Wild Cowboy Ways (Lucky Penny Ranch #1)(37)

“Not what you were expecting?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I don’t see red lights or scantily clad women or even a sign that says Audrey’s Place.” He looked up at her through the rearview mirror.

“Well, it’s not still a whorehouse! Truth is it was always referred to as a hotel. The porch is an add-on and I’ve redone a lot of the interior,” she said.

Irene roused up and looked at the house as if seeing it for the first time in her life. “Where are we? Why did you bring me here?”

Allie touched her on the arm. “We’re home. Are you ready to go on inside and get warm in your own bed?”

Irene blinked several times and skewered up one side of her face as she finally found a place that made sense. “I’m not going in there. Not until he leaves. He shouldn’t have slept with that woman and I don’t want to be married to him anymore.”

“Who?”

Irene had settled on the time when her husband had cheated on her. “Your grandpa. He’s in there trying to be nice to Mama so she’ll make me stay with him. He’s lower than a snake’s belly and I will get even. I can still turn a man’s head even if I am almost forty.”

Blake started to back the truck out of the driveway. “Where do you want to go? You name the place, Miz Irene, and I will take you wherever you tell me to.”

“Granny, that is Mitch’s truck. Remember? He’s engaged to Lizzy,” Allie said.

Irene nodded slowly. “That’s right. I get things mixed up sometimes, especially when I first wake up. It’s like I’m in another world. Let’s sneak inside. We can’t go anywhere else with this snow coming down.”

When they left church there was about a flake to the acre as her father used to say when it was barely spitting snow, but after they left Olney the skies turned a solid gray and it started to get serious about the business.

“Come on in with us, Blake, but you will have to be very quiet.” Irene’s eyes twinkled as she put a finger over her lips.

Blake shut off the engine. “I should be going.”

She folded her hands over her chest and glared at him. “Nonsense. I’m not getting out of this truck if you don’t go in with us.”

Allie nodded ever so slightly when he caught her eye in the mirror again. “I guess you’ll have to do what she wants.”

“Thank you,” Irene said. “Now you can help me out and I’ll hold on to your arm so I don’t fall going up the porch steps. You do remind me of someone but I think he wore glasses.”

Blake slung open his door and then opened hers. He looped her arm through his and held his hand over hers as he matched his step to hers.

Allie was on the other side and Irene grabbed her hand. “I think we had a good time today but I can’t remember much about it. Is it Monday?”

“No, Granny, it’s Sunday. We went to church this morning.”

“That’s right and we sang, ‘Abide with Me,’ didn’t we? And now it’s snowing like the weatherman said. Can we make snow ice cream tomorrow?”

“You had the prettiest voice in the whole church.” Blake took the three porch steps one at a time, making sure her footing was steady before he went to the next one. “And I’ve got a real good recipe for snow ice cream. I’ll make a big bowl full and bring it to you if Allie is too busy to make it for you.”

“Thank you. I like that hymn. It was Mama’s favorite. And I really like snow ice cream,” Irene said. “You are a good man to help me inside, but now it’s time to be quiet and not talk or we’ll have to be nice to that sumbitch that Lizzy is engaged to marry. Some folks have to learn their lessons the hard way.”

Allie opened the door and they slipped inside the foyer and all the way back to Irene’s room without getting caught. When Audrey’s Place was first built, the owners occupied the only bedroom on the first floor. Granny and Grandpa shared that room until he died, but now it was hers alone. She let go of Blake’s arm and Allie’s hand and eased the door shut. “They’re in the kitchen. I’m safe now and I’m going to sleep a while so y’all can go on. Allie, don’t you stay out late and Blake, you see to it she’s home by ten. Decent women are in bed at ten. And it feels like I had a good time today so thank you for that.”

“Yes, ma’am, I will see to it that she is,” Blake said.

When they were in the foyer, Blake hugged her close to his side. “It has to be the scariest thing in the world for her. She’s probably afraid to shut her eyes when her world is right because she’s afraid she’ll lose what control she has while she’s asleep,” he said. “Poor old darlin’ is such a sweetheart when she’s lucid. I would have loved to have known her before this disease started eating away at her mind.”

Allie leaned into his shoulder and it felt so right. “We never know what will set her off. She doesn’t like Mitch or Grady, so that might have made her regress to her childhood so she didn’t have to think about them. The doctor says one day she simply won’t remember any of us, so we take the good when we can get it.”

“Well, look who made it home.” Grady’s shifty eyes darted from Blake to Allie and back again. “I told Lizzy I heard you out here.”