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Chapter 26.1
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LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 26.2
Instantly his pickup echoed with little-girl chatter. In the short trip home he learned every important thing that had happened that day at Tribute Elementary. The chattering and giggling, even the arguing, was music to his ears. Especially the squeals of delight when he told them Amy was coming to supper and afterward would tell them a story about their mother.Brenda, thank you for sending Amy for the girls. They needed whatever pieces of their mother Amy could provide. Riley tried to tell them as much as he could, but Amy knew a part of Brenda that he didn’t. He was probably more eager to hear about it than the kids.The doorbell surprised him. He wasn’t ready. He’d wanted to clear her out of his mind before facing her again. Too late now.“It’s Sergeant Amy,” Pammy called from the front hall.He heard Amy answer, heard Jasmine and Cindy chime in. Laughter.Giggles.Riley washed his hands at the kitchen sink, and, still drying them, sauntered to the front hall to greet their guest.
LOVE IN TEXAS chapter 26.3
Cindy tugged her through the door. “This is my bed.” She raced across to the bed farthest from the door and bounced her little rear on its pink- flowered quilt with a pink-and-white ruffled pillow sham and matching dust ruffle. A little girl’s fairy-tale bed.In the far corner, near the foot of Cindy’s bed, sat an old wooden rocker. “That’s Jasmine’s bed, the yellow one in the middle,” Cindy said.“’Cause she’s the middle sister, and the blue bed by the closet is Pammy’s. She likes blue. A lot.”“She does, huh?”“Oh, yes,” Cindy asserted. “You’re gonna tell us a story?” “I thought I would, if you want.”“Sit here.” Cindy patted the smooth oak seat of the rocker. “It’s our story chair.”Amy had a sudden picture of Brenda sitting in this very chair, holding one of these beautiful darlings to her breast to nurse. Another followed, of Riley holding a crying baby in the middle of the night while Brenda slept down the hall. The chair took on sacred proportions in her mind. She looked to Ril
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 27
The next afternoon, when Amy returned to her motel room from a longwalk after lunch, a message awaited her. Riley had called and left a number and a request for her to call him back.Amy sat on the side of her bed and stared at the phone. Last night something had happened. She’d been thinking about it all day and had yet to figure it out. One minute she’d been telling the girls about Brenda missing cottonwoods and grass, the next, Riley had been showing her to the door.She could only assume that hearing so much about Brenda had stirred up old memories and grief, and he had suddenly needed to be alone.Amy ached for him and prayed that the girls had not suffered the same reaction. They hadn’t seemed sad. They had seemed curious and interested in what she had to say about their mother. Of course, at their ages, Brenda wasn’t as real to them anymore as she was to Riley. His entire life with her must seem like yesterday.He was surely calling to tell her he didn’t want her to tell any m
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 27.1
With his gaze on the road in front of him, he shrugged. “It’s just that few people actually move here. Most people move away.”“If that were true, this would be a ghost town by now.”“Okay, a slight exaggeration. But why pick Tribute? You could live anywhere.”“The fact that I can live anywhere I want is why I’m here. I guess I’ve loved it here since those terrible, hot nights in the desert, when I beggedBrenda to talk about something, anything. Brenda talked about Tribute and how much she loved it. I mentally adopted the town. I’ve never lived in one spot longer than a few months, always being shuffled from one relative toanother while my mother took off for parts unknown.” “What about your father?”She shrugged. “Never met the man. I’m not sure my mother knows who he is. I never thought to myself, ‘I wish I had a dad, or a mom who stayedput.’ It wasn’t parents I always wanted, it was a home. A hometown. For more than a year I’ve held Tribute in my mind, and now, here I am.”“Wow.
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 27.2
“Black gold,” he agreed. “The whole town was pleased when they outgrew this site and built a new, larger place at the edge of town. A good bit of our economy depends on the oil industry. They do good, the town does good. The town does good, Sinclair Construction does good. Come on. I’ll show you around.”Why, she wondered. Why did he want her to see his office? But she wasn’t quite ready to ask. She figured he would explain himself soonenough. For now she would simply enjoy his company. Questions could come later.The front door of the business was locked; Riley had to use his key to let them in. “You don’t have full-time office help?” she asked.“Not yet. Fanny comes in a few hours a week and takes care of the bookkeeping. Sort of.”Amy chuckled at his dire tone. “How’s that working for you?” “Hmph. Not well. You want a job?”She laughed. When he didn’t, she gave him a closer look. He didn’t appear to be kidding. In fact, he looked, if anything, hopeful. “Are you serious?”“As a hea
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 28
“You’re back,” Riley noted, sounding slightly surprised. “You weren’t gone very long.”Amy hung up her coat and stuffed her bag under her desk. “Longenough to grab a slice of pizza. Did anything exciting happen while I was gone?” she asked them.The elderly woman winked at her. “Riley came in. That’s always exciting.”“Fanny,” Riley drawled, “you keep up that sassy talk, you’ll turn my head. Next thing I know, Albert will be calling me out for making time with his wife.”Fanny tittered like a young girl. “Oh, go on with you. You better watch this one,” she told Amy. “He’s a sweet talker, he is.”“I’ll watch him. Did you get that problem taken care of this morning?” she asked him.“Turned out to be a simple misunderstanding. Maryann thought we were forgetting her laundry room.”“You can’t forget a lady’s laundry room,” Fanny stated. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”Amy mentioned the pile of paperwork that she had moved from thesurface of her desk into the hanging files and asked what Riley
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 28.1
He gave her a cheesy grin. “None taken.”If Amy thought she and Riley might be more comfortable with each other after that exchange, time proved her mistaken. Over the next days, shefound herself going out of her way to avoid eye contact, and making sure she didn’t put herself within touching range of him. She stepped over tolook out the window or looked down to study the contents of a drawer more times than she cared to count.By the time she realized what she was doing, she realized that he seemed to be pulling the same avoidance maneuvers. Of course, for her to realize he wouldn’t meet her gaze, she had to look at him. If anyone was watching the two of them, they were probably getting a good laugh. There they were, two grown people, so uneasy with each other that they scarcely talked, never got near each other, wouldn’t look at each other, used anyone handy—poor Fanny got it most often—as a go-between. And she looked suspiciously as if she was about to burst into laughter at any
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 28.2
It took a good thirty minutes for his heart rate to settle.But when he slept that night, he dreamed of her. She came to him in his sleep and smiled. “I hope you like the present I sent you.” Then she waved good-bye and left.When he woke he realized he felt good. Cheerful. Usually when he dreamed of Brenda, he woke sad and lonely.By the time he and the girls were ready to leave for the day, he remembered that he’d dreamed of Brenda, but couldn’t remember what it had been about.All he could do was put it aside and face the new day. To that end, when he got to work he decided that this close to Christmas, no one should have to be alone. Including his sergeant.“What are you doing tomorrow morning?” he asked Amy. “Uh, tomorrow’s Saturday, right? My day off?”“I’m not talking about work. The girls and I are picking out our Christmas tree tomorrow morning. Why don’t you come with us?”She stood there and stared at him, her eyes blinking, looking as if she might be calculating the nation
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