McKettricks of Texas: Tate

“Therein lies a tale,” Tate said. “One I’d love to hear. Later.”

“Later,” Libby echoed, and then he was gone.

And she just stood there, long after he’d left her, the kiss still pulsing on her lips and rumbling through her like the seismic echoes of an earthquake.

CHAPTER FOUR

LIBBY CLOSED THE SHOP at five that day—no big sacrifice, since she’d only had one customer after lunch, a loan officer from First Cattleman’s who’d left, disgruntled, without buying anything once he learned there were no more of Julie’s scones to be had.

After cleaning up the various machines, stowing the day’s modest take in her zippered deposit bag and finally locking up, she crossed the alley—trying not to hurry—and let a grateful Hildie out into the backyard.

The place seemed a little lonely without the formerly nameless dogs, but she’d see them that night, at Tate’s. Given the way they’d thrown her under the proverbial bus when she’d dropped them off at the Silver Spur the night before, there was a good chance they’d ignore her completely.

“Now, you’re being silly,” she told herself, refreshing Hildie’s water bowl at the sink, then rinsing out and refilling the food dish with kibble.

While Hildie gobbled down her meal, Libby showered, taking care to shave her legs, but instead of the prescribed shorts and tank top, she chose a pink sundress with spaghetti straps and smocking at the bodice. She painted her toenails to match, spritzed herself with cologne and dried her freshly shampooed, shoulder-length hair until it fluffed out around her face.

Libby owned exactly two cosmetic products—a tube of mascara and some lip gloss—and she applied both with a little more care than usual.

The phone rang at five minutes to six, and she was instantly certain that Tate had changed his mind and meant to rescind the invitation to have supper at the Silver Spur. The wave of disappointment that washed over her was out of all proportion to the situation.

But it wasn’t Tate, as things turned out, calling with some lame excuse.

It was Gerbera Jackson, who cleaned for Marva three days a week, over at Poplar Bend.

“Libby? That you?”

“Hello, Gerbera,” Libby responded.

“I know it isn’t your week,” Gerbera went on apologetically, “but I couldn’t reach Miss Paige, or Miss Julia, either.”

Gerbera, an old-fashioned black woman, well into her sixties, still adhered to the mercifully outdated convention of addressing her white counterparts as “Miss.”

“That’s okay,” Libby said, hiding her disappointment. A problem with Marva meant the evening at the Silver Spur was history, the great event that never happened. “What’s up?”

“Well, it’s your mama, of course,” Gerbera said sadly.

Who else? Libby thought uncharitably.

“I’m worried about her,” the softhearted woman continued. “I recorded her stories for her, just like always, since her favorites are on while she’s out taking those longs walks of hers, but Miss Marva, she doesn’t want to look at them tonight. Told me not to bother putting a chicken potpie into the oven for her before I left, too. That’s one of her favorites, you know.”

Libby closed her eyes briefly, breathed deeply and slowly. Marva’s “stories” were soap operas, and she hadn’t missed an episode of As the World Turns, or so she claimed, since 1972, when, recovering from a twisted ankle, she’d gotten hooked.

“Not good,” Libby admitted. When Marva didn’t want to watch her soaps or eat chicken potpie, she was depressed. And when Marva was depressed, bad things happened.

“She hasn’t been herself since they eighty-sixed her from the bingo hall for lighting up a cigarette,” Gerbera added.

Just then, a rap sounded at the front door. Tate had arrived, probably looking cowboy-sexy, and now Libby was going to have to tell him she couldn’t go to the Silver Spur for supper.

“I hate to bother you,” Gerbera said, and she sounded like she meant it, but she also sounded relieved. If she had a fault, it was caring too much about the various ladies she cleaned and cooked for, whether they were crotchety or sweet-tempered. Until her nephew, Brent Brogan, had moved back to Blue River, with his children, after his wife’s death, Gerbera had managed Poplar Bend full-time, living in an apartment there.

She spent more time with her family now, cooking and mending and helping out wherever she could. Brent claimed her chicken-and-dumplings alone had put ten pounds on him.

“No bother,” Libby said, brightening her voice and stretching the kitchen phone cord far enough to see Tate standing on the other side of the front door. She gestured for him to come in. “She’s my mother.”

Some mother Marva had been, though. She’d left her husband and small, bewildered children years before, with a lot of noise and drama, and suddenly returned more than two decades later, after what she described as a personal epiphany, to install herself at Poplar Bend and demand regular visits from her daughters.

She had, for some reason, decided it was time to bond.

Better late than never—that seemed to be the theory.

Marva had money, that much was clear, and she was used to giving orders, but any attempt to discuss her long and largely silent absence brought some offhanded response like, “That was then and this is now.”

For all Libby and her sisters knew, Marva could have been living on another planet or in a parallel dimension all those years.

Libby wanted to love Marva; she truly did. But it was hard, remembering how heartbroken their dad had been at his wife’s defection—she’d run away with a man who rode a motorcycle and earned a sketchy living as a tattoo artist.

Clearly, the tattoo man had been out of the picture for a long time.

For their father’s sake, Libby, Julie and Paige took turns visiting and handling problems Marva herself had created. They fetched and carried and ran errands, but Marva wasn’t grateful for anything. I am your mother, she’d told Libby, in one of her cranky moments, and I am entitled to your respect.

Respect, Libby had retorted hotly, unable to hold her tongue, is not a right. It’s something you have to earn.

Tate let himself in, at Libby’s signal, and Hildie started playing up to him as though he were some kind of cowboy messiah.

“Thanks, Gerbera,” Libby said, realizing she’d missed a chunk of the conversation. “I’ll head over there right away and make sure she’s okay.”

Gerbera apologized again, said goodbye and hung up.

Libby replaced the receiver on the hook in the kitchen and went back to greet her breathtakingly handsome guest.

“Problem?” Tate asked mildly. He filled Libby’s small living room, made it feel crowded and, at the same time, utterly safe.

“My mother,” Libby said. “I need to check on her.”

“Okay,” Tate replied. “Let’s go check on her, then.”

“You don’t understand. It could take hours, if she’s in one of her—moods.”

Tate’s shoulders moved in an easy shrug. “Only one way to find out,” he said.

Libby couldn’t let him throw away his evening just because her own was ruined. “You should just go home. Forget about supper.” She swallowed. “About my joining you, I mean.”

He was crouching by then, fussing over the adoring Hildie. She probably wanted to go home with him and be his dog. Libby? That name seems vaguely familiar.

“Nope,” he said, straightening. “You and I and—what’s this dog’s name again?”

“Hildie,” Libby answered, her throat tight.