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“Marriage to Brad wasn’t the fairy tale I’d imagined it would be. Things got really bad, and we divorced. Katy and I moved into the garage apartment of a friend in Natchez.
“I was teaching aerobics, and we were getting by,” Mary Beth said. “Barely. Until I injured my foot. I couldn’t teach with my foot in a cast, and I was almost broke when I discovered that I’d inherited the Twilight Inn. I thought we were saved.”
“Except that it wasn’t what you expected.”
“Lord no. It was a disaster.” Mary Beth laughed. “Katy and I lived in the restaurant for a while.”
“In the restaurant?”
Mary Beth grinned. “Yes. It wasn’t so bad until it rained and the roof leaked like a sieve. J.J. came to the rescue. This is where we turn around.”
They started back to the motel, walking for a while, then resuming their jog. “Your fiancé seems like a really nice guy.”
“He is. Sometimes I think that probably I should have stayed in Naconiche and married him to begin with. But I know we were too young in those days.”
“So you knew him before?”
Mary Beth nodded. “He was my first love. We dated a long time.”
“And he never married?”
“Nope. Says he was pining for me all that time. And if you believe that, I’ve got this bridge…”
They both laughed.
“And you’re not married or committed to some special fella?” Mary Beth asked.
“Never have been. Never will be.” Her tone was sharper than she meant it to be.
Mary Beth was quiet for a long time. The only sounds were their breathing and the slap of their soles on the road, but Carrie could almost hear the wheels going around as her running partner considered possible explanations for her statement—and was too polite to question her further. Carrie should have kept her mouth shut. She’d never been prone to sharing intimacies with anyone, but she’d felt drawn to Mary Beth almost immediately and felt very comfortable with her—almost as if they’d been friends for a long time. And God knows, Mary Beth had certainly been candid about her life.
After about a half mile, Carrie chuckled and said lightly, “I always figured that my mother was married enough for the both of us. Seven times at last count.”
“Seven? You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Is she still living?”
“Alive and well and in the south of France. The last couple of times, she married Europeans.”
“Do you see her often?”
“Only occasionally. We don’t have much in common. My mother is a dependent type who must have a man to take care of her. I don’t need anybody to take care of me. And the truth is, my work keeps me on the road too much for a long-term relationship. Men seem to want their women around for more than a week here and there. Or at least that’s been my experience.”
“I suppose that’s true. And you travel all the time doing genealogical research?”
“That and various other kinds of specialized research. I stay pretty busy. Where’s your daughter tonight?”
“J.J. took Katy over to Frank’s house to watch a special TV program with his twins.”
“His twins? Frank has twins?”
“A boy and a girl Katy’s age. They’re all in kindergarten together.”
Carrie was stunned. She’d never thought about his having children, though it made sense when you considered he was a widower. That put the cap on it for sure. So much for Frank. While she’d never really considered any kind of serious relationship between them, even the remote possibility of a few casual dates while she was in town had disappeared. From now on she’d avoid him like the plague.
Men with children were invariably looking for a mother for their kids, and that wasn’t for her. She didn’t know a thing about kids and certainly wasn’t cut out to be a mother. She’d had a lousy role model.
Chapter Four
Her resolve didn’t last long. Carrie ran into Frank as she was coming out of the assessor’s office at a quarter to twelve, and darned if her heart didn’t skip a beat.
“Hello,” he said, closing his door behind him. “Going to lunch?”
“Yes, at the tearoom.” She wasn’t going to eat at cholesterol city across the square just to avoid Frank Outlaw.
He smiled. “Me, too. Want a ride?”
“Uh, no. I need to do some work in my room afterward. I’ll take my car,” she said.
“Mind if I hitch a ride with you? I’ll get Dad to drop me back here.”
“No problem. You joining your father today?” she asked.
“He and J.J. and I usually eat together on Thursdays. That’s chocolate cake day. We’re all suckers for Mary Beth’s chocolate cake.”
“I’m a sucker for anything chocolate.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
He grinned. Why did he have to grin? He looked so darned sexy when he grinned. And why did he have to put his hand to her back when they walked to her car? Didn’t he know that it made funny prickles zip up and down her spine like a Japanese express train? Her resolve to cool her feelings for Frank was dissolving fast.
Since the first time she’d seen him, he’d had a singular effect on her, and it seemed to have grown instead of diminished. What was it about this particular man that shot her defenses? He had two arms, two legs and all the rest of the body parts typical of the male gender—and she’d never melted like ice cream in a skillet over other guys. At least not since she’d been sixteen and ape over Jon Bon Jovi.
As they drove away from the courthouse Frank ran his hand over the leather seat, and his fingertips brushed her leg. The touch hit her like a jolt of electricity. Did he do that on purpose? She glanced at him, but his hands were clamped together, and he was engrossed in studying the dash.
He looked up and said, “Nice car.”
“Thanks. I like it.”
“You must be a very good genealogist.”
