Fannin's Flame Read online

  The window above him flew open. Kelly stared down, a wicked angel grinning at him. “Did you bring the scissors?”

  “No. And thank heavens I wasn’t looking for sympathy.”

  “You’re not dead,” she pointed out. “Your eyes are open and nothing appears to be sticking out at a funny angle. I think you’ll live.” She slammed the window, but he heard her giggle before she did.

  “She’s cruel,” he told Helga, who was staring down at him. “I think I’m in love with your daughter.”

  “Ch. Ch,” she said, clearly still annoyed and not even trying to understand him.

  Then she walked away.

  “Oh, God,” he said, “like daughter, like mother. It could have been easier, couldn’t it? I didn’t need the Curse of the Broken Body Parts visited on me.” Gingerly he sat up. “I think my spleen’s ruptured.” And his pride, but he wasn’t going to dwell on that. Pride had got him to the top of that ladder and pride had brought him down off it.

  Kelly appeared beside him, her poodle at her feet. “That’s what you get for being such a little boy, sneaking to see your presents.” She put a strong hand underneath him, which he welcomed, and helped him up. “My mother’s so upset with you that I don’t think you’re going to get any presents.”

  “She took ten years off my life. I won’t get her a present, either.”

  Kelly laughed. “Fannin, she didn’t know I wouldn’t let you in while I was wrapping presents, nor did she know that was the room I was wrapping in. She thought you were being a pervert. And she was protecting me.”

  “Your mother thought I was a pervert?”

  “She thought I was undressing and you were watching. Why else would a man be up a ladder? You clearly weren’t washing the window. And she said you had a stupid expression on your face, like you were, you know, watching something really interesting.”

  “What makes her think I’d stoop to window-spying on her daughter?”

  “I don’t know. Of course, we’ve paired off in your truck, an abandoned bedroom and a barn, so maybe she’s on to something. She probably senses you have some kind of lecherous thing going for me. Anyway, she says no woman is safe around any of you. Road to ruin and all that.”

  Great. He was never going to make Helga a mother-in-law if she thought he was a perv.

  “We’re sort of doomed as a couple, aren’t we?”

  She looked up at him as they walked, her eyes laughing. “I didn’t think it was possible for my mother’s opinion to be any lower of you. The ladder incident was a ringer, though.”

  “So, ‘doomed’?”

  “Yeah. Doomed is the word I’d use. How are you feeling?”

  “Like not being pestered,” he said, repeating her earlier words.

  “I’ll remember that when you’re in the middle of something and I decide to spy on you. I’m never going to get all that stuff wrapped now, if I have to waste time with you.”

  She opened the front door, and he limped over to the easy chair. “I think I just got the breath knocked out of me. Feel free to go on with what you were doing. Don’t let a frayed spine and a possible lateral rearrangement of my gluteus disturb you.”

  “Do you want me to call your brothers? Doc Gonzalez?”

  “I’m fine.” He felt like his bell had been rung, but from rodeo experience, he knew he was in good enough shape to live. “Sorry about that.”

  She stood at his arm, and he looked up into her blue eyes. “Fannin, I didn’t want you to know I was wrapping your Christmas gifts from my mother. She wanted it to be a secret.”

  “I figured that out.”

  “She wanted me to leave them where you all would have a Santa-Claus-style surprise when you came downstairs tomorrow morning. She says she doesn’t think any of you have had that in a long time. That was her real gift to you.”

  He grunted, touched beyond words but not wanting to say it.

  “Of course you Jeffersons don’t deserve it. You know that. I know that. My mother chooses to think of your mother and what she’d want for her children.”

  He closed his eyes. “Everything about you annoys the crap out of me somehow.”

  “Same.” She giggled.

  “Why does that feel so good?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s probably sicko magnetism or something.”

  “Like Fatal Attraction?”

  “You watch a lot of movies, don’t you?”

  He grimaced. “Yeah.”

  “What can I get you before I go back upstairs? I still have a ton to do.”

