Sweet Vidalia Brand Read online

  “I just sent you an email. All three of you. Wanted to get you down here for the grand opening.”

  Jason couldn’t seem to meet his father’s eyes. His own were everywhere but there, in fact. “Since when do you stay for the grand opening? Isn’t that the new owner’s job?”

  “Usually.” Bobby went around behind the bar, took down a mug. “Pull up a stool, son, and I’ll pour you a beer.”

  “I talked to Mom,” Jason said as he crossed the room, took a seat on one of the tall barstools. The saddle-shaped seats were made of leather and suede. Ladies could hang their handbags from the pommels. Bobby thought it was ingenious, himself.

  “How is Judith these days? She happy with old what’s-his-name?”

  “It’s Stu and you know it. And yes, she’s happy.” Jason sighed, lowered his head and shook it slowly. “She told me about...your condition.”

  “She shouldn’t have done that.” He said it softly, because he didn’t know what else to say. His gut wanted to reassure his son that it wasn’t all that serious, that everything would be fine, but it wouldn’t. He was on a waiting list for a bone marrow donor that would stop the blood disease from killing him if he got it before the symptoms set in. From that point, which could be any day now, it would move fast. They’d be out of time. And his shot of finding a donor in time were slim to none. He had an odd blood type, one his sons had no inherited.

  “Why the hell not?” Jason asked. “Don’t you think I have a right to know that my father is...is dying?”

  “It’s my news to tell, son.” He slid a hand over Jason’s on the bar. “And I wanted to choose when and how to break it to the three of you.” He sighed, then shot Jason a look. “Have you told your brothers?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Jason sighed, shook his head sadly. “Didn’t want to go off half-cocked. Thought I should talk to you first. And besides, it’s almost Christmas.”

  “Our last one together,” Bobby said softly. “We think alike, you and me. I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s holiday with this news, either. I wanted to make this Christmas special, the best one yet. And I didn’t want it spoiled by premature grieving, son. Hell, you’ll have time enough to mourn me after I’m gone. Don’t start early, all right?”

  Jason stared at his dad for a long time. Then he said, “What is it, exactly?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a blood disease. Bone marrow’s not producing the right cells or something. There are lots of long-winded explanations but what it comes down to is that it’ll be fast once it kicks in. I’m not gonna suffer.”

  “But they do bone marrow transplants, right? Couldn’t one of us–”

  “My doc looked into all that. Yes, a transplant could cure it. No, none of you boys are compatible, and yes, I am on a waiting list for a donor. If one comes along in time, this conversation will be moot.” He shifted his gaze away, feeling guilty for throwing even that morsel of false hope his son’s way.

  “How long...do you have?”

  He shrugged. “Doc said three months at the outside.”

  “And how long ago was that?”

  Bobby bit his lip, took a deep breath, nodded hard. “‘Bout three months.”

  The bar was between them. Bobby didn’t know if Jason would’ve hugged him or not. Probably not. He wasn’t a hugging sort of a man.

  Instead, he just kept his head down as he took a bracing gulp of his beer. “You didn’t want to spend that time with us?”

  “I had something I had to do first.”

  “Right. Sell off damn near everything you owned, buy a feed store in some backwoods part of Oklahoma, and turn it into a saloon. It’s always been work first with you. Even now.” He picked up one of the flyers, eyed it with disdain, and dropped it again.

  Bobby withstood the accusation without flinching. It hurt, but he had it coming. “You’re right about that last part. It always has been work first with me. It’s something I regret right to my bones, son, I’ll tell you that. Sometimes it takes facing his own mortality to wake a man up to what really matters. But I am awake now. And you’re dead wrong on the rest of it.”

  “Then why are you here? Why didn’t you come to us, talk to us?”

  Bobby Joe drew a deep breath, counted to five, let it out again. “There are guest rooms upstairs. Just like in the real Long Branch. Here.” He pulled an old fashioned, heavy key on a numbered wooden ring out from underneath the bar, and slid it across to him. “Go on up. Take your beer with you. They hooked up the wireless yesterday, so you can get online all right. Get your email.”

  “I didn’t bring anything. I didn’t plan to stay. I just wanted....” He shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know what I wanted.”