She smiled. “I am. I’m good at all kinds of research that I do, but the car was a thirtieth birthday gift from my mother and her husband.” She didn’t add that her mother had told her latest catch that it was her daughter’s twenty-first birthday. Hence the special gift. After her face-lift, Amanda had shaved nine years off her age, so she’d shaved nine years off Carrie’s age as well. One thing she’d have to say for her mother, she’d made out like a bandit in her last couple of trips down the aisle. Amanda had plenty stashed away for her golden years.
“Her husband? Not your father?” Frank asked.
“No. My father died in an accident when I was only two. Amanda, my mother, has been married several times. I believe the latest one is a retired investor. He’s French. Jacques something-or-the-other. We’ve never met.”
“I take it that you and your mother aren’t close,” he said quietly.
She glanced over and saw sincere compassion in his eyes, and tears suddenly sprang into her own. Damn. She never cried. And certainly not over Amanda. Long ago she’d learned that the only thing crying accomplished was to make her face blotchy. That was another thing about Frank. He seemed to be able to fly under the radar of her emotional control.
She took a deep breath. “Not really. I never seemed to fit in with her plans.”
“That’s tough on kids.”
“I survived. Mary Beth tells me that you have twins.”
“I do. Janey and Jimmy. They’re five.”
She couldn’t think of anything else to say. She knew zilch about children. And, she reminded herself, she really didn’t want to encourage any further intimacy. She’d said too much already. Carrie clamped her teeth together and tried not to squirm.
The silence dragged on for an eternity.
Finally Frank said, “You mentioned doing other kinds of research besides genealogy.”
“Yes.”
“What kinds?”
Choosing her words carefully, she said, “Titles, missing heirs, that sort of thing.” Which was technically true.
“Ah. Missing heirs. Sounds intriguing. Found any folks in Naconiche County who have inherited a bundle from a long-lost relative?”
She laughed. “Not yet.”
“I think everybody has had the dream that some long-lost relative rolling in dough will kick the bucket and leave a fortune to them.”
“Do you have any long-lost relatives?”
“Only my mother’s great-uncle Heck Tatum. He went to California and was never heard from again.”
“When was this?” Carrie asked.
“I’m not exactly sure. Sometime before 1920, I believe.”
“You never know. He may have struck it rich in real estate.”
Frank chuckled. “I doubt it. From what my mother tells me about Uncle Heck, it’s more likely that he wound up in jail than in the money. He was the black sheep of his family. I think he left here just one step ahead of the sheriff.”
When they arrived at the tearoom, Carrie meant to duck out and go to her room for a few minutes, but she was so intrigued by the tale of Frank’s errant relative that she forgot her plan and walked with him to the door.
“What did he do?” she asked.
“You mean, to get the sheriff after him? As I recall the story, I believe that Uncle Heck made his living cooking moonshine and stealing cows. Folks around here don’t cotton to cattle rustling. Back then it was sometimes a hanging offense.”
“Hanging?”
“Yep.”
A few people were waiting for tables, but Frank waved to someone. “There are Dad and J.J. Come on, we’ll join them.”
“Oh, I don’t want to horn in when you’re having lunch with your family.”
“You wouldn’t be horning in. Come on.”
He steered her to the table for four.
J.J. and the older man stood as they approached, and Frank introduced Carrie to his father. Wes Outlaw was tall like his sons and she could see the family resemblance except that his dark hair was gray, his fingers were knobby and his waist had thickened a bit. He had the same great smile, and it flashed across his weathered face when he told her to call him Wes.
“I was just telling Carrie about Mama’s great-uncle Heck.”
“Ah, the cattle rustler,” Wes said.
“And the moonshiner,” Carrie added.
Wes grinned. “Nobody around here was bothered much by the moonshining—fact is, most folks bought a jug from him now and then, I understand. But stealing cows is serious business.”
All three of the Outlaws were raconteurs, and they kept her entertained during lunch with funny stories about some of the lawless characters in the county’s history. They seemed to enjoy topping one another’s yarns.
As they lingered over coffee and dessert, Carrie laughed as J.J. told in great detail about the night that a young man and his friends had a few too many beers and put a pig in the mayor’s Cadillac. “That pig made a big mess,” J.J. said.
“It didn’t,” Carrie said, laughing.
J.J. grinned. “It did. All over everywhere.”
“I had a hard time,” Frank said, “keeping a straight face when those kids were brought before me.”
“What did you do to them?”
“Gave them a stern lecture and made them put in a lot of hours of community service.”
Carrie glanced at her watch, then looked around the room. The place was almost deserted. “Sorry, but I have to go.” She reached for her wallet.
“Today’s on me,” Frank said.
“I’ll get the next one.” Why had she said that? What happened to the resolution that she wasn’t going to spend any more time with Frank Outlaw? She mentally shrugged. What was the harm? She enjoyed his company; she liked his family. No big deal. In a few weeks she’d be in West Texas or Oklahoma on her next project. She was going to take a page from Amanda’s book and live for the moment.
She said her goodbyes and went to her room to work.
“MIND IF I CATCH a ride back to the courthouse with one of you?” Frank asked over a second cup of coffee.
“Be glad to drop you off,” his father said. “Say, I like your young woman. Seems to have a head on her shoulders.”
“She’s not my young woman,” Frank told him. “She’s just someone in town for a few days to do some research.”
“What kind of research?”