  “The remote. I think I’ll watch It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  “Now there was a man who tried to live right in spite of all the odds.” She smiled and handed the remote to him. “Just ring a bell if you need me.”

  He got it. “Sure, angel. Whatever you say. Just as soon as you sprout wings. Right now, I consider you more of a red-haired devil.”

  “Well, here’s a red-furred angel to make you feel better.” She scooped Joy into his lap, and the tiny poodle settled in instantly. Kelly left the room, and he closed his eyes. His thoughts burned in his mind, greater than the pain he was suffering in his entire body.

  She was going to drive him insane—if he wasn’t there already.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said to Joy. “It’s a wonderful life.”

  Chapter Ten

  Fannin was annoyed, but he also recognized that he had some patching up to do. He doubted Helga thought he was an actual miscreant, but laziness she could attribute to him.

  It was Christmas Eve, and he hadn’t done a bit of shopping. Nor had any of his brothers, he was sure. He was suddenly stricken by the urge to get Kelly a Christmas present. Without disturbing Joy, who was napping in his lap, he swiped the portable phone.

  “Union Junction Salon, this is—”

  “The most beautiful girl on the planet,” Fannin said.

  “Hey, Jefferson wild man,” Lily said with a giggle. “Which one are you?”

  “One who needs a favor from his lovelies.”

  “Does this involve a Santa suit or elf leggings?”

  Fannin laughed. “Neither. Just some shopping.”

  “We all love shopping. And some of us are available for a friend in need.”

  “Great. I’ll meet you in thirty minutes.”

  “Where are we going shopping?”

  “We’ll need to go into Dallas.”

  “Oh, goody. I was hoping you’d say that. Bye, big guy.”

  “Bye, little lady.” He punched the button to the phone with a grin. Kelly was standing at his elbow. She reached for Joy, but he stopped her with a hand. “What are you doing? Eavesdropping?”

  “That would be the appropriate response from a woman who’s been spied on,” she said smartly. “But no, I wasn’t. May I have my dog?”

  “Not until you tell me how much of that you heard.”

  She eyed him. “Something about a little lady and thirty minutes.”

  He bit the inside of his mouth. If he didn’t know better, he’d think flames were shooting out of his angel’s ears. “Jealous?”

  “Do I look jealous?”

  “You look red-hot.”

  “Well, that’s because you’ve just fallen off a ladder and your vision’s distorted. May I have my dog, please?”

  “Kelly, what time are you leaving?”

  “As soon as you give me my dog,” she said huffily.

  Whoo-wee. Maybe the PMS factor was still in play. He’d have to ask his brothers how long that lasted. Surely not more than an hour or two. He squinted at her. “I was hoping you’d stay a little longer than thirty seconds.” But he handed Joy to her, anyway.

  “Well—”

  The door burst open. “Kelly, your mother says to come quick!” Mason said. He was just in from the field and sweaty, with fear on his face. “She called me on my cell. She says she needs you to help her with Mimi. Immediately.”

  “I’ll drive you over.” Fannin hopped
to his feet.

  For once, Kelly didn’t argue. She grabbed her purse, put Joy in it, and together they ran to his truck.

  At the Cannady house, Kelly trotted up the stairs, leaving Fannin in the kitchen with Mason and Joy, who was eating out of a food bowl that had been placed there for her.

  “What do you think is going on?” Fannin asked Mason.

  “She said something about the baby. I don’t think she could get through on the house phone, so she called me.”

  Fannin frowned. “I called the Union Junction ladies, but I was only on the phone for a second.”

  “With all of us having cell phones and hardly ever being in the house, I’ve never seen the need for call waiting, but at least she thought to call my cell.”

  Fannin nodded. “Maybe Mimi’s having another panic attack.”

  “I don’t know.” Mason looked up at the ceiling. “I’ll bet she never called Brian.”

  Fannin thought that was a pretty safe bet. But he kept his mouth shut. He had enough problems with his own love life. Joy crunched contentedly on the tiny food in her bowl, and Fannin grinned at her. “When I come back in my next life, I’m gonna be a dog.”

  “Kelly would probably let you wear a collar if you wanted.”

