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Tate made sure they got an earful. “Molly,” he said, aiming the words out the door and speaking loudly enough to be heard all the way out past the shop’s front door and onto Center Street, “you are having my baby and by God, if it’s the last thing I do, I will see to it that you marry me.”
He turned and looked at Molly, square chin up, hard jaw set. She said nothing. Really, Tate had pretty much said it all.
Out in the salon, it was so quiet, if she hadn’t known better, Molly would have guessed that everyone had left.
Tate said, his voice soft now, but thick with suppressed anger, “Satisfied?”
“Get out of my shop,” she replied, her tone every bit as soft and full of fury as his. “And do me a big favor. Never come back.”
With a final curt nod, Tate turned and went out—and not through the back door either, which was two feet from her office door and would have been the quickest way.
Oh, no. Not Tate Bravo. He marched right through the shop and out the front door. She heard the bell tinkle when he pulled the door open. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said.
The bell jingled cheerily again as the door shut behind him.
Chapter Five
B y the next morning, the news was all over town.
Tate Bravo had gotten Molly O’Dare pregnant. He wanted to marry her. And she was having none of it.
The men shook their heads. The women took sides. All through the breakfast shift at Jim-Denny’s Diner on Center Street, where Dixie had been waiting tables for fifteen years, there was lively debate.
“What is her problem?” Lena Lou, who’d dropped in for her usual decaf and English muffin, wanted to know. “Tate Bravo is studly and rich as they come.” Lena paused to admire the way her engagement diamond glittered in the glare from the overhead florescent lights. Then she got back on topic. “When’s Molly O’Dare gonna do better? She should snap that man up while she’s got the chance.”
“Oh, never,” argued Emmie Lusk, fluffing her new perm. “Never in this life. Our Molly has guts and gumption. She’s not marrying anyone just ’cause she’s pregnant. So what if he’s handsome and rolling in dough? There’s more to life than money, a good-looking husband and legitimate children, after all.”
“Well, now, Emmie,” Donetta said, “don’t go discounting a fat bank account. It is a proven fact that the older a woman gets, the more she needs a rich husband—or at the very least, a viable retirement plan.”
“If she marries him, what about her position as mayor of our town?” demanded Rosie Potts, whose mother was a shut-in and likely to benefit greatly from some of Molly’s programs. “You know he’ll corrupt her. Just see if he doesn’t. I’m inclined to wonder if he hasn’t already. Y’all have to admit, it’s a shock. In bed with the enemy, that’s where she’s been.”
“More coffee?” asked Dixie, pot poised over Donetta’s cup. Donetta nodded and Dixie poured.
“Dixie,” said Rosie. “She’s your daughter. What do you think?”
Dixie smiled her secret smile at Ray, who sat sipping coffee in his favorite spot at the end of the counter. Ray gave her a wink. “Molly said she wouldn’t marry him, didn’t she?”
“Well, yeah, so?” Lena rattled her own cup.
Dixie filled it. “If Molly says she’s not marrying him, then it doesn’t matter a bit what Tate Bravo does or anybody says. She won’t be marrying him. It’s as simple as that.”
“But that is plain stupid,” Lena declared, rising and laying her money on the counter. “Why have a baby without a husband if you don’t have to?” Lena bit her pretty lip. Everyone knew she had to be thinking about her twin sister, Lori Lee. But then she covered her own discomfort with, “No offense, Dixie.”
Dixie’s beatific smile only widened. “None taken. And it just may be that I, personally, agree with you. But like I said, what I think or you think isn’t what matters. It’s Molly’s decision and so far anyway, she has said no.”
Molly had just climbed into bed and turned out the light when the tap came at the window that faced the front walk. Her first thought was Tate, and she scowled into the darkness. If he kept this up, she would be looking into getting a restraining order on him. Just because he thought he had to marry her wasn’t any excuse for the man to turn stalker.
But then there was another tap—as soft and cautious as the first.
Hmm. Soft and cautious. Not Tate’s style. More like…
Molly slid from her bed and went to pull back the curtain. Dixie stood on the other side, smiling. She held up a brown bag with the neck of a liquor bottle sticking out of it and smiled wider.
