Page 58 of Nashville Cowboy
“Barns. Clothes. Books.”
“Would you stop? This is important! Years go by. First eight years, and then twenty. Thirty. Pretty soon a lifetime. And I can’t let that happen without finding this quilt!”
She continued to the next box. Nothing but clothes. Eve and Jackson would be back soon. She would have to continue this search another time. Tomorrow she’d call Brenda and get her searching, too. Lord knew no one else was going to help her.
“What quilt you talkin’ about?” Albert leaned back, having settled himself on a bale of hay. “Ours?”
“No, you fool! Eve and Jackson’s quilt. She kept it and I believe it could very well be somewhere in this house. Maybe if I find it, and get her to look at it again, she’ll see.”
“Seewhat?”
“That eight years have already gone by. She can’t let anothermonthgo by.”
Lillian would rather eat dirt than admit it, but she still missed her ornery cowboy. He’d always been on her last nerve, and had she known she’d miss him this much, maybe she would have enjoyed the years more. Been kinder to him. At least she’d had the years, which was more than she could say for Eve. The girl had to get on with it! Time was a tickin’.
What had to be an hour later, her results netted her a big fat zero. She’d have to bring Brenda into this. Maybe Eve had left it behind at her mother’s house before she moved to college.
Then she noted the time and wondered where on earth those two could be, anyway.
“Oh, Albert, maybe they’ve been in an accident.” She wrung her hands. “I threw them together and maybe Jackson got distracted by her beauty and veered off the road. The truck rolled and spun and landed in a ditch. Now they’re cut and bleeding. Maybe unconscious. What have I done?”
“Woman, sure wish you’d taken up writing true-crime novels. Always did have too big of an active imagination when it comes to blood.” Albert shook his head and sat up. “It could be that your plan is working. They’re talking. Or maybe doin’morethan talking.”
“You think so?” The thought encouraged her. “I still have to find that quilt. Lord only knows where it could be, and I can’t very well ask Eve. Then it won’t be a surprise.”
“I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Thank you, Albert.” She shook her head, shocked by her thoughts. But they were true.
“Sometimes you’re the only thing that keeps me sane.”
Jackson heldEve’s hand all the way back to the ranch. Seeing her fall apart in his arms, crying because she thought she’d disappointed him somehow…that ripped away at his heart. Just tore whole chunks off. So, she wasn’t ready. Not a big deal for him. He was just going to have to stop teasing himself and working himself up. From now on it would have to be her idea.
He opened the front door for Eve, watched her walk in first, then followed her into the kitchen, where Mima sat at the kitchen table, boxes filled with wedding-favor jam jars lined up in neat rows.
She stood up, hand on hip. “Lawd have mercy, where in tarnation you two been? I was about to call the law.”
Jackson slid her a smile. “Don’t pretend y’all didn’t leave us at the restaurant so we would have no choice but to ride back together.”
“Didn’t mean for you to take half the night.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Hope you two had a grand old time. You just earned me ten more wrinkles.”
“I’m sorry, Mima,” Eve said in a soft voice.
“No, she’s not sorry. It’s my fault. Blame it on me. I took her for a drive, and we lost track of time. Not that it matters much since we’re both adults.”
“I’m going to bed,” Eve announced.
“You go right on ahead, sugar. Jackson knows the rest of us are all early risers ’round here.”
“Maybe Eve could sleep in tomorrow,” Jackson suggested.
It was as if he’d suggested that Texas was the worst state in the country. Mima looked flabbergasted. “What on earthfor?”
His voice went up a notch. “Because she’s been workin’ toohardaround here. She deserves a break.”
“Are you sick?” Mima asked her.
Now Eve slid him a surprised look that made him feel she didn’t much appreciate his interference. But her getting up so early to feed them plus all the ranch hands breakfast, slaving over a hot stove, didn’t sit well with him.