  Fannin stared at his brother. “That was uncalled for.”

  “Sorry. Just happened to witness the downfall of Ladder Man while I was in the field.”

  Fannin’s face burned. “Just trying to see if the sunlight was at such an angle to ruin the furniture in that room.”

  Mason laughed. “Did you see anything good?”

  Fannin thought about all the gifts and Kelly sitting in the middle of them. “Yeah. I did.”

  “I should ask you not to play Peeping Tom on our guests.”

  “Okay,” Fannin said. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Until the next time,” Mason filled in.

  “Something like that.”

  “Damn it.” Mason drummed the table. “You’d think they could give us a freaking update.”

  A moan came from upstairs. Fannin watched as his brother sat straight up in his chair, then went white as a Sunday shirt.

  “You all right?” Fannin asked.

  Mason ran a finger around his flannel shirt collar. “Yeah. I’m going to go home and take a fast shower. Call me if you need me. But I’ll be right back. I just don’t want to sit in here stinking up the place. Or the hospital, in case we have to make a run for it.”

  Fannin nodded, watching his brother leave. Good stiff outdoor air would put the color back in Mason’s skin. He didn’t blame his brother for taking off. “I’d like to do the same,” he said to Joy, “but I don’t guess I will. And that reminds me.” Pulling his cell out of his pocket, he called the Union Junction Salon. “It’s me. Going to have to take a rain check. Mimi’s making noise upstairs. Could be the baby, could be something else. Think I’ll hang around here, though.”

  “What exactly did you have on your Christmas wish list?”

  Fannin rolled his eyes. “Everything. You name it. I’ve got eleven brothers, a housekeeper I really need to suck up to, a next-door neighbor moaning, a sick sheriff, and all of y’all. Plus a special lady friend.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That sounds lucky for you.”

  “Not when you don’t have a Christmas gift.”

  She laughed. “We’re going into the city. We’ll pick you up some things.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “But you’d sure appreciate it.”

  “Yeah.” Fannin smiled. “I would, actually. But I hate to ask you to spend your Christmas Eve shopping for me.”

  “There are ten of us here. If we all grab a couple of things, it’ll take an hour at most. Plus, we owe your family one.”

  “We owed you one after the big storm.”

  “And you got us this wonderful house for our salon after we had to leave Lonely Hearts Station. We’re happy in Union Junction.”

  He grinned. “Lord only knows we all look better with our hair trimmed.”

  She laughed. “Talk to you later. Wish Mimi good luck for us if the baby’s coming on Santa’s sleigh.”

  “The way she sounded a moment ago, I think she wishes it was a sleigh.”

  “Hey, anything in particular for this lady friend?”

  “I wouldn’t know, to be truthful. Something for a tiny red poodle would probably not go amiss.”

  “Gotcha. You really are sucking up.”

  He chuckled.

  “I’ll see what I can do. ’Bye.”

  He hung up, and Joy jumped into his lap. Kelly came down the stairs, her eyes showing concern.

  “What’s going on?” Fannin asked. “Do you need me to do anything?”

  “I don’t know. She won’t let us call Doc Gonzalez. Says it’s Christmas Eve and she’s just having Braxton-Hicks contractions. Warm-up contractions. Nothing to get excited about, she says, but I’m not so sure.”

  “How the hell does Mimi know what a Braxton-Hicks contraction is?”

  Kelly shook her head. “I don’t know. She says she took some classes and read a lot of books.”

  “Oh, that makes us all feel better. Did she call Brian?”

  Kelly’s gaze slid away. “I don’t know.”

  “What is her problem about calling her husband?”

  She looked down. “Fannin, I don’t know, okay? Can we just get back to the basics?”

  “I thought husbands were pretty basic, as in father of the child that’s waiting to be born upstairs?”

  “Don’t snap at me!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to make certain we’re doing what needs to be done. Okay, if she won’t let us call Doc or Brian, how about the midwife?”

  Kelly swallowed. “She said she never had time to find another one.”

