The Banty House Read online

  “Where would you move to if you did move out away from the Banty House?” he asked.

  “Close by so all y’all can still be a part of my life,” she answered. “I would love to work for the ladies forever if they want me to. I like it here.” He could tell by her expression that she was struggling for words to explain the way she felt. “They want this baby to be their grandchild, and it would be ideal to be able to bring her to work with me every day.”

  “But they’re overpowering sometimes, right?” he asked.

  “I’d never talk about them behind their backs.” She sighed. “I just want to be the mother the baby needs me to be. I’m fine with them seeing her all the time, and even spoiling her.”

  “I understand completely.” Sloan nodded. “That’s what my mama said when Granny kept me so much. Even when she was gone, she was the mother, and my granny pretty much abided by her rules.”

  “So it’s not ugly of me to want to live somewhere other than the Banty House?” she asked.

  “Not at all, and don’t worry—the sisters will understand,” he assured her.

  “I don’t want them to think that I don’t want to raise my daughter here because it used to be a brothel. Or because”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“because there’s moonshine and pot in the place.”

  “Don’t fret about it. It’ll all work out, just like this trip has worked out for me,” Sloan said. “We’ll get through it together. I’m here for you.”

  “You can’t know what that means to me,” she told him.

  “Right back at you. You’ve helped me through so much, too, you know.”

  “I’m here for you, too, Sloan.” Hetty jumped up into her lap and laid a paw on the phone screen. “Looks like she wants to say hello.”

  “Where’s Magic?”

  “Right here beside me.” She turned the phone so he could see the white cat curled up in a ball right next to her.

  “Where’s the ladies tonight?” he asked.

  “They’ve already gone upstairs. I’m putting it off. It’s gettin’ harder and harder to lug this pregnant belly up the steps,” she answered.

  “I’ve got a spare bedroom,” he said. “My house is small, but you could always move in with me.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” she laughed and then got serious. “Seriously, thank you for the offer. Someday I want a house like yours—a small, cozy place with pictures of family all around me.”

  “Even if it’s right next door to a cemetery?” he asked.

  “That makes it even better if I bury my folks there. Your grandparents and parents are right across the fence, too,” she answered.

  All the shackles around his soul fell away when she said that. The long, dark tunnel was behind him, and he stepped out into a light so bright that it was almost blinding. That cold rain was beating on the hotel window didn’t matter one iota. Sloan Baker’s heart and soul were basking in sunshine.

  Ginger awoke Saturday morning to the sound of Flora’s and Betsy’s voices down in the kitchen. She got out of bed as fast as she could, dressed in one of the three pairs of skinny jeans she owned—none of which would even come close to buttoning anymore but she’d fit back into them soon—and threw on a clean T-shirt. When she’d finished using the bathroom and brushing her teeth, she carefully took the steps one at a time and got a lecture ready to deliver to Betsy if she’d started breakfast without her. Betsy was alone now, but she was having a doughnut and a cup of coffee.

  “Flora, God love her heart, brought us pastries for breakfast, and she even took them out of the bag and put them on a dish for me.” Betsy pointed to the middle of the table. “We won’t be cooking this morning, but you might get out the milk and juice and four glasses. Flora knows how much I love the fresh doughnuts from that little shop in Hondo, so she drove into town at six o’clock this morning to get them fresh. Ain’t many friends would do something so sweet.”

  “You’d do that for her,” Ginger said. “You keep potpies and cobblers in the freezer, ready to bake if someone is ailing or if there’s a funeral. I bet you’d even send a pie to Edith if her son was to die.”

  “If I did, I’d add a tablespoon of rat poison to it.” Betsy picked up a second glazed doughnut. “These may heal my wounds quicker than anything.”

  Ginger set a jug of milk and a pitcher of orange juice on the counter, poured herself a glass of milk and carried it to the table. She eased down into a chair and put a frosted doughnut with sprinkles on a napkin. “I used to splurge and get day-old doughnuts on the way home from work sometimes. Lucas said they weren’t fit to eat, but I dunked them in my milk or coffee and they were fine.”

