Cupid, Texas [1] Love at First Sight Page 4

  “Oh yes.” Mazey fanned herself with her free hand. “Jake Spoon was a hottie. I would marry him in a nanosecond to save him from the gallows.”

  Natalie didn’t point out that she was mixing the leading men in her fantasies. She gathered the guests’ empty plates and piled them into a stack at the end of the table. “Mingus took refuge in the caverns. He went deep in the cave, took a narrow passage that had never been explored before, hoping it would lead him to safety.”

  “But it didn’t,” the bride guessed.

  “No. Instead, he came upon a massive stalagmite, tall as a man, and in the perfect shape of Cupid holding a bow and arrow.” A strand of hair fell across Natalie’s eyes as she sorted the forks, spoons, and knives into separate piles.

  “That must have been surprising to come across that in the dark,” the young groom said.

  Natalie brushed aside the errant lock of hair. “Mingus took it as a sign. He’d heard about the law that could get him out of being hanged if a woman would take pity on him and make him her husband, so he got down on his knees and prayed to Cupid to touch the heart of some young local beauty, and that’s where the posse caught up to him.”

  “How colorful.” Mazey licked honey from her fingers.

  “The posse brought Mingus back to face justice, and as he stood at the gallows, looking beseechingly out at the beautiful young women, one angel stepped forward to save him.” Natalie paused for dramatic effect.

  The guests collectively leaned forward, fully engaged in the story.

  “Except she wasn’t quite what Mingus was hoping for,” Natalie said.

  “How’s that?” the writer asked.

  “A kind way to say it is that Louisa Hendricks was rather plain.” Natalie reached across the table to pluck a browning petal from the rose flower arrangement in the center of the table. The leaf crinkled between her fingers.

  “Translation,” chortled the groom, revealing a row of teeth that were too small for his mouth. “She was fugly.”

  “Benjy,” tittered his beautiful bride, and swatted his shoulder. “Behave.”

  “Louisa was a spinster and several years older than Mingus,” Natalie said. “Her biological clock was ticking and she knew someone like Mingus was her last chance at getting the baby she so badly wanted. Plus, it didn’t hurt that he was a good-looking son of a gun. He would give her beautiful babies. Unfortunately, they were never blessed with children.”

  “Poor guy,” the groom commiserated. “Trapped in a loveless marriage with a barren fugly woman.”

  “Hey,” said his bride, “Louisa saved his sorry ass from being hanged, give her some credit, and he could have been the one shooting blanks.”

  “Mingus was disappointed,” Natalie continued, “but in spite of all his flaws, he was a man of his word. Cupid had saved him, and he would honor his vow. Over the years, Mingus came to fall deeply in love with Louisa and they ended up having a long and happy marriage in spite of not having kids. Soon after Louisa rescued him, the settlement became a township, and it was named Cupid in honor of the stalagmite that saved Mingus from being hanged.”

  Poor plain Louisa. How had she felt about being married to a sexy outlaw that so many other women wanted? Had she been proud of snagging him or anxious that someone would steal him from her? Perhaps she’d been self-conscious because she wasn’t pretty?

  Absentmindedly, Natalie rubbed a hand down her right thigh. She understood what it was like not to fit in the mold of traditional beauty. How much it could hurt.

  “But what about the letters to Cupid?” the bride asked. “Where do they come in?”

  “That goes back to my own great-grandmother, Millie Greenwood.” Natalie’s chest puffed with pride.

  “Wow, so we’re staying in the house of a living legend.”

  “I’m not the legend,” Natalie said. “Here’s what happened. In 1924, my great-grandmother was a maid for the Fants, the richest family in Jeff Davis County, and she fell madly in love with their oldest son, John.”

  “There’s nothing more alluring than forbidden love.” Mazey sighed longingly.

  “John fell in love with Millie too, but he was betrothed to Elizabeth Nielson, the daughter of the second richest man in town. How could a poor maid dare hope for a happily-ever-after with John?” Natalie used a paper napkin to brush crumbs from the table and into her open palm.

  “John’s family probably thought Millie was a gold digger,” said the groom.