  “You can get what you need in town. Your brothers’ll be here by tomorrow. I hope. You might as well wait for them to get here at least.” He shook a finger at his son. “But don’t you tell them about the...about my condition. It can wait. Consider it my final request, if that’s what it takes, but I’m serious about this Jason. After Christmas, not one minute before December twenty-sixth. All right?”

  Jason met his father’s eyes, pressed his lips. “I don’t know if they’ll ever forgive me if I do that.”

  “Then I guess you’ve gotta decide the right thing to do. Go on up, son.”

  The daughters of Vidalia Brand didn’t work full time at the OK Corral anymore. Two of them were mothers, and all five were married with careers and lives of their own. Hanging out in the family saloon wasn’t really necessary, though they did still come by anytime she needed an extra hand. If a barmaid or waitress got sick or she needed extra help for busy nights, the summer holidays and Halloween. New Year’s Eve they usually needed the whole crew, sons in law included. But on Christmas Eve, the Corral was always closed. Family was what mattered on Christmas.

  Tonight wasn’t one of those busy nights at all, so Vidalia was kind of surprised to see Maya, her firstborn, and Melusine, her fourth, come in through the batwing doors at about 6:30 pm. The place was all but empty. One or two regulars nursing their beers slowly in opposite corners, too bored with life to wait for things to pick up. Always the first to arrive and the last to leave, usually with some friend helping them home.

  So it was good and quiet, and the girls knew that it was at this time of the evenin’, so she expected they had something on their minds. Something discussion-worthy, and she had a pretty good idea its name was RJR McIntyre.

  And she was right. When they came up to the bar, it was Maya who slid a glossy poster across the hardwood and said, “Have you seen this?”

  “Course she’s seen it,” Mel said. “She’s in it.”

  “What’s this now?” Vidalia came to the bar, wiping her hands on her apron, and picked up the flyer. Then she smiled. “Dang, he was sure confident I’d say yes, wasn’t he? I don’t know whether to be amused or ticked off.”

  “Say yes to what?” Mel demanded.

  Vidalia lifted her gaze, narrowed it, and gave each of the girls a long, steady look. They knew enough to stay silent in the wake of that look, too. “I’ll thank you to take that tone out of your voice, young lady. I’m still your mother, and not only that, I’m fairly certain I could still whip your ass, should the situation call for it.”

  Maya blinked in shock, then turned her head slightly, probably to hide a smile. She was a mother now, too. She got this sort of thing.

  “Have a seat. I’ll pour us all some coffee, and we can talk like human beings.”

  “Mama, you can’t possibly trust this guy who just showed up out of the blue and plans to open a competing–”

  Vidalia pointed at a table, then turned to head into the kitchen behind the bar. The short order cook showed up at eight. Until then, the crowds were light enough that she could handle any cooking needed on her own.

  She filled three mugs, fixed them all, knowing her daughters’ coffee fixin’s by heart, and carried them out to the table in two hands. The girls wer
e sitting, waiting, and speaking to each other in urgent, hushed tones that silenced the second she returned.

  Vidalia sat down. “So, I had lunch with Bobby Joe McIntyre today, and he asked me to play hostess for him on his opening night. Since I owe the man more than I can ever hope to repay, I said I would. The Corral will be closed on the 23rd in a show of support and friendship with the Long Branch. Objections should be put in writing, and filed in the trash can. I don’t answer to anyone these days and haven’t in twenty years, in case that’s slipped your minds.” She sipped her coffee and pulled the flyer closer, eyeing it and smiling. “It’s very flattering, don’t you think?”

  “Mama,” Mel said, “Alex and I did a little poking around–”

  Vidalia looked across the table at her daughter. “Alex and you did what, now?”

  “Okay, Alex refused. I did it myself.”

  “Did what yourself, daughter?”

  “Don’t be mad.”

  She’d come in here all bluff and bluster and now she was realizing just how far she had overstepped.

  “I asked her to, Mom,” Maya said. “I’m worried about you.”

  “So I checked into RJR McIntyre’s recent activities. The man’s net worth is in the billions. Most of it’s invested, but just recently he sold off almost everything. Converted it into cash and bought gold with every bit of it.”

