Marrying Molly Page 9

  And now, this morning, fixing her face and taking her sweet time about it... Uh-uh. Granny never primped. She would brush her teeth and run a comb through her hair and that would about do it. Very strange. What in the world could have brought on this sudden attack of extensive grooming?

  The doorbell rang. "Would you get that, darlin' child?" Granny sang out from the bathroom. Leaving her mug on the counter, Molly went to answer.

  She pulled open the front door and found Tate waiting on the other side of the storm door, wearing Wranglers, a Western shirt and Tony Llama boots— and looking good enough to lick like candy on a stick. She met those coffee-brown eyes through the glass and felt something go hot and hungry down inside.

  "Molly," he said softly through the barrier of glass. His expression flat serious, he began looking her over good and slow—from her uncombed hair down over the big Longhorn T-shirt she liked to sleep in, and even lower to the frayed hems of the old shorts she'd pulled on when she got up. He seemed to find her bare legs absolutely spellbinding; he certainly stared at them long enough. And what could possibly be so interesting about her bare feet?

  Molly cleared her throat—and she did it loudly enough that he would be sure to hear it through the glass. He took his sweet time dragging his gaze back up to meet her eyes again. Since she wanted to make sure he heard every word of the lecture she intended to deliver, she pushed back the storm door. He stepped over her threshold, and the storm door swung shut behind him.

  She backed away. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, ordering the molten heat in her belly to cool off this instant. "I thought I told you I couldn't—"

  "Dusty." His sudden wide, friendly smile was aimed over her shoulder.

  "Well, good morning," Granny announced from about five feet behind her.

  Molly turned around slowly—and blinked twice at what she saw.

  Granny looked good. Real good. Her wrinkled cheeks were petal-pink, her lips a muted red and her slightly saggy eyelids had been artfully shadowed. She wore her new bomber jacket, an unfamiliar white shirt underneath it, a tasseled white silk scarf thrown jauntily around her neck and a pair of pleated, wide-legged cream-colored cuffed pants.

  When, Molly wondered, had she had time to get that scarf, the shirt and those pants?

  Granny must have seen the questions in her eyes.

  "Took a little drive into Abilene for some shopping yesterday while you were at work, sugar bun."

  "Abilene?" Molly said weakly. Granny so rarely went anywhere. And never all the way to Abilene...

  "Dusty," said Tate, still lurking at Molly's back. "You do look mighty fine."

  "Why, thank you." Granny glowed with modest pleasure.

  Molly tried with all her might to dredge up some moral outrage—that Tate was standing in her living room when she'd told him to stay away. That Granny had never mentioned her trip to Abilene, the clothes she'd bought or the fact that Tate, who should have known better, would be showing up this morning. And what about how, as a rule, Molly and Granny always went to church together at eleven? Granny hadn't said a word about how she wouldn't be going today.

  But somehow, Molly was having a real problem drumming up even a smidgen of righteous indignation. How could she when she stared into her grandmother's eyes and saw the light of anticipation gleaming there?

  Maybe, Molly found herself thinking, this wasn't about missing church. It wasn't about Molly herself, or Tate, or the baby, or even the marriage that was never going to happen.

  This was all about Granny. Looking back over the years, Molly couldn't ever remember her grandmother looking half so happy or excited as she did right now.

  "Okay," Molly said. "I give. What's going on?"

  "Dreams can come true, lovey. Tate is taking me flying in his Cessna Skyhawk today."

  * * *

  It was past nine that night when Molly heard tires crunching over the gravel outside. She pointed the remote at the TV to mute the sound. Tate had better not push it, she was thinking. Bad enough he'd kept Granny out all day and half the night. He'd just better not try anything like coming in for a Coke....

  She heard a car door open and shut. And then, distinctly, she heard Granny call, "Thanks, Tate. 'Night!"

  A minute later, Granny came breezing in the door, her jacket slung over her shoulder and dangling from a finger. Every star in the sky seemed to be shining in her eyes.

  "Long flight?" Molly asked, keeping her voice cool and trying not to gape at this new, shining-eyed granny of hers.

