
“But then the other preacher’s daughter turned out pregnant, right?”
“We shouldn’t have been drinking or having sex, but things happen.” He shrugged. “It was a shotgun wedding, and then she had a miscarriage at two months.”
“Life ain’t fair, is it?” Tawny said.
“My girlfriend and I were still in love . . . you can guess the rest. My wife’s religion does not believe in divorce. My parents don’t believe in it, either, even though our church doesn’t send folks to hell for it.”
“Twisted-up mess, if you ask me. How old are you?” Tawny asked.
“Twenty-two. Been married six months.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of soul searching to do in the next couple of days.”
He rubbed a hand across his chin. “If you were my wife, what would you do?”
“I’d never have married you to begin with, but since she did, I imagine I’d shoot you for cheating on me,” she answered.
“And if you were the woman I’ve loved since I was in the third grade?”
“I hope I would have had enough sense to back off until you were a free man.”
“Hope?” he asked.
“I can’t judge. I haven’t walked a mile in either of those women’s shoes. Maybe your wife loved someone else, too, but she doesn’t know how to get out of this horrible marriage and she’s puttin’ the job on you. You should talk to her—and listen to what she has to say. Just the two of you.”
Maybe you should practice what you are preachin’. There was Granny Annie’s voice in her head again. You should try paying attention to Zed and your sisters like you do to strangers.
“Thanks for listenin’ to me. You might have been my sign after all. I’ll probably check out early tomorrow mornin’ and go back across the river. See if I can get this straightened out,” he said.
“Sure thing.” As she covered the distance to her own little cabin, Tawny could hear all kinds of night insects and animals who’d come out to play under the light of the moon. When she was inside, she slid down the back of the door and wrapped her hands around her knees. “Granny, I’ve done some really stupid things that I don’t want to tell Dana and Harper about. They’ve never been on probation or made the bad choices that I have. I just can’t tell them. Don’t leave me. I need to hear your voice sometimes.”
She cocked her head to the side, but all she heard was wind rattling through the trees.