  The writer cleared his throat. “In those days the working class did not marry above their station. It was unheard of.”

  “Exactly.” Natalie dusted the crumbs from her palm into the top plate on the stack of dirty dishes. “So a romance between them was hopeless and they both knew it.”

  “How sad.” Mazey pressed a knuckle to her eye.

  “On the evening before John’s wedding, Millie started thinking about Mingus Dill and how his plea to Cupid led him to the love of his life. In desperation, she wrote a letter to Cupid, begging him to find a way for her and John to be together. In the middle of the night, she slipped off to the caverns and put the letter at the foot of the Cupid stalagmite.”

  “I would have been so scared!” the blonde exclaimed. “Going into a dark cave at night all by myself.”

  “Love can make you do dangerous things.” Her groom lightly tickled her in the ribs. “But you’ll never have to go anywhere alone again.”

  She giggled and ran a palm along his jaw.

  Weren’t they just the cutest? Would she ever have that? Giggly love that made others around you roll their eyes. That biker sure had lighted a spark inside her. What if . . .

  Quit it!

  “What happened next?” asked Mazey.

  This was Natalie’s favorite part of the story. She went for the brochures advertising the caverns that she kept in the drawer of the sideboard, undid the rubber band holding them together, and passed out the glossy pamphlets printed up by the Cupid Chamber of Commerce.

  “John left Elizabeth at the altar, telling her he was in love with another. He went to find Millie, professed his love, and asked her to marry him.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Awesome.”

  “How romantic.”

  “I have to see this stalagmite.”

  The writer looked up from his notes. “Did John know about the letter Millie wrote to Cupid?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “How did he react when he found out?”

  “It caused a bit of a kerfuffle,” Natalie admitted. “Someone found the letter in the cave and it got back to Elizabeth. She claimed Millie had bewitched John by summoning up the aid of a pagan god. Everyone took sides and it almost split the town in two. If you want to see it, Millie’s letter is on display in the courthouse lobby.”

  “That must have been rocky for the couple,” the writer said.

  “If Cupid had bewitched John, he was good and solidly mesmerized. His love for Millie never wavered, even in the face of public outcry.” Idly, Natalie reached down to loosen the strap that attached the AFO to her leg. The Velcro made a soft ripping sound as she tugged on it and pressed it back down.

  “When you’ve found the real deal, you’ll move heaven and earth for her.” The groom stared into his bride’s eyes.

  “Ah, honey, that’s so sweet.” She nuzzled her husband.

  They canoodled for a long moment until one of the older ladies cleared her throat loudly.

  Natalie waited until the amorous couple broke apart before continuing. “The Cupid letter writing really took off when King Edward VIII abdicated the throne.”

  The writer frowned. “Are you implying that Cupid played a hand in King Edward’s abdication?”

  “Not implying. It’s fact.”

  “How on earth is that possible?” Mazey planted a palm against her chest.

  “Not long before his abdication, King Edward and Wallis Simpson called their romance quits because of his family responsibilities.�
�� Natalie glanced at her watch. She needed to wrap up the story.

  The writer interjected. “Wallis was twice divorced and their marriage would have caused a constitutional crisis in England.”

  “That’s correct. Brokenhearted, Wallis came to Cupid to visit her dearest friend, Penelope Fant, who was John Fant’s older sister,” Natalie said. “Wallis and Penelope Fant had both attended a prestigious girls’ school in Baltimore together.”

  “Hard to believe that a social climber like Wallis Simpson would lower herself to visit a place as colloquial as Cupid,” Mazey said.

  “Which is precisely why she did. She wanted to get away from any and everything that reminded her of Edward. Then when Wallis heard about Millie and John’s romance, she decided to write a letter to Cupid to intervene in her love affair with the King of England. Two weeks later, the king showed up in Cupid, got down on one knee, and asked for Wallis’s hand in marriage. Shortly afterward, he abdicated to marry the woman he loved.”

  “That’s so romantic, I’m getting goose bumps,” the blonde said.

  Her husband rubbed his hands along her arms. “I’d give up the throne for you.”

