Chapter 19

Tommy showed up for work at seven-thirty on the Monday morning after his vacation, refreshed and relaxed, even though he’d only slept for four hours. His vacation had been great, but he was glad to be home.

He was the first one in that morning, so he unlocked the side door to the warehouse and he and Rex slipped inside. Tommy heaved a satisfied sigh as surveyed his realm, noting with pleasure that it was almost as neat and orderly as when he’d left. He went to his locker, shed his jacket and put on his denim work apron. He plucked the pending orders clipboard off the wall near the doors that led to the store, then walked over to the forklift and fired it up.

He had five orders that needed building: three deliveries and a couple of customer pick ups. Local farmers were gearing up for spring planting as the winter ebbed. The Farmer’s Almanac was predicting a wetter than normal spring this year, so the farmers wanted cotton and corn in the ground early. Ranchers also wanted an early start on alfalfa and red clover to fatten up their cattle after the winter.

As he stacked bags of fertilizer, seeds and feed onto the pallets he’d spaced around the floor, Tommy thought about his vacation. Even Tommy’s biggest fans would have been surprised at how complex his thought processes were. People, including those that loved him, assumed that Tommy was a simple man because he expressed himself simply. However, that was not really the case. Tommy had a much better grasp on the world now, and every day his healing brain grew stronger. Tommy’s simplicity of nature was in how he acted, and that was by choice.

Tommy had learned a lot during the week he’d spent with his sister, and he was well pleased at having reconnected with her as he had. Beth was no longer just another adult to him, now she was a complete and wonderful person who loved him fiercely. He was also happy that she filled in the holes in his history for him. It was wonderful learning how he’d spent some of the years between what he remembered and where he was today. Tommy knew his history now, even if he couldn’t recall living it. In addition, he had answers as to why he knew certain things, even though he didn’t recall how he learned them.

Meeting Marie Arcenaux had also been good for him. It was Marie who finally made him realize that being different was not necessarily a bad thing. Tommy’s friends accepted his being different, but Marie celebrated the fact. To Tommy’s way of thinking, his friends loved him in spite of his being different, while Marie loved him because of it.

Tommy was distracted from his musings when he saw Momma Rita standing by the door looking at him. He dropped what he was doing and sprinted over to where she was. He skidded to a stop in front of her and stepped into her wide held arms. Tommy sighed when she squeezed him tight; no one’s hug could hold a candle to Momma’s. When she let him go, he stepped back and gently took her small hand in his big calloused one.

“You were right, Momma. Beth is a hundred times better than the sister I remember,” he said.

Rita smiled at him and nodded.

“I talked to her on the phone just yesterday. You made her very happy Tommy, and she is really excited about coming out here this summer. I’m proud of you for doing that, I know it took a lot of courage on your part to go face your past. I hear you even saw the girl you were engaged to,” Rita replied.

It was Tommy’s turn to nod.

“Yeah, her name is Cynthia. She is very pretty, but old Tommy was pretty dumb getting involved with her. She loves herself too much to love anyone else.”

Rita laughed delightedly.

“Beth said Cynthia’s asked a thousand questions about you, so you better watch out if you see her again,” Rita teased.

Tommy didn’t quite catch the tease in her voice, so he bobbed his head in agreement.

“Connie said the same thing. I overheard her telling Beth that if Cynthia tried anything, she was going to get a boot up her butt, because cowgirls didn’t put up with that game.”

Rita laughed and hugged Tommy again. That Connie was a hoot and it suited Rita just fine that she had converted from Hollywood starlet to Texas cowgirl.

Tommy walked back into the retail store with Rita to say hello to Harold. Harold was at the sales counter, ringing up a sale while three farmers and a couple of townspeople browsed the aisles. Harold looked up and gave him a genuine happy smile.

“‘Bout time you got back, Tommy-boy. It’s been crazy around here with you gone.”

Nothing Harold could have said would make Tommy any happier than that one little statement. Tommy thrived on being needed and productive.

Tommy stayed a few minutes late that first night, inventorying his warehouse and preparing an order for Harold to place, then he hustled home. He was anxious to see Ruth, because he and Connie had arrived home too late for them to really spend any time together.

He walked into the front door of his house to the wonderful smell of garlic and tomatoes wafting on the air. When he made it to the kitchen, Ruth was at the stove stirring a big pot of spaghetti sauce, while Connie was at the sink, draining noodles in a colander. Rex flounced over to the new doggie bed Ruth had bought him and curled up in it. Tommy stood in the doorway grinning goofily at the bliss that enveloped the kitchen. The scene was so sweetly domestic, it made his eyes tear up.

Ruth saw him standing there first and let out a surprised yip. Tommy laughed and stepped into the kitchen with his arms open. Ruth dropped the spoon on the stove and jumped into his embrace.

Ruth had missed Tommy more during this separation than she had while she was in New York at Christmas. Sure, she was with her family during the holidays and that counted for something, but still, the emptiness she felt without him around had more to do with Tommy’s sweet love than it did with loneliness or boredom. She mashed her mouth to his and conveyed her feelings through her lips.

They sat around the kitchen table discussing their day over some very decent pasta. Ruth excitedly told them that the library volunteer program she’d started a few weeks ago had taken on a life of its own. The volunteer program took off because Rita Fricke and Madeline Dixon had been talking it up among their circle of friends. Suddenly, there was a women’s reading group and a friends of the library committee.