  “He wasn’t a very nice person, was he?” Betsy asked.

  “Not really, but I’d never had a boyfriend before, so I didn’t have anything to compare him to.” Ginger bit into the doughnut. “Mmmm.” She made appreciative noises. “This is amazing.”

  “That little shop does a fine job, but I hardly ever get them this early. They’re still good when we get into Hondo on Thursdays, but not like this.” Betsy licked her fingers and then picked up her mug and took a sip of coffee.

  “We’ll never eat all of these,” Ginger said.

  “Speak for yourself.” Connie entered the kitchen and went straight for the coffeepot. “I can put away four, and Kate . . .”

  Kate butted in from right behind her. “Kate will eat until she’s miserable.” She filled a glass with juice and one with milk. “I’ll have coffee afterwards. Did you drive to Hondo this morning, Ginger?”

  “No, ma’am,” Ginger answered. “Flora brought these to Betsy to help her get well.”

  “If I push her down the stairs and break her hip, do you reckon she’d bring more, like maybe twice a week?” Kate teased.

  “No, but if I kick you down into the basement and you wind up with a busted hip or leg, she might bring them for you,” Betsy shot back at her.

  “Oh, stop your bitchin’ and enjoy the bounty that is before us. Kate, you need to say grace even though Betsy has already stuffed her face,” Connie said.

  Ginger bowed her head and swallowed the bite that was in her mouth. Kate said a very short prayer, and as soon as she said, “Amen,” Betsy reached for an apple fritter.

  “Now that they’re blessed, I get to start all over again.” She grinned.

  “Munchies, huh?” Connie asked.

  “Well, I did share a joint with Flora. Poor darlin’ needs a little something to help her get through the day with her mama’s attitude, and the mellow is wearin’ off, so yes, I’m just a little hungry,” Betsy admitted. “And besides, it would be a sin to let these doughnuts get stale.”

  “Especially after Flora was good enough to go get them for us before daylight.” Kate was already on her second one.

  “Us, my butt,” Betsy said. “She got them for me, and I’m being nice enough to share.”

  “And we thank you for that.” Ginger reached for another one, then refilled her glass with milk. “Sloan called last night. He’ll be home this evening. He said it’s about a seven-hour drive from where he is and that he’s kind of made peace with what happened to him over there in Kuwait.”

  “Can you tell us just exactly what did happen?” Kate asked.

  Ginger nodded and started with when Sloan got the call from his granny telling him that his dog had died. When she ended, all the sisters were wiping tears on the cheap paper napkins that had come with the doughnuts. “And now he’s found out that there was nothing—not one thing—he could’ve done to save his friends that awful day, so he’s making peace with the past.”

  “You are a blessing to us,” Kate said.

  “Hey, I think you got that backwards,” Ginger disagreed. “Y’all have given me more than I could ever give back to you.”

  “It’s all in my stones,” Connie said. “They’ve brought us spiritual guidance and emotional peace.”

  “Bullshit!” Kate said. “Them colored rocks didn’t have jack
squat to do with any of these past couple of weeks.”

  Connie shrugged and pulled a little bag from her pocket. “Don’t swear at the stones.”

  Betsy’s eyes grew wide, and her head bobbed up and down. “You better listen to her, Sister. I was tellin’ her that those rocks ain’t got power on Sunday afternoon about the time that Edith got here.”

  Kate picked up the bag and kissed it. “Forgive me, O mighty stones, and don’t let me fall and break a leg or a hip. I don’t want to have to slide down the steps to the basement on my butt.”

  Ginger couldn’t imagine a life without these women in it—or without Sloan, either.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The sun was just past straight up in the sky when Sloan drove past the Banty House that afternoon. He wanted to stop right then, but he’d been driving for seven hours, stopping only once for poor old Tinker to water a bit of lawn at a rest stop. The dog wanted to be out in his own yard to chase a rabbit through the mesquite thickets from behind the house all the way to Hondo Creek.