Molly pushed up the window. “You know, you could have just—” Dixie cut her short by putting a finger to her lips. Molly finished in a whisper, “—come to the door.”
Dixie shook her big platinum-blond head of hair and whispered back, “Hon, I don’t need to hear your granny go on about my sweet Ray-boy and me getting married. She wears me out, and I’m just not up for it tonight, you know?” She waved the bottle some more, causing her chunky charm bracelet—silver balls dripping with pink plastic hearts—to rattle in a cheerful kind of way. The scent of White Diamonds, Dixie’s favorite perfume, wafted in through the screen. “Can I come in?”
“What’s in the bottle?”
“Jack Black, baby girl—and I don’t mean the movie star.”
“Didn’t you hear? I’m pregnant.”
Dixie made a big show of rolling her eyes. “Oh, I heard. All day long, I heard.”
Though Molly had never been much of a drinker, getting blotto right then did hold some appeal. But no. She had to think of the baby. “No liquor for me.”
“Well, that’s fine.” Dixie leaned a little closer to the screen. “I pretty much figured you’d say that. But you know how I am. Never had a problem with being the only one drinkin’.”
Molly unhitched the screen and held it up. Dixie handed Molly the bottle and swung a leg over the sill, and Molly thought fondly about all the times she’d watched her mother climb through the window in the middle of the night.
Once she’d slithered inside, Dixie straightened her short, tight skirt, tugged on her tank top and then held out her hand. Molly gave her back her bottle. Dixie grabbed it by the neck, still in the bag. She screwed off the top and took a swig. Scrunching up her face tight, she swallowed. “Ungh!” she exclaimed, pounding her chest with a fist. “Ooo-wa!” And then she put her hand over her mouth and giggled. “Oops. Too loud,” she whispered. “Mustn’t forget your granny.”
“Good thinking,” Molly said dryly.
“Jack Black,” Dixie murmured contentedly as she recapped the bottle, “really hits the spot.” Bracelet rattling, she grabbed Molly’s hand. “Come on. Let’s sit.” They both perched on the edge of the bed. “So, now. How’re you holding up?”
“I’m getting by.”
Dixie smoothed Molly’s hair and gently cupped her chin. “You look kinda tired, baby.”
“Yeah. Guess I am. It’s all starting to get to me. Endless advice from any and everyone who comes in the shop. And some of the women in town are disappointed in me for sleeping with Tate in the first place, when he’s the main one standing in the way of all the good things I want to do as mayor. Those women have let me know, in no uncertain terms, that they consider my having had sex with Tate to be nothing short of a betrayal of all I’m supposed to be standing for.”
“Oh, pooh on them. They are just jealous. Tate Bravo is untamed and all man. Just let him crook a finger at any one of them. You’d better believe the chosen one would be naked and flat on her back faster than chain lightning with a link snapped.” Dixie snapped her fingers high and sharp, just to show how fast that might be.
“Tate.” Molly was shaking her head. “He’s most of my problem. He keeps popping up out of nowhere to order me to marry him. He didn’t show up today, but he might as well have. I stayed on edge every minute just worrying he might.”
“So you’re saying you don’t—” Dixie paused to take another belt from her bottle, screw up her face and swallow “—want to marry him, right?” Molly looked away. “Well, do you or don’t you?”
“It would never work.”
Dixie took her face and guided it back around. Molly pushed her hand away. Dixie sighed. “You planning on answering my question? Sometime soon would be nice.”
“I can’t answer it.”
“Because…?”
“Since it’s not gonna work, it doesn’t matter what I want.”
Dixie looked kind of thoughtful. “So,” she said, and paused for yet another big gulp. “You do care for him, then. Am I right?”
Molly hung her head and nodded.
Dixie’s whisper got softer. “But the way he’s been acting, he’s not reassuring you that he would make a decent husband?”
Molly shrugged. “I guess. And then there’s me. You know how I am. I do like to run things. And I have no idea at all about how to try to be a wife.”
“Well, baby, some things you just do, you know? You learn as you go.”
Molly looked straight at her mother. “It isn’t going to work. Let’s talk about something else, okay?”
