“No, I’m good, and I’m glad you’re here alone. I know you and Graham have been doing a little flirting dance. I need to talk to you about that.” Harry pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down.
“Is it about Rita going to the dealership?” Mitzi asked.
Harry nodded. “I guess you already know what I’m about to say. If there’s a chance of them making a family—”
“I just came from his house,” Mitzi butted in. “He told me exactly that there’s no chance of him and Rita ever trying to make another go of it.”
“Tabby and Dixie don’t want their mother in their lives?” Harry frowned.
“Do you remember Rita at all?” Mitzi finally sat down across from her father.
“Not well. Seems like she was pretty wild,” Harry answered.
“She’s blonde, blue eyed, and even smaller than Jody is right now. The girls told us that when they saw her again after more than ten years, they felt she still didn’t want children who didn’t look like her,” Mitzi explained. “I’ve got a date with him next Sunday. We’re taking the girls out on his pontoon boat. You and Granny are invited, too.”
“Just be careful.” Harry pushed back the chair. “I love you and sure don’t want to see you hurt. And, honey, that don’t sound like much of a date.”
She stood up and hugged him. “I promise that I’ll be careful. And, Daddy, I’m finding out that all dates don’t involve roses and lookin’ at the moon together.”
“If you fall for him, darlin’, make sure it’s for him and not to get those two girls,” Harry said as he wrapped his arms around her.
“Yes, sir.” She stepped back.
“Just an old concerned daddy who can’t stand for his baby girl’s heart to get broken. Your mama and I loved each other so much. I want that for you,” he said as he opened the door.
“Me, too, Daddy,” she said. “Me, too.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jody sat in one of two old lawn chairs in the middle of a bare spot where her trailer used to be parked. Less than two weeks ago she was in a committed relationship. In some ways it seemed more like ten years, but sitting there, the pain was still very raw. To her right, what was left of her garden had shriveled up and looked like a bed of weeds. Ruts were dug deep into the ground where the trailer had been taken out right over the top of all the plants that she’d cared for so lovingly.
“It’s a testimony of my life right there,” she said. “Smashed and dead.”
“Excuse me?” A man’s voice seemed to come from the white clouds above her.
It startled her so badly she almost fell backward in the chair. She glanced to her left to see a man with one foot braced against a big pecan tree, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I might ask you the same thing.” He removed his cowboy hat and wiped sweat from his brow with a snow-white handkerchief he took from the hip pocket of his Wranglers.
“I’m Jody Andrews and until ten days ago, I lived with Lyle Jones in the trailer that set right here.” Her tone sounded cold even to her own ears.
“I see. Mind if I sit down?” He held his hat in his hand. “I’m Quincy Roberts.”
She nodded toward the other chair. “I hear you’re going to buy this property. Is that true?” Jody asked.
“I’m dealing with Lyle for it. It’s the last little corner, and I’d like to have it, but we’re haggling over mineral rights. Even though I’m not interested in drilling for oil, I don’t buy anything that doesn’t totally belong to me,” Quincy said. “I heard about how Lyle left you high and dry. Why on earth would you come back out here?”
“Closure,” she answered. “Seeing my garden like this with nothing left of a fifteen-year commitment but two old lawn chairs almost does it for me.” She pushed up out of the lawn chair. “What are you going to do with this land, anyway?”
“Run cattle on it. Maybe even a few hogs,” he said. “I’m an oil man, but I like to get my hands dirty. It makes me happy. What are you doing now that Lyle’s married to another woman?”
Hogs! Stinky old pigs wallowing in a mud puddle in the hot summer. Now that could bring her to the acceptance stage pretty damn quick. She took