Anna heard the man’s voice again. “I understand you being upset and all, Miss Ronnie—”
It was different, deeper than the voice of Anna’s childhood. It was the song of one girl’s every fantasy.
She heard Ronnie’s heavy tread. “Don’t you ‘Miss Ronnie’ me, buster.” She’d be shaking her finger in his face now. “Don’t let my delicate demeanor fool you. Do you remember ‘The Bam Bam Bomber’ who led the Rocking Rollers all the way to the nationals in ’79?”
Oh no, Anna thought. That remark always prefaced trouble. Mama, she prayed, break it up before Ronnie goes for a choke slam.
“No, ma’am, I can’t say that I do, but I do understand your reservations regarding Anna and me.”
“You better, buddy.” There was the even, full thud of steps. Ronnie was stalking now.
“I could never be good enough for her.”
“Damn straight.”
“Her being a countess and all…”
Anna’s hand rose to her open mouth.
“But I love her.”
Anna closed her eyes.
“Are you trying to make fools of us, boy?”
“Ronnie, let go of his neck. Sit down,” Anna’s mother ordered. “Kent, you too, child, please have a seat. Let me fix you a nice cup of tea.”
“Lace it with lithium,” Ronnie suggested.
“Ronnie.” Her mother’s voice sharpened. Then it was soft again. “Kent, I’m going to make us some tea, and there’s some scones baked fresh this morning. Do you remember my scones, Kent?”
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry to say I don’t, but I’ve had a little trouble remembering some things lately.”
“Don’t give it no nevermind. It was a long time ago you last tasted my scones. Ronnie?” Her tone was firm again. “I’ll only be a minute. I’ll expect everything to run smoothly in my absence.”
“Yeah, sure,” Ronnie said. “Leave me to entertain lunatic.”
There was a pause, then Ronnie said, “Cowboy, I’m not sure this town is big enough for the both of us.”
Anna’s mother came to the doorway, saw her daughter sitting on the staircase step. She closed the door and sat down beside her.
“You heard?” Her voice was a balm.
Anna nodded. She didn’t know what to say, what to think.
Her mother nudged her with her elbow. “Countess.” One corner of her mouth tipped up into a grin.
Anna smiled even as the tears began to slip down her face again.
“Oh, darling girl.” Her mother slid her arms around her. “You love him, don’t you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Anna whispered into the soft cotton of her mother’s shirt.
“And he loves you.”
Anna lifted her head. She saw the far-off look fill her mother’s eyes and knew she’d already lost the fight. Still she had to say, “That’s equally ridiculous.”
“You fell in love with him when you were young, and you’ve loved him all this time.”
“No,” she protested. She laid her head on the wide square of her mother’s shoulder. “We were children.”
“As were your father and I,” her mother remembered.
“That was different.”
“I was seven. He was nine. I fell in love with him the first time I saw him. I love him still. It can happen.”
She stroked her daughter’s hair. “What does age matter? Not at all. Not when something’s supposed to be.”
Anna raised her head. “Supposed to be? Kent’s not a cowboy, Mama. I’m not a countess.”
Her mother’s bright green eyes met her own. “That’s not what he says.”
Anna clicked her tongue against her teeth. “You sound as foolish as he does.”
The sea-green irises twinkled. “‘Children and fools cannot lie.”’
“Another Old Irish proverb?” Anna asked.
“English, I believe.”
Anna looked away. “He’s crazy.” She could still feel her mother’s eyes on her.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. All those years…” Her mother’s voice dropped. “Sure, I had my own sorrowful heart, but I thought your sadness was from the poverty, the shame….”
Anna looked at her mother. “I had no reason to be ashamed, Mama. Neither of us did.”
She stroked Anna’s cheek. “No, you were only brokenhearted. You belonged somewhere else, with someone else. You dated others, even almost married, but you couldn’t, could you? You’ve always known it. Now I know it. And so does he. You belong to K.C.”
Anna turned away from her mother’s touch. She knew her mother thought of her own husband killed twenty-seven years ago. “There is no K.C.”
“Yes, there is. He’s standing in the other room, waiting for his countess.”
She met her mother’s gaze. “There’s no countess.”
“She’s right before me.”
Anna stared into those luxuriant green eyes and saw the fertile dreams beyond. A practical woman in most aspects, her mother had not escaped her ancestors’ love of romantic lore and legend. She also had her own romance to remember. So fortified, she brooked no argument.
Her mother was smiling now. Tales were spinning. “You’ve known it, haven’t you, darling…since you were a child. I understand. Now, so does he. And he’s come to be with you.”
“Mama, you’re crazier than he is. Didn’t you hear him? He thinks he’s K. C. Cowboy again?”
Her mother laughed softly, her breasts, large enough to comfort the whole world, gently rising and falling. “Lord, he was such a fierce tyke. The bruises he used to get from those silver six-shooters banging his bony hips. And the time he tried to lasso his mother’s prize Persian?”
Anna had to smile. “Would’ve hog-tied her, too, if the cook hadn’t seen him out the kitchen window.”
“And you, missy, wrapped in a stained linen tablecloth, a foil tiara on your head and your hair halfway down your back, red and blond as the day’s beginning. No