  Granny bent close, bringing a smell of candy corn and red dust. She pressed a big smacking kiss on the top of Molly's head. "Sweetcakes, have I got some big news for you." She tossed her jacket on the arm of the couch, unwound her scarf and dropped it on the jacket. "I have got myself a job."

  Molly turned off the TV. "A job? But I thought you went flying."

  "Oh, I did. And it was grand. But there's more. A whole lot more..." Granny dropped lightly to the couch, kicked off her shoes and hiked her legs up to the side. She braced an arm on the back of the sofa and canted eagerly toward Molly. "Tate keeps his plane out at Skinny Jordan's airfield. You remember Skinny..." Skinny's nickname was no joke. He was tall and matchstick-thin and about Granny's age.

  Around ten years ago, he'd leased some flat, dusty acreage from the Tates, put up a couple of Quonset huts, rolled in a trailer for his "office" and started calling it an airfield.

  "I know who he is," Molly said cautiously.

  Granny just glowed. "Well, good. Skinny and I got to talking, after Tate took me up in the Skyhawk. And then, a while later, Tate said he'd take me up for .one more flight. Dear Lord in heaven, the world is wide and wonderful from way up there. And then, after we landed again, Skinny and I talked some more. And what do you know? We were all three of us kind of hungry by then. So Tate drove us over to the ranch house and Miranda cooked us a big meal. Then after we ate, we drove Skinny back to the airfield."

  "And somewhere during all that, you found yourself a job?"

  Granny fluttered her artfully mascaraed lashes. "See, honey pie, seems Skinny's been looking for a receptionist and secretary. You know, an all-around multitaskin' girl Friday type, to help out at the airfield, give the place a little touch of class, if you know where I'm heading here."

  Molly set down the remote. "You're hiring on as Skinny Jordan's secretary out at Wide Skies airfield?"

  Granny gave Molly's arm an affectionate slap. "Don't give me that doubtful look. I know how to answer a phone. And I can type, too—as long as no one asks me to be in a big hurry about it." She sent a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the computer in the corner. "And who was it that figured out how to print four-by-six pictures when you got that new digital camera last Christmas?"

  Molly looked at Granny sideways. "You know you don't have to work." After the accident at the ironworks, Granny got disability for a while. Then there was some unemployment insurance. But that had long ago run out. She had a dinky retirement pension that kept her in pocket change. "There's plenty with what I bring in from the shop," Molly said. "And in a year, you'll be eligible for Social Security."

  Granny waved a hand. "It's not about the money, dearie mine. It's truly not. This is about dreams. My dreams, coming true."

  Dreams, Molly thought, and realized that kind of settled it. She asked, softly, "What kind of hours will you be working?"

  "Nothing too challenging, I promise you. Three, maybe four hours a day—and I'm not to the best part of all yet..."

  "Which is?"

  "Skinny'll pay me fifty dollars a week in cash— more than enough for gas to get out there. The rest'll go for flight lessons."

  "Skinny Jordan is going to—"

  "That's right, June bug. Skinny has promised to teach me to fly. Won't be long, dear one. Your granny is going to be a licensed pilot. You just wait and see."

  Over the week that followed Granny woke in the morning smiling. She hummed Bob Wills tunes as she fixed breakf
ast. She was back at home by the time Molly returned from the Cut. She smiled all through dinner and chattered away about what had happened out at Wide Skies that day, especially whatever she'd learned in her lesson from Skinny.

  Not once the whole week did Granny ask for her shotgun.

  Molly found this new, lighthearted, grinning granny a little disorienting. All Molly's life, she'd listened to Granny grumble about men and declare that the lot of them ought to be floated out to sea in a boat with a hole in it, that except for a sperm injection now and then, what was a man good for but heartache, anyway?

  Now Granny hummed as she went around the house, and she talked about Skinny and oohed and ahhed over the presents that Tate kept on sending her. No single discouraging word about men crossed her thin lips. She looked younger, too. A decade, at least. She kept her chin a little higher and her back a little straighten

  Molly knew she would get used to her new, happier, man-friendly granny eventually. That wasn't the problem. Not really.

  The real problem was Tate.

  The problem was how she couldn't stop wondering why, after she'd told him she wouldn't see him any more, after she'd made it so painfully clear that she would never, under any circumstances, become Mrs. Bravo; why, when she refused to do what he wanted her to do...