  Sloan turned him loose and then went into the house, started a load of laundry while he took a shower and shaved, and then dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a blue T-shirt. Tinker wasn’t nearly ready to come inside, so Sloan filled his outdoor water bowl, got into his truck, and drove back up to the Banty House.

  He parked at the curb and was halfway across the yard when the front door flew open and Ginger stepped out. “I was looking out the kitchen window, and you got here earlier than we expected.”

  He opened his arms and she walked right into them. “I’m so glad to be home,” he whispered into her hair.

  “I missed you.” She hugged him as tightly as she could with a baby the size of a big fall pumpkin between them. “Come on inside. Betsy and I’ve made a chocolate cake, and we have ice cream to welcome you home.”

  “Just seeing you is enough of a welcome, but I wouldn’t turn down cake and ice cream,” he said.

  “That’s so sweet.” She started to say something else, but the voices of the sisters arguing preceded them as they crowded into the foyer to greet him.

  “Don’t just stand there in the door,” Betsy said. “Get on in here where I can hug you.”

  “Besides, you’re letting the flies in,” Connie scolded.

  “I’m so glad you got here early,” Kate yelled over from behind her two sisters. “Betsy wouldn’t let us cut the chocolate cake at dinnertime. She said we had to wait until you got here.”

  “Oh, stop your bellyachin’,” Betsy said. “You had half a dozen doughnuts for breakfast. That was enough sugar to last you until Sloan got here.”

  Both Sloan and Ginger stepped inside the house.

  “Thank God that old truck made it.” Connie shut the door behind them. “I worried about you the whole time. You should get a new one, maybe one of them with a back seat.” She led the way into the dining room, where the table was already set with dessert plates and bowls.

  “You drive a sixty-year-old car,” Sloan reminded her.

  “To Hondo and back, not halfway around the world.” Connie continued to fuss.

  “Besides, just how are you and Ginger going to take the baby for a snow cone when she’s old enough to eat them? It’s against all these new laws to have a kid in the front seat of a vehicle. Nowadays, you’ve got to put them in one of them newfangled car seats.” Kate brought out a container of ice cream.

  “Well, now, that puts a whole new light on the subject, doesn’t it?” Sloan teased. “Do you think I should buy a pink one since the baby is a girl, and maybe put a gold crown hood ornament on it?”

  Betsy shook her fist at him. “Don’t you joke about this. It’s serious stuff. We’ve got to think about the future. Did Ginger tell you that we’re going to bury her folks’ ashes in Cottonwood? We’ve decided to give her two of our plots. Grandpa bought too many for our family, so we’re going to put her mama and daddy in with us.”

  “She told me.” Sloan smiled. “That’s pretty nice of y’all, and it’ll put them pretty close to my family.” Hopefully, that meant Ginger would stick around for a long time.

  “Yep,” Connie agreed. “The gravediggers will be there on Monday. That’s the day you spend at the cemetery, so you can oversee it. They said they don’t have to dig six feet for ashes, but you make sure it’s deep enough. We want it done right.”

  “Eighteen inches is how deep it has to be.” Sloan seated Ginger and turned to help Betsy, but she and Connie were already sitting. “I’ve been out there when they buried remains before. What kind of stone do you want?” he asked Ginger as he sat down.

  “Just one of those little flat ones. Nothing big and fancy,” she answered.

  “We’ll take care of that later,” Kate said. “Right now, we want to hear all about your journey. Did Ginger tell you that when the baby is old enough to make a trip, we’re all going to California to see the ocean? You’ll have to come with us. Ginger can’t take care of three old women and a baby all by herself.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Sloan agreed. “The trip was tiring, but I’m glad I went. I’ve got closure now, and I feel like I can move on. I need to do something meaningful with my life. My old commander talked about a job where I’d teach teamwork and about defusing bombs.”