  Okay, these two were pushing the mushy meter to the limit. If Natalie hadn’t experienced the weirdest feelings for a total stranger that very morning, she might have considered a dose of insulin to combat all the sweetness. But even so, her stomach went all melty. She wanted to be like them!

  “I can’t believe this amazing tale never made it into the history books,” Mazey mused. “It’s priceless.”

  “The royal family squelched the story hard, and remember, this was before relentless paparazzi and wiretapping gossip rags. The media had more respect back then for people’s private lives. But throughout Texas, the Wallis Simpson story cemented the Cupid legend, and it became the cornerstone of our tourist economy.” Natalie folded her hands in her lap.

  “There really isn’t much of a way to make a living way out here, otherwise, is there?” The bride’s question was rhetorical.

  “Tourism does have a downside. Because we were getting so many people littering the caverns with letters, the town built a Cupid statue fountain in the botanical gardens and put up an official ‘Letters to Cupid’ box there.”

  “Oh, this is such a good story.” The blond bride turned to her husband, clasping her hands together in a plea gesture. “Tiger puss, we’ve just got to visit those caverns.”

  “We’re supposed to leave for Big Bend this afternoon,” he said.

  She batted her eyes at him. “Could we extend our stay an extra day and stay one day less at Big Bend?”

  He looked at Natalie. “Would you be able to accommodate us another day?”

  Natalie smiled. That was why she told them the story. “I think that can be arranged.”

  The blonde hugged her young husband, the older ladies went back to the buffet for seconds on the cinnamon rolls, and the writer got on his cell phone.

  Natalie bade them all good morning and went about her business, but once away from people, her thoughts tracked back to the motorcycle man and his midnight black hair and his impressively muscled body. She tried to tamp down the image of him, but it was impossible to shut down her jumbled mind. That piercing look he’d sent her, like he knew exactly what she looked like naked, brought an unwanted burn to her cheeks.

  Stop being silly, she scolded herself, and limped to her office, where she ordered Pearl’s flour, and inputted the young couple into the computer as staying an extra night.

  Now, she had one more task before returning to the community center. She had to decide what to do about Red Daggett. If he wasn’t coming back, she needed to get his room rented out, and the sooner the better.

  Red had been staying in the carriage house that once upon a time had served as servant quarters. There were two other tenants in the carriage house. One was Lars and the other was a nineteen-year-old computer science whiz kid who went by the nickname of Gizmo. He rarely came out of his room except to attend classes. He’d even managed to sweet-talk Pearl into delivering his meals to his room. Occasionally, Gizmo and Zoey carpooled to Sul Ross together in the Cupid’s Rest van.

  The room looked out over the duck pond that was situated in the pocket park behind the backs of the houses on Stone Street. When she was a kid, Natalie used to hide in the red-tipped photinia hedges that grew along the fencerow between her house and the park and watch the wild ducks fly in. Most ducks headed for the lake, but a few outcasts and stragglers always ended up in the duck pond.

  She pulled a key from her pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped over the threshold. She glanced around the room. Tidy, sparsely furnished, nothing out of place.

  It felt like spying. She folded her arms. What should she do? “Red, where are you?”

  She tried his cell phone, but it went to voice mail, just as it had the other half-dozen times she’d called him. Can’t leave the room vacant forever. No, but it felt so cold, just giving up on him. She could put his stuff in storage and use the room for tourists instead of another long-term boarder. That way, if and when Red returned, he could move back in without a long wait. Eventually, she could go back to renting it to long-term boarders if she wanted.

  Plan of action. Good. Follow through.

  Natalie got a cardboard box from the attic and started clearing Red’s meager things from the chest of drawers—an old Timex wristwatch; $4.23 in pennies, dimes, and nickels; a handful of metal washers; a pair of worn-out house slippers; an unopened package of brand-new Hanes boxer underwear; a stack of carefully folded white T-shirts; one pair of faded Wrangler blue jeans; three button-down Western shirts; half a pack of nicotine gum; cheap drugstore sunglasses; six pairs of rolled-up boot socks; empty bottles of both paroxetine and doxepin; and a bus ticket stub. Red hadn’t owned a vehicle. He’d kept mostly to himself, walked to his job at Chantilly’s bar at the marina, and did odd jobs around the place for Natalie.

