The Prodigal Texan. Lynnette Kent

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СКАЧАТЬ have come full circle, haven’t they?” Jud looked from Hilde’s face to Miranda’s and back again. “A woman founded the town and now a woman’s running it.”

      Miranda set her jaw. “You object to the idea of a woman in authority?”

      “Not at all.” He gave her a wink and a half smile. “I’m fine with having a woman on top.”

      Heat flared over her throat and across her face, but Miranda refused to be baited. “Then you’ll feel right at home in Homestead, won’t you?”

      “That,” Jud said quietly as she walked away, “is what I’m here to find out.”

      

      NAN WRIGHT stationed herself at one end of the long table borrowed from the Methodist church to hold the potluck dishes folks had brought to Greer’s wedding reception. Her other option for passing the time was to go sit with the older ladies—mothers and grandmothers—as they gossiped about the latest love affairs, the newest pregnancies, the possible divorces. Nan kept telling herself she would never get that old.

      Just as she wedged a spoon into the creamy goodness of macaroni and cheese, a jolt in the food line brought someone new to her end of the table.

      “Delicious,” Cruz Martinez said. When she looked into his face, he winked at her. “The food, too.”

      He reached for the spoon she’d just added to the dish and Nan watched in fascination as his fingers closed on the metal handle, still warm from her touch.

      Cruz grinned as he moved to the next dish, green bean casserole. “Are you having fun over here?”

      She glanced around to be sure nobody was listening. “Not exactly.”

      “Me, neither.” He spooned a helping of creamed corn onto his plate. “Why don’t you come out from behind there and dance with me?”

      “I—”

      “Pardon me.” Clarice Enfield reached across the table to serve herself a helping of scalloped tomatoes. “What are you doing standing in line over here, Cruz? You should be out on the dance floor with one of these cute young girls. Nan, where’s Miranda? She’d be perfect for Cruz, don’t you think?” She elbowed him in the side. “You two love-birds could live in the cabin and Nan could live in the farmhouse like she does now. How perfect would that be?”

      Once Clarice had moved on to the salads, Cruz leaned over the table. “How about you and me in the cabin and Miranda in the farmhouse?” he murmured.

      Nan couldn’t help smiling. “Hush! Next thing I know, all these motormouths will be talking about me. Go sit down and eat.”

      “Dance, later?”

      “Shoo,” she said, without committing herself.

      As she looked along the length of the table, she caught Rae Jean Barker’s eye. Rae Jean operated the beauty shop in downtown Homestead and considered herself the source for local news. As Nan watched, she turned and whispered something to Millicent Niebauer, who had stepped up to take her turn in the food line. Millie ran the local newspaper, the Homestead Herald, with her husband Hiram.

      “I do like that young man you have working for you,” Millie commented as she moved in front of Nan. “He’s trustworthy and competent. And so attractive.” She sighed. “I bet girls all over the county are dreaming about him.”

      “I expect so,” Nan said warily.

      “I imagine he’ll set his sights on one of them soon, decide it’s time for him to get married, have some kids, find his own land to manage.”

      “No doubt.”

      “And all those females who thought he was so handsome will be left sad and lonely. Maybe feeling a little foolish, even.”

      Nan met Millie’s gaze. “Maybe.”

      The reporter shrugged. “That’s the way life works.” She moved on, no doubt fully aware of the knife she’d stuck between her victim’s ribs.

      When Cruz came back, Nan was prepared. “No, I can’t dance.”

      “Why not?”

      “I’ve got to get the table cleaned up.”

      “Later?”

      “I don’t think so. Why don’t you dance with…” She saw the warning flares in his eyes. “Why don’t you go talk to Wade? Callie’s busy, and he’s all by himself.”

      Cruz started to say something, then shut his mouth, turned on his heel and walked away.

      Nan spent the rest of the reception hanging around the mothers and grandmothers. Maybe, without realizing it, she’d already gotten that old.

      

      SINCE HE HADN’T BEEN invited to the reception, Jud decided to keep a low profile. He headed for the traditional party post for unattached males—the precinct around the keg.

      With a tall plastic cup full of ice-cold beer in his hand, he leaned back against a tree, grateful for the chance to ease his barely healed leg and get his bearings before he actually tried to mingle.

      Closest to him were the young studs, as he was sure they thought of themselves—he certainly had at nineteen and twenty. Like many of their kind, they spent the evening chugging their beer and making lewd comments about the girls preening for them on the other side of the dance floor. Jud didn’t know most of the boys’ names, but two of them he could identify by the fact that they were identical twins. Allen and Abel Enfield had the misfortune to take after their mother, with her frizzy red hair, freckled complexion and tendency to put on weight. The boys were big, beefy, and more than a little drunk.

      “Mary Louise sure looks hot today.” Jud wasn’t sure which twin made the comment. “I bet I could get her to give me some, if I got her away from this stupid party.”

      The other boys greeted the suggestion with hoots and laughter. “Yeah, right,” his brother said. “Just like last weekend. You were talking so big. And what’d you walk away with—a kiss on the cheek?”

      That question started a scuffle, and Jud thought he was going to be called upon to prevent bloodshed. But when a silver-haired man with a drooping mustache and wire-rimmed glasses approached the keg, the knot of grappling boys instantly fell apart.

      “This,” he said in an old-fashioned drawl, “is a wedding reception, not a tavern. If y’all can’t behave, leave immediately and I’ll deal with your bad manners myself later.” He stared down the Enfield boys, then looked around at their cohorts. Something about the way he held his silver-topped cane constituted a threat. “Any part of that order y’all don’t understand?”

      A chorus of shamefaced “No, sirs” answered him.

      The gentleman smiled. “Good. Now go ask those nice young ladies to dance. And keep your hands where everybody can see them.”

      The motley crew dispersed, and the man turned to Jud. “Boys will be boys, as I’m sure СКАЧАТЬ