Free Lucky In Love by Carolyn Brown Page B

that much would be a blessing today. Just to look at baby clothing for Katy and maybe a pair of dress shoes or sandals for herself.
    She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Not pink high heels. I’d break my neck if I tried to walk in those things
    Amanda wears. But I can get away from ranching and thinking about him.”
    Forget Beau? Good luck Even if you do, it won’t be for long. You’ll remember him every day for the rest of your life, girl, because you can never look at Katy without remembering who her father is… and that he is right next door to the Lazy Z forever.

FIVE
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    HILDA SHOOED THEM OUT THE DOOR. “You GET ON outta here. Lord knows, you ain’t been outta Jim’s sight in weeks, and you girls need an afternoon out. Go find something new to wear to that party Beau is having this weekend. I’m glad I don’t have to go. I’d just feel like it was my God fearin’ duty to set that boy down and give him a talkin’ to. But it ain’t a bit of my business if he wants to ruin his whole life. You two just get on outta my way. Go eat a banana split at the ice cream store. It’ll do you both a world of good.”
    “Are you sure, Hilda?” Mary asked for the tenth time. It had sounded like a perfectly wonderful plan when Milli came in asking if they could go shopping over in Ardmore. But she hadn’t left Jim alone since he’d been home and she was having second thoughts about doing so right then. What if he tried to get up and do something stupid, like drive the truck out to the back forty to check on the cows? Or worse yet, heaven forbid, if he insisted Slim saddle up a horse?
    “Yes, I’m sure,” Hilda fussed. “It’s just Ardmore, for goodness sake. You can see everything in the mall in an hour, eat your ice cream, and be home by suppertime. Now, go and don’t worry. Me and Slim will watch one of those old John Wayne movies with Jim. We won’t let him do anything you wouldn’t.”
    “I worry too much,” Mary said as Milli strapped Katy into the car seat in the back of her club cab pickup. “But if anything happened to him and I wasn’t there…”
    “He’ll be fine, Granny. Now it’s off to look at pretty stuff even if we don’t buy a single thing. I’m not about to spend money on something to wear this weekend. You and Poppa can go if you want to, but I’m not planning on it. I just plain don’t like that woman, so why should I go? She’s a gold digger in the worst sense. Did I tell you what I overheard her say in the bathroom? She hates ranching, hates cows, hates the smell of a lot, and doesn’t even like kids.” She inhaled with intentions of keeping up the tirade but her grandmother butted right in on cue.
    “Of course you’re going. We’re all going. It would be rude, even if we don’t like the hussy. We’ll be there with smiles on our faces for Beau’s sake. But right now we’re not going to worry about that. I’m not about to spend money on something just for that occasion, either. But it will be nice to run around a few dress racks. Maybe I’ll find something new for church, and I’m looking forward to going to the ice cream store where we can gain twenty pounds and then bitch because we can’t wear a single thing we’ve got in our closets.”
    “You’re good for me,” Milli patted her grandmother’s hand - but she was not going to that party.
    Maybe if she fell down the steps and broke a leg and couldn’t dance? But then her sharp old Granny would probably just put her in Poppy’s wheelchair and take her anyway. And to think, she’d actually thought she was coming to Oklahoma for a summer of hard physical work but that there wouldn’t be any emotional strings that far from the panhandle of Texas.
    Milli was busy pushing Katy and telling her she had to stay in the stroller, that she could not get out and run through the mall, and didn’t even realize she’d