Chapter Three
February 13th. 2009© 2009 Kimberly Fish
Chapter Three
Lacy slowed the four-wheeler to a crawl as she climbed the hill leading to Inga Steinmeyer’s front yard. Having once dated the man who owned the farm next to Inga’s gave her the advantage she needed in beating Henry Robinson to the front door. For a county deputy, Michael was trusting and generous with his toys. Choking the gears she rounded the rear of the garage to pull up toward the concrete driveway bracketing the front of the new farmhouse. Inga said she made Charlie install the wide turning drive because she’d grown tired of digging her Ford Taurus out of the mud during construction. It was when he did that and bought her a four-wheel drive SUV she grew suspicious. Six months later he was dead. Inga had a huge house cluttered by the Steinmeyer family heirlooms. Selling them might help her hang on to her brand-new Florida room, stainless steel kitchen appliances and the walk-in shower stall.
Lacy ground the brake into the handle bar.
There, parked right next to the wishing well, was a mud-splattered Suburban.
Lacy wasn’t a cursing sort of girl, but if she was, this would have been the moment. She jerked off the helmet and shook her long hair harder than she needed. How did that scoundrel manage to bypass the gully at the base of the Steinmeyer farm? Inga said it was a wash out. She’d said if Lacy wanted to talk about selling off the dust-catchers then she’d better come with food in her hand. Inga was hungry and unable to get to the grocery store.
Lacy swung her leg over the seat of the four-wheeler, unlatched the picnic basket she’d loaded with gourmet sandwiches and kicked mud from the rain boots she’d borrowed from Michael. Replacing the boots with her shoes, she formulated a strategy. Although it was thin at best since she was angry.
Henry was an antiques dealer. They might smile with the mouth, but they were chewing you with their back teeth. Or at least that’s what she read in the “Dummies Guide to Dealing Antiques”.
An old woman hollered at her from the wrap-around porch. “Lacy, you’d better have bought fried chicken and mashed potatoes ’cause we’ve got company for lunch.”
Those turkey and ham croissants, with the French-fried sweet potatoes and cookies from Arlene’s Café paled next to Inga’s carnivorous party menu. “Hi, Ms. Steinmeyer,” she held her basket in the air. “If this is a bad time I could come back later. Don’t let me impose on company.”
Inga slapped her hand against her thigh, causing the flowered mu-mu to billow. Lacy was glad Inga had donned a sweater. Since Charlie died, Inga had developed the habit of going braless and that mu-mu she liked to wear was thin fabric. “Get your skinny rear-end up here and bring me my lunch. You’d think people wouldn’t crash in on a widow woman and expect a meal.”
Score one for team Lacy, she thought with a devilish grin. Henry may know how to schmooze the Dallas socialites, but he didn’t no squat about these hard-scrabble locals who’d carved small dynasties out of limestone and Johnson grass. Lacy climbed the front step. “You mean someone had the nerve to just surprise you? Didn’t he know you sleep through the mornings because you’re up all night writing your Sunday School curriculum?”
“Damn straight. And how did you know I said a man was here? I could have been talking about Charlie’s love child. That girl seems to think I’m going to take pity on her now that she’s fatherless. Wants me to move to Austin and live in some condo so she’s not alone in the world. Fat chance that’s ever gonna happen. I’m not going to be played the fool twice.”
Lacy had heard this saga more times than she could count, it was part and parcel with getting through the front door. “Ms. Steinmeyer, I admit I recognize that Suburban.” Lacy leaned close to Inga’s shoulder which smelled of Chantilly Lace. “I hope you know Henry Robinson is here after only one thing.”
“Yeah, I saw that one coming a mile away. He means to buy my property. Some slick guy waving cash in my face. Like he’s the first one who’s tried to talk a widow woman out of her inheritance.”
