Meg Lacey - Million Dollar Stud

She leaned back against the tree trunk. For the first time she looked at her childhood home and wondered if she was strong enough not only to save it, but to bring it to the glory she imagined. Suddenly, doubt crept in where previously there had been only confidence—thanks to a man with raven coloring and a bold, marauding attitude.

Silver sighed. Memories rushed through her mind as she studied the place. It was a clapboard ranch house that had been added to over the years. It wasn’t an architectural gem, but it was home—and had been since Cecil Braybourne settled in the area and decided to build a shack and put down roots. The roots had grown with each generation, until the entire farm seemed to be embraced into the landscape.

As she stared, her mother came out of the front door onto the broad front porch. She had a colander in one hand, a saucepan in the other and a dish towel slung over her shoulder. Silver smiled affectionately. Her mama was as small and seemingly delicate as her father was large and outspoken. To the outside world, Agatha Sweet Braybourne might have seemed a pushover with her polite manners and soft-spoken voice, but Silver knew better, as did her friends. Aggie, as Silver’s father called her, was as malleable as a hunk of diamond. Silver felt the power of her mother’s personality when Aggie walked to the edge of the porch and looked across the yard at her.

“Well, young lady, are you planning to become part of that tree or just hold it up?”

Silver automatically straightened from her slouch. “Neither one, ma’am—just thinking for a minute.”

“Well, come over here and help me snap these green beans while you think.”

“Okay.” Silver strolled up the path and climbed the steps, walking over to the porch swing. She joined her mother, who immediately set the saucepan in Silver’s lap and placed the colander in her own. Silver grabbed a handful of beans and started snapping. For a moment they sat and rocked gently, saying nothing, listening to the sleepy sounds of a late summer afternoon in the country.

Silver began to relax as her fingers performed the familiar homey chore. “Mama…”

“Hmm?”

“How did you first meet Daddy?”

Aggie grinned. “I accidentally crowned him with a baseball.”

“What? I didn’t know you played baseball.” Somehow she couldn’t picture her mother with a baseball bat. She was more the horse and tennis type.

“I didn’t. Harden was eleven years old and so full of himself that my little eight-year-old self just couldn’t stand it. We were at school and he was playing baseball with some friends. The ball had rolled off the field and over to where I was watching. He pointed at the ball and said, ‘Hey, throw it back, you dumb girl.’ Showing off for his friends, you know. So I picked up that ball and threw it as hard as I could.” Aggie laughed. “Well, I had more strength than aim. That ball took off like a bullet. Unfortunately, it slammed right into his forehead instead of his hand. He went down like an old oak.”

Staring at her mother in amazement, Silver gasped. “My God, Mama, what did you do?”

“I sent one of his friends for the teacher and sat down beside him and pulled his head into my lap. He had a knot already starting to swell. So I smoothed back his hair, kissed his cheek and told him he’d better not die on me ’cause he had to marry me when we grew up.”

Silver blinked and snapped another bean. “Was he conscious? What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Over my dead body, you dumb girl.’ And I said, ‘If that’s what it takes, Harden Braybourne, consider it done.”’

“And Daddy just went along with this?”

Aggie smiled that secretive smile that only another woman can really recognize and understand. “Now, Silver, when did you ever know your daddy to go along with someone else’s idea? It took me twelve years to convince him that it was his idea in the first place.”

Silver laughed. “How’d you know Daddy was the one for you?”

Aggie shrugged. “Sometimes you just know, honey.”

Silver thought about that for a moment. “Are you sure?”

“Well, I did, so I have no reason to think otherwise. Why are you asking?”

To avoid her mother’s searching gaze, Silver looked down at the growing pile of green beans in the saucepan. “No reason, just curious.”

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with John Tom Thomas, would it?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I know how much your father would love to see you settled, and I know how much John Tom would love to have it be with him.”

Silver glanced up. “How do you know that? Did John Tom say something to you?”

Her mother handed her another pile of beans. “The man announced to everyone that you are his next fence to jump. And he has no intention of taking a spill.”

Silver winced. “Surely he put it more romantically than that, Mama.”

Aggie chuckled. “’Fraid not, honey girl.”

“Oh, Lord. Where did he announce this?”

“At the club the other night, when you were helping Aunt Violet out to the car.” Aggie sighed. “I wish that woman would switch to another drink and stay away from the mint juleps. They just don’t agree with her.”

Giving her mother a dry look, Silver commented, “She says the mint settles her tummy.”

“Well, mint is good for that,” her mother agreed, eyes twinkling. “It’s the alcohol that upsets it.”

Silver indicated the stable. “Remember that horse we had who raided the herb bed and ate all the mint one year?”

“Sweet and Spicy, wasn’t it? Oh, your daddy was furious because we couldn’t have fresh mint juleps for your brother’s wedding reception.”

Silver stared across the yard, thinking about the gelding they’d sold many years before. Her pleasant nostalgic feeling passed when she saw Darcy emerging from the stables. Her stomach clenched. She could use a bit of mint, or something stronger, right about now, she thought, as she watched him stride across the gravel drive. The man had a way of moving that was almost poetic. Silver waved her hand, vaguely indicating his direction as she glanced at her mother. “I, uh, invited him to dinner tonight like you said.”

“What?” Her mother leaned forward a bit, peering toward the stables. “Oh, Mr. Darcy, you mean?”

“Darcy. He wants to be called Darcy.” Silver could feel the heat flood her face as her mother sent her a curious glance. “That’s what he told me.”

“Darcy’s a nice name.”

Silver shrugged, pretending a nonchalance that she was sure her mother would poke holes through in a minute. “It’s okay, I suppose.” She didn’t dare look up, concentrating instead on the beans, as if her life depended on breaking each one cleanly.

“My, my, my…”

Her mother’s comment recaptured her attention.

“That young man sure has a behind to die for.”

Shocked, Silver whipped her head around to stare at the older woman. “Mama. You’re too old to be looking at his behind.”

“Now look here, Miss Saucy Mouth. I may be a bit older, but I’m not dead, and I believe in saying what’s on my mind.”

“Since when? You always come at a subject round about, so you can take people by surprise.”

“Well, that’s true, but I’m thinking of changing my approach. I’ve decided that your father has been getting his own way for too many years. He’s becoming a bit difficult lately.”

“You won’t get an argument from me, Mama.” Silver glanced over, but her mother still had her attention focused on Darcy, who was now climbing into his pickup truck.

“I didn’t get to meet this Darcy before Harden hired him. But now that I look at him, I can say your father does have an eye for talent. I wonder if he’s as good in the ‘saddle’ as he looks?”