CHAPTER NINE
Nessa’s day had been full. She’d waited until business slowed midafternoon, then called the Pattersons to learn what she could about Gordon Pawling. Phil remembered him well.
“Of course I know who Gordon Pawling is,” Phil said. “We’ve been exchanging Christmas cards for several years.”
“But he didn’t know Dovie and Frank were married.”
“He didn’t ask and I didn’t say anything,” Phil continued. “It wasn’t my place to tell him. Why are you asking?”
“He stopped in last week.”
“Gordon Pawling was in Promise? Why didn’t he phone?”
“He did, but apparently you were out that day.”
“Oh, too bad. He’s a hell of a nice guy.”
Nessa thought so, too. “He was disappointed Dovie was away.”
“Why didn’t he let us know he was going to be in the vicinity?”
“I can’t say for sure,” Nessa said, nodding at Ellie Patterson when she walked into the store. “I think it was a last-minute decision.”
“Still, I wish I’d known.”
Selfish though it sounded, Nessa was grateful to have had those special hours with Gordon, grateful he hadn’t needed to rush away to meet with others. Whenever she thought about their afternoon together, a feeling of warmth came over her. It had been like a reprieve, a time out of time. She’d felt briefly as if the problems facing her had melted away and she was young again. But she wasn’t a schoolgirl; she was a mature woman, a widow with a complicated life and manipulative children.
“I have to go,” Nessa said. “I’ve got a customer—your daughter-in-law Ellie.”
“Give her a hug for me,” Phil told her.
Ellie had come for scones to take home for Glen and was soon gone, and Nessa was once again alone with her thoughts. She was glad she’d talked to Phil about Gordon, although some of her questions about the man remained unanswered. One thing Nessa did know—her afternoon with Gordon had been wonderful. However, she hadn’t heard from him since and suspected she wouldn’t. If only he hadn’t left in such a hurry. If only they’d been able to exchange addresses. If only…
The following morning, when Nessa was counting out cash for the register, the phone rang. Absently she reached for it while sliding the twenties into their slot.
“Dovie’s Antiques,” she said, tucking the receiver between her shoulder and her ear as she continued the task.
“Is this Nessa?”
Nessa’s hands went slack. “Gordon?” The pounding of her heart was so fierce she hardly knew how she managed to stay upright.
“Then you do remember me?”
As if she was likely to forget him! “Of course. You’re Dovie’s friend,” she said, more to remind herself than him.
“I’d like to believe I’m your friend, too.” He sounded a bit sheepish, as though her comment had caught him off guard.
“You are,” she said, her voice strained and unfamiliar even to her own ears.
“I had the most enjoyable afternoon in Promise, thanks to you.”
“I wish you’d been able to see the town.”
“I do, too. In the past week I’ve wanted to kick myself for rushing off the way I did, but I had no idea how swiftly the time had gone.”
“Did you make it to your banquet?”
“Unfortunately, I was an hour-and-a-half late and ended up eating in my room.”
“Oh, dear,” Nessa said. “That afternoon just flew by, didn’t it?”
“I wanted to thank you for making me feel so welcome.”
She pressed the receiver hard against her ear, as if to get closer to him. “It was my pleasure.”
“I would’ve phoned sooner, but I had to make an unexpected trip to Vancouver. My brother-in-law died suddenly.”
“Oh, Gordon—I’m so sorry.” She felt a pang of regret, remembering how quickly her husband’s life had been snatched away.
“Yes, it was quite traumatic, and a reminder of how precious life is. We shouldn’t waste time, not knowing how much or how little we have.”
Nessa heard the pain in his voice.
“Actually, losing Paul was what prompted me to call,” he said. “I’m not usually as comfortable with anyone as I was with you. The truth is, I tend to be somewhat reserved.”
He paused and Nessa smiled, almost enjoying his discomfort. “Uh-huh,” was all she said.
“I met Dovie on the last night of our cruise, and I kept wishing we’d found each other sooner. Before she decided to marry her sheriff. I refuse to do that again, waste time that way. So I have to ask—did you enjoy our afternoon as much as I did?”
“That afternoon was one of the best I’ve spent in years,” Nessa replied honestly.
He chuckled warmly. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.”