Dixie giggled—but softly, ever-mindful that Granny shouldn’t know she was there. She leaned close to Molly and whispered in her ear. “I know! I’ve been meaning to ask you. Be my maid of honor?”
Molly grunted out a scoffing sound and put her hand on her stomach. “Some maid.”
Dixie grabbed her hand and kissed it. “Oh, silly girl. Who’s a virgin at thirty, anyway?”
“I was…for a month or so.”
Dixie let go of Molly’s hand—and then wrapped her arm around Molly’s shoulders. She gave a squeeze. “Say you will.”
Molly looked up at her mother, smelling White Diamonds again—and the heady scent of Tennessee whiskey, as well. “You know I will.”
“That’s my baby.” Dixie gave Molly’s shoulder another squeeze. “And I might not have been much use to you while you were growing up, but maybe I can help now. I think I will have a little talk with that man of yours.”
Molly pulled out of her mother’s embrace. “He’s not my man—and you better not.”
“Is that a ‘please don’t’?”
“It’s a ‘why waste your breath!”’
Pink plastic hearts clattered together as Dixie raised her bottle of Jack Black high. “Baby, give your mama just a little bit of credit.”
It was after eleven at night when the doorbell rang. Tate was in his study going over some of the accounts. Miranda had long since retired to the apartment over the garages that she shared with Jesse.
So Tate got up, turned off the alarm and answered the door himself. It was Molly’s mother, Dixie O’Dare.
“Tate Bravo, I was wondering if I might have a word with you.”
Since his study was right off the entry, he ushered her in there. “Sit down.” He gestured to the sitting area.
“Thank you.” Dixie smiled that pretty smile of hers, but didn’t move beyond the doorway. In her mid-forties, she was still a woman who turned heads. She had that fine, sweet smile and the kind of figure that got men thinking things they shouldn’t. “Thank you,” she said. “But I think I’ll stand.”
Tate went over to the liquor cart in the corner. “Drink?”
Molly’s mother licked her full pink lips. She had a woozy look. Tate guessed she’d already had a few. “Better not,” she said. “But thank you.”
“Well, then. What can I do for you…?” Uncertain about how to address her, he let the question trail off.
“Dixie,” she helpfully provided. “You just go ahead and call me Dixie.”
“Dixie,” he repeated, returning her smile, wishing that Molly could be half as agreeable as her mother.
“So, Tate…”
“Yeah?”
“I heard you want to marry my Molly.”
He went around and dropped into his studded leather swivel chair. “That’s right. Molly’s having my child, and I’m going to marry her.”
“Molly says you’re not.”
He sat forward. “Molly is wrong.”
“See?” said Dixie. “See there, that’s your problem. You’re a man used to giving orders and having everyone say yes, sir. Right away, sir. Now, with a lot of women, that kind of he-man approach will work just fine. A lot of women go all weak in the knees when a real man starts bossing them around. But in case maybe you didn’t notice, Molly’s not like a lot of women.”
Good-looking as Dixie was, she was starting to get on his nerves. “Your point?”
“Well, maybe you could try cozying up to her a little.”
He grunted. “Since she’s not letting me near her, cozying up is not looking real likely.”
“Well, and see? That’s just what I meant. How you gonna marry my baby if she won’t let you near her?”
It was a problem. He realized that. “So?” he demanded gruffly.
“So, maybe you oughtta start by making sure you’ll be welcome when you come calling at her house.”
He thought of Molly’s grandmother—on the porch with the shotgun. “I could get killed trying that.”
Dixie giggled. “Well, Tate. That’s why I’m here. I aim to help you out.”
He regarded her with frank suspicion. “How do you plan to do that?”
“You know that expression, ‘salt the old cow to get to the calf’?”
“Dixie, you’re hardly an old cow.”
Dixie glowed with pleasure at the compliment. “Why, thank you, Tate. But I wasn’t referring to myself.”
Tate understood then. He made a sour face. “Dusty? You want me to suck up to Dusty?”
“Sucking up isn’t exactly what I would have called it.”
“But it is what you meant.”
“Oh, now, Tate. It’s not going to kill you.”
