Linda Varner - Lone Star Bride

Brother! Mariah thought. She kept her face straight and her gaze on the white, wooden garage, determined not to shake Tony’s hand or even say goodbye to him.

“Thanks for the lift.” His words, warm against Mariah’s hair, caught her off guard, since he’d leaned so very close to say them. She jumped and turned her head, only to find herself eye to eye with him.

“Y-you’re welcome,” she stammered, then could’ve bitten off her tongue. He wasn’t welcome. Not at all. Not in this car. Not in this town. And especially not in their lives. Thank goodness she would never see him again. Mariah quickly turned her face away from his and stared at nothing out the window.

The twins, for all their years’ experience with husbands and sons, still knew little about men. Mariah, on the other hand, knew too much. Growing up in New Orleans—The Big Easy—she’d met Tony’s kind every day and watched her mother fall victim to so many of them. Mariah herself had acted just as foolishly in later years and could easily recognize smooth-talking charmers who survived by preying on innocent women.

The slam of the door startled Mariah from her painful childhood memories. She saw Tony walk up to the garage and begin a conversation with Micah. At once she backed the car onto the street and headed for home, a large house across town. As she put distance between the car and Tony, she began to feel better, safer.

“Wasn’t he a pleasant young man?” murmured Opal after several minutes of silence.

“And such a talented artist,” added Ruby.

“He’s an artist, all right,” Mariah told them. “A con artist who can’t be trusted.”

Opal gave her a wondering look and a sad sigh. “Don’t you think that’s a bit of an overreaction? I mean, all he did was accept a ride. We know little else about him.”

Mariah shrugged.

“I’m beginning to think you’re prejudiced against handsome men,” Opal commented.

Ruby nodded firmly at Mariah in the mirror. “Me, too.”

“I have my reasons,” Mariah stated, and then turned the car into the twins’ driveway. She killed the engine and flipped a switch to release the trunk latch. It popped open with a soft thump.

“I’d love to hear those reasons.” Opal handed Mariah her leather handbag. “If you feel like talking about the past, that is.”

Up until now—over five years—Mariah never had...at least beyond an amusing anecdote here and there about life with a psychic mother, who could give advice on everyone’s love affairs but her own. Perhaps it was time to tell them the not-so-funny stuff, she decided. And if not that, then at least enough so they would realize she knew what she talked about when she summed up Tony Mason, freelance artist.

“Actually, I do feel like talking.”

“Then why don’t we go in and make some tea?” Ruby eagerly suggested.

“Yes, why don’t we?” Opal agreed.

Mariah gave both of those dear, nosy ladies an affectionate smile. “That sounds absolutely wonderful,” she murmured before getting out of the car and assisting with the twins’ many packages.

Less than a half hour later found the three of them seated at the kitchen table sipping spiced tea and munching on the sugar cookies baked by Opal on Saturday.

“I don’t know how much Emerald has told you,” Mariah ventured to say, referring to the twins’ older sister. Emerald Pierson owned a pottery shop in New Orleans. Mariah, working in a beauty shop next door to it, had styled her hair for years—as she now styled the twins’—in the process forming a fast friendship that eventually resulted in a business loan and some valuable advice.

“Only that you were having some difficulties and needed a fresh start.”

“That’s the understatement of the year,” Mariah answered with a dry laugh. “When I left New Orleans, I left behind a no-good boyfriend, a dingy apartment and a streak of bad luck that began the day I turned fourteen and came home from school to learn that my mother had been killed in an automobile accident.”

“How sad for you.” Ruby offered Mariah another cookie, which she refused with a shake of her head.

“Oh, I managed all right, thanks to social services and my mother’s friends. I even lived in some wonderfully stable foster homes...quite a change from living with a woman who always followed her heart.” Mariah rested her forehead in her hands and stared at the tabletop. “You can’t imagine how many wannabe musicians she brought home and fed. Then there were the sidewalk artists, the bartenders, the jazz singers...” She laughed without humor. “She just couldn’t resist the stranger in town. You’d think I’d learn from her mistakes, wouldn’t you? Well, I finally did, but not before I took in a couple of deadbeats of my own. And you wonder why I didn’t like Tony Mason.”

“But he seemed so nice,” murmured Ruby, frowning. “Not like a deadbeat at all.”

“Believe me,” retorted Mariah, “If I was the least bit attracted to him, he’s not a nice young man.”

“Are you saying you only go for guys who are bad for you?” Ruby asked. She leaned forward in her eagerness for the truth, and now had to rescue the ruffle on her dress from her teacup.

Mariah grabbed up a napkin and began to dab at the pastel floral fabric. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s a genetic flaw, passed down from my mother and the reason I only date guys I don’t go for—that is, men who’ll make rock-solid husbands.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Ruby, rising to set her glass in the sink. “Opal and I have wondered what on earth you see in Willard Reynolds.” She referred to the superintendent of schools in Pleasant Rest, a fifty-year-old with several college degrees and a mother who wouldn’t cut the apron strings.

“Absolutely nothing,” Mariah told them with a laugh. She tossed down her napkin and rose to set her own glass in the sink. “I do admire his house and his job, though.” She gave them both a long look. “I guess I must sound awfully mercenary to you.”

“Actually you sound sensible...way too sensible.” Opal joined them at the sink and, after getting rid of her glass, framed Mariah’s face in her hands. “I want more than anything for you to be happy. I don’t think you ever will be if you marry a man for what he isn’t.”

“Or what he has,” added Ruby, her expression showing concern.

“I’m doing what I have to do to stay on the straight and narrow,” answered Mariah, taking Opal’s hands in hers. She squeezed, then released them. “I know where I’ve gone wrong in my life and don’t intend to make the same mistakes again. Most important, I’m happy.”

“Are you, Mariah? Are you really?” Ruby put her arm around Mariah and leaned close to hear the reply.

“I’m ecstatic,” Mariah assured her friend, a half truth. Of late the days had begun to drag and adventure to call...undoubtedly the reason she tried to drive past Tony that afternoon. She knew instinctively that he personified all that she’d left behind, all that she secretly missed.

And all that she should not, could not, would not let herself have again.

“You were really attracted to Tony?”

Opal’s question made Mariah frown. “He’s a very good-looking guy,” she said, hedging.

“And you were really attracted to him?”

“I only talked to the man for a second.”

“But were you attracted to him?”

“Yes!” Mariah almost screamed the admission, then felt bad for doing it. “And don’t you understand how that tells me he’s bad?”

Opal and Ruby exchanged decidedly worried glances before Ruby spoke. “I think you’re wrong about Tony, and I’m certain time would prove me right. But never mind that. I’m wondering what will happen if you’re someday attracted to someone simply because he’s the man of your dreams.”