  Red had lived here for two years, but when it got down to it, she knew hardly anything about him. She remembered their first meeting.

  He’d shown up on her front porch, wearing a green windbreaker in spite of the summer heat, and navy blue mirrored sunglasses. He sported a droopy Sam Elliot mustache that hid his upper lip. He was tall and stocky, but stood with his shoulders hunched as if trying to fold in on himself. His long strawberry blond hair had been pulled back into a greasy ponytail. Around his left wrist, he wore a braided black bracelet with a spent bullet casing tied in the middle. He had on blue jeans and a Western shirt, but he didn’t really look like a cowboy. His eyes were too wary, his movements too guarded.

  “Room?” he’d mumbled.

  “For the night?” she’d asked.

  “To stay.”

  At the time, Lars was her only long-term boarder and she’d hesitated, not sure she wanted to turn the B&B into a rooming house, but then he pulled a money clip from his pocket and started peeling off twenties.

  “Follow me,” she said, and led him to this room.

  Junie Mae had freaked out when she’d first seen Red. “He looks like a felon. Did you do a background check?”

  “Looks can be deceiving. He’s gentle as a mouse, keeps to himself.”

  “He could be a serial killer.”

  “Or he could just be someone who needs a soft place to land.”

  “You’re too empathetic.” Junie Mae snorted. “Not everyone is worth your compassion.”

  “I don’t get a bad vibe from him.”

  “You’re also too trusting.”

  “I’ve never had it go against me. I believe that, by and large, people live up to your expectations of them.”

  “Still, have Calvin do a background check on him, just in case.”

  To keep Junie Mae from nagging her and because she had guests and a sister to consider, she’d gone ahead and asked Cal to do the background check.

  She learned Red had been arrested a couple of times for bar fights and that he was an ex–Navy S
EAL diagnosed with severe PTSD. Calvin had advised her to evict him, but Natalie didn’t have the heart. What kind of person would she be if she turned her back on a military veteran? Red had served his country. He deserved a break.

  Red never spoke about his past. A couple of times, she saw him coming out of the little run-down house on Hill Street where AA meetings were held, but she never mentioned it to him.

  Had he perhaps fallen off the wagon and gone on a drinking binge? She hoped not.

  The sound of frantic quacking came from the duck pond. Were neighborhood dogs after the ducks?

  She hurried to the window.

  A mallard female was in a panic, flapping her wings like something was chasing her, but Natalie spied no predator. Why didn’t she just fly away?

  The duck’s quacking turned pitiful, doomed. Natalie couldn’t bear to see any creature in pain. Moving as quickly as she could, Natalie left the carriage house. Sometimes, her lameness really bothered her. She hated being vulnerable. Zoey used to tease her and say if monsters or vampires or zombies were ever chasing them, she’d be the first one eaten.

  Good thing there were no such things as monsters, vampires, or zombies.

  Natalie left the perimeter of the McCleary property, pushing aside the short backyard gate to the community area between the surrounding houses. Back in the 1920s, the neighboring homeowners had gotten together, pooled their money, and bought the vacant plot of land behind them and turned it into an oasis. There was no playground equipment—it wasn’t that kind of a park—just trees and benches, and a wandering pathway that led in from Dennis Street on the west side and circled around the pond. The round trip made for a nice one-mile walk that Natalie’s B&B guests enjoyed.

  By the time she reached the flailing duck, the poor thing was so frantic Natalie feared she’d kill herself.

  “Hey, there,” she soothed, slipped off her Keds at the edge of the pond, and unstrapped her AFO.

  The water was murky green with algae. Lilly pads, corkscrew rushes, and cattails grew in profusion. The pond was spring fed and sheltered in the shade of mimosa, desert willows, and mesquite trees. All kinds of squiggly, squirmy things lived there. As kids, she and Zoey had caught tadpoles and kept them in a fish aquarium, watching them grow into frogs.