Scarlett went straight to the coffeepot. “What are we talking about?”
I picked up my coffee and took another sip, but it didn’t completely get rid of the lump. “That basically, everything happens for a reason, and that Rosie just called me her friend.”
“I believe that with my whole heart,” Scarlett said. “If all that with Billy hadn’t happened then, I wouldn’t be here. I would have never met Grady and found out that there are good men in the world. And these past few days when I couldn’t see him, except for his face on the phone screen, have taught me that I want to be with him forever.”
One blizzard.
Three different meanings.
I wondered what Ada Lou and Nancy’s interpretations would be, and then a picture of Jackson flashed across my mind. Did he believe that things happened for a reason? Or did he think that everything was happenstance?
“Grady asked me to move in with him,” Scarlett blurted out.
“Are you going to?” Rosie asked.
“That would mean that I have to tell him about ...” She inhaled deeply. “Couples committed enough to live together shouldn’t have secrets.”
“I figured you had done that a long time ago,” Rosie said.
“I tried, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth,” Scarlett said.
I slipped an arm around her and gave her a sideways hug. Women empowering women—that was what we were to each other.
“If it is laid on your heart to tell him about your past, then you won’t be happy until you do,” Rosie told her.
“Billy gets out of prison this spring. What if he finds me and hurts Grady?”
“None of us can worry aboutwhat-ifs,” Rosie said.
“He got five years for assault?” I asked.
“No, he only got a few months for that, but he got caught drunk driving with cocaine in his truck and an underage girl in the passengerseat,” Scarlett answered. “It wasn’t his first time to stand before the judge for driving under the influence.”
“I don’t mind spending my last days in jail,” Rosie said with enough conviction in her voice to make me shiver.
“What does that mean?”
“Before I would let him hurt you, I would work him over with a ball bat myself,” she answered without blinking an eye. “Ilene sent me the pictures of you in the hospital. God would not lay that sin to my charge.”
“That all happened before you were Scarlett,” I assured her. “Just promise me that if you do move in with Grady that you won’t quit working at the Tumbleweed.”
“I promise. Now, let’s go to work and get our minds on something else.”
I could handle Scarlett moving out of the trailer, but I sure hoped that Rosalie wouldn’t decide to become a nun. Was there such a thing as a part-time holy woman? If she did feel the call from God to join the church in that capacity, could she work at the café and be a nun in the evenings?
Excitement—right along with the aroma of good food—filled the Tumbleweed that morning when the first bus pulled into the parking lot. The worst lot of tired, frazzled customers we’d had since I arrived at the Tumbleweed straggled through the door. There were no big smiles about winning money in Vegas. Even the children were too tired to whine.
“Clara, darlin’, I’m so sorry ...” a masculine voice that sounded a lot like Frank said.
When I heard my poker name, I came close to dropping the tray of coffee cups I was holding. I whipped around to find an older couple sitting side by side in a booth. The woman patted him on the shoulder and said, “It’s all right, Vincent. A few sore muscles and bones from getting stuck in a bus stop are worth the memories that we made on this trip.”
I set two cups on the table. “Do I hear a story?”
“Yes, you do.” This particular Clara looked up at me with unshed tears in her eyes. “My arthritic knees and back are aching from trying to sleep in a chair. If there had been room on the floor, I would have stretched out there even if it made for a hard bed.”
“But it was wall-to-wall people,” Vincent explained. “The place reminded me of the POW camp in Vietnam. But we survived, and we will be home this afternoon in Pecos. We won’t even unpack until later because our recliners are calling our names.”
“A hot shower andthenmy recliner,” Clara said. “And our kids and grandchildren that all live in Las Vegas are going to come see us from now on. We won’t be traveling more than a hundred miles in any direction again.”