As a result of all the volunteer help, Ruth was now able to actually perform her head librarian duties in a forty-two and a half hour week. In addition, book circulation was up by twenty-five percent. Ruth was thrilled with that, because the more the library was used, the easier it was to request funding from the state. After all her effort, Ruth finally had the viable community library she envisioned.

“They might even give me a bookmobile so we can serve more customers,” she enthused.

When Ruth finished her update, Connie gave hers.

“I have some news too,” she said blandly.

When her roommates were focused on her, she gave it to them. She tried to remain nonchalant, but it was hard to disguise her excitement.

“When I went home this morning, I had a message on my machine from my agent. I called him back at noon, and he told me that Hammer Films in England wants me for a role in their new Dracula movie. The actress they originally cast is too pregnant for the part, and someone thought of me. The money is good and thanks to you two, I’m ready to act again, so I jumped at the opportunity. It’s a rush job, so I’ll be flying out Wednesday. It is not a lead role, and Hammer shoots their movies on a tight schedule, so I should only be gone a week to ten days.”

With so much good news in the air, Tommy decided they needed to celebrate. So as soon as the supper dishes were washed and put away, he piled everyone into his truck and headed for Dukes’ Place.

There were only a few of the regulars parked on the bar stools at Dukes’, so Tommy sent the girls back to the pool table as he sidled up to the bar.

“Name your poison, Tommy,” Mister Dukes said jovially.

“We’re celebrating. Do you have a bottle of Champagne?”

Mister Dukes smiled and slid back the lid of the cooler on his left.

“Got a couple of chilled bottles left over from New Years, as a matter of fact. It ain’t imported from France, but it ain’t horse piss either,” Duke replied as he busied himself uncoiling the wire that held in the cork. “What you celebrating anyway?”

“The women had good things happen to them today,” Tommy replied.

Then he leaned over the bar and pushed his Clark Kent glasses up onto the bridge of his nose.

“As for me, I work in a feed store, and yet here I am with two of the prettiest girls in Texas. I reckon I have even more to celebrate than them,” he whispered conspiratorially.

Old Mister Dukes glanced up at the two women just in time to see Connie lean across the pool table, her formidable cleavage on full display. Dukes gave a chuckle, reached under the bar and pulled out three plastic stemmed glasses.

“I guess you do at that,” Dukes said wistfully.

Tommy tried to hand Dukes a ten-spot, but the old man waved his hand dismissively.

“It’s on the house if you send that Conchita over here to get it. I need me a closer look at them cantaloupes she’s smuggling in that shirt.”

Tommy chuckled and nodded. Conchita loved showing off, so he figured Mister Dukes would get his money’s worth. Tommy walked back to the pool table and relayed Mister Dukes’ offer to Connie. She grinned impishly, unfastened another button on her tight madras plaid shirt and pulled back her shoulders.

“One bottle of free bubbly, and one happy old geezer, coming up,” she giggled.

Connie Delgado slipped off her high heel pumps and tilted her seat back as soon as the British Overseas Airways Boeing 707’s pilot turned off the seatbelt lights. She flagged down a passing stewardess and requested a pillow and blanket. The pretty blonde stewardess reached into the overhead bin above Connie’s seat and passed the items down to her with a cheerful smile. Connie thanked the woman, put the pillow against the bulkhead and covered herself with the blanket. Connie was tired; it was almost midnight and she’d been traveling since noon. Besides, she needed to catch a few hours sleep on the plane during the six hour flight. Because of time zone changes, it would be ten in the morning when they landed in London, and she was expected on the set at noon.

Connie closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift as she waited for sleep to catch up with her. Sleep didn’t come immediately, but she was relaxed and cozy, so that was okay with her. While she waited for the sandman, she thought about the radical changes her life had undergone over the last six months. This very trip was irrefutable proof of that. The Conchita Delgado of old would have insisted on the star treatment, limos and a seat in first class. The woman she’d become had ridden to the airport in a pickup truck and was flying coach. Before Tommy, she thought of herself as an actress and celebrity, now acting was just a way to make some money.

Connie was mystified by the effect Tommy Bledsoe had had on her. Before she met him, she slept with any man that caught her fancy, but never more than once. The day after meeting him, she was a one-man woman. It was as if Tommy had found a switch that instantly turned off her out of control wildness. Connie shivered under her blanket as thinking about Tommy sent a flare of arousal coursing through her body. It was, she decided, going to be a long ten days.

“Or maybe not,” she thought, as the blonde stewardess suddenly slipped into the empty seat beside her with a shy smile and a couple of mixed drinks. Connie knew that smile, because it was the same one Michelle Arcenaux wore just for her. Sleep forgotten, Connie glanced around at the darkened, partially filled airplane. When she saw no one was paying them any attention, she lifted up the armrest that separated the two seats and leaned closer to the stew.

“Grab another couple of blankets,” she said imperiously.

The young woman’s eyes grew big and round but she nodded eagerly.

“Yes, Ma’am,” she said excitedly.

While Connie was in Jolly Old England, Tommy started working toward stocking his ranch with the Angora goats he had been researching. Tommy had consulted with everyone, from the county’s agricultural extension agent, to the Angora Breeders Association down in Rocksprings, Texas. Based on the advice he received, Tommy was going to start with twenty goats the first year and work his way up to a herd of two hundred in three years. He was starting small so he could learn on the job how to take care of his goats. Angoras were generally raised in the same manner as sheep, except the goats were not as hardy and required more care.