  Vidalia frowned. “What a billionaire does with his assets is kind of his own business, don’t you think, Mel?”

  “Ma, when rich men start converting assets to cash and squirreling it away, it usually means they’re expecting to be prosecuted for something.”

  “Oh, does it now?”

  “I’ve never seen one that didn’t,” she said.

  “Huh. Well, I’ll take that under advisement, Melusine. But it really doesn’t have anything to do with me, and even less to do with you. I’ll add that it doesn’t change my decision to help him open his saloon next week.”

  “But Mom–”

  “No more snooping, Melusine. That’s out of line and the both of you are old enough to know it.”

  Melusine looked at her sister. Maya shrugged. “It’s only because we care about you Mom.”

  “I accept that’s what it seems like from your perspective,” Vidalia said. “Would you like to know what it feels like from my end?” She didn’t wait for them to answer before telling them. “It feels like you don’t think I’m smart enough to make my own decisions. Like you don’t have any respect for the wisdom I’ve gained, raising five girls and starting a business almost singlehandedly. Like you think that when a woman hits fifty-something, she turns into a blithering idiot who needs a caretaker.”

  The girls looked more horrified with every word she spoke, and she knew she had finally got through to them.

  “We don’t think that at all, Mom,” Maya said. “I don’t ever want you to think we do.”

  “Same here,” Mel put in. But for some reason it didn’t carry the same conviction. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. I just think when romance is involved, even the smartest woman can make a mistake.”

  “If there were romance involved, it would be my mistake to make. Not yours.” Vidalia pushed away from the table and stood up. “This conversation is over. I’ve got a business to run. You girls have a good night.”

  Sighing, they got up, too. Mel reached for the glossy flyer on the table, but Vidalia grabbed it first. “I’ll just keep this. Night, girls.”

  Vidalia had no idea what kind of demon possessed her, but after closing time, she found herself once again, parked outside the Long Branch. This time, though, she pulled right on into the parking lot and sat there in plain sight, staring at the impressive face of the place.

  The concealing tent had vanished sometime during the day today, and she’d spotted those glossy posters hanging on telephone poles and sign posts all the way here.

  Bobby had done a great job. The front entrance had four glossy log pillars that supported a huge sign that read Long Branch Saloon. The lettering managed to be both rustic and fancy at the same time. Rustic, because it looked as if it had been burned into the wood with a cattle brand. Fancy, because the first letter of each word was kind of swirly.

  It looked great. And with those signs all over town, she figured there was no longer any point in hiding what was going on beneath the tarp. Still, she’d expected more. Maybe a little fanfare, the high school marching band, the town supervisor—Big Falls was too small for a mayor—and a ribbon cutting ceremony. Something like that.

  No one was awake in there. The place was dark, and she was sitting here like some kind of midnight creeper, spying on a long ago lover and wondering if he really believed that nothing had happened between them that night. Or if he had come back here to find out the truth, once and for all. The secret she’d been keeping all these years.

  A secret she’d never had any right to keep.

  A light came on inside just as she decided to drive quietly away. The front door opened. No point hiding now. She opened her door and got out of the pickup, landing light and easy on the ground as he came toward her. But when she got the courage to look up, it wasn’t Bobby Joe’s eyes she found blinking at her. Similar ones, for sure, but not his.

  “You’re her,” he said. “You’re Vidalia Brand.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Well, I sure was last I checked. How do you know?”

  He lowered his head, nodding slow. “My father’s...mentioned your name once or twice. And then of course, there’s the poster.”

  “You’re one of Bobby’s boys?” she asked, because it wasn’t right, the rush of pleasure coursing through her at knowing Bobby Joe had spoken of her...once or twice. “I’d have guessed that in another second or two. You’ve got those same blue eyes.”

  “Jason,” he said, extending a big hand. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Brand.”

  “You can call me Vidalia,” she said. “I had no idea you were in town.”

  “I only just arrived. Dad didn’t tell me...any of us...what he was up to. At least, not until I’d already tracked him down on my own.”

  Something was wrong with the young man. He looked downright troubled.

  “My brothers will be here tomorrow,” he said. “Dad sent an email after I left asking us all to be here for the grand opening. I think we’re supposed to play outlaws or something.”

