“We had a five-mile run over rough terrain for our PT test. I stepped in a hole and broke my hip, fractured my tibia, broke my fibula in three places, and tore up my knee all at the same time. They did what they could, including a lot of therapy after the surgeries, but I got a limp out of the deal, which got me a medical discharge,” he answered. “Enough about me. Now, I’m going to make these deliveries, and then after lunch today and until noon tomorrow, y’all are on your own. I have back-to-back appointments with vets.” He stretched the cellophane over the platter and set it back on the table with the coffeepot.
“I’d say you are between the old proverbial rock and a hard place,” Taryn said. She had never heard of a fall causing so much damage to a leg and hip. Maybe what had really happened to him was classified.
“You are so right,” Clinton agreed with a nod and a wink. “After a dozen people told me they understood that I couldn’t talk about my limp because it was classified—including several vets here in town—I didn’t even try to explain.”
Taryn took the next ticket from the stack in the basket. “Smart man. Protesting too loudly would just cause the nosy people to believe you even less. Besides, it has to be a bit of an ego boost for folks to think you’re a hero, right?”
“Not really,” Clinton answered and grabbed a couple of plants to take out to the van. “Knowing about my family’s money and thinking that I’m some kind of hero is what started this contest between the single women.”
“You might want to wait to deliver until I get this last one done,” Taryn said.
“As fast as you are, you’ll have it done by the time I get all these loaded,” Clinton said.
“Sheisfast,” Jorja said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Taryn bristled, though the barb from her cousin shouldn’t have surprised her one bit.
Jorja picked up a dust rag and headed to the front office. “Take it any way you want to.”
The last order was for an ivy plant to be delivered to Ruby. Taryn was more than a little bit jealous that Clinton got to go see her grandmother and Ruby, but if she insisted on going with him, the other two would pitch a hissy fit.
She remembered visiting her grandmother on Mother’s Day, but that seemed like months—maybe years—ago. Jorja had been doing something with her church, and Anna Rose was somewhere on the East Coast, taking pictures of lighthouses for a calendar. She’d had a lovely day with Irene and Ruby. In true southern tradition, she had bought a red-rose corsage for herself—signifying that her mother was still living—and white ones for Ruby and Irene because their mothers had passed. She had taken them to church that morning and then outto dinner afterward. Ruby had needed a nap, but Taryn and her grandmother spent the afternoon sitting on the porch swing and looking at old photo albums.
When Clinton left, Anna Rose hopped down from her barstool and poured herself another cup of coffee. “Do you believe that story about falling in a hole?”
Taryn was jerked out of her memory in time to hear the last few words. “Who fell?”
“Where’s your mind today?” Anna Rose asked, then repeated the question.
“Why would he lie to us, and what difference does it make?” Jorja asked. “I don’t really care how he got that limp. What I want to know is why Taryn is flirting with him after just one day. I mean, I could understand it if, after we’ve been here a month, you figure out that you kind of liked him. But only one day? Are you that desperate?”
“Iwasnotflirting with him,” Taryn protested.
“Yeah, you were,” Anna Rose said.
“If it gives you two something to agree on, then yes, I was flirting with him,” Taryn told them. “And if it will stop you from bickering, I’ll flirt with him every day we are here—and FYI, I am not desperate.”
Anna Rose held up a palm. “I was not agreeing with Jorja. If we had the same opinion twice in one day, the world might come to an end, and there’s cowboys out there that I have not flirted with or kissed. For the record, I was just stating a fact.”
“Youcannotstart a relationship with Clinton.” Jorja’s tone was so sharp that it reminded Taryn of one of her military-training instructors.
“Why not?” Taryn had no intentions of doing more than just being work friends with Clinton, but Jorja dang sure wasn’t going to tell her what she could or could not do. “Maybe I believe in love at first sight.”
“I’m not sure if I believe in that,” Anna Rose said with a giggle, “but I really, really believe in lust at first sight, and I intend to see if I can find a healthy dose of that real soon.”
“You should go to church, not to bars,” Jorja scolded.
Anna Rose flipped her brown hair back over her shoulders in a dramatic gesture and did a little hip wiggle. “Maybe my church is a bar, and my hymns are good country music on a jukebox, and my salvation is a good-lookin’ cowboy willin’ to come home with me.”
Jorja shivered even worse than she had earlier when she had mentioned her dark past or when Linda had invited her to Sunday dinner. “That’s sacrilege. You go stand on the other side of the room. When lightning shoots down from the cloudless sky and zaps you into dust, I don’t want to be close to you.”
“Don’t worry, Anna Rose,” Taryn said. “If that happens, I’ll scoop up every bit of your ashes and throw them out in the parking lot of that bar over the Oklahoma-Texas line that you’ve always liked.”
“Promise?” Anna Rose asked with a gleam in her green eyes. “Will you do that for me and then have a wake in the bar? I want the last handful of my ashes put into that vase right there”—she pointed at a shiny black one on the shelf—“and set on the jukebox so I can be there for all the fun.”
Jorja got the window cleaner out from under the counter and started to work on the glass door. “Y’all are both awful.”
“Don’t worry, darlin’,” Taryn teased. “If you get struck by lightning, I’ll make sure your ashes are placed on the altar of the church of your choice and that we’ll all sing ‘I’ll Fly Away’ at your services. I’ll even do the eulogy and tell the mourners that you were trying to save a sinner when the bolt came down through the rafters toward Anna Rose.” She stopped and sighed. “And that it got you by mistake.”