  “That’s amazing, but what will we do without you?” Betsy asked.

  “Oh, darlin’,” he said in his sexiest voice, “that job would have to be worked around the hours I work for you.”

  “Long as the general or commander or boss-lady understands that,” Kate joked as she dipped ice cream for everyone.

  Sloan looked around the table at the three senior citizens and the woman that wasn’t even old enough to buy a drink in a Texas bar. The five of them were all misfits in their own way, but somehow they made a perfect family.

  Reality and fear hit Ginger smack between the eyes.

  She was letting people take charge of her life again, just like Lucas had done. “Move into this apartment I found for us,” he’d said. “It’s not much, but I’ve got some deals going that’ll put us in a nice home in six months. Trust me, darlin’.”

  She’d vowed that she’d never let that happen again, and here she was, living in the lap of luxury, letting people make choices for her. She loved all of them, especially Sloan, but if she didn’t pack her parents’ ashes into her ragged old suitcase and leave pretty soon, she’d be right there in Rooster forever. After all the sisters had done for her, she wouldn’t be able to tell them no. The way she felt when Sloan got back to Rooster made her realize that she was falling in love with him. No absolutely wonderful man like Sloan would fall in love with a woman that was eight months pregnant, so she would just get her heart broken if she didn’t cut the ties.

  No. She fought with the voices in her head. I am making my own choice right now. I’m choosing to stay with these wonderful people, and I’m choosing to see where this attraction between me and Sloan might go. These folks might want the same thing for me, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

  Sloan nudged her. “You sure look serious. What’s on your mind?”

  “My parents’ ashes.” She admitted part of the internal fight she was having with herself. “Maybe I should just scatter them somewhere. It might have been easier to not know what happened to them. My father was dead before I was even born, and my mother died when I was in my first foster home, so it’s kind of silly to . . . ,” she stammered, “. . . have them close by, isn’t it?”

  “Nothing that brings you peace is ever silly,” Sloan said. “I’m living proof of that right here tonight.”

  Kate stopped bickering with her sisters and asked, “Did I hear the word ‘peace’?”

  “Yep,” Sloan answered. “I’m finally letting go of the guilt trip.”

  “I really hope that means you aren’t thinkin’ of reenlisting,” Betsy told him. “We’d miss you so much.”

  “I would go back in if they’d let me, though as I understand it, they
won’t.” Sloan held out his plate for a second slice of cake. “But this new idea of working for them in a civilian capacity is sure something to think about. Even if I took the job, I’d have to pass the psych evaluation.”

  Kate cut a wedge of cake and slid it over onto his plate. “Anyone else want more?”

  Betsy shook her head. “The munchies are happy now.”

  Connie nodded. “Only half as much as you gave Sloan. I’ll save the other half for dessert after supper. Are you going to have time to wash the car this afternoon, Sloan?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Soon as we finish here, I’ll get right on it. I can’t be falling down on the job, or y’all might hire someone else.”

  Betsy snorted, and Kate giggled.

  “Like that would ever happen,” Connie said.

  A wave of sorrow swept over Ginger. Leaving these sweet people would be worse than walking away from any foster home she’d ever been in.

  So why are you going? the voice inside her head asked.

  I just have to control my own life, she answered.

  Sloan polished off his second piece of cake, took his plate to the kitchen, and was on his way out to the garage when a loud rap on the door made him stop. “Want me to get that?”

  “I’m going that way.” Ginger raised her voice. “I’ll answer it.” She opened the door, half expecting to see Flora, coming by with a couple dozen eggs to exchange for a jar of moonshine, but it was Gladys instead.

  “Come right in.” Ginger wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing in inviting her in, especially after that incident with Edith.

  The woman handed her a pan that was ice cold. “That’s baked pasta, and it’s frozen. Thaw it out, and then follow the directions on the top about how to heat it. I bet y’all are starving for good homemade food since Betsy has that busted arm. Poor dear, I came by to see how she’s doin’.”