  She smiled. “You’ve gotta admit, he’s very good at this,” she said, looking at the saloon.

  “Is that why you’re here in the middle of the night?” he asked. “To get a look at it, now that it’s uncovered?”

  She didn’t say yes or no. “I own the OK Corral, other end of town. We only just closed for the night, or I wouldn’t be creeping around in the wee hours.”

  “Dad’s not here,” he said.

  She nodded. “That’s okay. I didn’t expect he’d be up at this hour, even if he was....” Then she frowned. “Where on earth can he be at this hour?”

  “Said he couldn’t sleep. Wanted to go see the falls this town is named after. Said he hadn’t been out there since he’d been back.”

  She nodded slow, but she was starting to get a little worried feeling running up her spine. “Does he normally summon all his sons to an opening of a new saloon?”

  “Never. But then again, he usually resells them before they open, turning a healthy profit in the process.”

  She tipped her head to one side. “Why do you think this time is different?”

  He looked her right in the eyes, opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then closed it again and looked past her at the sky. “You’d have to ask him that, ma’am.”

  “All right, I will.” Was that a tear glimmering in Jason McIntyre’s eye? What in the hay was going on with this clan? “It was nice meeting you, Jason. Once your brothers arrive, I’d like to have you all over for a meal.”

  “Why?” he asked. Flat out, blunt, no bull with this one.

  She shrugged. “Wel
l, if your family is gonna run a saloon in this town, I figure I can either make you my enemies or make you my friends. I’ve got enough enemies, so....” she shrugged.

  He relaxed, maybe let his guard down even, and smiled at her. “You’re every bit as pretty as my dad always said, Ms. Brand.”

  “Vidalia,” she reminded him. “And thank you. Goodnight, Jason.” She turned back toward her truck, then stopped and faced him once more. “Whatever’s troubling you, you know, things have a way of working out.”

  “Not this time,” he said softly. He lowered his head, shook it, and turning, walked back into the saloon, leaving her there alone.

  Vidalia got into her truck and didn’t even try to talk herself out of driving to the Falls. It was an argument she’d have lost anyway.

  Bobby Joe found himself a perfect spot in the little clearing that faced the falls, pulled up a log for a stool, and sat himself down. He had never been one to spend a lot of time mulling on spiritual matters. But learning that you only had a short time to live probably changed that in everyone. Even the most hardened of hearts, he imagined.

  Now, though, as he sat there watching that waterfall flowing like it would never stop, it hit him that it would. Eventually, it would stop. The water would dry up or the cliff would erode back far enough to make it level with the rest of the riverbed, and there would be no more waterfall.

  He was going to stop, too. And he wondered if there would be any more Bobby Joe once he crossed that great divide. What was on the other side? Was there an other side? How could you go on without a body, and what would that be like? Did he truly believe there was anything after death?

  He’d never given these things a lot of thought. Considered himself a good man, a decent man. He didn’t think he’d done anything worthy of hellfire, if there was such a thing. But he wasn’t sure he’d done anything worthy of heaven, either.

  He’d never felt the call to pray before. But as he sat there on that log, in the cold night air, watching his breath form clouds in the darkness, he thought maybe it was time. He looked up at the stars, and he said whatever came to mind. Didn’t think first, just opened his mouth. And the words that came out were these. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here, God. I mean, I know what I want to do. Spend time here, in the place where I spent the days that turned out to be my happiest, though I didn’t know that at the time. That’s probably a life lesson right there, isn’t it, God? Anytime you’re laughing, smiling, happy, might just turn out to be your happiest moment ever. Probably a good thing to tell young folks. Too late for it to do me much good, I guess. Still, I wanted to come back here, to where I was happiest, and spend time with the woman I was happiest with, the one I could never have for my own. I wanted to spend my last Christmas here, with her, and with my boys, because it seems like it’s something they should experience. Something they should know if they hope to know me—really know me, deep down. They have to know what made me happy. So here I am, doing what I want to do with the little bit of time I have left, and while I know I’m late in asking, I figure better late than never. What do you want me to spend my final days doing? Cause if you tell me, Lord, I’ll give it my best shot. I promise, I will.”