Lacy stopped. She glanced at the black Suburban and recognized the Dallas Country Club sticker on the rear windshield. Henry was after property? Her gaze surveyed the rolling hills dotted by bent live oak trees and outcroppings of rock. The land was a painted horizon of brown, beige and more brown. After a drought-stricken summer, a late September freeze and now a drenching rain, there wasn’t much to recommend the one hundred acres of ranch Charlie Steinmeyer inherited from his Aunt Gertrude. The cattle had been sold. The horses farmed off to the grown children. The only thing keeping Inga on the property were uninterrupted Hill Country views and a brand-new limestone and lumber house with state-of-the-art comforts and a Florida room. Lacy admitted to the teensiest bit of jealousy. Her apartment over Kali and Brad’s garage always felt so cramped and bedraggled after she spent time at Inga’s spacious new house.
“Come on back to the Florida room,” Inga said snatching the lid off the picnic basket. “I done took off those glass fronts so we could have a screened porch. Nothing like a nice October day to make a person glad they built a room that could go either way.”
Lacy followed Inga into the house. The front room extended from the doorway all the way to the back, a wall of picture windows framed a sloping hillside that come spring would be an endless field of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush. Off to one side was a gourmet-styled kitchen with large eat-in area and other side led off to the bedrooms, home office and media room. Not that there was media in a Steinmeyer house. The old antenna television still sat on the metal rolling cart right in front of Inga’s recliner. The house was designed by their son, an Austin architect at the peak of his game, the furnishings came straight out of Inga and Charlie’s first house which hadn’t been updated since nineteen seventy-one.
Lacy’s shoes clicked against the blue flagstone floor as she moved toward the kitchen and set the basket on the counter, right next to Inga’s iron pills and vast array of prescriptions. “Are you ready for a little lunch?”
“Little? Girl, I’m hoping you brought a feast. I’ve been eating oatmeal since yesterday when I opened the refrigerator and realized I never did get to the grocery store this week. Now I got a man in the house, I can’t go around offering him my last can of mandarin oranges. We got to have something real.”
Lacy stepped aside as Inga dug through the offerings.
“What’s this,” Inga asked holding up a foil wrapped croissant. “Is this tiny thing supposed to be a sandwich?”
“It’s like a pre-lunch snack. The real lunch won’t be ready for a while.”
Inga glanced at the black Timex on her wrist. “Call me silly, but isn’t it one o’clock already?”
“Is it? Wow. Time’s just flying . . .today.” Lacy would have added something more creative but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth when she saw her nemesis breeze into the living room.
“Inga Steinmeyer, you’re living the life of Riley! This place is gorgeous.”
Inga turned away from the basket with a smile the size of Mt. Rushmore. “You think? I know you’ve been a lot of fancy places. This old farm can’t hold a candle to the places you’ve been.”
Henry walked across the room, his gaze intent on Inga. He didn’t act like he even saw Lacy standing a few inches away. “Inga, I’m telling you this is prettiest slice of land in all of the county. You hold on to this treasure. Don’t let some smooth-talking salesman talk you out of it, you hear?”
Lacy gasped. “You’re kidding right?”
“Why Lacy,” Henry said with a wide-eyed gaze. “I didn’t know you’d finally made it out for your appointment. I didn’t see your car drive up.”
Lacy almost laughed out loud. If he was in the back yard like Inga said he was then he had to have seen her entire trip from Michael’s red barn to the front drive. “Oh, you’re good. And smooth too. Just like a snake-oil salesman.”
Inga glanced from Lacy’s pinched smile to Henry’s open one. “You two got something going on I need to know about?”
Lacy choked. Regaining her voice, she said, “The only thing going on, is how I can best take care of you. You’re my client. He’s a stranger.”
Inga smiled like a cat with a canary. “He’s the best-lookin’ stranger to come my way in a long time. I’m gonna hang on to him a while. You, girl, can jump back on that four-wheeler and bring me back some real food. And make it enough to last for a few days, for the two of us.”
Lacy saw the pottery, vintage lace and pewter collectibles stacked in open boxes beyond the laundry room. She hated losing. Not just because Inga’s trinkets were valuable, but good business principles were at stake here. She was going to be at a permanent disadvantage if took six-foot-one of sun-kissed maleness to close the sale. Glancing back to Henry, she was prepared to concede. The only thing stopping her was the desperation in his eyes as a fragrant Inga Steinmeyer moved in close and wrapped her arm around his waist. Henry was trapped. And he looked scared.
To be continued.