  Why had he still gone right ahead and taken her granny for a ride in his plane? Why had he set it up so Granny could realize her dream of flying a plane herself someday? Why did he keep on sending Granny gifts?

  And then there was the diner where Dixie worked. Molly's customers told her that Tate was still having his breakfast there, still sitting next to Ray at the counter, still chatting up Dixie when she poured his coffee and brought him his food.

  It didn't add up. It was not the least bit like him, to be so kind and friendly and gracious when he wasn't getting what he wanted.

  And then there was his manner with Molly herself. He'd treated her civilly when he came to pick up Granny on Sunday—yeah, there had been that long, slow once-over. But even that had been friendly enough. Not once had he indulged in a single sneer or a dirty look. And when Molly passed him on Center Street Wednesday, he said, real pleasantly, "How you doing, Molly?" And with a nod and a quick smile, he walked on by.

  Tate Bravo had not done one bitter, hard-hearted or overbearing thing since Molly had told him she wouldn't go out with him again and he'd better stay away. And that was downright strange. Worse than strange. It was... scary. Molly found the new pleasant and reasonable Tate Bravo harder to accept than her suddenly employed, man-friendly granny.

  She found it harder because it really did get to her. It made her soften toward him. Made her start thinking that maybe—just maybe—there might be a chance for the two of them as a couple.

  Which was crazy, insane and absolutely impossible.

  Wasn't it?

  On Thursday, Donetta Brewer came shoving through the door of the Cut. Since she'd had her acrylic nails filed the day before, a cut just two weeks ago and her color touched up last Friday, Molly knew right away this visit had nothing to do with any pressing beauty needs. Donetta helped herself to a cup of cold sweet tea and plunked down in a red chair. She didn't even bother to pick up a magazine.

  "Y'all won't believe it." Her eyes had a rabid kind of gleam to them.

  "Oh, Donetta, what?" asked one of the other stylists much too eagerly, as far as Molly was concerned.

  "Ray Deekins has just gone and got himself hired by Davey Luster over at Junction Hardware."

  Everyone gasped—and then giggled. "No."

  "You are kidding."

  "Y'all can't be serious."

  "As a bad perm," announced Donetta. "And that's not the best of it. The best is, Tate made Davey hire Ray."

  "Well, how did he do that?" asked Sharon, the nail technician.

  Somebody giggled and Donetta turned to Sharon wearing a superior and knowing look. "Honey, you need yourself a crash course in the way things work in this town. Tate—and technically his brother Tucker, too, though Tucker hardly matters as he's long gone—is partners with Davey in the hardware store. Just like he's partners with Russ Johnson at the grocery store and Morley Pribble at the Gas 'n Go— and also with just about every other businessman in this town. If Tate Bravo says to hire someone, that someone-gets hired. However..." She let that one word trail off deliciously.

  The others were leaning forward, eyes gleaming every bit as rabidly as Donetta's.

  "What?"

  "Tell us."

  "Donetta. Come on."

  "Stop torturing us."

  Donetta drew it out by indulging in one more sip of tea, the ice cubes rattling in her tall, sweating glass. After about a decade and a half, she swallowed. "Word is—and I have it from the best authority— Tate also told Davey he could take Ray's wages from the Bravo boys' share." Another gasp went up from the assembled women. Donetta turned then and looked straight at Molly. "I gotta hand it to you, girl. That man wants you and he wants you bad. I never thought I'd see the day that Tate Bravo would volunteer to have anyone's wages taken out of his share—let alone the wages of Ray Deekins, who is a very sweet man, but about as useless in the working world as a milk bucket under a bull."

  Chapter Nine

  Molly couldn't help being touched and impressed by Tate's ongoing efforts to get along with the people she cared about. And not only to get along with them, but to make their lives better, to hold out a hand and give them a chance to live their dreams.

  Well, okay. In Ray's case, maybe a job wasn't exactly his dream. But he had been trying to get up the nerve and energy to go job-hunting again. Now, he wouldn't have to. Thanks to Tate, he was employed. Maybe, being motivated by his desire to help Dixie bring home the bacon, he would even hold on to this job. It was long shot, but you never could tell.

