“I could sleep on a concrete slab,” Holly said as she brought up her messages. “He says that I have his phone number, to call him if he can help in any way, and we’ll reschedule our date later.”
“Are you going to call him?” Darlene asked.
“I don’t know,” Holly said, “but right now, I’m going to bed and sleeping the rest of the night. When I wake up, I’m going to the hospital to relieve Daddy for a little while, then I’m spending the rest of the day catching up on whatever I need to know before Monday morning.”
“Keep me posted, and know that I love you,” Darlene said. “Text me her room number and I’ll send flowers tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you,” Holly said with another yawn and ended the call.
She went back to bed and dreamed of Bubba when she went to sleep. They were sitting on the porch of an old farmhouse, and three little kids were playing with a couple of baby goats. When she awoke, she wondered what the dream meant. She had never been to that house before. She didn’t know those children, and she certainly did not want a goat—if she ever had a house with a yard. At that moment, she was very satisfied with her apartment and the view out the living room window.
Miles was prepared to come clean on Friday night and was more nervous than he had been since his first date fifteen years before. He was prepared for the worst but hoped for the best, and talked out loud to himself from the ranch to a couple of miles from her house. Then he got the text. He sent a message back to her before he turned his truck around and headed back to the ranch with a worried mind and deflated heart.
Elijah was sitting on the porch at the house when he parked the old work truck beside his much newer vehicle. He waved and then frowned. “Hey, where’s the girl? Did she send you packing?”
Miles crossed the yard and plopped down in the porch swing. “I’m not sure. She sent a message that said she had a family emergency. Something about her mother.”
“Think she’s found out that you ain’t Bubba, and you ain’t just a hired hand on this ranch? Is she brushing you off?” Elijah reached inside a cooler sitting beside him and brought out a couple of beers. He twisted the top off one and handed it toMiles. “Your Bubba days could be over, so suck it up and move on.”
“Thanks,” Miles said, “but crazy as it seems after only a week, I thought this might be the one. For the first time, I was thinking about settling down and raising a family right here.”
“Way I see it is that during that time, you didn’t have to worry about whether or not a woman liked you for yourself or all the pretty things your money could buy for her. Ms. Lula Ann liked Bubba, not Miles Chapman the rich cowboy. That felt good and right and caused you to have visions of sitting on this porch and watching your grandchildren play. Even if you never see her again, you’ve got to give her credit for making you realize that there is someone out there who will like you for yourself.”
“I don’t think there will ever be anyone like her,” Miles said.
“If you feel that strongly, then go find her and tell her.”
Miles turned up his beer and took a long drink. “I think I will, starting tomorrow. I’ll go by the florist and take her a real nice bouquet tomorrow afternoon. After all, I do know where she lives.”
Chapter Seven
On Sunday morning, Holly talked her father into going home for a shower and change of clothes by promising to never leave her mother’s side while he was gone.
“Thank you,” Noreen said as soon as Fletcher was gone. “I’m more worried about him than I am about me. He wakes up every time the nurses come in to do vital signs at night, and he goes to sleep holding my hand. If I try to slip mine away, he comes alive and wants to know if I’m okay. His shoulder has to be hurting.”
“Someday I want that kind of relationship.” Holly thought of Bubba. If she had told him the truth about who she really was, could they have gotten past the lie and had a real relationship?
“I want it for you, but I also want to go home so your dad can get some real sleep,” Noreen told her.
“Has the doctor said when that might happen?”
“Tomorrow, if my temperature doesn’t spike. If they still used those under-the-tongue thermometers, I would slip a piece of ice in my mouth when the nurse wasn’t looking,” Noreen said. “I feel like I could leave this place and go straight to the office. I’m sorry we’re putting this burden on you.”
Holly patted her mother’s hand. “Don’t be. You’ve trained me well, Mama. I can do this for a couple of weeks.”
“If you get overwhelmed, I’ll be a phone call and an email away,” she assured her daughter. “Now that we’re alone, tellme about your vacation. Darlene called and said that you’d met someone at a speed-dating event.”
“I didn’t. Lula Ann Smith did,” Holly answered with a long sigh.
“Who?” Noreen frowned.
“Darlene was going to be Sally June for a week, and I was Lula Ann Smith,” Holly said.
Noreen grabbed a small pillow and held it tightly over her abdomen. “Don’t tell me jokes like that. It hurts when I even giggle. Y’all didn’t really do that, did you?”
“Darlene didn’t tell you the whole story?”
Noreen shook her head and tried to hold more laughter, but a few giggles escaped. “No, but I want to hear it.”