“Me, neither.”
“For most of my working life I sat in judgment of others,” he went on. “That was my job, but it gives a man a false sense of thinking he knows what’s right. I worked too hard, spent too many hours away from home. I realize now that my son suffered, and I’m sorry to say my wife did, as well. Now I see Miles making exactly the same mistakes. Even so, he claims to know what I need and isn’t afraid of telling me.”
“My children are the same. Are you saying I was the one who taught them this? What a horrifying thought.”
They both laughed and it felt amazingly good.
“I want to call you again, Nessa. That is, if you don’t mind.”
“I’d like it very much.” She gave him her home phone number and wrote down his.
They chatted a bit more and then Gordon confessed, “I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about talking to you again, wondering what you’d say and hoping you wanted to get to know me better, too.”
“Oh, I do!” She paused. “I spent the evening reading the book you recommended. The novel by Kaye Gibbons.”
They talked for almost thirty minutes before a customer entered the store and Nessa had to go.
“Can I phone you at home this evening?” Gordon asked.
“Please. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”
And that was how it started. From then on, they talked every night, precisely at seven. Nessa felt like a kid again. There didn’t seem to be anything they couldn’t talk about. Even though they’d met only once….
Two weeks after his visit, a few days after they’d begun talking every night, Nessa heard from Dovie.
“Nessa,” Dovie complained, “there must be something wrong with your phone line. I tried for over an hour and all I could get was a busy signal.”
Had she really spent an entire hour talking to Gordon? Oh, my, she hated to think what his phone bill would be.
“Dovie, it’s so good to hear from you,” Nessa said, rather than explain there was nothing wrong with the phone system. “Where are you?”
“New York. Frank and I landed earlier this afternoon. We’re staying here for the night and then flying into San Antonio first thing in the morning. We’ll be back in Promise by nightfall. How is everything?”
“Wonderful.”
“You sound good.”
“Actually, business has been excellent,” Nessa said, steering the conversation away from anything personal. “Slow but steady. I sold the two trunks from Hong Kong and the marble table.”
“That’s great because we’re going to need all the room we can get. Just wait’ll you see all the incredible antiques Frank and I found in France and England.” Her excitement spilled over as she recounted the items she’d purchased and shipped home. “And Paris—oh, Nessa, you were right. It has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.”
“Yes. Romantic, isn’t it?”
“Did anything happen while I was away?” Dovie asked next.
Nessa hesitated. Dovie deserved to know that Gordon had come by the store to see her. In all this time he hadn’t forgotten her. The first question he’d asked Nessa had been about Dovie and Frank Hennessey.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Nessa said, berating herself already for her lie of omission.
Not until the line had been disconnected did she admit to being jealous. Her feelings were silly and irrational. Dovie was far more than her relative. She was her friend. Her closest friend. She had every right to know that Gordon Pawling had come to Promise. But Nessa hadn’t told her….
But she would, Nessa promised herself. The next time she saw Dovie, she’d tell her everything.
* * *
Dianna and Devon sat on the kitchen floor banging pots and pans while Nell put the finishing touches on a triple-layer chocolate rum cake. Travis’s favorite. The racket was almost deafening, but it was the sweetest of music to Nell’s ears. The twins’ happy chatter reinforced her sense of her husband’s love and commitment to her. Since Val Langley’s phone call, Nell needed that reminder.
She wanted to kick herself now. Oh, sure, she’d said, tell Val we’ll rent her a room. How stupid can you get? While it was true the two women hadn’t actually met, Nell had seen plenty of pictures.
Travis’s first wife was beautiful. If Val hadn’t chosen a career in law, she could have been a model. Nell felt like a linebacker compared to the dainty Val. Where this woman had curves, Nell had muscles. Where Val had bouncy carefree curls, Nell had thick straight braids. The sophisticated New Yorker would take one look at her and think Travis had married some hayseed.
Nell could think of no possible reason Val might have for visiting Promise other than to lure Travis back. She’d made a mistake in divorcing him for another man, and now she was divorced again. In the years since she’d left Travis, his career as a novelist had skyrocketed—no doubt making him seem even more desirable.
