Page 64 of The Honorable Texan
“I’m glad.I like living here.”She sighed worriedly.“Blake, they won’t try to make some big news story out of Janet Collins when her trial comes up, will they?She poisoned Daddy and was suspected in still another murder in a nursing home.There aren’t that many women serial killers.What if the press comes in here and starts making snacks out of me and Mama?”
“Not a chance,” he promised.
His tone was curious.She glanced up at him.“Do you know something I don’t?”she asked slowly.
“Let’s just say, I’m working on something,” he replied.He stopped at the town’s only fish market and parked the car.“Fresh salmon,” he said as he turned off the engine with a grin.“Let’s hope they take bribes!”
* * *
The cats wereboth sitting in the front window when the car drove up.
“That’s odd,” Blake remarked.“They never wait for me like that unless it’s grocery day.”
“Maybe they smell the salmon!”she teased.
He made a face.“Fat chance.”
Violet picked up the fish and they both went in the front door together.
“Hi, guys,” Violet said, wafting the brown-wrapped fish above their heads.“Hungry?”
They both started yowling, sounding for all the world like crying babies as they stood on their hind legs trying to swat the package out of her hands.
“That has to be a good sign,” Violet told him.
“We’ll see.Come on, girls,” he called to them, leading Violet through the living room and into the spacious kitchen.“I’ll get their bowls.”
He pulled them out of the dishwasher and settled them on the counter.Violet opened the brown package and split the salmon down the middle.The cats were all but climbing the cabinet.
“Here you go, babies,” she said softly, and put the fish down.
They both glanced at her with big blue eyes, but only for a minute.They started eating and growling at the same time, determined that each was going to get her own fair share without having her bowl raided.
Blake and Violet moved away while they ate, watching them.It didn’t take long.The cats licked their bowls clean and then started bathing themselves.They ignored the humans completely.
“Ungrateful wretches.”Blake laughed.He picked up the bowls and put them in the sink, shaking his head.
But Violet had more confidence than before, and she squatted down next to them on the floor.“Beautiful babies,” she said softly, smiling.“I’ll make sure you have salmon any time you want it.”
They stopped bathing and looked at her with those piercing blue eyes.
“Honest,” she added.
Mee called to her, got up, and rubbed against her knees.Yow blinked, hesitated, then moved closer, too, but stopped at one brief head-butt against her thigh.
She looked up at Blake.“It’s a start,” she said optimistically.
He grinned from ear to ear.
* * *
They went togetherto Libby Collins’s wedding.She married Jordan Powell in a beautiful church service, with most of the leading citizens of Jacobsville forwitnesses.As her brother Curt led her down the aisle, she glanced at Violet, sitting so close beside Blake Kemp, and grinned.They grinned back.
It was a nice ceremony, brief but poignant, and a reception was held afterwards in Barbara’s Café.Tippy and Cash waved to them from across the room.So did the Ballengers.Calhoun was euphoric after having soundly beaten old Senator Merrill for the Democratic nomination for state senate in his district.His wife, Abby, was there, too, clinging to her husband’s arm.After three children, all boys, they were still very close.Justin Ballenger attended as well, with his Shelby.Like Calhoun and Abby, they had three sons of their own.Shelby was a direct descendant of Big John Jacobs, who’d founded Jacobsville and Jacobs County.
Violet had felt uncomfortable around all the bigwigs at first, but she learned very quickly that they were just ordinary people, and they didn’t put on airs.She liked them.It wasn’t going to be hard to fit in here.
But she worried about the case against Janet Collins.There was DNA evidence, of course, but there were ways a good defense attorney could twist the truth.She didn’t want the woman to get away with what she’d done to Violet’s father.