  Then, on Saturday after work, Molly went over to Dixie's double-wide to try on the maid-of-honor dress that Dixie had chosen for her.

  * * *

  Dixie and Ray were sitting at Dixie's prized retro chrome-skirted table making pink crepe-paper flowers when Molly came in the door.

  Ray looked up and smiled and went back to twisting crepe paper. Dixie said, "Hey, baby." She held up a swatch of crepe paper and a section of thin wire. "We're making three thousand of these. Whew. What a job." Under the table sat a row of open boxes with more paper flowers spilling out. Dixie's ancient longhaired white cat, Snowflake, who was blind in one eye and not as spry as she used to be, had got hold of one. She was listlessly batting it around on the speckled linoleum. "Gonna staple them to a white trellis." She sent Ray an adoring smile. "Our wedding arch."

  "I'll be glad to help," Molly offered.

  "Nope," answered Ray proudly. "We been working on these suckers for weeks and we have passed the two-thousand-five-hundred mark. This is the home stretch you're seeing here."

  "Your dress is on the bed, baby." Dixie gestured toward the dark-paneled narrow hallway and her and Ray's bedroom at the end of it. "Try it on. Let us see..."

  Obediently Molly went to the bedroom and found a frothing mound of lavender and lace spilling across the bed. There was even a wide-brimmed hat decorated with purple and white silk roses and dripping ribbons down the back. With a sigh, Molly put the thing on—hat and lavender fifties-style sandals included.

  When Molly emerged from the bedroom, hands pressed low to keep her skirt from scraping the narrow walls, Dixie dropped the crepe-paper flower she was working on and sniffed back the tears that swam in her eyes. "Oh, baby. You are just beautiful."

  "Yeah," Ray agreed, looking excessively solemn. "Yeah, you are."

  Molly caught her big hat before it slid off her head. "I need a hat pin, I guess. And maybe, when this is over, I'll just move to Atlanta."

  "Beautiful," Dixie announced for the second time. "Like I always say, it is amazing the treasures you can find at Vanna's Vintage Vibe. I was thinking you'd need a tuck or two at the waist. But no, it's just perfect, after all."


  Being pregnant did have its advantages. Molly took off the monstrous hat and set it on the chartreuse Danish modern sofa a few feet from the table where Dixie and Ray sat. "I haven't seen your dress yet."

  Dixie shook her head. "I had Vanna hold on to it for me. Ray might sneak in the closet and have a peek if I kept it here." Ray gave her a look that clearly said he was not a man to go stealing peeks at women's dresses. "I'll tell you this much," Dixie volunteered coyly. "Mine's pink and the skirt is even wider than yours, which is why we need a big arch and lots of flowers to cover it." She beamed another of those googly-eyed smiles at Ray and recited, "'Married in pink, of you he'll forever think.' Isn't that right, Ray honey?"

  Ray made a low, slightly embarrassed sound of agreement and busily twisted wire over a wad of crepe paper.

  Dixie stared at the top of his head, still with that long-gone look of love in her eyes. "And Ray is wearing a powder-blue tux with a black string tie and ruffles all down his shirtfront." Ray gave a slightly pained but resigned shrug.

  "And baby?" Dixie tore her gaze away from the top of Ray's head and looked at Molly again. "I hope this isn't going to upset you too awful much, given as how I know that you and Tate have, er, parted ways, so to speak...."

  Molly felt kind of faint suddenly—and also compelled to clarify, "Since we were never together, you can't really say that we've parted ways."

  "Now, baby, don't get testy. Please."

  "I am not testy, I'm only making things perfectly clear."

  Dixie sighed. "All right, then. You were never together. Now, is it okay with you if I finish what I started to say?"

  Ray had looked up. He, along with Dixie, was watching Molly warily. Even Snowflake had given up toying with her crepe-paper flower and sat on her haunches, staring at Molly through her one good eye. Molly knew what was coming—she just couldn't quite believe it. Thankfully that moment of nausea seemed to have passed. She indulged in a shrug. "Sure. Go ahead."

  "Well, even if you're not on good terms with Tate right now—"

  "I wouldn't say I'm exactly on bad terms with Tate."