Clearly Val had seen the error of her ways and was determined to win him back. And Nell, gullible naive soul that she was, hadn’t guessed the other woman’s intentions until it was too late. She knew full well that she’d probably be involved in a battle for her husband, yet here she was in the kitchen, doing boring unsophisticated countrified things. She might soon be fighting to save her marriage—and her ammunition of choice was chocolate cake.
Boy, did she have problems! She’d better get some counseling.
Generally she wasn’t emotional, but the more she thought about what she’d done, the more she worried. The past three-and-a-half years had been a gift she’d never even hoped to receive. When Jake died, Nell hadn’t believed she’d be able to love again. Or that another man would love her. Then Travis had come to Promise in search of a story. They’d met and fallen in love. She remembered what her life had been like after he’d returned to New York that first time. It would have been better, she’d decided then, if he’d never come to Texas. The emptiness inside her had seemed greater than ever before. She couldn’t go through that again. She couldn’t lose Travis, she just couldn’t.
“What smells so good?” Travis asked, walking into the kitchen. “Is it what I think it is?”
Nell hadn’t expected him back this soon. Sniffling, she grabbed a paper towel to wipe her nose, praying he didn’t notice the tears glistening in her eyes.
Travis reached down and lifted first Dianna and then Devon for a quick hug before he made his way toward her. He kissed the back of her neck and slid his arms around her waist, hugging her against him. “Don’t tell me that’s your chocolate rum cake?”
“Yup.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat.
“It isn’t my birthday, is it?”
“Nope.”
“Christmas? Our anniversary? Did I miss something I shouldn’t have?”
“Of course not.” She forced a laugh.
“Then what did I do to be worthy of this monumental effort?”
“It’s a declaration of war,” she admitted.
“War? What do you mean? War against whom? What’s wrong?”
Nell continued frosting the cake, although her hand trembled. “My mother told me long ago that it may be old-fashioned, but it’s true—the most direct route to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
“A truth if I ever heard it,” he agreed, then went quiet. “You have my heart, Nell.”
“Do I?”
“Honey, how can you even think otherwise?”
“Val wants you back and like an idiot I practically invited her into our home! How could I have been so stupid. How could you have let me be so stupid?”
Travis turned her around so that he could see her face. Nell met his gaze, but tears blurred her vision.
“Nell. My sweet, beautiful Nell.”
“I’m not beautiful!” she cried. “That’s the whole point.”
“Don’t ever say that,” Travis said in a rare display of anger.
“Not compared to Val.”
“Val?” He spit out the name as if it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “She’s vain, selfish, manipulative and conceited.”
“But she wants you back!”
“Nell, I have three things to say.” Travis laughed. “First, I love you. Second, why would I want a woman like Val even if I wasn’t remarried? And third, I don’t believe she wants me back at all. She wants something, all right, but it’s not me.”
“Then why is she coming here?” Nell blew her nose. “What does she want?”
“I can’t be sure. With Valerie, who knows?” Travis frowned. “She claims she’s curious about life in Texas. Says she needs to get away for a while.”
“I’d think Val’s the type who’d be more at home in London or Los Angeles.”
Travis agreed with a quick nod. “It does make me wonder.”
“So we come full circle. She wants you.”
He laughed outright at that. “Well, she can’t have me.”
“Not without one hell of a fight.”
That seemed to amuse him. “Maybe I should take her out to Bitter End and let her find her own way back.”
He’d never do that, Nell knew, but it did ease her mind to know her husband wasn’t any more anxious to see his ex-wife than she was.
Still holding her, Travis nuzzled her neck. Nell felt a tug and glanced down. Dianna and Devon were staring up at their parents. Devon had his arms wrapped around his father’s legs and Dianna’s plump fingers clutched Nell’s apron.
Travis reached for Devon, and Nell reached for Dianna. “Leave you and my babies?” He shook his head vehemently. “That’s the biggest joke of the year. No way, Nell. Not in this lifetime.”
* * *
The conversation with Nell remained in Travis’s mind long afterward. He’d tried to talk his stubborn wife into letting him call Val and tell her to find other accommodations, but difficult as it was to understand, Nell refused.