  “Great gravy.” Fannin looked down at the little poodle in his lap, totally undisturbed by the household drama. “And no hospital.”

  “She says it would be a dry run, and she doesn’t want to sit in a hospital on Christmas Eve. And she doesn’t want to leave her father. She says we all need to calm down.”

  Mason burst through the door, his hair sopping wet, his clothes changed.

  “You’re going to catch pneumonia,” Fannin told him.

  “How’s Mimi?” Mason demanded.

  Fannin rubbed his eyes. “Intractable as always. Mason, why don’t you go upstairs and see if you can ease some sense into Mimi’s skull?”

  He looked like he’d rather be shot. “Has anybody called her husband yet? I’m pretty sure we’re getting close to needing him to start traveling from Houston. I think he needs to be here. That’s who should be putting sense into Mimi’s head, if it could be done in the first place.”

  They all glanced at each other. Another moan floated down the stairwell.

  “All right, so I’ll go upstairs,” Mason said reluctantly. “But have Brian on speed-dial in case I get the go-ahead for us to call him.”

  He went up the stairs. Fannin sighed.

  “How long has Mason been in love with Mimi?” Kelly asked softly.

  “I honestly do not know. It snuck up on him. Sort of like a bad rash when you’ve been in poison ivy.”

  Kelly sat at the table with him. “You don’t always have to hold my dog.”

  “Yeah, I kinda do. She makes herself at home.”

  “Hand her to me.”

  “Nah.” Fannin shook his head. “She likes my lap better.”

  Kelly smiled. “The novelty will soon wear off.”

  He looked at her. “Will it?”

  He saw her catch her breath at his underlying meaning.

  Then he went back to patting Joy and listening for Mason to holler if he needed him.

  A FEW MOMENTS LATER, Mason returned looking, Kelly decided, as if he’d aged five years. “She’s in pain but not letting on.”

  “All right.” Fannin put Joy on the floor. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’
ll go make sure my truck is full of gas. Mason, you go ask the sheriff what he wants to do. He’d be better off at our house if Mimi won’t leave this one. I just don’t think it’s good for him to lie up there listening to Mimi give birth to a baby.”

  Instantly his cell phone rang. “Yes, sir. All right, sir. Perfectly, sir.” He hung up.

  Mason looked at Fannin. “Sheriff?”

  “Yes. Apparently our voices carry quite acoustically up that stairwell,” Fannin said, chagrined, his voice lowered.

  “He tell you to get stuffed?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Same thing he told me.” Mason looked at Kelly. “We’re men of few words and repetitious phrases. ‘Get stuffed’ is pretty tame for a man who’s more used to telling us to get—”

  “And he also mentioned,” Fannin interrupted, “that the first person who tried to take him out of his own house where his grandchild was being born would see the wrong end of the shotgun he keeps under his bed.”

  “Forgot about the shotgun,” Mason said.

  “They’re so damn stubborn in this house,” Fannin said. “I do not understand how two people can be so danged stubborn.”

  Kelly stared at Fannin, wondering when he’d last examined his own family tree and temperament.

  “What?” he said.

  “Nothing. Please go on with your planning. It’s the first sensible thing anyone’s said since we got here.” Actually, she was admiring his take-charge attitude. Fannin in full-blown maneuvering mode was pretty impressive.

  “Okay. Since the sheriff’s determined to be where his grandchild might be born, this is easier than the hospital anyway. We’ve got Helga to monitor the situation, and I feel pretty certain she can handle just about anything.” Fannin looked at Kelly. “And we have you. Unless you’re still going home.”

  “I wouldn’t leave my mother on Christmas Eve,” Kelly snapped.

  “I didn’t think so. What else do we need?”

  “Brian and a doctor,” Mason said.

  “Did she tell you that you could call him?” Fannin asked.

  “She didn’t say I couldn’t.”

  “You mean you didn’t ask,” Kelly said.

  “I didn’t ask,” Mason admitted.

  Fannin said, “I think we should call him,” and looked at Kelly. “It’s fricking Christmas Eve. Why isn’t he here with his wife, anyway?”