Clinton rolled his eyes. “And that is why I stay in the back, especially since this damned contest started.”
“Clinton, darlin’, are you here?” the voice went on, getting louder with each word.
Taryn slid off her stool. “I recognize that voice. I’ll go this time.” Some folks never change, but she couldn’t say the same for Diana Marlow. Her hair had been brown back in high school, but now it was platinum blonde. And she had to be wearing colored contacts, because her brown eyes were now light blue. “Hello, Diana. I don’t think I’ve seen you since I left Shamrock more than ten years ago, but I’d recognize your voice anywhere.”
“Not seeing you is a good thing. I haven’t forgotten how much trouble followed you around. Some of us are good members of society now. Where’s Clinton?” She tipped up her chin and looked down her nose at Taryn.
“He’s not here, but I’ll be glad to give him a message.” Taryn was amazed at her calmness—but then, maybe she was getting to be more like Nana Irene. None of the girls were worried if their grandmother raised her voice at them ... but if she whispered, that was a different matter.
“I wanted to give this to him myself, but ...” Diana sighed and set a bright red platter wrapped in cellophane on the counter. “It’s a loaf of pumpkin bread from my family’s secret recipe and a dozen chocolate chip cookies. You be sure he gets it, and tell him I’ll be by his apartment in a couple of days with a nice pot roast.”
“I will do that.” Taryn felt the chill in her own voice and hoped that when Diana shivered, it was caused by more than the air-conditioning. “Anything else I can help you with this morning?”
“Not a thing. I’ll be glad when Ruby and Irene are back. This shop is going to suffer without them,” Diana threw over her shoulder as she went out the front door.
Taryn carried the platter to the back and set it on the table beside the coffee maker. “How many women are trying to swindle an engagement ring out of you by bringing you food?”
“Tell us more about this contest,” Anna Rose said. “Do you own half the state of Texas or something?”
Clinton finished the vase of flowers he had been working on and set it aside. “This all started when my grandfather, Harry McEntire, was featured on the front of a magazine. Until then, I was a nobody, but folks put my name and his together. Evidently, you can find out anything about anyone on the internet.”
“You are fromthatMcEntire family?” Jorja gasped. “He’s the biggest oil baron in the state. I read that article—he talked about someday leaving it all to his grandson, Clinton.”
Clinton tore the plastic wrap off the bread and cookies. “That would be me. My grandfather will be running the corporation until he’s a hundred years old, so I don’t have to worry about my inheritance. Right now, I’m not interested in oil or any of those other newinvestments he made. Material things aren’t at the top of my priority list. Neither are women that are after me because they think I’m rich.”
“Why don’t you just tell them that?” Anna Rose asked.
“I have,” Clinton said with a shrug. “It didn’t change anything. It’s like they have selective hearing. And Google searches and what’s on the internet are both as eternal as God and heaven.”
“Please lead them on a little bit until Nana Irene and Ruby get back,” Taryn said with a chuckle as she picked up a cookie. “I like the idea of good food being brought in, and these cookies are still warm.”
“That’s not very nice,” Jorja scolded.
Clinton took the whole platter to the worktable and then poured four cups of coffee. “Let’s have a midmorning snack, and then I’ll make the deliveries. Looks like we’ve got a full van. We might have to go out a couple of times by the end of the day.”
Taryn helped him carry the cups to the worktable.
Anna Rose cleaned a floral knife and cut several slices of bread. “This is almost as good as Nana Irene’s, and that’s giving her a lot of praise. I’m throwing my vote in with Taryn’s about not running your admirers off until Nana Irene and Ruby are back in the shop. Then, if you can’t make them understand, turn it over to Nana Irene. She’ll put the fear of God into them.”
“Don’t I get a vote?” Jorja took a bite of her bread.
“Sure, you do, but it won’t matter,” Taryn answered. “You’re already outvoted two to one.”
“My vote is that you don’t tell the women to get lost until we’re gone,” Jorja said between bites. “They deserve whatever happens for making you the prize in a contest.”
Taryn dipped the edge of a cookie into her coffee. “Clinton, you should call Nana Irene and tell her that—for what may well be the first time ever—we have agreed on something.”
“You call her,” Clinton said.
Anna Rose shook her head. “We can’t. There’s no blood or broken bones.”
“Oh, hush about that,” Jorja said. “And for y’all’s information, none of those three women that we’ve seen would listen anyway. You know what they say about changing a leopard’s spots. They’ll all be gold diggers forever, but I do wish Kerry Smith would join the contest. Her momma makes the best gingerbread and lemon sauce I’ve ever tasted.”
“She brought me some of that, and Irene and Ruby said the same thing—but here lately, it’s just been Elaine, Mallory, and Diana coming around,” Clinton said with a grin.
He ate a second cookie and a slice of pumpkin bread and finished off his coffee. “While we’re discussing me, I’ll tell you this: I’m not a hero. I didn’t run into a burning building to save my air force buddies, and I didn’t get this limp from an explosion over in Kuwait or Afghanistan. I moved to Shamrock because my grandfather grew up here, and I started a small nonprofit business out of my apartment where I advocate for wounded vets. The minute folks realized who I was, they assumed I had been wounded in battle, and when they found out I was running a military-related nonprofit organization, and didn’t need a wagonload of money, that just made them more sure of the fact. I tried to tell them I wasn’t a hero or interested in my grandfather’s money, but I might as well have been whistling in the wind.”
“Howdidyou get hurt?” Jorja asked.