It wasn’t in her to turn tail and run, which was a quality he deeply admired in his wife. She faced every challenge head-on, every problem without backing down. She was resourceful and she never gave up. If it hadn’t been for Nell, he would never have uncovered the mystery behind Bitter End or understood what had driven hardened pioneers from their homes more than a hundred years earlier.
From the first she’d been quick to credit him. The limelight always made Nell uncomfortable. Even the year she’d won the chili cook-off….
His thoughts returned to his ex-wife. He couldn’t imagine why she’d be interested in Texas. Thinking about Val, Travis recalled his meeting with Richard Weston. At first it was hard to believe anyone this likable, this clever, would end up behind bars facing a twenty-five-year sentence. They’d met through Val, who’d been his court-appointed attorney. Generally she hated these cases and gave them the least amount of effort. She must have ticked her second husband off royally for him to hand her this case. As a senior partner in the law firm, Charles would have been the one to make the decision. Travis had merely been relieved that Val was some other man’s headache, but now Charles Langley had apparently seen the light himself.
Still, none of this explained Val’s curiosity about Texas. He’d asked her about it, and she’d made up some silly excuse about wanting to see the state ever since she’d read one of his books. Yeah, right, he’d almost snorted. The only book of his she’d have any interest in reading was his bankbook.
He’d rather she wasn’t coming, wished he’d been able to convince Nell to deny her room and board. But Nell wouldn’t hear of it. Not his Nell.
* * *
Jeannie French knew that discouraging Sheriff Jordan’s romantic interest in her had been the right thing to do, although it hadn’t been easy. Nevertheless, the look on his face when she’d turned down his invitation to the Cattlemen’s Dance still haunted her.
In the days that followed she found herself thinking about him more and more, and wondered if there’d been a gentler way of refusing him.
On the last day of school, Bernie Benton, the fifth-grade teacher, came into her classroom after school.
“Hey, how’s it going?” he asked casually, hands stuck inside his pants pockets.
Jeannie knew Bernie had been born and raised in Promise and had taught at the school for the past five years. She’d heard someone say he’d graduated in the same high-school class as Adam Jordan, although she wondered if that was wrong. Bernie appeared to be a few years older, but maybe that was because of his receding hairline.
“Hello, Bernie.”
“I was wondering if anyone’s told you about the Cattlemen’s Dance next week.”
This dance, Jeannie thought, was all anyone mentioned these days. The last dance she remembered hearing so much about had been her high-school prom.
“Are you going?” Jeannie asked.
“Of course. What about you?”
She had the impression she was expected to go, even though no one had come right out and said as much. “I thought I’d drop by.” She hadn’t run into Will Osborne and suspected she wouldn’t. Even if she did, Jeannie could think of no way of letting him know she’d welcome an invitation from him. Often she wished she were more sophisticated, more worldly. Then she wouldn’t worry so much about hurting someone’s feelings or give a second thought to rejecting a man like Sheriff Jordan.
“Do you have a date yet?”
Bernie was married, with three young children, yet it almost seemed as if he was inviting her. “I didn’t know I had to have a date.”
“You don’t,” Bernie was quick to explain. “It’s no big deal if you go alone.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Seeing that there was every likelihood she’d end up doing just that.
“I was thinking maybe you’d like to ride along with me,” Bernie suggested lightly.
“You and your wife?”
Bernie looked uncomfortable. “Actually, Cheryl and I’ve recently separated.”
“Oh…I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just one of those things.”
“Still, it must be very difficult for everyone.” Especially his children. Jeannie didn’t know why some people thought children under a certain age wouldn’t be affected by divorce. Her limited time teaching had shown her that all children, regardless of age, were subject to the tensions created by family problems.
Bernie shrugged. “So what do you say? Want to ride along with me or not? I mean, I’m going and you’re going. There isn’t any reason to take two separate cars.”
Now it was Jeannie’s turn to be evasive. She’d rejected one man and wasn’t about to enter a dead-end relationship with another, a fellow teacher at that. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” Bernie seemed surprised, as if she of all people would appreciate the logic of his argument.
Was this guy as dense as Adam—or was it just the men in Promise? “Well,” she began, “you might be separated, but you’re still married. You have a wife and three beautiful children who need their father.”
