Free Buzzkill (Pecan Bayou Series) by Teresa Trent Page A

pain, but she got herself through
it all. Aunt Maggie had been the only mother I had ever known, and today she
was going through another difficult day, this time with me.
    “We need to
talk,” I began.
    “Aunt Maggie,
can I eat too?” Zach interrupted.
    “Certainly.” She
turned from the table and went into the kitchen, bringing out two more plates.
She clunked them down on the table.
    “No, we’re
imposing,” I said. “I just needed to talk to you about Charlotte.”
    “Nothing to talk
about.” She re-entered the kitchen and came out with a tureen full of stew.
    “I think there
is.”
    “No, there
isn’t. You are now reunited with your mother, and it’s as it should be. I had
no right to assume I would be the only one involved in your wedding planning.”
    It felt like the
walls were closing in on me. “Really?” I was amazed at her lack of resolve. One
thing about my aunt – she was small, but mighty. I had seen her fight Danny’s
battles for years, but tonight it seemed all of the fight had gone out of her.
I had always thought of her as the queen of Plan B. If one way didn’t work,
she’d find another. When my mother left, she had stepped in to mother me. When
my husband left, she stepped in to be my shoulder to lean on and had encouraged
me to start a new life as a writer.
    She was a genius
at adapting, but tonight that part of her seemed to be gone. Tonight she was
out of imagination, out of crazy Lucy-and-Ethel ideas and resigned to the
intrusion of Charlotte.
    “Maggie, you had
every right to think you would be a big part of planning my wedding,” I
protested. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You have been …”
    My phone rang in
my pocket. I had given Charlotte my cell number, and she had made good use of
it in the last few days.
    “Yes?” I
answered.
    “You’ve got to
get back over here,” Charlotte said. “They are having some sort of German thing
downstairs, and the smell of the bratwurst is making me ill.”
    “Charlotte,
you’ve been there for days now. The brat smell is just now getting to you?”
    “That and the
never-ending polka music.”
    “So what do you
want me to do? Try to find you another hotel?”
    “Wilhelm said I
had the last room in town.”
    “How does he
know that?”
    “There’s some
big cowboy poetry convention meeting out at the Loper Ranch. I thought that old
guy was dead. Heaven knows his movies haven’t been shown for fifty years.”
    “He is dead.
That’s his daughter’s place.”
    “I hate to
impose, but could I stay with you until I can get a room?”
    I drew in a
tired breath and looked over at Maggie, watching with a look of disgust on her
face. “I guess so.”
    “Thank you,
dear. I’ll have my bags packed and be sitting at the curb when you arrive.” The
line clicked dead.
    “That’s the
thing about Charlotte,” said Maggie. “She seems so nice at first, but once you
get to know her, you figure out she’s the one who’s running the show. She sure
put my brother through it.” With that she turned her back on me and headed to
the kitchen and came back with a small plastic container full of stew for Zach.
    “I’m sorry about
this,” I said. “Zach, we need to go.”
    “Already?
Great!” He ran back into the dining room.
    “I really am
sorry,” I said again.
    “I know.” She
turned from me and pushed back through her kitchen door.

     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
    “You’re sure I’m
not inconveniencing you or anything?” said Charlotte.
    “No, it’s fine,”
I said as I punched at a couch pillow, trying to make it resemble something
that would support my head without causing a nagging pain in my neck. Charlotte
walked back into my bedroom. I had intended to put her on the couch, but she
needed a firm bed for her bad back. Having only two usable beds in the house, I
was now relegated to sleeping in the den.
    How did I ever
get myself into this position? A week ago I had been happily planning my own
wedding. Now