“Yes, but…Cheryl doesn’t understand…”
“Bernie, listen, I don’t think it’d be fair for me to hear the particulars of your marital problems. I hope, and I’m sure you do, that the two of you can work things out, and in that case going to the dance with me won’t help the situation. Also—” she took a deep breath “—I don’t mean to be unkind, but you and I work in the same school. It seems to me that someone who didn’t know the two of us might believe I was somehow involved in the breakup of your marriage.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“People might not think so if I turn up with you at the biggest dance of the year. How is anyone to know I’m not your date?”
“Oh.” He buried his hands deeper in his pockets. “Cheryl’s going.”
“With a date?” If so, that would explain everything.
He hesitated. “I don’t know.”
That was it, Jeannie thought. If his wife did attend the dance with another man, he wanted to prove that he was capable of finding himself a partner, too.
“Bernie, listen,” Jeannie said as gently as she could. “I’m sorry about you and Cheryl, really sorry, but I don’t think showing up with me at the dance would be very smart. You have children. Don’t throw away your marriage by doing something that stupid.”
“Who are you—Dr. Phil?” Although the question was sarcastic, his look was sheepish.
“No, just someone who cares about families.”
Bernie lowered his eyes. “You’re right.”
“Ms. French?” Emma Bishop poked her head into the classroom. “Oh, hi, Mr. Benton,” she said. “There’s a message for you in the office, Ms. French,” she announced. “Mrs. Caldwell asked me to let you know.”
“Thanks, Emma.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Bernie said and left her classroom, his expression so woebegone it was painful to see.
On her way out of the school, she stopped at the office.
“The message was from Mr. Jordan,” Martie Caldwell, the secretary, told her.
Oh, no. What now? “Sheriff Jordan called for me here at the school?”
“No, it was Max Jordan, from the western-wear shop next to Tumbleweed Books. He told me to tell you your order’s in.”
“But I didn’t order anything.”
Martie shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him about that. All I did was take the call.”
Jeannie felt a headache coming on. Her temples throbbed, and she was in no mood to deal with what was sure to be a waste of time. Whatever had been ordered had nothing to do with her, but it meant a trip to the store to sort out the misunderstanding. A trip she wasn’t pleased to make.
First Bernie, now this.
She was lucky enough to find a parking space in front of Jordan’s Town and Country Western Wear. She’d met Max Jordan briefly at a church dinner in August, shortly after she moved to Promise. She remembered him as a pleasant kindly man.
“Hello, Mr. Jordan,” she said calmly, careful not to let her irritation show.
“You got my message, then?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid I didn’t order anything.”
Max reached behind the counter and produced a box. “It arrived this afternoon.”
“But I didn’t place the order.”
“I know. Adam did. Funny thing is, I couldn’t get my son to deliver this.” He shook his head. “Came in here one day a couple weeks back, real upset with himself. I tried to get him to talk about it and he damn near bit my head off.”
“What’s in the box?” Jeannie asked when Adam’s father paused long enough to take a breath.
“A blouse.”
“Blouse?”
“That’s right, a fancy silk one. Real pretty, I might add. Adam described it for me and asked me to find a blouse exactly like it.” He gestured toward the box. “He knows I don’t carry women’s wear other than the western variety, but he insisted I try. It took me some time, but I did manage to locate one that resembled the picture Adam drew.” He opened the box and lifted out a blouse exactly like the one that had been ruined by the barbecue sauce.
“That’s it!” Jeannie cried.
“Adam seemed to think so.”
“But he didn’t need to do that.”
Max frowned. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I’ve never seen my son this twisted up over a woman.”
“Nothing’s going on,” Jeannie said firmly.
“So Adam claims.” Max shook his head again. He returned the blouse to its box, tucking it inside the protective tissue covering.
“Thank Adam for me,” she told him when he handed her the package.
“You can’t tell him yourself?” he asked. “Do I look like Western Union to you two? Adam asks me to tell you this, and you ask me to tell him that. Seems a bit ridiculous.”
Jeannie had to smile. “You’re right, Mr. Jordan. I’ll let Adam know at the first opportunity.”
Max’s face broke into a wide grin and he nodded approvingly. “You know, you two would make a fine couple if you gave each other a chance.”